Doomsday Wonderland

Expect the unexpected. Life is full of wonderful things waiting to surprise you.

Sitting on the ground, Lin Sanjiu’s mind was befuddled, feeling all at sea. She couldn’t understand why or how she ended up in here.

She shifted her gaze to her hand, unable to accept the current situation she was in. A few hours ago, she thought that she had to try to enter the Astral Plane even if her School of Higher Consciousness still wasn’t in its highest form, even if she had to force through it. Nevertheless, never once did she ever imagine that after she’d awakened from her dream about being separated from her grand prize and clashing with Bohemia, she would be in the Astral Plane.

“How did I get in here? Is there any possibility that I can enter the Astral Plane as I wish?”  ( NovelFull )

“Mrs. Manas,” Lin Sanjiu hollered out Mrs. Manas in her mind, but she received no reply from the latter. Confused, she raised her head.

The room was ill-lit, and there were two filthy straw mats laid on the ground before her. In the center of the concrete between the two straw mats were these lines of description: Three-Legged Prison Break. Welcome to the Alcatraz Penitentiary. The player’s goal is to escape from this penal institution. There will be two players in a group, and both players must maintain physical contact when passing through a checkpoint. Failing to do so will result in both players being sent back to the cell, or starting point, and the whole game will be restarted. The game continues until both players have completely escaped from Alcatraz.

This was the game she entered with J7.

Lin Sanjiu’s heart seized, and she knew her grand prize had hit the jackpot again. She then called out to the dark in a low voice, “J7—”

A calm voice suddenly came from behind her, as soon as her voice was raised into the air, “I’m here.”

Jerking up, Lin Sanjiu hastily turned around. From the shadow of the corner of the room, a mechanical being—complex yet majestically built—was walking out of it. The stapler-like body part turned to Lin Sanjiu in a whirl, and as the light bulb on top of that part blinked for a few times, J7’s sound rang out, “… You have returned.”

“Yeah, I’m back,” Lin Sanjiu sighed. At the thought of J7 being locked in this filthy, claustrophobic cell, a pulse of guilt spread across her chest. When she walked forward, attempting to explain herself, J7 turned his ‘head’ away, avoiding her gaze and walking past her, “Well, glad to see you’re back. I can finally get the hell out of here.”

“Hey, J7. Hey, dude, hey, listen to me. I was pulled out from the Astral Plane by somebody outside last time, so it’s not my fault,” Lin Sanjiu explained, following closely behind J7, “Besides, I thought you would be kicked out by the game since it requires two players to clear the game…”

“Okay,” J7 replied calmly. It continued to move towards the exit.

Lin Sanjiu dimly felt its attitude towards her had changed, but it had been so long she couldn’t remember it very well. She tried to read from its expression; however, the Eternal Warrior had no human face, so her attempt was not effective at all.

“You know, my Higher Consciousness is still pretty weak so no matter how hard I tried, I have never succeeded in entering the Astral Plane…”

J7 suddenly halted its advance. With its “feet,” which were, in fact, a pair of flexible and convenient pedrail wheels, it had no difficulties in maneuvering itself, “Then, what’s your level now? Have you reached the highest level already?”

“… No, I still have a long way to go,” Lin Sanjiu answered reluctantly.

“So how did you get in here?”

“About that… I have no idea…”

The bulb on top of J7’s head flashed in quick succession for a few times, as if it was expressing an emotion. However, it said nothing at last. Extending a machinery part from its body, J7 pointed at the door, talking calmly, “I guess we should prioritize clearing this game. Let’s focus our mind on how to get out from here.”

The more indifferent it was, the more Lin Sanjiu felt guilty. As if she was atoning for her sin, she made the initiative and said, eager to help, “Leave this door for me. Let me break it down—”

Suddenly, the front part of the slender mechanical arm opened, then a metal claw with a few nimble fingers twitched around in the air. It clawed at the door and yanked it free, pulling the massive block of metal opened with a loud screech.

After that, the stapler-like head part turned to Lin Sanjiu. Facing her stupefied gaze, J7 said indifferently, “… I have already pried it open.”

“Then, why have you stayed in here?”

The moment the question escaped her lips, she realized how stupid she was to ask such a question.

“It’s a three-legged prison break!” J7 boomed. Its voice went up several decibels as if it couldn’t contain its anger anymore, “Do you really think I didn’t try to leave? I was sent back here whenever I tried to walk out from this cell, every single time! I have been trapped in this loop for half a year!”

Standing stock-still, Lin Sanjiu lowered her head dejectedly as she didn’t know what to say. She only lifted her head when J7 paused its outburst. Extending her hand to hold J7’s mechanical arm, she said, “… It’s all my fault. Shall we leave now?”

However, J7 wasn’t done talking. It grabbed Lin Sanjiu’s hand with its metal claw and continued to direct a torrent of abuse at her, “You humans are all liars! You never live up to your promises! You told me that you didn’t know how to exit from the Astral Plane and asked for my help. Then, you’re gone in two twos, leaving me trapped here for six months. I have already given up hope, and I even had made up my mind to spend the rest of my life here, in this sordid, Lilliputian cell, alone… Liar. I’ll never believe you ever again.”

Then, it stopped. Lin Sanjiu waited for a moment until she was confident that it had finished its outburst, then only she began to spoke, with a guilt-laden voice, “I didn’t mean to lie… I’m sorry, for putting you through so much.”

“Fabulist,” J7 remonstrated, refused to change its opinion on Lin Sanjiu’s personality, “You said that you still haven’t raised your Higher Consciousness to the highest level and yet here you are with me again. You must be lying to me.”

Lin Sanjiu sighed, for she did not know how to explain for herself. When she was going to consult Mrs. Manas, the latter talked first, “… You were brought here by Bohemia.”

Stunned, all of the colors were gone from Lin Sanjiu’s face.

“… That wasn’t a dream?” She soon saw the light, “Am I really… separated from my grand prize?”

“Yeah. Bohemia used her ability to put an illusion into your mind, making you dream-drunk. Then, she latched a Special Item to your neck and pulled you into the Astral Plane,” Mrs. Manas suspired, “But I have no idea where she’s now.”

“In other words, my real body is now lying somewhere unconscious in Salvation Of God without anybody at my side?” Lin Sanjiu leaped up; her face turned ugly. Without waiting for a reply from Mrs. Manas, she pulled J7, “Come on, we gotta move.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s a long story, but it has something to do with how I got in here this time—”

“Hold it right there. Are you trying to say that this time you came in the Astral Plane wasn’t out of your own conscience, but forced by somebody again?” Asked J7 suspiciously.

Its question stumped lin Sanjiu. She thought it carefully, and she couldn’t utter a sound. Even though it was the truth, such thing as being forced in and out of Astral Plane several times by somebody sounded just like an excuse made up of a person who lacked imagination.

Be that as it may, the most important thing to do now was to escape from the prison. And the silver lining was that both Lin Sanjiu and J7 were able to reach a consensus on this matter. Hand in hand, the metal claw, and the human hand opened the door wider, and they both stepped into the hallway stealthily. They tried to make their move as silent as possible, for the situation they faced now was very grave.

If the cell they previously stayed in was gloomy, then it was completely dark in the hallway. Both of them stood by the door, squinting their eyes very hard as they tried to see through the impregnable darkness. Since they couldn’t register anything amongst the black, neither of them moved. J7 then whispered, “Hold a sec. Let me turn on the bulb.”

“You’re just like a Swiss Army knife. It’s so convenient.” Lin Sanjiu couldn’t help and praised it for its versatility. She vaguely remembered the J7 was equipped with lighting. Upon hearing what she had said, J7 turned its metallic face to her. Lin Sanjiu didn’t know why, but she had a hunch that it was staring at her. She had no idea which words she said had rubbed the biorobot the wrong way, and she decided to keep silent.

As the beam of white light spread out into the darkness, Lin Sanjiu finally had a more unobstructed view of their current location.

She at long last saw the reason why Alcatraz Penitentiary was a maximum security prison.

“Quick! Get back to the cell!”

Her skin broke out into gooseflesh the moment the hallway was lit up by the bulb. She turned around and pounced on J7, pushing it on the ground. Immediately afterward, a deafening salvo of shots rang out, and sparks of fire were released into the air when the bullets struck the concrete wall. Pressing herself close to the ground, Lin Sanjiu had to use all her strength and might to drag the heavy J7 back into the cell. The second they stepped into the cell, the torrential gunfire outside ceased away.

“What the hell was that?!” Lin Sanjiu cursed aloud, her heart fluttering madly like a caged bird.

She had had the full view of the entire prison, albeit a fleeting glance. The Alcatraz Penitentiary was a cylindrical building, with a hollow center and multiple levels of cells built around it. Each gap between the levels was equipped with a heavy machine gun. It seemed that whenever there was movement from a cell, all of the machine guns on that layer would point their muzzle and concentrate their firepower to blitz the target.

“What happens if we get hit by those guns?” She turned around and asked J7.

“I don’t know. I never had a chance to get hit,” J7 answered matter-of-factly.

Lin Sanjiu let out a breath dejectedly as she killed her desire to continue the conversation with J7. She was now in the Astral Plane, and her body was merely a conceptual form created by her Higher Consciousness. She was cut off from all of her abilities—the hypersensory state, Evolving Ability, her great variety of Special Items, even the [Defense Forcefield] couldn’t be used in here. Her brain ached, and she had run out of ideas of what she should do now. However, it wasn’t the right time to lament at her bad luck.

“The machine guns weren’t activated when we went out just now,” Lin Sanjiu began to analyze their current situation, “They only detected us after we turn on the light. Perhaps we can try again; however, this time, don’t turn on the light. Let’s walk in the dark.”

“Wait,” J7 said. The various mechanical parts of its body began to open up as it reconstructed itself. When the whirling of machine finally stopped, its appearance had changed completely. Sporting a more streamlined metallic body shape, it had become a simpler yet elegant version of its previous self. The only thing that didn’t change shape was its pair of pedrail wheels, merely repositioned them to one at the front while the other at the back so that it could glide smoothly on the ground.

“Okay, all set. Let’s move out,” it said to the dumbfounded Lin Sanjiu. Holding the ‘tail’ which J7 purposely left for Lin Sanjiu, both of them then moved to the door cautiously.

They did not go directly into the hallway; instead, just lay on the ground in front of the door. This time, as they’d predicted, there weren’t any sounds from the machine gun in the dark.

It seemed that the building was deliberately designed to create an oppressive and somber atmosphere. The entire cylindrical building was completely sealed up, leaving no space at all for the sunlight to come through. Enshrouded in absolute darkness such as this, Lin Sanjiu had no idea whether or not she should go right or left. However, at the thought of the building was a cylindrical shape, she stood up, picked a direction, and slowly moved toward it with J7.

They continued to traverse in the dark for about five steps, and to their relief, nothing happened.

“I thought there would be a detector inside the staircase,” she crouched down and whispered to J7.

“My face’s over here,” J7’s voice wafted over from the other side of the metallic body.

Feeling ashamed, Lin Sanjiu moved another step forward. Just when she was about to open her mouth, she heard a crescendo of impatient rapping, followed by much louder pounding from the other side of the cell next to her. Then, before both of them could respond, a loud voice came from inside, “Somebody has breached the prison! Warden! Somebody has breached the prison!”

“There are other people in this prison?” Lin Sanjiu scolded under her breath. Since they were shrouded in the dark, she did not know where or who would the warden come out from. As her mind was tangled up and not knowing what to do, J7 urged, “Get down!”

Lin Sanjiu’s heart tightened. As she hunkered down, she was able to make out the figure that ambushed them from the dark. It was a crescent-shaped object, with an obsidian color scheme, swooping past above her like a streak of lightning before disappearing back into the darkness.

Judging from its speed, Lin Sanjiu knew it would be bad if get hit by it.

The voice inside the cell wasn’t going to give them the room to breathe; it yelled again, “Warden! You missed! Warden! You’ve missed the target!”

At this moment, Lin Sanjiu already realized that the voice wasn’t an actual person but rather a checkpoint set by the prison. Nevertheless, she was too late to react, as the crescent-shaped object came at her again from the other end of the hallway. This time, she threw herself down, lying supine on the ground as the thing grazed past the tip of her nose.

The moment the crescent vanished into the darkness behind, Lin Sanjiu hastily tumbled up from the ground and gave the door lock a powerful elbow strike. Judging from its moving pattern, she knew the next wave would strike the floor, and she had to get rid of the voice before he screamed again.

It was just she had lost much of her strength when she was in her Higher Consciousness form. Without support from her usual well-trained body, the door lock didn’t budge even a little after the strike. Instead, a tickling pain sensation quickly spread over her arm, numbing her.

“Warden!” The voice behind the door yelled again, “Warden, you missed again—”

“Let me do it,” Before J7 could do whatever it had said, the half moon objected had returned. It grazed closely against the ground, and Lin Sanjiu almost overlooked it. She grabbed J7’s tail, and together, both of them hopped into the air by stepping on the wall. The thing brushed over before they fell to the ground with a loud thud, still badly shaken.

The prison then fell into a hush, as if the calm before the storm arrived. Both of them knew they would be dead if they did not do something now before the next wave of attack came. Without wasting any time, J7 raised its gun and treated the door lock to a barrage of bullets. The door lock fell to the ground, and sparks were released into the air, causing Lin Sanjiu’s heart to skip a beat. Just before the door lock dropped to the ground, she grabbed at J7’s tail and threw it behind her.

The machine guns on the opposite floor immediately poured an astonishing burst of fire gun onto the spot where J7 previously stood. Both of them laid on the ground and waited silently in the dark until the shooting finally ceased away.

In the dark, the door to the cell slid open.