Chapter 126: Lin Sanjiu, the Saint
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
Never in a million years would Lin Sanjiu imagine that [A Twinkle in the Sky] would level up at this critical juncture. To put it more accurately, she didn't even suspect that it could level up.
After surviving for such a long time in a New World, Lin Sanjiu could vaguely understand the general nature of the abilities. All abilities, regardless whether they were active or passive, could be classified into two types: those which had level ups and those which didn't. For example, Physical Enhancements could level up, improving the ability holder‘s physical capabilities each time, whereas Extreme Temperature Adaption would not level up, so, if a person with that ability was thrown into an environment of -300°C, he'd still die.
She once discussed with her companions about the basis of this classification, but they couldn’t come up with anything concrete. The only thing she was certain about was that the main ability of the ability holder could definitely be improved. For example, Lin Sanjiu’s [Planar World] and Hai Tianqing’s [The glory of a personal trainer], etc…
As [A Twinkle in the Sky] was taken from another person and had not shown any signs that it would level up, and thus Lin Sanjiu always assumed that it would remain the same. Even if it had levels, how much further could it evolve? After all, it could already send a person flying off into the sky. If it reached the next level, would it mean that it could send someone into space?
Lin Sanjiu struggled while she stretched her arm to reach for her mouthpart weapon which had fallen beside her. Even knowing that it was useless, she didn’t want to just wait for death. The others knew how powerful the white beam from the Grade 2 combatants’ mouths was, thus they quickly activated whatever abilities they had. Even if the Grade 2 combatants had once been Posthumans which shouldn’t be affected by the attacks so easily, they were still outnumbered. In that moment, they fell and stumbled; one of them even misfired their white beam into a small group of duoluozhongs. When the white beam faded, the duoluozhongs in its path all became smoldering black ash spewing white smoke.
As the nine women focused their attacks on the combatants, a duoluozhong crept close to Lin Sanjiu. Its exhaled a wave of smelly breath in Lin Sanjiu’s face while its white hands were about to reach her neck.
For an instant, she heard multiples screams from behind her. Lin Sanjiu held onto her mouthpart weapon, with every intention to whip that disgusting face in front of her to pieces, but she couldn’t summon even a bit of strength. She could only lie still while her blood froze.
Just then, a large black shadow behind her stroke with a ‘whoosh’. It was like a hefty punch with a power of over ten thousand Newtons. The impact was so huge that when the duoluozhong was flung backward, it knocked down a couple of other duoluozhongs in its path.
The black shadow stopped, and Lin Sanjiu realized that it was a green snake with such a large girth that it would take more than a few people to wrap their arms around it. Even though she couldn’t see the snake’s head, she could see the sharp yellow thorns which covered its skin. It looked formidable.
Meanwhile, there were horrified screams from the audience. Lin Sanjiu swung her head to look behind and discovered that the large snake originated from the neck of the woman on the floor. At first glance, it was a terrifying image. It was as if a large snake had grown out from her chest cavity.
"My name is Xueqin," the woman laid on the ground, refusing to look at Lin Sanjiu, "I want to thank you for what you’ve done," she continued breathlessly.
[The housewife haunted by the spirits who had gone under her kitchen knife]
Dear housewives who cook, please be careful from today onwards! Regardless of what you cut when you’re cooking, be it chicken, fish, chives or tomato, they could emerge from your body in a "battle-ready form"! But they could be surprisingly effective as weapons! Well, at least when you go to the market next time, you don’t have to worry about your neighbor’s wife snatching away the cheapest and freshest vegetables!
Description: The ingredients the user used in the last dish she cooked would emerge from her body as a weapon. The weapon could be controlled psionically, but one thing to note is that it will change if the user makes a new dish.
PS: Only the ingredients that were cut by the user would be considered possible options for this ability. If the user dice a few different ingredients at the same time, she can choose from one of them.
"To be honest, this is actually a cucumber," Xueqin sounded a little awkward when she explained that while she still laid her face on the ground.
Lin Sanjiu was certainly a little dazed by this. With the help of the green snake—or rather, cucumber, the other female contestants quickly let out sighs of relief. At the same time, Lin Sanjiu could feel that the condition of her body was stabilizing.
At the end of any leveling up process, there would not be any side effects, but the ability holder would instead feel revitalized. The moment her symptoms disappeared, Lin Sanjiu leaped up and shouted to Xueqin, "I’m counting on you!" After that, with a few bounces and leaps, she chased after the Grade 2 combatant who had just shot out a white beam.
The recharging time the combatants required was never more than 40 seconds, Lin Sanjiu had to grab this opportunity to act. She activated [No coincidence. No story] and immediately spotted her target who was moving rigidly, hiding behind a group of duoluozhongs. She rushed in headfirst without hesitating, scaring the other female contestants behind her. The large cucumber was swept across part of the arena, but it wasn’t long enough to reach the duoluozhongs around Lin Sanjiu.
The tall duoluozhongs started howling excitedly as they surrounded Lin Sanjiu and lunged themselves at her. Lin Sanjiu’s expression remained the same. She stretched out both her hands, which were somehow wrapped again, and quickly pressed them over many enemies in a row.
She was surrounded by an explosion of blood and flesh in the next second. Blood spurted everywhere, and bloodied flesh, limbs, and body parts would continue raining down for almost a minute.
[A Twinkle in the Sky Dark Version: Mosaic Censorship]
"Enemies are drawn to disappear into the sky to compromise with the censorship restrictions on violent scenes…" Satoshi Akiyama, the editor of a manga magazine thought to himself, he was having a headache after seeing the darker 2.0 version of censorship in the drafts sent by other mangakas.
Description: Did you fail to activate [A Twinkle in the Sky] just moments before? That’s right! As the user does not exist in a manga and is bound by the laws of science (huh?), the user is unable to launch their target into the sky when they are indoors or if there is something above their head obstructing possible trajectory paths.
Thus, the leveled-up version of this ability takes on a different style.
When the user places both her hands on the target, [A Twinkle in the Sky] is activated in both hands. As the target is hit by attacks from two directions, it will instantly dissolve into pixelated mess.
Warning: After activating this ability, please do not hold your own face in your hand, trying to be cute.
Lin Sanjiu was covered with the stench from the shower of blood but she remained composed as she pounced on the Grade 2 combatant and pressed both hands on his body. He had no chance to dodge. His body exploded and innards, flesh, and machinery bits flew into the sky like a small fountain.
Following that, Lin Sanjiu got up and headed for the next combatant. As she made her way to him, she killed off the duoluozhongs in her path, sending their innards and body parts flying everywhere. There was a thick mist of blood in the air, as the ground was covered with several lumps of dismembered body parts. The woman ran forward with a cold face, like a blood-soaked Death God.
The audience members, who were previously ranting and whistling quickly, grew quiet. Everyone in the audience who had been eyeing Lin Sanjiu gradually got cold feet.
Gong Daoyi suddenly snatched the hot dog from Lei Ming’s hand and rolled it into a ball in a second.
"Brother Gong, are you angry?" Lei Ming whispered, unable to understand the man beside him.
It took Gong Daoyi a while before he replied, as if he suddenly realized that Lei Ming was asking him a question, "Huh? No... I’m not angry. I’m just pumped."
"Yup. It’s exciting!" This was the first time Lei Ming felt that he actually grasped Gong Daoyi’s logic, and quickly added, "I didn’t know Contestant 97 was so good at fighting! It’s admirable…"
Gong Daoyi let out a quiet chuckle but quickly stopped himself realizing that it wasn’t appropriate here as he looked back at the battle arena, feeling a little embarrassed.
After successfully dodging another white beam attack, Lin Sanjiu had already consecutively killed off three of the five Grade 2 combatants. A large number of duoluozhongs had also been eradicated while the remaining few were still struggling against the other female contestants. But from the looks of things, the outcome of this match was already very obvious.
The remaining two combatants suddenly stopped and strode towards Lin Sanjiu. As they walked, they opened their mouths— they had already finished recharging their power.
Lin Sanjiu stood still, showing no intention to evade the attack.
"What is she doing?" Xueqin asked with her hoarse voice. She wanted to move but with her broken limbs that was not much she could do.
Lin Sanjiu’s shouted out the next second, "Dong Haohao, can you still use your ability?"
When Dong Haohao used her [National Tax agency] against that white beam previously, she found that it consumed her stamina like an endless black hole. But Dong Haohao gritted her teeth and replied, "I’ll back you up."
Once she finished her sentence, the combatants shot two beams of eye-blinding white light directly at Lin Sanjiu.
She only had three seconds.
With the intensity of the white beam, nobody saw what happened clearly. They only saw a blurry image of Lin Sanjiu sprinting towards the combatants. The white beams began to vibrate violently, affecting everyone’s vision. Just when Dong Haohao was at her limit, the white beams suddenly disappeared. When she narrowed her eyes and looked up, she saw that Lin Sanjiu had already taken down both combatants.
She pressed the face of one of the combatants onto the floor and signaled for one of the flying cameras with her jaw. A camera flew down and gave her a close-up. The audience glued their eyes to the large screen.
Tiny droplets of blood rolled down the lens of the camera as Lin Sanjiu spoke. "This person was once a Posthuman so I am not going to kill him. Take him back!"
The entire arena went silent as she said those unexpected words—[She’s not going to kill other Posthumans? But she had already killed three of them in such a gruesome manner.]
But Contestant 97 seemed to be genuine. She mustered her strength and crushed the beetle-like machine embedded in his head before standing up and walking toward the other female contestants. She whispered something to them softly.
There was a sudden buzz of commotion within the audience. Lei Ming was moved by this and commented, "Who would’ve known that Contestant 97 had such magnaminty..."
As the female contestants walked back to their capsules, the combatant was taken away by the staff. Gong Daoyi suddenly pat Lei Ming’s shoulder, "Enough nonsense, give me the Geiger counter."
Lei Ming paused for a moment before reacting. He quickly searched his bag and handed the device to Gong Daoyi furtively. Gong Daoyi crooked his head as he stared at the device. When he spoke again, he sounded extremely happy, "There is something we have to do now."
"What?"
"Take this, I need you to puncture everyone’s anti-radiation clothes." Gong Daoyi handed him a small knife.