Doomsday Wonderland

Lin Sanjiu tumbled forward for what seemed like the umpteenth time. She sprang back to her feet, quickly glancing behind her before pressing on with her desperate escape. Yu Yuan stumbled along beside her, occasionally needing her assistance to keep up.

Any fool could tell that once they were trapped in this game, there might be no way out. The game's creator was observing them from the other side of the white document. No matter how much chaos she might cause, Lin Sanjiu knew she couldn't possibly crack this game. The creator could simply patch up any vulnerabilities or change the game's conditions to push her into a corner.

Giant characters, reminiscent of the undulating terrain formed by tectonic plate collisions eons ago, rose tremblingly from the expansive white ground. Words transformed into mountains and plains, forming and coloring whole new worlds from the void with resounding rumbles.

But a moment's focus revealed that the rumbles seemed to be only in her head, and the surrounding area was still silent save for her heavy breathing.

Black characters appeared one after another on the white paper, chasing Lin Sanjiu and Yu Yuan and unfolding into entire worlds. The sky was about to spread over her, and several times she nearly stepped onto the grassland that suddenly emerged before her. On this blank sheet, it seemed they were like two flies darting about, and they couldn't predict when the next word would rise beneath them.

After all, this was just a blank sheet where the creator could start writing anywhere.

"Hurry, faster!" Lin Sanjiu shouted back at Yu Yuan, realizing he had fallen several steps behind. Just in time, she used the last bit of her Higher Consciousness to pull him close before a straw hut could trap him.

Mrs. Manas muttered, "Every time I recover a bit, it's used up. When will I be fully restored?"

Lin Sanjiu had no time to pay her any attention.

On this sheet of paper, the moment a brush stroke landed and words appeared, they quickly spread to form a tangible world. When she looked back, the scenes looked like newly constructed television sets.

These scattered sets, formed in pursuit of them, varied greatly. Some had gentle breezes coming from them, others had televisions on the walls, and still, others featured a woman from the countryside reaching out for her. If any of these caught them, they'd be dragged into the game.

"Where do you think you're going?" Yu Yuan, with an arm wrapped around Lin Sanjiu, stumbled as they ran. His face was still expressionless. "No matter where we go, he can write."

"That's true," Lin Sanjiu said, wishing she could just carry him, but he was slightly taller than her. "Except where there's already writing, right?"

"So, you want to hide inside an already formed game?" Yu Yuan asked.

Having seen the games projected on the ground and having navigated the structure of the text multiple times without any issues, she believed the creator couldn't overwrite already existing text. Lin Sanjiu responded, "Yes."

"I don't think that will work."

Before she could ask why, she suddenly felt a strong impact. It felt as though her ears, shoulders, and knees were going to fall off from the pain, blurring her vision.

"Step back a few meters," Yu Yuan said calmly.

'They came running from behind.' Before this thought even fully formed in her mind, Lin Sanjiu instinctively leaped backward. As her feet touched the ground, she clearly saw that an unexpected line of text had appeared on the transparent barrier in front of her. At that moment, the last character "齐" was merging into a silhouette, transforming into another unfamiliar person. The person blinked his small, black-bean-like eyes, opened his arms towards them, quickened his pace, and lunged.

She hurriedly yanked Yu Yuan, enduring the throbbing pain in her head, and turned to run in another direction.

"Did you know we couldn't get back from the start?" she asked.

"It's not exactly knowing," Yu Yuan said, his tone sounding as casual as if he were lounging on a sofa with tea. "I just pondered deeply. To put it in terms you might understand, this world is like a handwritten book. Although every finished page must be bound together to form a complete book, when writing, each page is undoubtedly written separately on a sheet of paper. Every game is a page, bound to the planet's surface, forming this game world."

"So, we happened to run onto a blank sheet!" Lin Sanjiu shouted. "He noticed and began writing on this paper?!"

"Your understanding is quite correct."

That statement didn't come from Yu Yuan.

The voice emanated from the depths of the snowy white ground beneath them. The male voice seemed somewhat appreciative. Lin Sanjiu couldn't fathom what kind of being could create such a world.

"What do we do now?" Her anger surged, especially seeing Yu Yuan's indifference, which fueled her irritation even more. As soon as she said this, she felt as though something had squeezed her heart. She quickly bumped Yu Yuan with her shoulder, diving with him to the side. At the spot they almost landed, a woman suddenly appeared, squatting on the ground.

"He's started using game characters to catch us," said Yu Yuan. "Smaller, more agile, harder for us to evade." freeweɓnovel.cøm

If this was a solitary extracted page, it meant no matter which direction she ran, she would encounter the same invisible boundary. Glancing back, across the vast expanse, countless new characters erupted from the ground, slowly forming parts of the game: an ochre hill with crisscrossed cart tracks, stretching from a village, settling onto the blank paper-like land. There was a spot where rain fell, and the wind blew the slight chill of raindrops towards an empty, pure white space. Before long, this entire page would be filled with text. Then, she would have nowhere to run.

Lin Sanjiu, afraid to touch the text-formed world or the text-formed people, swiped away an approaching woman with [Tornado Whip], grabbed Yu Yuan, and loudly asked, "If we continue to stay here, we'll eventually get sucked into the game. But this place is an isolated space. If it's not connected to anywhere, how do we get out?"

"Actually, if you think about it—"

Lin Sanjiu pinched his arm.

"Ah," Yu Yuan uttered indifferently—he probably didn't feel pain; otherwise, he would have passed out when he fell down the elevator shaft.

Not sure if the person on the other end of the blank paper was still watching, Lin Sanjiu feigned curiosity to keep up appearances. "What were you thinking?"

Yu Yuan glanced down at where she had gripped his arm. "Hmm... think about it, we don't need to run," he obviously changed his wording, "we just need to make sure he can't see us."

"Do you have a way?"

"I mean... I have an item that might be useful for this situation."

During their conversation, both understood deep down that this was at best a temporary measure to buy time. The isolated piece of paper, although disconnected from other game paper spaces, did not imply that it was a dead end.

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The most significant pathway was right beneath them. Since Whit E.'s text could cross the white paper to the other side, so could they; all they needed was to find a way.

Without much noticeable movement from Yu Yuan, Lin Sanjiu saw him, while running, pull out a large bundle of white cloth from his coat. Expecting to see the Special Item's function, Yu Yuan threw the cloth forward, saying, "It's big enough. Get in."

Could it be a space within a space? True to the Veda's reputation, he used a space-related item right off the bat.

As Lin Sanjiu stepped on the cloth, her admiration vanished.

"Hold one corner and step on it," Yu Yuan said. "When you squat, cover your head with the cloth. Hurry up; I think someone's coming."

Lin Sanjiu quickly glanced around and indeed noticed a long shadow being cast from behind a half-crumbled stone wall. She swiftly pulled the cloth over her head, hiding underneath with him, and whispered, "Please tell me this cloth has a special function."

"No, I didn't have time to create a Special Item."

So, they were just squatting under a piece of cloth like hens at a farmer's market? Was this just self-deception?

"When he writes on the paper, he probably sees only the paper and the text," he continued. "If we appeared as two humanoid figures on the paper earlier, no wonder he noticed... But now, we're just a white blotch; he shouldn't see us."

"But the people formed from the text have eyes! They can see us!"

Yu Yuan paused for a moment. "Whether these words, before they come together and form a complete game, have normal functionality is still unknown."

Lin Sanjiu pointed to a vague shadow through the white sheet—she realized by now it was a bedsheet—and said, "Look."

Yu Yuan took a glance.

"It's coming straight at us, isn't it?"

Yu Yuan nodded.

"Then why aren't we running?!"

Lin Sanjiu flung the sheet towards the approaching figure, grabbing Yu Yuan by his collar and pulling him back. Her timing was impeccable, and the sheet fell onto the stranger, covering them entirely like a resurrected mummy. She dragged Yu Yuan along, running towards the already materialized miniature world, asking while catching her breath, "Do you have more of those white bedsheets?"

"As many as you need," Yu Yuan said matter-of-factly.

When it came to these useless items, there was an abundance.

"Then get me two more," Lin Sanjiu said, quickly bending over to dodge a low-hanging tree branch. To her right was a forest formed by the text. The land, shrubs, and weeds reluctantly spread outward, nearly touching their feet.

"Where are you going?" Yu Yuan asked, pulling out another white bedsheet from his embrace.

"Your earlier deduction, I think one part might be right," Lin Sanjiu whispered, trying not to let the person on the other side of the paper hear. "When he looks at us, we might appear neither as text nor as a white space but rather conspicuously... If that's the case, I might have a plan that could possibly help us reach the other side of the paper."

"What's the plan?"

"You believe that wrapping something in the white cloth makes it invisible, right?" Lin Sanjiu felt that, although the idea was akin to a grade-schooler using white-out over a typo, Yu Yuan was a Veda after all; he couldn't be too off base. "We'll grab something formed from the text and wrap it in the white cloth. If he gets surprised and tries to retract the text, maybe he'll inadvertently take us with it."

"Didn't you forget? If you touch the text, you'll become part of the game it forms."

Lin Sanjiu had considered this. To be honest, she had come up with the idea inspired by Yu Yuan, even if she was reluctant to admit it now.

"Look at our surroundings," she said. "The game he's designing for us is clearly set in an era where people draw water from wells, live in thatched cottages, and travel by ox cart. It's a game with an ancient backdrop. I don't know if he mistakenly wrote something out of haste, but when he tried to capture us using text earlier, a group of characters appeared that clearly didn't belong to this ancient game... If that text doesn't form a part of a game, grabbing it should be safe, right?"

Yu Yuan glanced around, realizing her point.

"It's the television on that wall," he whispered. "That TV isn't part of the game."