Doomsday Wonderland

As long as Lin Sanjiu remained mobile, the “melting” process would not happen. And the human species was indeed the distant cousin of apes.

These were the thoughts that came into Lin Sanjiu’s mind half a minute after she fled from the group of citizens.

After her legs had been transformed into stone, she realized how difficult a feat it was to command her leg muscles to jump like a kangaroo. Under the condition where she was dragging a ten kilograms stone, she could barely maintain her balance and prevent the stone from breaking, not to mention pick up her speed. The reason she could keep “running” for such a long time was that instead of using her feet, she utilized her arms. Like those primates that slalomed through trees and bushes, she climbed up the houses and dangled herself from one rooftop to another. The maneuver was effective though, and she crossed half of the street in the blink of an eye.

The citizen all scattered the moment she fled. It occurred to her that they were not trying to chase after her. When Lin Sanjiu was in motion, the people of the city would go on with their life and attend to their own duties as if she weren’t there. It was only when she stopped, then they would slow down and look at her.

Lin Sanjiu suspired heavily. She could feel her arm muscles screaming at her. Even posthumans like her, whose muscles were multiple folds stronger than normal, would be exhausted from continuing this kind of high-intensity activity for a prolonged period. Just now, she almost fell from a house after a leap because her arms suddenly gave out due to exhaustion.

Right now, she laid prone on the rooftop of a butcher’s place. Peeking through the edge of the roof, she could see several slabs of ribs on top of the butcher table. Lin Sanjiu just rested for two seconds before a man who had exited from the butcher’s stopped his pace and turned to look at her.

‘Jeez, I can’t even take a small rest,’ she chided inwardly. Then, she propped herself up and pulled the stone. The man then lowered his head, went in the street, and turned a corner with the meat he purchased in his hand.

‘I can’t keep going on like this forever…’

The effect of [No Coincidence, No story] remained active throughout the time, but Lin Sanjiu could not tell whether it had any effect or not. She was now in a world where everything that happened or would happen was hinged on the Veda’s grace. Take her feet as an example. [The Mountains Removes The Foolish Old Man], which could alter a nothing-else-could-be-done incident, could not “reverse” the entire incident of her feet turning into stone. This was because, aside from herself, all Veda knew this was not an “irrevocable incident”, as they had the power to change it at any time they wanted.

[The Mountain Removes The Foolish Old Man] was not the only Special Item that had lost its effect. Her [Pygmalion Choker], [Battle Item], [Empty-handed Kleptomaniac], [Tornado Whip]… Everything that had been analyzed by the Veda had become useless at this moment.

If she wanted to fight back, she had to find a person or an item that hadn’t been analyzed by the Veda before. Right now, she was separated from her grand prize and her other companions, and she did not know where to find them. As Lin Sanjiu ferreted through her memory to see whether or not she could retrieve something useful from the Olympics, at the same time, she thrust herself into the air and leaped towards another rooftop. Then, with an outstretched arm, she grabbed ahold of the edge of the rooftop before the stone on her feet could bring her down and pulled herself up.

“Hey!” An older man rapped the wall with a wooden cane in his hand as he yelled at the top of her lungs, “Get down from my rooftop!”

She had distributed the Special Items she obtained from Hegel to the grand prize and Maxin. The only thing that remained was the [Cornetto, Freeze The Fun Time], which she retrieved from the furniture cemetery, but it had no use here since its only feature was to record a Pocket Dimension. It seemed like the worst situation ever. Out of anxiety and frustration, Lin Sanjiu bit her lip so hard that her lower lip began bleeding. And when a metallic taste spread inside her mouth, her eyes shone brightly. ‘Wait, furniture cemetery?’

“What do you have in your mind?” Mrs. Manas asked.

“Furniture cemetery!” she shouted. “I went to the furniture cemetery! Why didn’t I think of this earlier?”

Before Mrs. Manas could press forward on the matter, Lin Sanjiu balanced herself on the roof and called out a card.

“Mrs. Manas, please push me with some Higher Consciousness every two… no, three seconds.” Crouching on the roof, she spoke to Mrs. Manas urgently. Then, she deactivated her card.

A petite young girl appeared out of thin air and fell onto the roof, releasing a plume of dust into the air. The bones in her arms and legs that weren’t wrapped around in flesh and skin scattered under the impact and rolled across the roof. Its white sheen caught the lances of sunlight that pierced through the cloudless sky and gleamed.

Even though Lin Sanjiu had closed her eyes, there was still a contorted expression and a tinge of fear left on Lucy’s face. She didn’t know that she had once again seen the sun.

“Why did you take her corpse out… Ah!” Mrs. Manas soon understood what Lin Sanjiu was trying to do.

Lucy was a Special Item dealer, so she must have something on her body. Lin Sanjiu first asked for her forgiveness inside of her heart then began rummaging through her body. She hoped that she could find something useful from Lucy’s body, and just as she found a choker, Mrs. Manas shouted, “Three seconds!”

Lin Sanjiu hastily took the young girl’s weightless corpse into her embrace and felt herself being pushed forward by a force. She turned her head around to see that the spot where she had crouched down just now had become a gooey substance of some sort. It stuck to her trousers and stretched out like taffy. It only unplucked from her trousers when it exceeded its maximum range.

“Hurry up!” Mrs. Manas urged.

Generally, when a posthuman obtained a storage item, they would cram all their Special Items into it rather than concealing them amongst other whatnots or camouflaging them as an ornament and fetching them around. However, Lucy was an exception. Lin Sanjiu got a few Special Items from her belt, rings, and a bird tattoo on her chest. However, she did not even have a chance to look at them, as Mrs. Manas had pushed her forward again.

“Let’s leave this roof first,” said Mrs. Manas crossly. “They are coming again.”

Startled, Lin Sanjiu put Lucy’s body away and rose to her feet. Mrs. Manas was right; while she was busy grubbing about Lucy’s body, a crowd of people had gathered below the house. All of them wore long robes and headscarves. There were women and men, and all of them looked silently at her, seemingly waiting for a chance to launch their strikes.

“Okay, I will go down now.” With those words, she placed her hands on the rooftop and jumped down. This was because the next house had a thatched rooftop, and she was very certain that the straw-built roof would not hold her current weight.

Perhaps the reason she did not feel the effect of [No Coincidence, No Story] was because its effect had manifested on something meaningless like this. The moment she jumped off the roof, she saw a small figure flutter its wings, the blue sky as its background. It was coming straight for her.

The figure was fast. It flapped its wings, and a white paper crane shape soon took form in Lin Sanjiu’s eyes.

‘This must be a paper crane from Puppeteer!’

The thought flashed into her mind, prompting her to twist her body in midair as she stretched her arm, trying to catch the paper crane.

Just as her fingertips almost touched the paper crane, she saw a huge shadow coming headlong for them in the corner of her eyes. Startled, she missed the paper crane. She plopped to the ground with a mighty smack, sending dust into the air.

She did not go forward and check the stone below her feet but raised her head.

In the distant sky, she saw something that she would only see in movies, fairy tales, or ancient myths.

It was a dragon head.

Though it was not a typical oriental dragon head, it was the closest specimen Lin Sanjiu could think of right now. Its head was full of scales, and its two whiskers fluttered casually in the air like two huge serpents. A yellow oblong iris turned to Lin Sanjiu and stared her down. As it opened its mouth, the paper crane beat its wings even faster. It was as if it were trying to send the message to Lin Sanjiu before getting torn apart by the beast that was hot on its heels.

“Hey!”

It was never in Lin Sanjiu’s dreams that the person who sent her the message was not Puppeteer, but the highest god.

“Your little brother and I…”

The paper crane only managed to transmit a few words, as the rest of the sentence was drowned out by the rustling of paper as the dragon head tore it down. The dragon head continued to stare at Lin Sanjiu with its yellow irises as it swallowed the paper crane. After that, its huge head, which occupied almost half of the alley, slowly retreated back and disappeared.

‘Where are they? Why did it have to be cut off at such an awkward point? Could it be that this was the effect of [No Coincidence, No Story]?’

“Is… Is that really a dragon?” Mrs. Manas asked, her shock apparent. “The Veda have even analyzed a dragon?”

Lin Sanjiu did not know the answer either, but there was one thing she was very certain of, and that was that they should not spend their time on something trivial like this.

“Did you see where the paper crane came from?” Lin Sanjiu asked as she dragged herself forward.

“From the sky.”

“Of course, I know it came from the sky! I’m asking for a direction!”

“How should I know?! If you want to know where it came from, why don’t you lift up your head?!” Mrs. Manas snarled.

Not wanting to continue this useless conversation anymore, Lin Sanjiu turned around and called out Lucy’s body onto her shoulders again. After being tossed here and there by Lin Sanjiu, Lucy’s body had only her torso left. Although she was very sorry for her, Lin Sanjiu still psyched herself up and delved her hands into Lucy’s pocket. She touched something, and it took some time before she could pull the entire thing out. It seemed like a tent to her.

A faint fluttering noise got louder and louder in her ears. She was very familiar with the noise, as other than a paper crane, nothing in this world would create such a sound. It was just this time, the noise was so loud that her eardrums buzzed.

Lin Sanjiu looked up at the shadow that loomed over her head, slack-jawed.

Countless paper cranes hovered right above her head like a large swarm of bees, blotting out the sky and the sun. The beats of their wings created such a loud noise that her ears went numb, and it was such a soul-stirring scene when all of them began to descend.

However, the most thrilling moment was only about to begin.

Like a predator drawn to the scent of its prey, its huge head suddenly appeared out of nowhere. To make things worse, it brought along quite a few companions. Multiple similar-looking dragon heads rose from the ground and laid waste to several rows of houses in the process before charging into the sky. With one powerful sweep of their strong tails or one inhalation of their mouths, they effortlessly cleaned up a large number of paper cranes. However, there were still some paper cranes that were lucky enough to be spared from annihilation, and that was more than enough. In the end, the message of the sender reached Lin Sanjiu’s ears.

“Hey!” The highest god’s voice rang out from the formation of paper cranes. “Stay where you are! We are coming now!”