Doomsday Wonderland

Lin Sanjiu had no idea whether to cry or laugh at her destiny. Heaven seemed to have a particular liking in toying with her. Recalling the chain of incidents following her exit of the Pocket Dimension, she found that she had constantly been on the run, getting injured and then caught…

There was only darkness all around her. The commotion of the fierce battle outside had left her behind. In this completely silent space, she could only hear the pumping of her heart and the flow of blood in her blood vessels.

The air was laced with the putrid smell of decaying flesh, but Lin Sanjiu still took a deep breath nonetheless. One reason was to soothe the pain in her body while the other was that she had no idea when she would be stripped of the ability to smell again.

Lin Sanjiu closed her eyes and began to recall the scene that had transpired just a second ago. At that time, a whirlpool suddenly appeared on the surface of the river, and the next thing she knew, a massive maw had come straight at her. The moment she took out her [Tornado Whip], a force pushed her towards the god’s mouth, and before she could react, she was already inside. Lin Sanjiu jumped, landing on the slimy tongue just as the god crunched his teeth, severing numerous broken twigs into halves.

Then darkness fell. What followed after should have been the mastication. However, Lin Sanjiu ended up waiting for a long while, but the teeth and tongue remained still.

Since she was inside the god’s mouth, she could feel the god moving his head. It seemed to her that he, like the other two gods, had joined the fray, and although his movements were rather vigorous, the inner side of his mouth was relatively stable.

Lin Sanjiu opened her eyes and stood up. Her clothes were all wet and coated in saliva. She pressed down the urge to vomit and fumbled about in the dark on the shambolic mess of broken twigs, soil and rocks. Then, she touched the body of the elder brother. Since he had been right next to her when the god appeared, there was no doubt that he was also swept into the mouth.

Huffing, Lin Sanjiu summoned her [Ability Polishing Agent]. The silvery light instantly cast the darkness away, revealing a person—no, it should be half of one—under its flare.

Aside from those twigs and tree trunks, the elder brother’s legs was the other thing the god had bitten off. His body from the waist down was gone. The upper half of his body lay silently in the mess of twigs and tree trunks, looking like a murder scene. Despite his sorry state, his eyes remained wide open, looking straight at her and reflecting the light of her Ability Polishing Agent.

“You’re not dead yet?” Lin Sanjiu began to feel sympathy for him. “If I were you, I would rather die.”

The elder brother blinked his eyes, but Lin Sanjiu had no idea what he wanted to convey.

“Looking at it from another perspective, it’s good that you are still alive. Perhaps you could be of use to me by shedding some light in this place.”

Lin Sanjiu then took out from her card the rope that she never had the chance to use. She slipped the rope under his arms and tied him onto her back. With that, she did not have to carry him with her hands anymore.

Lin Sanjiu jumped a few times to test the sturdiness of the knot. Then she raised the [Ability Polishing Agent]. As she began to study the heavily coated tongue and teeth, which were even taller than her calves, she wondered why the god did not eat her but held her in his mouth instead. She turned around, and the light fell on something that took her a few seconds to recognize.

It was a face.

At the same time, she conjured a small tornado and sent it towards the face.

Suddenly, the mouth cavity swayed, as if the god had tilted his head. Lin Sanjiu lost her balance, and her foot slipped on the slimy tongue. The face was still there when she finally came to a stop. There was a smile on the face, “It’s no use.”

With the aid of the silvery light of the [Ability Polishing Agent], Lin Sanjiu could see that there was a gaping hole at the bottom of the silkworm-like face, which should have been the place where its voice had come from. On its face, there was no nose, and the two spots that should have been eyes had degenerated into two skin-wrapped bags due to prolonged stay in the dark.

“You… You are a duoluozhong ?”

“Yes,” the silkworm-like face nodded, “Not only me, but all of us.”

Lin Sanjiu shifted the light to the other side, and she became tongue-tied. From the esophagus (Lin Sanjiu supposed it was one), an endless stream of duoluozhong fanned out. Just like a horde of beetle, they soon flooded half of the mouth cavity in masses. Lin Sanjiu found that unlike the duoluozhong outside, every duoluozhong here were indistinguishable. Their eyes had degenerated into two meat bags, and their heads, faces, and bodies were engulfed in a chrysalis-like outer layer. Without some imagination, one would find it hard to believe that they had also once been humans.

After that, another duoluozhong that just had crawled up from the throat chimed in, laughing raucously. “Don’t worry, you will soon join us.”

At this moment, Lin Sanjiu finally saw the light of why the god had not eaten her after shoving her into his mouth. The realization shook her to the core. She immediately put the [Ability Polishing Agent] away and exchanged it for the [Mosaic Censorship].

“It’s no use.” After losing her light source, she could only register vague shapes in the darkness. She didn’t know which one of them was talking. “No matter which abilities you use, they won’t work on us.”

Before she could ask why, Lin Sanjiu felt a strange yet familiar power coming straight at her like a tidal wave. Her body glowed as she concentrated the [Defense Forcefield] in front of her. Nevertheless, even with a layer of protection, she was still hurled by the power towards the teeth at her back. Thud. If it weren’t for the elder brother, who had cushioned the blow, Lin Sanjiu was confident that she would’ve been knocked out already.

She slid down the teeth, hissing out in pain. Then she got up to her feet.

“Drop dead!” Another duoluozhong yelled, followed by an attack that whistled through the darkness. Then the whistle went dead, and silence returned.

“Hm?” A commotion spread across the duoluozhong . “Is she dead?”

“Let’s try a few more—”

Following that, screeches of power alongside murmurs from duoluozhong zoomed to the front like a meteor shower, lighting the mouth cavity with kaleidoscopic beams of light. After that, everything settled down and turned silent again.

The air was deadly still. There was nothing there, as if there had never been an attack before.

“I guess she is dead? After all, who could survive after being bombarded by so many powers?” a duoluozhong said.

It was then that a guttural voice was raised from the shade, which was followed by a moment of unified silence. The noise was intermittent and weak, as if the person was seriously injured but still clinging onto consciousness. Both encouraged and startled by the sudden sound, more and more of them showered the front with their respective powers, but it was to no avail, as all of their attacks dissipated into the darkness as if nothing had happened.

The silence continued to reign over the space above the tongue until a susurration of fabric shattered it.

“Thank you.”

Followed by the woman’s voice, a light shone, once again filling the entire mouth cavity with silvery radiance. Holding the [Ability Polishing Agent] in her hand, Lin Sanjiu appeared to be unscathed. She waved and fanned out the piles of cards to the duoluozhong as she grinned at them, offering them a peek at her row of bright white teeth. “…I’m so surprised to see you guys use God’s divine power as well. It’s all thanks to you, otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to collect so many level 11 Divine Powers. So my upper limit is level 11 now, it seems.”

“Collect?”

“I have absorbed all your attacks, and I can use them whenever I want, so I have to thank you all.” Lin Sanjiu walked closer to them, forcing the group of duoluozhong to back down as the bright beam pressed forward. She looked at them and smiled. “Mind telling me why you guys are inside this god’s body? Anyone? No one? Alright then, let’s move to the next question: why are you guys able to use God’s divine power? Has this god shared his power with you all?”

The group of duoluozhong remained silent, but Lin Sanjiu wasn’t affected by the group of uncooperative silkworm-like creatures. Donning the [Defense Forcefield], she charged into the group and rammed a few duoluozhong out of her way. By the time they finally returned to their senses, Lin Sanjiu had already reached the front of the throat.

The process of going from the tip of the tongue to the throat felt like the manufacturing history of an elaborate product that had fallen victim to a rough, slipshod method to cope with the large output volume. Her surroundings did not even look like a part of a body right now. It gave her the impression of a tunnel painted in pink.

The moment she stopped in the throat, a voice rang out behind her. “Stop her!” Lin Sanjiu was prompted to look behind. As if triggered by something, the group of duoluozhong had all gone mad. They were screaming, yelling, and galloping at full throttle towards her. She quickly turned her head forward again. Using the [Ability Polishing Agent], she looked down; then she understood everything.

The territory of this god was inside his stomach.

The blood vessels, esophagus, and all other innards were gone. The silver beam advanced down the black tunnel and lit up mountains of idols beneath the place where a person’s vital organs should have been kept to keep them alive. Every one of the idols depicted the face of the god named Crocodile.

And the duoluozhong , they were guarding the idols.

Listening to the whistling and screeches, Lin Sanjiu released her Higher Consciousness and activated the [Esthesis]. The moment her Higher Consciousness made contact with an attack, the [Esthesis] absorbed the attack and turned it into one of her cards, a label of “Divine Power Level 11” written on top.

“I’ll leave my back to you, Mrs. Manas,” she called out to Mrs. Manas through her mind. Then the corner of her lips curled into a smile.

What she was going to do was too easy.

She set a few tree branches ablaze and threw them down with the help of [Tornado Whip]. The wind helped to spread the fire, and very soon, all the idols inside the god’s thoracic cavity were alight. Amongst them, the wooden ones were the quickest to get destroyed by the flames while the rest, such as porcelain and metal, were merely scorched, but that was more than enough.

As the fire continued to spread, the attacks thrown by the duoluozhong grew weaker. From Level 11, they dropped to level 10, then 9, then 8, and so on. Crocodile could not bear the pain and writhed about on the ground, causing the forest to shake again. He opened his mouth and dipped his head into the river while delving his hand into his mouth to reach for Lin Sanjiu.

But Lin Sanjiu came out herself. It was just that it was not quite like what Crocodile had been expecting. She blew through the rear of his head and emerged amid bursting broken bones, brain matter, and blood.

The god that looked like a spider stood in the sky; Lin Sanjiu could not find the beaked goddess. Initially, it was supposed to be an excellent opportunity to escape, but who knew the place Lin Sanjiu would appear would be beside the brown lipped god.

The idea of “turning around and running away” would not appear in her mind. Lin Sanjiu could only sigh inwardly as she stood anxiously on the ground, thinking about watermelon in the summer.

Soon enough, the brown lipped god picked her up.

It seemed like he had gone through a hell of a fight himself. His two large eyes rolled around a couple of times before he opened his mouth, assaulting Lin Sanjiu with his loud voice and fishy breath. “…Great job. You have just slain a god.”