Doomsday Wonderland

As the blood surged into her brain, Lin Sanjiu had made her move. She extended her arm and tried to catch Qing Jiuliu, who was the nearest to her. In this heated moment, Qing Jiuliu and the grand prize finally realized that something was wrong, and they jerked up in bed.

Just when Lin Sanjiu almost touched Qing Jiuliu’s arm, the latter had grabbed her hand first. In the next second, Lin Sanjiu felt her arm turning cold: Qing Jiuliu had activated his ability.

Vertigo struck her hard, and before she fell to the ground, she yelled to Qing Jiuliu at the top of her lung, “It’s me!”

From their perspective, Lin Sanjiu had been lying with them on the bed. It was no surprise that Qing Jiuliu would suddenly turn hostile when he saw a dark figure standing next to him.

Lin Sanjiu could feel her blood flow speed up by degrees as Qing Jiuliu slackened his grip. Fighting against the throbbing dizziness, Lin Sanjiu summoned her [Ability Polishing Agent] to her hand.

“Xiao Jiu?” Qing Jiuliu gasped in surprise, for he finally saw the face of the dark figure he had attacked through the intermittent light and shade.

The silvery light illuminated three ashen-white faces.

As Qing Jiuliu and Ji Shanqing were sharp-witted, they soon grasped the whole situation. Both of them leaped out of bed, and Lin Sanjiu turned the light towards the bed. To their surprise, the figure that had been between them was nowhere to be seen. There was nothing but a crumpled pinkish white coverlet left on the bed.

“Where is he?” The grand prize looked around in panic. Then, he sensed something was strange.

The beam from the [Ability Polishing Agent] traced a silver outline around them and was devoured by the darkness before it could stretch any farther. He looked over his shoulder, but he could see nothing beyond the dark. It appeared to him that something had prevented the light from spreading out, keeping it in a small radius around them and creating a distinct boundary between the light and the dark.

None of them had expected the killer would come to them so quickly.

“Stay close,” Lin Sanjiu ordered in a hushed voice as she swirled the light in her hand again and again.

Something was not right with the light beam. It was as if something was choosing where the light could fall. The light could only illuminate a small area, and the rest of the room was percolated with impenetrable darkness.

Lin Sanjiu could feel the back of the other two people bumping against her own. In her current agitated state, she subconsciously turned her head and only turned back to the front after she confirmed that the two people were Qing Jiuliu and the grand prize.

“Sis’,” Ji Shanqing whispered, “Can you take out the [Truth Revealing Candle] that we got from the dead Consular Officer?”

Lin Sanjiu praised her grand prize inwardly for his wit. Right now, she had spread herself too thin as she was holding the [Ability Polishing Agent] and the [300 route] with both her hands while trying to keep her guard up. She couldn’t light the candle, so she secretly passed the [Truth Revealing Candle] to Qing Jiuliu behind their backs. What the grand prize suggested killed two birds with one stone by reminding her of the candle and confusing their opponent. Next, it was all up to the assailant whether or not he chose to believe in the grand prize.

If he refused to believe him, they had to prepare themselves for a hard fight. The assailant had taken so many Consular Officer’s lives, so he must have acquired an arsenal of Special Items. When Lin Sanjiu thought about this, she clenched the [Oh My God! My Wallet Is Missing!] card even tighter.

Before her target stepped into the light, she couldn’t activate the [300 route].

Chk. 

As the sound of the matchstick scratched against the matchbox filled the air, a small ember jumped into existence on top of the [Truth Revealing Candle]. It shed a warm orange light across Lin Sanjiu’s back. The orange flare resembled the pine oil used to clean an oil painting. Slowly, the darkness melted away, and the room’s original colors returned.

… Oh, when did Qing Jiuliu ever use a matchstick?

When this irrelevant thought barged unbridled into Lin Sanjiu’s brain, she instinctively raised her head, and she saw Qing Jiuliu was now standing at the corner of the room beside a window. He rested one of his hand on the back of Magus’s wheelchair, looking at her with a pair of horror-laden eyes.

If Qing Jiuliu was there, then who’s the one standing behind her?

“So this is what this candle capable of,” an unfamiliar male voice rang out behind her, shattering the silence, “Even the [Criminal Suspect Suit] is…”

Lin Sanjiu bristled with fear the moment she heard the voice. In the next second, she spun around and glided along the floor toward the back of the room. After she landed a few yards away, she turned around again to see that in the center of the grand prize and her previous spot stood a black figure. Holding the [Truth Revealing Candle] in his hand, it was as if he was mesmerizing the beautiful orange hue that danced on top of the candle.

The shadow looked as though he was made from the very darkness itself. Even the light from the [Ability Polishing Agent] couldn’t penetrate through it, so all they could see was a dark humanoid figure. It seemed that the flare from the [Truth Revealing Candle] was the only thing that could make him visible to their eyes. Like melting black oil paint, the thick black ink that coated the man was fading away and revealed his original human skin tone.

“Ji Shanqing, fall back!” Lin Sanjiu yelled at the grand prize and darted in as the human figure waved his hand and snuffed out the candle. Once again, the room plunged into darkness, leaving only the unnatural geometrical lines etched by the silvery light visible to their eyes.

[Criminal Suspect Suit]

Description: This man was clearly the culprit, but why we can’t see his face? All we can see is a pair of white eyes! Ahh, it’s so frustrating!

Effect: This item will realize the “black hue” effect of those criminal suspects in the animation or comic on the user. By distorting the light, the wearer can completely merge into the darkness; nobody would be able to sense the wearer presence unless he chooses to expose himself. Besides, this item also granted the wearer the ability to blend into any group of people undetected.

Condition to note: This suit will lose its effect nearby a “truth-revealing” item, and it will not be activated if there is a schoolboy around.

Lin Sanjiu halted when the candle was extinguished. She looked around and cursed aloud inwardly.

She couldn’t use the [Oh My God! My Wallet Is Missing!] if her target remained in the dark.

Similarly, Qing Jiuliu couldn’t use his siren as well when he didn’t know the location of his target. Otherwise, once the siren opened its mouth, even Lin Sanjiu would be affected by it.

The face of the grand prize was as white as a sheet of paper. He had taken out the birdcage, but it had no effect at all.

“Was the body outside,” the man uttered from the darkness. The hair on the back of Lin Sanjiu’s neck stood up as she tried with her utmost effort to distinguish the direction of the sound, “… the Consular Officer that you guys killed?”

The grand prize gulped, and he looked at Lin Sanjiu. However, she looked like a ball of silver light so he couldn’t see her expression. He turned his head again and answered, layering his voice with deep trepidation, “… Y-yes, he’s outside.”

“Hmm…” The tone of that voice was non-committal; none of them could tell what was he thinking.

The room fell into silence again, and the only sound left could be heard was the blowing wind. Like the scythe of death, the wind beat the against curtain so fierce it caused the curtain to flutter madly in the air.

“You’re here to kill the Consular Officer, aren’t you?” Ji Shanqing emboldened himself and asked, “Now your target is dead, so you have no purpose of staying here anymore. If you don’t believe me, I can show you his Consular Officer license.”

“Nope, I believe you,” the man answered calmly.

Before the grand prize could relax, the calm and considerate voice came again, “… But the rigor mortis has already set in, and the last time the visa appear in this house was ten minutes ago. From here, can I say that there is a Consular Officer among you three?”

Hearing this, Lin Sanjiu’s heart went pit-a-pat, and she took out the [Empty-Handed Kleptomaniac]. When a few silver threads flashed through the darkness, a large piece of red velvet spread open in the air. The red velvet appeared in the nick of time, wrapped the few silver threads in its soft fabric and disappeared.

“Wh-What is that?”

The near-invincible ability had indeed startled the human figure in the dark. He gasped in surprise and spoke as if the attack just now had hit him hard. Nevertheless, Lin Sanjiu did not dare to slacken her concentration. The moment she saw the red velvet had disappeared, she instantly replaced the [Empty-Handed Kleptomaniac] with the [Battle Item].

“Now, which item should I imitate?”

A dozen of Special Items fleeted across her mind like blinding lightning, but none of them could be of good use in her current condition. This battle was a battle of Special Item, she had—

Lin Sanjiu froze, an idea suddenly hit her,

At this moment, she heard the grand prize was yelling at her, “Sis! Sis!”

His voice was thick with fear.

Lin Sanjiu turned her head, and she was stunned by what she had seen. Ji Shanqing’s face had reddened as if he had used up all his strength from refraining himself from moving forward to the dark.

“Sis, I can’t control my legs!” Ji Shanqing cried as he clawed at the wall. The invisible force continued to pull him forward, causing him to leave a few deep scratches on the wall, “… Something in the air is pulling me forward!”

“… you have seen the [All Birds Pay Homage to the Phoenix],” the voice chuckled, “I’ll get rid of you three one by one. With that, I won’t leave out the Consular Officer.”

God knew what would happen to the grand prize once he was inside the darkness. It was as if the darkness had its own life force. When she saw the grand prize was already within reach of the dark, she let out a loud cry, and the [Battle Item] in her hand instantly took form into a small purple square with the word Ps etched on it. Once the [Pirated Photoshop CS6] appeared in her hand, she picked the “eraser” function.

Plenty of Special Items and Evolved Abilities had this lethal blind spot in them where once they’d lost track of their target, the user would not be able to activate their effect.

“Then, why not we make the target to show himself instead?” 

With that thought in mind, Lin Sanjiu leaped into the air and spread her arms. The “eraser” soon erased a large chunk of darkness in the air. As if a mirror was coated with a thick layer of black paint, when the black paint was brushed off, the bright color underneath the black paint was revealed. Looking at it, it was as if the “eraser” had consumed even the night sky.

This Special Item from Puppeteer couldn’t “erase” living things. In other words, the black humanoid figure that was left behind was the killer who refused to show himself.

The [All Birds Pay Homage to the Phoenix] suddenly stopped functioning as the black humanoid figure had realized something wasn’t right. The way he jumped around in the room made him looked like an idiot. Just when Lin Sanjiu emitted a cold laugh and prepared to use her [300 route] on the man, a hushed exclamation from Qing Jiuliu drifted into her ears. Then, he shoved the window opened.

The interlude did not stop Lin Sanjiu from doing what she was going to do next. Using the corner of her eyes, she saw that the paper crane from Cyrus had returned. The strong wind outside pushed the paper crane into the room. However, in the next second, the flow of the wind suddenly changed, and before Qing Jiuliu could catch the paper crane, it was sucked out from the window and disappeared into the night.

The wind grew even fiercer to an intensity way stronger than they had experienced before.

“The dimensional rift is here!”

The moment the words were spoken, the wind picked up the wheelchair and hit Qing Jiuliu squarely in his midriff. Almost in an instant, the entire room was shaking violently, releasing sharp mournful shrills into the air. No sooner had the small ornament flown out of the window that the window frame began to shake. And then, a wild burst of wind ripped the window frame from the window, carrying it into the sky before disappearing into the rift.

As the gale buffeted them, Lin Sanjiu saw through her slitted eyes that the man that wore the [Criminal Suspect Suit] had disappeared from the room.