Doomsday Wonderland

Nobody wanted to court death. The moment those words tumbled out of Puppeteer’s lips, the two humans and flesh worm reacted instantly and immediately darted behind him.

After having gone through a ton of life-threatening events, almost all of the posthumans had acquired a primal instinct that would find the best route to steer themselves away from danger. Although the heavy fog disrupted their vision, they were very certain that there must be a platform in the direction where Puppeteer came from. They did not even have to worry about the distance at all since the carpet in between would catch them should they fail to estimate the gap and fall. Moreover, was there any safer place than Puppeteer’s back?

When the rustling of the carpet reached their ears, the three of them leaped onto a platform.

“Stop right there!” Soulsqn shouted. Utilizing her massive size, she stopped Maxin and Hegel from going onto the next platform. Her body pulsated with every breath she took. Apparently, it was not difficult for them to deduce the location of the third platform after they had leaped through two platforms in a row. “Lord Puppeteer ordered us to stay here.”

“Are you his dog or what?” Hegel harrumphed. He stopped and zeroed in on Puppeteer’s direction with a raised brow. “I want to see if he is really capable of catching Zeus.”

Without giving any comment, Maxin rose to his feet and looked over his shoulder. All he could see was the thick fog and the carpet that bobbled up and down with the waves of the ocean. Puppeteer was nowhere to be seen.

Earlier, when Zeus was going to announce the new rules, something stopped him from talking, and he had not spoken anything yet until now. After a short bout of rumination, Maxin turned to look at his two temporary comrades behind him. He set his teeth and climbed down from the platform.

“Where are you going?”

The flesh worm soon got the answer to her question. Cautiously, Maxin traversed the carpet as he groped his way into the fog.

“Hey, I just want to ask you something,” he shouted to the front, “Are you a friend of Lin Sanjiu’s? Do you know Ji Shanqing?”

Maxin had no idea what drove him to make such an attempt. This was not something that he would do. After dwelling in the doomsday alone for so many years, he had learned how to discreetly keep out of harm’s way and when to beat a retreat in the face of difficulties. What had Lin Sanjiu and her group of wackos done to him? Even if Puppeteer lost his duel against Zeus and failed to rescue Ji Shanqing in the end, so what? Why did he have to bend his back and take care of Ji Shanqing, someone he barely knew?

When a silhouette slowly came into his sight from within the fog in front, Maxin stopped moving forward at once. Since he did not get any response from Puppeteer, he dared not to go any closer to him. He crouched down, squinting his eyes. When he was finally able to see through the fog, he was stunned.

Something had entered Zeus’s mouth, so he was unable to finish what he was about to say. His lower jaw was dislocated and hung loosely in front of his chest. His neck was a dozen meters long, yet Maxin could only see his blackened lips. Right now, his arms were both inside his mouth, going deeper and deeper down his throat as he struggled to remove whatever it was inside.

With a hair-raising noise, Zeus pulled something out of his mouth. It was a lump of meat, and no sooner did he throw the lump of meat into the sea that he shoved his arm into his throat once again. He seemed to be in a lot of pain.

“A befitting affliction for somebody as disgusting as you,” Puppeteer sneered coldly.

‘Why doesn’t Zeus just leave? Were those meat lumps that he pulled from his throat?’ Just as the thought surfaced in Maxin’s brain, Zeus grabbed ahold of an opportunity and maffled, “The new rules are…” Nevertheless, it was a wasted effort because lump after lump of sarcomas continued to grow out of his mouth and pushed his remaining sentence back to the pit of his stomach.

His face was full of brine. Snot, tears, and spittle all flew madly across his face, and his expression was one of the most wretched things Maxin had ever seen.

‘Hold on a sec.’ Maxin’s eyes glowed as he suddenly had a brainwave. ‘Could it be that Zeus can’t leave if he doesn’t get to finish announcing the rules?’

The more Maxin thought about it, the closer he felt he was getting to the truth. After having announced his two new rules, the Zeus that Lin Sanjiu had turned into spun had around and left at a blinding speed.

Suddenly, a thunderous roar came, and Maxin snapped out of his thoughts. Raising his head, he saw Zeus begin to fight back, as he refused to remain passive any longer. He jerked his arms out of his mouth and reached for the sea.

Maxin found no words to describe what was happening in front of his very eyes. As if he was shaking a massive piece of blanket, Zeus pinched a corner of the sea and raised it high into the air. The carpet was thrown skyward, and if not for Maxin lunging and pressing himself tightly onto the carpet at the last minute, he would have been flung away already. Be that as it may, he still could not save himself from being assaulted by the wriggling yellow shadows that were falling along with the water from the sky. Whenever one of those monstrosities grazed past his skin, it burned like fire.

In contrast, Puppeteer was having an easy time countering the sudden onslaught. His feet were firmly rooted to the carpet, and there were silhouettes—a mix of males and females—all around him. They acted like a human barrier and shielded Puppeteer from the yellow shadows, snatching them away before they even touched him. Then, what they did next confounded Maxin to the core. After catching the yellow shadows, they would slap them onto their own bodies.

After the carpet had had enough playtime in the air, it finally dropped back into the sea. Maxin was drenched to the bone. His wound stung, but he was otherwise safe. At the very least, his condition was much better than the girl in the distance because Puppeteer suddenly pushed her off the carpet the moment they touched the ocean.

Maxin watched in awe as the girl sank into the ocean.

‘The hell is he doing?’

Just as Maxin was losing himself in his thoughts, Puppeteer launched an attack at Zeus once more. Both of them had exchanged several blows in quick succession, yet they ended up in a tie every time. When Maxin finally came around to his senses, he peered into the sky and saw a slim rectangle of light heading headlong at Zeus.

Zeus’s mouth was so full of tumors that he could not speak. He fully knew that he would not prevail over Puppeteer in his current condition, so he turned around and fled. Maxin had seen Zeus’s speed before. Thus, he was confident that nobody, not even Puppeteer, could stop him if he wanted to leave. As expected, his figure blurred with the speed of his movement, and the next time they saw him, he was standing at the very far end of the horizon.

Nevertheless, since Zeus did not get to introduce the new rules, he had to return and get the job done. A jet of water squirted up in the distance, breaking into a cloud of white mist. Dashing across the ocean at full speed, Zeus arrived before Puppeteer again.

This time, however, the speed that he took great pride in failed to perform according to his expectations. A similar coruscating rectangle of light once again appeared around Puppeteer. Even though Zeus wondered what the strange box could do to him, he did not plan to find out. He jammed his brakes, stirred the ocean, and sent a gush of yellow shadows towards Puppeteer.

The attack was far stronger and more powerful than any other attack he had sent at Puppeteer before. Just when Maxin was leaping to the back, the stream of yellow shadows suddenly froze and disappeared in the air. When they reappeared, they became a mini painting that hung submissively at the corner of the box.

“This isn’t what I wanted to resize.” Puppeteer sighed as disappointment flitted across his face. “Why don’t you come closer?”

The moment he finished speaking, an arctic white hand shot up from the ocean and slapped the carpet. Maxin looked like a deer in headlights as another Zeus appeared. The Zeus shot him an indifferent look. Nevertheless, Puppeteer seemed unsurprised by his sudden appearance.

“Is that the girl?”

A voice erupted from behind Maxin and jerked him to his senses. He turned his head to see that Hegel and Soulsqn were standing behind him.

“That is Lord Puppeteer’s puppet,” explained Soulsqn. Maxin had no idea why, but he felt a surge of pride from her when she said that.

As if he overheard their conversation, Puppeteer spun his head halfway around. He did not say anything, but the Zeus wearing a miniskirt walked closer and obediently bowed his head down. Puppeteer grabbed that Zeus’s hair and pulled him in, shortening their distance as he stared him down.

“So everyone, dead or alive, will be turned into Zeus?” After a few minutes, Puppeteer said in a deep and calm voice, “But this one is useless.”

Then, the Zeus retreated to the back. Puppeteer waved his hand, and as if he was given an order, Zeus leaped into the ocean. This time, he did not come up again.

“I don’t understand,” Hegel asked in a whisper, “Why does he want to make Zeus into his puppet? What is so great about them?”

However, nobody could answer his question but Puppeteer.

“If you are still thinking about attacking me, I suggest that you save your breath,” said the man clad in a black leather jacket with a thick, impatient rasp to his voice. Everything about this seemed like a shaggy-dog story to him. “I’ve seen all the attacks you could use from the Zeus that escorted me here. You can’t harm me. To defeat me, there’s only one way, which you know very well.”

Due to the heavy infestation of tumors in his mouth, the Zeus that Zen had transformed into could not utter a single syllable. He shook his head profusely as he attempted to say something through his wasted mouth, but everything that came out was nothing but mere dull, muffled noises.

“Why are you shaking your head? Do you have any better options?” Puppeteer’s voice took on a soft tone that made Maxin’s skin crawl.

Zeus’s eyes froze on his face. He suddenly stopped moving, and his body bobbed along with the waves on the ocean.

Upon hearing this, Maxin turned his head around. He saw that Hegel had already retreated a few steps back.

“We won’t be able to see anything if we go back,” said Maxin to the big, fat worm after a short moment of contemplation, “We should stay here and back him up.”

“Why the hell do you want to back him up?” Hegel hissed as he continued to move back. “Don’t tell me you’ve been infected by that woman’s righteous virus…”

He did not get a chance to finish his sentence. His two thin eyebrows shot upward as his eyes widened in horror. Maxin’s heart gave a little leap. He turned his head back to the front, and a similar horrified expression crawled upon his face.

In the horizon, a group of Zeus all dressed in different clothes was marching towards them.