Doomsday Wonderland

Chapter 1438: Lin Sanjiu's Brilliant Idea

Wait, wait a minute. She needed to think this through again. When she tried to nullify Caster's core ability, she was confident from the start, but didn't it all go awry? Not more than ten minutes had passed since then; although Caster's abilities were restored, Lin Sanjiu's confidence in herself hadn't.

Her goal was simple: to make sure Advaita could no longer pursue Silvan. She wasn't concerned about winning or losing the game. If her idea turned out to be unrealistic or unfeasible, then there would only be one more obvious method left.

If she teamed up with Silvan, could the two of them severely injure Advaita, whose abilities were temporarily suppressed by the game?

Now that the unpredictable Chen Hanwu had gone far to the other end of the mall, and Advaita still had to spare some attention for him, both she and Silvan remained at their peak and were undamaged. Could there be a better opportunity than this?

As Lin Sanjiu pondered this, she became aware of her own actions and couldn't help but glance at Advaita. Unlike a casual glance from a normal person, when a posthuman weighed an opponent and prepared for a battle, the focus, angle, the direction of their gaze, etc., all left subtle hints. It would make others — let alone someone familiar — realize it was a pre-battle analysis. Although she stood behind Advaita, Silvan probably noticed immediately. He frowned at Lin Sanjiu, the skin between his eyebrows creasing.

What did that mean? He didn't agree?

Lin Sanjiu frowned back, and her burning passion for battle dissipated. If Silvan disagreed, she was only left with the spur-of-the-moment idea she had come up with.

"I found a D10," Chen Hanwu's voice rang out high and clear. "Great, great! I found another one!"

Advaita's team had now collected three target items — they couldn't delay further.

"If you want to fight him, I can't join you for the time being," Lin Sanjiu raised her hands in surrender. "He's my friend, you're my teammate. I can't take sides, I don't know who to help."

If someone else had said this, the listener might just laugh and retort, "Who are you trying to fool?" However, these words came from Lin Sanjiu, someone willing to confront the Twelve Worlds for a friend.

"I don't want to fight either," Advaita replied to Lin Sanjiu, her gaze locked onto Silvan. "Whether we fight or not depends on your friend. I just want to hold him off for a while."

Hold him off until Chen Hanwu searched all the target items?

As this thought crossed Lin Sanjiu's mind, she suddenly heard Silvan sneer. The next second, the hand that wasn't covering the girl with fox-like eyes suddenly unfurled, revealing a bright crescent blade.

"If he wants to fight, so be it," Lin Sanjiu said, stepping back and widening the distance between the two posthumans. "I assume you wouldn't be comfortable with me here. To you, he's probably a rare threat, right?"

Advaita remained silent.

"I'll leave," Lin Sanjiu said. Noticing a change in Advaita's expression as if she wanted to say something, she quickly added, "I won't wander around or go elsewhere. Do you see the security room near the cashier counter up ahead? I'll just sit there. Once you're done fighting or searching, I'll come out when you need my help. After all, you can keep an eye on the door of that room. You'll know the moment I come out, so it should be fine, right?"

Upon reflection, she shouldn't belittle herself. Even if she wasn't as strong as Silvan, her mere presence would probably make Advaita wary. The more Silvan stayed put, the more tense Advaita seemed to become. Removing Lin Sanjiu from the equation would surely be advantageous for Advaita.

"I know you have an ulterior motive with this suggestion," Advaita said, surprising Lin Sanjiu. "But I have my own intentions, too. Your attempts are just a waste of effort."

So, she agreed. However, whether it was a waste of effort remained to be seen.

Lin Sanjiu didn't look at Silvan. She continued to raise her hands and smiled as she backed away toward the security room, making sure to put a good distance between herself and Silvan.

By the time she had retreated a fair distance, the two were still confronting each other, with Silvan seemingly waiting for her to move further away. Lin Sanjiu's gaze swept to a spot some twenty or thirty meters behind Advaita, and as expected, she saw Caster on top of a shelf. It seemed to be trying to avoid being spotted by Chen Hanwu from afar, looking rather strained as it crouched low.

A few minutes earlier, when Lin Sanjiu and Advaita were charging towards Silvan, Lin Sanjiu had suggested they go from the top of the shelves. As she leaped up, the moment her hand landed on a shelf, Caster's card appeared beneath her palm. When she lifted her hand, her boot quickly stepped on the card. Advaita rushed past her like the wind, and she followed, leaving Caster's card on the top shelf behind them.

When she crouched down to complain about her backache, she inadvertently cleared the line of sight for Silvan's gaze, which then fell upon Caster, who had just been restored from its card form behind her. She had long instructed Caster to seize an opportunity to convey her shelf number to its owner. Now, when Caster's and Silvan's eyes met, as a master and an item, there were naturally many ways for him to understand, even a hint from lip-reading – and indeed, it proved that at least one of Lin Sanjiu's ideas was right.

At that moment, Caster also stared wide-eyed, glancing back and forth between Silvan and Lin Sanjiu, seemingly unsure of whom to follow. After two seconds, it suddenly jolted into action and began to climb down from the shelf using its limbs.

By the time Lin Sanjiu reached the cashier counter near the entrance of the security room, Silvan abruptly launched an attack on Advaita – the force was like the sudden splitting of the ocean floor, with tectonic plates colliding and mountains shaking. Even though the entire mall remained silent, it felt like one's heart was squeezed out of the chest. Lin Sanjiu didn't have the time to observe the details of the battle; she was more concerned about Caster, whose head had just peeked out from behind the outermost row of shelves.

"Come here!" she whispered to Caster, taking advantage of the moment when Advaita's attention was preoccupied.

Caster hopped and followed her step by step. Lin Sanjiu quickly moved and disappeared into the security room.