Doomsday Wonderland

"Stay away from me!" A woman's voice suddenly turned shrill, ripping through the darkness with a scream of anger. "Get away from me, all of you!"

Who was that? The voice was so distorted by fear that Lin Sanjiu couldn't immediately recognize it.

"What's going on?" Hina's unmistakable booming voice rang out, full of confusion. "What happened?"

"It's just the dark, isn't it?" Wen Ya's voice chimed in, clearly irritated. "Stop yelling. Are you seriously scared of the dark at your age?"

"I'm not joking!" The woman's voice sliced through the air again, sharper than before. Her words stumbled over her tongue, saliva, and panic. "I picked [Flying Blades] as my evolved ability. If any of you come near me now, I can't guarantee what will happen to you!"

Lin Sanjiu recognized her this time. It was Guan Nan, the frail and muddled woman who had always been quiet and unassuming.

"Are you crazy?" Rodent-Face, as expected, immediately snapped. "No one even knows how big this place is, and you're threatening to shoot off Flying Blades randomly?"

"Then stay away from me!" Guan Nan practically screamed, her voice tearing with desperation.

Perhaps everyone realized that her threat, in her current emotional state, could easily turn into reality. Amid hurried assurances of "Alright, alright, we'll back off," the sound of rustling robes and quick footsteps scuffing against the floor filled the darkness.

As they retreated, someone tried to calm Guan Nan down. Others asked her what was wrong, and one person, moving too hastily, bumped into something, letting out a yelp of pain. "I think there's a chair here."

"Who picked this stupid place? There's not even any light," Hina grumbled loudly.

Lin Sanjiu didn't move an inch. She kept her eyes tightly shut, trying to map her surroundings using Higher Consciousness Scanning. But with no light and her ability weakened to just 6% effectiveness, she had to painstakingly scan and rescan to faintly piece together the shape of a corner. Just then, Muya's voice called out from the front left corner. "I've reached the wall!"

"So have I," Ya Rong said nervously. Her voice came from the back right corner behind Lin Sanjiu.

Others, groping their way toward the walls, also began speaking up. With people retreating in all directions, their scattered voices and Lin Sanjiu's faint scans gave her the sense that they were in a large rectangular room. Even with twelve people inside, their voices echoed emptily against the ceiling.

"Yes, yes, everyone stay by the walls..." Guan Nan's voice sounded as though she hadn't moved at all, still rooted in the top right corner of the rectangle. Lin Sanjiu, meanwhile, was standing in the center.

"Guan Nan, what's wrong with you?" Rob asked gruffly.

Guan Nan's frantic breathing slowed slightly as she steadied herself. She seemed to realize that her reaction had been over the top.

"Don't p-play dumb!" she shouted, her trembling voice laced with accusation. Just as Lin Sanjiu thought she was addressing Rob, Guan Nan unexpectedly called out, "Jiang Tian! Didn't you say it yourself? You said that when everyone's together, it's best to pick people off one by one... that all you needed was the right opportunity. Wasn't that you?"

In the darkness, Jiang Tian stayed silent for a moment.

"I didn't mean it like that..." she finally muttered. "You misunderstood me. I was worried someone else might try to pick us off, not that I would do it myself."

"You didn't say it outright, but you definitely hinted at it! You implied someone was going to make a move." Guan Nan's voice grew more frantic as if afraid others wouldn't believe her. "If we were anywhere else, you could explain it however you wanted, but in this pitch-black scene, isn't this exactly the opportunity you were talking about? Is this your home territory? Who's planning to attack us?"

"I already said I didn't mean that! If you're just trying to twist my words, say so outright," Jiang Tian snapped, anger creeping into her voice.

As the two women's argument escalated, the others began chiming in, creating a chaotic jumble of voices. Lin Sanjiu couldn't hold back any longer and raised her voice sharply. "Everyone, shut up! The lack of light isn't a big deal. This is obviously a room. Let's just find the switch and turn the lights on!"

1

Faced with such an obvious solution, the darkness around them seemed to fall into an awkward silence.

"Switch?" Ya Rong murmured. "Ah, right, rooms like this usually have lights with switches..."

Lin Sanjiu suddenly realized her oversight. She had forgotten that the people around her were ordinary citizens from Chimeric City. For them, the concept of a room with electric lights and switches was almost alien; something they wouldn't think of without being prompted.

Fortunately, once they began searching for a switch, they moved quickly. Within two minutes, Lin Sanjiu heard the familiar click of a light switch being flipped. However, the sound was hollow and futile; the darkness in the room remained unbroken.

"Are the lights broken?" Rob muttered under his breath.

It seemed this scene was deliberately designed to be pitch-black.

"I get it!" Tenny Voltz suddenly exclaimed before Guan Nan could scream again. "The media in this scene must be flashlights!"

Not waiting for anyone to respond, he continued in one breath, "While I was searching for the switch, I felt a lot of tables, chairs, and cabinets in the room. The media should be hidden among the furniture. Think about it, when we chose the scene earlier, we didn't know what the media would be. Someone must've guessed that the media in a dark scene would relate to light, so they picked it. Otherwise, why choose such an inconvenient scene?"

One drawback of having a large group was that even if everyone spoke just one sentence, it still resulted in a cacophony of noise.

Rob suggested that they search for flashlights first, but Tenny Voltz immediately accused him of being the scene owner. Guan Nan insisted that the darkness was too dangerous, while Ya Rong argued that the scene owner might not have guessed correctly. After five or six minutes of chaotic debate, they finally agreed: fumbling in the dark wasn't a solution. Everyone would search for flashlights individually. If anyone found one, they were to turn it on and set it on the ground without saying a word. Letting go of the flashlight would take less time than the scene owner uttering a phrase.

What followed was a clumsy and frantic effort. People groped through the room, feeling their way around tables and cabinets while trying to avoid Guan Nan and calm her down. They worked until half the scene's allotted time had passed before someone finally found a flashlight. True to their agreement, the finder said nothing; without warning, a beam of white light pierced through the room and landed on the opposite wall.

Finally, there was light. Even Lin Sanjiu felt a small wave of relief.

Under the faint, far-from-bright beam, the group scanned the room. Ordinary people might not have noticed much, but Lin Sanjiu's sharp gaze quickly assessed that this wasn't a large office or classroom. Near the entrance stood a security desk, and inside were several rows of chairs. In one corner was a long wooden table scattered with papers, pens, promotional signs, and brochures. The room looked like a public service office of some government department.

"Has anyone else found a flashlight?" Wen Ya, who was standing near the lone flashlight, asked. "One isn't enough; half the room is still dark."

After rummaging through the room for quite some time, the group only managed to find that single flashlight. Considering that the media had to number at least twelve, it seemed unlikely the flashlight was one of them.

Though most of the group had this realization, Wen Ya still hesitated to pick up the flashlight under everyone's watchful eyes.

"Then kick it," Muya suggested. "Kick it so it points toward the back of the room."

Wen Ya thought for a moment. "Alright, but nobody says a word while I'm doing it," he warned in his gruff voice. "I also have an evolved ability. If anyone speaks, I'll twist their head off."

In just three scenes, these ordinary people that were experiencing a pocket dimension for the first time had developed a startling level of vigilance. It was nearly impossible to slip a media into their hands or hide a message in their words without being caught. Lin Sanjiu's eyes followed the flashlight as it rolled across the floor, illuminating the back of the room. She thought to herself that even if she wanted to win the game now, she wouldn't know where to start.

Especially after Dr. Chen's demonstration of how to extract a hidden message from words. Every step of the way, they were wary of potential threats.

The white beam of light landed on the back half of the room, illuminating several desks. The desks were separated by partitions, with chairs placed for visitors in front. Sure enough, it looked like a government service office. Dr. Chen, at some point, had made his way to one of the desks and was sitting behind it with his head bowed, as if engrossed in paperwork.

Lin Sanjiu's heart tightened.

"Dr. Chen," Tenny Voltz stepped forward, "what are you looki—"

"Stay back! Don't go near him!" Lin Sanjiu's sudden shout startled everyone, drawing their attention to her. Only Dr. Chen remained motionless, his head bowed under the beam of white light. The way his shadow fell against the wall made him look headless.

"He's dead," Lin Sanjiu said slowly, her eyes fixed on a piece of paper covered in Dr. Chen's handwriting on the desk.

1

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!