Doomsday Wonderland

Lin Sanjiu wanted to ask, "What roots?" when a warning from Mrs. Manas rang in her mind. Without explaining, she told Silvan, "Keep an eye on her!" and then turned and dashed in another direction.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a fleeting moment of eagerness in Advaita, like a Venus flytrap ready to capture a fly. But, wary of Silvan nearby, Advaita quickly regained her composed facade.

Now, both Lin Sanjiu and Advaita were part of the losers' team and would drop items with any hit, like a money tree. While Silvan wouldn't attack her, there was no rule preventing Advaita, another loser, from doing so. If Advaita managed to grasp one of Lin Sanjiu's vital abilities, the slight advantage they had painfully gained would vanish.

She couldn't let her guard down around this woman.

Lin Sanjiu trusted Silvan with her back, so she traversed half of the parking lot in a few breaths without looking back. Before leaving the mall, she secretly tied a Higher Consciousness thread to Chen Hanwu. With everyone running in different directions after entering the parking lot, she couldn't be sure he'd remain within her line of sight. With this connection, if he ran into trouble, she could help in time.

"We agreed you wouldn't come after me!"

Fortunately, Chen Hanwu hadn't run far. Before she got close, she saw the dark-skinned boy standing on an SUV, gripping a long stick, turning in circles, and shouting. From this, Lin Sanjiu deduced Chen Hanwu didn't know where the enemy was.

Eager to return to Silvan, she had no patience to waste more time. The only person who'd go after Chen Hanwu was that round-faced girl Lin Sanjiu disliked. Without a word, Lin Sanjiu jumped between vehicles and sent forth a burst of Higher Consciousness, pushing the SUV a couple of meters. Amidst the creaking of the worn metal, she bent down and grabbed the round-faced girl by the neck just as she was about to leap up.

Struggling to maintain balance on top of the vehicle, Chen Hanwu stammered, "H-How d-did you..."

"I told you no one would trouble you," Lin Sanjiu said, lifting the girl by her collar. Another wave of Higher Consciousness targeted the girl's temple. The girl didn't even have a chance to resist before she was hit and knocked unconscious.

Lin Sanjiu didn't dare use her fists directly. After all, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If she were to punch and something fell from her own body, that would be embarrassing.

"You should leave now," Lin Sanjiu said, throwing the girl back on the ground and retracting her Higher Consciousness. Without waiting for the boy to respond, she hurriedly returned. To her surprise, when she turned around, she froze.

The spot where Silvan and Advaita stood just moments ago was now empty.

"Where did they go?"

For a moment, she wondered if she had misjudged the location. She scanned left and right several times, but it was desolate everywhere. She couldn't comprehend how Silvan could vanish without a trace or sound. Recalling Chen Hanwu, who had been standing on the roof of the SUV, she wondered if he had seen something. She quickly turned and asked, "Did you just..."

The roof of the car was empty.

Lin Sanjiu blinked, wiping her face. She looked down at her feet.

The round-faced girl was gone as if she never existed.

She slowly walked around the vicinity. The SUV she had pushed earlier still had a dent in its door from her Higher Consciousness attack. Testing, Lin Sanjiu hit another car several times with her Higher Consciousness but found that she couldn't even leave a mark. No matter how much Higher Consciousness she used, there was no sound from the car door. If it weren't for her vivid feeling of having struck it, she might have thought it was all a dream.

Lin Sanjiu retraced her steps to where Silvan originally stood, with the dim street lights casting faint glows in the twilight. She sat on the ground, staring at the rock formed by [The Power Of Word Picture], trying to unravel the tangle of her thoughts.

What kind of power could make four other people disappear in an instant?

Could it be that a sudden Great Deluge came, and she just happened to stand in the only gap untouched by the flood?

Lin Sanjiu thought the possibility was quite slim. Aside from the Great Deluge, very few powers could make Silvan disappear without a sound. By this logic, she had to consider another possibility—the one who disappeared was her.

But she was here, in the parking lot. How could she have disappeared? Or, were the others obscured by something, still in the same space? But if that was the case and physical laws remained consistent, why couldn't she hear any sound?

At the very least, if Silvan felt something was amiss, even if he stomped his foot, she should have felt the ground shake.

They couldn't be shielded. Lin Sanjiu was certain she was the only living thing in this parking lot.

She pondered for a while, eliminating at least eleven or twelve possibilities. Her thoughts constantly hit a wall, making her feel irritable. She tried rushing to the nearby streets but didn't trigger the next game. When she returned to the mall, she found the automatic doors wouldn't open, the glass doors couldn't be broken, and peering inside, she saw no trace of the volunteers.

It was as if she was the only one in the whole world.

So, it was she who disappeared.

Lin Sanjiu leaned against the glass door, shielding her eyes from the light to peek inside the mall. The cashier's computer screen displayed the time, which should ideally be synchronized with the security room's computer. She squinted and, after a while, exhaled softly —time had indeed stopped.

Although she could still act normally, time seemed to be frozen in the world around her. Thus, when she hit the car door or approached the automatic door, the car door wouldn't dent, and the automatic door wouldn't open for her—it's simple: they didn't have the time to respond.

Lin Sanjiu tried, and she could still retrieve items from her card inventory, and all other abilities remained intact. This meant that only the flow of time around her progressed normally while the environment's time flow was halted.

She had been thrown into a relatively independent space, which likely had something to do with Advaita.

Advaita wanted to reclaim her roots, but Silvan, the game's winner, had integrated them into his body. Unless there was a Special Item specifically for this situation, even if Advaita killed Silvan, she couldn't reclaim her roots.

Even if Advaita was powerful, she might not have a collection of Special Items to suit every need. 'If I were Advaita and I wanted to reclaim the root system, there is essentially only one way,' Lin Sanjiu thought slowly.

That is, to persuade Silvan to re-enter the game and lose, allowing Advaita to extract the roots.

Common sense told her that Silvan certainly wouldn't cooperate so willingly.

Lin Sanjiu slowly slid down the wall to sit on the ground, beginning to piece it together.

Had she unknowingly become the hostage Advaita was using to blackmail Silvan?

If Advaita used her safety as a bargaining chip in exchange for her roots, Silvan might agree. The most pressing matter now was to find a way out of there urgently. With growing anxiety, Lin Sanjiu stood up and looked around the mall—although she wasn't even sure what she was looking for in such a completely independent space, could there be a crack somewhere?

She still searched repeatedly, not even sparing the cars in the parking lot, looking through each one's windows. She saw drink bottles, handbags, dolls, child seats, fast-food paper bags, chocolate cakes, and crumpled coats, but no opening that could be her way out.

As she dragged her feet towards the distant street, Mrs. Manas suddenly called out. "Wait. Go back."

Lin Sanjiu did as told and walked back. She stood between two cars, her gaze shifting around, suddenly realizing what was amiss that must have triggered Mrs. Manas's reaction.

Typically, purchased cakes were stored in paper boxes, right? Why was this chocolate cake just sitting upright in the back seat without any cover? Saying it was uncovered wasn't accurate, as underneath the cake was a very small table that seemed to be made especially for it—quite different from what one would expect from a regular cake shop.

Unlike other objects that had been eroded by doomsday, losing their original color, this chocolate cake looked particularly beautiful: the chocolate sauce seemed fresh, the cake was full and fluffy, and the frosting and cream shimmered with a sweet and fresh luster, making it seem as if it was freshly baked.

Lin Sanjiu pressed her nose flat against the dirty, blurred car window.

What truly astonished her wasn't how beautiful the cake was.

It was very familiar. She had seen this chocolate cake before.