Doomsday Wonderland c1-855

by N. Heller

  Although both Soulsqn and the Veda could create "reality", fundamentally, they were different.

  For example, when the Veda created an apple, everybody could see, touch or even taste it. The apple truly existed before it was deleted. However, that wasn't the case for Soulsqn's reality. She could only erect a "reality" for a particular group of people. Only the target in her reality could see, touch, or taste the apple; as for the people who did not fall into her ability, the apple did not exist.

  This was also the reason why Soulsqn could escape from the clutches of the Veda again and again. As long as she trapped her pursuer in a reality that contained another her, the Veda could not locate the real one.

  The best part was that even though the Veda had recorded and analyzed her ability, it did not affect Soulsqn much. For the Veda, all the realities she created were real. It was irrelevant to her battle parameters, and she could create however many she wanted.

  In the end, Soulsqn had become the only "person" who had not been analyzed by the Veda.

  After she finished gloating her ability, Soulsqn did not receive the feedback she'd anticipated from the two humans.

  "Damn it!" There was a moment of silence until Lin Sanjiu cursed aloud. She took a deep breath, turned away from the flesh worm, and looked at Puppeteer, asking, "What should we do?"

  "We must leave now," Puppeteer nodded with his chin at the flesh worm and said coolly, "Make sure your ability is on standby. The moment a cord comes near us, you must create a reality to distract it."

  Soulsqn looked at Lin Sanjiu and Puppeteer with a dazed expression on her face, unable to comprehend what was going on. Suddenly, her body was lifted from the ground, and when she looked ahead, she saw that a black hole had appeared at the void in front.

  "Wait, wait, wait, wait!" the flesh worm yelled, wriggling with all her might. "Why do the two of you look so sulky? With my ability, they cannot harm us. Don't you think this is—"

  Lin Sanjiu shoved Soulsqn into the black hole without making any comment. The latter's body squelched as she fit through the hole.

  The black hole could open a portal within a certain range. Only when the two humans and worm came out of the other end of the black hole did Soulsqn finish her sentence, "—a good thing?"

  Grasping the worm in her hand, Lin Sanjiu opened another black hole without saying a word.

  The Veda had analyzed all of Lin Sanjiu's abilities and Special Items. The only thing she could rely on right now was the [Pygmalion Choker]. This implied that they had only five minutes to find the metal plate and escape from the Veda's pursuit.

  They had leaped through the black hole four times straight, yet the metal plate was still nowhere to be seen. Every time they showed themselves from a black hole, the cords, which had been quiescent, would come alive, quickly homing in on them like a bunch of sharks that smelled blood, and flood the area with blinding light.

  Soulsqn dared not to yell at Puppeteer, so she could only bl.u.s.ter at Lin Sanjiu. "This is a good thing. Why do you look as if your mother died? Hey, don't ignore me, say something!"

  Lin Sanjiu pinched her skin and said through gritted teeth, "They got both of us's information. And my mother is deceased."

  "Oh, my," Soulsqn exclaimed, half surprised and half-amused by what she had heard, "Unbelievable. You two are so wea— Oh, well… I mean, that is so unfortunate, Lord Puppeteer."

  The second half of the sentence was said only to Puppeteer.

  Lin Sanjiu raised one of her eyebrows and harrumphed. "So your ability is useless now."

  "What do you mean? It has nothing to do with me. After all, it's you two that lost—" Soulsqn did not finish her sentence as understanding dawned upon her. Her body became frozen stiff as Lin Sanjiu hurled her into the sixth black hole.

  She yelled in rage the moment she slipped out of the black hole.

  "You exposed the secret of cracking my ability to them?" Soulsqn's body convulsed with anger as it became redder and redder. "How—How could you—"

  "Quit yapping like an annoying fly. Blame yourself for developing such a chickenshit ability," Puppeteer snapped, the glitter powder around his eyes sparkling grimly. "You should be grateful that we didn't choose to call you a worthless piece of shit."

  Soulsqn immediately fell silent.

  She would never argue with Puppeteer, as the last thing she wanted was to enrage him. After all, there was a patch of plastic on her back.

  "The amount of information containing both of our combat parameters should be tremendous," Lin Sanjiu said as she opened up another black hole. The cords were gaining speed, and the number of their pursuers was snowballing. "You can probably escape from them because they still don't know that we know how to nullify your ability. Hence, the three of us must form a united front. If anything goes sideways, you have to use your ability to create a reality to help us escape."

  The moment Lin Sanjiu finished speaking, the three of them came out of another black hole. Soulsqn seized the opportunity and hastily asked, "What if they use your method against my reality?"

  "Don't worry. Nobody else knows more about our abilities than we do. We will help you."

  That said, Lin Sanjiu was not confident in what she should do. Putting everything aside, there was nothing she could do if the Veda pulled out a [Nostradamus Card] to absorb Soulsqn's reality. She knew exactly how powerful and dangerous her abilities were, and she had never expected that one day, she would have to go against herself.

  After a short rumination, she added, "However, it'd be best if we could get to the metal plate before the Veda get to us."

  Without waiting for her voice to settle down, Lin Sanjiu summoned another black hole and jumped into it. At the same time, the void around them once again lit up by a blanket of shimmering cords.

  Lin Sanjiu got the black hole idea from Gong Daoyi. Gong Daoyi had a Special Item called [Wormhole], which granted the user the ability to travel between two points in spacetime in the shortest passageway. Lin Sanjiu could not replicate the full power of the Special Item, and she could only open up a portal within a certain radius. Hence, she had to jump around and try her luck in finding the location of the metal plate. Of course, it went without saying that she did not tell Puppeteer about the origin of this ability.

  Just when Lin Sanjiu was about to jump out of the black hole, Puppeteer grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. Shocked, Lin Sanjiu raised her head to see that a cord was floating right in front of her. She would have jumped straight into it if Puppeteer hadn't stopped her in the nick of time. Lin Sanjiu immediately opened up another black hole, and the three of them jumped into it.

  Perhaps Lady Luck decided to smile upon her. When the duration of the choker reached the fourth minute, they finally saw their destination—the large metal plate—hovering far away in the middle of the air.

  However, the Veda seemed to have realized their intention.

  Right at the moment they spotted the metal plate, the Veda showed up as well. As if somebody had knocked over a bucket of white paint, the silvery-white light intertwined and spread out, forming a white-colored barrier that obscured the metal wall in the blink of an eye.

  The two humans and one worm couldn't do anything but stare in a trance.

  Their surroundings were filled with so much light that Lin Sanjiu had to shield her eyes with her hands. She turned her head over her shoulder to look at Puppeteer and Soulsqn, and softly said, "So?"

  "There. I can see a slit between the white light and the metal wall," Puppeteer said in a hushed voice, "It's worth a shot."

  Soulsqn did not say anything. She went closer to Lin Sanjiu.

  "Okay, on my command. As soon as I open up a black hole, jump into it!" Lin Sanjiu's voice hardly died down before she grabbed Soulsqn and leaped into the black hole with Puppeteer.

  The blanket of cords glowed to an intense white hue. It swirled and pulsated for a while before disassembling into strands of white cords. Unfortunately, the metal wall was empt
y; nobody was standing there.

  Puppeteer, Lin Sanjiu, and Soulsqn had escaped.

  Chapter 595 - Come, Pick A Side

  The white light pulsated with great brilliance again and again until darkness returned to claim sovereignty over the area and restore the quietude. The light curtain that formed in pursuit of the fugitives scattered, and the cords returned to their usual spots, filling up the endless space.

  They looked so still as if they had not moved in a thousand years.

  The boundless metal wall was no longer the focus of attention. It hovered right behind them, staring at the void with rows of circular holes on its surface that looked like its eyes.

  There were many "eyes" staring at them, and their surroundings were swarmed with the white cords. One wrong step, and it would be game over. Set against such a situation, even Lin Sanjiu, a veteran who had traveled to many apocalyptic worlds, couldn't help but feel despair.

  That's right, she was still in the Data Stream Library.

  But she wasn't alone. Puppeteer and Soulsqn were walking next to her. The three of them were now moving slowly and steadily towards the metal wall.

  Their movements were sluggish and slow, as they had to weave their way through the dense layer of cords. Nevertheless, after passing through layer after layer of cords unnoticed, they got closer to their destination.

  "I… I… I'm going to die. How far do we still have left to go?" Soulsqn sibilated, shattering the silence. She was being carried by Lin Sanjiu on her back, looking like a dead cylindrical-shaped piece of flesh if she did not speak.

  "How long can you keep your ability up?" Lin Sanjiu asked in an urgent whisper.

  "I'm exhausted!" Soulsqn snapped. "This ability draws power from my flesh. Look at me! Look at what I have become!"

  "But you're doing a good job. Without you, we could never pull this off," Lin Sanjiu controlled her impatience and complimented Soulsqn, "Just hold on for a bit longer."

  "My strength and power are limited," Soulsqn remonstrated coolly, and the susurration she made when she rubbed her mandibles was getting weaker each time, sounding like a strand of thread that was on the verge of breaking. "I can't any promise of how long I can keep it up. You better be quick."

  They wouldn't be in such a tight spot if they could storm straight to the metal wall. The remaining distance was short, but it was heavily colonized by the cords. Every few steps they would stop and change their course so as to keep at least two meters away from the cords. Lin Sanjiu was fine with the inconvenience, but that didn't hold true for Puppeteer. His countenance was dark, his mouth set grim and tight. Clearly, nobody had given him so much trouble ever since he had gained his fame.

  "I understand. When we're outside, I promise I'll bring you to Nüwa." Lin Sanjiu pressed on to persuade Soulsqn. "Think about the Souls. Think about the future of your race and the cute faces of little Souls. Can you picture that? All of that will never happen if we—if you—fail to escape from here. Hence, in order to grab that bright future for your clan, you have to pull yourself together until we reach the wall!"

  Lin Sanjiu was genuinely amazed by how much potential Soulsqn could unleash in order to realize her ambition of propagating her species.

  Lin Sanjiu had merely paid lip service to Soulsqn, but the latter took it for real. She fired up with enthusiasm, surprising Lin Sanjiu that Soulsqn could hold up her "reality," albeit with a little difficulty, until they reached the wall.

  Lin Sanjiu heaved out a sigh of relief.

  The "reality" on them right now was the second effect Soulsqn had enacted on the Veda: You can't see the real us.

  The first effect was: In your eyes, the three of us have already escaped through the hole in the metal wall.

  In other words, everything that transpired at the metal wall half an hour ago only happened inside the Veda's mind, while in reality, the real Lin Sanjiu, Puppeteer, and Soulsqn hid in the shadows of the void, waiting anxiously for the cords to go away.

  It was only a matter of time before the Veda realized they could use Puppeteer or her own ability to nullify Soulsqn's reality. The last thing Lin Sanjiu wanted was to wait until the time she had to face off against her own ability. Thus, after grabbing the flimsy opportunity to have a quick discussion as they jumped into the black hole, the three of them realized that there wasn't much time left for them.

  They decided to make the first move.

  As the trio continued to emerge and disappear into the black hole, perhaps not even the Veda realized that what they were seeing right now was, in fact, Soulsqn's reality. She had trapped the Veda in a loop where they kept seeing them rushing in and out of the black hole.

  Releasing two large-scale realities consecutively had put a lot of burden on the flesh worm. When she saw the metal wall, Soulsqn couldn't help but w.h.i.n.e as she rolled herself down from Lin Sanjiu's back. "Finally! As long as I get out there, I'll be saved!"

  On the other side, Puppeteer emitted a soft, cold laugh. "I hope there will be more people welcoming us outside than I think."

  Lin Sanjiu opened her mouth a few times, but she couldn't spit out the words. She shut her lips tight, blasted the hole bigger, and crawled into it first.

  Her two temporary allies hankered after the people sleeping outside. Soulsqn merely wanted to find herself a fresh, new human skin, but Puppeteer, the hatred-fueled man who would pay anybody that offended him tenfold, Lin Sanjiu was confident that he would turn every living person outside into his puppet.

  'Is it right or wrong if I allow them to do as they please?'

  Lin Sanjiu was never a person who would take an innocent life, but strangely, she didn't feel anything even though she knew that the two people were going to commit homicide. Lin Sanjiu wondered why she didn't feel anything.

  As they moved down the tunnel, the dim light from the other side of the tunnel grew larger and brighter. The spacious hall filled with many human bodies was within their reach.

  Suddenly, Lin Sanjiu, who had been troubled by her thoughts the whole way, came to a halt, causing the two people behind her to bump into each other.

  At the end of the line, Soulsqn grunted disapprovingly.

  All of them pricked up their ears and listened. Then, a series of footsteps wafted into their ears.

  There was somebody in the hall, but that shouldn't be, as Lin Sanjiu had never seen anybody walking around aside from the Veda. Perhaps they had "worn" somebody outside and was now walking, using the person's legs?

  Lin Sanjiu had no idea why, but she somehow felt that the person was nervous, as he or she wouldn't stop pacing here and there. The lonely footfalls came sporadically. Sometimes they were far and sometimes they were near. It was as if the person was going around in a circle in the hall. Lin Sanjiu did not dare to go any further. The tunnel was too packed, requiring her to use her ability to blast it wider to fit her in. However, if she did that, the explosion would certainly give their location away.

  As she was trapped in a dilemma, somebody patted her shoulder, and she turned around. The first thing that welcomed her was the gush of an aromatic fragrance that filled her nostrils.

  Any noise they made at this point would be amplified and spread out by the metal wall. Thus, Puppeteer had no choice but to come very close to Lin Sanjiu if he wanted to talk to her.

  "Perhaps the Veda is trying to bottleneck us," whispered Puppeteer. His lukewarm breath tickled her ear. "Can you still use your black hole?"

  Lin Sanjiu was stunned.

  It would be another 22 hours before she could use the choker, but it was possible to pull the same trick again. Her inspiration in itself came from a Special Item owned by Gong Daoyi, [Wormhole], and right now, she had something in her hand that could mimic the item.

  After a dozen attempts, Lin Sanjiu held the mimicked [Wormhole] in her hand and heaved a sigh.

  Apparently, the mimicked wormhole could only open a portal inside the hall. Lin Sanjiu pricked up her ears again to catch the person's footsteps. A
fter she had confirmed the person's direction amongst the echoes, she made a prompt decision and opened up a portal far behind the person.

  Then, they stealthily leaped into the wormhole.

  "Don't alert him when we're outside," Lin Sanjiu said to Puppeteer in a whisper. "It's still unclear as to whether he is an enemy or not, so don't do anything rash."

  "Alright, alright, just get the hell out," Puppeteer spoke brusquely and pushed her out of the wormhole.

  Like a cat falling from a roof, Lin Sanjiu tightened up her muscles to regain her balance. She landed on the floor with feline grace, the click of her toes barely making any sound. Right after she got to her feet, she raised her head and looked ahead.

  It was actually a rare situation for Puppeteer and Soulsqn to listen to Lin Sanjiu for once. They tiptoed out of the wormhole, trying their best to make as little noise as possible. However, their efforts were thwarted by Lin Sanjiu—the one who told them not to do anything rash—as she yelled out loud, "Gra—"

  Puppeteer raised his brows and looked at Lin Sanjiu, who, upon receiving his gaze, swiftly changed her words, "Graham!"

  The person across the hall, who had a head of long hair that dr.a.p.ed over his shoulders, turned around abruptly. From afar, they could see his dark hair and fair skin, pure and untainted.

  Who could he be if he wasn't her grand prize?

  Chapter 596 - Grand Prize Or Veda

  Half of the human bodies on the floor were shrouded in the dark. The area was so quiet that they could hear the sound of their breathing. Row after row of human bodies lay on the floor in an orderly manner, stretching far to the further end of the hall. The rows became dimmer and dimmer until they merged entirely into the shadows where the figure was standing.

  "Sis?" the figure muttered, but none of them could hear him well, as he was far away, and his voice was dampened by the echo. It seemed like he was equally shocked. He took a few tentative steps ahead. As he got closer to them, he became more visible. They could see his pair of pure and pristine eyes glistening in the dark.