Doomsday Wonderland

When all of the sconces were ignited, the flame came to life from the wall and completely lit up the entire underground shrine. The gas emitted from the burning lipid weaved around Deva’s idols, reminding Lin Sanjiu of the tainted breath of Deva.

“Human fat,” a  duoluozhong  bent down and whispered to them when it walked past them, “Those torches are soaked with human fat.”

Then, it left. Without any reason. It seemed that it just wanted to tell them the details.

Lying on the floor, Lin Sanjiu couldn’t emit any syllables. She fixed her eyes on the leaving  duoluozhong with a searing stare that would burn the latter with her gaze alone. More and more  duoluozhong  came in from the entrance, filling the shrine like a swarm of locust descending on an unfortunate farm.

However, even with the mass of the  duoluozhong , it’s still couldn’t compare with the number of idols in the room.

… Lin Sanjiu swore that she had never seen so many statues in her life.

The underground shrine was vast. Even with her enhanced eyesight, she couldn’t see the end of the ceiling. The farthest corner was still shrouded in darkness as the fire couldn’t reach there.

In this enormous underground space, there were a plethora of Deva’s statues made of different kind of materials, filling the temple to its brim.

Clay, mud, wood, rock, iron: it seemed like any material that would make a good idol was used to depict Deva. Even the wall was embossed with a high relief of her. The idols came in various sizes. The largest was about the size of a man while the tiniest came about the size of a finger.

The idol nearest to them was as large as a human. Its sculptured lips were highly curved, forming a smile. On top of its head, its shoulders, its hand that was raised in the air, and its cloth were filled with smaller idols or images of Deva’s own figure.

Looking ahead, the density of Deva in the underground shrine was so high that it was nauseating.

Hundreds of  duoluozhong  gathered in the center of the underground shrine, forming a half circle. One of them dragged the unconscious, battered posthuman from the back and hurled him on the ground. The area was ill-lit, for the dense layers of idols had blocked out the firelight from the sconces. The only thing that glowed amidst the dark was the silver ring that sat on the left ring finger of the posthuman.

A  duoluozhong  coughed a few times happily. It walked forward and picked the posthuman up by his hair. Lin Sanjiu could see that the two eyes on the unfamiliar face remained tightly shut.

“Hold on, I almost forgot,” a  duoluozhong  standing next to the warden suddenly said, “We should invite all the others to come and witness this sacred moment.”

A clamor ensued in the crowd. They giggled, and few of them exited through the entrance.

Lying on the ground, Lin Sanjiu could register from the corner of her eyes only contorted claws skulking beside her. When those claws appeared again, behind those  duoluozhong  were a few delicate yet rough and dried feet belonging to humans. Obviously, they were female.

Of course, it took some imagination to make out that those were human feet.

“Sit here,” a  duoluozhong  commanded gleefully, “Come and welcome your new friends. You guys have the best seat to watch the holy ritual of baptism while getting to know new friends. Is there any better way to cherish this wonderful moment?”

As it spoke, the goo-laden tail on its back flung forward, pushing the three woman on the ground before turning away without looking at them. It seemed that it was very confident that they would not be able to stand up on their own once they had fallen on the ground.

Suddenly, a shadow loomed over her face. As Lin Sanjiu tried to turn her eye, an enormously large belly came into her view; she was stunned.

On closer inspection, the belly looked even more terrifying. The skin on the woman’s abdomen seemed to have suffered the cycle of tearing and healing, covering her stomach with multitudes of cracks and scars and yellow gooey mucus as the fetus grew bigger. The skin was so stretched that it looked as though it would explode soon.

Lowering her sight down to the woman’s swollen legs full of bulging green veins, Lin Sanjiu found a chain, with each of its ends stabbed into both the inner sides of her ankles. Though the ends of the chain had been covered with newly grown skin, the few steps she took to travel here from her previous location had opened up her wounds and blood began to ooze out.

“The chains are embedded inside my bone,” huffed a voice in a low tone. Lin Sanjiu was anxious, as she had no idea whether or not the woman bore any hostility toward them. Though she wanted to jump, her current status wouldn’t allow her to do so, “The wound will open whenever I walk. It can never heal.”

This kind of horrible scene was no stranger to Lin Sanjiu, yet she still couldn’t bear to look at the chain that was buried so deep in the woman’s ankles. She shifted her gaze away as gushes of gastric juice shot up her throat. Although she couldn’t see the woman’s face and could only hear her voice, she found that, with great surprise, the woman did not sound terrified. Instead, her tone was smooth and calm.

“I understand that you guys can’t speak now, as I once did,” the woman continued to speak, and Lin Sanjiu found something about her strange, “… Take a good look at the baptism, my stomach, and my feet… Amongst the female infidels that were caught, only three of us survived, but two of them had already gone mad.”

Lin Sanjiu was brassed off by the questions that were screaming in her mind, but she couldn’t do anything now aside from blinking her eyes.

“Shh,” the woman shushed her even though she knew very well Lin Sanjiu had been removed of her ability to talk, “Look, the baptism is about to—”

Before she could get her last word out, a roar burst from the crowd of duoluozhong  in front. Lin Sanjiu was alarmed, but her fluttering heart was soon calmed down when she heard that they were merely reading a passage of Oracle.

“True God will never look away from us. She is everywhere. She is omniscient, and she is omnipotent,” the  duoluozhong  chanted. After that, one of the duoluozhong  yanked its arm and took off its robe. Its body was filled with crawling tendrils, granting it the look of a huge, disgusting, walking sea-anemone. The  duoluozhong  grabbed the posthuman by his collar and pulled him up from the ground.

“Those who walk with God, death will no longer be your end. And you will live an eternal life. While for those who refuse to obey the divine law of God, shall be killed.”

The  duoluozhong  lowered its head to get closer to the posthuman and took a deep, satisfying sniff. Two feelers grew from its eyes, snaking over the unfortunate man cheeks.

Lin Sanjiu felt a little bit queasy.

“I bet he just arrived in this world not long ago,” the large belly seemed to have put a lot of strain on the woman. She heaved slowly in a low voice, “I’m not sure whether should I envy that guy, or he should be the one who’s jealous of me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

As the thought swam into her mind, the woman from behind her moved on, her tone was thick with disdain, “They won’t do anything to a woman right away. They would first snatch away our Special Items and then proceed to figure out our Evolved Ability. If they found we were controllable, they would keep us, like me. For those who they found too hard to contain, they would baptize them with those male posthumans. But anyhow, we would end up in the same way… Oh yeah, my Evolved Ability is mind reading, so ask any questions you got. I can hear them.”

“Mind reading. No wonder they would keep her—”

“Yeah, that’s right. They aren’t afraid of my ability. After all, they would like nothing best than pouring out all their inner thoughts to me,” the woman sneered.

Lin Sanjiu felt pity for the woman.

No sooner had the crowd of  duoluozhong  finished chanting the Oracle that the leading  duoluozhong  shrieked loudly, its voice both thrilled and elated. It pinched the posthuman’s chin with its fingers, forcing him to open his mouth before opening its own. Then, a strong, thick tongue, dripping with gooey mucus came crawling out from the hole. An extended portion of the tongue waved madly in the air, swaying back and forth like a pipe and there seemed to be no end of it.

“Ah, here it comes,” the woman mumbled under her breath.

Plop. 

Before her voice died away, the thick and strong tongue slipped into the posthuman’s mouth, penetrating its length deep into his body. It seemed that the tongue had a hollow center, as something from the  duoluozhong  body was being passed through the tongue into the posthuman body, filling the latter’s tummy like an inflated balloon.

Every muscle on the posthuman cheeks quivered; his body twitched like a fish out of water. Nevertheless, his struggle was swift. As the tongue continued to make way deeper into the posthuman’s body, the posthuman suddenly ceased moving. His body draped in the air lifelessly like a puppet with its string cut.

“His organs have been destroyed,” the woman explained calmly, “… The duoluozhong  spits goo into his body and then destroy his organs.”

“Why?”

“You’ll know soon.” With that, a few  duoluozhong  walked closer to the male posthuman and stretched his mouth. They all peered into the enlarged hole. One of them had a thing that looked like a torchlight in its hand. Lin Sanjiu had no idea where it got it from.

“Okay, listen to me. We don’t have much time.” The woman suddenly sped up her talking speed and lowered her voice, “Once they have baptized that guy, they will come to examine your Evolved Ability. How strong is your ability? Is it containable?”

Lin Sanjiu sensed something. She quickly switched her thought to another thing and cut off her connection with the woman, trying not to think about her Evolved Ability. She couldn’t trust the woman just yet before she figured the matter out. For a woman who had been abducted and abused for such a long time, her attitude was way too calm and weird.

“Oh? You don’t trust me? So you don’t want me to know your ability…” The woman said matter-of-factly, “Can you not see it? If you don’t cooperate with me, you will end up like me.”

“Then tell me first what the hell was that with your belly? And what do you want from us?”

The duoluozhong was no longer human; hence, they could not impregnate a woman. Could it be those lean and expressionless men outside?

“Not them,” the woman replied with great urgency as she had read Lin Sanjiu’s thought. Every syllable she said seemed to have burst out from her windpipe. She gagged, then a spatter of vomit hit the ground with a mighty splash, releasing an acidic smell into the air.

“Those men aren’t posthuman,” She retched again before she could finish her sentence, drawing attention from a few  duoluozhong  nearby, “Besides, adultery is a sin in the doctrine. Every male must remain a virgin until death comes to claim their lives.”

“Huh?”

There was nothing but a rivulet of water coming out from her mouth the third time she retched, “… E—Every female will be handed over to Deva. When they have returned, they w—”

The loud vomiting sound cut her short again. A few  duoluozhong  walked towards them incredulously when they heard the commotion. After they found out that it was just the woman tossing cookies, they stopped.

“Don’t remind,” the calm voice took a wild change, turning into a hysterical voice like a person mind was on the verge of breaking down. Lin Sanjiu had to comfort her again and again before the woman could manage to contain her outburst. She began to talk again. This time, however, her voice became even smaller, “… Don’t remind me of that! Six fetuses at a time, once every three months. All the babies that were born will be raised for a few years before being handed over to Deva to get them pregnant…”

Lin Sanjiu recalled Deva’s voice that gave her goosebumps all over her skin. It was a sound that resembled a man who talked with his nose pinched, trying to mirror a woman’s tone.

“So that’s how she—let’s just called her “she” for the moment—increased her flock?”

Lin Sanjiu dared not to ask how Deva achieved this feat, for she did not want to break the woman mind again.

“Yes,” the woman gasped and said, “… I don’t know how many years it’s been since the world came to an end, but that’s how everybody here’s being brought to this world.”

Lin Sanjiu was so shocked that her brain stopped function for a moment. Just as she wanted to ask the next question in her mind, the crowd of  duoluozhong  cut through her thought with a scream. Some of them whistled as if they were celebrating.

Piqued by her curiosity, she rose her eyes. And then, she froze.

The  duoluozhong  released its grip on the posthuman theatrically. The corpse fell to the ground; however, before it touched the ground, the corpse suddenly twisted its body in midair and extended its arm to support itself. Then, it slowly raised itself from the ground with its feet. Its eyeballs dropped from its socket and rolled to the front of Lin Sanjiu.

Lin Sanjiu stared at the humanoid figure and understanding instantly dawned on her.

“They did that to kill the person so that when he’s revived, he will become a duoluozhong … This is baptism. The one who destroyed the world isn’t Deva. Instead, she tried not to kill any posthuman who stepped foot in this world as once she killed them, she would gain nothing more than a useless corpse,” the woman whispered, “… Some of the  duoluozhong  here are females. They were turned because it was deemed that their abilities were too hard to contain. I have seen around five or six. I’m not sure they should feel envious of me, or I should feel envious of them.”

“She said that again.”

“What are you doing?” Lin Sanjiu felt the tiny hairs on her back stand up as a cool breeze waft past her.

The  duoluozhong  were still celebrating, and she did not know what’s going on there now.

“Today is your lucky day. Because I was finally assigned to cast an iron statue,” the woman mumbled. Then, Lin Sanjiu felt a piece of iron being pressed against her artery. Her heart shuddered from the chill of the ironware, “Don’t worry, I’m here to help. I’ll make sure your death will be swift. You don’t have to get pregnant, nor you will become a  duoluozhong … After I kill you four, I’ll kill myself.”

The last thing that came out the woman’s lips was nothing louder than a whisper, “See you guys in hell.”