Doomsday Wonderland

Chapter 1313: The Truth About This World

At three in the morning, Lin Sanjiu stood in the rustling night wind, bowing her head to look at the buildings not far away. The dim yellow light of the street lamps seemed to be fireflies floating on the dark night river; the wind flowed from under her feet, rushing into the vast sky, ultimately returning to silence.

In the process of breaking in, speed was crucial.

Even at three in the morning, cars passed by occasionally in the city center with a population of over ten million, and where there were cars, there could be witnesses. The shorter the intrusion process, the lower the chance of being seen. Lin Sanjiu sighed softly and crouched on the edge of a narrow ledge just wide enough for two hands.

At this moment, she was standing on the tenth floor of a tall building next to the museum—it was much easier to break into an office building than a museum. Between this commercial building and the museum were two streets and a green area; looking down from here, a row of green trees stood in the dark night, their crowns resembling floating duckweeds extending all the way to the museum.

With a leap, Lin Sanjiu soared into the wind.

A rope made of Higher Consciousness was tied around her waist, with the other end firmly biting into the edge of the office building's outer wall; in the fierce wind, she grabbed the rope and kicked hard against the outer wall, soaring high towards a large tree with thick branches reaching outward. [Defense Forcefield] enveloped her entire body. Even though countless branches swiped across her body and broke, they only caused ripples on the [Defense Forcefield]. As soon as Lin Sanjiu grabbed the branch, she immediately retracted the rope and threw it towards the lamppost across the street; at the same time as her foot touched the ground and the branches broke, she had already leaped towards the top of the lamppost.

The museum was only one story tall, and the surveillance cameras mainly covered the ground. The security personnel in the monitoring room probably wouldn't expect someone to pass through from above all the surveillance cameras, through the dark night sky where only birds could fly, and gently land on the museum's roof.

When Lin Sanjiu landed, she immediately lay down on the roof. She was dressed entirely in black, moving swiftly and quietly. In the absence of light, she could almost blend into the darkness—lying in the shadow cast by the rooftop, she swept around and found no surveillance cameras on the roof. Ordinary people couldn't reach the roof without climbing up from the exterior wall, so there was no need to install surveillance cameras on the roof; otherwise, she would have to activate [Pygmalion Choker] with a recording device, which would shorten her time to move around inside the museum.

Following her memory of the spatial location, she crouched down on the rooftop and found the area corresponding to the Pygmalion Choker.

It was not easy to create two pits on the solid concrete rooftop. She placed her hands in the shallow pits, palms facing each other, and surrounded them with a layer of Higher Consciousness. [Mosaic Censorship] instantly shattered the rooftop, and rubble and cement flew everywhere, hitting the [Defense Forcefield] with a popping sound. The flying debris and thunderous noise were all trapped under the Higher Consciousness shield, as if stifled, unable to stir up the night.

The rooftop was thick, and just one explosion didn't completely break it. Lin Sanjiu carefully took out half of a manhole cover—already cut into pieces before she arrived—and she elongated and sharpened its shape using [The Power of Word Picture]. In just a few seconds, she turned the manhole remnants into a crowbar; she aimed it at the remaining concrete and smashed it to pieces in five or six strikes. Before the debris fell, they all disappeared into cards in her palm.

She could see the silent glass cabinets in the exhibition hall by just lowering her head and looking through the large hole.

Although Lin Sanjiu didn't understand the museum's security system, she had heard about the defensive measures of various organizations' strongholds in Twelve Worlds, even in bits and pieces: high-definition infrared cameras were essential, but besides that, it would be best to assume that there were vibration sensors, microphones, and glass break detectors activated at night. 

She removed a recording device, deactivated its cardization, and turned the volume to the lowest, putting her ear close to it. The voice of a little girl faintly sounded as if she were reading something on a piece of paper: "Your ability is to take pictures of scenes and save them, forming three-dimensional photos that can be moved to different locations, just like the ability of the man on the lava hospital stairs... What does that mean?"

[Pygmalion Choker] quickly heated up. This was obviously its normal reaction when it was working, but just thinking that there was another Pygmalion Choker not far below her made it seem like it was almost excited—Lin Sanjiu took a deep breath and stuck her head into the hole in the roof, scanning around silently, and uttered two words: "Take pictures."

Wherever her gaze had passed, there was a slight, imperceptible blur; it was as if two identical transparent films had overlapped, but they quickly became clear again after being aligned.

Lin Sanjiu extended her finger and pointed at the 'photos,' moving them to the surrounding cameras, completely blocking the cameras' vision. From the surveillance screen's perspective, the scene in the exhibition hall remained the same as before, empty and deserted. But, in the real exhibition hall, a dark figure was slowly descending from the ceiling, hanging only by a rope tied around their ankles—without touching the floor, they wouldn't trigger the vibration sensors.

Under the dim light of the night lamp, another Pygmalion Choker lay quietly in the center of the display cabinet. Its faint glow when exposed to sunlight was gone, making it look like an aging animal waiting to sleep forever. It was impossible to tell from the outside of the display case where the microphones were mounted, but Lin Sanjiu didn't need to see it. She put her hand on the cabinet and was about to convert it into a card.

However, with a sudden thought, the display cabinet remained motionless in its original position— for a moment, her sweat stood on end, almost letting out a scream of surprise.

Had it malfunctioned? Had her ability finally failed?

Her blood rushed into her eardrums, making a rustling sound; this moment seemed to be stretched out into ten minutes long, and the sound in her ears suddenly receded. Lin Sanjiu returned to her senses but still couldn't stop the palpitations in her chest.

It wasn't that her ability had failed but that the display cabinet was sealed to the ground and connected to the entire floor, so it couldn't be converted into a card. She had actually entertained such a thought.

Mrs. Manas sighed, saying nothing—there was no need to say anything.

Lin Sanjiu wrapped the glass cabinet in Higher Consciousness, summoned the metal gauntlet, and smashed the glass with one punch. This was laminated glass, so even if it was broken by an external force, it wouldn't fall down with a crash but instead form a large area of dense white spider web in place. However, as long as the glass shattered, converting them into cards would be effortless—she reached into the crack in just a few seconds and grabbed the Pygmalion Choker inside.

Perhaps because she was hanging upside down, her heart almost leaped out of her chest. The microphone unexpectedly failed to pick up such a loud heartbeat, which was incredible.

Breathing slightly, Lin Sanjiu converted the choker to a card without untying the rope. She hung in midair and brought the card close to her eyes, reading the words in the faint light.

She was stunned for a moment.

"There are five more... should we take a look?" Mrs. Manas asked softly.

Lin Sanjiu responded with a hmph and rolled her waist from midair. The other few items were scattered far apart, so the risk was naturally not small if she went to get them one by one—but now, she didn't care about anything else.

Like a heartbeat, that strong speculation had to be confirmed within the next five minutes—no, within the next four and a half minutes.

Unable to walk on the ground, she walked on the ceiling. The manhole cover she stole yesterday had long been cut into small pieces by her, each piece individually converted into a card. With a palm on the ceiling, those small pieces immediately uncardized; Lin Sanjiu maintained this action, chanting words in her mouth, and [The Power Of Word Picture] turned the manhole cover fragments into iron rings, adhering to the ceiling.

Relying on the densely distributed iron rings on the ceiling, Lin Sanjiu climbed upside down on the ceiling, more agile and flexible than a gecko's movements; whenever she was about to enter a new camera surveillance range, she would take several three-dimensional photos as before and stick them in front of the cameras. In just two or three minutes, she collected the other Special Items.

This time, she didn't look at the cards; after [The Power Of Word Picture] had expired, these iron rings would turn back into manhole cover fragments, falling from the ceiling one after another, triggering alarm after alarm—by that time, she would have already left the museum.

After crawling out of the roof hole and back along the same route, Lin Sanjiu finally let out the breath she had been holding in her chest, feeling a slight tremor all over her body. Robbing the museum was indeed nerve-racking, even for a posthuman, but what really scared her in bursts was another possibility besides being discovered.

Knowing that the roof was not a good place to stay, she still couldn't help but glance at the cards in her hand as she ran out, taking a quick look. This glance made her stop abruptly at the roof's edge—after looking at the text several times, she trembled and slowly collected the cards.

Wiping her face, her eyes tightly closed, she breathed a sigh.

"Who are you?" Lin Sanjiu asked softly before opening her eyes.

The roof and the street were empty, with only the night wind blowing through the gaping hole. Such a volume would be completely inaudible to ordinary people unless they were standing behind her.

After half a minute, a strange male voice came from a spot close to the wall below.

"I knew it, I knew it," he said, sighing. "When I saw those exhibits, I thought, what if a posthuman came to steal them?"

Lin Sanjiu listened silently, unmoving.

"You've got your stuff, right?" The man stood in a blind spot; only his voice could be heard. "You must have felt something was wrong with them, right?"

Lin Sanjiu recalled one sentence that was common to all six cards.

"This Special Item has expired."

They were not ordinary objects. All six Special Items had expired.

"You asked me who I am just now?" The man laughed bitterly. "Let me introduce myself. I am the security captain of this museum, a former posthuman." 

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