by N. Heller
Together, Qing Jiuliu and the thick glasses had taken cover behind an SUV. The four-wheel drive shook violent in the middle of the stormy wind as if it would give in to the suction force and fly toward the rift at any possible moment. Qing Jiuliu spared some of his focus and looked around; then his eyes fixed on a fountain not far away.
It was a marble fountain which had a basin built into the ground around half a meter deep. Judging from its architecture, Qing Jiuliu surmised that it would be the perfect spot to give them breathing space from the onslaught of the savage storm.
"Over there!" He barked, but his voice had been carried away on the bl.u.s.tery wind. He raised his voice and yelled again, "Go to the fountain!"
A multitude of flotsam and jetsam from the universe was being drawn toward the rift behind them. Qing Jiuliu couldn't tell whether or not Ji Shanqing heard his call but he was sure that the thick glasses heard him just right, as he saw him quickly made his way to the fountain.
Gasping, Qing Jiuliu slowly inched toward the front bumper.
He was the nearest to the rift compared to the other two people, and the side of the door he was holding right now was facing directly at the rift. Hence, the safest route he could think of was to go around the front bumper and dash to the fountain from the rear of the SUV. However, after much contemplation, Qing Jiuliu realized that it was almost an impossible deed.
This was because aside from the rearview mirror, there wasn't any protrusion that he could grapple on along the distance from the front wheel to the other side of the car. It was as if he was crossing a single-log bridge connecting an impassable gulf... One step wrong, and he would fall himself to death.
The SUV was rocking side to side more and more vigorously, leaving Qing Jiuliu no choice but to duck his head to avoid being hit by a large flower pot that just so happened to graze past his head. He turned his head to see that the flower pot had been crushed into mere rubbles by the suction force when it had gotten near the rift before being s.u.c.k.e.d into it and disappearing.
Seeing this, Qing Jiuliu knew the SUV would soon tread in the footsteps of the flower pot, and he knew he had to act fast. Gritting his teeth, he bobbed down and dove forward, clutching tightly at the front wheel. Suddenly, he saw something and his eye glowed.
He didn't have to take the risk of grabbing the smooth car front if he wanted to get to the other side of the SUV.
He clung to the tire using one of his arms while stretching his other arm into the bottom of the automobile. When he finally secured his grip on something, he released his other arm, slipping under the vehicle. Almost at the same time as he fixed his clutch at the chassis, the rift suddenly widened. The wind speed doubled, and the SUV almost got blown into the air.
After he took a short break under the vehicle, Qing Jiuliu began to move forward again. Fighting with all his might, he put every ounce of strength he had against the pulling force as he inched himself toward his destination—the other side of the SUV. The thick glasses was lucky. He had left the SUV and was now crawling toward the fountain by stabbing his nails into the tiles.
Just when Qing Jiuliu popped his head out and before he could take a breath, a sense of weightlessness struck him hard as the world in his vision turned upside down. The blood rushed to his head and his sight blackened. It was not long before the realization dawned on him that he was being s.u.c.k.e.d toward the rift along with the vehicle.
"Qing Jiuliu!"
Ji Shanqing turned his head, and his delicate face instantly turned pale. However, color soon returned as his eyes lit up. He yelled, "Let go your hand!"
Ji Shanqing's word cut into Qing Jiuliu's mind as the latter released his grip without thinking twice. Under the strong suction force, he didn't fall to the ground as normally would but instead, he flew with the vehicle toward the rift. Qing Jiuliu reacted instinctively, howling as he was getting closer to the darkness at the other side of the rift.
Then, in the next second, his body hit the car and dropped to the ground.
Not only Qing Jiuliu, everything that was picked up by the wind had also fallen to the ground as the wind went still.
"Now is our chance!" Ji Shanqing clambered up the ground and yelled as he sprinted to the hotel. "Quick! Go back to the hotel!"
Qing Jiuliu took to his heels before looking back. Then, he saw the light as to why the storm suddenly ceased to exist. The SUV had fitted perfectly into the gaping hole. Looking from the ground, it seemed the vehicle was being held in the air by an invisible string.
Suddenly, both of them heard something that made their hearts tighten, something like the crunching of metal twisting and grating against each other. Eye-widened, they saw that the SUV was shrinking with speed visible to the n.a.k.e.d eye, releasing an ear-assaulting screech into the air. When the visual of the crushed flower pot came unbridled into his mind, Qing Jiuliu's face sunk.
…Right now, they were a few hundred meters away from the hotel.
As long as the SUV could buy them another three to five seconds, they would be able to reach the hotel in time and would be safe. After all, no matter how strong the suction force was, it would never be able to uproot a huge building.
The high-pitched squeal emitted by the SUV was getting louder—
"Don't come in!"
Magus' voice came from the inside of the hotel. The SUV had succ.u.mbed to the crushing force and flew into the rift. Before the two could go into the hotel, Magus' Higher Consciousness, manifested as an invisible force, had blasted them out. There was nothing to stop the rift now; it became larger and the storm had become twice as strong as before. In the twinkling of an eye, it had s.u.c.k.e.d both Ji Shanqing and Qing Jiuliu toward it.
"What the hell were you doing!" An exasperated female voice cut through the tempest, "—Quick! Hold onto this!"
Before Lin Sanjiu's voice could get carried away by the wind, a long and huge shadow was suddenly thrown out of the window from the hotel. She didn't need to make her aim as the dark figure was too absorbed toward the rift. Qing Jiuliu and Ji Shanqing grabbed each other hands, and only after they had caught the shadowy figure, then they realized it was Lin Sanjiu's bone whip.
Like a greedy monster, more and more air was getting drawn into the dark hole. Even Lin Sanjiu, who was inside a building, had a hard time resisting the suction force. The bone whip was stretched taut. As it emitted a shriek that would make people blood cold, the bone whip was getting nearer and nearer to the rift.
"You know what?" Qing Jiuliu suddenly turned his head and forced a smile on his face as he spoke, "This is such a lame way to die."
"Shut up!" Ji Shanqing retorted, "Just hold tight!"
The moment those words were spoken, a fretful voice came from within the hotel, "I'll bring you guys to the fountain, hang on!"
The bone whip, which couldn't move in the wind, was lifted by an unknown force. Although Magus did that not out of her heart and soul, they were relieved when she decided to help them. With Magus' help, the bone whip was getting further away from the rift. Even though Lin Sanjiu was in great pain when pulling the two, she was finally able to transport them safely to the fountain.
Leaning their back against the inner marble wall of the fountain, the crisis of getting s.u.c.k.e.d into the rift had been lifted. As soon as they sat in the basin, a woman's voice, filled with rage, boomed from the hotel.
"I'll just say this once, so prick up your f*cking ears and listen carefully." This was the first time Magus' voice was so thick with impatience. It was as if she was resisting the urge to exterminate the three of them for good, "...This thing is called dimensional rift. Once it appears, there's nothing we can do aside from wait for it to disappear by itself."
Ji Shanqing exchanged glances with Qing Jiuliu. Both of their faces were still pale from the near-death experience. After a short pause, the grand prize asked, "Why don't you let us enter the hotel, then?"
"Nobody has any inkling about what is a dimensional rift, but judging from my exp
erience, it's very likely to move along with posthuman. If any of you bring that thing inside the hotel, the entire hotel will collapse. At that time, not even I would be able to survive!" Magus had directed her fury at Lin Sanjiu, "... What you were trying to do just now would get all of us killed, do you understand?!"
Her exhortation sounded much clearer this time. Feeling weird, Ji Shanqing turned around and he felt relieved when he saw that the rift was closing. The grand prize jabbed at Qing Jiuliu, who was sitting next to him, and his voice was laden with exhilaration, "Look, it's vanishing!"
Magus became silent.
In the faint moonlight, the rift was finally gone, leaving behind the blanket of a night sky. The sound of the wind was getting smaller.
"This is bad," Magus said softly.
The grand prize was stunned. In the next second, the sky above the fountain cracked open as the rift suddenly reappeared. The direction of the air flow had changed; they were now getting s.u.c.k.e.d up vertically and there wasn't anything in the fountain they could cling themselves to.
Even though he knew it was pretty pointless, Ji Shanqing refused to submit to his fate as he clawed tightly at the edge of the fountain. He closed his eyes, and Lin Sanjiu's heart-wrenching yell drifted into his ears. Suddenly, he felt the person next to him move.
Qing Jiuliu had been drawn up!
The grand prize' heart skipped his beat as he opened his eyes. Just like the picture in his mind, Qing Jiuliu was floating in mid-air. However, he was not the only one.
Stabbing his fingers deep into the neck of the thick glasses, it seemed more to Ji Shanqing that Qing Jiuliu purposely sprang up rather than the rift was siphoning him. The thick glasses g.r.o.a.n.e.d and he was losing his consciousness due to the rapid blood loss. Ji Shanqing blinked his eyes and they suddenly clicked; he knew what Qing Jiuliu planning was and his face turned ashen white.
The thick glasses screamed in agony. His body had blocked the rift and the wind stopped for the third times.
"A posthuman has merged with the dimensional rift, so it won't follow us now. Drag him inside while we have the chance!" Qing Jiuliu hollered the moment he touched the ground.
"You too! Grab it!" Lin Sanjiu disregarded Magus and swung out her bone whip.
"Him first," Qing Jiuliu took out a cigarette and placed it in between his lips. His hand was trembling, "... In case this guy couldn't last long."
Chapter 478 - Witch And Knight
Crash. The window was shattered. As the bone whip flung Ji Shanqing into the building, a shriek that would make people's heart wrench blasted from outside.
Lin Sanjiu had never heard such a cry before. Nevertheless, they were soon liberated from the bombardment of the stomach-churning shriek. It stopped abruptly as if somebody had pressed the pause button. She raised her head, and her face blanched.
The arm-sized rift was too small to contain the body of that thick glasses. His lower torso had embedded into it while his head and arms remained outside of the sky crater. From a glance, he looked like a bouquet of a flower made of flesh.
The blood and meat pulps that burst forth changed their trajectory in mid-air, shooting back to the rift, and slapped on the thick glasses' squashed body. Judging by their experience, he wouldn't last longer than three seconds.
However, at that moment, the cigarette stub inside the pool of the fountain was still glowing orange in one end.
"He's in!" Pressing her body against the windowsill, Lin Sanjiu yelled at the top of her voice. She wanted Qing Jiuliu to seize the opportunity and retreat to the hotel. With that, she still could pull him inside with her bone whip.
The cigarette b.u.t.t glimmered.
Qing Jiuliu said, "I'm lazy to move." But Lin Sanjiu heard nothing.
"Quick! Come over here!" Lin Sanjiu boomed. Suddenly, the air began to move again. Understanding immediately dawned on Lin Sanjiu when she saw that the cigarette b.u.t.t remained unmoved although he was running short of time. Qing Jiuliu knew very well that even if he ran at his top speed, the likelihood of escaping from the ferocious black hole was minimal. Since he was going to die anyway, he instead chose to die alone getting s.u.c.k.e.d into the rift than getting his friends killed because of him.
"What a f.u.c.k.i.n.g lazy asshole!"
As the thought surfaced in her mind, she had already hopped onto the ledge of the window and leaped outside. Magus, who had been observing Lin Sanjiu all the time, naturally wouldn't allow her to leave. She raised her hand, sending her Higher Consciousness out, and grabbed Lin Sanjiu's leg in the nick of time.
Without turning her head, Lin Sanjiu waved her hand and released the only thing she had in her disposal that was effective against Magus.
The satiny and l.u.s.trous red velvet spread open in the air. The Higher Consciousness sent forth by Magus rapidly disappeared into the red velvet without any traces. Earlier on, Magus had consumed a large amount of her Higher Consciousness to help Lin Sanjiu reactivate her [School of Higher Consciousness]. And now she had lost yet another portion of her Higher Consciousness to the red velvet. The combination of both had drained her. She suffered from a momentary dizzy spell, and she staggered to her feet.
When the red velvet vanished into the ether, Magus pounced herself onto the windowsill and looked ahead. Her countenance was as dark as coal.
The thick glasses had long since disappeared into the rift. The wind roared like a wild monster. Amidst the rough turbulence, Qing Jiuliu was floating, bobbing up and down in the air. However, he did not fly directly towards the rift, for there was a bone whip wrapped around his body.
After jumping out from the window, Lin Sanjiu had lassoed Qing Jiuliu with her bone whip while at the same time latched onto a terrace below. Her body fluttered raggedly in mid-air with her feet off the ground. The only thing that held her in place was her arms that entwined firmly around the bal.u.s.trade.
"Hey—" Lin Sanjiu had no idea if Magus would be able to hear her voice amid the howling gale, but she had to try. She shouted at Magus, who had popped out her head, "The handrail won't last any longer!"
As if it was responding to her words, the thin and black, carved in floral metal handrail quivered in the wind.
"If we're dead," even though Lin Sanjiu had strained every one of her muscles, she still couldn't pull the bone whip back to herself. Besides, she had to dole out her strength to not loosen her grip on the handrail; her fingers turned all white, "... you won't be able to maintain your immortality anymore!"
Magus' jaw was set; her face was as cold as an iceberg. She disregarded the raging gale, allowing it to dishevel her cascading golden hair. If Magus could kill people with killing intent, Lin Sanjiu was certain that she would have shredded both Qing Jiuliu and her into million pieces.
Truth be told, Lin Sanjiu knew full well that Magus, who had never been threatened before, was resisting against her inner demon to throw both she and Ji Shanqing into the rift.
Suddenly, the bal.u.s.trade bent with a sickening crack and Lin Sanjiu's heart skipped a beat, snapping her out of her reverie. She yelled, "I can't hold on much longer!"
Magus closed her eyes and grunted. When she clenched her jaw tight and her mouth drooped, she looked as if she had some years on her. Without replying to her comment, Magus stretched her arm, beckoning with her nail painted in bright red polish.
Lin Sanjiu immediately felt a force below her, which in turn had helped to mitigate the suction force. The bone whip that fluttered in the wind was returning to her.
When Magus had tossed both of them into the room, Ji Shanqing came into the room from the door. His body was full of splinters.
"If the dimensional rift moves in here," Magus said as she stood in the center of the room, staring coldly at the two that were gasping for the air on the ground before shifting her gaze onto the grand prize. The way she smiled froze Ji Shanqing to his core, "...I'll uses these two wimps to block the rift."
Lying prone on the floor, Lin Sanjiu did not dare to utter any wor
d. She understood how much Higher Consciousness Magus had used and how angry she was. She was afraid that once she rubbed Magus in the wrong way, the latter might throw both of the boys out of the room.
"If that happens," Lin Sanjiu waited until Magus' expression became lighter before talking earnestly, "I'll take out the red velvet. Perhaps we can absorb the dimensional rift with it."
"That's impossible," Magus refuted her statement point-blank.
"There's nothing that the red velvet can't…"
Before Lin Sanjiu could finish her sentence, an unseeable force had smacked her at her head, causing her to shut her mouth with a snap. Her jaw numbed and she almost bit her tongue. She looked ahead and saw the flame behind Magus' eyes, as if the latter was suppressing herself from an outburst. Magus withdrew her finger and said cooly, "... Much better. Let me paint the picture for you. No matter what, be it Evolved Ability or Special Items, everything that belongs to our "side" does not affect the crack that comes from the other dimension."
Lin Sanjiu was dumbfounded; then, she drew her eyebrows closer. Starry Carnival Amus.e.m.e.nt Park, the Astral Plane, and the dimensional rift, all of them were like pieces of a puzzle. Right now, she only needed to put them together and once she had attained more clues, she would be able to bring the whole picture under the light. However, she had no idea what answer she would get in the end.
The room fell silent as nobody talked; only the whoosh of the wind could be heard. Magus' tow-colored hair and the hem of her skirt fluttered in the wind. She turned around and gazed out at the dimensional rift that floated in the sky. She murmured, "...Let's pray it won't come to us."
She didn't use her Higher Consciousness when she talked. As such, nobody heard her whisper.
At last, all of the windows that faced the rift had given in to the intense gravitational pull and were shattered. The glass shards glittered under the moonlight, zooming straight at the rift as they were a flock of wild geese returning to their nest. Windows, doors, curtains, chairs, tables… Everything in the building was flooding madly toward the rift. The wall blocked some of them, but most had flown and disappeared into the night sky.