Chapter 116: Give her to me

It wasn’t until she heard Alion’s voice that Bunny shifted her gaze from his striking eyes to his face.

His complexion was remarkably pale, paired with perfectly sculpted, razor-sharp facial features and pale lips. His silver hair spilled over his shoulders like a cascading waterfall—resembling a soft-focus Monet painting brought to life.

Her eyes caught the solar emblem embroidered on his shoulder, standing out against his black uniform. It was the mark of the Martian Military Command.

And judging by the insignia, his rank was exceptionally high.

Bunny had never imagined the Military Command would go through such trouble to launch a rescue operation for her deep in a radiation zone.

After all, she wasn’t some high-ranking official’s child or an elite aristocrat.

They had assigned her to District 616—a place so grim nobody wanted to go. Even though she had volunteered for the post, her impression of the Military Command had taken a massive hit.

"Thank you, Officer."

Politeness compelled Bunny to offer her thanks, but an underlying sense of danger warned her to put some distance between them.

"Don’t move. You’re injured."

Alion pressed her back down with a firm, unyielding tone that left zero room for argument.

Only then did Bunny notice the deep gashes along her calf. Through her torn tactical suit, a large patch of raw, bleeding skin was exposed; high adrenaline had kept the pain at bay until now.

Almost the exact moment Alion caught Bunny, Cyrus charged across the ice toward them.

On the windswept tundra, the two men stood barely a meter apart, locked in a tense standoff.

Or rather, an explosive confrontation—from the second Cyrus laid eyes on Alion, every muscle in his body burned with the urge to snap his neck.

"Give her to me."

It was a direct command, not a request.

Compared to Cyrus’s furious expression, Alion remained entirely composed and unbothered.

It had been years since they last met. Unsurprisingly, Cyrus hadn’t lost an ounce of his arrogant, blind swagger.

Cyrus, do you still think you’re the eldest son of the Reid family and the Chief Executive of the Federal High Command?

"Soldier, is that how you speak to a superior officer?"

Alion deliberately emphasized the word soldier, knowing precisely how to strike a man who had fallen from the peak of power where it hurt most.

Strands of jet-black and silver-white hair whipped in the wind, forming a stark contrast against the white backdrop.

"Insubordination toward a superior, leaving a Guide abandoned in a high-radiation sector for over sixty hours—is this how you fulfill your duties as the team leader of the 616 squad?"

Noticing the volatile atmosphere, Bunny sensed something was deeply wrong between the two.

"Reporting, Officer! I was separated from the team due to an ambush by Marauders. It had nothing to do with them."

After all, Teams A and B were locked in a desperate battle with the alien tide at the time.

Alion turned his gaze back to Bunny. Why is she defending them?

They failed to protect her, yet she speaks up for them. What an odd woman.

"Regardless of the cause, allowing a Guide to face life-threatening danger demands disciplinary court-martial to set an example."

Cyrus let out a cold, mocking sneer. "I don’t give a damn about your military law."

He was already serving a life sentence; extending his exile by a few more centuries to rot away on Earth meant nothing to him.

As for the Military Intelligence Bureau’s electrocution, waterboarding, or floggings... subjecting him to every torture in their arsenal would amount to little more than a massage.

Right now, all he cared about was the fact that his girl was being held by a hypocritical bastard he detested most—a guy as pale as a corpse in a coffin.

Even the heavy reek of Alion’s Sentinel pheromones—resembling rotting flowers and fermented anthocyanins—was enough to make Cyrus gag for days.

It was sheer, visceral physiological disgust.

"Hand my woman back to me right now."

If Alion hadn’t been wearing that damn official uniform, Cyrus would have already rammed a fist straight into that revolting face.

Of course, if he kept holding on to Bunny, Cyrus wouldn’t mind helping him loosen a few joints either.

Bunny’s face darkened instantly. "Cyrus, can you refrain from talking so crudely?!"

Who on earth was his woman?!

Behind Alion, a colossal military warship hovered slowly in the sky. Its dark titanium-alloy hull gleamed with a cold, matte-black sheen, while its sharp, shuttle-shaped bow bristled with densely packed railgun muzzles glowing in faint purple hues, endless indicator lights blinking in rhythmic patterns.

The sky overhead was instantly eclipsed by dark shadows as hundreds of nuclear-driven engines blasted sweltering heatwaves down from their high hover.

The boarding ramp lowered smoothly, and a squad of heavily armed, neatly lined soldiers descended rapidly, sweeping in to eliminate and round up the remaining wildmen.

Alion was deeply irritated by Cyrus’s brazenly arrogant demeanor. He could draw his sidearm at any second and put a bullet through Cyrus’s skull, erasing that insufferable face from the world forever.

Yet he couldn’t.

When Cyrus was originally convicted and exiled years ago, the High Command of the United Nations had maintained a single non-negotiable bottom line despite making no explicit public stance: under no circumstances was he to be executed.

On one hand, the Reid family still held pivotal seats in the Council; on the other, Cyrus was infinitely more valuable alive than dead.

Before this squad was stationed at 616, the region had been plagued by rampant alien outbreaks, resulting in consistently high casualty rates that gave the brass endless headaches. Having finally stabilized the sector over the past few years, the higher-ups naturally wouldn’t dispose of such efficient "tools."

"The Guide is injured and naturally requires medical treatment aboard the warship. Unless... you intend to defy military orders?"

This border zone was over a thousand kilometers away from the Sentinel Tower; forcing Bunny to trek back with her injuries was out of the question.

Besides, the Military Command’s secondary objective for this deployment was to conduct the bi-annual routine physical evaluations for all Sentinels in the sector.

Alion handed Bunny over to two medics, instructing them to escort her aboard the warship first.

Facing a temporary separation from her squad, Bunny felt a surge of tension and unease. Alion offered a soft word of reassurance:

"No need to be anxious, Miss Guide. Your teammates will also be boarding for their routine physicals. Once your treatment is complete, you will be cleared to return to the Sentinel Tower."

In the distance, Xander led the rest of the squad as they hurried to the scene. Kai’s return brought both overwhelming surprise and relief, but ensuring Bunny’s safety was clearly the top priority right now.

No matter how many burning questions they had for him, those would have to wait. Among them, Astin was by far the happiest.

His wife and his brother were both found safe and sound—how could he not be thrilled?

Alion gestured to his subordinates to slap electronic cuffs on the squad and escort them onto the warship. Liam was the first to object furiously:

"You pale-ass corpse, what the fuck is this supposed to mean?!"

They were the ones who saved their wife, yet this bastard waltzed in at the last minute to claim credit and frame them instead?

Illai shoved away a soldier attempting to detain him, his tone turning dangerously cold. "Where is my guide?"

Alion’s gaze swept over the rowdy, untamed crowd of Sentinels, noting that not a single one was an easy target.

Every last one of them was fierce, volatile, and utterly resistant to authority—especially the arrogant troublemaker right at the front.

A cold, mocking smile touched Alion’s lips. "Failing to comply with orders is quite alright. I shall simply request the High Command to re-evaluate whether District 616 remains a suitable post for a permanent Guide."

The moment those words were uttered, the suffocating tension in the air threatened to ignite like a powder keg.

Alion was openly blackmailing them with Bunny’s reassignment—and he genuinely possessed the authority to carry it out.

Astin’s fist tightened as he prepared to smash it into the hypocritical bastard’s face, but Tyr yanked him back in time, shooting him a warning glance not to act recklessly.

Alion was, after all, the face of the Military Command.