Chapter 30: The Sentinel’s Stare

As Mr. Lee reached out to them, silence ruled between Leon and Lily as they clung to each other with no words.

“Leon…!” Leon’s name boomed as the door opened. He saw three female and two male students he remembered from the trial ground, in which Zoe was included.

“Why are you acting strange? You said I shouldn’t get close to you or even call you.” Leon uttered, his voice low but filled with great expectation, as Zoe held his hands after walking close to him.

“Leon, is she your girlfriend?” Lily asked, her voice humming with the joy in her heart.

Chuckles broke out, making Zoe pull her hands back from Leon’s. She smiled, but her smile was so off that the other four students whispered to themselves.

“We hope you will join us soon,” Zoe asked on their behalf, but their faces looked as if she had forcefully said something she wasn’t sent to ask.

For about an hour, they stayed there exchanging laughter.

When the 5:00 pm alarm rang, all the students exited the room one after another, leaving Leon alone.

…

“I really need to master the Tai Chi. To master the power growing in me.” Leon muttered as he lay on the bed. The night wind brushed against him, causing his eyes to blink several times before he fell deeply into sleep.

Darkness clouded his eyes for thirty minutes, but as a chiming echoed around him, a spark of white light appeared.

One second at a time, the light grew, replacing the darkness. He saw the huge sentinel once again, looming in the far distance.

“Not again!” Leon cried out but began to move, knowing there was no other way. With careful stare, he tilted his gaze around as he neared the sentinel.

Stopping beside the feet of the sentinel, Leon lifted his gaze at the sentinel and focused on the stretched stoned fingers.

’Hope it won’t strike me as it did,’ he said low in his head, while shaking his head slowly.

As soon as he tilted his gaze from the sentinel, Leon’s eyes widened, spotting an endless staircase that remained in a loop of shimmering and dimming into darkness.

“I’m not stepping on that.” Leon shook his head while stumbling back.

On his turn back after taking four steps backward, he froze. A crackling sound erupted from the stoned sentinel’s arm.

“Why me?” Frustration fell on Leon as debris fell on him like rain.

Before he could even turn after having a change of mind, a speeding wind swirled him around and pushed him forward.

Leon tried to fight back, slowing his pace. But the harder he fought, the farther the wind pushed him.

“I’m not stepping on it,” he cried, but his voice only echoed in his ears.

Strangely, the wind loosened its grip on him and calmed.

“Fine!” Leon shouted in an angry tone, swiping his right arm around, almost as if wanting to slap the wind.

A smile tore on Leon’s lip after he turned and saw no debris falling where he stood at first.

A crazy idea popped into his head, causing him to turn back at high speed. When he reached where the sentinel was, he shouted in joy. “Yes!”

He clenched his hands and moved them in a yeah gesture, while joy shimmered in him. There, a feeling struck him so deep it forced him to turn.

And as he did, all the joy vanished, only for him to see himself at the center of the stairs and not even at the base—where the wind took him.

“Oh… no!” dissatisfaction dressed him as he wiped his palm across his face, clearing the sudden sweat that trickled down his temple.

He stared at the space in front of him, shook his head, and spotted two sentinels with a more immense structure.

He turned to the back and opened his mouth wide, spotting the first sentinel like an ant.

Leon’s heart heaved, but he managed to calm himself. He moved forward, but his legs trembled, almost as if his own body wasn’t ready to reach the top of the stairs.

…

Reaching the top, Leon clutched down and sighed. He drummed his fist twice on the ground, then straightened himself after hearing the land he sat on shaking.

He moved not with force, but with precision that made him even slower than a tortoise. As he neared two meters away from the two sentinels, he paused.

Leon shifted his gaze from them, one at a time, but twice in movement, almost as if he wanted to watch both of them at the same time.

“Well, these seem a bit static than the first one.” His shoulders raised as he trod through them.

A crackling sound erupted when Leon reached their center, jolting his instincts awake. Even in the dream, his instincts flared more than the ones his real body possessed.

He glanced at the stoned figures twice, turned sharply to the back, and then shifted his gaze forward after not finding any unusual movements.

A whistling sound erupted from his closed lips as he nearly moved past the sentinels.

He inhaled the new, fresh, and calming airflow across his face as he moved past the sentinels.

He exhaled sharply, letting all the air he had inhaled a few minutes ago gush out, spotting a blinding light hovering in the air.

“What’s that?” His face tensed, yet he moved closer to the light. Closing in with the light, he stretched his left arm toward it and closed his eyes.

There, the tip of his middle finger streaked across a hard, metallic surface of something that felt rigid.

Cracking his eyes open, he tilted his upper body backward. At the front, he saw himself standing at the front of a giant, god-like gate that seemed to surpass all natural logic.

“This looks like something out of a colossal movie.” He stared at it with a calculating stare. “Nah, this looks like something taken straight out of a history book.”

Leon squeezed his eyes, tilting his gaze at the jagged stones that looked as if they wanted to eject themselves from the door.

..

“Let’s see if it can open,” a smile tore on his lips after scanning the jagged stones for hours.

He leaned on his left arm and pushed himself forward. A groaning sound erupted, jolting a smile in his eyes. After hearing the groaning sound from behind him, the joy died into sorrow.

“Why can’t I open this?” he shouted and slammed his right arm on the door.

By mistake, his fist slammed onto a carving that looked like two ’Y’s merged. And upon contact, the door’s surface swelled as thin blue light erupted from its base, center, and edges.

All the light merged the moment they reached the Y-like symbol, and then shot upward.

A glow of yellowish-gold light blasted from the top of the door and slammed on him at great speed.

…

Outside the dream, the heavy wind made his body tremble hastily on the bed, slamming his fist on the hinges of the bed and his head on the white pillow.

The heavy wind kept on swelling the curtain upward, sending leaves flying into the room, especially around his bed.

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