Doomsday Wonderland c1-855

by N. Heller

  This time, she fully understood the situation.

  “We are being sniped at! All of you, look for a place to hide! Quick!”

  Marcie and Luther flung themselves toward the bus and hid behind it while Lin Sanjiu crouched behind the Citroën. They were all panting. After the other party had lost sight of their target, the sound of gunshots stopped. The night fell back to a still silence.

  “Mr. Vo… Voley is dead…” Marcie whispered sounding like it was something that was somewhat difficult to accept.

  “It must be done by that duoluozhong’s accomplices, right?” Lin Sanjiu could feel her heart palpating as if it was about to burst out from her c.h.e.s.t. “We are really unlucky. We actually met a duoluozhong that knows how to snipe!”

  Luther gave her a complicated look and shook his head. “It is not done by that duoluozhong… I saw it just now. In the building on the left, I saw spots of metallic light. The ‘bullet’ that hit Voley was one of the spots of the lights.”

  Hearing what he described, the two others looked at him with widened eyes. “Isn’t that an evolved ability?”

  Unquestionably, evolved abilities can only be used by humans.

  Momentarily, Lin Sanjiu was unable to digest that information. “Partnered? Partnering with a duoluozhong? What did he stand to gain?”

  Just as she said this, she heard a thump above her head.

  She instinctively looked upward only to see that duoluozhong which had fled just moments before. It was standing on the roof of the Citroën… Its long mouthpart was dangling beside Lin Sanjiu’s shoulder.

  Chapter 27 - It Was Simply a Death Full of Grievances

  “Lookie here! Isn’t this the missus who stabbed one of my eyes? Aren’t you going to run? My attack range is really wide. I think you will have to run… over there if you want to avoid getting stabbed by me.”

  Under Lin Sanjiu’s horror-filled gaze, the duoluozhong did not attack. Instead, it pointed to an empty patch not far from her. His words were interjected with frivolous laughter, and he narrowed his long slit-like eyes in an exceedingly unpleasant manner. [When it was human, it should have been a repulsive man] somehow, this thought flashed through Lin Sanjiu’s mind.

  She stared unwaveringly in the direction of the duoluozhong, her palm flashed with a white light, and she held another handful of cards. Despite the fact that her body was slightly trembling from her intense nervousness, she forced herself to stay in the same spot.

  It was a joke if it thought that she would run out to the open space, allowing herself to get sniped! She was not stupid!

  With such proximity, she could only strike first! Once again, Lin Sanjiu threw the cards in her hand toward the duoluozhong. However, the duoluozhong was prepared this round. It took a step back and swiftly deflected most of the cards with its mouthpart. The single card that it dodge was summoned back to Lin Sanjiu’s hand. But when she took a glance, she could not help silently swearing.

  Of all cards, that remaining card was a support card which was used in tandem with the razor blades. It was a 【Black Cloth】used for obstructing the enemies line of view. She had finished all the razor blades in her arsenal this round. The razor blades that she used were now on the ground. If she wanted to use them again, she had to touch them. Otherwise, she had no other method of retrieving them back.

  In that one month, she consciously kept many items as cards. However, with this incident, she was only left with various items that were useless in this situation...

  Looking at the card in Lin Sanjiu’s hand, the duoluozhong merely squinched its remaining eye. It walked to the edge of the car roof and started chuckling menacingly.

  Lin Sanjiu expected it to say something, but suddenly it swung its mouthpart and thrust it toward her. In that instant, she realized that she was too close to the mouthpart. She simply could not evade it if she did not run outward!

  Marcie gave a shout of dismay as Lin Sanjiu rolled outward in desperation. She felt a burning sensation on her shoulder. In the end, she was still scratched by the mouthpart, and a bloody wound appeared on her shoulder.

  Pressing down on her wounded shoulder, her eyes swept involuntarily to the building opposite them. She only realized then that she had already rolled away from her cover and was now exposed.

  At almost the same time, sounds of gunshots rang in the air after that brief silence. Two consecutive shots were fired. Thanks to the distraction brought about by the movement of the black cloth, the sniper lost focus. One of the rays of light created a hole in the ground beside her. Unfortunately, the second shot pierced through Lin Sanjiu’s knee in an instant. It hurt so much that she let out a cry of pain. It was impossible for her to stand, so she just laid on the same spot gasping for air.

  “You motherf*cker!” Witnessing that scene, Luther could not control himself. He leaped out, holding the police baton in his hand, and yelled out as he swung a violent blow toward the duoluozhong.

  At the same time, Marcie lunged herself toward where Lin Sanjiu was lying. She planned to pull Lin Sanjiu to safety. The latter was just lying defenselessly on the ground. With another ray of light, that will certainly be the end for Lin Sanjiu. However, just when Marcie grabbed her hand, preparing to drag her behind the car. The sniper rifle rang out again.

  Lin Sanjiu watched helplessly as a mist of blood erupted from Marcie’s c.h.e.s.t, and tiny red droplets sprayed across her face.

  “Marcie?” she called out in a daze.

  Through Marcie’s lifeless light brown eyes, Lin Sanjiu could see the reflection of her own pale distraught face. In the next instant, Marcie’s dead body, stripped of all support, fell heavily onto Lin Sanjiu. Her tears gushed out as the dead body landed on her.

  Even though she had already experienced it once, the death of a companion still brought her unbearable grief.

  “Marcie!” Luther, who was not far from them, yelled out furiously like an injured creature.

  Lin Sanjiu’s heart dropped for a second, she mustered all her strength and shouted loudly, “Don’t come here, hide!”

  Luther looked at the dead body, unable to speak for quite a while. He was already exposed, but there was no sound of gunshot unlike what Lin Sanjiu expected. Besides, Luther seemed to have forgotten that—he reached them and touched Marcie’s hair with his trembling hands. He let out a sob and looked at Lin Sanjiu with reddened pleading eyes, “Let’s restart this. We still have one more chance. Marcie… Marcie is my family…”

  The fresh red numeral flashed in front of her eyes. Suddenly, she felt a chill in her heart: [Do they really have one more chance? So far, everything was just a conjecture! What if it wasn’t a countdown and everyone just had a precognitive dream?]

  Luther’s eyes glistened with tears, under the night sky, they shimmered with a pleading hope. Looking at his eyes, Lin Sanjiu practically could not bring herself to express her doubts.

  “Okay…” she averted her gaze, forcing the word out of her mouth, but did not receive any response.

  She lifted her eyes only to see that Luther’s face was now rigid and had turned an unprecedented ashen white.

  Lin Sanjiu felt instantly crushed; like a crumbling ice tower. She stared fixedly at Luther’s face, calling his name urgently, “Luther, Luther! Say something! Talk to me!”

  Emptiness shrouded Luther’s eyes as blood seeped out of his mouth. His limp body flopped over Marcie, revealing a blood-covered mouthpart piecing his fair white neck.

  “Wow! Even when they die, they have to die together. I am so moved by such friendship. But are you all scared out of your wits? Restart this? Don’t tell me you believe that you can resurrect the dead?” The duoluozhong’s long, sinister eye gleamed with satisfaction. “Missus, don’t cry. Every bit of moisture from your body is extremely precious to me.”

  Only then did Lin Sanjiu realized that she was crying wordlessly. Comparing the gravity of having witnessed her friends die one by one in front of her, that so-called chance was ever so illusive!<
br />
  [Before I die, I must find out at least which story the gunshots were fired from.] Lin Sanjiu thought to herself. One, two, three… seven, eight...

  “I bet you didn’t expect that there was another person there, right? How is it? My woman’s ability is not bad, huh?” Following her gaze, the duoluozhong turned back to Lin Sanjiu and said almost boastfully. His tone dripped with conceit.

  Lin Sanjiu could not hear anything else clearly. Her mind was only occupied with the counting in her head. When she counted to twelve, through her eyes clouded by her unstoppable tears, she saw the mouthpart covered in Luther’s fresh blood. It rose in front of her. Her world suddenly became dark and blurry. Her consciousness dissipated into nothingness just like mere vapors.

  ……

  “Has he left?” an unfamiliar male voice suddenly came from somewhere.

  “Yeah. In the end, I could not resist using ‘that thing’,” another man replied. “This turned out as expected. “From what I see, these people have quite the potential. Who would have known that they would meet opponents much stronger than them at the get-go? They’re unlucky. If I don’t use it now, I might not be able to use it the next time!”

  “Sh*t, that’s mine! We have to catch him…” the man gritted his teeth and said.

  “Hey, look. This is a rare ‘growth type’!”

  “Tut, tut. That’s true…”

  The indistinct voices of the two strangers drifted away. Lin Sanjiu had totally slipped into an unconscious darkness. It was the “death” that she had already experienced once...

  Second round: another complete wipeout.

  Chapter 28 - The Names of These Worlds Are Too Weird

  “What the hell happened!”

  As the female voice cursed angrily, she gave a violent kick to the door of the bus with her boots on. The exit door of the bus immediately rattled in its frame. The bright red numerical “1” above it still hung steadily above it.

  Behind Lin Sanjiu was Marcie, who sighed with a lowered head, and Luther who had just calmed down from his fury.

  “Does this mean that we only have one chance left?” Lin Sanjiu took a deep breath. Her bloodshot eyes glowered, and her unfathomable fury grew. “Who are the people responsible for all that f*ckery behind our backs!”

  “Xiao Jiu, don’t be so mad. If we looked at it from another perspective, perhaps we were saved by that countdown. Otherwise, we would have all been dead,” Marcie consoled her softly but was still at a loss as to what they would do next.

  Even though it might be true, momentarily, Lin Sanjiu found it difficult to accept. She could not help feeling that someone was toying with them… she tried her best to curb her anger as both her hands clenched the sides of her pants tightly.

  After some time, she suddenly stood up. “I am going out for a walk.”

  Luther massaged his temples as if he had a headache, his expression was not any better.

  She walked a few steps away from the bus while the night wind spat waves of sand at her. The slight pain made Lin Sanjiu deeply aware that she was still alive. Silence surrounded her, without a single hint of noise, it was so quiet that she could even hear the blood flowing through the vessels in her ears. This was perhaps the reason why her intense emotions gradually waned.

  [It’s so quiet. But, isn’t it a little too quiet?]

  She kept feeling like something was amiss.

  Lin Sanjiu knitted her brows as her gaze drifted to the dirty Citroën a short distance away from her.

  Just as that thought occurred to her, Lin Sanjiu strode quickly to the Citroën and began calling out a little worriedly, “Voley! Are you awake?”

  After she waited for a while, she still heard no activity from the car.

  She could not wait any longer. She wiped the car’s dirt-covered windshield with her sleeve, then bent over and peeked inside.

  The front passenger seat was reclined backward and used as a bed. There were packets of half-eaten food, empty water bottles, and some dirty clothes. The only thing missing was Voley, himself.

  Lin Sanjiu felt herself getting anxious, she surveyed the area as she circled the group of parked vehicles. There was only a vast emptiness around them. The trees had long turned to ashes so she had an unobstructed view which stretched as far as she could see. Unfortunately, even after she had walked two rounds around the area, she could not even spot a single footprint of Voley.

  Coincidentally, Luther and Marcie were getting off the bus while chatting. When Lin Sanjiu heard them, she quickly ran over to them yelling, “Voley is not in his car, he’s missing! Should we go look for him?”

  They were stunned, they never expected that Voley would go missing. Marcie opened her mouth and was just about to speak when they heard a lethargic voice coming from the roof of the bus.

  “I’d say, you shouldn’t look for him. You probably won’t find him anyway.”

  The three of them were shocked by the voice as they instinctively took a couple of steps back and looked up at the roof. Against the large silver white moon that hung in the night sky, they could see two dark figures: one of them was standing, and the other was sitting down. They did not even realize when these men arrived. The torrid night wind swept past the two figures, it was difficult to make out their faces as their shadows melted into the moonlight.

  The three of them were dumbfounded for a moment; Lin Sanjiu opened her mouth and asked, “What did you do to Vo—”

  Just then, the man who was standing made a quiet scoffing sound interrupting her; suddenly he stepped forward into the moonlight and leaped upward. The dark figure landed impactfully on the ground, stirring up a cloud of dust.

  The man had a tall and sturdy stature, his muscular body was like that of a wild beast, exuding a dangerous aura of pent-up energy. He carried a long, slightly curved sword on his back, which appeared to resemble a katana. But he lacked a scabbard which made it a mystery how he actually attached the sword to his back. The metal-forged blade of his sword glimmered faintly in the dark.

  For posthumans, jumping down from the roof of a bus wasn’t something complicated—but somehow, something about that man raised Lin Sanjiu and the others’ alarm, and they slipped into defensive postures. The man lifted his head, and he lifted a corner of his mouth slowly, revealing to the three of them a smile which one would call malicious.

  In an instant, an imposing pressure like they had never experienced before swept toward them like a wave of a tsunami. As if the person had drawn out all the air from the atmosphere, the three of them even stopped breathing for a second. It became difficult for them to even stand as they were assaulted by that pressure—Marcie tried to hold her position, but she was the first one to be unable to withstand it and fell on the ground with a plop as her face turned white.

  With a face brimming with defiance, his forehead was covered in cold sweat as he was forced into a half-kneel position.

  Lin Sanjiu felt as though the man in front of her was squeezing her heart in his hand, every strained muscle in her body throbbed to keep her propped up. She trembled as she tried her best to resist the urge to turned and run away. She felt practically like a hare that had encountered a cougar in the prairies. It was a sort of despair that arose from her powerlessness—they were definitely on different levels on the food chain.

  By this point, Lin Sanjiu’s Keen Senses was fully triggered, and all the cells in her body were screaming to her, “Run! Run! Run!”

  Just when she was about to give in to her impulse to turn and run away, the man, who was still sitting while he spoke, leaped off the roof landing lightly. A breeze, like a wind in Spring which appears from nowhere, sending away the frost of winter and bringing to bloom a million pear blossoms, lightly washed over Lin Sanjiu’s face. The seemingly murderous intent which hung heavily in the air immediately abated.

  The man with the katana on his back harrumphed, he countered coldly, “That’s cos they’re weak as sh*t.”

  “Who are you guys?”
Lin Sanjiu asked as her heartbeat gradually stabilized. The more she heard their voice, the more familiar they sounded. “Why did you look for us?”

  Luther went over to help Marcie back up on her feet. Hearing Lin Sanjiu question, he quickly added, “And what did you mean when you say that we shouldn’t look for Voley?”

  Even though he was young, he was very insightful. Once that man with a gentle voice jumped down, he immediately noticed that the two men had no intention of harming them.

  Judging from the situation, if that man with the fierce gaze wanted to kill them, he might only need less than 30 seconds.

  The man who was sitting down moments before was actually as good-looking as he claimed. He had white dazzling teeth, and his smile reminded them of a peach blossom petal.

  Seeing the slightly pitiable state that the three of them were in, he suddenly exclaimed, smiling, “I guess you have no idea what situation you are in?”

  The three to them did not reply. The man with the katana suddenly chipped, “Not only weak but stupid.”

  Lin Sanjiu reacted with a frown, but with the shreds of fear that still persisted, she finally bit her lips and kept quiet.

  Luther looked at Marcie then he replied hesitantly, “We have gone through two New Worlds, and this is the first time for Xiao Jiu.”

  When he heard this, Mr. Peach Blossom was taken aback, he gazed at them with widened eyes, “Two? You experienced two E-level worlds consecutively?”

  “What’s an E-level world?” Luther asked, perplexed.

  “Huh?” A troubled expression appeared on Mr. Peach Blossom’s face. “Really! I didn’t expect that we will meet total newbies. Listen. All the parallel universes inflicted with the New World phenomenon are classified into five levels, from E to A, based on survival difficulty. I think you all must have played video games before? Right, it’s like a game. If you ask me how they are classified, I can only say that people from somewhere do that. You wouldn’t know even if I told you. Anyway, for everyone to better adapt to the New Worlds, they are segregated into five levels, and E-level is the most leisurely.”