Doomsday Wonderland c1-855

by N. Heller

  The n.a.k.e.d woman that first spoke was the closest to Lin Sanjiu. She glanced at Lin Sanjiu then turned to a few people next to her. None of them were talking, but Lin Sanjiu had a hunch that they were communicating in some way.

  "Speak!" Lin Sanjiu yelled. She summoned the [Tornado Whip] into her palm and strode towards the woman, causing the woman to shift her gaze back to Lin Sanjiu. When her gaze fell on the [Tornado Whip] in Lin Sanjiu's hand, she tossed her head back and dropped to the floor.

  Stunned by the woman's reaction, Lin Sanjiu hastened her pace. When she was close enough, she realized that the woman had not closed her eyes, but was in her sober senses. 'What the hell is happening?' Before Lin Sanjiu could get an answer to the question in her mind, she caught something flying toward her through the corner of her eyes. Lin Sanjiu quickly retaliated by stepping back and sending a tornado towards the incoming shadow.

  Soulsqn yelled out in pain as the wind engulfed her. It carried her with a powerful force through the air. Since there was no obstacle to cushion her speed, with a meaty smack, she rammed hard into the wall on the other side of the hall, creating a loud echo that ricocheted endlessly in the building.

  Suddenly, a pit appeared below the floor of the people who had awakened, and before Lin Sanjiu knew it, the group of people had fallen into it. The pit then closed before the air below could escape.

  The moment Lin Sanjiu arrived, silence had once more reclaimed its sovereignty over the area. She could hear nothing but her own footfalls and breathing.

  "What the hell is happening?" Succ.u.mbing to her anger, Lin Sanjiu cursed out loud and punched the floor.

  'What would happen if I used [Mosaic Censorship to blow up the floor?

  'What will I find down there?'

  Staring at the floor, Lin Sanjiu fell into deep thought. She forwent the idea in the end and decided to only use the tactic when the situation demanded it.

  Falling back to square one, Lin Sanjiu sighed inwardly. Then, she began to study the few humans who seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep next to her. She tried to push them, but they didn't give any response.

  'Why are they here? Is it like what Soulsqn said, some creatures are using them as vessels?'

  Suddenly, Lin Sanjiu felt that something was amiss. She looked around the hall, realizing that it had been too quiet.

  'Where is Soulsqn? That's weird… I didn't hear her screaming or cursing. She didn't even cry out in pain…'

  Lin Sanjiu slowly turned her head in the direction where Soulsqn had flown into. But aside from the human bodies on the ground, Lin Sanjiu saw nothing.

  For a moment, Lin Sanjiu thought Soulsqn had gone into a human body while she was distracted by the woman just now. However, when she went closer to the wall, she saw no one getting up.

  'Could it be that the floor here opened up as well, and Soulsqn had fallen into it?'

  "No, that's impossible." Lin Sanjiu abandoned the idea once she swept a gaze across the floor. In this area, the floor was so crowded with human bodies that she needed to tiptoe in the spaces between the head and shoulders so that she would not trip over them. If the floor had really opened up, then the human bodies here would have fallen as well.

  With a skeptical eye, she scanned the floor a few times before finally fixing her eyes on the wall, or to be more precise, on the holes.

  There were some mucus stains on the wall, glistening against the light. At a glance, it seemed as if somebody had licked the wall. Lin Sanjiu followed the stains until she stood in front of a hole. Some of the mucus had collected around the circ.u.mference of the hole, forming into a sticky droplet that slid down the wall.

  Lin Sanjiu stretched and wiped her finger across the interior of the hole. As she expected, she felt a slippery substance. She took out the [Ability Polishing Agent] and flooded the crater with its silvery light. With the help of the beam, she managed to spot a chunk of red-colored shadow that was stuck to the deep end of the hole. It seemed like the flesh of Soulsqn, but Lin Sanjiu couldn't be sure.

  Even with Soulsqn's attenuated body, it would still be a bit difficult for her to squeeze herself through the hole, which was about the size of a human head.

  After a short inspection, Lin Sanjiu decided to believe in her heart and put both of her hands on either side of the hole.

  Even though it was a material she had never seen before, Lin Sanjiu was relieved when she heard a cracking sound alongside the activation of her ability. Like a shattering window, the part of the wall under her palm pulverized. In order to not injure her eyes, Lin Sanjiu quickly turned her head sideways and used her hand to shield her eyes from the blast of metal dust.

  The hole had now become larger. Lin Sanjiu spit out the dust that went into her mouth and then crawled into the hole. Very soon, she came to a halt. The road in front was stuck, and she had no choice but to use the [Mosaic Censorship] to blast her way through once more.

  The commotion she made was insignificant compared to the enormous wall, so Lin Sanjiu did not worry about the possibility of the wall collapsing. However, the chunk of meat she had seen just now seemed to have crashed along with the wall. She had been traveling for so long, yet she still hadn't found anything that resembled the flesh or skin of Soulsqn.

  The light from the hall was getting dimmer and dimmer. She kept blasting holes and moved deeper down. For a moment, Lin Sanjiu had a feeling that she was getting closer to hell.

  Her entire body was coated in a thick layer of dust. A puff of metal dust would flutter into the air from her eyelashes every time she blinked her eyes. At first, Lin Sanjiu made the effort to dust her shirt, but eventually she became too lazy to do so. No matter how hardworking she was, the dust only got thicker as she blasted a tunnel open.

  When Lin Sanjiu came to a halt, she subconsciously closed her eyes, held her breath, and placed her palm against the tunnel.

  Similar to what she experienced before, Lin Sanjiu let out a spell of coughing as the [Mosaic Censorship] blasted the tunnel wider. After the dust had settled down, Lin Sanjiu moved forward.

  Then, she fell straight into an abyss.

  Chapter 566 - Gorilla And Quantum Mechanics

  The sense of weightlessness ceased as soon as it appeared.

  Lin Sanjiu did not feel any wind or pain upon hitting the ground hard. Her mind was clouded, and she did not have the faintest idea of what had transpired. The feeling of microgravity was swift. When her senses returned, she found herself falling slowly on a chair.

  Her heart was slowly descending to her stomach.

  'What is going on?'

  Looking around, Lin Sanjiu had never been so confused before.

  Ever since she entered the white fog, Lin Sanjiu had a misconception that she was having a weird, messy dream that consisted of many meaningless images. She had no idea how she ended up here, nor did she know why Soulsqn suddenly disappeared. If the hall made of metal and those human bodies really existed, then how was it possible for her to end up in a wooden room after crawling through a wall?

  With that thought in mind, Lin Sanjiu raised her head and looked up. The lining of the wooden ceiling overhead was a delight to the eyes. There wasn't even a gap in between the planks...

  "That weirds… How did I come into this room?"

  The wooden room had a low ceiling and a rectangular-shaped body. From an aerial view, it looked like a wooden box with Lin Sanjiu trapped in it, like a cricket trapped inside a wooden box. The room wasn't huge, so Lin Sanjiu finished surveying it in a glance. Lin Sanjiu soon realized she was in an attic when she saw a stairwell built at the center of the floor behind her, which would lead her to the lower floor.

  Different from the hall that was made entirely out of metal, the wooden room was wholly made of wood. The walls, the floor, the desk, the chair, even the stair handrail was carved out of wood. The differences were so substantial that they looked as if they belonged to two different worlds.

  "Nice to meet you."

  A voice ca
me without warning, snapping Lin Sanjiu back into reality. She jumped up and almost knocked over her chair. She hastily turned around to see a man standing on the stairwell, which she was looking at only half a second ago.

  "Who are you?" Lin Sanjiu took a step back, and her guard went up. She immediately activated the "Hypersensory", as she was startled by the fact that she had not noticed the man's presence at all.

  'If he had not said anything, he could have easily snuck up on me!'

  The man raised his head slightly as if something in the air had gotten his attention. However, there was nothing in the air.

  The next words he said caused Lin Sanjiu's heart to skip a beat.

  "Interesting surveillance method, but I'm afraid it won't work here."

  After that, the man walked to the wooden desk with a smile. He pulled out a chair and sat on it. By the time he had finished the series of actions, Lin Sanjiu's heart had already sunk to the pit of her stomach.

  Her "Hypersensory" had failed to catch anything.

  When the man swung his arms, the air surrounding him remained so still as if it were a pool of stagnant water. There weren't any footfalls when he walked, nor any vibrations. The only sound made was a squeal as the legs of the chair scr.a.p.ed along the floor.

  "Have a seat." The man walked to the other side of the desk. He pulled out a chair and sat on it as he offered Lin Sanjiu another smile. "Asking your guest to have a seat—this is what your species calls 'hospitality', correct?"

  Biting her lips, Lin Sanjiu dragged a chair to herself; a similarly short, brief squeal came from the action.

  Stunned, Lin Sanjiu looked at her chair before shifting her gaze to stare at the smiling face across the table.

  If her ears did not fail her, the two squeals were similar.

  'But… what could this mean?'

  Lin Sanjiu could not think it through, so she sat down at last.

  "Judging by how you said 'your species', can I assume that you are not one of us?" Lin Sanjiu looked at the man and asked, "Since you are not a human, what are you? A god?"

  The man had an ordinary but decent, near good-looking standard of appearance. But perhaps his facial features were too standard that his face appeared nondescript. He was that type of man you wouldn't be able to find him anymore once he walked into a sea of people.

  "A human is a living creature, correct?" The man shook his head. "No, by that standard, I am not."

  "You are not a living creature?" Lin Sanjiu raised her brows in concern. There were so many questions in her mind that they nearly drowned her. Before she knew it, she was barraging the man with a multitude of questions. "Then what are you? Are you a god? Then why do you look human? What's happening in Salvation of God? Where am I? What do you want from me?"

  The man looked at Lin Sanjiu quietly. He did not change his posture, and still had that smile on his face. He waited patiently until Lin Sanjiu had finished with her questioning. Only then did he open his mouth to respond flatly and steadily. "That's a lot of questions."

  There were a lot more questions Lin Sanjiu wanted to ask, but she held herself back.

  "It will take a lot of time to explain the present situation to you, and I don't see any need for that. But first, I can tell you that the word "god" does not exist here."

  Lin Sanjiu froze.

  "The concept of "god" exists only on the planet beneath our feet." The man grinned. "I suppose you have some ideas in your mind of where you are now, don't you? You are now in a different world. To be honest, all of us, including me, are surprised to see that you and that strange creature were able to survive until here. I thought you would die while burning up when you broke through the atmosphere."

  "You… you are not the elder brother?" Lin Sanjiu rose to her feet.

  "Nope," the man flatly denied, "I know who you are talking about, but unfortunately, I'm not him. However, that doesn't impede me from knowing you. I have obtained every piece of information about you from him."

  "I… Please explain that again; you've lost me."

  "Don't worry, it's fine. I don't expect you to understand anyway. The other creature—your friend, I assume—has the same problem as well. But that creature is pretty snappy. It tried to attack my colleague—I suppose that's the word, right? Or a partner at work? Anyway, it tried to attack my colleague a few times when it could not comprehend what we'd told it. You're much more sensible than it."

  'Seems like Soulsqn is getting at it again.'

  Lin Sanjiu let out a sigh and forced herself to calm down. She did not speak for a few whole minutes, but the man did not rush her. Her mind was a complete shambolic mess, and it took awhile for her to summarize everything into two questions.

  "What are you? And what do you want? I suppose it shouldn't take too long to answer these two questions, right?"

  The man remained in the same sitting posture from the moment he sat down. He did not even blink his eyes, and his smile looked like a sticker that had been plastered on his face. The only thing on his body that possibly moved was his lips. "Let me answer your second question first since the answer to that question is shorter. To put it bluntly, we don't care if you discover the secret of Salvation of God. All we seek is your information: all your information and all the knowledge that you know."

  "My information?"

  "Please don't interrupt me," the man continued to say, "as this is related to your first question. It's a bit of a hassle to answer this question, so I'm now offering you two options. First, you can surrender yourself completely to us. With that, you can access all the information about us in a flash. It's the best, most comprehensive and clearest approach. If you do not agree, I have no choice but to continue this primitive and inefficient conversation with you."

  The man suddenly stood up, causing Lin Sanjiu's heart to pick up its pace. She summoned the [Battle Item] and held it tightly in her palm.

  The man slightly tilted his head again. He stared at the air for a few seconds and smiled. "This is something new. It's different from the thing you used before. Your body is still operating based on the same system when you were on the planet below… That's interesting. You see, this is the reason why we want all your information."

  "How, how did you know—"

  "Which one do you choose?" The man ignored Lin Sanjiu's question, smiling at her.

  No matter how eager she was to know about them, there was no way she would completely "surrender" herself to them. She eyed him skeptically and made her choice. "I choose the second."

  The man sighed, although he wasn't surprised at Lin Sanjiu's choice.

  'Though he said he isn't human, I can still see shadows of human qualities in him…'

  "Well, as expected. Come, let me show you something." The man walked to the stairway then reckoned Lin Sanjiu with a finger. "Come over. Tell me what you see."

  Lin Sanjiu walked closer to him.

  "A wooden floor?"

  "How about now?"

  As the man spoke, Lin Sanjiu's eyes widened in surprise. Seawater began to fill the lower floor right before her eyes. And before she knew it, the entire lower level had been turned into an underwater world. When Lin Sanjiu looked closely, she could even see a few jellyfish bobbing up and down inside the water.

  "Is this an illusion? Or a simulation?" Lin Sanjiu retracted her gaze and turned to the man. There, she was taken aback for a second time. The man's face had become so blurred that it appeared to have been soaked in water. By the time his face became clear again, he was no longer a 'man', but instead, a woman with an equally standard appearance.

  At this moment, Lin Sanjiu was about 80% sure she dreaming.

  "This is not an illusion or a simulation." The woman gave Lin Sanjiu a dazzling smile. "We are just fortunate enough to be graced with the technology of 'coding'. This room, my appearance, and the seawater are all nothing more than a very primitive and unsophisticated atmosphere we've written for you. When you look at it at the core, you, me and even the jellyfish
in the water are essentially the same thing."

  Lin Sanjiu looked at her, a dazed look dawning on her face.

  The woman sighed.

  "Trying to make you understand the technological concept of a higher intellectual race is like asking you to explain to a gorilla the concept of quantum mechanics."

  Lin Sanjiu knew the woman wasn't being sarcastic. She was genuinely having a hard time making Lin Sanjiu understand.

  "Salvation of God is not the first civilization we ever encountered, although it was already destroyed by its indigenous species by the time we discovered it. But like all the civilizations we have seen before, the technology in Salvation of God has taken a wrong path."

  The woman frowned as she used the most straightforward and understandable way to explain to Lin Sanjiu. Perhaps it was an exhausting task to her, for she sighed every once in a while. "Physics, mathematics, and every branch of science is developed based on this foundation. Although they seem reasonable and can be used to explain some phenomenon, when that primitive technology of yours is developed to a certain extent, you will hit a plateau. At that time, the things you cannot explain will surmount the things you can."

  Lin Sanjiu wasn't a tech-savvy person, so everything just went in one ear and came out the other.

  "In fact, we discovered a long time ago that everything in the universe can be explained in one way." The woman suddenly stopped and emitted a long and weird syllable. Just when Lin Sanjiu was wondering what she was doing, the woman continued to talk. "There is no corresponding term for this word in your humans' dictionary, so it's difficult to explain it to you. But if we really have to put a term on it using vocabulary that you can understand, I guess we can say it is 'data' or 'information'."

  "Data?"

  "Try to imagine it this way. Beyond the so-called physical traits, we can digitize all matter into data. Once we come to understand the data make-up of a certain substance, we can naturally write out its code. For example, adding a wooden room or changing part of the wooden room into seawater in the data Streams Library is nothing to us. It's just coding."