Doomsday Wonderland

Unfortunately, it was not realistic for them to pin their hopes on Puppeteer to suddenly wake up given such circumstances.

He was now tied to Lin Sanjiu’s back with a rope. To prevent him from sliding off, she could only afford to free a hand to grab one of his arms. As a result, his arm was basically supporting almost his whole body weight. Half-carrying and half-dragging his body in this manner, Lin Sanjiu ran frantically in the darkness. Soon, she noticed that the back of her clothing was soaked.

If this continued, who knew if her only hope would die on her back?

“Polva?”

“Continue in this direction,” the white fatty answered her immediately.

“I’m not asking about that!”

After Lin Sanjiu shouted at him, he scurried anxiously on her shoulder like a large rat before he retorted while sobbing, “I’ve been slapping his face, but he just won’t wake up!”

“Use more strength! It has to hurt!” Lin Sanjiu bellowed back. When she heard the rustling behind her, she picked up her running speed once more. “If he doesn’t wake up, we’re going to die here!”

After running for just over ten seconds, Lin Sanjiu gained some insight into the dark passageway among the furniture.

Apart from those things lurking in the dark, she could not open any furniture doors from within this passageway. In fact, she could not even destroy them. The furniture with “interior space” were all connected together. They created an endless, dark and unpredictable passageway which sometimes dipped drastically, became very narrow, or suddenly turned into a winding passage. It was no surprise that Maxim was not able to escape after entering.

Considering all that, Lin Sanjiu counted herself lucky when she fought with ‘Soulsqn’. Although the closet doors were swinging on their hinges, they did not close. Additionally, Lin Sanjiu was certain about one thing: this interior space was definitely larger than the actual combined area of the furniture linked.

Lin Sanjiu could only catch a glimpse of the outside world when she saw an opening like a ventilation fan or a glass window. Much to her disappointment, she could only see heaps and heaps of furniture under the night sky during those quick glances.

Despite only being distracted for a quick second, the alarm bells in her head suddenly exploded in a cacophony. The moment she swiftly swung her head to the side, a blast of warm gas missed her ear narrowly and started spreading out. She held her breath and ducked downwards. Even though it was very difficult to run while crouching, she did not want to risk running upright.

Previously, when she was caught off guard, the gas that the creature exhaled had hit her straight in the face. At that second, she got the opportunity to experience how it felt to be a breath away from death. The gas seemed to trigger a person’s mind into believing that he or she was, dying thus evoking a real physical response that paralyzed that person’s entire bodily functions. If Lin Sanjiu did not use her higher consciousness to stop the commands from being picked up by her brain, her heart could very well be a slab of cold flesh right now.

Thankfully, it seemed that thing could not belch that “Last Breath” gas very often, so this gave Lin Sanjiu enough time to evade the attack.

“What the hell is that?” Lin Sanjiu gasped between quick breaths. “Can you see it?”

“I don’t know,” Polva replied while he continued to forcefully hit Puppeteer. “I can only make out its rough shape…but it’s quite a challenge to describe that thing. Do you know what the deconstructivism art movement is?”

Lin Sanjiu had the impression that it was some style of abstract art, or at least, the sort of art which she found difficult to comprehend. “Go straight to the point!”

“Deconstructivism in art or architecture is characterized by the idea of fragmentation and recombination, so the final work is usually very complex and difficult to describe,” Polva spoke more rapidly, but his explanation was completely useless. “That thing has a shape that reminds me of deconstructivism architecture.”

‘His whole explanation was just a goddamned lesson in the appreciation of art!’

“So, you mean it’s just a big pile of randomly-combined, indescribable shapes?”

“Yes,” the white fatty suddenly answered.

‘Argh, I shouldn’t have asked.’

Just when that thought flashed in Lin Sanjiu’s mind, the rustling behind her suddenly stopped completely. Before she could figure out where that thing went, the ground beneath her feet suddenly shook violently. The force was so great that it lifted her feet off the ground. A strange unbearable stench crept to the back of her neck.

“It’s right behind us!” the white fatty shrieked.

It was obvious that he made that remark on hindsight. As he said those words, Lin Sanjiu held both him and Puppeteer tightly with her hands and executed a somersault mid-air using the momentum of the force which lifted her. With that, she narrowly managed to get them away from the creature’s foul breath.

“You can’t outrun me!” A peal of laughter that was as coarse as sandpaper erupted in the darkness. Each time it laughed, it sounded different, but the sound produced the same chilling effect.

Lin Sanjiu scoffed as she landed and stood up straight. Before she could flee again, she heard Polva’s nervous comment, “It…it might be right…It grew bigger.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think it…w-wasn’t so big just now,” Polva stammered, “I think it grew larger like a rolling snowball while it was chasing us…”

This time, the strange laughter from that creature was extremely chirpy. It had an erratic pitch that could swiftly go very sharp or very deep. Additionally, the stress pattern of its speech was complete off, so listening to it speak made them very uncomfortable. “That’s right. I didn’t think that your observation skills would be this keen in the dark. Run. Go on. Why aren’t you running? If you run further, I can grow even bigger.”

The larger the creature grew, the probability of Lin Sanjiu evading it would definitely plummet. After all, there was still a limit to the size of this interior furniture space. Perhaps, when that creature reached a certain critical size, she would no longer be able to escape breathing in the ‘Last Breath’ that it emitted.

“Alright, I’ve got it.” Lin Sanjiu exhaled. While she inspected her surroundings for a sign of the creature in the dark, she recoiled a step. She crouched down and unloaded Puppeteer from her back. Then, she pushed him way behind her before she turned to the white fatty. “Go over there with him!”

“T-then, what?”

Lin Sanjiu really wanted to answer him, but the creature did not spare her a single chance to do so. When she was shoving Puppeteer behind her, it had already soundlessly crept up to her. As it moved very slowly, it did not stir the air molecules around them. When Lin Sanjiu finally reacted, she was almost too late. Instantly, she sensed something right beside her face.

In the apocalyptic world, a person’s survival was not usually determined by how many items they had or how strong their abilities were. Even if they could rely on these external factors, there would always be a chance for things to go wrong. The true factor which determined a person’s survival was his or her decision-making in a life and death situation.

Very few people could hold their ground if they felt a dangerous, unidentified object touching their faces. As Lin Sanjiu turned her head, she stretched her arms out. In the next instant, her two hands touched the creature which was about to assault her, and she activated her Mosaic Censorship. Judging from the physical contact, what she touched seemed like a fat person’s twisted arm.

Before a thick fingertip could touch her chin, it exploded into clumps of wet mush like a bug’s abdomen that was squashed. Instinctively, Lin Sanjiu closed her eyes the second she felt a spray of cold liquid on her face and smelled that strange strong stench. The creature moaned in the darkness. Lin Sanjiu wiped her lips and called out her Battle Item to throw behind her. “Catch!”

“W-what?” A clap exploded from Polva’s hands as if he failed to catch it.

“You can use it to imitate a Special Item.” Lin Sanjiu did not know how far away that creature was from her. As the creature was enormous, the moans it made seemed to reverberate through its abdominal area, creating echoes everywhere. “You just have to describe an item in detail! Hurry! Think! Is there anything we can use right now?”

“Something we can use…” The white fatty clenched the Battle Item. He was so nervous that his voice became an octave higher. “Something we can use…”

Lin Sanjiu did not waste any time. She called out her Tranquilizer Gun for the Foot Soldier. Since that creature was huge and was probably very near to her, it probably could not dodge this time. The sound of her gun valve rang out over and over again as she fired a frenzy of tranquilizer darts at the creature. As expected, the darts hit its target, and the creature wailed.

However, it remained standing.

‘If only I could see…’

As that thought surfaced in Lin Sanjiu’s mind while she held her gun straight in front of her, she heard a sudden click behind her. A few specks of light came into her line of sight. The specks seemed to come alive as they latched onto the walls around them. Then, they became steady and started expanding. They were like some sort of white, glowing moss that was rapidly growing or white paint that was quickly filling up the walls. Every area they traversed across lit up. Soon, they illuminated Lin Sanjiu’s field of vision.

She stared blankly at the enemy in front of her.

It really was a work of deconstructivism.