Doomsday Wonderland c1-855

by N. Heller

  "I think you jinxed yourself again…" Mrs. Manas mumbled.

  Derik let out a malicious laugh. He opened his mouth and showed half a row of teeth.

  "So, you don't need to breathe… Then, you can try this ability.

  "[Mankind's Bane]"

  Chapter 241 - Mankind's Bane

  A bowl-sized black shadow swooshed out from the darkness and flew toward Lin Sanjiu at tremendous speed. Lin Sanjiu stooped down in awkwardly, barely managing to dodge it. The black shadow suddenly turned back and chased closely behind her.

  Not far from her was a monolith made of close to a hundred human faces, who were all staring at Lin Sanjiu. She knew that if she continued dodging she would soon be pushed to the vicinity of that human face monolith. With no better options, she opened her palms and headed straight for the black shadow. She grabbed the shadow and balled up her fist. The black shadow suddenly melted like snow in the sun.

  In the end, Lin Sanjiu's higher consciousness was stronger than that thing if she really used her higher consciousness to deal with it directly. However, Lin Sanjiu was really against doing that unless she had no choice, because the costs were too large.

  Lin Sanjiu hissed with pain and let out some agonizing sounds, like a wounded beast. Her voice could torture Mrs. Manas, who was trying her best to see if she could help Lin Sanjiu. "Be careful! Don't touch them, okay? Let's think of something else!" Mrs. Manas said anxiously.

  After that bowl-sized human face disappeared for a few seconds, the red skinless humanoid curled like a shrimp, holding her wrist. She couldn't move at all. The hand she used to grab the black shadow had disappeared, bones, muscles and all.

  The cost of a single attack was a palm-sized amount of higher consciousness. If that wasn't bad enough, the worst thing about attacking that black shadow was the unbearable pain that Lin Sanjiu received. After going through a few apocalyptic worlds, and struggling to survive for two to three years, even after she had evolved, her awareness of pain, which is used as a warning for survival, increased. Along with it, her resistance to pain had also greatly increased.

  Right now, if Lin Sanjiu were to lose her arm, she could still stand up and fight. Yet, the moment she touched the black shadow, she was in such pain that she struggled to form even a sentence in her mind. She just continued hissing in pain, as if she was about to die.

  "Hahaha. Didn't I warn you? Don't touch it. Come over here obediently and let me give you a quick death," Derik voice escaped from the monolith of faces. The mouths opened and closed at the same time; the voices were almost like a choir, "If I have to nibble you slowly to death, it will hurt a lot!"

  "Come here!" the multiple faces urged gently at the same time.

  Lin Sanjiu could see each of their faces clearly, and they seemed almost alive. Some of them looked a little familiar, while others were totally foreign. A large number of them were male faces, though there were also a few female. They didn't have necks and their faces seemed to grow out from the monolith made of flesh. They covered the monolith like mushrooms on an old tree after the rain.

  [Mankind's Bane]

  Humans create "sin" from when they are able to walk. Sin is a unique aspect of human nature. Humans are the best breeding grounds for more sins. This ability makes the target feel the sins created by human over the long course of human history. The pain inflicted far exceeds the most lethal poison in the world. Because human sin is boundless and unredeemable, Mankind's Bane is also an incredibly terrifying ability that is hopeless to escape from.

  As it is too lethal, the ability would destroy the very part of the target's body which comes in contact with it before it can even circulate around the target's body. However, the greatest nightmare is the amount of pain it inflicts as a side effect. As if people who had ended their own lives after experiencing the evilness in the world, many targets—regardless how high their levels were—who were inflicted by this ability chose to end their lives than endure the pain for another second.

  Lin Sanjiu's higher consciousness moved rapidly, trying to remove the toxin from the ability from the entire whole of her higher consciousness form. They moved so fast that they could almost create smoke. After the red, skinless humanoid curled herself for a long time, the pain finally ebbed and she slowly straightened her body.

  At that point, her "body" only consisted of her upper body. Lin Sanjiu had used the remaining bit of her femur to create a hand. After "standing up", she raised her head as if to take a deep breath. Then, she prepared herself for battle once more.

  The monolith of human faces stared at her without saying a word. The monolith moved very slowly, it was so slow that Lin Sanjiu could evade it even if she was walking. Its attack range was only a small area around itself. Therefore, Derik would release a human face to attack his enemy each time he activated this very powerful [Mankind's Bane].

  Unfortunately, the more powerful an ability was, the more restrictions it had. Derik could only release one human face every one minute. Though this was quite a significant limitation, most of his enemies would crawl to the monolith, struggling, crying and begging for death before he even needed to release a second face. However, the enemy before him was unexpectedly hard to deal with.

  He had already released four faces.

  At the start, each of the faces would chase the red humanoid without fail, however, Derik almost gasped with shock each time the faces, he thought were indestructible, were destroyed by that thing. Logically speaking, if a person touches [Mankind's Bane] four times, that person would have killed themselves. Oddly, it seemed as though the red humanoid was actually slowly recovering.

  "What the hell is it?" Derik thought to himself. He had already killed 27 posthumans ever since he arrived in this world. This was the first time he felt a faint sense of regret.

  "It can't continue like this," Lin Sanjiu suddenly said mildly to Mrs. Manas. "If he can release a face every one minute, I am just prolonging the time before I get killed."

  "What are you planning?" Mrs. Manas felt a very bad premonition.

  "I need to fight back," Lin Sanjiu's voice suddenly became very cold and controlled. This was a unique tone she used every time some big fight was about to happen.

  "Sorry..." Lin Sanjiu apologized to Mrs. Manas, who didn't even had a corporeal body in her mindscape, "I'll implicate you if my attack fails..."

  She did not finish her sentence.

  Lin Sanjiu started channeling and using all her higher consciousness and flew toward the top of the monolith at a speed that Derik had never witnessed before. When the monolith aimed an upward attack, Lin Sanjiu split her higher consciousness into two.

  Chapter 242 - The Mantis Stalks the Cicada, Unaware of the Oriole Behind it

  Rena felt as though her ears had been covered by a heavy layer of something. She couldn't hear anything clearly and when she touched her ears, she felt a layer of sticky blood. It was only after some time that she could faintly hear the sound of her own heavy breathing which finally managed to pierce through that layer.

  The faint star in the sky was still in the same spot. It had not faded and she could still see it through the gap between the debris. Rena struggled and pushed away the concrete slab that was over her.

  There was a sharp, broken steel reinforcement bar sticking out from that concrete slab. If it was a few inches closer, it would have stabbed into her face. Rena gasped for air as she crawled out from under the debris. She mentally prepared herself, knowing that her body would collapse at any minute. However, after she walked two steps, she realized that the bleeding from her abdomen had somehow stopped.

  Her white socks were in strips and were so dirty that she couldn't even tell its original color, but her calves were clean. The teenage girl regained her strength with each step, and she gradually could walk at a steady pace. Before long, she even started to jog.

  Rena left the state of devastation behind her.

  The floors of the four or five multistory buildings were destroyed by
the blast from the twenty Ripple Spheres. As concrete and steel were blasted to bits, the buildings crashed down to the ground like a tsunami. Under normal circ.u.mstance, the two posthumans in the epicenter of the blast shouldn't survive. In fact, Hannie Huang's body had exploded after a few buildings collapsed on her body. Not even one bit of flesh which sprayed out from under the debris was larger than the nail of a little finger. She had been squished till her body was like a mash from a juicer. On the other hand, Rena who was badly injured, survived the explosions.

  Once Hannie was dead, her [Truth or Dare] ability was instantly deactivated. Rena remembered looking up and seeing the large buildings were collapsing. After that, she instinctively ran as far as she could. She vaguely remembered that when she was just about to run out of that danger zone, she was hit on the back by a concrete slab. She was knocked out and only regained consciousness just moments before. Rena knew that she wasn't unconscious for long. When she looked around, she noticed that the building that Lin Sanjiu and Derik were in had also collapsed. Her surroundings were quiet and there wasn't any sign of anyone around.

  Rena was very worried right now. She sprinted like mad to the opposite of the road not far from her. After checking her surroundings, she immediately ran to lift up a manhole cover. "Clash." Rena lifted the manhole cover and threw it aside. She crouched and leaned forward, looking down in the dark waterway, then saw Reno's pale face. He was still lying in the same position. His eyes were closed and his breathing was steady.

  Rena instantly let out a sigh of relief. As expected, Zhu Mingchun, who had been tasked to look for Reno, never thought that Reno was right under his nose. Rena spent some effort pulling her brother out from the waterway. Then, she carried him on her back. As Reno was about the same height as her, his feet were dragged along the ground.

  "Lin Sanjiu!" Rena called out for Lin Sanjiu softly as she was afraid that it would draw the attention of other foes which could be hiding. She carried her brother and walked around the rubble, "Are you still alive? Come on, answer me—"

  The teenage girl could hear the soft voice traveling far into the distance under the night skies. Shaken, she stopped. After a while, she called out again, "Lin Sanjiu…"

  A concrete slab suddenly moved a little as if responding to her. Rena was shocked and quickly stopped calling. "Is it you?" she took two cautious steps forward.

  "I see, so that thing was Lin Sanjiu!" A sharp but hoarse voice pierced the silence. The concrete slab was tossed aside with a thud. Derik, with his short stature, crawled out from under the concrete slab. He began shouting crazily, "The Puppeteer's, the puppeteer's reward! Here... here... I come!"

  Under the faint light from the dark skies above, Rena saw Derik's body and couldn't help letting out a gasp. There was no way anyone would recognize Derik as a human. Derik looked as if someone had ground his body on a millstone over a hundred times. He did not have a differentiable "front" or "back", as his whole body was just a cylindrical mass of flesh. His face, his skin, and body features had all disappeared—it was weird that he could even speak.

  When Derik was just about to rush to Rena's side like a madman, a loud noise suddenly rang out from the rubble behind him. Another black shadow, not much larger than Derik, flew out. In a split second, Derik fell to the ground while he choked on his blood with gurgling sounds.

  The black shadow stopped. It was a white, translucent, half side of a skull.

  "That's great! You're still alive!" Rena started half-sobbing. She went up and tried to hug Lin Sanjiu, but her arms passed through the skull. She immediately froze.

  "It's alright, I just need to rest for a few days," the skull wrote with some effort. Lin Sanjiu felt fully exhausted. She wanted to close her eyes and not care about anything. She would have long fainted from pain if she still had her actual body when she charged at Derik. The pain that [Mankind's Bane] inflicted on its target was like a boundless black hole in space. It was like an endless abyss, the unimaginable torture was enough to make someone feel that "suicide" was a beautiful liberation.

  However, Lin Sanjiu's higher consciousness body did not possess the defensive mechanism to faint.

  Even though Lin Sanjiu could attack Derik as a result, it also meant that she had to endure the pain of over countless years of agony from his ability. After she wrapped the entire human-faced monolith, she didn't take much time squeezing and grinding it. It only took 4.7 seconds, but that was Lin Sanjiu's longest, darkest and scariest 4.7 seconds of her life.

  "Alright. Alright. Can you still move?" Rena wiped her tears. "We will find a place to rest now…"

  Even though Rena did not know how Lin Sanjiu's higher consciousness worked, she knew that Lin Sanjiu was in a bad condition. Even when Lin Sanjiu was just a brain, her form had never been so white and so ethereal. It was as if she was just a column of smoke that would disappear into the air once the wind blew.

  As Lin Sanjiu used too much of her higher consciousness, she had already converted and used up the amount which maintained Mrs. Manas into her attack. "After I rest for a few days, I think she will come out again…" Lin Sanjiu thought to herself tiredly. She slowly landed on Rena's shoulders and felt like she had used up all her energy.

  "Should we go back to the train?" Rena asked quietly. Ever since they came to Kisaragi Station, their time in the train was the safest, so she couldn't help thinking about it. "We can't stay here too long, Zhu Mingchun is still nearby…"

  "Are you looking for me?" They suddenly heard a gruff voice. "I've been behind you guys all this time."

  Chapter 243 - What's With Those Numbers

  "Run!" When Lin Sanjiu wrote that word, Rena had also thought of the same thing. Among the three of them, two of them were badly wounded, and so the only one who had some strength to fight was Rena. However, she had already used up all her Ripple Spheres, which were supposed to be her trump card.

  As the girl was a Growth-type, her combat ability wasn't very strong to begin with. Right now, she had to take care of her brother and Lin Sanjiu. Furthermore, she didn't know what was the number on her body. The probability of her winning a fight with Zhu Mingchun, who was in perfect combat condition, was too low. Rena made her mind up, she tightened her grip on her brother's arms and ran without even looking back.

  "Do you all think that you can run away from me?" A wild laughter rang out behind Rena. "You're too naive. Since fate had intended for you guys to get rid of Derik and Hannie, it means that I am destined to be the big winner here!"

  Zhu Mingchun was obviously so pleased with the turn of events that he didn't think too much. As he ran after them, he laughed happily. His loud laughter scared Rena so much that she ran like a lamb that was chased by a hound.

  Even though Rena wasn't slow, she was carrying a person on her shoulders and she wasn't wearing any shoes. She had used all the strength she could muster to run, but the distance between them and Zhu Mingchun gradually shrunk.

  Rena knew that if she continued running, he would catch up with them eventually. Her anxiety drove her out of her wits. Just as she hesitated over whether she should just stop and fight to the death with that man, the skull on her shoulder suddenly rose. The skull turned and flew in the opposite direction.

  "She's almost half dead, does she still want to fight?" Worried, Rena stopped before she could even consider her options. She placed her brother on the ground and turned to run toward Lin Sanjiu.

  Lin Sanjiu heard a sound behind her. When she turned to look, she was furious. She thought that her plan should be easily understood when she turned back. She wanted to give the siblings more time to escape. With her higher consciousness form, she could always fly up into the sky if she couldn't hold that man back. Presumably, Zhu Mingchun probably didn't have any sort of Special Item to chase after her.

  However, she didn't expect that Rena would foolishly turn back for her just because she didn't spell out the entire plan. It was such a wasted opportunity. She really hated that she didn't have a mouth ri
ght now!

  "That's right." Zhu Mingchun lowered his face creepily, a cold glint flashed across his eyes. Clearly, he was different from his companion, Hannie. He didn't like to play any cat and mouse games. He bent slightly and rushed over without saying a word.

  Zhu Mingchun was a physical combatant. His abilities were all skewed for physical combat. Before he got close, Lin Sanjiu already noticed his arms turning silver at a very fast speed. Under the dark sky, they seemed to have a metallic sheen.

  Before Zhu Mingchun's punch reached Rena, it had already created a draft of air. If Rena was hit by that punch, she would definitely be badly hurt. Lin Sanjiu gathered the little amount of higher consciousness she had and swooshed up to his face, taking advantage of her size. Meanwhile, Rena had already taken out her fly-whisk. She stooped down and swiped Zhu Mingchun's legs.

  Zhu Mingchun wasn't fl.u.s.tered by the two simultaneous attacks. He dodged the fly-whisk skillfully and threw an upper-hook with his steel-like fist at Lin Sanjiu. Considering the strength of her current higher consciousness, Lin Sanjiu did not dare to counter the attack with force. When she condensed her higher consciousness, she was tangible. She released her higher consciousness with a 'bang' in the air. Zhu Mingchun's fist passed through Lin Sanjiu's smoke-like form. Before he could react, he suddenly jumped backward. Rena had aimed another attack at him.

  After they exchanged a few blows, they created some distance between them. Lin Sanjiu and Rena looked at each other. They couldn't help feeling worried. Zhu Mingchun had not brought out his weapon. After he fought b.a.r.e fist with the both of them, they knew that they couldn't deal with him. If he were to use any sort of Special Item, the situation would become worse.

  "Rena had already wasted the chance to run away. Under such circ.u.mstances, we just have to fight." Just as this thought surfaced in Lin Sanjiu's mind. She saw Zhu Mingchun pulling out a war banner with his left hand.