Doomsday Wonderland

Panda Novel

Lin Sanjiu had no idea how long she had been flying. It felt as if an eternity had passed.

It had happened too fast, and it was already too late by the time she came to her senses. She couldn’t release her grip. No person would survive a fall from such a height; not even a posthuman.

Her thoughts, her consciousness, her perceptions, and her feelings… Everything was blown away by the raging wind that assaulted her like a massive truck. Time seemed to have abandoned her as every second feeling as long as a century to her. The air had long since disappeared, and although she was shrouded in the [Defense Forcefield], she did not dare to open her eyes. She was afraid her eyelids might get stripped away by the air stream.

She curled herself into a ball. Despite Mrs. Manas’ effort to reapply a new layer whenever a layer was gone, the [Defense Forcefield] thinned out fast by the friction. Her perception of the outside world dulled, and she felt like she had plunged into an endless void, surrounded by a chrysalis of never-ending torment of great flame and abyss ice. A second earlier, it was so bizarrely hot that she felt that each of her nerves were burned, the pain so unbearable that she almost passed out. Then, in the next second, it suddenly turned so cold as if she were dropped into a pool of freezing water. Her temperature plummeted, and her blood froze.

After some time that seemed like ages, Lin Sanjiu’s torment finally came to an end as she felt her surroundings become quiet.

In the next second, she landed on something hard with a loud thud.

A harrowing pain then exploded inside her body, coursing through every cell she had. However, the pain was swift; it ceased the moment it appeared. It was as though her nervous system had temporarily shut down so that she wouldn’t die instantly from all the pain that had been building up.

Lin Sanjiu did not know whether she was still alive or dead. Her brain felt clouded as if it were shrouded by fog. Her eyes couldn’t see anything clearly, being only able to register a few vague shadows that phased in and out of her vision. She had no idea where she was now.

When the fog in her mind finally ebbed away, her eyes fluttered open. The scene that welcomed her made her feel like she was dreaming.

Overhead was a boundless dome made of a metallic material, glistening with a cold silvery gleam in the dimly lit room. Lin Sanjiu allowed her vision to travel across the dome, but she couldn’t find the end no matter how far she looked.

Lin Sanjiu had not been breathing throughout the whole journey, and now she was almost at her maximum. Throwing everything into the wind, Lin Sanjiu deactivated the [Defense Forcefield] and took a deep breath.

Lin Sanjiu felt better once fresh air flowed into her lungs. Pushing herself up from the ground, the first thing she saw was Soulsqn.

Lin Sanjiu had never imagined that the Souls could become even more disgusting and ugly than they already were.

Perhaps the voyage through the sky had been lethal to not only Lin Sanjiu but Soulsqn as well. Since she did not have the [Defense Forcefield] to protect her body, the deep red outer layer of her skin was gone. Even her mucous had been reduced to only a single layer. The only thing that showed that she was alive was the twitching meshwork of interwoven white “matter” that grew all over her body.

Lin Sanjiu shuddered at the sight. She quickly averted her gaze, all the while getting a clear view of her surroundings for the first time.

Similar to what she had already seen in the corner of her eyes earlier, above her was a large dome-shaped ceiling. On the ground, there was row after row of naked human bodies lined up neatly next to each other, stretching as far as her eyes could see.

Where Lin Sanjiu landed was a spot that fit her perfectly. On Lin Sanjiu’s left was a well-proportionate woman; her eyes were shut tight, and her chest rose and fell slowly as she breathed. To Lin Sanjiu’s right was an equally unconscious man in his birthday suit. His face was serene, as if he was having a good dream in his sleep.

Lin Sanjiu couldn’t tell the exact number of human bodies in the hall, as the hall was too large. She could barely see the two greyish metal plates at the two ends of the hall that connected to the dome above. Upon closer inspection, she realized that there were some empty spots here and there amongst the rows, just like the one she had fallen into.

‘Where am I…? Wasn’t I in the air just now?’

Lin Sanjiu felt a little punch-drunk, and her thoughts couldn’t connect. She tottered for a moment before realizing that the thing she caught using her Higher Consciousness was gone. Her heart skipped a beat, but she soon relieved herself of the thought. ‘That thing must have escaped when my concentration slipped and I lost control of my Higher Consciousness…’

Slowly, she got up to her feet. She felt as though she were an elephant and her legs were made of two pieces of thin ice; her enormous weight was crushing her legs, and she was on the verge of falling at any moment.

After walking for two steps, Lin Sanjiu felt that something was amiss. She held her breath and pricked up her ears. Although there were thousands of people in this spacious hall, she found that there was only one breathing sound.

Their aspiration was in sync, breathing in and out at the same pace. The only exception was the one coming out of Lin Sanjiu’s nostrils.

She glanced at the people on the floor suspiciously as she continued to walk towards the edge of the hall. After nearly half an hour, she finally came close to the wall.

The wall was riddled with holes. Column after column of round holes were arranged systematically across the entire surface. Each of them was about the size of a human head and was immensely deep. Lin Sanjiu poked her head in and tried to look inside, but she could see nothing but the smooth metallic interior and the thick blackness at the end.

She knocked on the wall gently and sighed inside her heart.

The wall was made of a kind of metal that Lin Sanjiu had never seen before. She was sure that even a world like the Garden of Eden would not be able to create such material. It had the cold and smooth attribute of metal, but on the inside, it was extraordinarily spongy and soft, seeming to be able to absorb a lot of impacts.

As Lin Sanjiu was considering whether or not to blast it open, she heard a noise from behind.

‘Has Soulsqn awakened?’ She turned around, but since she was too far away, she couldn’t see anything aside from the human bodies on the floor. She did not want to go back, so she yelled loudly, “Soulsqn? Is that you?”

Her voice created a vibration that lasted for about half a second across the hall, shattering the silence.

However, Soulsqn did not reply to her.

A terrible hunch had been stirring within her the moment she first opened her eyes. She looked at the wall, and although it had a lot of holes, none of them looked like an exit to her. After a short rumination, she then decided to go back to Soulsqn. ‘Although Soulsqn is not one of my kind, she’s the only familiar face—well, if that thing can even be considered her face—I see in this strange place.’

Halfway through her journey, Lin Sanjiu suddenly realized something.

Soulsqn had just suffered severe injuries. Since there were so many human bodies lying around, it was like a wardrobe specially built for her.

‘She must be “wearing” a human again!’

Lin Sanjiu’s eyes blazed with anger at the thought.

As she hastened her pace, Lin Sanjiu began to think about the conjecture she’d had about these human bodies. ‘No matter what these gods are, and what that invisible thing inside the elder brother’s body was, at the very least, these people are real living humans. They were just brought here by the “gods” and used by the “gods” as their vessels!’

Lin Sanjiu couldn’t stand to see Soulsqn overtaking an innocent person’s body. She yelled, “Hey, Soulsqn, can you hear me? Don’t take their skin. Maybe there’s a corpse somewhere around here—”

But Lin Sanjiu was too late. The moment she arrived, she saw a naked woman getting up from the floor. Lin Sanjiu stopped and hissed, “…Couldn’t you wait a little longer?”

The woman turned and looked at her.

“Sorry, what did you say?” Surprisingly, her voice was husky and soft, unlike Soulsqn’s sharp and effeminate voice.

Before Lin Sanjiu could process what was going on, more human bodies got up. In an instance, ten or a dozen people had gotten up from the floor.

“I’m right here.” Soulsqn’s sharp voice rang out from the other side. Lin Sanjiu turned her head in that direction, only to see Soulsqn being pinned down on the ground. There was a man sitting on top of her.