Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“Lin Sanjiu!”
A loud voice tore through the sky, sliding into Lin Sanjiu’s ears when she was dashing towards the highest god. She always knew that Soulsqn’s voice was loud, but not to this extent. Even though Soulsqn was very far away from her, Lin Sanjiu’s ears still went numb due to the sheer volume of her voice. “Come over here quick! We can’t hold him for much longer!”
Lin Sanjiu had no idea when Soulsqn swam to Puppeteer’s side. She kept hopping up into the air, but nobody could tell whether she was trying to attack the highest god or stall him. The scene of her jumping up and down reminded Lin Sanjiu of the yo-yo she used to play with during her childhood.
The fear and anxiety that entangled her heart drove her to brandish her limbs even faster, but harder swimming strokes did not mean that you could swim faster. Her distance to the battlefield did not shorten even by the slightest bit, and Lin Sanjiu felt so much angst that she wished she had a pair of wings. Just when she had no idea what to do, a jet of water shot out from where the highest god stood. Traveling in an eye-blinding speed, an undercurrent soon appeared below her.
The thing that came along with the undercurrent was Maxin’s wretched face. Fighting against the powerful underswell, he poked his head out and shouted, “Come in!”
‘Go into the undercurrent? Is he mad?’
Lin Sanjiu stifled a gasp, and her movement to avoid the undercurrent came to an abrupt halt when the thought came into her mind. Like a predator that had found prey, a powerful suction force erupted from the undercurrent beneath her feet, sucking her sucked into it. The world in her eyes turned upside down, and as a sense of weightlessness clutched her heart, she realized she had been flung skyward, soon to drop on the piece of deep blue where the highest god and Puppeteer stood.
“Oh, here you are. I’m truly happy that you would come to me yourself so that I don’t have to waste my time looking for you.”
A huge beam blossomed across the highest god’s face. As he talked, he instinctively cocked his head a little, causing Soulsqn to miss her pheromone attack.
Colliding with the water from a high spot was tantamount to a terrain crash. Even with the protection of the [Defense Forcefield], the impact was still great enough to send a tremor down Lin Sanjiu’s body. As she crashed into the ocean, all she could see at that moment was chains of silvery bubbles. Twisting her body around, she sent a gush of Higher Consciousness forward, pushing her away from the point of collision.
Almost at the same time that she backed away, something smashed into her previous landing spot, sending a geyser of water upward.
Then gravity kicked in, and all the water began showering down. Bathing under the rain of seawater, Lin Sanjiu wiped her face and saw Puppeteer lying unconscious on the heaving sea. Like a toddler who caught a cold, he was trembling uncontrollably, and his skin was pale like a dead man’s.
When she saw Puppeteer in that state, Lin Sanjiu’s highly-strung heart finally found a place to land. She took a deep breath, and it came out with a little whine at the end, a half whimper, half sigh. “Thank goodness.”
Her arm quivered, and her hand shook visibly. As her hand fell and she felt the cold sensation of the leather against her finger, she drew out another long sigh of relief. “He is alright… He’s alright… He’s just evolving…”
Then, she swam closer and clutched tightly to Puppeteer’s arm, so as to prevent him from being washed away by the current. However, the moment she lowered her head, she realized something was amiss.
Indeed, Puppeteer’s ability was evolving, but he was also far from being “alright”.
Since he did not have time to take care of his wound, there was now a huge gaping hole crawling from his chest to his abdomen. It was so large and cavernous that his bones and lacerated organs were exposed. His raw flesh and skin appeared pale wax, a result of massive blood loss. Due to the brute force brought about by the evolution, his entire body shook like a leaf. Starting from his organs, his skin and bones were mutilated, the scene so bizarre as if Lin Sanjiu could hear the tearing of his flesh and skin.
The blood was washed away by the waves and got a lot fainter. However, for every clear spot that appeared, more crimson would gush from Puppeteer’s gaping wound and dye it red. Lin Sanjiu wondered how he could hold so much blood within his tiny body. If she did not do something to stop the bleeding now, she was confident that he was as good as dead the moment the evolving process finished.
“Queen!”
Lin Sanjiu stared at the gaping wound with grim fascination, trying not to imagine that the thing she saw inside was Puppeteer’s organs. It seemed that her voice was not loud enough to pierce through the fighting ahead, as Soulsqn did not respond to her call. Just as she jerked her head up to call out to Soulsqn once more, the scene that welcomed her eyes caused her to choke back her words.
The reason the highest god did not come for Lin Sanjiu after she fell into the water was because of Soulsqn. Although all of the flesh worm’s attacks were useless against the highest god, she succeeded in halting the highest god with her unwavering tenacity. If it weren’t for the combined effect of her hideous appearance, her ability to turn people into her pouches, and Maxin’s assault, which resulted in the highest god’s reluctance to go all out on her, he would have gotten rid of her already.
Both Maxin and Soulsqn were having a hell of a hard time dealing with the highest god, so it was without a question that they were unable to pull out right now. In other words, Lin Sanjiu was on her own. Immersed inside the cold, bone-chilling seawater, Lin Sanjiu vaguely felt a constant burst of warmth on her skin, causing her to have goosebumps all over her skin. It was blood.
Perhaps the evolution process was different for every individual, as Puppeteer took longer than Lin Sanjiu expected to evolve his ability. Every extra second, their situation would become even more dangerous, and she knew they could not afford to waste a second. Gritting her teeth, Lin Sanjiu summoned two towels from her cards and tore them into long shreds. She wrapped the shredded towel tightly around Puppeteer’s wound. The towel instantly blossomed red, and the original white was soon to disappear. Truth to be told, with those injuries, Lin Sanjiu had no idea whether her action would help him or if she was just worsening the situation.
“This is what you get for not returning my friend to me,” Lin Sanjiu mumbled under her breath. After she tied a knot at the end of the shredded towels, she said, “If the cat doctor were here, he could have saved you right now! Serves you right!”
Puppeteer’s eyelashes continued to flutter.
If they did not get rid of the highest god now, not only would they be unable to save Puppeteer, but all of them would be goners as well. After she’d weighed the situation, Lin Sanjiu decided to leave Puppeteer and join Soulsqn and Maxin in subduing the young deity. Kicking the water to give herself a boost, Lin Sanjiu charged straight at the highest god. At the battlefield, it seemed like the highest god finally decided to get serious. As he yanked his arm upwards, he said, “Alright, it’s time we end this farce. You have used up all your bestowed graces.”
With those words, he flung the young man, who was almost as tall as him, into the air.
Then, the highest god squinted one of his eyes. With an outstretched finger, he formed his hand into the shape of a gun and pointed it at the distant airborne figure. Just as he pouted his lips and before a word tumbled off his tongue, a gush of Higher Consciousness bumped into his wrist and knocked his finger off the mark.
At the same time, a word slid off the highest god’s tongue.
“Baam!”
When Maxin was flying through the sky, a group of “Lin Sanjius” chasing after Lin Sanjiu coincidentally rammed into the highest god’s line of fire. As the finger gun “fired” its bullet, the group of “Lin Sanjius” was pulverized in the twinkle of an eye. Bursts of flesh, skin, bones, hair, and fabrics were flushed skyward, dying the area of the sea red and permeating the air with a metallic stench.
Lin Sanjiu had almost forgotten that she still had [No Coincidence. No Story].
The highest god withdrew his finger and wiped his face. Slowly, ever so slowly, he turned his head around. He did not look at the flesh worm but stared straight at Lin Sanjiu instead, looking like a viper awakened by a prey.
Ever since he appeared, this was the first time there was no expression on his face.
It was at this moment that Lin Sanjiu knew the highest god was enraged. While Mrs. Manas fed the [Defense Forcefield] with more Higher Consciousness, Lin Sanjiu darted towards Soulsqn in a swift motion and yelled, “Queen, help me! The choker, say something!”
Lin Sanjiu did not have the time to speak a full sentence. She thought Soulsqn would understand her, but it seemed that she had expected too much from the Queen of Souls.
Although the flesh worm had gotten bulkier after getting nourished by the seawater, her brain did not grow in proportion to her body size. Her face was a giant question mark full of confusion as she said, “Huh? What do you want me to say? Say Hi?”
Lin Sanjiu was so anxious that she almost bit her own tongue, but the sound of the wind behind them told her that she did not have the freedom to hammer the idea into the flesh worm’s brain right now. Twisting her body around, she half threw herself into the sea, and spume began to bubble around her nose. Be that as it may, the highest god was a tad faster. Within the blink of an eye, his hand had reached in front of Lin Sanjiu’s face. She could even catch the whistling of the wind that came along with the highest god’s hand.
Only now did Lin Sanjiu see the reason why the highest god had to get rid of Maxin first. Without Maxin, there wouldn’t be anybody around to control the sea to cause him trouble. Before Lin Sanjiu could finish her thought, Mrs. Manas shouted in her mind. She instinctively closed her eyes and jerked her hand up.
A few seconds passed. The waves still beat on them, and the wind was quiet.
“What the hell were you two doing?” Soulsqn’s voice prompted Lin Sanjiu to snap her eyes open. Then, she froze.
Everything she did earlier was done subconsciously. When she opened her eyes, she understood why she made such a move.
Both the highest god and Lin Sanjiu’s hand now stopped in mid-air. The former’s hand was a scissor while the latter’s was paper.
Staring in dumb fascination at her own hand, Lin Sanjiu soon saw the light. The highest god had an Evolving Ability as well. Although he was not a posthuman, since he had analyzed so many posthumans in the Olympics, there was a high probability that he had the ability to “write code” like the Veda.
“Oh, you lose,” said the young deity as a smile found its way and tugged on his lips. His face glowed like the rising sun as he offered Lin Sanjiu a wide, heartful grin. “You are going to be cut for the next whole minute.”
‘Cut? What does that mean?’
Before Lin Sanjiu could get deeper into the thought, her opponent answered her doubt with his action. As the highest god opened his two fingers, she felt that the sea and the sky were being pulled apart. It was an indescribable feeling. It seemed as if the sea and sky had been turned into a pair of rusty scissors. And now the highest god was trying to use this pair of “rusty scissors” to cut her.
Lin Sanjiu’s heart fell deeper and deeper into the pit of her stomach. She unleashed forward all her remaining Higher Consciousness and pushed herself away from the cutting side of the scissors. Nevertheless, it took merely five to six seconds for the scissors to open and shut, and it seemed like it would not get any slower but faster. With her current level of Higher Consciousness, Lin Sanjiu was certain that she would not be able to hold herself out for the entire minute.
With that thought in mind, Lin Sanjiu shouted once more, “Queen! I can imitate that one! Do you still remember? You just need to say a sentence and I can—”
“Imitate what?”
Unfortunately, it was the highest god who replied. He whipped up another wide grin, showing Lin Sanjiu his row of pearly bright teeth, and said, “Oh, I won’t say it out loud. It is best for you to just die along with that man.”
Lin Sanjiu could not believe that even with the combined effort of several posthumans and a Soul, they were still unable to inflict even the slightest damage to the despicable god. Of all the people, she was angry with Soulsqn the most. She wanted to shout and make everything clear to that dumb flesh worm, but she could not do it. Once the highest god knew what she was going to do, she would not be able to pull the trick off anymore. After all, the ability the [Pygmalion Choker] could realize was heavily restricted by her Higher Consciousness.
“Scis—”
The highest god opened his fingers
“—ssors.”
He closed his fingers.
This time, not even Lin Sanjiu knew how she escaped from that. In that moment of life and death, she had never had such a strong desire to have the grand prize around her.
The highest god went after Lin Sanjiu again. It seemed that he needed to stay close to Lin Sanjiu in order to use the scissors to cut her.
“Ah!” A loud shout resounded from the distance, making Lin Sanjiu jump. Finally seeing the light, Soulsqn yelled, “I get it not!”
