Chapter 519: Running Away From The Glacial Plain
"Run!"
Instead of saying Lin Sanjiu was shouting at her grand prize, it was more precise to say she was encouraging herself. Dragging her grand prize, Lin Sanjiu stole a glance over her shoulder after they had run at full speed for a couple of minutes. She couldn"t hear anything over the rush of her own pulse, a steady thrum-whoosh that filled her ears and blocked out all other sounds.
The G.o.ds—all of them that had descended from the white fog—were standing silently at the end of the glacial plain. The thick white mist smeared their figures and faces, and the only thing she could make out amongst the blur of whiteness were their heights. Some of the G.o.ds were tall; their foreheads disappeared into the white fog while some of them were short, standing only at the height of a building.
However, Puella dwarfed them all; even the tallest G.o.d amongst them was shorter than her. When she completely stood up, the only thing that remained in Lin Sanjiu"s sight was her calves.
Both sides stared at each other from afar. n.o.body moved, and they looked like a bunch of gigantic statues.
"Do their sizes correspond to the extent of their power?" The grand prize did not stop himself from a.n.a.lyzing the situation even in a perilous case like this, "The largest we have seen is the first G.o.d, then the second one is that little girl…"
"Stop thinking," Lin Sanjiu howled, her voice was desperate, "We should run as far as we can before they begin fighting."
She couldn"t run as fast on the ice as she could when she was on the ground because the shoes she was wearing right now did not provide any anti-skid of any kind. Almost every few steps she skidded along the ice. Her chest was on fire, la.s.situde was building slowly in her leg muscles, yet every time she turned around and looked, she would find that they had not run far enough.
If the distance wasn"t far in human"s perspective, then perhaps, it was merely the matter of bending down their bodies for the G.o.ds.
"We can"t keep running like this," the grand prize said before suggesting, "Sis, let"s put the forecaster away and replace it with another item. I remember there are several escape tools in the [Notebook]!"
However, he did not receive any response from Lin Sanjiu after a few seconds.
Baffled, Ji Shanqing turned his head around to see that Lin Sanjiu was now staring blankly at the [Weather Forecaster]"s mouth.
"What"s wrong?" The grand prize realized something was amiss.
Lin Sanjiu still did not reply. Her face was becoming paler and paler until it turned almost as white as the snow mountain situated at the far end of the glacial plain. Then, out of nowhere, she moved. She hastily put the [Weather Forecaster] away, and the second it turned back to [Battle Item], she activated her [Defense Forcefield]. This time, however, she did not care about the consumption rate or whatsoever as she even s.h.i.+elded Ji Shanqing under her forcefield.
The forcefield glowed, and Lin Sanjiu shoved the [Battle Item] to Ji Shanqing. As she ran, she roared her loudest shout, "Quick!"
Ji Shanqing took the hint and held it tightly. He asked, "What did the forecaster say?"
"We have no time for that now!" a.s.saulted by both the cold and anxiety, her face flushed so red that it appeared abnormal, "Hurry up!"
But, even as Ji Shanqing was preparing to convert the [Battle Item] into the intended item in his mind, an earth-shattering rumble burst forth, as if a nuke (if it existed on this planet) had detonated somewhere on this planet. Then, in the very next second, everything went quiet, and Ji Shanqing"s heart stopped beating for a second. He knew the sounds did not disappear. The reason he was cut off from the sound outside was due to the loud noise earlier on.
He couldn"t picture what the world became.
When the thought surfaced in his mind, he felt Lin Sanjiu had loosened her grip. Then, the next thing he knew was both of them were flung up, thras.h.i.+ng about in midair like two stupid clowns. The thick layer of ice that had been beneath their feet a few seconds ago had been flipped into the sky, crumbled into pieces, and looked like a rain of icebergs with tens of millions of tons descending from the outer s.p.a.ce. Suddenly, a large shadow loomed over them. It was an iceberg, as large as a snow hill. It hovered on top of the two tiny bugs, and it was about to ram itself into the trembling black muddy land below.
This second of silence felt like an eternity, yet at the same time, it felt so short.
Ji Shanqing felt he had called out for his sister, but he couldn"t hear anything, and he couldn"t be sure. Falling from the air, Lin Sanjiu pointed a desperate finger at him. Her mouth opened and shut in quick succession. Ji Shanqing knew she was saying something, but he couldn"t hear it. Suddenly, he began to feel something sc.r.a.ping against his palm. He looked at his palm, and the penny dropped. His eyes were filled with tears of joy was—The [Battle Item] had completely turned into the Special Item in his mind!
[The fastest speed in the world is the human mind]
This Special Item, which resembled a brain model, has been rated as the best running, escaping, and hunting tool by the [Notebook] for three consecutive years. The only thing faster than the speed of light is probably the thought of a human. Even light has to take 400 seconds to travel from Mars to Earth, but with a human mind, all you need is think, and then voila! You will have yourself the landscape of Mars inside your head. Although this is pretty hard to explain from the side of science, this item will bring you wherever you want to go.
Condition to note 1: This item will not be work if you haven"t personally been to that place in your mind before or you don"t know what kind of place it is. In this circ.u.mstance, the furthest place this item can bring you is the boundary of your eyesight.
Condition to note 2: Just like every Special Item that exists, this Special Item, though it is handy, has one big flaw—The speed of thought varies in different people. Hence, this Special Item can only bring its user to a destination based on how fast the user"s brain thinks. For some people, it might be better off for them to walk.
In order to test how sharp the user"s mind is, we have created a series of a.s.sessments. The test questions will be randomly chosen from multiple fields such as philosophy and speculation, observation and a.n.a.lysis, and creativity and a.s.sociation. All questions will be projected directly into the user"s mind. After that, we will decide on the traveling speed based on the velocity of the user"s thought.
The iceberg was about to crash on them, but Ji Shanqing couldn"t do anything and only could give his all and do his best to answer all the questions. If Lin Sanjiu knew he was taking a test while their lives were at stake, she would have fainted.
Although Lin Sanjiu was shrouded in the dark, she could somehow grasp the situation by reading the expression on Ji Shanqing. They were in dire straits, thras.h.i.+ng around in midair, the mountain-sized piece of ice that shrouded the sky would soon crash them into meat pulp, yet despite that, her grand prize suddenly became still and fell into a daze after an expression of terror fleeted across his face. As he continued to fall, his lips kept murmuring something as if evil spirits had possessed him.
Gritting her teeth, Lin Sanjiu summoned her [Tornado Whip] to her hand and swung it at her grand prize. Although she knew very well the wind from the [Tornado Whip] had utterly no effect against the ma.s.sive crowd of icebergs, at the very least she could blow her grand prize out from the trajectory of the icebergs and prevent him from getting crushed to death.
Pouncing forward, the tornado whipped up a storm of white mist along its path. Then, her grand prize suddenly appeared next to her in a blur. The moment he grabbed her arm, both of them blinked again. They traveled through the air and landed on a piece of ice before the iceberg did.
"It must be that Special Item!"
When the thought came into her mind, Lin Sanjiu felt her spirits buoyed up. It was just, like her grand prize, she had temporarily lost her hearing as well, so she couldn"t hear what he said. As soon as they landed, the ground suddenly trembled vigorously in silence. It felt as if a behemoth had lifted a mountain and smashed on the ground. White mist masked their vision, and countless sharp ice filled the sky. Even though they had escaped the fate of being crushed by icebergs, they couldn"t run away from being a.s.saulted by the frenzied rain of icicles.
As the silence ebbed away, sounds began to fill their ears slowly. However, they still couldn"t make out any sounds beyond the drumming in their ears. The grand prize had been yelling at the top of his lung, yet Lin Sanjiu still couldn"t understand what he was trying to convey to her.
"What are you saying? What"s in front of us? What do you mean?"
Sighing, Ji Shanqing forwent the attempt to explain. He squinted his eyes, trying to look as far as he could.
He wasn"t familiar with the topography of Salvation of G.o.d, and [The fastest speed in the world is the human mind] could only take them to the furthest point in his eyesight. Luckily it was Ji Shanqing who was holding the item, both of them successfully widened the gap between them and the tangled warfare of the G.o.ds by leaps and bounds in a blink of an eye. When Lin Sanjiu turned her head back, she couldn"t even see the calves of Puella anymore.
Aside from the shaking earth and the raging wind and snow, they had reached a safe zone. Most importantly, this was the very first time they were completely free from the pursuit of G.o.d ever since they arrived in Salvation of G.o.d.
Lin Sanjiu heaved a sigh of relief as she reveled in the sensation of being able to hear the sounds of the world again. She turned to Ji Shanqing and asked, "Can you hear now?"
Ji Shanqing was busy answering the questions in his mind, so he just nodded to her.
"Did you see it? Did you see how those G.o.ds fight?" Lin Sanjiu asked, "I couldn"t see anything yet, and the world already began to spin—"
Before she could finish her question, Ji Shanqing"s expression changed. And before she could understand the paleness on his face, everything before her eyes swirled together again. Concurrently, her grand prize"s grumbling drifted into her ears, "Sis! Of all questions, why do you have to ask this one?! You made me remember the battlefield!"
However, Lin Sanjiu had already stunned by the scene in front of her before he finished his complaint.
Since the item could bring both of them to wherever the place in the user"s mind, they were instantly brought back the G.o.ds" battlefield when such a scene appeared in the grand prize"s mind.
The white mist was still rolling above the ground, and the situation was still as chaotic as it was before. They saw a G.o.d, as tall and as large as a standing cruise s.h.i.+p charging at them. Just like we would not mind about the ants when we were walking, the G.o.d did not spare even a glance at the two ants below his feet and bolted towards Puella while opening his mouth.
The mouthpart that looked like a black hole grew larger with every ticking second. In the twinkling of an eye, half of the head of that G.o.d had turned into a deep black void. As if a small dimensional rift had opened up, Lin Sanjiu felt her feet had left the ground. And the next thing she knew, she was getting sucked into the mouth!
Puella staggered back and crushed a piece of ice with a stomp. Then, she stretched her arm out from the sky, sending a palm strike at the G.o.d. Two of them were floating right under her palm.
Lin Sanjiu"s heart stopped jumping for a second. She pulled her grand prize into her steel hug, yelling at his ear, "Hurry! Hurry!" With a flick of Ji Shanqing"s thought, and as a gush of warm air shot out from the black hole, Puella had missed her target as the two people had once again vanished from the battlefield.
Everything just happened within a split of a second. When two of them appeared at the horizon far away from the carnage, they were wet through with cold sweat. Their s.h.i.+rts stuck tightly to their bodies.
"Let"s get moving," Lin Sanjiu finally understood how the Special Item works this time, "Empty your brain and keep moving!"
Due to the battle between G.o.ds, the planet seemed like it was going to crumble apart. Round after round of thunderstorm hit the earth, a colossal tsunami raged over the ground, overtaking everything in its wake. Using [The fastest speed in the world is the human mind], both of them blinked and blinked again. They had no idea how far had they run, but they no longer could see the G.o.ds or the snow mountain, even trembling had stopped as well.
The only thing that made it feel like the battle of the G.o.ds wasn"t over yet was the thunderous, m.u.f.fled sound above the white mist.
Huffing and puffing, two of them laid down, exhausted, in a part of the forest. None of them could muster enough strength to speak.
Not far away from them, they could see a small and poor village at the foot of the hill. There were only a few makes.h.i.+ft houses scattered here and there in the village. Laying on the ground, they stared at the abandoned village and gasped for nearly ten minutes until Lin Sanjiu decided to get up. She gestured her grand prize to hand over [The fastest speed in the world is the human mind] to her before speaking. Her voice was dried and filled with tiredness, "Have we escaped the G.o.ds?"
Now that it was she who held the Special Item, she finally could speak with Ji Shanqing.
"We should be safe here," Ji Shanqing huffed, "We have to run a recon around the village to make sure there"s no G.o.d in there."
"I"m pretty sure there"s one here," Lin Sanjiu pouted, "d.a.m.n it… How many G.o.ds are there in this world?"
Ji Shanqing shook his head and threw himself back on the gra.s.s. After they had regained more of their vitality, the sky was getting dark. They decided to take a quick look in the village.
"If it"s an abandoned village, we will take a rest in it for a night," Lin Sanjiu said softly.