Doomsday Wonderland

Chapter 171: An Apple a Day Keeps Doctor Away

While she sprinted, the wobbling silver light from her [Ability Polishing Agent] was now just a luminous blur so it was difficult to see her surroundings. Yet, with that single glance, Lin Sanjiu already knew that the right thing for her to do now was to run.

In the process of speeding away, the trembling’s silver light turned into a continuous shaking ball, making the surroundings unclear instead—nonetheless, even with only that single glance, Lin Sanjiu still knew that the correct thing for her to do now was to run.

When the shadow crept above her, she didn’t even felt a sense of danger. As the shadow from the creature very large, it exceeded the area illuminated by her [Ability Polishing Agent]. As such, it merged with the darkness, so it was difficult to recognize that it was a living creature in that split second.

Lin Sanjiu only realized its presence when she turned around and came face-to-face with it. She was dumbfounded. How many times, in a human’s entire lifespan, would one actually meet a five-stories-tall… praying mantis?

Lin Sanjiu held her [Ability Polishing Agent] a little higher, coincidentally illuminating its beady, grayish-white muddy eyes. It was evident that the eyes of this species of praying mantis had degenerated due to the many generations living in this darkness… The praying mantis seemed to sense something. As soon as the light was directed toward it, a long, curvaceous sickle-like shadow swung down from the air.

Even an idiot would know what was—judging from the praying mantis’s size, if she was caught between its forelegs, she would instantly be turned into a mashed pulp. Lin Sanjiu didn’t even dare to take a second glance. She turned and ran.

She couldn’t tell if any other dangers lurked in the dark surroundings. She had no choice but to hold her breath and run toward the giant apple. At least, the apple didn’t show any abnormalities when she observed it for some time. In any case, it was definitely safer than anywhere else!

A sudden rumbling noise came from behind her, as if a building grew legs and was now chasing her. Even though it had devolved eyes, its sickle-like forelegs got more and more accurate with each attack. Those legs which were longer than Lin Sanjiu’s full height brushed past her body multiple times. She was knocked down by the wind generated by its attack. She scrambled and rolled away before standing up and running again.

Lin Sanjiu didn’t even think about fighting.

Firstly, she was already at a disadvantage because of the darkness. More importantly, it was no easy task for her to destroy something of that size, even if it stood still!

The apple was farther than she expected, as she had already been running for more than ten minutes, at her current speed. She barely dodged a few more attacks accompanied with the sound whistling wind behind her. Under the ripple-like illumination from her [Ability Polishing Agent], she finally found herself getting closer to the apple.

She instantly felt that she had expressed her shock too early. If she hadn’t looked at the apple from afar, she probably couldn’t tell what it was. Looking up from under the apple, she could only see a humongous, hazy, dark shadow with a slight curvature.

[How big is this place?]

Despite her shock, Lin Sanjiu continued running. With her maximum speed, she lunge herself under the apple in the blink of an eye.

[Huh?]

She stopped and realized that something was a little off.

The rumbling noise, along with the occasional howling gusts of wind, had vanished. She turned around and noticed the large silhouette of the praying mantis standing some distance away. The mantis turned its head left and right and, surprisingly, stopped chasing.

As it was difficult for Lin Sanjiu to raise her [Ability Polishing Agent] while she ran, she held it in her hand tightly. At that moment, the silver light pouring through the gaps between her fingers were quickly swallowed by the darkness so she didn’t have a clear view of the things around her.

Not far from her, the praying mantis moved a little, as if it was hesitant about something. Following which, it slowly retreated. After a short while, it disappeared and melted into the boundless darkness.

Lin Sanjiu suddenly felt goosebumps all over. She was a little afraid to turn around.

[There is only an apple behind me, right? What sort of danger did the mantis sense?]

Every single strand of hair at the back of her neck stood pencil straight, as if they were antennas, trying to sense even a single minute movement around her. She strained her eyes to listen, but there was only silence.

Afraid that she might draw attention, she turned her body little by little. Facing the hazy darkness behind her, she slowly raised her hand, without making a sound. She released her grip and silver light poured freely from her [Ability Polishing Agent], instantly illuminating the area in front of her.

At first glance, she just felt that the skin of the apple was weird. It was neither green nor red. She could tell that its skin was very thick just from its appearance and it was a strangely disgusting, flesh-like pink. It must have fallen from the tree quite some time ago as Lin Sanjiu could see a black, rotten portion of its skin, like a large patch of mold, just by her foot.

[Although the apple is very weird, it does not seem dangerous… Huh?]

Before she could finish her thought, the apple suddenly rocked a while. Assuming that it was suddenly going to react, Lin Sanjiu was just about to jump aside when she realized that the apple wasn’t heading toward her. It was leaving the ground, as if levitating off the ground.

“This…” Lin Sanjiu could only utter a single word as she steadied herself.

[How can an apple suddenly fly?]

Just as she was at a loss, an eye-piercing brightness came out of nowhere. It lit up the entire place, like a blinding snowfield during the day. The light from her [Ability Polishing Agent] simply could not compare to that. Lin Sanjiu couldn’t help closing her eyes due to the suddenly brightness. After a few seconds, she finally forced herself to open her eyes. With her half-opened eyes, she surveyed her surroundings.

There was a face staring down at her from mid-air. Lin Sanjiu felt a chill down her spine. The apple which had suddenly flown off the ground, didn’t ‘fly’, instead, it had been picked up by a ‘person’ and was now in the ‘person’s’ hand.

It was now clear why the praying mantis decided to retreat abruptly. It wasn’t because there was anything wrong with the apple, but the mantis probably sensed the presence of the gigantic ‘human’ by whatever means, so it abandoned its prey and dashed off in a haste.

Even though Lin Sanjiu referred to that person as a ‘human’, that was because she momentarily couldn’t find the right words to describe it. She was looking at a very flat face. When a crack appeared on its tough-looking skin, at the bottom part of its face, she finally realized that was its mouth. Its mouth was very wide, and could open all the way to the side of its ears—if those were its ears.

Whether it was the patterns on its skin, or those pair of emotionless eyes that cold-blooded animals exclusively possessed, they all reminded Lin Sanjiu of a snake. Yet, under its snake-like face, she saw its hands with its five digits, holding the apple. Lin Sanjiu couldn’t make out which of its body part was at the area paralleled to her sight. As it was massive, Lin Sanjiu couldn’t see its front and its back. She could only see its dark brown patterned skin, which emerged from its thick keratin skin. There were round spots all over its body, which were the size of her head.

Apparently, it was in a bending position. With a sweeping glance, Lin Sanjiu found herself tongue-tied. Behind the person with snake-face, she spotted many more ‘people’ with similar faces, faraway, high above. She couldn’t really see their bodies, as they were too far away. She could only make out the vague outlines of their silhouette through the foggy atmosphere.

Her feet became icy cold and she froze on the spot. She didn’t know what these weird people were planning to do to her. Considering the disparity between their sizes, Lin Sanjiu figured that any resistance would be futile.

Unexpectedly, the snake-faced person straightened its back and turned away. Lin Sanjiu was a little stunned. The large patch of skin in front of her started to move, as the rows of its patterned skin moved upwards, she felt a slight vibration from the ground. The ‘person’ seemed to be leaving.

Without time to consider the reasons behind its actions, Lin Sanjiu scurried off like the praying mantis. She ran until she reached a safe distance and plunged herself between a few plants. It was only then that she felt her heart beating normally again.

With light around her, she could see clearly that those plants that were taller than her by half a head were nothing more than typical grass. Rather than being surprised, Lin Sanjiu found that it was within her expectations. Lin Sanjiu smiled drily. After some contemplation, she more or less understood her situation. From the snake-faced person’s perspective, Lin Sanjiu was merely the size of an ant. Even though the person was looking in her direction, how was it going to find an ant hiding in a patch of grass if it didn’t bend down to search carefully?

She felt that this series of unexpected ‘discoveries’ had successfully blended her brain into a mushy paste. She steadied her breathing and peeked out from the grass. She needed to stretched her neck to its limit before she could look past the tips of the grass around her and into the distance. As she expected, she didn’t see a sky. There was only a layer of rugged rock stratum high above her head. The light from the bright ball in one of snake-faced person’s hand revealed the interplay of light between the jagged edges of the rocks.

Looking down a few thousands meters from the layer of rocks, she spotted a few large apple trees. Though from her angle, she could only see a portion of the trees. She saw the previous snake-face person holding up the apple in its hand and pointing to the trees, as if it was saying something to its companions. Only then did she make an informed guess that the apple fell from those tree.

[Not only did the apple fall from the tree closest to me, I fell out from it too…] This thought surfaced in her mind unwittingly when she spotted the long cut scar on the cliff-like tree truck.

Under the blinding light, as if in a snowfield, she could no longer see the praying mantis. She looked around her and didn’t see anything else interesting. Lin Sanjiu took a glance at the snake-faced people who seemed to be discussing. She suddenly ran out from the patch of grass and raced toward the apple tree.

When she was in Hyperthermal Hell, she had scaled a thousand-meter precipice, and climbing up this cliff-like tree truck wasn’t very different, so it wasn’t something hard for her. Other than being vigilant, just in case some giant creature attacked her again unexpectedly, Lin Sanjiu managed to climb up to one of the branches without a hitch.

The tip of that tree branch hung two to three identical fleshy-pink apples just then; without the unfresh black color on them, contrary to her expectations, they looked even more disgusting.

[So the tree roots sucked so many creatures from the surface of the planet, just to bear these strange fruits?] Lin Sanjiu stared at a few of those flesh-colored apples, feeling dubious. Considering the time that B.Rabbit and the others were sucked into the rhizomes, they were probably somewhere in the trunk, but how should she look for them?

Just when she was in a daze, a long hand with five digits reached up above her and plucked an apple. This caused the tree branch to shake violently. She could have fallen off the tree because of that, but she was just too small, so the branch was like the Golden Gate Bridge to her.

The flat snake-face person peeked out from the other side of the tree. It had unknowingly approached her, much to her surprise. She was so shocked that she quickly crouched down. It was only when she noticed that it wasn’t looking in her direction that she gathered her courage to look. Even though the person had a pair of arms, it had the body of a snake. The only difference was that its upper body was exceptionally muscular, so it reminded her of a human’s pectoral and abdominal muscles.

The snake-faced person did not noticed that a tiny thing was observing it. All its attention was on the apple in its hand, and it seemed pleased. Next, it opened its huge mouth. Its face was immediately split into two. Just like that, an entire apple disappeared down its throat.

When it closed its mouth, Lin Sanjiu heard a suddenly muffled piercing wail which sounded as if it came from behind the snake-face person’s skin.