Doomsday Wonderland c1-855

by N. Heller

  In other words, they were leaving their fate in God's hands.

  Since they had resigned themselves to fate, they felt they might as well do everything they could to the best of their abilities. As if venting his spleen, Puppeteer applied four layers of Special Items that could conceal their presence and obfuscate their enemies at a whack. He had four Special Items that provided a single effect—the realization shook Lin Sanjiu to her core as she wondered how many Special Items he had seized throughout the years of turning his enemies into puppets. Nevertheless, it was not the right time to ponder about such a trivial thing. Lin Sanjiu chased the thought out of her brain and kept walking.

  Treading in the boundless void, they soon lost track of time. They did not stop until they could no longer see any cords in their sight. The time-lag tactic was a huge success. They had successfully thrown the Veda off their trail.

  "This place is weird," the grand prize muttered, "I didn't expect it to be this large. Sis, when you told me this is the Data Streams Library, I thought it'd only be as large as a library."

  "I didn't expect it to be this large either," Lin Sanjiu said as she turned around to take in her surroundings even though everything that greeted her eyes was merely darkness.

  Although they were confident that they were not out of danger yet, it was by far the first time they could take a breather ever since they arrived there. Puppeteer closed his eyes and floated about aimlessly in the dark. Soulsqn could not stay still, so she paced back and forth while keeping a safe distance from her temporary comrades. On the other hand, Lin Sanjiu and the grand prize stayed further away from either of them. They chatted in low voices as they waited for the choker to cool down.

  Since Puppeteer was not entirely out of earshot, both of them did not talk about the thing Ji Shanqing had experienced in the Salvation of God or about his background. Hence, the only topic left was the Veda.

  They kept talking. When Lin Sanjiu mentioned the conversation she had with the Veda, the grand prize suddenly froze. He lowered his head and sank into his thoughts.

  Perplexed, Lin Sanjiu asked, "What's wrong?"

  Ji Shanqing raised his head. His brows were still tightly knitted, forming a deep cleft above his nose.

  "We may have overlooked something," the grand prize analyzed calmly, "According to what you have just said, the Veda can project and extend the cords whenever they wish. They can move near the speed of light, but it's only if they are in the cord. Otherwise, they'll have to walk slowly like us."

  "Yeah, basically." Lin Sanjiu nodded in assent.

  "If this is their world, why do they need to create such a channel like the cord?" Ji Shanqing mumbled under his breath. Then he shook his head. "No, it doesn't feel right. This is wrong. I have to think from another perspective."

  After a second or two, the grand prize lifted his head. All the colors had faded from his face.

  "Wh—what's wrong?" Lin Sanjiu was startled.

  "Come over here! Quick!" The grand prize did not reply to Lin Sanjiu and instead yelled out to Puppeteer and Soulsqn. However, the moment the words escaped his lips, the grand prize corrected himself. His forehead was moist with droplets of cold sweat. "No, no, don't come over! Everyone, spread out! Stay as far as possible from each other! We have to go now. Otherwise, it will be too late!"

  "What's the matter? What's on your mind?"

  "The cord!" the grand prize shouted nervously. When he saw Puppeteer and Soulsqn not doing as he instructed but coming nearer to him, he ran away instead. As he fled, he waved his hands and yelled as loudly as he could, "Go! Don't cl.u.s.ter together! Disperse! The cord is coming!"

  "How do you know the cord is coming?" Puppeteer asked with a raised brow. Lin Sanjiu had full faith in her grand prize. She immediately grabbed Soulsqn by the back of her neck and hurled her into the distance before running away. Like the grand prize instructed, the four of them dispersed. All of them ran in the same direction, although there was a huge gap between each of them.

  The grand prize yelled at the top of his lungs to ensure that everybody heard his voice, "Okay, listen up. It's only a matter of time before the Veda realizes that we are in the Data Stream Library. They would surely come back for us, right?"

  "Yeah, so? What is the fuss about?" Puppeteer shouted back.

  "Speed isn't the Veda's department, and this place is as huge as the universe. So there's no way they can catch up to us without using the cords. If I were the Veda, I would…

  Sometimes, life just loves to give one a surprise.

  Before Sven had finished speaking last time, the "subjects" of their conversation came. Now, the cord showed up before the grand prize even had the chance to complete his sentence.

  The moment Lin Sanjiu saw the cords, she had a eureka moment of what the grand prize was about to say.

  It was pretty simple. Imagine having a radar in your hand, and that you were now standing inside a room, looking for something. If the radar could extend indefinitely, what would you do? Naturally, ordinary people with regular senses would extend the radar and sweep it across the room.

  Now, replace the radar with the cord, and multiply the numbers by thousands. In the blink of an eye, thousands of millions of cords swept over them. Then, all those cords merged, forming multiple huge pillars of light. The area was now as bright as day.

  "Everyone, watch out!" Lin Sanjiu shouted before ducking down to evade an incoming light pillar. She pushed herself up and darted straight towards her grand prize. In any case, she had to make sure they did not get the grand prize.

  "Sis, how is the choker?" Ji Shanqing was not as agile as Lin Sanjiu. He almost got caught a few times. The light pillars were too thick, and there were too many of them. There were times they would be left with nothing more than a gap of ten-centimeters wide to maneuver around whenever two light pillars trapped them in a pincer attack.

  "Not yet! The cooling time hasn't finished yet!" Lin Sanjiu shouted herself hoarse.

  All of them rushed forward as they dodged the relentless attacks from the light pillars, but none of them had the confidence to pull this one off.

  Lin Sanjiu could not believe that after all the effort and struggles, they would still be captured by the Veda in the end.

  She suddenly raised her eyes, and it was at this moment that she saw something familiar behind the flickering light. For a moment, she thought that her mind and her eyes were playing a trick on her. However, when she looked closer, her heart could not help pounding faster.

  "Go into the wall!" she shouted as loudly as she could. The light was incredibly bright, and she could not see Ji Shanqing, Puppeteer, or Soulsqn anymore. She did not know whether or not they could hear her shout. "I'll go and blast the hole. You guys grab the chance and jump into it!"

  Lin Sanjiu couldn't care less about how or why the wall falling far behind them would suddenly appear in front of them. All she knew was that this was their only chance to survive.

  Chapter 602 - The First Day In A New World

  Lin Sanjiu vaguely remembered that she had come across this popular science article a long time ago. The report claimed that when humans were frightened or in a desperate situation, the brain would experience a disorder known as transient global amnesia. For instance, if you accidentally cut your finger, when you tried to recall the incident, all that would come into your mind was nothing but fuzzy and blurry images.

  In the same way, she had no idea how she got rid of the cord, blasted open the hole, fell along the tunnel, and finally ended up on this piece of land. She tried to think back, but there were only fragments of messy images left in her head.

  She laid on the ground for roughly 10 minutes. A dark fog clouded her vision. Her bones felt as if they were crushed. Her organs were severely damaged, and her mind so messy that she could not think straight. All she could do was lay helplessly on the ground as the pang of intense pain and darkness engulfed her whole. She huffed and puffed slowly, for she feared that she wouldn't be able to
breathe anymore should she stop respiring.

  There were muffled noises in the air. A person was saying something to her, but Lin Sanjiu couldn't hear it. After the pain had ebbed away and light returned to her eyes, a face appeared in front of her vision.

  Perhaps because they fell from high sky, the person's face was flattened and her facial features were all out of places. "You are awake."

  Lin Sanjiu opened her mouth, but no sound came out of it. She tried a few times before she finally found her voice. "S… Soulsqn?"

  Soulsqn lowered her head, causing her two ponytails and skin to slide down her face. At a glance, she looked like a human skin baggage.

  "Oh my good lord, who would've thought you could survive a fall from such a high altitude. When I was falling, I kept thinking about how lonely I would be if all of you were dead…"

  Lin Sanjiu g.r.o.a.n.e.d as she pulled herself up from the ground. The moment she moved, she felt a little punch-drunk, and her vision blurred again. She waited until the dizziness faded away before interrupting the flesh worm weakly, "Where is gran… Graham and Puppeteer? Are they here too?"

  "Nope. I didn't see them around," Soulsqn replied matter-of-factly.

  "Then… Did you see them enter the wall?" Lin Sanjiu asked. Throbbing pain crawled through her brain as she tried to recall the incident but to no avail. She couldn't remember who had followed her into the wall.

  "I'm not sure." The meat worm adjusted her skin. She patted it twice, only feeling content after moving the skin back to its original position. "I was the second to jump into the wall, so I don't know whether or not they followed us."

  "So… Where are we now?" Lin Sanjiu asked as she rubbed her temples. "Are we inside the hall?"

  However, she did not expect the kind of answer Soulsqn gave her.

  "Nope. We are in the Olympics."

  There was silence in the air.

  Moving her hand away from her temple, Lin Sanjiu stared blankly at the quasi-human face. Although she was talking in a language she was familiar with, Lin Sanjiu could not understand any words that came out of her lips. "...What did you say?"

  "I said, we are in the Olympics," Soulsqn tidied her face and hair, "Are you dumb or something?"

  "O—Olympics? We are in another apocalyptic world? B-bu-but how? It still hasn't completed the 14 months yet. How is it possible for us to be in another world?" Lin Sanjiu stammered, shooting out a barrage of questions. Then she shook her head, sensing something amiss. "Hold on a second, how did you know we are in another apocalyptic world?"

  Soulsqn pouted her lips, gesturing for Lin Sanjiu to look behind her. "Would you mind turning around? You would see the reason then."

  Lin Sanjiu turned her stiff neck around.

  As her vision got clearer, she noticed that similar to the Salvation of God, a thick layer of fog was hovering right under the dawn-stained sky. The summit of the jagged mountain ranges in the distance was shrouded in fog, appearing to be a dab of turquoise-colored stain on a white blanket. Spreading out from the foot of the mountain was a large swath of arid land where not even a blade of grass or stone could be seen. From a single glance, it seemed like a concrete floor.

  After a minute or two, all the characters floated up. They merged with the tablet to form a smooth surface before sinking again and shaping into different words. Although they were in different languages, Lin Sanjiu suspected that it was the same sentence.

  She looked in a daze at the stone tablet for a while.

  'How is this possible?' Lin Sanjiu denied inwardly. She had stayed in the Salvation of God for only seven months, eight at most. There was still roughly half a year before she would be transferred to another world. Moreover, she fell straight into this world from the metal wall in the Data Stream Library...

  'Could it be that there was another wall? One of the walls led to the Salvation of God while the destination for the other is the Olympics?

  'But what does this mean?'

  Lin Sanjiu had a severe concussion due to the heavy blow she received to her head when she fell from up there. She s.u.c.k.e.d in air to lessen the pulsating pain. The image of her grand prize entered her head with sublime clarity. If Ji Shanqing were here, he would certainly do much better than her in figuring out this mess.

  Lin Sanjiu then scanned her surroundings. There was a single unbroken, longitudinal eminence delineating the other side of the boundary. The day was dawning, but the sky was blue. She could not see anybody around.

  As she took in her surroundings, the words on the stone tablet shifted again. This time, it was no longer the same greeting message. The font had become smaller, and the passage had grown longer. Lin Sanjiu waited patiently for a while until she finally saw the language that she knew—human language.

  As her gaze hovered above the passage, it stopped shifting as if it sensed somebody reading the message carved on its body.

  "In the name of the highest god Zeus, under His divinity, the Olympic Games (Note 2) will be held all year round on this planet to perpetuate this glorious tradition of ancient Greece (Note 1). It is the most solemn festival, holy and inviolable. Therefore, we wish every contender will abide by the rules and be true to yourself during the competition. Entrants are free to choose, repeat, and participate in any games and show Zeus the power and beauty in you.

  "The game will begin at sunrise every day and end at sunset. When night falls, the game will be called off temporarily, and any hostilities are prohibited. The planet demands unquestioning obedience, and under no circ.u.mstances are the contenders allowed to break the rules. All violators will receive judgment from the planet. Contenders will be granted a day off. Nevertheless, punishment will also be handed down on any entrants who failed to join any games for three days consecutively.

  In the end, we wish nothing more than to create a harmonious atmosphere consisting of the four vital elements: honesty, equality, liberty, and fraternity. Hence, let's battle to your heart's content and present the best competition to Zeus, the highest god.

  "Note 1: Ancient Greece was a place name on a certain planet. The name of the planet is untraceable. However, there is reason to believe that it is one of the realms once ruled by Zeus.

  "Note 2: The Olympic Games, which have been passed down from Ancient Greece, were said to have been held initially to honor Zeus, the greatest god of all time. However, after a thousand years passed, the grand festival gradually died out due to earthquakes and other factors."

  It was not easy to read such a long passage. Lin Sanjiu fell silent for a few seconds to digest all the content.

  She was no stranger to a situation where she needed to follow a specific set of rules, but most of them only happened in the Pocket Dimension. Right now, the entire planet was a battlefield. This was the part that she found hardest to accept.

  Lin Sanjiu let out a breath to calm down her rumbling thoughts. Suddenly, she raised her head to look at the mountain ranges in the distance as she realized something.

  'Damn it! Isn't it already sunrise?

  'So the game is about to start? Where does it begin? What is the program? What should I do now?'

  In the blink of an eye, all sorts of questions rose like a tidal wave in her brain. She shook her head vigorously as she realized that now was not the time to think about the relationship of this world, Salvation of God, and the Veda. The stone tablet did not provide her any useful information but brought her a lot of problems instead. She waited for a little longer, clinging to the flimsy hope that it would give her more intel. When the greeting words "Welcome to the Olympics" appeared on the surface again, she tugged Soulsqn, and both of them walked away.

  "Hey, hold up. Where are you going?" Although Soulsqn did not sustain as much damage as Lin Sanjiu when falling from the wall, she wasn't in good shape either. Under Lin Sanjiu's superior strength, her skin was skewed.

  "Did you not see it? This whole damn world is a huge battleground!" Lin Sanjiu hissed as she dragged herself forward. "I don't want to
get involved in any of the games. Let's go look for Puppeteer and Graham, and then get the hell out of here!"

  Soulsqn pulled her skin and said, "But where should we find them? What if they didn't make it?"

  Biting her lips, Lin Sanjiu looked ahead at the wall in front. She took a deep breath and yelled, spreading her voice across the sky, "Puppeteer! Graham!" Soulsqn was startled by her shout.

  It was a wasted effort; nobody responded to her call.

  The grand prize had clumsy hands and feet, so she wouldn't be surprised if he didn't make it, but Puppeteer? How was there any possibility that he couldn't make it as well?

  If even Puppeteer had failed, then the grand prize…

  And, what if both of them ended up in the same spot? How long would the grand prize hold out against Puppeteer?

  Gulping down her anxiety, Lin Sanjiu tried to chase the dark thoughts out of her brain. The place she landed on was a vast landmass. Perhaps both of them had fallen into another region. After all, the wind might've carried them away when they were falling from the sky.

  Startled, both Lin Sanjiu and Soulsqn halted their steps right before the trumpet stopped as well. After a momentary stop that lasted roughly half a second, the horn rang out again. It came on and off three times straight until the wall rumbled open.

  "I will now announce the beginning of the 3,278th Olympic Games."

  A rich, deep voice resounded. Lin Sanjiu had no idea where it came from, but it seemed like the sound was coming from the white mist above. It was loud, reverberating across the entire land. "Attention to all contenders and spectators, the second stage for shot put has been changed to zone no.19. The remaining zones remain unchanged. All spectators are advised to leave immediately, and all contenders should gather at your respective zones. Should anyone wish to participate in the game, please register yourself in front of the wall."