by N. Heller
Just then, a large black shadow behind her stroke with a ‘whoosh’. It was like a hefty punch with a power of over ten thousand Newtons. The impact was so huge that when the duoluozhong was flung backward, it knocked down a couple of other duoluozhongs in its path.
The black shadow stopped, and Lin Sanjiu realized that it was a green snake with such a large girth that it would take more than a few people to wrap their arms around it. Even though she couldn’t see the snake’s head, she could see the sharp yellow thorns which covered its skin. It looked formidable.
Meanwhile, there were horrified screams from the audience. Lin Sanjiu swung her head to look behind and discovered that the large snake originated from the neck of the woman on the floor. At first glance, it was a terrifying image. It was as if a large snake had grown out from her c.h.e.s.t cavity.
"My name is Xueqin," the woman laid on the ground, refusing to look at Lin Sanjiu, "I want to thank you for what you’ve done," she continued breathlessly.
[The housewife haunted by the spirits who had gone under her kitchen knife]
Dear housewives who cook, please be careful from today onwards! Regardless of what you cut when you’re cooking, be it chicken, fish, chives or tomato, they could emerge from your body in a "battle-ready form"! But they could be surprisingly effective as weapons! Well, at least when you go to the market next time, you don’t have to worry about your neighbor’s wife snatching away the cheapest and freshest vegetables!
Description: The ingredients the user used in the last dish she cooked would emerge from her body as a weapon. The weapon could be controlled psionically, but one thing to note is that it will change if the user makes a new dish.
PS: Only the ingredients that were cut by the user would be considered possible options for this ability. If the user dice a few different ingredients at the same time, she can choose from one of them.
"To be honest, this is actually a cuc.u.mber," Xueqin sounded a little awkward when she explained that while she still laid her face on the ground.
Lin Sanjiu was certainly a little dazed by this. With the help of the green snake—or rather, cuc.u.mber, the other female contestants quickly let out sighs of relief. At the same time, Lin Sanjiu could feel that the condition of her body was stabilizing.
At the end of any leveling up process, there would not be any side effects, but the ability holder would instead feel revitalized. The moment her symptoms disappeared, Lin Sanjiu leaped up and shouted to Xueqin, "I’m counting on you!" After that, with a few bounces and leaps, she chased after the Grade 2 combatant who had just shot out a white beam.
The recharging time the combatants required was never more than 40 seconds, Lin Sanjiu had to grab this opportunity to act. She activated [No coincidence. No story] and immediately spotted her target who was moving rigidly, hiding behind a group of duoluozhongs. She rushed in headfirst without hesitating, scaring the other female contestants behind her. The large cuc.u.mber was swept across part of the arena, but it wasn’t long enough to reach the duoluozhongs around Lin Sanjiu.
The tall duoluozhongs started howling excitedly as they surrounded Lin Sanjiu and lunged themselves at her. Lin Sanjiu’s expression remained the same. She stretched out both her hands, which were somehow wrapped again, and quickly pressed them over many enemies in a row.
She was surrounded by an explosion of blood and flesh in the next second. Blood spurted everywhere, and bloodied flesh, limbs, and body parts would continue raining down for almost a minute.
"Enemies are drawn to disappear into the sky to compromise with the censorship restrictions on violent scenes…" Satoshi Akiyama, the editor of a manga magazine thought to himself, he was having a headache after seeing the darker 2.0 version of censorship in the drafts sent by other mangakas.
Description: Did you fail to activate [A Twinkle in the Sky] just moments before? That’s right! As the user does not exist in a manga and is bound by the laws of science (huh?), the user is unable to launch their target into the sky when they are indoors or if there is something above their head obstructing possible trajectory paths.
Thus, the leveled-up version of this ability takes on a different style.
When the user places both her hands on the target, [A Twinkle in the Sky] is activated in both hands. As the target is hit by attacks from two directions, it will instantly dissolve into pixelated mess.
Warning: After activating this ability, please do not hold your own face in your hand, trying to be cute.
Lin Sanjiu was covered with the stench from the shower of blood but she remained composed as she pounced on the Grade 2 combatant and pressed both hands on his body. He had no chance to dodge. His body exploded and innards, flesh, and machinery bits flew into the sky like a small fountain.
Following that, Lin Sanjiu got up and headed for the next combatant. As she made her way to him, she killed off the duoluozhongs in her path, sending their innards and body parts flying everywhere. There was a thick mist of blood in the air, as the ground was covered with several lumps of dismembered body parts. The woman ran forward with a cold face, like a blood-soaked Death God.
The audience members, who were previously ranting and whistling quickly, grew quiet. Everyone in the audience who had been eyeing Lin Sanjiu gradually got cold feet.
Gong Daoyi suddenly snatched the hot dog from Lei Ming’s hand and rolled it into a ball in a second.
"Brother Gong, are you angry?" Lei Ming whispered, unable to understand the man beside him.
It took Gong Daoyi a while before he replied, as if he suddenly realized that Lei Ming was asking him a question, "Huh? No... I’m not angry. I’m just pumped."
"Yup. It’s exciting!" This was the first time Lei Ming felt that he actually grasped Gong Daoyi’s logic, and quickly added, "I didn’t know Contestant 97 was so good at fighting! It’s admirable…"
Gong Daoyi let out a quiet chuckle but quickly stopped himself realizing that it wasn’t appropriate here as he looked back at the battle arena, feeling a little embarrassed.
After successfully dodging another white beam attack, Lin Sanjiu had already consecutively killed off three of the five Grade 2 combatants. A large number of duoluozhongs had also been eradicated while the remaining few were still struggling against the other female contestants. But from the looks of things, the outcome of this match was already very obvious.
The remaining two combatants suddenly stopped and strode towards Lin Sanjiu. As they walked, they opened their mouths— they had already finished recharging their power.
Lin Sanjiu stood still, showing no intention to evade the attack.
"What is she doing?" Xueqin asked with her hoarse voice. She wanted to move but with her broken limbs that was not much she could do.
Lin Sanjiu’s shouted out the next second, "Dong Haohao, can you still use your ability?"
When Dong Haohao used her [National Tax agency] against that white beam previously, she found that it consumed her stamina like an endless black hole. But Dong Haohao gritted her teeth and replied, "I’ll back you up."
She only had three seconds.
With the intensity of the white beam, nobody saw what happened clearly. They only saw a blurry image of Lin Sanjiu sprinting towards the combatants. The white beams began to vibrate violently, affecting everyone’s vision. Just when Dong Haohao was at her limit, the white beams suddenly disappeared. When she narrowed her eyes and looked up, she saw that Lin Sanjiu had already taken down both combatants.
She pressed the face of one of the combatants onto the floor and signaled for one of the flying cameras with her jaw. A camera flew down and gave her a close-up. The audience glued their eyes to the large screen.
Tiny droplets of blood rolled down the lens of the camera as Lin Sanjiu spoke. "This person was once a Posthuman so I am not going to kill him. Take him back!"
The entire arena went silent as she said those unexpected words—[She’s not going to kill other Posthumans? But she had already killed three of them
in such a gruesome manner.]
But Contestant 97 seemed to be genuine. She mustered her strength and crushed the beetle-like machine embedded in his head before standing up and walking toward the other female contestants. She whispered something to them softly.
There was a sudden buzz of commotion within the audience. Lei Ming was moved by this and commented, "Who would’ve known that Contestant 97 had such magnaminty..."
As the female contestants walked back to their capsules, the combatant was taken away by the staff. Gong Daoyi suddenly pat Lei Ming’s shoulder, "Enough nonsense, give me the Geiger counter."
Lei Ming paused for a moment before reacting. He quickly searched his bag and handed the device to Gong Daoyi furtively. Gong Daoyi crooked his head as he stared at the device. When he spoke again, he sounded extremely happy, "There is something we have to do now."
"What?"
"Take this, I need you to puncture everyone’s anti-radiation clothes." Gong Daoyi handed him a small knife.
Chapter 127 - Tonight's Confrontation
The atmosphere in the arena became very strange after the end of the afternoon match on the seventh day.
Lin Sanjiu wiped her blood-covered face with her hand and her eyes swept over the panicked faces in the audience. It seemed like something had happened outside. Everyone was looking at the screen on their wristbands; anxious people left their seats and quickly headed for the exit; nobody dared to walk near the battle arena. The people looked at the female contestants and started whispering to each other, filling the arena with a vague buzzing noise. There was an occasional cough or a frightened cry while it slowly became clear that something bad had happened.
Groups of soldiers rushed into the arena, were all clad in anti-radiation hazmat suits. The soldiers shouted continuously at the crowd to remain orderly and not to push and step on others. The advertis.e.m.e.nt on the screen had already been on for quite some time, but the host did not reappear to explain anything. The phrase "Fauxe Camcorder. Keeping your best memories" repeated over and over again.
The situation was so serious that no one noticed that the female contestants did not go back into their capsules.
Li Tao walked over to Lin Sanjiu, who reeked of blood. "What’s going on?" Li Tao asked, perplexed. Lin Sanjiu smiled with a load off her mind. Even though her [Nostradamus’s Card] had a small area of effect about the size of a person’s head, unlike heat which dissipates beyond the area of effect, radioactive particles would quickly disperse into the surrounding. Before this, Lin Sanjiu had already released 26 sieverts of radiation—considering that they might decontaminate the combatant after they bring him back, she was even a little worried that the radiation level wouldn’t be high enough.
But by the looks of things, the two soldiers who were tasked with bringing out the corpse of the scrawny security guard must have died. On that night, Lin Sanjiu stealthily released 10 sieverts onto the ankle of the corpse before tossing it. As expected, two soldiers brought the corpse out, one carried his head and the other his legs. Though he died from his severed throat, his ankle swelled with a greenish-purple coloration due to the radiation and Lin Sanjiu was slightly worried. Thankfully, it went unnoticed.
With the protective glass blocking out most of the radiation, and the residents consuming their anti-radiation gummies for resistance against the remaining radiation, the people in Garden of Eden generally had normal bodies, which stood no chance against a direct radiation exposure. Once the radiation level was above 3 sieverts, the number of people who would get radiation sickness or die as a result would rise exponentially.
Even though Lin Sanjiu did not think too much about it when she executed her plan, she was pleasantly surprised when she realized that the glass dome which once protected the people from radiation also made it difficult for the radiation to disperse into the atmosphere, and might even become a gas chamber which would trap them all.
"It’s radiation sickness." Ever since the Lunar New Year Tournament began, this was the first time Lin Sanjiu’s voice sounded this lighthearted. She turned and looked at the other ten women then whispered to Li Tao, smiling, "You should be tired of this place, right?"
Li Tao blinked as an unfathomable sheen flashed in her black raven eyes.
"We can try to get out tonight."
Li Tao was stunned. Just when she wanted to say something, the advertis.e.m.e.nt on the large screen disappeared with a snap, leaving only a black screen. Next, Aliba’s exasperated voice rang out, "Due to an emergency crisis, the Lunar New Year Tournament will be suspended now! All audience, please leave the premises in an orderly fashion. Guards, get those mutates back into their capsules!"
Lin Sanjiu laughed before she said to Li Tao, "Don’t sleep tonight."
Li Tao still had a shocked expression on her face, she did not know if she should take Lin Sanjiu’s words seriously. She quickly nodded and followed after Lin Sanjiu. Lin Sanjiu clapped her hands to gain the attention of the other women and raised her voice and said, "Please rest well this afternoon. I still need everyone’s help!"
Even though her voice was loud and clear, and the guards could hear her, she phrased her words rather vaguely. One of the soldiers, who was probably new, let out a sigh of relief after seeing the female contestants return to their capsules following Lin Sanjiu’s lead, "Damn it, that Contestant 97 is really a…"
"She won’t be alive for much longer," an older soldier snorted after ensuring that all the doors of the capsules were properly shut. He waved his hands and the capsules returned to the containment area. "Don’t you know the commanding officers are all desperate now? They don’t have time for these mutates… It won’t be long before they simply order for them to be killed to save us of all this trouble."
The old soldier was right as Aliba was thinking about that right now. The reason being that the commanding officers in the Military and Police Department were now being severely criticized, him especially, as he headed the Tournament Committee. When the public discovered that the first person who died from radiation was a guard, the government officials from other departments used all their means to stir public opinion against the Military and Police Department. They claimed that the department was wasting resources and neglecting their duties, and was so bad at their jobs that there was now a radiation leak plaguing the Garden of Eden. This was on top of the fact that the female posthumans had won the last few matches without much injuries. As a result of this, many people had been heard saying, "The military and police are useless".
The only silver lining was that information about the theft was still hidden from the public. After two phone calls with his superiors, Aliba quickly gave out orders to the various media controlled by their department. They were to condemn Garden of Eden Laboratories for poor management which led to the radiation leakage and for siphoning public expenditure leading to poor anti-radiation facilities and installation. Most importantly, to show the power that the Military and Police Department had, the female contestants would all be beheaded tomorrow morning and there would be a live broadcast of this.
"The management rights of Lunar New Year Tournament must not end up with those guys from the Technology gang," Aliba scowled as he spat gravely, "I don’t care how we do it, they must take the blame for the radiation sickness!"
The vice chief who was hidden in his full anti-radiation hazmat suit nodded firmly. Before he left, Aliba suddenly stopped him. "Remember. You have to be extra careful tonight. Send more men to guard the arena. If those female mutates cause any trouble, you can forget about coming to work. I need you to keep a close eye on them, especially Contestant 97!
Aliba had always been an extremely cautious person. Following his command, groups of fully armed soldiers were sent to guard the arena after that evening.
Chapter 128 - I Want the Garden of Eden to Have the Same End
The arena, which was usually overlit during the matches, was now dark. The pale yellow light streaming from the few weak spotlights barely pi
erced through the darkness, illuminating a small area. There were about a few dozen guards guarding the place. Their sergeant sat in a chair in a carefree manner, with his hands crossed. He had already fallen asleep. Other than a small patrolling team, the other guards crouched down to rest, and some even started smoking and chatting quietly.
It had already been a couple of hours, but the female Posthumans remained in their capsules without showing any odd behavior. The soldiers who had maintained their high vigilance throughout the night were starting to feel a little tired. "It’s okay to rest, but I don’t want any of you to let down your guard. Keep your eyes on those capsules," the sergeant who had been sitting motionless suddenly spoke. It immediately got the guards attention and they all replied with a "Yes, sir!"
For a split second, Lin Sanjiu thought that they had spotted her. She held her breath and waited for some time. After confirming that the guards weren't planning anything, she half-crouched as she walked stealthily between the space of two capsules, signaling for the women in the capsules to keep quiet. She had five minutes before the guards started patrolling again. Lin Sanjiu thought for a moment before she pressed both hands on the floor and activated her [Mosaic Censorship]. Boom! Concrete flew everywhere and a shallow hole appeared.
"What’s that sound? Team three, investigate!" the sergeant stood up instantly, yelling at his men with his rough voice.
"Sir, the sound came from the capsule containment area but we can’t see it clearly!"
Lin Sanjiu felt her throat tightened. The patrolling guards did not enter the containment area when they were patrolling. They basically just walked outside the electric net and swept their flashlights through the area. However, it was vital for her to lure them inside...
Lin Sanjiu had no choice but to use her stupid method again. She waited for some time. Once the flashlight from the patrolling team disappeared above her head, she created another small hole on the floor.