Doomsday Wonderland

Letting out a breath, Lin Sanjiu stood from the ground and cracked her neck.

She had been sitting so still for so long that her bones felt stiff. The sound of bone popping reverberated clearly in the underground space, causing the few duoluozhong  to step back, dragging Ji Shanqing along with them. The tension in the air mounted.

“One, two, three…” Lin Sanjiu turned her eyes around and began counting, “And I thought you left a few backups with you. So it’s only… six?”

A slit opened on warden’s face as if it was offering Lin Sanjiu a grin, “Warden’s first rules of survival: Don’t ever put all your eggs in one basket. As a leader, I have to prepare for all the consequences. I believe six men are more than enough to subdue you both. Lock them up.”

The warden gave his command without turning its head. Hardly had those spoken words faded away did countless chains fly out from under the feet of a duoluozhong . The chains looked familiar and slithering like snakes. The tendrils then uncoiled from the grand prize’s body, giving way for the chains to coil themselves around Ji Shanqing, squeezing him in their deathly clutch. As soon as the chains made contact with the grand prize, he moaned in pain.

“She seems a lot weaker,” the  duoluozhong  said, smiling, “… Where did you get her from? Anyway, if you do not remove these chains in ten minutes, they will eat into her flesh, slowly, and she will become just like that big belly woman. I believe you have seen with your own eyes how the chains affect those pregnant women, right?”

Lin Sanjiu’s heart sank.

The grand prize was not a human, and thus, there was no flesh underneath his layers of shirts. The moment the chain bit into his clothes, the exposure of his real identity would put them at a huge disadvantage.

Lin Sanjiu killed her thoughts as she realized she had to act fast. She stomped her foot on the ground and thrust herself ahead.

Her taunting speech earlier was a mere facade concealing her anxiety as, after all, she was facing six  duoluozhong that had each developed their own Evolving Ability, all by herself.

Like a bunch of piranhas that smelled blood, the chains shot up into the air above and struck down towards Lin Sanjiu. With her [Mosaic Censorship] activated in both her hands, Lin Sanjiu twisted her body in midair, kicked off the ceiling and propelled herself into the heart of the group of  duoluozhong .

The  duoluozhong  knew what Lin Sanjiu could do. As they did not want to engage her in a direct melee, all of them quickly dispersed and backed away while one of them retaliated by hurling Ji Shanqing at her.

Lin Sanjiu cursed inwardly as she deactivated her ability. Just when she was going to grab her grand prize, a gut feeling made her abandon that thought.

The chains were like snakes; it was impossible to shake them off once they made contact since they could bury themselves into the skin of their target. If she were to touch her grand prize now, who was being chained, the chain would hop onto her, and both of them would be doomed.

The  duoluozhong  was disappointed to see that Lin Sanjiu did not fall for the trap. It pulled Ji Shanqing back to its side once again. At the same time, the other  duoluozhong  had already finished preparing their Evolving Abilities.

On her right, from the corner of her eye, she saw a flickering green fire while Mrs. Manas yelled, warning her of the attack that came from the other side, “Watch out! The one on the left has no form!”

Lin Sanjiu’s heart tightened. As she deployed her [Defense Forcefield] to defend against the attack from her left, she unleashed a tornado towards the green fire using her [Tornado Whip] and ducked to evade the slime that flew at her from above.

In the battle of Evolving Abilities, the formless and mysterious abilities were what people feared the most. Usually, these kinds of abilities could be activated with only a flick of thought, were exceedingly strange, and hard to guard against. Now, unfortunately, the  duoluozhong  on her left had one of those abilities, and even though Lin Sanjiu had enacted the [Defense Forcefield] in time, her brain still went numb for a second.

[Mature Content, Forbidden To Access Under Age 100]

There were too many indescribable things in the world. Hence, in order to keep society’s physical and mental health, this ability responded by subjecting everything to censorship. Any human under the age of 100 would see nothing but a large swath of fuzzy pixels if he or she was within the range of the ability.

You’re welcome. It’s for the sake of harmonization.

P.S.: Everything that gets over the wall without needing the eyes to see will be pixelated as well.

The underground shrine was already ill-lit from the beginning. And now that her surroundings were pixelated, it was even harder for Lin Sanjiu to see. She couldn’t activate her hypersensory, everything that reached her eyes was merely distorted squares, and even the movement and action of the duoluozhong  had become blurred in her vision. Gritting her teeth, she swung the whip vigorously, attempting to break through the besiegement by releasing many small-scaled tornadoes against her surroundings.

The tornadoes did successfully intercept a few attacks. Just when Lin Sanjiu bolted a few steps towards an opening, her grand prize yelled, “Watch out, sis’!” but he was too late.

He watched in horror as Lin Sanjiu was tripped by something and fell forward. His mouth was then covered, diminishing his voice to a whimper.

A few  duoluozhong  kept their eyes fixed on Lin Sanjiu. Seizing the chance while Lin Sanjiu unable to defend herself properly during her fall, one  duoluozhong shot a stream of slime from behind her. Even though she managed to pull off a tumble and evaded the ambush, some of the slimes still found its way onto her arm.

Her vision turned black as a wisp of white smoke sizzled from her skin. Wriggling on the ground in pure agony, she felt as if somebody had crushed every single piece of her bone as her stomach churned.

[Slime of Memoir]

Initially, using blood as the primary medium to channel its power, the medium changed from blood to slime when the ability user was turned into a duoluozhong . With a drop of slime on a corpse, the ability user could record all the feelings of the deceased before he died. When the ability user sprays the slime, its target would then experience the pain of the dead while at the same time sustain 10% of the fatal injury that was dealt to the deceased.

“Get up! It’s no time to whine. They are coming!”

“How long has it been?”

“Not even four minutes!”

With a groggy mind and blurred vision, Lin Sanjiu struggled to pull herself up. As she jerked from the ground, she continued to brandish her whip, conjuring a deluge of tornadoes to thwart the barrage of attacks that surrounded her. Nevertheless, despite her utmost effort, the indiscriminate firing sent forth by her earned nothing but a little bit of breathing room.

Burned by her anxiety, she slashed through the air using her feet in desperation, sending forth a slash of wind in front of her. Then, the next thing she heard was a quick succession the sound fo breaking wood breaking followed by warden’s angry roar, “Two of you! Move all the idols aside! She’s going to break them all!”

Lin Sanjiu felt a little suspicious.

“They still worried about the idols at a time like this… these duoluozhong, they seem to be more pious than I thought.

“But they show no remorse at all in torturing the woman that bear the “children of God”…”

She barely had the time to think about it before a powerful burst of wind split the air beside her ear, aiming straight at her temple. Right now, as she saw everything as a shapeless blur, she could only utilize her hearing to help her dodge the attack. She rolled along the ground and unleashed a vortex of air at the direction where the attack came from.

A  duoluozhong  was caught off guard and cried out in pain. Without wasting a second, Lin Sanjiu summoned [Howtorender] with a wave of her hand.

The moment the book unfolded, the dim light in the air suddenly twisted, her shadow distorted and folded multiple times. For a moment, nobody could see her location clearly, and all of the attacks missed her and fell on an open space not far away.

Seizing her chance, Lin Sanjiu then pushed her way out. After she flung a moving figure out of her way with her whip, her eyes suddenly brightened, the world in her vision returned normal, and she heaved a sigh of relief. She had finally come out from the pixelate’s power range.

Cursing something under her breath, Lin Sanjiu caught her breath while looked around.

“What should we do now?” Mrs. Manas asked, her voice was laced with panic. [Howtorender] had a time limit, and they were running short of time.

“… In the attacks that they throw at me just now, there are green fire, chain, slime, and a  duoluozhong  who could release something like an air vortex.”

After a short moment of contemplation, she kicked a few idols forward. Under the effect of [Howtorender], the idols formed countless of shadows, making it look as if there were hundreds of them. Then, as she expected, the exclamation of the warden wafted into her ears from afar, “Watch out for the idols!”

“Up until now, only the warden has not shown its true strength yet. And the trickiest amongst them is the one with pixelate ability. Without it, the rest would be a piece of cake.”

Even though her arm still hurt like hell, she had already calmed herself down.

It seemed that the duoluozhong with the pixelate ability knew itself very well, it remained to hide in the shadow at the back of its comrades although their surrounding was now distorted by light and shadow. Its bloodshot eyes rolled around in their places as it tried to locate Lin Sanjiu.

“So what are you going to—” Without waiting for Mrs. Manas to finish her sentence, Lin Sanjiu suddenly put her fingers into her mouth and whistled.

All of the  duoluozhong  turned their heads and showered all their attacks at the source of sound in unison. However, they were still a step late as Lin Sanjiu had already bounced to the ceiling. In an instant, her previous standing spot was flooded with green fire and slime. The chains that struck empty then moodily returned to the ground.

“I’m glad that you guys decide to move,” Lin Sanjiu smiled. She kicked the ceiling and darted down.

All of the  duoluozhong  concentrated their attack on the figure in midair. Even the  duoluozhong , which had been hiding in the shadow all this time, opened the mouthpart on its face, pointing its blood-filled hole towards the direction as well. The figure couldn’t avoid it in time and was hit squarely. The green fire instantly grew larger and engulfed the whole shadow in its green flame. However, when the figure dropped to the ground with a loud thud, only then they realized that the shadow was a corroded, still-smiling idol of Deva.

“She used Deva’s idol as her decoy?!”

As one of them screamed out loud, the  duoluozhong  with pixelate ability suddenly moved backward. It looked as though the  duoluozhong  was moving on its own free will, slowly walking itself into the hands of the woman that appeared from thin air behind it.

“If you did not step out and attack me,” grabbing the  duoluozhong’s  sticky and smelly neck, she kept it from getting close to her. She smiled as she huffed heavily, “… I wouldn’t be able to catch you.”

The  duoluozhong gurgled as if it was trying to say something, but Lin Sanjiu was not going to give it the chance to speak its final words. Staring at the horde of terrifying monsters in front of her, she tightened her grip on the slimy neck and crushed it without any qualms when the [Empty Handed Kleptomaniac] vanished from her other hand.

The air was filled with the stale smell of the  duoluozhong’s  slime. Just before the head fell to the ground, Lin Sanjiu jumped up, landing a few yards away from the corpse while activating her [Defense Forcefield]. Coated in slime, she punched the  duoluozhong  with many tendrils.

She knew it without turning her head that the other  duoluozhong  were coming for her. She crouched down as they threw their respective attacks at her. Green fire, the air vortex, and the chains flew over her head, landing altogether on the sea-anemone like  duoluozhong .

The green fire intensified as the  duoluozhong  wailed in pain. It twisted like a contorted shadow in the flame before getting incinerated and crumbling into a pile of ashes. Without wasting a single second, Lin Sanjiu flourished her whip, generating a tornado and hitting the  duoluozhong  that blew green fire. It flew back across the underground shrine, crashing into numerous idols along its path before connecting with a meaty smack on the wall like a mosquito. Its lifeless body slid down the wall, leaving a streak of black blood staining the concrete.

“Six minutes has passed!” Mrs. Manas notified Lin Sanjiu of the time again.

At this moment, the warden finally smelled the danger. It placed the idol on the ground and turned its head around to see that Lin Sanjiu had broken through the vortex of air and crushed a  duoluozhong’s  head with a kick. It saw her boot, now drenched in blood, penetrating through the head of the dead  duoluozhong .

She did a handstand and flung the corpse from her feet at the last  duoluozhong, but the last  duoluozhong  couldn’t see what it was in the dimly lit underground space. As it sent out its chain to grab the incoming figure, Lin Sanjiu arrived above him. She thrust her foot straight down at the  duoluozhong’s  crown, crushing its skull in the process and drenching Ji Shanqing in a bath of brain matter and slime.

Three minutes.

After Lin Sanjiu had gotten rid of the  duoluozhong  that caused her the most trouble, she needed no more than three minutes to settle the rest.

She helped the exhausted grand prize up from the ground and turned to look at the warden.

The sunken yellowish eyes of the warden were so loose that it seemed like they would fall out from the sockets. It did not dare to get closer to the duo. It eyed them vigilantly as it moved back.

“That pregnant woman…” It stuttered, “She saved you guys…”

There wasn’t a single clean spot on Lin Sanjiu’s body. She was soaked entirely in their body fluid that stank to high heaven. Her whole face was besmirched with grease and dirt, and nobody could see her facial features well. Only when she smiled did they see her glistening white teeth flashing brightly in the dim light.

“Come over here,” she said softly. She stood stock-still, caressing the tattoo that ran across her jawline with fingers.

The suction force of [All Birds Pay Homage To The Phoenix] pulled the scrawny warden stumbling ahead.

“Well,” Lin Sanjiu snorted through her nose. Tilting her head, she lifted the warden single-handedly.

“Hah! Do you know why I choose not to use my ability?” The warden suddenly spoke. A cynical and cruel arc appeared across its wrinkled face, “This is because my ability is—”

Lin Sanjiu raised her other hand.

In the midst of exploding brain matter and shredded skin, she drawled nonchalantly, “I’m sorry, but I have no intention of letting you speak.”