Doomsday Wonderland

The planet had a brain?

Lin Sanjiu was astonished for a moment and perplexed on the spot, unsure of how to respond. During the question and answer session, the empty space in the ground finally calmed down, and only liquid from unknown origins kept dripping into the puddle of slime, an echo spreading in the silence.

Silvan, who was a little further away, turned his head around a little, the contour of his straight nose showing. He looked away and averted his gaze toward the queen. “I understand now. How many nutrients do you need in order to grow? Maybe we can help you.’

‘I don’t need help.’

The voice that sounded like it was suppressing their souls was vast and boundless in their minds. It was difficult to determine what kind of tone the queen was using, if it even had one to begin with.

‘A steak should act like a steak.’

When the words entered their minds, Lin Sanjiu trembled and looked up immediately. She would never forget that sentence until her death. Back at home in Hyperthermal Hell, it was Ren Nan’s words that started her first day as a Posthuman.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

She opened her mouth and felt her lips shaking, “Silvan, those words… those words it said, I’ve heard them from someone else once. I suspect that it can extract information from our brains.”

“It’s one of your memories?” Silvan slightly raised his voice, but before he was done, the queen’s voice came pressuring down on them once more.

‘You will always be isolated on this side of the glass, watching the lives of others… It’s a parallel line that never crosses.’

She was unfamiliar with this sentence; it didn’t seem to be from her memories. When Lin Sanjiu looked up, she saw Silvan immediately look away.

Right after the queen’s voice subsided, the empty space went silent. It seemed to have given up on attacking them with the purplish-black worms. Amid the dead silence, Lin Sanjiu took a glance at Caster, and the Special Item in a humanoid form met her glance and immediately understood her meaning.

Caster approximated the size of the brain behind them and shook her head.

She did not say anything, meaning that the queen did not do anything.

Hence, inside the empty space deep underground, the scene froze with the two of them turning their backs toward the brain. It was as big as a hill; no one moved or made a noise.

What was the queen trying to do?

“You are right,” Silvan suddenly said, shattering the silence. Unlike his usual lackadaisical voice, his tone was grave and it sounded like he was truly furious. “It can reach our memories, but now, it should only be able to extract fragments.”

The sentence from the queen had been from his memories.

“How is it possible? How? Could it be that we are infected with the parasite? Are parasites able to do such things?” Lin Sanjiu’s nails were tightly piercing into her palms.

“Have you heard about the toxoplasma parasite before? It is usually found in cats, but it won’t do anything to the cat’s body. However, when rodents are infected by the toxoplasma parasite, they will no longer fear cats and will even brazenly appear in front of them, walking by their predators as if it is nothing. They won’t even know how to run away,” explained the man with the golden hair.

The queen behind them was still silent as if it didn’t exist. If Lin Sanjiu didn’t already know it was impossible for her to be this lucky, she would suspect that the queen had the intention to spare them.

“I’ve heard of it before… Are you saying the parasite that infected us is similar to the toxoplasma parasite?”

“Yes, but it is a lot stronger. Once this parasite invaded our brains, it split up into three new sources of infection, and prompted us to spread it further out. It seems like the first thing the parasite invaded and destroyed was our temporal lobes,” theorized Silvan as he further pondered upon the question.

“That’s why our sanities are still with us, but we don’t know fear or doubt anymore. The information about Shambhala was sent into our brains through the parasite, wasn’t it?” Lin Sanjiu said.

The man with the golden hair nodded. “That’s the only reason.”

The more clarity in their conversation, the quieter the queen became behind them. The astonishingly huge brain only had its contours drawn out by the dim light, most of its body still being hidden in darkness. Lin Sanjiu pictured it as a ghost ship that haunted them in silence, listening to every word they spoke.

“The parasite must be inside our hippocampus, where we store our memories, which might be why it has access to our memories.” Silvan pressed his fingers to his temple but did not turn around.

Lin Sanjiu let out a sigh and thought for a moment before coming up with a rather appropriate analogy. “I get it now. The parasite was somehow able to read fragments of our memories, and it transmitted the information back to the queen, just like a Bluetooth!”

“Correct.” Silvan nodded and seemed to want to continue, but held his tongue. He thought for a bit before continuing, his tone sounding a little distant, “But I am not as optimistic as you. I have a feeling that the queen is not after our memory fragments.”

“You’re saying…”

“I suddenly lost the words that I was about to say… It’s goal is obvious, which is that it’s trying to suck our brains for nutrients. Many people came to Shambhala, but those who were able to fight back like us were probably only a handful… It is rare for the queen to run into such a situation, so I think it is trying to figure out a new way to deal with us,” said Silvan after he shook his head to regroup his words.

“Is it trying to get to us through our hippocampus?”

This time, a few seconds after her words subsided, she still did not hear an answer from Silvan. He looked like he was terrified, standing straight ahead. Lin Sanjiu called out to him a few times and finally managed to bring him back to his senses. “What did you just say?” he asked.

Lin Sanjiu was stunned for a second. “What… What is wrong with you? Continue!”

“Continue what? Why is the queen not moving?” Silvan seemed a little bit dismayed as well.

“I don’t know… What are you trying to say?” she muttered.

She knew she was thinking about something, but in a flash, she forgot the thoughts running through her mind and failed to remember anything of her analysis.

“I forgot,” Silvan said, word for word.

Lin Sanjiu had also forgotten.

“Such a coincidence, it’s not normal… Weren’t we talking about why the queen is not moving?” she muttered.

The conversation lasted for half a minute, yet somehow fell into the water like a lock of threads, flowing along with the current, moving deeper into the brain. No matter how much she tried to catch them, she always returned empty-handed.

“No, no, no!” A hoarse voice caused them to shift their gazes to Caster. Her long, crooked nose sagged, and a drip of sweat glistened at the tip. “How could you two forget what you were talking about? You were discussing the hippocampus and what it has to do with memories. How could you simply forget that?”

The sudden realization was like a beam of moonlight during a dark night; it illuminated Lin Sanjiu’s brain, but it was soon devoured by dark clouds, leaving her with a fuzzy image.

Right after Caster’s voice subsided, she forgot again.

It seemed like Silvan was having the same problem as well.

“I faintly remember that we were talking about the attack, which did not work, and you have a Special Item that can attack automatically without control?” he said softly.

Lin Sanjiu heard Mrs. Manas’s voice faintly fly across the deepest part of her brain, but it scattered into nothing before she could hear it.

Was Mrs. Manas trying to remind her about something?

“I do,” she answered without a second thought. The artist was summoned twice within a short period of time. He seemed a little lost, but this time, his goal was clearer. Lin Sanjiu pointed behind her, and he immediately carried his bucket and brushes in front of him, and sat down after setting up his easel.

The empty underground space was dark, the light was dim, and details were hidden behind a veil of blur, so he drew very fast. Once he stopped his brush, a strong jet of airstream stirred up in the empty space and flew towards the blank space on the canvas. The wind kept hitting the thing behind them, creating a clear, rapid noise on the surface of some soft-shelled material. Albeit the queen’s enormous size, it was being pulled by the suction force of the canvas. As it fought the suction force, its giant body was dragged along the ground, causing the ground to tremble heavily.

Silvan did not move.

“I feel like we have forgotten something important,” he said softly in a voice that was almost inaudible amid the quaking of the ground caused by the queen. As he spoke, he glanced at the large canvas that opened up in the air. His movements froze right away.

“Lin!” he suddenly raised his voice and pointed at the canvas. “Can you see it? In the empty space beside the queen, there seems to be a person laying down!”

Lin Sanjiu was stunned. She squinted her eyes at the canvas, but the artist had run a little too far away while trying to capture the scenery, so she could not see anything for a moment. Silvan looked down for a few seconds and heaved a long breath. “It’s Meme!”

‘Sh*t!’ she instantly thought in her heart.

The queen was being sucked towards the canvas, and was struggling and rumbling behind them. Her struggles shook the empty space violently, and a dust storm stirred up. Meme was too close to it; if that giant brain ran over his boy, it would not matter if he was dead or alive now, for all that would be left would be a puddle of flesh and blood.

“I’ll go bring him back!” Silvan swung his hand, and the crescent-shaped silver light and Caster disappeared. What replaced them was a metallic cylinder on the ground that was as tall as his waist.

Lin Sanjiu was startled for a moment and nervously hollered, “Hold on! Don’t turn around!”

However, she was too late. By the time Silvan turned around, she had also forgotten the reason why they could not turn around.