Doomsday Wonderland

Panda Novel

‘Peppy Lil’s Sesame has arrived in Salvation of God?’

The tanned-skin man was the only posthuman she had come across after so many months. Could it be that he was Peppy Lil’s Sesame?

The sudden arrival of Peppy Lil’s Sesame threw Lin Sanjiu’s mind into chaos. She couldn’t stop herself from thinking about the possibility of the tanned-skin posthuman being Peppy Lil’s Sesame and why he was here. She swore that she had never met Peppy Lil’s Sesame in her entire life, much less have any connection with him. She could not understand why he would go to the extent of personally coming to this world to corner her.

Sitting on Sanduria’s palm, the man seemed to have not noticed her yet. Seizing the chance, Lin Sanjiu lowered herself and inched towards Jujube’s back, taking cover behind his large trapezius muscle.

“You lack capable warriors, and you’re so small. What gives you the confidence to call yourself the one and only True God?” sneered Sanduria coldly.

After seeing that Jujube still maintained a distance and refused to take the posthuman in her palm, she then placed the male posthuman on her shoulder and said, “Not long before, I was still a Lesser God, weaker than even you. But you see where am I now? A full-fledged Titan that nobody dares to mess with. Now I’m presenting you with the chance to stand on the same ground as me. If you refuse to open your eyes and pick up the offer, I will kill you and absorb you to make myself stronger.”

After that, Sanduria did not say anything, staring fixedly at Jujube. Her head and neck looked like a basketball on top of Mountain Fuji. Looking at her at such a close distance, the visual impact was much stronger. Lin Sanjiu was getting more nervous, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from her.

Although Lin Sanjiu couldn’t see Jujube’s expression, she could sense the stiff skin and muscles beneath her feet.

Sanduria had bribed and threatened Jujube; she had even attempted a reverse psychology method. It seemed that Jujube would have to take up the offer and receive the posthuman regardless of what he thought.

Slowly, Lin Sanjiu squatted down, clenched Jujube’s neckline, and inched down his body. Her movements were light, so nobody noticed her. Very soon, she had reached around his waist, and all she would need to do was take a small leap of faith, and she would be able to reach the ground right away. Right now, they were standing in a vast green plain, surrounded by a swath of yellowing weeds. Whenever there was a gust of wind, the plants would bow down, revealing a few cracked walls and an abandoned train track that spread out from beneath Jujube’s feet.

Looking at the remnants of the human civilization, Lin Sanjiu thought for a moment before deciding to move a little further down, as she did not want to suffer any injuries if she accidentally fell on any of the broken walls. Just when she was about to loosen her grip, Sanduria’s laughter wafted into her ears, “Haha! That’s the right thing to do!”

‘Jujube has accepted her offer!’

She raised her head to see that the tanned-skin man had jumped from Sanduria to Jujube’s shoulder. He swept his eyes across Jujube’s back and met gazes with Lin Sanjiu.

Lin Sanjiu had never met this man before in her life, but she felt that she knew him as a strange feeling of familiarity stirred in her heart.

This was because no matter if it was his glassy eyes, his expressionless face, or even the thick and sturdy stitches in his neck, they were no strangers to her.

Lin Sanjiu was shocked, but at the same time, very pleased. Nevertheless, once the name “Puppeteer” swam unbridled into her mind, everything she felt a second earlier vanished. In this half a minute, everything she went through, every oddity she felt, and every doubt that had been troubling her for half a year finally made sense.

In the next second, she loosened her fingers and dropped to the ground.

The second he saw Lin Sanjiu’s appearance, the tanned-skin man immediately jumped down from Jujube’s shoulder.

“Eh?” Feeling something amiss, Jujube moved two steps back. Concurrently, the other Titan stood up as well. The ground trembled along with the two gods’ movements, almost throwing Lin Sanjiu, who had just landed, across the ground.

Thud. The tanned-skin man also landed on the ground, but Lin Sanjiu had already run far away. She wondered why Puppeteer’s puppet would become Sanduria’s warrior and what kind of role Sanduria was playing in this conflict. However, to sort out the confusion, she had to first avoid Sanduria.

“Where were you going!” Jujube yelled.

Lin Sanjiu had no time to look back. The ground shook again, and she was almost flung into the sky. Then, Sanduria’s husky voice came rolling from the sky, “Stop! Let them be.”

Piqued by her curiosity, Lin Sanjiu stole a glance behind her. There, she saw a towering body clad in red clothes, standing tall like the Mountain Alps with the grassy plain below her feet and the white mist rolling above her head. But she couldn’t see Jujube. Perhaps Sanduria had blocked him? She didn’t know.

At the same time, the tanned-skin man was gaining fast on her. After she had sprinted a few miles away from the two gods, she looked to her left and right and saw a few sporadic, dilapidated houses next to a piece of bosk. Assaulted by the wind and baked under the sun all year round, the abandoned houses were in no good condition, and they certainly weren’t the ideal place to confront the man; however, she did not have other choices. She immediately picked up her speed and darted there.

It seemed like a ghost town. The old road was barely discernible through the flora that had colonized it and the dilapidated buildings. In most homes, the roofs were partially caved-in, or at the very least, sagging like a disappointing soufflé, appearing as if they would give in to the gravity and fall at any moment sooner or later.

Glancing around, Lin Sanjiu set her eyes on a collapsed building. She turned to check on her pursuer. After making sure that he did not see her, she swerved and hid behind a corner. Then, she poked her head out and peered into the distance.

There was nothing left on the grassy plain. Sanduria and Jujube were gone.

‘Perhaps they have returned to the white mist above,’ Lin Sanjiu thought to herself inwardly.

Lin Sanjiu let out a breath and stood as quiet as she could behind the corner. As she waited for the puppet, she summoned her [Tornado Whip]. After that, she allowed her sight to travel about.

Suddenly, she stopped. Then, she turned back a little bit.

Not far away from this ghost town was a land of thinly scattered bosk, mainly made up of small and unhealthy trees. In the gap between the trees, she could see the desert in the distance, and on one particular tree in the front, there was a greyish-yellow thing tied to its branch.

Lin Sanjiu stared, open-mouthed, at the little piece of greyish-yellow thing and the desert. Her heart began to pick up its pace as she soon realized what that thing was. It seemed to be a towel.

‘Oh, dear. Why is my luck always this bad!’

She chided inwardly; then, she caught a very soft rustle coming from behind her. Her body reacted faster than her brain as she twisted around and pounced forward. She had hardly turned around when a light popping sound came, stirring up a burst of vortex that hit her back.

Lin Sanjiu quickly looked over her shoulder to see that the tanned-skin male puppet was taking his time walking out from a corner. She allowed her gaze to travel a little bit further, and she realized that her previous hiding spot was nowhere to be seen, though it wasn’t entirely accurate to say that it was gone. It was a scene too bizarre to be seen. The colors of the grass and bricks on that spot were all mashed up, leaving behind a mess of color with an undefined shape. Aside from that particular spot, everything else was normal.

A puppet made from a dead living human would retain his previous ability. Puppeteer had been abusing this fact to his own advantage, and Lin Sanjiu knew it very well. But what surprised Lin Sanjiu the most was that such a powerful posthuman had also fallen victim to Puppeteer’s ability. If she were a tad slower, her legs now would have also been a part of the color lump over there.

The tanned-skin man was expressionless. He continued to walk closer to her.

“Where is your master?” Lin Sanjiu sneered. Without waiting for her opponent to reply, she lashed out a tornado at him using her [Tornado Whip]. She knew it wouldn’t do much to him; all she needed was the speed boost from the gust and also a cover for her to use [A Twinkle In The Sky].

However, before she could get near the tanned-skin puppet, a sense of chillness ran down her spine as her second sight kicked in, causing her skin to break out into goosebumps. She came to an abrupt stop and somersaulted back. The sound of the wind had disappeared.

A large lump of color was swirling in the air. It had engulfed everything, including the tornado she sent forth just now. With a wave of his hand, the lump of color stopped swirling and then splashed on the ground, breaking into bits and pieces.

Lin Sanjiu sighed as sweat trickled down her back.

It was not difficult to deal with the puppet. In fact, she had more than one way to settle him. It was just that she somehow recalled that there was some connection between the puppet and his master. And due to that connection, Puppeteer would instantly get the location of where his puppet was destroyed. In doing so, Puppeteer would know where she was, and she certainly did not want that to happen.

The ideal way now was to send the puppet away. However, she could not get close to him due to the puppet’s ability that could turn anything near him into a color lump,

As Lin Sanjiu racked her brain for an idea, she subconsciously looked at the woodland. Then, something in her mind clicked.

“What do you want?” she yelled at the puppet. “Can you speak?”

Of course, a puppet could not speak. There wasn’t any emotion on his square face, and he had never turned his eyeballs. After intercepting her attack, he spread his legs and strode towards Lin Sanjiu again.

Lin Sanjiu did not fall back and sent another tornado ahead.

Invariably, the tornado was turned into another color lump. The tanned-skin puppet threw the color lump away with a wave of his hand. And then, without stopping, he stretched his arm forward, trying to catch Lin Sanjiu. Ordinary people would have fret and become worried when they saw somebody come so close to them, but that wasn’t the case for the puppet. The puppet had no soul, so it had no fear.

Lin Sanjiu did not try to evade the arm; her heart was in her mouth when the puppet caught her arm.

It was a second that seemed like an eternity. When the one second had passed, Lin Sanjiu let out a sigh of relief, but her heart still fluttered fast like a timid bird inside a cage. She looked over to her arm and thought to herself, ‘Thank God. It isn’t a color lump.’

Her conjecture was proven to be correct: the puppet was ordered to contain her, not kill her.

“When you see your master,” Lin Sanjiu offered a wide grin to the puppet, “Say hello to him for me.”

After that, she activated [A Twinkle In The Sky] and placed her palm on the puppet’s hand. Just before he was sent off into the sky, Lin Sanjiu took a step back and pulled off his arm, ignoring the fact that it would cause scratches and wounds on her arm.

The puppet disappeared into the sky in the blink of an eye. Retracting her gaze, Lin Sanjiu heaved a sigh.

“Why don’t you say hello to me yourself?”

When the sentence drifted into Lin Sanjiu’s ears, she felt a chillness prickle down her spine, coursing through every nerve in her body, freezing them. She waited for a good while before turning her body around.

The sunless day in Salvation of God further amplified the paleness of Puppeteer’s skin. Coupled with his lean body, he looked just like a piece of paper. The silver glitter around his eyes did not make him look any better, but instead gave him the vibe of a dead man.

He was alone.

Smiling, Puppeteer lowered his head. His black hair covered half of his face.

“It has been a long time, Lin Sanjiu.”

Staring at him like a dork, Lin Sanjiu had no idea what to say. Although she had already known about it, when Puppeteer suddenly appeared in front of her, she still couldn’t control the raging emotions that stirred like a tumultuous wave inside her heart. After a few seconds of thinking, she decided to play dumb.

“Yeah, it has been a long time,” she forced a smile onto her face, “How have you been? Have you returned to the Twelve World Centrum? How did you know I was here?”

Puppeteer stood with his arms crossed in front of his chest. The black leather he was wearing covered the area from his arms to his chest and formed into a high leather collar that wrapped around his neck, revealing nothing but his pointy chin.

As if he were amused, he giggled. Then, he said softly, “I told Sanduria to inform me when she found you… Well, the days had been pretty nice to me after that. After we parted ways, I went to the Endless Tunnel.”

Lin Sanjiu could not hold her veil anymore. The muscles on her cheek quivered, and her smile disappeared.

“You… You are Peppy Lil’s Sesame, aren’t you?” she said firmly, as the last fluke she had left melted away like thawed ice. “…Why?”

Puppeteer’s sinister smile was just like a dark cloud on a rainy day.

“Was it not clear enough? Well, allow me to shed some light on you, then.” He raised his arm and fingered the spot where he was injured. His leather creaked. “Both of us came out of the Starry Carnival Amusement Park… So I thought, you know. There was no Uterus Project from the beginning. I made it all up.”

Lin Sanjiu bit her lower lip, refusing to speak.

“The reason I entered the Pocket Dimension was to get its grand prize… But something happened halfway through, so I did not get it in the end… I know you took the grand prize, and I heard you have still kept it until now,” even when Puppeteer was talking softly, he still couldn’t change his gloomy tone, “Well, I know that you couldn’t have opened the grand prize since you’re such a hypocrite… Hmm, I’m very pleased.

“Those friends of yours, a cat and a worm… If you want them back, then give me the grand prize.”