Doomsday Wonderland

Lin Sanjiu finally understood why Silvan insisted on buying her a pair of swimming fins before entering the pocket dimension. Everyone who had cleared the Reverie Libretto would wake up on a conveyor belt that looked like a flat slab. Then, a few seconds after they opened their eyes, they would suddenly be engulfed by a sense of weightlessness.

The scream of horror rose and fell. Everything in Lin Sanjiu’s vision suddenly blurred out of shape, and the next thing she knew, she was flying in the air. In the next second, she plopped heavily into a pool, followed by other posthumans, making quite a commotion in the darkness as pillars of water sprayed upward into the air.

Water began to gush in and fill her nose and eyes. She pulled the lips-shaped water bottle away from her mouth and fought to reach the surface. Once she broke out of the water, she caught her breath and the tight feeling in her chest slowly ebbed away. After that, she summoned the swimming fins out of her card. Even though she had only spent a day in the Reverie Libretto, she felt a strange familiarity when she was finally able to use her ability once more.

She looked around and found that there were a lot of people around. At the very far end of the pool, there was a flimsy rectangular light that seemed to be the exit.

More and more posthumans fell into the pool like dumplings. Lin Sanjiu kicked her shoes off and put on the swimming fins. As she struggled to swim away, she heard a woman’s voice ring out from the distance, “Shii-chan! Shii-chan! Where are you?”

Some of the posthumans were calling out for their missing companions while others just chatted as they swam away. In a moment, the subterranean lake was filled with the echoes of human voices. Lin Sanjiu swam to a long stalactite and held it tight. After that, she shouted, “Yu Yuan! Yu Yuan! Are you there? Answer me!”

Before she entered the Reverie Libretto, she did not even have the chance to look around before she was knocked out cold. Even though their storylines were connected, there was a high probability that he was very far away from her in the real world. She scanned the water as she shouted; however, she saw no sign of Yu Yuan.

She shouted longer and harder and felt a sense of tearing and pain in her throat as she did. A female posthuman swam by her side. She stopped and looked at her. After a few minutes, she swam toward Lin Sanjiu and said, “Are you looking for your friend?”

“Yeah,” Lin Sanjiu paused in her action and glanced at her.

“I know this sounds bad, but even though the Reverie Libretto is rather safe as a pocket dimension, chances are that your friend was not as lucky as you,” the mid-thirties-looking woman sighed. “All those who die or pass out in the Reverie Libretto end up falling into this lake too. However, they can’t float and will only fall to the bottom of the lake, so I suggest you just leave him and get out of here fast.”

The woman paused for a moment as she cast a hesitant look below the water. “We have no idea how deep this lake is, but I am certain there are heaps of dead bodies at the bottom.”

When she heard what the woman said, Lin Sanjiu’s flesh instantly burst into goosebumps as chills crept down her spine. She tried to look into the water as well, but she could not see through the deep darkness below. Even though she couldn’t see the dead bodies, it did not stop her from imagining Yu Yuan slowly sinking to the bottom of the lake.

Lin Sanjiu did not take up the woman’s advice, but yelled even louder, thick desperation laced in her voice. “Yu Yuan! Yu Yuan!”

However, she was soon interrupted by a sound that erupted behind her. “Hey!” Just as her eyes glowed and she turned around in surprise, she saw a face she never thought she would see here.

Mayor Orlean.

He still had his rounded face and slanted eyes, but the maniacal expression and overconfident attitude he showed when he was Mayor Orlean had melted away. He now seemed normal and there was even a hint of cowardice on his face.

He kept a distance away from Lin Sanjiu and muttered, “How is Yu Yuan?”

“You’re still alive? Oh yeah, I forgot. You were wearing a bulletproof vest that time,” Lin Sanjiu said, measuring the man in front of her.

Even though their surroundings were dimly lit, it did not hinder Lin Sanjiu from recognizing him. She did not know his real name. His face was pale and bloodless; obviously, the injuries he received in the dream were transferred back to his real body in the real world.

“Why do you care so much about him?” she retracted her gaze and asked coldly.

“I was so scared at that time. I thought you were going to kill me.” He scratched his cheek nervously and shifted his eyes away, as he did not want to have any eye contact with Lin Sanjiu. “I would very well be dead both in the dream and in real life if you were to pull the trigger at that time. But luckily, Yu Yuan stopped you in the end. So when I heard you calling his name just now, I swam here to see you.”

“Hold on a second,” Lin Sanjiu frowned, as she realized something was not right, “What do you mean? Are you telling me that you were awake back then? But why didn’t you attack us?”

“Erm… How should I explain this to you?” Mayor Orlean looked as if he was not feeling very well, but it was excusable, as Lin Sanjiu remembered she hit him quite badly back then. “Honestly, my mind wasn’t very clear back then. The black mountain was poisoning my consciousness and all I thought about was how I should get myself injured while at the same time keeping my consciousness intact. But no one could say for sure what would happen in a fight, so…”

“In other words, you lost to us on purpose? Why?”

Mayor Orlean was stunned for a while. Then he coughed heavily, and he sounded like hollow wood that had been corroded by termites.

He laughed bitterly. “If I didn’t do that, soon enough, I would be completely overtaken by the black mountain. If that really happened, my consciousness would cease to exist and all that’d be left in me would be thoughts on how I could expand my dream and utilize the power of the black mountain to be king.”

He paused for a while to catch his breath before continuing arduously. “But fortunately, my consciousness hadn’t entirely faded away yet. Deep in my mind, I knew I couldn’t let the storyline develop anymore, and that if I chose to go on, there was a huge possibility that I would be lost in the dream world and my real body in the real world would slowly die off. At that time, some sixth sense told me that if I wanted to end my storyline, I had to be defeated as an enemy. Only then could I prevent myself from ruling over the dream world.”

Lin Sanjiu finally saw the light now.

“So you survived, but Yu Yuan might not have,” she stared at Mayor Orlean, her hands clenched tightly into fists underneath the water. “You hurt him so badly that I don’t know if he is still alive or if he’s already dead now.”

“I know… I know this is all my fault,” Mayor Orlean said, keeping his head low. “My storyline ended earlier than you two, so I have been waiting for you two here. I have been to the Reverie Libretto so many times, and this is the first time something like this happened. I don’t want to make any unnecessary enemies, as it will only jeopardize my future journey in the Twelve Worlds.”

He sighed and shook his head. “Anyway, I have been waiting here for a long time, so I saw everything when you fell into the lake. Most of you resurfaced, and though some of you took a longer time, there is one who did not come up to the water surface. I am not sure if I missed something, but I can show you the direction.”

Lin Sanjiu was shocked when she heard those words. She cast one last look at Mayor Orlean and then rapidly paddled towards the direction he was pointing at. After all, it had been almost 10 minutes since they dropped into the lake. Another fit of violent coughs came from behind her, but the voice was getting further and further away. Perhaps Mayor Orlean felt there was no need for him to stay here anymore, so he swam away.

The water below was dark and deep. Lin Sanjiu pulled her [Ability Polishing Agent] out. It instantly cast some of the darkness away as the water waves pushed the silvery light forward. She was terrible at swimming, but she was very good at drowning herself.

As she sank deeper and deeper, the difficulty of diving into the deep water increased exponentially. Holding the [Ability Polishing Agent] with her hand, she brandished her arms and kicked her legs as fast as she could. Surrounded by the thick darkness, she lost perception of time. She did not know how long she had been diving, but she hoped she wasn’t too late. The light from the handheld bottle cast over the water like a silvery veil, and through the veil, she finally saw a small figure in the distance, slowly sinking down.

Countless dead bodies covered the bottom of the lake to the brim. Looking through the water, the densely packed dead bodies looked like washed old photos behind the sinking figure.

When Lin Sanjiu grasped the person’s shirt and flipped him over, she almost let out a sigh. Then, she realized that she was inside water right now, so she held it back. Faint silvery light gleaned over his tattoos and the wolf head on his cheek seemed to come alive.

She did not go and check his heartbeat. She just wrapped her arm around his body and dashed towards the surface.

Soon enough, both of them broke through the water surface with a splash. Lin Sanjiu immediately took a deep breath and held on to a stalactite next to her. She moved her palm over Yu Yuan’s chest. Then, like an abandoned night, her blood ran cold. She pressed her palm even harder and tears began to swirl around her eyes.

She sensed no heartbeat below her palm.

Lin Sanjiu rubbed her eyes and carried him over her back. She never gave up easily and she would try to do everything to her best effort. She laid Yu Yuan’s lifeless body on the ground and tried to resuscitate him by giving him cardiac resuscitation, despite the fact that everyone that went by her told her that it was a wasted effort and that she should just give up and leave.

When her lips once again left Yu Yuan’s lips and she pressed her palms on his chest, the young man took a deep, sharp breath.