by N. Heller
Even that axe in Hai Tianqing’s hand was a marvel as it was the same height as Hu Changzai. Hu Changzai wondered how Hai Tianqing even managed to find something like that.
“Well… Executive Hai,” Hu Changzai called Hai Tianqing by his title, unable to immediately change his habit. “To be honest, I still haven’t developed any physical enhancements,” Hu Changzai confessed.
The man in front of him, who resembled a small mountain, fell silent for a second. “What? You’re telling me that your physique is still that of a normal person?” Hai Tianqing said in astonishment as he planted his large face beside Hu Changzai.
Hu Changzai nodded grudgingly.
“So, you are planning to just surrender?” Hai Tianqing thought of this possibility.
“I can’t. If I get captured, it would be troublesome for the others.”
Hai Tianqing straightened his back, “Alright. Don’t blame me for being merciless since you chose to side with those traitors of humankind.” He lifted the axe and asked, “Do you have any last words?”
Hu Changzai shook his head, he could feel his calves trembling. As he watched the axe being raised higher and higher, he clenched his teeth and rushed head first toward Hai Tianqing’s waist. Hai Tianqing didn’t even raise a brow. With his left hand, he grabbed Hu Changzai’s neck and lifted him off the ground.
Hu Changzai kicked his legs as he hung in mid-air. He could literally feel the oxygen being squeezed out from him. His face turned purple in less than two seconds. He continued struggling, feeling his consciousness slowly fading. He tried to pull himself away by grabbing on to Hai Tianqing’s muscular wrist — however, that bit of resistance, was but a drop in the bucket, it felt like nothing to Hai Tianqing.
“What?”
“You lied yesterday,” Hu Changzai said weakly through his gritted teeth.
Before Hai Tianqing could react, he felt as if there was something within his left wrist. A visible bump appeared under the skin of his arm, and it moved toward his shoulder following his blood flow.
Hai Tianqing quickly threw down his axe and tried to stop the lump using his right hand. “BOOM!”
The bump moved too quickly for him, as he tried to press down on it, the area near his left shoulder was torn open by a small explosion. Blood, flesh, skin, and pieces of tendons flew outwards with the sound of an explosion creating a rain of blood. Blood spattered all over Hu Changzai.
Hai Tianqing’s entire left arm was now deformed. He sat on the ground and managed to painfully utter a question. He was not concerned about his wound, nor the weird bump. Instead, he asked: “How did you know about that lie?”
Hu Changzai fell to the ground. He coughed a few times feebly, he could still feel his lungs burning with pain. "I don’t know what you lied about. But from the looks of your wounds, that must be quite a big lie.”
Hu Changzai’s ability: 【Truth Bomb】
Introduction: After Hu Changzai’s Lie Detection ability advanced, he can now detect if anyone has lied in the past 24 hours. Once it is confirmed that the target has lied in the past 24 hours, Hu Changzai can plant a Truth bomb through skin contact. The greater the gravity of the lie and the shorter the time passed, the more powerful the explosion of the Truth Bomb would be. The Truth Bomb would travel to the target’s heart but would explode on the spot if something interfered with it.
Hu Changzai could not tell. Even though he survived alone for some time before he reached Oasis, he had never killed anyone. If Hai Tianqing really died, that man would be the first living person he had murdered... When he thought of this, Hu Changzai expression worsened. He caught his breath and managed to stand, planning to just walk away.
“Ha!” Hai Tianqing exclaimed abruptly when he saw Hu Changzai turning his back to him, he covered his own eyes with his uninjured arm.
“I can’t believe it… I’m going to die like this without a chance to take revenge…” he mumbled softly to himself, “and by the hands of this traitor of humankind…”
Hu Changzai paused and turned his head. His face was still slightly purplish from the lack of oxygen, “I’m just curious. What did you lie about yesterday?”
3:02 am, Oasis (west).
Fang Dan didn’t say a single word as she looked at the man in front of her. It wasn’t because she had nothing to say, but she couldn’t speak and couldn’t move because the yuppie was too close to her.
She could feel the man’s warm breath by the side of her ear. The yuppie held a lock of long black hair between his fingers. “You’re Fang Dan, right?” he sounded indifferent as he said this. “From the information we have on you, you arrived very early at Oasis. Even though you are a natural posthuman, you don’t have any outstanding abilities. Neither do you have any physical enhancements.”
Fang Dan bit her lips as she tried her best to keep her legs from growing weak. The yuppie was one of the five Executives after all. He appeared to be narcissistic and unscrupulous. She could feel her blood rushing as she sensed the threatening aura he exuded.
The yuppie sashayed toward her again. Just as Fang Dan reacted, she received a violent blow to her stomach. It felt as if she was rammed by a car. The impact threw her backward by four to five meters, and she landed heavily on the ground.
“Huh? I didn’t expect that you really didn’t develop any physical enhancements.” The yuppie seemed genuinely a little surprised. Following which, he shrugged showing his slight boredom. “This is too easy. How pointless. Um, should I let you live?” He circled Fang Dan twice as she laid on the ground like a dead fish. “Nay. You are too dirty. I will get dirty if I carry you back…”
[He would kill someone for that reason?] Fang Dan winced with a contorted expression. She wanted to move badly. She wanted to run away, but her body was just like a rag. She couldn’t even muster a bit of energy.
The yuppie hummed an unknown tune and kicked Fang Dan’s stomach violently without warning. Fang Dan, who initially thought that she couldn’t make another sound, let out a soft groan.
“Since you are going to die, you can be the guinea pig for me to try out my ability!”
The yuppie’s face suddenly lit up with excitement and anticipation under the darkness. He nudged Fang Dan’s head with the tip of his foot and saw that her eyes were opened and that they were still moving. With that, he chuckled, “Good. As long as you can hear me.”
“God is really unfair. There are people like you who don’t even have the basic physical enhancements. Then, there is me. I just gained a new ability yesterday…” The yuppie straightened up his vest and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Activate 【Third-rate Author】,” he said with a lowered voice.
The yuppie’s new ability: 【Third-rate Author】
Introduction: To gain readers, one’s story must at least have a consistent logic. This is the fundamental standard that every third-rate author should have for themselves, unlike N.Heller [1] who doesn’t have a bottom line. Using the target as your protagonist, make up a short story about him or her. If the story follows a proper logic and is accepted by the people involved, the target will end up like the protagonist at the end of the story.
“After you graduated from college, you met a handsome, young superior at your workplace. That’s me. After both of you dated for some time, you found out that he actually had another girlfriend overseas. You felt that you were cheated, so you resigned from your job in a rage and hid yourself. However, you did not expect that the girlfriend was just a woman that his family chose, and he still loves you deeply… He found you and cleared up the misunderstanding. Thus, both of you fell in love again.”
Even though it was nearly impossible that such a rubbish, cliche story would happen in real life, tears suddenly welled up in Fang Dan’s eyes. She opened her mouth and muttered in wretched happiness, “I know, I know… Our relationship must be real…”
The yuppie was stunned for a moment and stared at Fang Dan. Shortly after, he laughed out loudly: “Haha! This is fun! This is fu
n!”
He waved his hand and decided to change the direction of the story. Fang Dan’s expression reverted back to normal. She felt her ears turning red and then her entire face. She was not embarrassed, but rather she was extremely angry. “Just kill me… don’t toy with my emotions!” Fang Dan said in a coarse voice.
The yuppie ignored her and continued.
“You were finally taking the last step toward marriage with the boyfriend you have loved for seven years. Your new house was ready, and you were preparing for the wedding. You felt very blessed. After all, you have gone through a lot together with him, and now, what you longed for was just within your reach…”
Fang Dan’s anger dissipated. She looked at the yuppie with an indescribable expression. The latter was thoroughly enjoying himself, entertained by his new ability. He merely glanced once at her and did not stop.
“But at that moment, your boyfriend told you that he fell in love with another woman. He begged you to let him go. For a long time, you tried to make him stay. You pestered him, you begged him, and you even threatened to kill yourself. Despite whatever methods you used, he still left you for another woman. But then, you realized that you were pregnant.
“You hesitated for a long time, but you decided to keep the child… the child was innocent after all. And if you thought about it carefully, the child’s father couldn’t do anything about it. It wasn’t his fault for falling in love with another woman. Who could control love? You kept the child for nine months and even engaged a great gynecologist. But in the end…”
“Your child was stillborn. You held your child and commit suicide by jumping off a building.”
Everything fell silent. The man and woman looking at each other did not say a word. They could only hear the howling night wind sweeping up the yellow clouds of sand.
The more detailed the story was, the more powerful its effect. The yuppie watched the expressionless face of the woman in front of him, his smile grew wider...
All of a sudden, just like a magic trick, the yuppie’s body was flung up into the air.
“Splat!”
He fell to the ground sprawled out in an odd position like a splattered watermelon. His arms and legs were contorted, and blood slowly seeped out from the side of his mouth.
Fang Dan struggled for awhile and managed to stand up. Their roles had been reversed. She narrowed her eyes and looked at the yuppie. He was in a terrible condition, just like he fell off a building. “You really don’t understand women,” she whispered.
“Why… Why… This shouldn’t happen…” The yuppie coughed and spat out a mouthful of blood. That sort of woman should exist in reality, right?
Fang Dan smiled coldly, she seemed to have understood his thoughts. “Idiot.” Her brow furrowed and she looked disgusted. “The first half of the story did really happen to me.”
“After my boyfriend cheated on me, I found out that I was pregnant. Do you know what I did? When I was three months pregnant, I chose an illegal abortion clinic. I got an abortion and placed the dead fetus into a box. Then, I sent that box to them as their wedding gift. Of course, I was mentally unstable then. After that, I went to visit a psychiatrist.”
The yuppie’s arms trembled, he was unable to speak.
“I really hate conceited men.” Fang Dan followed what the yuppie did and nudge the man’s head with the tip of her foot. “From your current condition, your ability can backfire on you, right? When a storyline is not logical and doesn’t fit the target, you will end up like the protagonist instead. This is indeed a third-rate ability.”
The man on the ground could no longer hear her. A puddle of blood slowly extended outward from his motionless body.
TN: [1] The author of this web novel, by the way!
Chapter 65 - I'm Sorry for Having a Useless Ability
“What the hell? Ahhhhhh...”
A black shadow circled the Executives’ Building, it disappeared in a second, leaving a yellow trail of dust. This was followed tightly by two other figures, one who was visibly smaller. After a few seconds, the three shadows re-enacted the same scenario, going around the building once again.
“Enough of your bullsh*t. Stop and let me bite you to death right now!” an angry soprano voice rang behind Lin Sanjiu. It was the brown rabbit who was almost half-soaring in the sky because of its speed.
“You must be joking. Ahhhhhh... Didn’t they say there were five Executives. How can a rabbit be an Executive? Ahhhh... If there was a vacancy, why didn’t you people in Oasis inform me...”
There was no way Lin Sanjiu would stop, though she knew her protests did nothing but made the brown rabbit angrier. Lin Sanjiu did not dare to run elsewhere with these two Executives chasing her as she was afraid that she might accidentally lead them to her companions and implicate them. Without a choice, she could only run in circles around the Executives’ Building. The three, uh… people have already run for who knows how many rounds.
“Gah,” the OL muttered as she paused and turned in the other direction, deciding to catch Lin Sanjiu by running in the opposite direction. When the brown rabbit saw her moving, he suddenly grew impatient and shouted at the OL: “F*ck, you’re doing that again…”
Before he finished his sentence, a person jumped over his body while he was in a daze. Lin Sanjiu landed behind the rabbit, and she continued forward without stopping. Once again, all of them were running in the same direction but with a slight change in position. By then, Lin Sanjiu was already very familiar with the whole shenanigan. Apparently, she had jumped over the rabbit a couple of times over the past few rounds. The brown rabbit’s black eyes were almost turning red with fury, he screamed, “Stop changing directions! She just jumped over my head again! Curses!”
The OL’s spectacles were tinted with a cold light in the dark. “It’s all because you are so small, and you can’t block her. You’re useless!“ she said ruthlessly.
“I’ll bite you to death!” The brown rabbit’s eyes had already turned into two red inverted triangles. The OL ignored him. Even though she tried to run faster, there was no sign that they were closing the distance between themselves and Lin Sanjiu.
Sprinting was all down to one’s physical capabilities. Despite normal “Physical Enhancement” and Lin Sanjiu’s “Overall Physical Enhancement” both being passive abilities, they were of a different class just like a burger set compared to a deluxe family Christmas meal...
Other than the two people chasing her, most of the other posthumans would develop the normal “burger set”.
Seeing the woman in front of him running away with ease, the brown rabbit could not tolerate it any longer. Its four paws stopped, and it yelled out dispiritedly: “Startled monkeys, Fleeing Hares! [1]”
[What a cultured rabbit!] Before that thought fully popped up in Lin Sanjiu’s mind, a turf of brown ball suddenly shot toward her back, like a projectile from a rocket launcher and hit her. The forward inertia combined with the rabbit’s natural strength knocked Lin Sanjiu, who was still sprinting, to the ground.
The OL chased up to them within a few seconds and blocked Lin Sanjiu’s path. Right now, it looked like it wasn’t feasible for her to just stand up and leap over the rabbit. Lin Sanjiu stood up and dusted herself. “You’re quite chubby,” she complimented, looking at the brown rabbit.
“I’m going to kill you!”
As the rabbit screeched, Lin Sanjiu didn’t have an easy time evading the raining attacks from the rabbit. Due to the reflection on the OL’s spectacles, it was difficult to see what her expression was. Her outstretched arms were quickly turning a glowing red. The heat which radiated from her arms started distorting the surrounding air.
Lin Sanjiu’s expression turned stiff. She knew that she would turn into a burning corpse if she touched those arms. However, the process was not over. A red glow with a tinge of white spread from the OL’s shoulders to her c.h.e.s.t and waist. Soon, the entire top half of her body became white. When a draft of wind blew over her
body, even the sand carried by the wind burst into flames falling to the ground like tiny “comets”, leaving a few burnt marks on the ground.
Introduction: The user’s upper body can reach an intimidating temperature of 260°C. This temperature is enough for the combustion of almost all material. For the exact list of materials, please check the common melting points of the various elements.
Though the weakness of the ability was clearly the user’s legs, Lin Sanjiu could not get close to her opponent’s lower body at the moment. This was because the OL was much shorter than her. She guessed that the OL was about only 1.52m.
“This isn’t fair!” Being unable to do much, she turned and continued to run. This time she couldn’t be bothered if she might meet another of her companions. After all, the combat noises and explosions at the various corners of Oasis had already stopped.
Even though she did not know what the outcome of the battles was, she could at least cause some confusion if things weren’t looking good.
“No matter what, my Potential Growth Value is very high! Why do both of you have such killer moves and I have nothing?” Lin Sanjiu grumbled softly, and naturally, no one replied.
Before she could run far, the brown rabbit whose speed increased incredibly after yelling out “Startled monkeys, Fleeing Hares” quickly caught up to her. Using the same tactic, he and the OL cornered her again. Without saying a word, the OL leaped and headed toward Lin Sanjiu. Lin Sanjiu did not dare to even let the woman get close to her, she immediately shrunk backward and dodged her.
At the same time, she heard the rabbit shouting, “Wily hare's Three Burrows [2]!” Before Lin Sanjiu could react, she felt two rabbit feet land on her shoulders. It felt as if she was hit by a blast wave. In the next second, a fountain of blood and flesh spurted out from the hole in her shoulder, dyeing the floor red.