Doomsday Wonderland

When the free-for-all finally turned silent, the canyon was a scene of great carnage; many had been slain there. The moon-bleached broken limbs and pieces of corpses littered the area. Moans and groans of pain and the sound of body grating across the ground drifted into the air sporadically before it was all swallowed into the night. The canyon continued to lay still and quiet.

Half-collapsed, the monstrously large iron cage did not show any sign of collapsing further, leaving only a dark shadow under the dimly lit stygian sky. Ji Shanqing, Rena and Reno helped to carry Lin Sanjiu into the iron cage.

When they stepped into the camp again, the countenance of Rena and Reno went cold.

“They must’ve gone through hell. It’s no wonder that the siblings only opened themselves to Lin Sanjiu and exhibited hostility toward other people,” muttered Ji Shanqing. He got his conjecture from comparing how the siblings treated him when they first time saw him and how they treated Lin Sanjiu.

The size of the iron cage was already an eye-opener when looking from afar, but it was nothing compared to the view from inside; it wasn’t even an overstatement calling it a masterpiece. The glade of the iron cage that occupied half of the canyon was vast, and the iron rods that formed into a dome overhead looked as if they could touch the moon. On top of that, the cage was so full of chains that even the air smelled metallic, but Ji Shanqing couldn’t tell if the ironware or human blood was the source of the smell.

“Come and sit here,” Rena said as she oriented Li Sanjiu on the ground, “I’ll go to have a look in the tamers’ dormitory to see if I could find any drinkable water.”

Lin Sanjiu nodded as she didn’t even have the energy to open her mouth. All she could manage was cast a gentle look at the siblings.

“You can’t drink from our water,” Reno said. His gloomy facade finally cracked a bit, allowing a hint of anger to show beyond the mask, “Aside from raining, they only gave us water every ten days. Not only that, but they would mix in anything they could find to put in the water. Soil, dung, urine and seawater are the normal things here.”

Hearing this, even the non-human Ji Shanqing frowned.

As if she was poked by a needle, Lin Sanjiu jerked up. However, she wasn’t fit to make such a maneuver in her current condition, and as a result, a pang of pain spread straight into every nerve in her body, causing a cold sweat.

She shook away the pain and grabbed Reno’s hand tightly while looking into his eyes and said with a croaky voice, “I’m sorry for being late.”

Closing his eyes, Reno shook his head as he returned Lin Sanjiu’s grip with the same strength.

Meanwhile, Rena and Ji Shanqing had arrived at the tamers’ dormitory. Surprisingly, Ji Shanqing found that the living condition of the tamers wasn’t quite as bad as the slaves. Not only did they have clean water, but there were also pots, honey, and many other daily commodities such as rubbing alcohol and different kinds of medicines. As they began to rake and spade whatever useful commodities were in the dorm, Ji Shanqing realized that even though Rena was already free from her shackles, her movement was still pretty shaky. When he saw her fall God knew how many times, he went forward to offer his help by taking everything she had out of her arms. Then, he got some honey and mixed it with some water and salt to make Lin Sanjiu his self-proclaimed isotonic solution.

Although the taste was awful, after gulping down a few bowls of it, Lin Sanjiu did regain some strength.

Not only had some of her strength had returned, but her vision was also getting clearer. The moonlight was silvery white; the forest was green. It was hard for her to imagine that everything had only been red in her eyes a couple of hours ago.

When she remembered how she pushed her way into the camp on her own, she was stunned. She couldn’t believe that the berserker who ran amok and slain whoever blocked her path was her.

After setting the bowl down, Lin Sanjiu looked at the siblings. She couldn’t help but ask, “How do you two feel? Did… Did they hurt you?”

The siblings looked at each other as if they somehow had detected the meaning in between Lin Sanjiu’s word.

The experience Lin Sanjiu had at the Garden of Eden had impacted her in more way that she could’ve ever imagined. It left her with such terrible post-traumatic stress that when she heard the word “slave,” fear instantly took over her whole being. What’s more, when she remembered that Rena was a frail little girl, the fear intensified.

Luckily, the siblings shook their heads, and they opened their mouths and told Lin Sanjiu about their days at the Slave Training Camp.

“I have to admit that they do have a knack in administering torture. Though they caused us great pain, they never inflicted any lasting physical damage on us,” When Reno reached this point, he toned down his voice, and the corner of his lips curled into a sardonic smile, “However, don’t look down on them. We have seen more than enough posthumans cast away their dignity and submit to them, following every one of their orders diligently like a dog just to earn a little recognition that is not even worth mentioning …”

The evolution of ability wasn’t directly proportional to the strength of the willpower of the human. A person’s mind could easily be bent with a small tragedy, so what could an organization like this camp that existed to crush a human’s will bring to the victims who had been sent here? Just thinking about it was enough to make Lin Sanjiu shudder. The destructive power brought forth by the camp against a human being was purely unimaginable.

“You guys don’t know how worried I was before I arrived here. I was so afraid that you guys would become like that as well,” Lin Sanjiu let out a sigh of relief. She was glad that she arrived before anything had gone wrong. Physical damage could be healed over time, but psychological scars couldn’t. Once the mental system was broken, it could never be mended, and it would follow them like a shadow for life.

Rena and Reno exchanged glances again. Their lips moved as if to say something, but they swallowed it back into their stomach at last. Reno turned back to Lin Sanjiu first and said, “Yes, we’re glad you’re here.”

“To be honest, I was surprised I could make it through to the center of the camp without much effort,” Lin Sanjiu said as she frowned deeply. She leaned against a round metal pole stained with patches of dried blood as she spoke, “I didn’t meet any strong fighters here. Even that CEO was much weaker than I thought… How did they manage to catch so many slaves?”

Originally, she thought the Slave Training Camp must at least have some powerful figures of Puppeteer’s or Hei Zeji’s caliber to support them.

Hearing this statement, Ji Shanqing couldn’t help but think of the two tamers he had exchanged blows with. Though they were indeed much more powerful than him because the combat capabilities of the grand prize weren’t very high, could he say that they were actually pretty weak?

“Those supremos wouldn’t bother to commit such sordid deed themselves. For the people that are considered as the top 30% of the total combat capabilities of Red Nautilus, there are plenty of people who are more than willing to do their chores for them. Besides, they don’t necessarily have to soil their hands to catch the slaves. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and the reasons the slaves are being sold here are too many to count. Look, weren’t Rena and I are the best example here?” Reno sneered as he gazed through the gap between the iron bars into the clearing outside of the cage, tightening his jaw.

While Lin Sanjiu was hesitating whether or not to tell them the fate of Geran, Rena interjected to finish where Reno had left off, “When we arrived, the first thing they did was give us an injection. Our brain would go drunk, and we would respond to any question thrown at us.”

“The truth serum!” Lin Sanjiu instantly recognized that injection Rena had mentioned was the infamous psychoactive drug that had been the mainstay of spy flicks for decades even before the apocalypse arrived.

Rena lowered down her eyes looking at the bruised veins on her arm as all the emotions suddenly vanished from her face, “I don’t know, but it works like magic. Every slave that has been sent here after being given the shot would tell them whatever they wanted to know. Our Evolved Ability, Special Items we had, the date we are going to another world: everything. They would take away all our belongings and place a temper on our ability to keep us contained. As if that wasn’t enough to make them feel secure, they would go as far as reinforcing the drug by giving us an injection every few days that would leave us incapacitated, both physically and mentally. And our willpower diminished with every passing second…

“During our training, some of the visitors they called buyers would visit here occasionally to pick the slave they desired the most. However, if the slave failed to become a matured slaves when it was time for him to move to another world, the staff here would send him away… Don’t ask me where or what happened to the slave because I’m as clueless as you are.”

Listening to the siblings’ voices grow softer, Ji Shanqing quietly stood up and added a few branches to the flame under the pot that contained the boiling water.

He could vaguely hear some sobbing or screeching along with some whispers drifting out occasionally from where Lin Sanjiu was, but he couldn’t tell what their conversation was about. Nevertheless, when he saw that the trio was so into their conversation that they weren’t paying any attention to him, he decided to take a stroll around the establishment.

Aside from blood and some torn limbs, there were a few severely injured yet still alive slaves lying among the corpses on the ground, moaning and groaning in pain.

The grand prize was apparently didn’t falter at the havoc. He walked out of the iron cage casually and went to a posthuman that was nearest to him.

“We have some warm water inside,” He tried to be as affectionate as he could, “Let me help you inside. Can you stand up?”

The posthuman didn’t move at all. He unglued his eyelids and rolled his eyes until Ji Shanqing swayed into his vision. Then, from his chapped lips, came two words, “Go away.”

He stared at Ji Shanqing, and it seemed like he was still confused as this time he roared, “I won’t go into the cage again no matter what, you moron! You’re just trying to trick me; I won’t fall for it! Get the f*ck out of my face!”

Ji Shanqing wasn’t expecting this reaction. He raised his eyes to looked around, and he saw a slave-like posthuman poking his head out from behind a tree in the forest. After having a quick and short survey, the man disappeared into the woods again.

Ji Shanqing frowned.

Those who were still around here were probably there because they were too weak to move.

Looking back at the trio who were still chatting, Ji Shanqing didn’t say anything and returned to the cage silently. When he emerged from the cage again, he had a bowl of warm honey in his hand. Although the posthuman was brutal, when a bowl of warm honey presented in front of him, he still couldn’t resist the temptation and gulped it down. After that, he threw himself on top of a corpse beside him.

Looking at the bowl covered with bloody finger marks, Ji Shanqing decided to return to the cage without the bowl.

“Wait,” the posthuman called again, but his tone was much softer this time.

As expected, the grand prize turned his head.

“Seems like I have misunderstood you. You’re a nice guy,” huffed the posthuman. He gasped for air as if every word that came out sapped away his life force, “Return to your friends and tell them: leave this place as soon as possible. The CEO your friend killed is merely a manager here.”

“Manager? Wasn’t he the CEO?”

“CEO is that dumbass’ name!” The posthuman bellowed. “He probably is the kind of person that have gone nuts about becoming a CEO in his career pre-apocalypse. I heard the real owner of the Slave Training Camp is somebody you don’t want to mess around with. Not many people know about this, so leave now while you still have the chance.”

“What about you?”

The posthuman let out a breath, but he didn’t say anything. A kind of indescribable emotion masked his face which Ji Shanqing couldn’t see through. Then, as if he was laughing at Ji Shanqing’s expression, he said, “Don’t worry about me. I won’t be able to make it through tonight.”

The grand prize remained silent. After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, he nodded to the posthuman and before he returned to the cage, he saluted him from the deepest of his heart, “Thank you.”

He didn’t doubt the truth of what the posthuman told him.

When Ji Shanqing relayed the message he got from the posthuman to the trio, Reno confirmed his conjecture.

“That might be true,” Reno commented. “After all, there’s not more than 23% of all the posthumans in the twelve worlds could be categorized as the elite. Most of the organizations are managed and run by those middle-ranked posthumans. Be that as it may, we really should take that posthuman’s advice and leave this place as soon as possible.”

“There is a supply ship that transports rations to the camp every other week,” Rena chimed in, “The next delivery schedule would be two days after, so we can rest and conserve our energy here for the time being. When the ship is here, we’ll hijack it and have them send us back to Free District.”

Ji Shanqing frowned again. He seemed to have noticed something which he couldn’t explain well. However, he couldn’t find any flaw in the plan proposed by Rena and Reno.

There were plenty of resources left in the camp such as foods and water as well as clothes, medicine, heaps of red crystal, and on top of that all, they even found the drug the camp staffs administered to the slaves and a few Special Items in CEO’s room.

According to what Rena had said, every slave that had been brought there had their belongings taken away; thus, it followed that the CEO’s room would be piled with tons of special items. However, there were only three Special Items in CEO’s abode which could only point to one thing: there was a prime mover behind the Slave Training Camp who had hauled way all the Special Items.

After they had cleaned up his room, they moved Lin Sanjiu to recover inside the room.

Since the cat doctor wasn’t with them and she had used up all her [Bone Growth Ointment], she could only depend on some primary medicine and her immune system to heal. After spending a night on the highly humid island, Lin Sanjiu had a high fever. She endured it for another two days, and finally, on the third day, they heard the whirring sound of the engine coming from the sea.

Everything was going smoothly as planned—no, it was even better than what they had devised. Hijacking the airship was no longer necessary. Once the captain saw their red crystals, he instantly and pleasantly offered them a ride.

Looking at Rena and Reno as they helped Lin Sanjiu into the crew lounge, Ji Shanqing sighed deeply. He found himself a place and took a seat.

He peered through the window, and looked into the boundless sea.