by N. Heller
"So there's more," he said as he clambered up from the ground. He threw a cool gaze over the dark-haired woman on the floor before concentrating his eyes back on Lin Sanjiu. "Well, well, you look a lot fatter… you guys should be more delicious than those freaks outside."
Lin Sanjiu lowered her beak, narrowing her two black beady eyes into two fine lines.
Qing Jiuliu and the grand prize took a step back, for they knew what she was planning to do.
Every muscle in Lin Sanjiu's body tensed up, ready to launch her attack. Seeing his opponent was getting pumped up, the bat-like man decided to claim the first strike. He pushed his feet on the floor, thrusting himself straight at Lin Sanjiu. Scoffing, Lin Sanjiu spread her wings and darted in as well. However, it turned out that the man wasn't targeting Lin Sanjiu from the very beginning. He made a sudden change in his attack course and swerved toward another direction, causing Lin Sanjiu to miss her initial attack.
Lin Sanjiu made a sharp turn and followed after the man; however, she was still a beat slower. The moment her talons contacted with the floor, she saw blood spurting out from the black-haired woman's neck. The man squinted his eyes as beads of blood splashed into the air, coloring his face in bits and pieces of scarlet. The blood then trickled down his face.
"...I have to consume something to regain my strength if I'm going into a fight," the man said as he stared back at the large hen. Munching on the flesh in his mouth, the words that escaped his lips were barely conceivable, "After all, I've been caught by that woman for such a long time."
The stream of blood that jutted out from the woman's neck would open one eye to how much blood a human body could hold. She flailed like a beached fish. The man pushed her away, and she fell heavily into her own pool of blood.
Everything the man did just now was to divert Lin Sanjiu's attention.
Lin Sanjiu was instantly ablaze with rage. She charged in again, unleashing her Higher Consciousness forward like a massive tidal wave. This time, she must take the Jaeger down by crook or by a hook.
Even though she had become a hen, it wasn't hard for Lin Sanjiu to domineer the Jaeger. When she utilized her top speed, every action her opponent made looked sluggish in her eyes. From the moment he rose to his feet amidst the pool of blood to how the shocked expression crawled onto his face, everything looked like a movie with a playing speed of 0.25x.
In the next moment, the distance between Lin Sanjiu and him returned to how it previously was.
Stunned, Lin Sanjiu looked around.
She had returned to the spot where she previously stood. The path she had crossed seconds ago was laying in front of her eyes. The distance between both of them remained the same; even her Higher Consciousness had returned. It was as if the attack she launched just now was merely her illusion.
"Möbius strip!"
The blue flora sofa yelled, "...He must have deployed a small scale Möbius strip around you just now!"
"So it was you!" The hen glared at the Jaeger.
"Phew, you've scared the hell out of me. I thought the Möbius strip had failed." The yellow-skinned man chortled. He fingered his face, leaving palm-shaped blood marking on half of it, "But, it seems like the goddess of fortune is at my side now."
As he talked, he walked past Lin Sanjiu. The hen was so infumed that all her feather bristled. She charged at him again and again, but every time she was sent back to her starting point. With sedulous care, the man weaved around Lin Sanjiu, passing through her side, and offered her a wide grin as he said, "Perhaps I've starved for too long. By the time I woke up, most of the people that were trapped with me in the room were gone… After I regained my sanity when I munched on the dead bodies, I looked around the floor, but I saw no one. As I don't wish to taste the feeling of starving again, so I immediately deployed a Möbius strip… Never once have I thought I would capture you three interesting specimens."
As he reached this point, he licked his lips and spun his head around.
Qing Jiuliu had a bad feeling the moment the man began to tell them his anecdotes. As such, he had been moving toward the exit in perfect silence. When the man suddenly stopped talking, he raised his eyes, and he froze. The second his gaze collided with the man's, the red panda spun his body and darted toward the exit without any hesitation.
The yellow-skinned man moved, and gliding like a giant bat he soon caught up with the red panda. No matter how much Higher Consciousness Lin Sanjiu sent forth, she couldn't break through the Möbius strip. She couldn't do anything but watch as the man grabbed the red panda by the nape of his neck, lifting the struggling Qing Jiuliu into the air.
"Let him go!" The hen ran a few steps forward and stopped before she was blinked back to her original spot by the Möbius strip, "Qing Jiuliu, take out your siren—"
"I left it on the bed!" The red panda screamed back. He wouldn't walk if he were given priority to sit, so was it possible that he would bring such an enc.u.mbrance around as he walked?
"Release him!" Lin Sanjiu forwent the chance to glower at him. She turned over to the Jaeger and said, "...I'm saying it for the last time. Undo your ability and get lost."
The Jaeger rolled his bright yellow eyes but refused to say a word. Suddenly, he lowered his head and parted his mouth to take a bite at the red panda's belly.
"Ji Shanqing!"
Lin Sanjiu yelled at the top of her lung as she pressed down her urge to rush forward. At the same time, the red panda arched his body, sending kicks after kicks at the man with his hind leg as he swung toward the back. His struggle was effective, for the moment the man closed his jaw, all he had gotten in his mouth was the soft fur from the panda's body.
While Qing Jiuliu was struggling to keep himself alive, Ji Shanqing had been moving at their back, with his four stumpy studs dragging along the floor. As he pulled his body toward the inner part of the room, he was mouthing something under his breath. Lin Sanjiu didn't dare to tear her eyes away, yet she couldn't feel the warm sensation that telltale the activation of her [Pygmalion Choker]. Overwhelmed by her anxiety, she boomed, "Louder! The [Pygmalion Choker] cannot be activated if I don't hear what you said."
The red panda was getting closer to the man's cakehole, but the Jaeger didn't take his bite. He swept his gaze across the room in suspicion.
Ji Shanqing wasn't the one to be blamed. He had to come up with an ability that Lin Sanjiu could bring into play and could bypass the effect of Möbius strip, while at the same time saying it loud enough to be heard by everybody and not possible to be guarded by the Jaeger… He had to think of an ability that could match the requirement as mentioned earlier, yet he was only given a few seconds to think. Even though Ji Shanqing was usually quick with his mind, his brain was stuck.
"The answer is right in front—"
The Jaeger spun his head back again, startling Qing Jiuliu. Before he could finish speaking the ability, the man tightened the grip on his neck again, and he almost passed out from the deprivation of oxygen.
He's held by the yellow-skinned man in his steel clutch, and it was almost impossible for him to finish speaking a sentence to activate the [Pygmalion Choker]. As such, he seized the chance to give a hint to Ji Shanqing. However, Ji Shanqing, who was on the cusp of getting crushed by the pressure, had once again fallen into a trance. His brain went blank.
Torn by her anxiety and the feeling of helplessness, Lin Sanjiu darted her eyes in between the red panda and the sofa. If she weren't a hen now, her forehead would have already been flooded with sweat.
Reveling in the gurgling sound emitted by the red panda, the Jaeger smiled. Every word that came out from his lips was layered with a fishy stench, "I thought you guys were concocting a plan, but it seems all of you are at your wit's end… Well, I'm digging in now."
The blue flora sofa quivered, and he thundered, "Sis! The siren! You have the ability of the siren!"
The answer was really in front of their eyes! The Möbius strip didn't affect the transmission of sound. Besides,
it was difficult for the Jaeger to guess it right about the ability of "Siren" from the word alone.
Lin Sanjiu's eyes glowed. By degree, she felt the growing warm sensation from the choker around her neck in the next second.
The siren used its vocal to induce hallucination to its target. With that thought in mind, Lin Sanjiu parted her beak.
…In a sense, the song that came from Lin Sanjiu's mouth was far more lethal than the siren's singing.
The Jaeger's mouth was wide opened. He stopped his action just when he buried his head into the red panda's fur.
Qing Jiuliu's hearing was perfectly fine even though he was held at his neck by the man. Ji Shanqing couldn't cover his ears since as a sofa, he didn't have a hand to carry out such deed. Lin Sanjiu's hymn—if her singing could still fall under such realm—filled the room, assaulting everybody's eardrum.
The Jaeger shuddered. A few beads of sweat trickled down his face. He loosened his grip, and the red panda fell to the floor with a loud thud.
…It was hard to describe the expressions on the face of the three spectators.
The Jaeger's eyes bulged as if they were going to jump out from their sockets sooner or later. He stared blankly at his two hands as he tried with his maximum strength to lift them to cover his ears. However, with Lin Sanjiu's singing, he felt as if his arms weighed a thousand pounds, and he couldn't raise them. Every struggle he made had dissolved into trembling and cold sweat that damped his clothes. It was as if he was fighting against something inside of him.
As for the red panda, he rolled his eyes and blackened out, leaving his mouth ajar. Nobody knew what happened to the blue flora sofa since nobody could see anything from the floral-patterned fabric. It was just as Qing Jiuliu fell unconscious; the sofa turned silent.
Lin Sanjiu knew she didn't have an excellent vocal. Hence, fearing that her singing couldn't have the same effect as strong as the siren, she decided to outmatch the siren by singing much longer. She continued to sing for five minutes straight and stopped only after the effect of [Pygmalion Choker] had ceased away. Then, she took a tentative step ahead.
Even though the Jaeger was still standing, she had successfully stepped out of the domain of Möbius strip.
She walked up to the yellow-skinned man. As if a marionette with its string cut, the man fell to the floor with a loud thump. His eyes were glassy without any spirit.
At a closer inspection, the Jaeger's face was full of his snot and tear. Working as three fine artists, the snot, the tears, and the half-dried blood had created a masterpiece on his face. Lin Sanjiu walked away from him and nudged the red panda with her talons.
"Wake up," she kept her voice low since she was afraid that she might arouse the Jaeger as well. When Qing Jiuliu opened his beady eyes, Lin Sanjiu whispered, "You go and call the grand prize over here. I need to settle this person first."
The red panda grunted and clambered up from the floor. He quickly ran toward the blue flora sofa without turning his head back.
The effect of the singing of the siren was time-dependent. The moment it stopped singing, the effect would weaken with every passing second. After a few seconds, the Jaeger blinked his eyes hard as his consciousness was returning to him.
What met his sight was the clean ceiling of the hotel room.
A pointed triangular shadow suddenly appeared from the corner and blocked a portion of the ceiling.
Dumbfounded, the Jaeger slowly turned his head.
"Awake already?" From the pointy shadow came a familiar voice, "... Just about time."
"What's she taking?"
Before the yellow-skinned man could ultimately come back to his senses, the pointed triangle disappeared from his sight, replaced was a claw-shaped shadow. The claw was getting larger and closer to his face until it finally covered the whole ceiling… Then, everything swirled into darkness.
Lin Sanjiu lowered her head to look at the man under her claws. She raised her claw and kicked a few times on the rug to get rid of the blood on her talon.
"Alright, pull yourself together. We're going upstairs now," she said to the other two people.
Chapter 486 - Concept Mishmash
Traveling up from the sixteenth floor, Lin Sanjiu did not come across any other inhabitant from the "slumber room." Aside from the bat-like man and the dark-haired woman, it seemed to them that the rest of the hostages had already escaped after Magus' ability had lost its effect.
They had no idea what had happened to Magus. The force field enacted by her was gone, and all of them were able to reach the fire exit door on the top floor without much difficulty.
"Qing Jiuliu and I will go in first." The hen pushed the door open with her wings. She turned and talked to the grand prize in a hushed voice, "You stay behind us. Keep your voice down when you're walking."
The sofa and the red panda grunted in reply begrudgingly.
"I have to make a trip to my room first," the red panda said, his tone layered with gusto, "I have to take the siren since it could be of help in a fight… You guys go ahead without me."
The hen studied the red panda from his head to his toe, as if she was judging whether the latter was being serious or he was joking around. Her two beady eyes were full of disapproval.
"No, you can't," Lin Sanjiu said, and the hope in the red panda's eyes ceased away. She swept the red panda into the door with her wing and said "...The power of the siren heavily relies on the appearance of the holder. Look at yourself now; I don't think you can draw out the full potential of the siren with your current appearance. Besides, I know you just want to go back to grab some liquor."
Qing Jiuliu couldn't counter that, walking dejectedly into the fire path. The blue flora followed after, squeezing his massive body through the door. The thick carpet that lined on the floor served as a good sound absorber as the grand prize did not produce any unfavorable sound when he dragged his body along the floor.
"It was lucky that the ability produced by the choker was different from the siren's; otherwise, we might not be able to bewitch the Jaeger," Lin Sanjiu whispered, her voice lingered at the border of fear, "...After all, I don't have much confidence in my appearance as a hen."
The other two people looked at each other as a thought swayed unbridled into their mind at the same time. To be honest, the appearance wasn't the main issue there, for this was because only the [Fantasy Creatures Exhibition Specimen #12] needed both beauty and voice to capture its victim's mind and heart. Lin Sanjiu, on the other hand, could destroy the Jaeger's soul with her disastrous voice alone… Of course, none of them were audacious enough to say this to her.
After three of them had come out from the fire exit and entered the floor, they remained silent as they were afraid that there might be any lurking danger around.
The ceiling of the top floor resembled the dome of a European basilica. With a single glance, it could absorb both the eyes and breath of a person into its smooth geometrical pattern. As if the exotic fragrance of a maiden lingered around the air, the ceiling still retained its former glory even though the apocalypse had eroded basically everything into nothingness in the past two years, giving people a peek through time at how magnificent this penthouse had once been.
In the center of the floor was a large indoor swimming pool. The water in the pool had long evaporated, exposing the layer of thick black grime that blanketed on the surface of the Mediterranean blue tiles. Lances of sun's rays that fell through the skylight cast a halo of golden light around the swimming pool. Behind the door that hid in the shadow and away from the sunlight was the presidential suite, their destination.
"That Magus really knows how to enjoy her life," muttered Qing Jiuliu. Taking a few careful steps ahead, they soon found themselves greeted by a pair of large rosewood doors with an embedded golden word that reads "ALADDIN." Since Ji Shanqing was too slow, they had left him behind. He was now heaving himself forward in the corridor, puffing and blowing from the strain.
Lin Sanjiu extend
ed one of her claws to push the door open before sticking her head inside.
Although she had stayed in a five-stars rating hotel before, she had never come across a Presidential suite. When she caught a glimpse of the suite through the door, only then she saw the daylight of how naive she was. Judging from the entranceway and a portion of the living room that met her eyes, she was sure that the entire suite was more than 200 square meters. In the absence of knowledge about the location of Magus, they wouldn't be able to locate her if they did not go in and search the suite.
After a short contemplation, Lin Sanjiu exchanged glances with Qing Jiuliu, and both of them walked into the royal suite. Without support from Lin Sanjiu's wing, the two extraordinarily heavy rosewood doors closed without making any sound.
Six minutes had passed, and the rosewood door was once again opened from inside.
"Let's check the next room," It was apparent that their search had drawn a blank. The colossal hen exited through the door, instructing the red panda standing next to her claw.
The next Presidential suite was built behind a carved wall above the first penthouse, accessible only via its stand-alone elevator. Due to this unique floor design, it took extra time for Lin Sanjiu before she finally found the way to the next penthouse.
After another 10 minutes, when they came out from the second penthouse, the hen's face was filled with questions
"That's weird," Lin Sanjiu emitted a serial of coos through her windpipe. "A fussy person like Magus, how is there any possibility she wouldn't choose to sleep in a presidential suite?"
"Who knows; perhaps she wasn't satisfied with the security here, so she hid up," the red panda replied indifferently.
"...Or were we too late?"
"If you're worried, you can recheck the first room," Qing Jiuliu suggested.
They had turned the entire second Presidential suite upside down but never found Magus. Truth to be told, it seemed that the room had been vacant for a long time, for Lin Sanjiu needed to break the door to go inside. In contrast, the "ALADDIN" suite which had its door broken by somebody else had a higher chance.