Doomsday Wonderland c1-855

by N. Heller

  "What happened?" somebody muttered, "The last thing I remember is that Old Greg had a car accident."

  "Why are we all standing here in the middle of the night?" Another man glanced at Lin Sanjiu and then asked his companions, "What are we doing here?"

  Setting her jaw tight, Lin Sanjiu had a full grasp over the entire incident.

  Apparently, all of them were put under some kind of hypnosis whereby they would react violently when they remembered they had seen Ryuji or Ryuji's [Mask] somewhere. So, in other words, as long as she was not wearing Ryuji's [Mask], then it would not trigger the hypnosis.

  However, there was something Lin Sanjiu could not fathom. Why would they choose these people with mediocre combat capability as their specimens? Why did they not pick someone more powerful? Was it because it was harder to hypnotize a stronger person compared to a weak person?

  Seizing the chance as the drivers were all absorbed in their own conversation, Lin Sanjiu jumped down from the vehicle and went into an alley stealthily. Using the darkness in the alley to cloak her movement, she sped all the way down in her top speed. Even though they called out to her after realizing she was gone, she paid them no mind and soon vanished out of their sight.

  By the time she arrived at the Lost Dog's Pod Hotel, it was already 3 o'clock in the wee hours. Looking from a distance, the dingy and dilapidated building looked nothing like a hotel. As she went nearer to the hotel, she saw light spilling out from the main entrance.

  The dark-skinned woman who was dressed gorgeously sat beside the entrance, still looking as energetic as before. As she watched a crystal ball in front of her intently, she shoved a handful of snacks into her mouth. When she heard somebody open the door, she spoke without raising her head, "Twenty Rondos for one night. I don't accept payment on credit."

  "What are you watching?"

  Startled, Dali angled her head up and a smile broke across her face. "Yo, what brings you here today?"

  Without waiting for Lin Sanjiu to say anything, she continued energetically, "Someone brought a TV series back from an apocalyptic world. The storyline is pretty good, but their aesthetics, hmm, how shall I put it? It's a little weird. By the way, are you staying in tonight?"

  The apprehension Lin Sanjiu felt earlier on slowly ebbed away when she saw Dali. She turned around but saw no one on the corridor behind the reception desk. "I came to look for a friend of mine."

  Considering her previous history, Dali immediately became skeptical. She asked, "A friend? Really? You'd better not cause any trouble to me."

  Dali would not stop talking when it was related to her hotel. Nonetheless, Lin Sanjiu did not stop her from rambling and looked over at the crystal ball.

  The couple in the crystal ball was having an affectionate moment. The male lead actor was sharing a kiss with the female lead actor. It should have been a lovely scene, were it not for the appearance of both lead actors. The world that produced this TV series must have a rather bizarre sense of beauty.

  Even though Lin Sanjiu knew that now was not the right timing to get held up by such a small thing, she still could not help but be absorbed by the crystal ball. A massive mole was sitting in the center of the male lead's face. There were several hairs growing on it, and they kept rubbing the female lead's face as they kissed. The image from the crystal ball flickered on and off. By the time it became clear again, the female lead actor had already opened her pair of beady eyes. She gazed at the mole affectionately as a smile spread across her face, revealing a row of yellow-stained teeth.

  "See?" Dali cast a surreptitious glance at Lin Sanjiu before turning back to the crystal ball. "If it weren't for the plot, nobody would watch this kind of thing."

  "Is this a television?"

  "Well, sort of," Dali said as she patted the crystal ball and the image returned to normal again. "Although the quality is mediocre, it's much more cost-effective than a TV. A new TV set with a satellite antenna would probably cost you a fortune."

  Lin Sanjiu gave an indifferent answer before saying, "Well, I'm going to look for my friend now. Enjoy your movie."

  Dali turned back to the crystal ball and waved her hand. Her free hand then moved towards the telephone. It probably was one of the legacies from the modern days. It looked just like the landline Lin Sanjiu had used when she was a child. The telephone looked shabby with the paint mottled.

  Ryuji's room was in the innermost of the hotel. Just when Lin Sanjiu turned around the corner, the two actors surfaced in her head. Their kissing scene was slowed down by ten times, giving her a better view of how the hairs on the male actor's face rubbed against the female actor's face that was marred with scars.

  "What the hell are you doing?" She stopped and glowered, "I'm not in the mood for a prank, Mrs. Manas!"

  "Who said that I'm pranking you?" Mrs. Manas shouted back, "Look closer!"

  Lin Sanjiu had no other choice but to stare at the scene that was playing before her eyes albeit hesitantly. After what seemed like an eternity, she said, "This is a nightmare. Can we stop now? There's nothing to watch!"

  "Can't you have more patience?" Mrs. Manas said, "Just hold on for a little longer. It's almost there."

  Lin Sanjiu had no idea why she felt the smile was strange even though the person who was smiling had a tender face. She had a feeling that the person was relaying some kind of message through his smile. Perhaps it was a psychological suggestion.

  There was no time to insert sound since the scene only appeared for a fraction of a second. The long-haired man with a delicate face was holding a picture in his hand, and the person in the picture was someone Lin Sanjiu very familiar with.

  It was a picture of her own face.

  Even though Mrs. Manas had slowed down the speed, the image still came and went in a flash, and was soon replaced by the couple's kissing scene. The image whizzed through Lin Sanjiu's mind like a bolt of lightning, but the message had been projected clearly into her mind even though the message was not composed with words.

  Mrs. Manas sighed.

  Lin Sanjiu had seen a beer advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Heaven Underworld that could relay its message without needing any words. Apparently, the image used the same tactic as well. If somebody slipped a particular image into another message and played it to a person at a speed faster than a human's eyes could catch, the human's subconscious mind would memorize the image and accept it completely.

  "So, that's how they hypnotized those drivers…"

  Lin Sanjiu blinked her eyes and slowly turned around. At the end of the corridor, the light from the reception desk was still on.

  An inaudible conversation stopped as the monologue rang out from the crystal ball. After that, a slight click echoed as Dali hung up the phone.

  "When you see this person," Lin Sanjiu mumbled, "Inform me immediately and stop her at all cost."

  The floor creaked as the chair moved.

  Dali had stood up.

  Chapter 826 - Interception Of The Lost Dog’s Pod Hotel

  Lin Sanjiu was very familiar with Dali's footsteps.

  During her stay in the Lost Dog's Pod Hotel, she would always wake up to a series of light and hurried footsteps in the morning. As the owner of the hotel, there were a lot of things waiting for Dali to settle every day. The moment the sun went up, she had to run up and down the corridor like a busy bee, collecting room fare and distributing breakfast for her guests.

  Right now, at 3 o'clock in the wee hours, her footsteps were echoing down the corridor.

  At the end of the T-shaped corridor, a silhouette was growing in size. Lin Sanjiu called out for her [Tornado Whip], but she soon kept it back after a short bout of rumination. Putting everything aside, Dali was considered her friend as well, and The Lost Dog's Pod Hotel was her precious belonging. If she were to use her [Tornado Whip] in here, she was certain that she would obliterate half the building.

  Dali slowly emerged from the darkness. Her blouse and her ornaments glittered with every step she took. She t
urned around and gazed at Lin Sanjiu, but she did not walk to her. Instead, she walked into the corridor to her right and vanished from Lin Sanjiu's sight.

  'Isn't she coming for me?'

  Frowning, Lin Sanjiu listened as Dali walked further and further away. She seemed to be on her way to the back of the hotel. Seizing her opportunity before the hypnosis began to influence Dali, she hurriedly turned into another corridor and began searching for Ryuji's room.

  From the back of the hotel, an ear-grating metallic shrill rang out. Apparently, Dali was closing the back door. It seemed that she had indeed been hypnotized and was trying to trap Lin Sanjiu inside the Lost Dog's Pod Hotel.

  Lin Sanjiu could not come up with an idea about how to deal with Dali.

  She could not retaliate with the [Unfinished Drawing] as anything that was s.u.c.k.e.d into the drawing could not be released anymore. She had left the [Battle Item] at Bliss, and there was no handy ability in the [Empty-handed Kleptomaniac]. The [How to render] that she used to distort the light when she was facing Bliss had no effect here either.

  After going through all her Evolving Abilities and Special Items, she realized that all of them were too powerful to be used here. Lin Sanjiu let out a sigh as she stopped in front of a door. She rapped on the door and said in a low voice, "Ryuji, it's me, Lin Sanjiu. Open the door."

  However, there was no reply from the room. Perhaps he was too exhausted from all the running and hiding that he had fallen into a deep sleep.

  With that thought in mind, Lin Sanjiu changed another approach and kicked the door. Originally, with her current strength, she could easily lay waste to the door with a simple kick. However, it seemed to her that the door was exceptionally sturdier than any ordinary door outside. Perhaps, it was because this building was a Special Item.

  "Ryuji, open the door!" Lin Sanjiu urged again. Then, she heard Dali's footsteps.

  She stopped calling for Ryuji at once. Otherwise, he would be exposed as well, and that was something she did not want to happen. Just when she moved away from the door and was about to walk toward the entrance, another door not far away opened.

  "Who the hell is so blind to disturb my sleep? Don't you know it is already very late at night?!" A woman with flaxen hair poked her head out and shouted grumpily, "If you don't shut your mouth now, I will shut it up for you!"

  Concurrently, there was a loud rat-a-tat on the door coming from the other end of the corridor.

  Lin Sanjiu ignored the blonde-haired woman and walked away with a solemn expression. She went into hypersensory state and began reading her surroundings. The woman came out of her room. She did not come towards her but went the other way instead.

  However, the heaviness on her c.h.e.s.t did not decrease even by the slightest bit.

  She had been turning the corners again and again, but she would always find herself walking in a whole different corridor. The Lost Dog's Pod Hotel was small, but it was sectioned into a multitude of corridors by layers of walls. The reason for this was to maximize every inch of space to fit in as many rooms as possible. As Lin Sanjiu traveled down the corridor and turned another corner, the building began to wake up. A harsh discordant mixture of knocks and raps, whispers and shuffling of footsteps began to plague the quiet air.

  "Stop her at all costs…"

  The sentence kept echoing through her mind like the wind howling through a hollow cave. Since she was the target, she was immune to the effect of hypnotism induced by the message. Be that as it may, she still could not forget how the message touched her mind and managed to cause a ripple in the depths of her psyche.

  It now occurred to her that everyone in this hotel had been hypnotized.

  Lin Sanjiu very soon knew the reason.

  The main entrance had vanished.

  There was now a wall where the main entrance should have been. It seemed that the wall had been moved from another part of the hotel. It looked like a beehive with many room doors on it and each door had a head popping out from behind just like bees.

  At the corner of the wall was the reception desk. The crystal ball was sitting on top of it as the TV series continued to play.

  Dali had moved the entrance away. She could change the interior of the hotel as she pleased as the entire building was one of her Special Items. This could also shed some light on why she did not hire any employer to help her manage the hotel. When she was about to be transferred to another world, she just needed to keep the hotel back into her ring.

  Lin Sanjiu inspected the wall and then sighed inwardly

  "Should we try our luck at the door at the back?" Mrs. Manas asked.

  There were no perfect Special Items. Each Special Item was bound to have a certain restriction or weaknesses, and this building was no exception. Dali could not move the gate at the back away, so she just locked it up. Compared to the wall that could move here and there according to her wishes, perhaps the gate at the back was Lin Sanjiu's best option right now.

  Using her hypersensory to feel the movement of the air, Lin Sanjiu slowly turned around.

  If she wanted to go to the back door, she had to go through all of them. Apparently, she had walked straight into Dali's plan. The reason the cunning hotel owner had gone to the back door first was to create a fake impression that she was locking the back door and forcing Lin Sanjiu to go to the main entrance, which Dali had long moved to another location. When Lin Sanjiu arrived at the main entrance and found that it had been moved away, there was little she could do anymore. Therefore, she would be trapped in the deepest part of the hotel and the furthest point away from the only exit.

  "Since you don't cherish your own hotel," Lin Sanjiu mumbled, "then, don't blame me for destroying it."

  Chapter 827 - Happy Meeting You Tonight

  The man's forehead was smashed hard against the wall, causing a spider web of cracks to radiate out as dust fluttered down. The posthuman slid down the wall like a rag doll and revealed the corridor behind him. Lin Sanjiu walked over his body and left a bloody footprint on the ground.

  Of course, that was not her blood.

  Behind her, the smoke billowed through the corridor and gradually seeped into the other part of the hotel. The row of lamps next to her feet provided little visibility in the first place, and now, as the smoke began to fill into the corridor, her vision was even more limited. When she fought her way out the heavy encirclement of the posthumans, she remembered that there was a man whose ability was pyrokinesis. Perhaps he was the main cause of the smoke.

  As she continued to move down the corridor, she suddenly realized something. When she faced the crowd of posthumans, she did not actually go all out, yet she had already defeated all of them.

  With that thought in mind, she looked over her shoulder.

  The floor of the corridor was a mess, littered with human bodies and all sorts of other things. Some of them had passed out while others were writhing, groaning, and m.o.a.ning in pain.

  If it were not for them, Lin Sanjiu would never have known that the gap in power between her and a normal posthuman had grown so large. Even though some of them were knocked out before they even got the chance to activate their abilities, most of them were defeated the moment they set their sights on her.

  "I suppose all of them are not that strong after all. Otherwise, how could they get hypnotized so easily? I truly doubt that they are looking down on me," Lin Sanjiu said as she moved forward.

  "This kind of hypnotic induction is not only cost-free but also extremely effective," Mrs. Manas said, "Without Higher Consciousness, it's difficult for one to be immune to this kind of hypnosis even if you are someone very powerful. Whoever is behind all of this, I have to admit that he or she is very brilliant to be able to come up with such a cunning plan. Anyway, don't let your guard down. Maybe they are saving the best for last."

  "You keep your mouth shut," Lin Sanjiu exhorted after she jabbed her elbow into a woman's throat. As the woman fell to the floor, she continued, "Don't jinx it."<
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  "I'm just warning you," Mrs. Manas countered grumpily, "Battle prowess doesn't mean everything. In a confrontation, sometimes a Special Item is enough to tilt the balance of a battle. Besides, their strength is just at the level when you left Oasis, so I don't understand why you feel so proud about defeating a bunch of people that are far weaker than you."

  "Really?" Lin Sanjiu never expected this. Ever since she hopped onto the bandwagon of the apocalypse, every enemy she came across was stronger than the other. It seemed like every time after she had conquered a mountain, there would be another one taller waiting for her. No matter how much she trained, the fearsome force portrayed by her enemy often made her feel like she was marking time. If she did not look back, she would never realize how far she had come.

  "Of course," Mrs. Manas said. Then, she fell silent.

  At the same time, Lin Sanjiu realized something was wrong. Her hypersensory had picked up something in the air. Squinting her eyes, she paused and allowed her gaze to travel out. From the smoke-cloaked corridor ahead, a figure was slowly materializing. As he advanced closer to her, his outline became more visible and she could see the reflection that glimmered on and off his shoulders.

  'Well, speak of the devil.'

  "See?" Lin Sanjiu sighed. "You are really such a doomsayer."

  Mrs. Manas did not reply.

  The strength of a posthuman was determined by how he affected the environment. The stronger a posthuman was, the heavier the pressure he exuded. The man stopped about ten steps away from Lin Sanjiu. He gave her a toothy grin as he opened his arms wide, looking like her old friend waiting for her to give him a hug.

  "Do you like unadon or fried pork chop?" the man suddenly asked.