by N. Heller
The moment where she regained her sight made her heave a breath of relief from the bottom of her heart. The tape recorder had fallen on the ground and was still spinning, playing her own voice. Silvan was sitting still on the ground, and along with his wounded b.a.r.e body, he looked like a statue. A soft light somehow shone in the empty space. The artist was standing a little further away from them, holding a canvas in his hands.
This time around, he drew the queen on the canvas. The canvas, seeming to have absorbed something, now looked complete. The big brain occupied half of the empty space, and on the crooked sulci of the brain was a black seam with a little bit of blue glistening; it seemed like he was portraying the wound shot by the blue light.
Lin Sanjiu could not move her gaze away from the painting.
A tiny headless body lay on the ground quietly like a thin fallen leaf.
Chapter 790 - Unexpected Reinforcement
'Healthy nutrients...
'Ah, so this is how a healthy and nutritious brain without parasites tastes like…'
While the two of them were still stunned on the spot, the queen's vast and heavy exclaims pressed against their brains.
Lin Sanjiu turned around to look at Silvan, and realized his face was pale and bitter. Everyone who was attracted to Shambhala was driven by the parasite in their brain. Meme was the first person without a parasite in his brain, yet he still fell victim to the queen.
The queen's voice sounded a bit too loud. Lin Sanjiu's mind was buzzing, and she could not hear her own voice from the recordings anymore.
'First time, the first time absorbing a brain without parasites…'
'Great, this is great. I've gotten a lot stronger so soon.'
Right after the voice subsided, the queen stopped talking and the voice in their minds stopped. The dead silence in the underground empty space was frightening.
The playback from the recorder did not play as Lin Sanjiu expected.
The two of them were both shocked at almost the exact same time. Every single movement that they performed from here on forth would have to go through a tedious fight with themselves. Lin Sanjiu paused for a while before covering the corner of her eyes with her hand to prevent any accidental glimpse of the queen. She quickly turned around for a peek; the struggle from before had thrown the recorder further away. She caught a glimpse of the tape inside the recorder, and it seemed like it had stopped spinning.
"Why isn't it making any sounds?" Silvan asked. He seemed to not know about the recorder.
"It seems like the tape is rewinding. Can you summon Caster as an alarm?"
"I can't, she's not reliable. She might be useful for a while, but as time goes on, she might start to speak gibberish that no one understands."
"Then I will have to retrieve the recorder," Lin Sanjiu answered in a hurry. As she spoke, she felt that her memories were starting to fade. She realized the two of them were forced into a desperate situation.
"It can't work anymore?" Silvan pressed his temples and asked with a slight tilt of his head.
"Almost there. I don't know if it is the parasite in my brain affecting my activities, but I think the duration of my memories is getting shorter and shorter. I have to—" she said with a sigh.
"No, hold on for a second," Silvan whispered to stop her. He looked at the artist before signalling to Lin Sanjiu. She immediately understood his sign and nodded at the artist. The humanoid Special Item quickly sat down and took a blank canvas from his arms. He sat slightly off center and allowed the two of them to see what he was drawing on the canvas in real-time.
When the brush started to stroke across the canvas, Lin Sanjiu suddenly gasped. The man with the golden hair asked in a whisper, "What's wrong? Are you starting to forget again?"
He did not get an answer. A few seconds later, Lin Sanjiu looked up slowly, her gaze seeming disorderly. She opened her mouth, but before the words could escape, Silvan interrupted her. "Don't move, listen to me!"
She forcefully stopped her twisting neck and looked at his furrowed brows.
Silvan's voice was clear and heavy as he explained the situation at hand to her in the briefest way possible.
"Got it? Great." He pointed at the tape recorder further away. "When you go and retrieve your recorder, pay attention to the movement of the queen on the canvas. I will start to jog your memories."
What if he himself forgot in the process of reminding her?
It was obviously not the best time to discuss that. Lin Sanjiu suppressed her doubts, fixed her gaze on the canvas, and dashed towards the tape recorder. On the canvas, the drawing with the most paint was the queen. Its brain occupied more than half of the empty space, but its dark maroon-colored flesh was still expanding with the artist's strokes. It was almost touching the two little figures in front of it.
She had been through a lot of doomsday worlds but it was the first time she encountered a situation where she could not even look at her enemy, form any thoughts of attacking or battles, or even launch a tornado behind her. The queen's body was too big for the [Unfinished Painting] to suck it away. Silvan's Special Item required him to pay a price with his own body for it to be used. The most constraining problem, however, was that her memories would fade at any moment.
Nevertheless, the situation was not the worst, for at least the queen did not release those purplish-black worms and suck the two of them into the crevice of its shell.
Was there really any way to win this?
She grabbed the tape recorder and tapped the rewind button before turning and dashing back. When Silvan strode to her and grabbed her by the arm, Lin Sanjiu looked at him absent-mindedly. "W-What's wrong?"
"12 seconds." Upon closer look, his forehead was covered with sweat, and several drops rolled down his golden hair, glistening lightly. This time around, Silvan was quick and anxious with his explanation, as if he was being chased by something. Right after his voice subsided, he covered his forehead and gasped with clenched teeth.
It was his turn to forget.
Every reminder left a faint impression in their minds, but the impression would get shallower and blurrier time after time. Compared to when Meme was still alive, Lin Sanjiu's memories had deteriorated at a terrifying level.
The window for them to make a move was rapidly closing.
"12 seconds? I think it took you around 6 to 7 seconds to remind me," Silvan said with a pant as he pressed his fingers against his forehead.
"It's more or less that amount of time. We must remain definite on a tactic before the next recovery of our memories. Otherwise, if this exacerbates before we even finish listening to the recording, we might already forget about it." Lin Sanjiu sighed with frustration, and because she was fighting with her own consciousness, she grew impatient.
Fortunately, the timing of them losing their memories was different, so they were able to watch each other's backs and stop each other from looking backwards. When Lin Sanjiu was reminded of her memories again, the artist finally completed his drawing. A pile of mud flew up from underneath his feet and splashed on the canvas, filling the last part of the painting. The two of them glanced at the painting and were rendered speechless.
Outside the area of mud on the canvas, a giant maroon-colored brain with a suffocating presence was close behind them, and the dark crevice was facing them from the shadows. Nothing but a thin line was used to portray Meme's slim body.
Judging from how vivid the painting was, they were only an arm's length away from the crevice on the queen.
The two of them stopped in the shadows cast by the equipment box. Before they could even release a full breath, Lin Sanjiu lost her memories again.
The parasite in her brain seemed to be acting a lot more vicious after repeated resistance from her. This time, when she was in the absent-minded state, there was a moment where she thought she had just parted ways with Soulsqn and the grand prize, and had just come out of the Data Stream Library.
"...Can you remember?" a familiar v
oice asked in her ears.
Lin Sanjiu blinked blankly. She suddenly grabbed his arm. "I think I might have a way to fight the queen!"
"What?"
"Even if I remembered this method earlier, we couldn't use it anyway… Give me all your weapons and I want you to repeat a single ability description back to me," she said in a hurry.
Silvan did not hesitate as he took all the auction items from the Munitions Factory and placed them on the ground, almost amounting them to a man's height.
"The situation is a little bit different, so I don't know whether it will work or not, but we have to try!" Lin Sanjiu walked closer to Silvan, and before she lost her memories again, she told him everything he needed to know in one go. Silvan was obviously shocked. He looked at Lin Sanjiu, whose eyes slowly went out of focus. There were a few seconds of silence after that.
"So you know that person? You have the ability to transform dead bodies into puppets and make them attack… which is the early ability of Puppeteer," he said grimly. Maybe because he realized what was going to happen, his voice shook.
Pygmalion Choker had a five minutes effective duration, which was already too long for Lin Sanjiu's pitiful memory. Silvan touched her neck and paused a few seconds on the strap. He nodded and said, "You want to transform Meme's headless body into a puppet, equip him with weapons, and attack the queen."
When she realized the situation, a trembling mutter came from her throat, "Puppeteers never had headless puppets, so..."
"So all we can do is pray that it doesn't work like a human, where it relies on the head to move." Silvan chimed in, his voice hoarse like rough wind and sounded distant and blur.
Lin Sanjiu shut her eyes tightly. She did not know how many seconds she had left before she lost her memories again. She heard organized footsteps, coming close from afar and slowly walking towards the equipment box. After what seemed like a century, yet also a breath's time away, the footsteps arrived beside the two of them.
She slowly opened her eyes and saw a thin, scrawny body. There was no head on its shoulders, the cut was messily covered by skin and clothes, and it looked eerie and dark, and did not feel real at all.
The headless Meme walked as he used to when he was still alive. He bent over and selected a black combat bag from the hill of weapons.
It was exactly like the combat bag Silvan gave him earlier.
Chapter 791 - A Desperate Situation Call For Desperate Measures
Without a head, it was difficult to associate the thin body to a human. Even though it walked away on its legs, missing a head, Meme's body seemed to be in the process of adapting to the lighter weight and balance.
Lin Sanjiu watched him go further away and unconsciously rubbed her eyes. She did not know if it was her mistake, but Meme seemed to cross a great distance in the blink of an eye, disappearing beyond the equipment box.
Before she accepted the doubts in her heart, Silvan spoke, "The hippocampus doesn't just regulate memories, but also helps us position ourselves and recognize directions. Are you starting to have spatial illusions?"
Lin Sanjiu did not mention the hippocampus in the tape recording, so Silvan must have come up with the result after grasping the situation.
Right after his voice subsided, gunshots came from behind them, tearing the dead silence to pieces. Following the wails of the queen, the ground trembled again. Muzzle flashes shone across the empty space, shaking the shadows in the area.
"You too?"
"My vision got tricked for a second, but it returned to normal. I guess our hippocampuses aren't too heavily damaged.
"This can't go on. If Meme gets s.u.c.k.e.d in again and we can't even discern positions, then…" Lin Sanjiu quickly steadied her body and ordered the artist to draw the fight that was happening behind them.
'I cannot suffer any damage now!'
The queen's voice quivered in her mind and interrupted her. 'Now? What's so special about it?' Right after the question arose in her mind, Lin Sanjiu's memory went blank again.
When she recovered her memories, Silvan tapped her shoulder and pointed towards half of the canvas in front of them.
A headless figure fired guns, forcing the big maroon brain further back. A crevice opened upon its body and endless waves of purplish-black worms gushed out. As they listened closely, a concentrated rustling gushed towards them like a tide.
"Strange, why is the queen letting them out now?" Silvan asked softly.
Lin Sanjiu was perplexed for a moment then immediately understood his doubt. The purplish-black worms might be dangerous to humans, but to a headless body, they were not threatening at all. Even if the body was s.u.c.k.e.d dry, a controlled puppet would still be able to carry the guns and fire them.
The gunshots oscillated their eardrums and the muzzle flashes shook before their sight, never pausing. It was obvious that the purplish-black worms did not affect Meme at all. The rustling from the crawling got clearer, sounding as if it was everywhere. She lifted her head for a glance and said loudly, "They're not going for Meme!"
Both on the canvas and the scene before their eyes, the waves of wriggling purplish-black tides crawled up the walls of the empty space. In the blink of an eye, the entire space was dyed purplish-black as if freshly painted.
"They are crawling to the surface. The queen might be going after those on the surface who still haven't gotten their brains s.u.c.k.e.d out, but why would it be in such a hurry to replenish nutrients now?" Silvan muttered, looking up.
The brain was withstanding a storm-like attack. On the canvas, it appeared to be heavily injured, the outer softshell even having shed off a lot. No matter what, the queen's priority would be dealing with them and Meme.
"No matter what, we must stop the worms." Lin Sanjiu immediately summoned the [Tornado Whip].
Even though they lost their memories in the process, the two of them did not stop attacking. Whenever one of them did not understand what was happening amid their absent-minded state, when he or she saw the other still fighting, it would be a good enough reason for them to continue fighting.
With their cooperation, the purple-black worms could barely stick to the wall. Wave after wave, they fell down, and the wall was soon freed of their occupancy.
'Nutrients! My nutrients!'
The queen's burdensome voice sounded heavier, a silent tremble shaking them mentally, and it even started to hurt their minds.
'I will not be interrupted at this crucial moment!'
The scream of the previous sentence was heavy and loud, and almost snapped Lin Sanjiu's nerves. Stars flickered before her eyes, and they only faded away a few seconds later. She shook her head and raised her eyes, fixating her gaze precisely on the artist.
The humanoid Special Item could not speak. He was unfolding a painting in front of his c.h.e.s.t; who knew how long he had been maintaining the posture. Lin Sanjiu glanced at the painting and turned back.
"Look! In the painting, does the queen have something extra on its body?" she said softly.
On the canvas, beneath Meme's headless body was a thick layer of dead purplish-black worms. It seemed like the queen did not forget attacking him. Meme swapped for a new weapon, and the shots fired like countless sharp teeth, gorging a large area of the maroon external shell into shreds, but what caught her attention was the several white lines on top of the queen's body.
She quickly spared a glance at the previous painting, which was on the ground. It did not show white lines on the queen's body.
The white lines were in pairs, and there were around four to five of them. She could not tell what they were from looking at the painting, all she saw was that the white lines were extending into the air through various angles and directions, except towards where Meme was.
"What are those? They look as if they are trying to climb up?" she said faintly with surprise.
The queen said something about a crucial moment, what could the moment be? What did the white lines have to do with the crucial moment?<
br />
As doubts rose in their minds, the empty space slowly quieted down. Other than some worms that they missed that made it to the dome ceiling, most of the purplish-black worms were swept clean. Strangely, the queen did not recall the worms, but allowed them to fall on the ground, piling up into an expanse of a mushy meat swamp.
In the final few minutes of Meme's life on this earth as a puppet, he continued firing the guns at the queen. The weapon he was using had to be reloaded constantly, hence the firing would pause at intervals before continuing.
Gunshots and blasts echoed away in the empty space. For a moment there, it felt like only the headless boy was left in his unwavering battle.
Once the duration of the [Pygmalion Choker] was up, he would welcome his true end, falling down to the ground to become a real corpse.
"Why isn't it doing anything?" Silvan asked, furrowing his brows.
"I have a feeling that this situation happened before. This bad feeling, it's… familiar," Lin Sanjiu answered while rubbing her temples.
"Tell your artist to draw again. Let's find out what is happening behind us."
The artist quickly presented a new painting. He probably assumed that his master and Silvan were close, as he did not even need an order from Lin Sanjiu to start. This time around, other than the white lines getting longer and the queen retreating further away, there was not much of a difference from the previous painting.
After a few more pauses, Meme's gunshots stopped completely. Silvan looked baffled but did not say anything. He turned around and went silent as he fixed his gaze on the new painting.
Lin Sanjiu gulped, moistening her throat, which was so dry it could smoke up. They had only been in Shambhala for half a day's time, yet it felt as if they had spent half their lives here. Before she recorded her voice to get prepared for the next memory loss, she looked up and listened carefully.
Above the empty space, there seemed to be a shallow but rhythmic noise.
She glanced at Silvan. His gaze was fixed on the canvas; perhaps he was too focused that he did not hear it. Lin Sanjiu slowly straightened her body and summoned [Tornado Whip] into her hand. She stared into the darkness in front of her.