Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
As long as she could see and touch her opponent, there was nothing to be afraid of. This was the first thought Lin Sanjiu had when she saw the large pasty face in the sky.
However, in the next few seconds, a second thought rose, telling her that this was a battle that could not be fought.
Right after the geisha locked gazes with Lin Sanjiu, it shrunk and merged into the dark sky. It moved so fast that Lin Sanjiu thought she was seeing an illusion. She quickly turned her body around as she scanned her surroundings. Row after row of ceramic vases continued to stand upright in the dark like a battalion of dutiful soldiers, but the geisha was nowhere to be seen.
“Maxin!” Lin Sanjiu rushed back to the vase and yelled into it, “Listen, I need you to give me a description of an ability!”
“What ability?”
“My—” She bit her tongue. Then, she fell silent and peered into the vase once more.
‘Does Maxin’s voice really sound like that?’
“Why did you stop?” As Lin Sanjiu stared into the darkness in the vase, the voice echoed from the vase once again. “Were you talking about a power that could let you hit…”
Before the voice could finish its sentence, Lin Sanjiu instinctively jumped away and covered her ears. Fortunately, the [Pygmalion Choker] that was cold to her skin did not warm up in the end. Seizing the chance while the thing inside the vase had not come out yet, she pounced forward and shattered the vase with a kick.
The vase hit the floor, spraying shards across the floor and into the air. However, aside from the fragments and bits of the vase, she did not see anything else. Both Maxin and the round, geisha-like face were gone.
“Maxin!” Lin Sanjiu dug her fingers into her ears as her eyes rapidly jumped from one vase to the other. “Where are you? Give me some response!”
All the furniture and vases were dull in the dark. Their original color and brilliance were smothered by the black of the night sky. It had merely been a few seconds before silence once again returned. It was as if everything that happened earlier on was just an illusion.
No human palm emerged from any vase.
Lin Sanjiu waited with bated breath for several seconds before she began to walk around the field of vases. She was very confident that the voice that came from the vase was Maxin, and she could not leave him behind. “Maxin, where are you?” She lowered her voice, feeling that her voice sounded weird with the pieces of paper stuck in her ears.
Even without taking out the toilet paper in her ears, she could detect the pin-drop silence around her. Lin Sanjiu lowered her hand, and the rustling created by the paper scraping against her ears decreased. She cautiously pulled every vase closer and glanced into it. However, she only saw darkness each and every time. The mouth of the vases was only as wide as a human head, so it was nearly impossible for an adult man to squeeze through. Perhaps this was the reason why Maxin could not come out.
The interior of the furniture, crevices, and the holes were actually passageways to another space. Lin Sanjiu thought for a moment, then suddenly the penny dropped. She smacked her forehead as she understood why she could not find Maxin anywhere.
If she were in Maxin’s situation, she would have given up the vase and gone to find another passageway if she could not come out through the vase. She chided herself inwardly for her stupidity. Then, with her guard raised, she darted straight towards the other side of the night sky.
Just past the group of vases lay several large closets. Amongst the furniture in this area, only those closets were large enough to accommodate an adult man.
Lin Sanjiu took a few quick steps and got closer to the closets. In the dark, she found that the closets were facing each other. On top of that, the space between each closet was small.
The moment she got closer, she heard a loud bang as if somebody had crashed into something. Instantly, she raised her head and saw the source of the sound.
A closet opened. However, the gap between the closets was so small that the door rammed into the opposite closet when the person inside opened it.
Holding her breath, Lin Sanjiu squeezed her fingers harder into her ears. She stared fixedly at the half-opened closet door without making any sound.
‘Is that Maxin?’
A shadow swayed from the gap underneath the closet but shrunk back soon after that. The shadow looked like part of a foot, but Lin Sanjiu could not really tell. The person mumbled something and shook the closet door even harder, seemingly trying to squeeze himself through. Nevertheless, a long time passed, and aside from causing some noises, the person did not get to squeeze through the tiny gap.
Slowly, Lin Sanjiu took a step forward, with her [A Twinkle In The Sky] activated.
“Jesus.” The sound behind the door was blocked by the toilet paper in her ears, so she could only make out a few words from the person’s exclamation. “Why is the space here so narrow?”
Just as she was about to land her second step, the person behind the door suddenly fell silent as if he noticed Lin Sanjiu as well. The door swung shut for a brief second before it opened from the inside again. Then, a streak of white appeared from the gap above the closet.
As the streak of white gradually stretched out of the gap, Lin Sanjiu found that it was a hooked, pasty nose. She let out a sigh when she recognized the nose. It was Polva’s.
Ever so slowly, more and more of Polva’s nose appeared, then his forehead, his chin, and finally his eyes. “Is somebody there?” he asked softly.
The probability of Polva being analyzed by the highest god was minute. Since he could shed himself like a cicada molting its shell, he had more lives than anyone else. Besides, he had been together with Puppeteer the whole time, so even if they did get caught by the highest god, he would not be analyzed.
Lin Sanjiu thought as she inched towards the closet. Even if the person in front was another imposter, as long as she could fight him head-on, there was nothing to be afraid of. The only thing that might suffer was her teeth.
“Who’s there?” Polva shouted. Obviously, he had picked up Lin Sanjiu’s scent.
Lin Sanjiu had already sidled herself through the narrow gap between two closets. Even though she had a lean body, she still made some noise when she edged through the tiny space. When she stopped at a closet, she felt a slight tremor from the board next to her. Then, in the next second, something crashed into the row of closets, causing the door to crunch and making her jump.
It seemed as if Polva was under attack. Before Lin Sanjiu could make a move, she saw a head fly out from behind the door, draw a perfect arc in the air and land on the floor.
It was Polva’s head. His pair of black eyes were hollow while the wound beneath his neck was jagged. It was as if his head had been chewed off by some kind of rodent.
However, Lin Sanjiu did not stare at Polva’s head.
As Polva’s head flew across the air and dropped onto the floor, a white, circular face stretched out from below the closet. It crept along the floor and would have successfully touched Lin Sanjiu’s feet had she not realized it.
“Lin Sanjiu!” A shout erupted from the closet, making her jump. Her whip stopped halfway in the air. Maxin’s voice sounded distant. “The interior of the furniture is a passageway! I’m not—”
It occurred to Lin Sanjiu that he thought she was unaware of a passageway amongst the furniture. Hence, when he tried to inform her about this piece of information that she already knew, he wasted their only chance to communicate with each other.
The moment Maxin finished his sentence, the geisha opened its mouth as well. Lin Sanjiu knew what it wanted to do, so she quickly covered her ears with her hands. Maxin was still shouting something from the closet, but she could not hear a thing anymore.
In their current situation, not only could Maxin not help her activate the choker but more importantly, Lin Sanjiu did not trust the Maxin inside of the closet. This was because judging from the impact, he was now inside the same closet as the geisha.
Lin Sanjiu did not want to touch the geisha. Just as she summoned her Tornado Whip with a wave of her hand, the geisha withdrew back into the closet again and Maxin’s voice disappeared.
