Doomsday Wonderland
chapter-26

“Firstly, we must have a grasp on that duoluozhong’s movement,” Lin Sanjiu said with a serious face as she looked at her companions, “it all started out when Marcie heard a “pop” sound, right? Where did it come from?”

At this point, their group of four vehicles was parked at the side of the road, in the same succession as before. The four of them stood atop the bus, frowning intensely. Marcie closed her eyes to recall the details, “I was driving and I heard a sound, but I couldn’t tell where it was from. I only knew that it sounded muffled, I think the source was some distance away from my driver’s seat.”

[That would mean that it was from the mid-back segment of the bus…] Lin Sanjiu strolled over to the mid-back of the bus and suddenly exerted her strength and leaped upward from that spot. With her enhanced body—her ability to jump had reached a level that shouldn’t be underestimated—she managed to jump to the height of an adult human. Thereafter, she landed heavily on the metal roof of the bus, but it only made a dull thump.

“It is not possible to hear a sound at this volume if you were driving.” Lin Sanjiu concluded, “A duoluozhong is at least half my weight, right? With this line of reasoning, the fellow must have jumped down from a very high location.”

From a very high location, the few of them frowned as they recalled their previous journey, trying to remember if they had seen any tall buildings.

Suddenly, Marcie asked, “Since the duoluozhong had already landed on my vehicle, why didn’t it kill me? Instead, it abandoned the nearest target and decided to kill Luther. I mean the bus has a large windshield, it would be easy for me to spot it.”

“It probably planned to create a pileup?” Voley looked to his left and right, “If the second vehicle meets with a mishap, the subsequent two vehicles would be in trouble. My car collided with the back of your vehicle… but I was alright.”

“If it wanted to create a pileup, wouldn’t it be faster if he targeted Xiao Jiu?” Luther retorted with a question.

Voley took a deep breath, he thought about it a while longer before giving up. “Who knows? Maybe that duoluozhong is crazy so it just randomly chose you.”

“Will it choose me again this time round? Or will it choose someone else randomly?” Luther felt more and more frustrated as they discussed about it. “D*mn it! This countdown provides too little information. There is no way we can infer about anything!”

“Don’t overthink matters.” Lin Sanjiu walked over and patted his shoulder in a consoling manner. “I think it shouldn’t be too hard to avoid this accident… At least we are certain about the location where it happened. We can stop before we reach the slope. We can survey the area, patrol it. Any duoluozhong we spot, we’ll kill. I don’t believe we can’t overcome this!”

Her resolute and decisive tone immediately raised the confidence of the people in her party. After all, it was just a single duoluozhong!

“That’s right! This time round, we will make a preemptive strike!” Voley agreed with a smile.

After they had made their preliminary plans, they continued with the journey as the scorching night continued. To avoid any other complications, their vehicles were in the same formation. The only difference now as that they had learned a lesson from their previous experience. The windows in their vehicles have been winded down, and each of them now had a weapon beside them which they could readily grab.

They drove slowly throughout their journey, and no one spoke a word. Everyone was fully alert and listened carefully to their surroundings. They did not want to miss even a small hint of unusual activity. Feeling her parched throat, Lin Sanjiu swallowed a mouthful of saliva. Just then, Marcie whispered over the walkie-talkie, “It’s here!”

“Stop your vehicles!” Lin Sanjiu shouted into her walkie-talkie. She pressed down on her brake, switched off the ignition, and jumped out of her truck holding her police baton.

The slope where the four of them met that untimely end was just in front of them. The four vehicles were now parked at the bottom of the slope. At the same time, Luther, Marcie, and Voley rushed out of their vehicles. They surrounded the bus with weapons in their hands, and all of them looked up at the roof of the bus at the same time.

There were no street lights in that night deprived of human civilization. However, with the headlights from the Citroën and their evolved night vision, the few of them could see clearly: on the top of the bus, there was a crouching figure of a dark shadow. Seeing that long, constantly moving mouthpart… what else could it be other than a duoluozhong?

Discovering that it was surrounded, the duoluozhong immediately stood up. It turned and ran toward the back of the bus. Lin Sanjiu widened her eyes and inhaled.

The duoluozhong did not show any sign of shrinkage, its body was no different from a normal human!

For it to reach such a state, how many victims did it have to fully drain? Even its speed was the same as a normal person… If it wasn’t for the long mouthpart, Lin Sanjiu would have thought that it was a normal person.

“Trying to escape after you’ve killed me? Dream on!” Luther was the first person to react. He gritted his teeth, and once his feet pushed away from the ground, he lunged forward like an arrow. In a blink of an eye, he was already some distance away. Lin Sanjiu and Marcie followed suit quickly.

The only person without much fighting capabilities, Voley, ran a few steps after them before stopping to pant. He yelled out toward their back, “I will just keep a lookout here! All of you! You can do it!”

The duoluozhong’s speed was almost on par with a normal person, but were the people chasing it even considered normal? Within half a minute, the three of them had already blocked its path and surrounding it.

The duoluozhong stared at the three of them without moving. The three of them stood on guard. For a moment, nobody initiated any attacks. Facing their enemy in close proximity, the three of them immediately felt a wave of nausea.

The duoluozhong was apparently male, and its body was well-hydrated. Just looking at its body, it was entirely like a normal human being. Not only his body, but it still retained its eyelids over its long slit eyes, its high forehead was also flat and smooth… It looked really normal without a single disgusting feature. However, the undeniable fact was that it had a mouthpart—attached to its normal clean male face. There was a black hole where his nose and mouth should have been, and a large mosquito-like mouthpart extended from the deep hole.

It looked as if it was exactly designed to display such a strange contrast so much so that Lin Sanjiu would rather look at Wang Sisi.

“Why do all of you seem prepared?” a human voice came from the male duoluozhong’s mouthpart, there was even a revolting hint of a smile in its eyes. “I just arrived, and all of you stopped your vehicles at once? Who sent you a message?”

[Why… does it seem like it was implying that there were other duoluozhong?]

“I don’t like to have a rubbish conversation with non-human creatures.” This thought flashed through Lin Sanjiu head. Without much planning, Lin Sanjiu smiled, and a white light flashed in her palm a couple of times. There was suddenly a few cards in her left hand.

This was a new technique she had developed after testing her ability multiple times.

As she waved her left hand, she threw out five thin cards which immediately flew straight ahead following her intentions. They rapidly close in on the duoluozhong. Next, the five cards dispersed in mid-air, arranging themselves to target the duoluozhong’s anterior.

That’s right. Lin Sanjiu could control the speed and trajectory of the cards in mid-air. This was a formidable technique; unfortunately, there was a great limitation. At her current state, she could only control the cards for five seconds…

Quicker than words could describe, and before the duoluozhong realized the situation it was facing, the five cards accelerated and directly headed toward the duoluozhong’s vital points. Just when they were about to touch its skin, the five cards turned in sharp razor blades at the same time.

As it dodged and countered, not all five blades struck their target, but one of the razor blades pierced deeply into the duoluozhong’s left eyes. A sharp shriek rang out in the night sky, and the duoluozhong’s mouthpart trembled uncontrollably in mid-air.

“Quick! This is our chance!” Luther rushed forward brandishing a police baton. He landed a heavy strike. With a dreadful sound, the duoluozhong’s chin was shattered.

It was practically clear that the duoluozhong had to die here today. As that thought rose in his mind, Luther suddenly saw a reflective shine from the corner of his eyes.

It was immediately followed by an explosive “bang!” which sounded like a gunshot. The reflective shine extended into a straight line and shot towards Voley’s chest like a meteorite.

The color drained from his face, and he desperately reached for his mobile phone. But just as he summoned it out, a mist of blood burst forth from his chest cavity, and his body and phone fell heavily to the ground at the same time. Subsequently, Voley snatched his last breath with widened eyes as his mobile phone disappeared with a white light on the spot.

Everything happened too quickly. The three of them who were engaged in combat with the duoluozhong could not react fast enough. They stared at Voley’s body, stunned. Using that opportunity, the duoluozhong dared not continue the fight. Instead, he did a flip, escaped their encirclement and turned to run.

Lin Sanjiu was about to poise herself to chase after it. Suddenly, an alarm exploded in her mind. Before she could even respond, she dropped to the ground and rolled to a side. Another gunshot rang out. There was now a hole in the ground where she was previously standing, and white smoke rose from it.

This time, she fully understood the situation.

“We are being sniped at! All of you, look for a place to hide! Quick!”

Marcie and Luther flung themselves toward the bus and hid behind it while Lin Sanjiu crouched behind the Citroën. They were all panting. After the other party had lost sight of their target, the sound of gunshots stopped. The night fell back to a still silence.

“Mr. Vo… Voley is dead…” Marcie whispered sounding like it was something that was somewhat difficult to accept.

“It must be done by that duoluozhong’s accomplices, right?” Lin Sanjiu could feel her heart palpating as if it was about to burst out from her chest. “We are really unlucky. We actually met a duoluozhong that knows how to snipe!”

Luther gave her a complicated look and shook his head. “It is not done by that duoluozhong… I saw it just now. In the building on the left, I saw spots of metallic light. The ‘bullet’ that hit Voley was one of the spots of the lights.”

Hearing what he described, the two others looked at him with widened eyes. “Isn’t that an evolved ability?”

Unquestionably, evolved abilities can only be used by humans.

Luther replied bitterly, “That’s right, it must be an evolved scum who partnered with that duoluozhong.”

Momentarily, Lin Sanjiu was unable to digest that information. “Partnered? Partnering with a duoluozhong? What did he stand to gain?”

Just as she said this, she heard a thump above her head.

She instinctively looked upward only to see that duoluozhong which had fled just moments before. It was standing on the roof of the Citroën… Its long mouthpart was dangling beside Lin Sanjiu’s shoulder.