Doomsday Wonderland c1-855

by N. Heller

  "A new place to call home?"

  The forlorn, monotonous wind came and went. Only the billowing sand responded by leaping into the air. The interaction between the wind and the sand continued on the odd occasion, and there seemed to be no end to it. Naturally, death was inconsequential in a place where life did not even exist, to begin with.

  Soulsqn was lurking in the distance. Suddenly, she ducked and hid in one of the sand dunes, leaving only Lin Sanjiu and Ji Shanqing sitting shoulder to shoulder in the wind.

  Lin Sanjiu looked over at the grand prize to see that his sparkling eyes resembled the flickering stars in the night sky. He still looked the same as he was in her memories. Originally, she thought the grand prize was born with a fully m.a.t.u.r.ed mind, but now it did not seem to be the case.

  Like a sprout that slowly grew into a tree, Ji Shanqing had been changing during the time when they were together. Lin Sanjiu simply did not notice it at all.

  "What do you mean?" Like always, she reached a hand out and helped him to gather his hair behind his ears.

  "What else did you think your native land was? Sis, this will be your new home," said Ji Shanqing with a smile. He snuggled up to Lin Sanjiu and continued, "Sis, you can't spend your whole life hopping from one apocalyptic world to another. The Data Stream Library is different from any other world out there. You see, even on this planet, life will surely develop and doomsday will eventually arrive. However, neither of those will ever happen in the Data Stream Library. It is a universe, a void, and it's the gap between apocalypse worlds."

  As he said, he leaned his head on Lin Sanjiu's arm. "This is the final answer if we wish to extricate ourselves from the loop."

  He was right. There would be no enemies or danger here, and they did not have to vie for the necessities and supplies they needed. There was really no better place if they really wanted to cast off the chain that bound them to the cycle.

  Lin Sanjiu remained silent for a while. It took several seconds for his words to sink in. Then, she asked through a low voice, "So, you want me to…stay here forever?"

  Frowning, the grand prize thought for a moment and shook his head, causing Lin Sanjiu to heave a sigh of relief. It went without saying that if there was an opportunity to free herself from the shackles of the doomsday, she would certainly seize it. For some unknown reason, she could not imagine herself floating in this universe with her grand prize, forever cut off from the rest of the world.

  "Not yet, Sis," the grand prize said vehemently, "The war with the Veda is still going on, and it's too dangerous for you to stay here. After the war has ended, then you…"

  The grand prize came to a sudden halt. He had always been the advisor of the team, so it took him no more than a split second to figure out that something was amiss. He narrowed his eyes and stared fixedly at Lin Sanjiu as the word tumbled from his lips, "Sis?"

  "Yeah?" Lin Sanjiu's heart gave a little start.

  "You want to live with me here." He reached out for Lin Sanjiu and grabbed her tightly with his elegant hand. The chill of his skin invaded her senses as he enunciated, "Don't you?"

  It was difficult for Lin Sanjiu to provide a description of the odd emotions that suddenly swelled in her heart. She wanted to hold him in her embrace, yet at the same time, she wanted to run away. Eventually, she returned his grip and let out a sigh.

  She did not say anything, but Ji Shanqing's muscles suddenly slackened as if he had accepted a promise from her. People were particularly credulous and easy to be beguiled about what they wanted to believe, and the situation was way more serious for those who claimed to be smart. This was because the smarter the person was, the likelier they were to actively search for details to support their views.

  "I can cook for you, and we can play games together. There's a surfeit of games from different planets loaded inside the database. You know, surfing for data in the database is just like browsing for merchandise on eBay. There are a lot of things to see, and it's fun," the grand prize chirped while grinning. His teeth were white and his red lips contrasted starkly. "There will only be two of us. We don't have to worry about a single thing, and we can do whatever we want! It's like a utopia!"

  "That sounds really nice," Lin Sanjiu mumbled as a smile unknowingly crawled upon the corner of her lips. The grand prize's words were too adamant and pleasant to be true, but somehow, she could not help but begin to picture it inside her brain.

  "Of course, it is!" Ji Shanqing smiled as he looked at the direction where the queen had disappeared to. Seeing his reaction, Lin Sanjiu snapped out of her reverie.

  She had been overwhelmed by the whole idea of the homeland that she had forgotten about Puppeteer and Soulsqn. When she thought about them, she wanted to ask the grand prize about the other people that they met, but she held her sentence back. She glanced at him, but she was not able to see through his true feelings that were well-hidden underneath his pristine and flawless profile.

  Lin Sanjiu knew her grand prize would never harm her, and she was very certain that she was the only one who possessed such a privilege. After all, considering everything that he had done inside the Data Stream Library, she was convinced that other than destroying the Veda, he was trying to get rid of Puppeteer and Soulsqn as well.

  Right now, Puppeteer posed little to no threat to him anymore. However, the terror he had brought upon him when he was still a grand prize was reason enough for the grand prize to eliminate him. Meanwhile, Soulsqn might just have been collateral damage.

  The grand prize had once explained to her that since the speed of the data exchange was exceedingly fast inside the database, although she felt like a long time had passed, it had actually only been 1.7 seconds. However, when they got out of the database, the Veda told her that they had stayed inside the database for more than 10 seconds.

  After mulling over this, she felt that this might be one of the grand prize's lies to prevent her from going out so that the Veda could get rid of Puppeteer and Soulsqn in time.

  Nevertheless, even the most intelligent futurists could not foresee all circ.u.mstances. It turned out that instead of deleting them, the Veda had thrown both Puppeteer and Soulsqn into this plane which was something the grand prize failed to envisage.

  "Can you let them go?" Lin Sanjiu pitched her voice low and asked, "They won't come here anymore. Isn't that the same?"

  This place might be the single safe haven in the doomsday, but that only applied to Lin Sanjiu. The cat doctor, Hu Changzai, Rabbit…even Qing Jiuliu might not have a chance of coming here. Then, on second thought, Lin Sanjiu thought it might be best for them not to come as something unpleasant might happen to them.

  Stunned, the grand prize turned his head over.

  Lin Sanjiu could feel his gaze boring right through her skull. The sand-laced wind buffeted her skin, numbing her senses. The grand prize sighed, but with the rustling wind that kept sliding into her ears, she could not hear him properly.

  He did not ask anything like, "Do you know something, Sister?" or "What do you mean?". He just sighed and said simply, "Okay."

  Lin Sanjiu gulped hard. She wanted to trust her grand prize but could not quite manage to do so.

  "Sis." Ji Shanqing went closer to her. His long hair c.a.r.e.s.sed her shoulder as he said, "I have to go now."

  "Huh?"

  "The barrier I set up is not going to last long." He looked skyward as a watery sheen covered his eyes as if he was suppressing some kind of feelings. "I can't let you stay here. I can promise you that this planet will be safe to stay on within this period before you are transferred away, but when can you return here?"

  Lin Sanjiu stared at him vacantly, lost for words. She pondered for a moment before replying, "I'll only be able to get a visa to the Salvation of God or the Olympics in the next two worlds." She was telling the truth.

  Nevertheless, the grand prize accepted it anyhow. After doing the math in his heart and making Lin Sanjiu promise him that she would return here after 14 months,
he nodded.

  "I really should get going now." He paused for a moment and looked in the direction where Soulsqn had gone. "Sis, which world do you want to go next? No matter what kind of world you wish to go, I can issue you a visa now."

  Chapter 711 - Boom And Voila! I’m A Millionaire!

  Ji Shanqing was gone.

  Nothing had changed since his departure. The wind continued its mission to traverse across the barren land, and the sand sprang occasionally, shrouding the entire night sky in its salmon-red blanket.

  The grand prize did honor his promise that he would keep this planet safe and out of the Veda's reach. There was no other sound aside from the rustling wind. Lin Sanjiu raised her head and looked overhead at the sky that was blue and pristine. It was hard for her to imagine that there was now a group of extraterrestrial species waging a war on a higher plane up there.

  Since her grand prize was going up against the Veda by himself, she figured it would not be wise to return to the Data Stream Library right now. In that case, she could not go back to the Salvation of God to search for the cat doctor and Hu Changzai anymore.

  After their connection with Puppeteer had been severed, both the cat doctor and Hu Changzai would have been sent to different worlds respectively if they could not find any Consular Officers in time just like her other friends. Their reunions were often aleatoric in contrast to the inevitability of them parting ways.

  Perhaps all the planets under the Veda's influence were not safe, so to save Lin Sanjiu from going round and round in this hellish universe, Ji Shanqing did not issue her a visa to either the Salvation of God or the Olympics in the end, much to her great relief.

  Thanks to the grand prize, Lin Sanjiu finally had a taste of how it felt like being wealthy. She could get any visa she wanted regardless of how valuable it was. Since the Veda had archived plenty of consular officers' data, the grand prize found that he only needed to load the ability into him like how people installed software on their computer, then he could issue a suitable visa to her.

  Even though the date for Puppeteer and Soulsqn to be transferred away was scheduled for several months later, she still requested her grand prize for three visas with a similar destination.

  "Sis."

  The image of her grand prize's hair flowing down his shoulders when he tilted his head and shoved the visas into her hand was still vividly clear in her mind.

  "Don't you remember that there's a [Salvation of God's Native Product] in your card deck?"

  Stunned, Lin Sanjiu shook her head. "What's that?"

  "Didn't you come across a god known as Gizo when you were in the Salvation of God? You retrieved one Special Item from him when you are examining his body, remember?"

  It was only then Lin Sanjiu had an a-ha moment. When she was in the Salvation of God, she did come across a god with the appearance of an old man. At that time, she retrieved the [Bloating] from his body, which upon ingestion after having attained enough Divine Power, would grant her the power to control the sand.

  Lin Sanjiu did not possess any Divine Power, and since she did not want to swallow a clump of bloating air into her own body, she had been ignoring it ever since.

  "Divine Power and abilities are what all the citizens in the Salvation of God have been vying for in order to ascend to the True God. The Veda modified the data they obtained from the posthuman's abilities and remodeled them into a variety of small articles that can be taken down at any time. Isn't that convenient? Besides, the restrictions were created by the Veda, so I can rework it whenever I want," the grand prize chirped as he smiled at his sister, "Sis, do you want to bring along a few abilities as your back-up?"

  Lin Sanjiu's eyes shone, then she suddenly realized something. How could there be the slightest possibility that the grand prize would know something that even she herself had forgotten and never told anybody about?

  Now, it seemed that the grand prize was not going to keep it a secret from her anymore. Nevertheless, on second thought, there was really nothing to be surprised about. Lin Sanjiu let out a sigh as she thought inwardly, 'I should've realized it earlier…'

  She hid emotions and asked, "Do you have the ability of a consular officer?"

  "Yes, I got that, but it will conflict with other abilities, and once it's installed, you won't be able to use any other abilities." The grand prize sighed dejectedly. "Although I can adjust the prerequisites, I don't have enough time to do so right now. I need to go soon."

  It was also due to the lack of time that he did not perform a full alteration on Lin Sanjiu. To prevent his sister from being short of supplies, the grand prize prepared a plethora of resources and organized them neatly in front of her. Some of them were his own, while the others had been created by him.

  "Sis, you still have another three days before you'll be transferred to the next world. I have already done the math for you. Since you can store 64 items in your card daily, you'll have enough time to keep all of these in your card," Ji Shanqing reminded Lin Sanjiu before leaving.

  "You must take care of yourself," said Lin Sanjiu as her heart clenched in her c.h.e.s.t, "If something bad happens and you can't control it, you must pull back and hide on a planet…"

  She did not get to finish her sentence. From the grand prize's bitter smile, she realized that the fight with the Veda was not something that could be solved in an evasive manner. Ji Shanqing then replied softly, "Don't worry, Sis. I have a winning rate of about 50% against the Veda. If they are really as rational as they claim, I'm pretty sure they'll give up soon. Only by stopping the war can they preserved themselves to the maximum extent. While giving up power and concede defeat may be difficult for humans, that is not the case for the Veda. In essence, they are just a set of data that cannot be measured by human emotions."

  "Well then, I wish for your success." Lin Sanjiu nodded as she watched her grand prize slowly disappear into the wind.

  The heap of Special Items and resources sat by her side dutifully. Lin Sanjiu's legs were stuck inside the sand. She stared at her feet for a moment, then smacked her head as she pulled her feet out from the sand and turned to Soulsqn, yelling, "Queen! You can come out now. He is gone."

  The sand dune looked like a patch of dried blood under the night sky. There was no movement at all.

  "Queen!" Lin Sanjiu yelled out again. She did not know where the flesh worm was, so she just took a shot in the dark and walked towards a random direction. Just as she was yelling for the third time, she saw some movement in a hole in front of her. Soon, Soulsqn's enormous body shot out from the sand dune, spraying sand all over Lin Sanjiu.

  "I didn't hide because I was afraid of him," the flesh worm said guiltlessly while staring at Lin Sanjiu who was buried under the sand, "I was just trying to pull Lord Puppeteer out."

  Breaking herself free from the sand, Lin Sanjiu coughed as she dusted the sand off her body. She looked at the flesh worm and said vehemently, "Then, where is he now?"

  "Erm, before that, can you answer my question first?" The flesh worm would not usually show her tendrils. However, right now, her two tendrils were rubbing against each other in front of her c.h.e.s.t, making her look like a fly. "Do you know how can I return to the Salvation of God from here?"

  "You can't go back anymore," Lin Sanjiu said with a frown, "A war is now happening in the Data Stream Library. It isn't safe to go through there."

  Stunned, Soulsqn froze stiff on the ground.

  "What?!" she shouted back, making Lin Sanjiu jump. "My, my clansmen is in the Salvation of God! No, no, no, I have to get back there. Even if there is a war going on, I have to return to my clansmen!"

  "What can you do if you return to your clansmen?" Lin Sanjiu riposted, "Your chances of producing an offspring won't increase even if you return to your clansman's side, so why don't you just forget about them and move on?"

  "Move on, your a*s!" Soulsqn retorted, swiping her tail and whipping up a gust of sand, "If it weren't for you—"

  "Hold on fi
rst. Where's Puppeteer?"

  Upon hearing that question, all the anger on Soulsqn's face abated. She went round and round on the sand, sticking out her tendrils and rubbing them again.

  "Erm, I was going to tell you about that," she said as she looked towards the hole behind them. Just as Lin Sanjiu walked two steps forward to see what the flesh worm was doing, Soulsqn's mumbling slid into her ears, "Lord Puppeteer is gone."

  "Gone?" Lin Sanjiu asked as a bad foreboding rose from her heart, "Or have you just forgotten where he was buried?"

  "No! That is impossible," Soulsqn refuted, "Lord Puppeteer is gone! There's only a puppet!"

  Chapter 712 - The Best Thing In Life Is Counting Money

  After ordering Soulsqn to pull the puppet out, Lin Sanjiu placed it next to the heap of whatnots and began examining one of it.

  The puppet was a dark-skinned male posthuman with an unknown origin. His soul had long departed, leaving only his body behind. Without a doubt, he was yet another poor soul whose life had been reaped by Puppeteer to serve as one of his puppets. Right now, since his master had severed their ties, he was merely a corpse. His two dilated gray eyes stared straight into the sky. The sand filled his nostrils, but he remained unmoving.

  "He looks somewhat familiar," Lin Sanjiu mumbled with a frown, "Where have I met him?"

  "There's nothing under the sand dune. Lord Puppeteer is gone," Soulsqn's entire body was caked with sand, and Lin Sanjiu had no idea why but she felt the flesh worm looked much more pleasant in this way. "I'm not an earthworm, why should I…"

  "I knew it!" Lin Sanjiu shouted, cutting Soulsqn's rant off. The flesh worm turned head and stared at Lin Sanjiu begrudgingly, "You just can't wait until I finish, can you? Anyway, what have you got there?"

  "I remember who he was," Lin Sanjiu said as she inspected the man even closer, "I met him at the Salvation of God before. He was with a god known as Sanduria, and Puppeteer used him to control her."

  Soulsqn had no idea about that and she was not interested in the things that they went through in the Salvation Of God. "So?"