A trembling mass of giant black lashes in the air seemed to sense that after piercing through countless corridors, it had finally encountered its first real threat. After a brief hesitation, the countless, head-sized black shadows slightly retreated.
Then, like a storm magnified a hundredfold, like spear tips and bullets, they surged toward Lin Sanjiu with an intensity and swiftness far beyond what they'd shown when breaking through the barricades, almost gleefully.
Even with [Defense Forcefield] activated, Lin Sanjiu could see the fate that awaited her if those lashes struck: her limbs, unable to withstand the force of the impact, would tear off completely at the shoulder joints and, encased in the [Defense Forcefield], wouldn't fly far, just drop limply beside her shattered body.
Even if the opponent seemed to be an unintelligent monster, its sheer, relentless force could crush most things, or people, that dared to block its path. Unfortunately for the lashes, Lin Sanjiu wasn't among them.
From the moment she first saw the black lashes, she noticed they varied in length, just like real eyelashes. That small detail could mean the difference between life and death.
Without dodging or flinching, Lin Sanjiu tapped her toes on the ground and launched herself toward the oncoming tidal wave of black shadows.
Like a dolphin twisting gracefully into the depths of the sea, her lean, taut body rotated mid-air. For that brief instant, gravity seemed to loosen its grip on her, and she slipped effortlessly, almost soundlessly, through the gaps between the massive, hurtling black lashes.
Once she entered a pure combat state, it was hard to tell whether she was fighting, calculating, or dancing; it felt like all three.
These were the longest of the lashes. Only after she dove between them did the slightly shorter lashes target the spot where she'd been standing, striking nothing but air and slicing through it with a sharp hiss. It seemed the lashes could extend indefinitely if needed, but they couldn't turn back on themselves, nor reach into their own bodies. She deduced this fact from the debris of broken bricks and furniture caught in the lashes.
Lin Sanjiu flicked her hand, and a rope of Higher Consciousness wrapped around a lash above her. Hanging upside down, surrounded by a forest of black lashes slicing the air and shaking the walls, she remained untouched.
1
She knew she had just a fleeting chance.
If the monster realized what was happening, all it had to do was collapse its lashes onto her, smothering her in a suffocating mass of oily hair. Lin Sanjiu gripped the rope tightly, kicked off from the lash above, and slid backward, deeper into the heart of the black lashes.
Lashes usually grow around eyes, right? And eyes are part of a body.
Lin Sanjiu's target was the mutated human hidden deep within the black lashes.
The lashes seemed aware that something had invaded them, and that it was hurtling toward their core at unstoppable speed. Thick black shadows swung wildly through the air, colliding and flailing in a frantic attempt to knock Lin Sanjiu off.
Gritting her teeth, she dodged repeatedly. At first, she fumbled a bit, but as she used her forward momentum to spin, switching from hanging beneath the lash to standing on top of it, everything became easier.
Like skiing, Lin Sanjiu fixed her feet to the lash with Higher Consciousness, crouched low, and whenever a black shadow came crashing down, she tapped it with her long staff, dodging to the opposite side and sliding forward. Sometimes, she slipped through the gaps before the lashes closed in. Other times, it was like buildings collapsing, with countless lashes crashing down to block her path. In those moments, she abandoned the lash she was on, weaving through the narrow gaps between the strikes to land on another.
Anyone watching this ski run would break into a cold sweat, but Lin Sanjiu remained composed.
Like stepping in time with music, her muscles, bones, mind, and movements flowed in rhythm with the giant black lashes, opening and closing in perfect synchronization. It was as if a narrow, fluid path had been laid out just for her, and all she had to do was let her body glide along it.
The sheer length of the black lashes caught Lin Sanjiu off guard.
After gliding at high speed for a solid three or four minutes, she felt like she'd twisted through several turns and passed at least five corridors. In one spot, someone had smashed through a section, letting in a fleeting burst of dazzling daylight, yet the lashes continued to stretch on, their end nowhere in sight.
This couldn't go on indefinitely. Lin Sanjiu thought quickly and flicked her hand, summoning the [Tornado Whip] once again.
"The city walls!" Mrs. Manas cried out immediately.
Yes, Chimeric City's walls couldn't withstand a tornado's power. But Lin Sanjiu had a plan to avoid hitting the walls.
As the next thick black lash hurtled straight toward her, she kept gliding forward. With a slight twitch of her right hand, the whip coiled around the lash like a living snake just before it could strike her.
In the brief instant when the whip tightened around the lash, she focused her thoughts and launched the tornado forward.
Having been her companion for so long, the [Tornado Whip] seemed almost sentient, responding to her intent. The towering tornado funnel tilted over instead of rising vertically, with the coiled lash centered in the eye of the storm. In a rush of howling wind, the tornado spiraled along the lash, barreling toward the heart of the black mass. The force was so intense it nearly swept her away, too.
For a few seconds after the tornado disappeared into the darkness, nothing seemed to happen.
Then a thunderous boom erupted from deep within. All the lashes convulsed violently, shuddering out of control. If Lin Sanjiu hadn't already experienced something similar with the lake-bottom fish, she might have been thrown off. The disorienting sensation of weightlessness lasted only a moment before the lashes beneath her suddenly went limp, collapsing straight down. 𝔯ÅΝO͍฿ЕṨ
She had hit the target!
Lin Sanjiu plummeted toward the ground along with the massive black lashes. The shadows above crashed down around her, leaving no time to escape. Curling her body tight, she stretched out her arms and activated [Mosaic Censorship]. Every lash that touched the space between her hands disintegrated into black powder mid-air.
When she sprang up from the cloud of dust and debris, she spat a few times and wiped her eyes. Her entire body was covered in black dust, making her look like she'd just emerged from a coal mine.
Opening her eyes again, Lin Sanjiu found herself standing amid heaps of thick, glossy lashes that now lay lifeless. They looked like enormous snakes, slick and limp. With the lashes finally cleared, she could see down the corridor again. Sunlight streamed through a gap in the ceiling, illuminating the floating dust, but beyond the lashes, there was nothing.
She must have hit something to make the lashes fall. So where was the thing she'd struck?
She stepped carefully over the fallen lashes, not sure what she was searching for.
The base of the lashes, like dozens of thick, round concrete pipes, piled up in the corridor. Now soft and slick, they seemed to leer at her with an oily sheen. The thought that these bases had recently been lodged in enormous follicles made her stomach churn. She recoiled from the idea of touching them.
"Ji Shanqing!"
Impossible.
The shout echoed faintly from the corridor behind her, and for a moment, her mind went blank. Lin Sanjiu slowly turned around, trembling with confusion, hope, and fear.
However, when Eight-Heads De and several other posthumans rushed over from the bend in the path, she suddenly felt like she had been doused with a bucket of icy water, and she understood.
Back on Transport Vessel No. 26, when she hadn't wanted to give her real name, she'd told Eight-Heads De that she was Ji Shanqing. When she broadcasted a message looking for her companions, she'd only asked them to find "grand prize." By sheer coincidence, Eight-Heads De still thought her name was Ji Shanqing.
1
"I brought help, but what happened here? Did you take these things down?" Eight-Heads De ran up, and noticing her strange expression, he quickly asked, "Are you hurt?"
Even though she understood everything now, Lin Sanjiu still couldn't recover immediately.
That mistaken call of her name felt like it had shattered something inside her, leaving her hunched over, unable to inhale or exhale for a few long seconds.
1
"I'm fine," she said softly, finally steadying herself. "I hit something at the base of the lashes. It was like they got injured and fell... But I don't know what I actually struck."
"Well done," Zhong Qing said, walking up.
Eight-Heads De stood among the fallen lashes, glancing around. Not just Lin Sanjiu, but Eight-Heads De, the dreadlocked posthuman, and even the usually composed Zhong Qing all seemed disgusted by the massive, slick lashes, unwilling to touch them.
"Did the mutant get injured and escape?" Dreadlocks muttered.
"Are there any city residents nearby?" Eight-Heads De asked instead. He called out loudly into the passage, "It's safe now! You can come out!"
Maybe it was his ability at work. His voice echoed down the corridor, resonating and repeating like waves drawing out fish. From the ruins and hidden corners, hesitant figures began to emerge.
As they slowly stepped out from beyond the walls and around the bends, Lin Sanjiu realized two things.
First, they were all ordinary people, and almost all of them were injured.
This was unsurprising. Faced with the massive black lashes filling the passageways, they couldn't outrun or fight back. All they could do was squeeze into hiding places and pray not to be swept up. Those who were now coughing up blood and limping out were the lucky ones; many more had likely been crushed instantly.
Second, as they emerged, the posthumans aside from Eight-Heads De tensed their muscles, ready to fight at a moment's notice. No posthuman approached to ask if they were badly hurt or if they needed help. The closer the ordinary people came, the more intense and grim the posthumans' gazes grew.
"Anyone who can still move, head for the city's outer edge now. We don't know if those things will return," Eight-Heads De said to the crowd of ordinary people, not noticing the shift in the posthumans' demeanor. "If you're strong enough, help those who are injured. I heard there's a shelter at the west gate, with posthumans standing guard..."
Lin Sanjiu's gaze swept across the crowd. She suddenly stepped forward a few paces, and with a flick of her wrist, a long blade she'd obtained from Silvan slid from her palm.
She lifted the blade, the tip hovering in front of a young man's bloodstained face.
Eight-Heads De turned to her, stunned.
"Tell me," Lin Sanjiu said softly to the man, who was clutching his face with one hand, "How did your right eye get injured?"