Doomsday Wonderland

Although it had taken several days, Lin Sanjiu finally understood what the old lady wanted them to do.

Or rather, she had a guess.

On the way to Exodus—at least, she hoped it was the right way this time—she and Cyrus received over an hour's worth of compiled information from Eight-Heads De. It consisted of fragmented news reports and scattered messages from across Cloudwalk Heights over the past six months.

Perhaps the Shadow Hall had only tested on a limited number of subjects, or perhaps they had been extremely secretive. Either way, the data collected over six months amounted to just over an hour of material. To make matters worse, much of it seemed tenuously connected at best, or completely irrelevant, such as:

"Iron-Haired Women discovered a group of ten unconscious ordinary people in a secluded room on the top floor of Bulb Collective. It is claimed they consumed unknown drugs to experience the world beyond the Great Deluge..."

Cyrus interjected, "The Iron-Haired Women are an organization hired in certain regions to maintain order. You can think of them as a service-oriented version of the police."

Lin Sanjiu nodded, though she still didn't understand why Eight-Heads De had included this report. The "world beyond the Great Deluge" referred to another apocalyptic universe, didn't it?

Could it be that something she had only recently come to realize was already common knowledge in the Twelve Worlds Centrum? Did those ordinary people just want to glimpse what other apocalyptic worlds looked like?

The most striking part of the transmission wasn't a broadcast, but a video. When it played on the spacecraft's cockpit screen, a stern-faced man's profile immediately obscured half of the navigation map.

It wasn't a typical news segment or promotional clip; it looked more like a secretly recorded video taken while someone was walking. The man being filmed didn't seem to notice he was on camera, speaking quietly to a small group of ordinary people walking beside him. Around them, streams of people, vehicles, and noise flowed by like a river.

"From individuals to entire groups... every person, every community, must grope their way toward their own path in this world."

His voice was intermittent. "Some enjoy assistance, while others are forced to struggle, sink, and remain trapped... the most tragic situations... are those like ours, born directly into a dead end, with no life, no future ahead. This is unjust... and it's not the purpose for which we were created by the heavens."

The man's eyes shone brightly, his face slightly flushed. Each word seemed to have been brewed deep within his soul before surging forth. His voice grew louder, more forceful, with every sentence.

He was so fervent, so wholeheartedly convinced of his own words, that it didn't feel like he was trying to persuade others. Yet, paradoxically, this made his charisma and persuasiveness all the more powerful. Even as a posthuman, Lin Sanjiu couldn't help but feel her resolve waver slightly.

The ordinary people surrounding him were even more visibly affected. Their faces were solemn as they nodded repeatedly in agreement.

"Doomsday isn't a natural state... it's a form of torture inflicted by demons for their amusement. We must return," the man said, his voice laden with anguish. "Return to the most essential, purest form of human life. Return to the world that belongs to us..."

"Is he trying to return to pre-doomsday human society?" Cyrus murmured, leaning closer to the screen.

The man kept speaking as he walked, like a magnet attracting iron filings. Wherever he passed, people turned their heads to look. While waiting for an aerial roadway to align and connect, a few passersby, drawn in by his words, unconsciously began following him.

Lin Sanjiu could understand why someone might have felt compelled to record him secretly.

"The right to pursue freedom, equality, and happiness," the man continued, completely immersed in his thoughts. He seemed unaware that the number of people listening to him had grown from a few individuals to a small crowd, all following his every step and stopping whenever he did. "And yet, our lives are trapped... we were born as mere set pieces in a cruel drama, created solely for the entertainment of demons. There are too many things that defy explanation, for example—"

Just as even the two posthumans were holding their breath, captivated by his words, the recording abruptly cut off.

For a moment, Lin Sanjiu felt an almost irrational frustration; she wanted to hear more. She wanted to know what he meant by inexplicable aspects of life in the apocalyptic world and who was supposedly using them for amusement. A shiver ran through her as she snapped back to reality, realizing she had nearly been swayed by the man's compelling persuasiveness.

Even Cyrus appeared slightly dazed, murmuring, "So this is what a pocket dimension winner can do? It really... fits the purpose of pushing an ideology. Why don't you seem to have this level of influence?"

Lin Sanjiu shot him a glance. "He believes he has a mission, like some messenger of the heavens. I don't! And it's not just me. None of the people I saw in the warehouse had this kind of charisma either. There must have been another step between winning the pocket dimension and being released that I wasn't part of."

This time, it was Cyrus's turn to scratch his head. "Weird. For some reason, I feel like I've been unusually blunt when talking around you lately..."

Frowning, he let out a small "huh" and said, "Maybe your persuasiveness manifests in a different way. People around you might instinctively trust you like a close friend or family member, and as a side effect, they pay less attention to how they phrase things."

So, while others could rally devoted followers, all she got was an endless barrage of blunt remarks.

3

"To be honest," Lin Sanjiu said, seeing how thoroughly Cyrus seemed to have convinced himself, "if you told me this was a documentary about some leader in the early stages of their movement, I might actually believe you. If there are this many people like him... the sheer number of people in that warehouse alone..."

She recalled the number of people she had seen in the warehouse and felt a creeping unease, especially since those weren't even all of them.

"Not to mention," Cyrus reminded her, "winners of this type of pocket dimension are only a small subset. There are still a lot of ordinary people, and we still don't know why they were taken. What else is there?"

The messages from Eight-Heads De were a hodgepodge of information, even including a snippet of a private conversation between two acquaintances recorded just three days earlier.

"You know... we only get a chance to glimpse that side when the Great Deluge comes," said an older voice. "You know Yun Huang's brother, right? He's one of the people in the Bulb Collective... so lucky, really."

"When the Great Deluge comes this time," a younger woman replied, "can't the Ferryman just take us there directly?"

"Unless you've established a connection with home, even the Ferryman can't take you," the older voice said with a sigh. "We need to make the connection first, and then, when the next Great Deluge comes, the Ferryman can take us home. Yun Huang's brother passed out last time and couldn't do it. He's betting everything on this coming Great Deluge... Anyway, let's stop talking about it. Just come quickly."

1

"Okay, okay," the other woman replied, "I'll bring Xiao Dan too!"

The short conversation left Lin Sanjiu with an uneasy, churning feeling in her gut.

"I almost forgot," she murmured. "Before entering the factory, I did hear that the Great Deluge was approaching Cloudwalk Heights..."

Cyrus looked like he was about to say something when his eyes suddenly flicked to the screen. He straightened abruptly in his seat.

"That circular ship... is it Exodus?" he asked, pointing to a snow-white ring on the display.

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