Chapter 98: Pebble

Although Xander knew little about Cyrus’s past, he understood his underlying nature completely.

Spoiled aristocrats born into high society were cold, detached, and utterly selfish by default. They would never surrender their true feelings to anyone. Just like the upper-class elites, they viewed mass-produced, bio-engineered Sentinels like him as nothing more than disposable trash.

Cyrus held zero affection for the teammates he lived with day in and day out—let alone a Guide who had arrived less than a month ago.

Xander refused to believe Cyrus treated Bunny with genuine care; he was merely feeding his own dark, possessive desires!

Raging, unchecked psychic currents stormed across the rooftop as the two clashed relentlessly, exchanging blows and shifting positions in a blinding sequence that generated terrifying shockwaves.

Cyrus leaned back effortlessly, dodging Xander’s aggressive strikes without even taking his hands out of his pockets.

Capitalizing on the momentum, he lashed out with a long leg toward Xander’s chest—a kick executed with razor-sharp precision, brutal and blindingly fast.

Yet he underestimated the sheer depth of Xander’s fury. Taking the devastating impact head-on, Xander gritted his teeth through the pain and threw a vicious uppercut straight into Cyrus’s face.

A dark red welt instantly flared up across Cyrus’s pale cheek, a surge of sharp pain throbbing along his jawbone. He ran his tongue over his teeth, tasting the metallic tang of blood. Instead of exploding in anger, he let out a dark laugh:

"What? Got jealous over me getting intimate with my baby?"

Xander had been blessed with a good father—a kind man who had treated even virtual AI personalities with genuine care. Even though years of slaughter had turned Xander cold and ruthless, that faint ray of warmth buried deep within his heart had never truly vanished.

It gave him an enduring respect and longing for authentic affection.

He had initially approached Bunny through trickery, yet the closer he got to her, the more terrified he became.

Bunny’s sincerity and kindness frightened him; she was far simpler than he had ever anticipated, as pure and stainless as a blank sheet of paper.

In an apocalyptic wasteland, humans devoid of empathy looked down on fragile emotions and love with deep contempt—because under the constant threat of death, warmth appeared absurdly naive. Yet at the same time, they secretly lusted after and craved their own salvation in the dark.

Everyone yearned to be loved, cared for, and treated right.

It was an irreducible human instinct.

That was why Xander was terrified—terrified that he wouldn’t be able to shoulder the weight of the kindness Bunny offered him, knowing full well that his initial motives were calculated and far from pure.

But Cyrus? The only things he seemed to have brought from his privileged background were arrogance and condescension.

He didn’t deserve her.

Xander dragged himself up from the ground, wiping the smear of blood from the corner of his lips before suddenly bursting into a cold laugh. "What reason do I have to envy a criminal who doesn’t even dare to admit his past crimes?"

"Cyrus," Xander called out his full name with flat composure, his eyes filled with unreserved contempt and scorn. "Don’t tell me... you’ve actually murdered a Guide before?"

The light, airy sentence dissolved quickly into the howling night wind, yet it completely ignited a heavily suppressed fuse.

"Do you dare be honest with Bunny about what you’ve done? Does a beast like you even deserve to call her ’baby’?"

Every word out of Xander’s mouth cut sharper than the last, treading directly upon Cyrus’s absolute trigger.

Cyrus was no longer playing around in this fight. The mocking, playful amusement vanished from his expression, replaced by dark, ink-black eyes that bored into Xander’s chest like a cold blade.

The two stood in a tense standoff beneath the night sky, cool moonlight spilling down and casting deep shadows across the sharp contours of their faces.

Except Xander faced the light, while Cyrus stood with his back to the moon.

"You know I don’t like being provoked."

That was the absolute last sentence Xander heard before slipping into unconsciousness.

In the end, Rain and Arden risked their lives to intervene, prying a barely breathing Xander away from Cyrus’s hands. The twins and Tyr were of much lower ranks and couldn’t even get close; as veteran members of the team, Rain and Arden naturally feared for Xander’s survival far more than the others.

Meanwhile, San and Astin merely watched from a distance with icy indifference.

Brandon held zero interest in such drama, not even bothering to show up to spectate.

Liam, on the other hand, was still out cold inside his medical pod.

Would this frozen, fractured reality ever be shattered in the future?

Much like a pebble hurled into a tranquil lake, the ripples it created expanded outward in concentric circles, incapable of being stopped.

Who was going to be that pebble?

***

Eastern Sector — Uncharted Wasteland

Across the barren dunes, three Sentinels clad in standard Tower uniforms were patrolling their way back to the facility.

The surroundings were dead silent, until a massive, venomous scorpion burst out from its hideout beneath the sand, driving its high-raised stinger straight through one of the Sentinel’s necks in a flash.

Seeing this, the remaining two immediately drew their weapons and took a defensive stance.

Following a flurry of chaotic gunfire, the venomous scorpion shrank back down, scuttling up onto its master’s wrist.

The Sentinels looked up. Perched atop the sandy ridge stood a man draped in wasteland-style layered cloaks—a pitch-black cape draped over his shoulders, with a desert scarf covering his nose and jawline, exposing only a pair of cold, ruthless gray eyes.

He carried no firearms of any kind, save for a rusted longsword slung across his back.

The Sentinels summoned their spiritual companions, charging at him simultaneously. Yet the cloaked man simply stood his ground and unsheathed his blade.

A dozen phantom decoys split from his form, lashing out toward the Sentinels—leaving them completely incapable of discerning which one was his true self.