by N. Heller
Since there was no way she could get an answer to the question, Lin Sanjiu banished the thought away and pulled herself up from the ground. She took a deep breath, her c.h.e.s.t shuddering as the air entered her lungs. Nevertheless, it did not decrease the discomfort in her vessels or her organs even by the slightest bit.
Stunned, Lin Sanjiu froze. She repeated the same procedure several times, but the result was the same. The throbbing in her brain got stronger, and she began to grow anxious as a realization dawned upon her. The proportion of oxygen in the atmosphere on this planet was too limited for a human to breath normally.
'This is bad,' she thought inwardly, 'I don't have an ability similar to the highest god, so how am I supposed to return to the Data Stream Library?'
Lin Sanjiu tried to breathe in as much oxygen as she could, although the oxygen content in the air was very minimal, and most of the time what she inhaled into her nostrils was just sand. She turned around and began to examine her surroundings. Other than a large swath of undulating salmon-red ground that stretched far into the horizon and the occasional swirls of wind that stirred the sand into the air, she did not see anything else.
'Huh?'
She caught sight of something amongst the barren land. She squinted her eyes to make out a black dot. Her heart gave a little start as she activated her [Defense Forcefield]. Then, she bolted towards the black dot.
The land was so empty that it voided the possibility of finding a blindage to hide in. It was getting even harder for her to suck the air into the lungs the moment she started sprinting. When she reached her destination and stopped, she could hear her own breathing that was sharp and erratic, but there was nothing she could do.
' I must get myself an oxygen tank as a backup when I reach the next world,' she told herself as her c.h.e.s.t heaved laboriously in the effort of catching her breath. She slowly walked up to the black dot then froze dead in her step. What she thought was a black dot had grown larger, and judging from its angularity and outline, it seemed more like a human.
Lin Sanjiu threw everything to the wind and ran a few quick steps to the black dot. When she finally had a better vision of it, she smacked her forehead and sighed inside her heart.
He was someone she knew.
There was a thin layer of sand covering the back of Hegel's bald head and his body. He seemed like he was dead for a long time.
The highest god had indeed honored his promise and beamed him to a planet on which the apocalypse would never befall. However, he did not tell him that there was no oxygen on this planet as well.
Lin Sanjiu went forward and flipped Hegel's body over. She dusted the sand off his body and began to inspect him. He had no wounds on his body, and his face looked blueish purple, a clear indication that he had died of suffocation. She then rummaged through his belongings anxiously, but she knew very well it was wasted effort. After all, if Hegel had an item that could have helped him breathe, how could he have died?
In the end, she only found a belt that was roughly an inch wide. She stuffed it into her pocket without batting an eyelid. The feeling of breathlessness had gotten into the deepest part of her brain, drugging her consciousness. She felt that once she had a slip of her concentration, the venom would certainly seize the opportunity and drag her down into a darkness that she would never wake up from again.
Lin Sanjiu sat on top of Hegel's body, her mind blank. It would not take long before she would join him and become a forlorn dead corpse in this vast, arid land. Perhaps because too many things had happened and her brain was flooded with a plethora of questions and doubts, she did not realize there was a figure lurking behind her. It was only when Mrs. Manas gave her a mental nudge that she came back to her senses and turned around to face the meaty head.
The second before she brandished her Tornado Whip, the hideous, fleshy head opened and revealed two rubbing stubs inside its mandibles. Then, Soulsqn's voice slid into her ears, "Why are you here? Did the Veda throw you here too?"
It took several seconds before Lin Sanjiu snapped out of her trance. She shouted in disbelief, "Soulsqn? Why are you here? Is that really you? I'm not having a dream, am I?"
She looked around and she saw the light, "Did the Veda do this to you?"
"Yeah, that's right," the flesh worm replied. The flesh worm looked even more miserable now as there were patches of dried blood here and there on her massive body. "When Lord Puppeteer and I fell from the sky, we stumbled upon this dead body. It's such a shame that there are no other better and more beautiful clothes for me to wear as a pouch other than him."
"Puppeteer is here too?" Lin Sanjiu felt that it was too hard for her heart to bear the combined paroxysm of astonishment, anguish, and exhilaration. "Where is he now? Is he okay? I heard from the Veda that they deleted you two…"
"That's true. They almost deleted us." Soulsqn spun around and slithered to the back. "However, the Veda themselves admitted that their biggest and only irresistible d.e.s.i.r.e is their gluttonous appetite for data. They disabled Lord Puppeteer's action module and captured me. Then, they flashed a few times, and just when I thought this would be the end for me, they gave up."
"They gave up?" She could not quite relate that word to the Veda, and she was confident that the flesh worm must have misunderstood something. Just as she frowned and fell into thought, a sentence surfaced in her mind. "The Veda told you guys that they have a gluttonous appetite for data?"
"Gluttonous" was what the grand prize used to describe the Veda earlier on.
"Yes," Soulsqn replied simply.
'This is weird.'
At that time, the grand prize was inside the database, so it was impossible for him to overhear the conversation between the Veda and Puppeteer. However, he did.
'Could the grand prize has been able to keep tabs on whatever is happening outside the whole time?'
"Then, what happens next?"
"Wasn't that freak the first one to be captured by the Veda? I reckon that after they analyzed him, they found that he sent this balding man here. Hence, they followed suit and beamed us here as well. They didn't seem to care at all whether we could survive here or not. I guess they are satisfied as long as they get our bodies," the flesh worm said, "Of course, I only figured it out when I was here since I really thought we were going to be deleted."
"It has been bugging me for some time, but can you breathe in here?"
"The Souls have developed the characteristics of an anaerobic organism. We can survive in both aerobic and anaerobic environments. You humans are too fragile."
The buzz in Lin Sanjiu's head was getting stronger due to the oxygen deprivation. Her condition was getting worse because the more she talked and moved, the more oxygen was consumed from her bloodstream.
"Come over here," Soulsqn said, and she followed her to a sand dune. "Lord Puppeteer is right under this."
Startled by Lin Sanjiu's sudden change of expression, the flesh worm asked, "Why do you suddenly look like you are going to kick the bucket soon? Lord Puppeteer could hold on for so long, so don't tell me that you can't do the same."
"Why did you bury him if he's still alive?!" Lin Sanjiu lashed out at the flesh worm. As a consequence, her vision blurred for a moment and she felt dizzy.
"Oh, can you just keep your mouth shut if you don't know anything? You are making yourself look ridiculous." Soulsqn, the queen of the Souls who had roamed the universe for a hundred years, scoffed. "Your body won't consume any oxygen if you are in thanatosis. I bet you'll come for my help later."
Lin Sanjiu felt like a heavy burden had been lifted off from her shoulders when she knew that Puppeteer was still alive. She limped onto the sand dune as the fatigue began to set in. She smiled bitterly. "I wonder why the Veda would lie to me and tell me that they deleted you guys."
Soulsqn answered her question readily, "They said if they didn't delete us, you guys wouldn't have come out from the database." The flesh worm did not realize the impact of the sentence on Lin Sa
njiu as she continued to mumble, "If Lord Puppeteer is dead, do you think I can wear him as my human pouch?"
Chapter 709 - A New Place To Call Home
The wind howled through the land, stirring up gust after gust of sand and spilling it across the dawn-tainted sky. Schools of clouds jiggled up and down on the horizon, looking like a bunch of children refusing to go home. There were no living things in sight, only an endless stretch of sand.
Then, suddenly, the sand shifted, releasing a soft, susurration in the air that chased the silence away. The vast sandy land split apart and a groove appeared just like how Moses parted the Red Sea.
A flesh worm as large as a human stood up as the wind slapped against her uncovered body and sprayed sand all over her. She craned her neck and looked out into the distance. Then, she angled her head down and slapped the unconscious person next to her several times. "Hurry! Wake up!"
The wind blew and the sand shifted again, revealing the woman who slept soundly beneath it. Her c.h.e.s.t rose and fell with labored breath, emitting a sharp and grating hissing that was accentuated by the sand particles when the air entered her windpipe and lungs.
After receiving a few slaps from the flesh worm, the woman slowly peeled her eyelids open, a dull look dawning upon her face.
"Here he is!" the flesh worm said excitedly, "You are right! He's here!"
The woman buried in sand blinked her eyes while her face was scrunched up. A tickling sensation rose up from her throat, triggering a coughing fit. She raised her hand and rubbed her face clean of sand as her groggy head struggled to regain its bearings in this unfamiliar place. After several seconds, the coughing abated, and she asked, "Where is it? How long has it been?"
The woman was none other than Lin Sanjiu.
"Six minutes," answered Soulsqn readily. She flung her tendril in a direction and continued, "Over there. Can you see the sand that was being split up?"
Lin Sanjiu's face was all red due to the deprivation of oxygen. She lifted her eyes though they looked dead, and gazed out far. The person who split the sand was fast. In the blink of an eye, the sand in front of Lin Sanjiu began to divide, receding to two sides like a torn gauze swiftly.
"Sis!" Upon hearing a familiar voice, the flesh worm quickly scurried behind Lin Sanjiu.
"Oh, thank goodness! You're still alive!" The voice rang out again.
Lin Sanjiu took in a deep breath although she knew it was useless and beamed at the voice.
The sandstorm became stronger as the night fell. A figure soon emerged from the billowing sand and reached Lin Sanjiu's side in a few quick steps. He glanced at Soulsqn before turning to Lin Sanjiu to assure in a soft voice, "Don't worry, Sis. There will be oxygen soon."
His unrestrained jet-black hair fluttered in the air, and his skin appeared exceptionally pale in contrast with the red sand and the deep blue sky. Lin Sanjiu looked at him fixedly as she nodded weakly.
As if he was performing magic, a bubble of fresh air fell into the oxygen-deprived planet, followed by a second, and then the third. More and more oxygen was diffused into the atmosphere, seeping slowly into every nook and cranny of the world. Soon enough, Lin Sanjiu felt that the tightness and the burning sensation in her c.h.e.s.t were ebbing away as the air cascaded down her lungs.
With an outstretched arm, the grand prize dusted her face and said, "Sis, how did you get thrown into here? I was terrified. I've been searching for you for a long time."
Despite him saying he had been searching for her for a long time, in fact, it had just taken him six minutes.
He managed to locate a tiny human in the vast universe after a mere six minutes.
As if he sensed the thought in her mind, the grand prize's hand froze for a brief moment. Nevertheless, he soon resumed helping her to dust the sand off her body. Both of them stared at each other in speechless dismay. The air was filled with only the sound of Soulsqn's body grating against the sand as she moved back.
The grand prize did not even spare the flesh worm a glance.
"The Veda lied to us." He retracted his hand. "Is Puppeteer still alive?"
"Yeah, he is," Lin Sanjiu answered huskily, "What a relief."
"It seems that you really care about him, Sis," commented the grand prize as he sat next to her.
Lin Sanjiu involuntarily frowned at the question. In her perception, she did not really care about Puppeteer.
"Maybe you think me as a busybody since he probably doesn't appreciate everything I have done for him," Lin Sanjiu pitched her voice low, "I just couldn't leave him alone. In my opinion, both of you are one and the same person. What you yearn for and what he has been assiduously seeking is identical."
They were both nurtured in the same warm bed that consisted of fear, humiliation, and hatred. Lin Sanjiu had no idea why, but she felt the grand prize was about to blossom into the same Black Dahlia like Puppeteer. Be that as it may, there were still some differences in them that set them apart.
Ji Shanqing was stunned for a second because he did not expect to hear such an answer from his sister. After a short while, he sighed bitterly and switched the topic.
"Sis, I won," he said softly. His eyes glittered with great merriment as if he were a child receiving a compliment from his parents. "They couldn't do anything to me. I've already gained control of the core of the Data Stream Library."
Lin Sanjiu was not surprised.
"Really?" Even though she was not astonished, she turned her head to face her grand prize eye-to-eye and her voice went up a notch. "How'd you do that?"
Ji Shanqing briefly explained the setting of the Data Stream Library, and how he made use of the data he retrieved from the database to counter the Veda to her. However, Lin Sanjiu could barely grasp those complex terminologies, metaphors, and analysis as a single thought swirled in her mind. It kept screaming at her from the back of her head and drowned out Ji Shanqing's voice.
After he finally stopped speaking, she could not help but ask, "How about the highest god?"
Ji Shanqing was stunned again. It took him several seconds before he found his voice and answered her, "The Veda has turned him into a set of data. Don't worry, Sis. After the war between the Veda and I is over, I will reactivate him."
"Okay, don't forget that." Lin Sanjiu nodded.
After all, the highest god might be the only one who could help him and accompany him in the Data Stream Library.
Tilting his head, Ji Shanqing finally realized something. His eyes glistened with a watery sheen and his cherry lips were slightly ajar, giving him the appearance of a fawn that had lost its way from its mother.
Lin Sanjiu sighed.
When they finally united in the Data Stream Library, she was so overwhelmed by the paroxysm of surprise, doubt, and joy that it hindered her ability to think straight. During that time, when the grand prize said he had the Veda's ability but lacked the data and knowledge to execute the said ability and that he had to stay out of the cord, she trusted him without thinking twice. After all, there was no reason for her not to believe him.
However, when the Veda trapped them in the Arabic city, the highest god followed every one of Ji Shanqing's orders in an unreserved manner even if it meant exposing himself to the danger. Lin Sanjiu was certain that it took more than words to persuade him to make such a huge sacrifice. In a way, he must have known that if he wanted to free himself from the control of the Veda, Ji Shanqing was his only hope.
Why?
Was it just because the grand prize's ability was stronger than his?
"The fight between you and the Veda…Will it be dangerous?" Lin Sanjiu asked as she helped to collect his hair behind his ears. Blinking his eyes, Ji Shanqing returned her affection with a smile. "No, it is not dangerous. Everything is in order. You don't have to worry about me."
'Everything is in order…?'
If he entered the cord right away after he arrived in the Data Stream Library, he would have a great opportunity to get everything he needed before the Veda
realized something. For example, he could learn how to use the counter hack program to destroy the cord and the Veda.
Along with the others, Lin Sanjiu was caught in an error of thought. Even if the grand prize entered the cord, the Veda might not find out about the grand prize if they did not initiate a full analysis on him. However, since the grand prize looked like a Veda inside out, there was no reason for them to do so.
Using a less-than-appropriate circ.u.mstance as an analogy, if a woman walked into a female washroom, the first reaction of the other women inside the washroom would never be to hold her down to check her s.e.x.u.a.lity. Furthermore, while it was easy for a man to impersonate a woman, there was nothing in the world, or perhaps the entire universe, that could perfectly imitate the Veda.
Based on that premise, the grand prize could just swagger his way into the cord and collect all the information and data that he needed to put his plan into action. Then, when he found out that Lin Sanjiu had also arrived in the Data Stream Library, he came out to meet her.
'The highest god must have known about this, mustn't he?'
"Sis." The grand prize's voice snapped Lin Sanjiu back to reality. "Did you hear what I said?"
Lin Sanjiu asked, "Pardon me. Can you repeat that?"
The grand prize laughed at Lin Sanjiu's reaction. He wanted to hold her hand, but his outstretched arm stopped mid-air, "Sis, I'm about to wage a war against the entire community of the Veda by using their own weapon. Do you know what will happen next?"
Staring at him, Lin Sanjiu did not reply.
"I'll soon be able to seize control of the Data Stream Library," continued the grand prize as he grinned, "This universe will be my territory. At that time, Sis, this will be your new homeland."
Chapter 710 - When Are You Coming Back?