Chapter 166: I Never Said I’m a Sentinel

It was a gamble, honestly.

Aisha didn’t know if her plan would have any effect on the Outerworlder woman, who supposedly had a part of her body merged with miasma. But it was a risk she was willing to take and see how it would end.

And to be frank, even Aisha was surprised by this.

The miasma that she had trapped in the jar had been extracted from the monster corpses and parts she had substituted for meat in this world. After cleansing them and containing them inside the jar, she had always wondered how she would make use of them.

Throwing them out and using her purification power on them was too much of a waste. But keeping them with her for too long would also carry a lot of risks. She didn’t even know if the jar she had coated with her purification power could hold them for long.

Thankfully, she found a use for them. They weren’t as useless as she thought.

The miasma that escaped from the jar quickly wriggled and crawled across the ground. It spread out like ink being spilled endlessly, already covering a wide area. As soon as it sensed a living organism nearby, it immediately chased after it.

Naturally, the only living organism it recognized as being near was the Outerworlder woman, not Aisha.

To the miasma, she might have been an abominable existence that they didn’t want to come into contact with.

With how they were acting, it appeared as though the miasma was tamed and obeying Aisha’s orders.

This was true in the eyes of the Outerworlder woman. She watched in fascination and fear when the miasma suddenly started to slither toward her.

Her gaze sharpened at once, and she looked at Aisha. "You... What are you?"

Aisha did not respond. Her rib was throbbing with pain, clouding her thoughts for a second. It was because her current body had never been hurt in this way in her entire life. It was only able to hold on for this long because it was another person’s soul inside the body.

The Sentinels a distance away from them stopped rolling the tank toward the ship. They glanced at the two of them, their cold and emotionless gazes assessing the situation. One of them, an older-looking Sentinel with a goatee and silver streaks in his hair, saw how their fight was progressing and finally spoke.

"Do you need my help, Sabine?"

The Outerworlder woman’s nose flared, and veins popped out on her forehead and neck. She glared at the Sentinel who had just spoken and snarled, "Who asked for your help, disgusting human! Just load the Vessel onto the ship so we can leave!"

While saying that, Sabine jumped to avoid the miasma that had suddenly risen from the floor to latch onto her. It missed by a hair’s breadth. She repeated the same movement until she was a few meters away from Aisha.

"I’ll have to admit. You’re really something, human." Sabine inhaled deeply. "This is the first time I’ve seen something bizarre like this. How did you do it?"

She was talking about how the miasma wasn’t targeting Aisha, who had been closer to them.

"Are you carrying a treasure on your body that repels them or disguises you from them?"

That was the most probable explanation Sabine could come up with. There were millions of undiscovered treasures still buried in the galaxy, waiting for anyone to pick them up. Some of them were exceptionally beautiful and priceless. But the most valuable of them all were treasures that could lessen or temporarily stop the state of corruption in their bodies caused by the miasma in the air and within their bodies. And usually, these treasures weren’t even sold. Rather, they were fought over.

If this tiny human Sentinel possessed a treasure of the same value, whatever she suffered right now wouldn’t sound so bad anymore. She wouldn’t feel ashamed to face the Elder she was serving once it was reported how someone had invaded their facility while she was the one leading this branch.

"Hand it over." She thrust her palm forward, expecting Aisha to give it to her. "I’ll allow you to live a little bit longer if you surrender it to me."

Anyone in this situation would’ve taken her offer. With four unknown-ranked Sentinels and other men still around, and an Outerworlder woman whose strength and agility were outstanding, no one could possibly think of a way out other than taking her offer.

But Aisha was not just anyone.

She wouldn’t hand over anything she owned just like that. Not like she owned any treasures of the kind the Outerworlder woman mentioned just now.

Still, she feigned a look of exhaustion. With how beat up she was, it was not that difficult to fake it. Right now, more than half of her body just wanted to lie down on the ground and rest.

Aisha glared at the woman and said fiercely, "If you want to take anything from me... you’ll have to walk over my corpse first!"

"Hmph!" Sabine scoffed, and her hair started to come alive again. "Then, I’ll do as you wish..."

She rushed at Aisha, who rolled to the side, and the woman’s toenails almost grazed her neck. Earlier, she had been worried about that strange condition she was in after that long needle entered her throat. But that pain did not linger for long. So, Sabine no longer concerned herself with it.

But that was her mistake.

As soon as she reached Aisha, her vision blurred once again. For her, Sabine felt the same as she normally did every day. But to those who had their eyes on her, they knew that something was wrong with her.

Half of her face was starting to putrefy. Her sclera looked as though it had been infested with black worms, moving wildly and blocking her sight every now and then. It was the reason why she couldn’t see properly now. And it was also the reason why the Sentinel had finally reacted and asked if she needed his help.

That abrupt change had been unexpected. But Sabine still did not realize this.

She blinked her eyes, which twitched abnormally. Her teeth bared in a feral grimace, and Sabine lunged at Aisha once more.

This time, however, Aisha did not voluntarily take the hit without doing anything. Her foot kicked up dust as she pivoted away from the punch that was coming at her. Then she thrust another long needle into the Outerworlder woman’s arm.

A smile spread across the woman’s lips, mocking Aisha.

"A puny weapon for a tiny human... That’ll only tickle me. You should’ve stuck to using your Sentinel power to defeat me."

She made no move to counter Aisha’s strike, confident it wouldn’t do anything to her. Not knowing that her judgment was being dulled right now because of the miasma in the needle. And it wasn’t just a normal miasma she was accustomed to. It was the same miasma that Aisha had taken inside her storage bag.

Smiling back, Aisha said, "Are you sure?"

Aisha did not wait for the woman’s reply and drove in a few more needles into her shoulder, chest, and the other eye. Her hair slowly cascaded behind her back as it was let loose from its original braided style.

The Outerworlder woman also did not expect that Aisha would still have some strength after taking her kick. Even her speed in stabbing her had exceeded what she had shown at the beginning!

What surprised her more was that she was actually unable to dodge any of them...

What the hell was going on?

Just then, the Sentinels stopped pulling the tank. They let go of the rope and turned toward them. The Sentinel with the goatee also started to pour out his pressure toward Aisha, his expression grim and heavy as he looked at the Outerworlder woman.

"Don’t—"

Sabine tried to speak and tell them not to intervene, feeling it was too humiliating to receive the help of an inferior species she looked down upon.

But her words were cut short before she could continue.

Aisha had somehow taken out a dagger hidden in her clothes during the lapse in concentration the woman had shown, which was caused by the fast rate of corruption in her body. She held the handle of the dagger horizontally and made a clean cut across the Outerworlder woman’s neck while she was distracted, cleaving her head off and letting it bounce twice across the floor before it was finally caught by the miasma Aisha had let loose.

Blood gushed out like a fountain, pouring down on Aisha in a warm, wet shower. Aisha let go and let her fall. The Outerworlder woman’s body sagged to the filthy floor and lay on her back, twitching.

But the last thing she heard from Aisha’s lips had shaken her to her core.

Aisha said before she swiped the dagger across her neck,

"By the way, I never said I’m a Sentinel."