Doomsday Wonderland

It was as if somebody had pushed the replay key multiple times. Whenever Maxin jumped over and landed on a platform, the scene of Ji Shanqing plucking the Special Item from the display board and hurling it across the sky would replay in his mind.

What flustered him the most was that he felt nothing at all at that point.

Would Ji Shanqing hurt him? The answer to this question was as clear as day. If sacrificing him could bring Lin Sanjiu back, Maxin was confident that he would now be a puffy corpse in the sea.

He did not have any sense of crisis when somebody tossed a Special Item at him. He had no idea what was happening to him at that time, but he told himself he should not make such a fatal mistake again.

Maxin admonished himself inwardly as he jumped towards the last platform. A flurry, parachute-like membrane stretched out from his limbs as the tail on his back straightened and he glided over to the 100th platform. This way, he finally finished covering all 100 platforms within thirteen minutes.

The description Ji Shanqing gave was inaccurate. This Special Item could not be called a teleportation device because, after putting on this flying squirrel hide, it did not grant Maxin the ability to teleport, but the power to glide in the air for a certain distance like a flying squirrel. While it could save him a ton of time compared to jumping with his own strength, it was still different from what he initially imagined. Because of this misunderstanding, he almost fell into the sea a couple of times while he was figuring out how to use the Special Item. Besides that, Maxin was clueless about whether a “tap” of his foot, while he was gliding in the air, would be considered as using the Special Item once.

How was there any possibility that Ji Shanqing would give the wrong description?

No, that was not correct. These Special Items were not Ji Shanqing’s possessions, so the question should be how did he know how to use them? It did not make any sense. No matter how intelligent he was, no wise man could understand something by looking at its appearance alone.

Just when Maxin was about to take the flying squirrel off his body, the ball suddenly dropped as the image of the display board flashed through his mind. He believed that other than serving as storage, there must be something else the display board could do. Perhaps it could perform simple analysis for all the Special Items that were clipped to it. Maxin was not sure how close his assumption was, but it should not be too far away from the truth.

If that was true, then it would be easy to imagine how high the value of that display board was and how many people would seek it. At the very least, one would be able to exchange this display board for a house that came with the protection of a gang. Ironically, people were steering away from the neighborhood he grew up in precisely because it was dominated by the gangs. Nevertheless, now, in the Twelve Worlds Centrum, the houses in these communities were selling like hotcakes, and their prices were staggeringly high. They were almost as expensive as those near key high schools in the pre-apocalypse days.

“What are you guys doing over there?” Soulsqn, who was left out by them, shouted from a platform not far away. “Lin Sanjiu dropped into the sea, shouldn’t you guys be busy saving her? What the hell’s going on?”

It occurred to Maxin that Soulsqn did not hear what Hegel said.

“Lin Sanjiu has turned into Zeus.” It was harder than Maxin had thought to utter this out loud.

After he had walked Soulsqn through everything that happened just now, she was unable to accept the news, as he expected. Rubbing her mandibles together in frustration, Soulsqn snarled, “What do you mean by Lin Sanjiu has turned into Zeus? Why would she turn into Zeus? I don’t understand! And I won’t believe it until you show me how!”

Maxin sighed. Soulsqn’s voice was so loud that he was getting a headache. They were running out of time, and Soulsqn should now be on her way back to the first platform, but the flesh worm would not leave until she got a satisfactory answer. Fortunately, Ji Shanqing returned, thus rescuing Maxin from the dilemma. His face clouded with grumpiness, and he sent Soulsqn away with only two sentences.

“If you don’t do as I say, we’ll lose the game in another 30 seconds,” said Ji Shanqing as he shot her a sidelong glance, “Once we lose the game, we won’t be able to save sister anymore.”

Soulsqn, who cared for no one else other than herself and her kin, shut her mouth, turned around, and left the moment she heard what Ji Shanqing said. Her fleshy forked tail was flexible, but it did not have enough strength to push her across the air. As such, she could only rely on her highly malleable body to stretch herself long enough to reach the other platform, though such a scene was an eyesore.

Maxin withdrew his gaze and turned to Ji Shanqing. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice turning mellow.

Ji Shanqing let out a breath in frustration. “That guy said something and I’m certain it had something to do with my sister, but he won’t admit it,” he said with a deep frown. When he looked at Maxin, only then did the latter notice that his pupils were like two black holes, absorbing all the light and reflecting none. “I’ve tried everything, both the carrot and the stick, but I can only make him jump the platforms on my behalf.”

That was the reason why Maxin did not see Hegel around. He looked ahead to see that the balding man was leaping his way towards the 100th platform. He seemed to have great stamina as he did not slow down even though he had jumped a few platforms in a row.

Technically, Hegel was not part of their team, but Zeus’s rules did not specify that the person who jumped from the platforms must be among the four of them. Hence, by having Hegel on their team, they could finally fill in the gap left by Lin Sanjiu after she had turned into Zeus.

As if he saw through Maxin’s mind, Ji Shanqing spoke before Maxin could say anything, “Don’t worry. I promised him that we’d bring him together to meet Zeus if he helps us win the game. Judging by how eager he was to meet Zeus, I’m certain he won’t do anything rash that could affect his chance of succeeding.”

“Then, how about—”

“I need to go into the white camp.” Ji Shanqing gathered his long hair and coiled it into a bun on top of his head, exposing his fine, glowing profile. He threw the display board onto the ground and announced, “I need an item that can help me cross the sea. Come, help me look for it.”

“Me?” Maxin was startled. “But these are yours…”

“One-third of these are yours.” Ji Shanqing crouched down, lifted his head and offered Maxin a wide, toothy grin. His smile was like a flower that bloomed in the spring breeze. “I trust you. Besides, we have to finish this up quickly.”

‘He trusts me?’ Maxin was skeptical about the grand prize’s claim. He scratched his head in embarrassment. Then, he crouched beside the grand prize, and it was at this moment that both of them realized that they were not the only ones working on a blitzkrieg strategy.

“Somebody is coming!” Soulsqn, who was having a hard time making her way through the first row, shouted.

Both Ji Shanqing and Maxin’s faces turned pale. The former rose to his feet in an instant while the latter quickly put on the flying squirrel suit. Both of them rushed towards the first row, and since gliding was much quicker than jumping, Maxin was the first to reach. As he was coming to a stop, he was stunned by what he saw. The figure in the distance was approaching him at high speed by moving above the sea.

“There aren’t any yellow shadows in the buffer zone!” he screamed at Ji Shanqing, turning around. By the time he finished shouting, he had landed on the platform. “It’s true! I saw it in the air! The first row of platforms is still surrounded by a large swarm of yellow shadows, but the sea in the distance is clean!”

“How far do the yellow shadows go?” Ji Shanqing asked as he hopped from one platform to the next.

“It’s about a hundred meters, similar to the distance between two platforms in the camp!” Maxin shouted as he stared fixedly at the intruder. “You go through there. Leave this guy to me. I’ll hold him off.”

The intruder had long, wavy hair. He put an embroidered vest over his body, leaving his chest bare. There was a chain of ornaments—a peace sign, a love sign, a rainbow, and a leaf, which resembled marijuana—hanging around his neck. He looked like a hippy from the sixties. With broad grin pasted on his face, he waved his hand at Maxin, stopping his pace outside the ring of yellow shadows at the same time.

Ji Shanqing arrived on the platform next to Maxin.

“Okay,” he said hastily, “I’ll leave him to you. Make sure that he doesn’t set foot on any of our platforms, and don’t let Soulsqn and Hegel stop.”

“Understood,” Maxin replied as he put on his mermaid’s tail. Ji Shanqing looked at Maxin and fell into deep thought. Then, he pulled two Special Items from the display board and passed them to him before going away.

As Maxin grabbed the two Special Items, he realized that he had once again let down his guard against Ji Shanqing. However, it was not the right time to be disheartened, as the hippy was charging headlong at him. Behind him, several figures appeared on top of the sea. All of them were moving fast towards the black camp.

One, two, three, four… There were four people. Maxin gulped hard as he gazed at the four shadows. It was apparent that the white camp had initiated an all-out attack.