Doomsday Wonderland

Ye De was not good at combat.

Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, and for him, fighting was decidedly his weakness. Thinking back, he realized he didn't even have much real combat experience.

Yet, sometimes, life is just ironic. If they had been with a posthuman whose instinct was to fight, the moment the mutant across from them stretched out its arm, they might have reacted by engaging in battle. Against a mutant so formidable that even Lin Sanjiu avoided confronting it head-on, such a response would have sealed their fate.

The thought of fighting never even surfaced in Ye De's mind. Perhaps it was this very fact that allowed both him and Anna to survive those first few minutes.

The moment Anton's voice fell silent, Ye De didn't dare delay for even half a second. When a dark shadow suddenly lunged toward them from the corner of his eye, he spun around, yanked Anna behind him, and shoved her through the gap in the ceiling. The girl didn't even have time to cry out before she fell with a dull thud. Ye De quickly stepped forward, blocking the gap with his own body.

Just as he steadied himself, Anton's hand reached out and brushed against his chest, rising and falling with his rapid breaths.

"We've come to this point, huh?" the mutant's garbled voice echoed from the opposite side of the alley.

Where Anton's hand touched, a strange sensation crept through him, as if it were bubbling up from a spring, nauseating and unnerving. Fighting the urge to vomit, Ye De spoke in a trembling voice, "I—I know. The mutation must've affected your mind. You might not feel the same as before. Whatever emotions you're feeling, don't take them out on your sister. Let's... talk about it. I'll help you."

Anton's pale face was a faint blur in the darkness.

"Then why did you lie to me?" Anton asked. "You don't seem so weak after all."

"I... I didn't lie," Ye De stammered, steeling himself. "You saw my injuries. I can barely stand. I just got a bit anxious earlier."

The pale blur split into a dark grin.

"Truly my sister," said the shadowy figure in the distance with a sudden note of admiration. The long arm still hadn't withdrawn. "You noticed it too, didn't you? Since she fell, she hasn't made a sound. Not even footsteps."

Ye De had realized this as well.

For a mutant, distance and barriers were meaningless. If Anna had cried out or scrambled to her feet and run, the noise would have been a clear signal, drawing her brother directly to her location. She clearly understood that as long as she remained silent, moving slowly and carefully away without making a sound, she had a chance to stay safe.

"Could she have been knocked out?" Ye De feigned ignorance.

He knew Anton wouldn't believe him, but he had no way to escape, couldn't fight, and now his plan for an attack was falling apart. His only option was to keep bluffing and hope for a sliver of luck.

He truly wasn't a qualified posthuman. Most wouldn't hesitate to take the opportunity to eliminate a mutant, even if it meant sacrificing the life of an ordinary girl.

4

"I was planning to keep both of you," Anton said, his words dragging and sticky, as though tangled together. "One posthuman and one dear sister... Just thinking about it feels... satisfying. But you're forcing me to give one of you up, and that's not acceptable."

1

Was a mutant even still human?

As this question formed in his mind, Ye De felt a sudden tightness in his chest. A powerful force lifted him off the ground, the sense of weightlessness nearly yanking his heart out of his body. Before he could fully cry out, he was wrapped in Anton's elongated arm and swung violently into the air. His body was flung back and forth several times, like a strand of wet hair stuck to his hand.

Anton could have thrown him against the wall or crushed him, but instead, he simply swung him in circles, raising his voice above the rushing wind. He called out, "Anna? Aren't you always such a good girl? Look, Eight-Heads De is about to die. Don't you want to come see him one last time?"

If it weren't for that half-cup of coffee he had earlier, Ye De might really have died right then and there.

His head was spinning, his body paralyzed, and his heart seemed to have stopped from shock. His internal organs felt twisted together, and if he opened his mouth, he felt he might vomit a torrent of blood. He didn't dare part his lips, let alone remember to shout at Anna not to come out. The only thing he could manage was to grip Anton's arm with all his strength.

"Anna? Anna?"

Anton swung him around a few more times, as though growing impatient, but also seemingly reluctant to kill him outright. With a flick of his arm, he flung Ye De behind him. All Ye De felt was the vast, empty ground rushing up to meet him. He barely had time to curl into a ball before he crashed into the earth with a heavy thud, nearly losing consciousness from the impact.

Lying on the ground, he forced his eyes open. In his arms was the fleshy, hose-like arm that extended through the night air, connecting him to the shadowy figure perched on the city wall.

This was his chance!

Ye De still gripped Anton's small arm tightly. He rolled onto his feet, adrenaline from Lin Sanjiu's coffee suppressing even his fresh injuries. Without giving Anton a moment to react, he threw himself toward the edge of the barren platform with every ounce of strength he had.

Even the mutant didn't expect Ye De to survive the forceful throw, let alone maintain consciousness.

Before Anton could process what was happening, the body on the wall staggered as Ye De yanked it forward. Anton lost his balance, stumbled two steps, and tumbled down, rolling onto the platform.

Ye De looked back with a surge of hope, only to feel his knees weaken with bitter disappointment.

Anton had fallen too close to the wall.

If he threw the ripple ball at him now, the resulting explosion would destroy not only the nearby section of Chimeric City but also Anna, who surely hadn't gone far.

"Are you out of options?" The mutant's shrill laughter rang out. "Do you think you can drag me down the mountain?"

Ye De froze. The moment he released Anton's arm, it coiled back around him like a living snake. The unstoppable force lifted him off the ground once more, suspending him in mid-air. His legs, which hadn't moved an inch, dangled helplessly.

"I can't believe how stupid you are," Anton said, laughing loudly. "I was about to let you go, but you wouldn't let go of me! What exactly are you trying to do?"

Ye De didn't know what he was trying to do either. Everything was unraveling from his plan. As he rose higher into the air, the edge of the platform seemed to shrink smaller and smaller. Looking down at the ground receding beneath him, it was as if a bucket of icy water had been dumped over his head. In the sudden clarity of the moment, an idea struck him, one that might work.

The possibility lay in something Anna had said: "The eyeball was full of smaller eyeballs."

Hadn't he seen something like this before?

When the middle-aged woman mutated in the alley, someone had blown her body apart, only for countless smaller bodies to emerge, spreading like a torrent in every direction.

Ye De had witnessed that horrifying scene firsthand. Yet, he still considered using the ripple ball on Anton because, deep down, he believed he was different. So far, Anton's mutation only expanded or elongated parts of his body. Unlike the middle-aged woman, he didn't seem to generate new limbs or appendages from severed parts.

There was also Lin Sanjiu's earlier attack to consider. When Anton's eye was injured, he had been forced to revert from his mutated form temporarily, and no additional eyes appeared.

But what if he had misunderstood?

What if Anton, like the middle-aged woman, could sprout countless new bodies from his injured parts? Their mutations followed a similar framework, like those of duoluozhong from the same world. It was entirely plausible that their mutated forms shared similar characteristics.

That would explain why Anna had seen more eyes in her brother's bloodied eye socket. As for Lin Sanjiu's attack, perhaps it hadn't been deep enough, or Anton's mutation was still in its early stages at the time. Ye De didn't know the specifics, nor did he have time to dwell on them.

With a desperate struggle, he pulled out a ripple ball and hurled it at the elongated arm suspended in mid-air.

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