Doomsday Wonderland

Lin Sanjiu almost felt like someone was playing a cruel joke on her, or maybe she'd accidentally walked into a pocket dimension shaped like Chimeric City.

Since parting ways with Cyrus, she'd been walking through the layered, twisting passages of Chimeric City for nearly twenty minutes without encountering a single duoluozhong. Not only duoluozhong, even the ordinary people seemed to have vanished underground, leaving no trace behind.

In this vast Chimeric City, had she become the only one left?

"Eight-Heads De," she said, holding the Beacon-Smoke Signal terminal, "any new intel now?"

The little white box was silent for a moment, and then Eight-Heads De's weak, feeble voice emerged, making Lin Sanjiu's heart sink. Could his injuries be so severe that even a full cup of coffee couldn't help him much?

"This... is strange," Eight-Heads De murmured. "For the last minute or two, I haven't picked up any intel."

If you removed the posthumans, there were still a few thousand ordinary people in Chimeric City. Despite it being nighttime, the chaos of recent events made it hard to imagine those thousands going back to sleep after being startled awake by posthumans and duoluozhongs. When she first entered Chimeric City, Eight-Heads De could still hear plenty of chaotic, panicked, and useless chatter. But as the night deepened, the flow of information grew sparse and faint, and then finally dried up completely.

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If the Shadow Hall's operatives hadn't yet arrived in Chimeric City, then where were the duoluozhongs that had caused the Noble Accord to surrender?

"The Shadow Hall's storage facilities have a special warehouse for storing various types of doomsday elements. Under the same doomsday element, posthumans can evolve in countless ways, but duoluozhongs can only exist within a specific framework. Individual differences only occur within that framework. You see, the so-called mutants, despite having different transformation areas and forms, share the same core characteristics."

Lin Sanjiu took a cold breath. "Their limbs... are all constantly expanding outward?"

"Yes," Cyrus had explained, using no precaution to block their conversation. Glancing at the distant small craft, he continued, "Duoluozhongs replicate, proliferate, and expand their limbs for one goal: to increase their coverage area. In that apocalyptic world, the larger the coverage area, the greater the survival advantage. What kind of apocalyptic world it is, I don't know. But here, this kind of duoluozhong has become a weapon for rapidly clearing out Chimeric City."

Given Eight-Heads De's ability, he undoubtedly heard this too. Now, unwilling to speak of it, Lin Sanjiu found it hard to broach the subject. Cyrus's explanation clarified at least two things: First, the Shadow Hall used their doomsday elements to turn some of Chimeric City's ordinary people into duoluozhongs.

Considering that under the influence of doomsday elements, most people neither evolved nor degenerated—and simply died—the number of dead ordinary people likely far exceeded the number of duoluozhongs. If someone was unlucky enough to evolve, they probably wouldn't survive the process.

Second, after transforming, these duoluozhongs began hunting more ordinary people. For example, the victim Lin Sanjiu encountered while patrolling—Ah Pu—had ended up like an empty crab shell, devoured completely.

The blow must have been devastating for Eight-Heads De... Lin Sanjiu sighed internally. He'd desperately wanted to help the "mutants," not realizing that when the middle-aged woman heard Eight-Heads De was there, she didn't hesitate to attack. She was already a duoluozhong, no longer caring about Eight-Heads De's fate.

But if she followed Cyrus's clues further, the situation grew even stranger.

Surely a second type of duoluozhong had appeared in Chimeric City, forcing the Noble Accord to flee? After all, the Noble Accord didn't know what the mutants truly were. The duoluozhongs they spoke of couldn't have been mutated people.

That meant there should be another group of duoluozhongs in the city... Could this new batch be invisible?

"East," Eight-Heads De's weak voice suddenly spoke, "East, I think I heard something."

"What were they saying?" Lin Sanjiu asked.

Eight-Heads De, likely weakened by his injuries, wasn't as quick or precise in processing information flow as before. After hesitating and listening again, he finally said, "Two people... I think they're neighbors, talking about going home to grab some things."

They were ordinary people. Lin Sanjiu felt a wave of relief and quickened her pace.

Ever since the mutants had flooded through Chimeric City like a tidal wave, both posthumans and ordinary people had scattered in all directions. Now, with the alleyways silent, these two must have assumed the situation had stabilized and were attempting to return home.

This time, Lin Sanjiu was in luck. After running a while, she caught faint snatches of conversation drifting toward her along the alleyway.

"I heard... the posthumans all left, just abandoned us here..." a man's voice muttered.

A woman's muffled reply followed, "Good riddance... They treated us like we were monsters..."

Even though the voices were faint, their frustration and resentment were unmistakable. Lin Sanjiu paused at the corner of the alleyway, hesitating.

She obviously looked like a posthuman. If she revealed herself now, the two ordinary people would inevitably regard her with suspicion and caution. While they couldn't harm her, their reluctance to cooperate might mean she wouldn't get the answers she needed.

After a moment's thought, Lin Sanjiu rummaged through her card inventory and pulled out a large bundle of hair.

[Facial Hair]

Collected from ordinary people, when applied to the user's face (face only, not the head), activating this item will create the impression that the user is an ordinary person. This item has no gender restrictions, but because men typically have more facial hair, the effect feels more natural. After all, a man with a hairy face is more normal than a woman with a hairy face, right?

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As long as the hair isn't removed, the illusion will persist. It has an effectiveness rate of 96% and works on most posthumans, ordinary people, and duoluozhongs—unless the target has abilities or items that detect disguises, in which case the illusion may fail.

Note: [Facial Hair] does not fool pocket dimensions. If you think a pocket dimension will spare you because of this disguise, you're too naïve.

While the effect is strong and has no time limit, be aware that wearing [Facial Hair] reduces combat ability. The reduction is random, ranging from 5% to 95%. Once the hair is removed, combat ability returns to normal.

1

PS: The item can only be applied or removed once every eight hours. So, if you put it on and find your combat ability reduced by 95%, you can't just take it off and try again immediately. You'll have to wait eight hours to try again.

The bundle of hair was ridiculously thick. Although Lin Sanjiu had glued a beard on her face before, this situation was different; she had to speak, making it hard to pose as a man. As the two ordinary people's footsteps drew closer, she hesitated, then quickly tore off two small tufts of hair and stuck them to her eyebrows.

They melded smoothly into her brows like butter. A quick touch confirmed they felt perfectly natural.

But when she looked down, the bundle of hair in her hand seemed as voluminous as before.

"Might as well add two more," she muttered, repeating the process.

The result was the same: the thick bundle of hair still quivered in her palm, unchanged in size.

"Well, might as well use more of it."

This time, Lin Sanjiu was in a hurry. She tore off two large clumps of hair, enough to cover her cheeks, and stuck them to her eyebrows. Remembering her eyelashes, she hurriedly pulled down her eyelid with one hand and pressed the hair to the base of her lashes with the other.

Her eyelashes couldn't absorb as much hair as her eyebrows, but at least she had four rows of lashes, top and bottom. When the large bundle of hair was finally used up, she blinked and felt a breeze stir in front of her eyes.

Lin Sanjiu rolled her eyes upward and, for the first time in her life, saw her own eyebrows clearly without needing a mirror.

There was no time to fix her appearance, and besides, her face didn't have any more space for hair. As the two ordinary people were about to turn the corner, Lin Sanjiu hastily muttered, "Activate!" Her knees buckled, and she almost fell over.

Mrs. Manas let out a long sigh.

"I thought with your luck, you'd definitely get a full 95% combat reduction," she said. "Didn't expect only a 94% reduction."

1

In an apocalyptic world where everything seemed alive, perhaps her consciousness's manifestation was no exception. The longer it lived, the sharper its tongue seemed to become.

Although it felt unlucky, as long as the incomers weren't duoluozhongs, Lin Sanjiu figured it wasn't too bad. Reduced combat ability would just make her seem more like an ordinary person. For someone else, putting on and taking off the hair might waste time, but for her, if danger appeared, she could simply swipe her hand across her brows to remove the [Facial Hair] and regain her full strength.

Luckily, they weren't duoluozhong.

"Ah! You scared me!" The woman turned the corner and stopped abruptly, clutching her chest. After a brief moment, she asked in a shaky voice, "Who are you? Why are you standing here in the dark without a sound?"

Beside her, a dark-skinned man held up a lantern to illuminate Lin Sanjiu. Both of them stared at her in silence.

It wasn't surprising. With 94% of her combat ability suppressed, Lin Sanjiu felt like her eyelids were weighed down with stones. Even blinking felt exhausting.

2

"You're ordinary people too, right?" Lin Sanjiu feigned a relieved sigh. "Thank goodness. I was so scared being all alone... I heard there are duoluozhongs in the city? Where did everyone go? What's going on?"

The two ordinary people exchanged a confused look.

"What do you mean? What duoluozhongs? We haven't heard anything about that." The woman glanced at Lin Sanjiu suspiciously and touched her own eyebrows subconsciously. "There haven't been many people around here lately... What I heard is that the posthumans left because of the mutated people."

Lin Sanjiu paused, realizing the issue. She had been moving quickly and covering more ground, so she knew many areas of the city were empty. But these two wouldn't have realized so quickly that people were gone.

"I walked through a few alleys and didn't see anyone," she said vaguely. "Where are you headed? Can I come with you? I'm scared to be alone."

"You're afraid of the duoluozhongs? Where did you hear that from?"

"When the posthumans were leaving, I overheard them saying it..."

Their faces visibly darkened. The dark-skinned man sighed heavily. "Who knows if that's true or not? If only Eight-Heads De's broadcasts were still running... Everything feels cursed these days."

He took the lead, saying, "Ladies, stay behind me; I'll clear the way so you're safer. Just make sure to keep close."

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