Chapter 364: Team Up! The Almighty Effect of PHOTOSHOP!
Translator: BinBin92 Editor: EllisBLV13
A confused look graced Lin Sanjiu's face. She didn't know why she would do as Puppeteer directed and risk her life to cross the road filled with millions upon millions of empyesis.
Also, if it weren't for the sharp edges of her card prickling her palm, she might not believe that Puppeteer had given her a ton of Special Items.
"What are all of these about?" Lin Sanjiu asked as she quickly caught the Special Items that rained down on her. After she exerted some effort to convert all the dazzling Special Item into cards, she panted, "Are you not afraid that I'll escape with all your Special Items?"
Puppeteer, who roosted on the carved pumpkin like an owl, suddenly turned his gaze on Lin Sanjiu. His countenance was pale in the night.
"I'm the one who always steals from others-- people don't steal from me," his charcoal gray eyeshadow flickered under the moonlight as he narrowed his eyes, "Put that aside, I've seen tons of idiots like you who regard themselves as infallible. Normally, these kinds of people can't bring themselves to perform a job that goes against their code of conduct."
At this moment, Lin Sanjiu wished she could go the opposite way and get away with his Special Items. Luckily, her rationality was stable and strong enough to stop her. She took a deep breath and gripped her cards tightly.
"Take this," Puppeteer flung a tiny object onto Lin Sanjiu's face, "Don't act on your own. Just do as I said."
"Weren't you still couldn't use your Special Item?"
Puppeteer glared at her. Although his expression was flat, Lin Sanjiu could feel the intense killing intent that emanated from within his soul. Just like a person who had a sudden urge to eat an apple, the murderous intent was momentary. He reverted to his calm composure soon after and said nonchalantly, "This is just an ordinary wireless earpiece."
Her goosebumps receded like an ebbing tide. Once again, she realized that the man in front of her was volatile. His oscillating mood was maddening, and she couldn't, under any circumstances, let her guard down when dealing with him. With that in mind, she nodded to him and brought out her [Female Slave Bondage Rope]. She lashed to a lamp post not far away from her and swung away from Puppeteer.
The duoluozhong who used to be Santa Claus had claimed his territory in the center of the road. Its body was a pure mess. Nobody could tell whether it was standing or crouching. Despite that, one could very damn be sure from a glance that it was waiting for its prey. It tilted its dried ball-like head toward the sky while the blotches bubbled vigorously, forming a wave-like pattern on its body that sent a chill up the spine and through every nerve in the body of anybody who looked at him.
Truth to be told, it was tough, much hard than a human, for duoluozhong to evolve.
With her very limited experience of just going through four worlds, Lin Sanjiu had encountered only a few duoluozhong . The most distinct group she had met before was the group in Oasis. Nevertheless, the strength of that group compared with Santa Claus paralleled those combat capabilities of Grade 2 and Puppeteer: it was like heaven and earth. Lin Sanjiu could never have imagined how long this Santa Claus had survived in this apocalypse world and what kind of abilities it still has up its sleeve.
Put that all aside, Lin Sanjiu could very well be damn sure that its ability was not limited to creating empyesis.
"Listen to me carefully," Puppeteer's cold, androgynous voice came from the tiny earpiece and froze Lin Sanjiu to her core, "The reason Santa Claus could run amuck in the Twelve Worlds without anybody stopping him was never limited by his ability. I've been suspicious about this since a long time ago. He seems to have very odd luck of getting some very rare Special Items that no other posthumans could get."
Lin Sanjiu grit her teeth and clung tightly to the lamp while listening to Puppeteer. She thought Puppeteer mentioned this matter for a reason, but somehow, after a short pause, Puppeteer suddenly changed his mind.
"But don't think that you have a greater chance of killing it after you've sealed all its Special Items. What you need to do now is use the four Special Items I gave to you to pin it down, wear out its defense, and create an opportunity for me to strike. Understand?"
No matter how much Lin Sanjiu hated Puppeteer's condescending tone, she had no other option but to nod. Puppeteer gave her an earpiece without a microphone. Apparently, he wasn't looking for her reply.
She then shifted her attention back to Santa Claus and studied it once more. The empyesis on its body could be used for offense or defense so that it could neither be touched nor attacked. Lin Sanjiu had no idea what kind of Special Item could work on an opponent of this caliber. She then looked in her hand and found a particular card that attracted her attention. The words on the card read: [Sequelae of Sleep Deprivation].
[Sequelae of Sleep Deprivation]
However fatigued you were, wouldn't you open your eyes once you got in bed and when the light was off? You would either play with your phone, or chit-chat with your friends, or toss and turn on the bed, or count sheep, no matter what, you always tell yourself that it wasn't the time for bed yet, so you continue to play through the night. When the sleepiness finally kicks in, it would already be 4 am, and you still had to wake up at 8 am to go to work.
This Special Item was extracted from an office worker who was suffering from chronic sleep deprivation. Sprinkle this Special Item on any location you desire and every creature in the immediate vicinity would instantly feel the hellish experience of that office worker of not having enough sleep.
The duration of its effect depended on the strength of the target. Even if it were being used on God, it would last at least three seconds. After all, nobody knew if God needed sleep.
Condition to note 1: This Special Item can only allow its target to suffer the experience of fatigue after not having enough sleep. It can't make the target fall asleep.
Condition to note 2: The usage of this Special Item is limited to once since staying up late all the time was not good for health.
"Oh, this is nice!" Lin Sanjiu exclaimed inwardly. Then, she summoned the Special Item. Once the [Sequelae of Sleep Deprivation] was in her palm, she was stunned.
Even if she was given the capacity to imagine, she would never have been prepared for the [Sequelae of Sleep Deprivation] to be a gooey and slimy substance that looked like jelly or snot. It slid between her fingers as if it was going to melt on her palm.
Condition to note 3: Due to the particular attributes of this Special Item, please place this Special Item on the skin of your target within 10 seconds. If no action is taken after 10 seconds, then the [Sequelae of Sleep Deprivation] will be absorbed by the user's skin. So be careful!
Lin Sanjiu felt the last condition did not have much effect on her since she could turn the [Sequelae of Sleep Deprivation] back into the card and reset the 10 seconds timer, but she had no idea how to launch the Special Item onto Santa Claus. It was too slippery, and its appearance was odd. Lin Sanjiu couldn't just hurl it forward like that.
On the other hand, Santa Claus remained on guard, and the empyesis filled with black and red gooey liquid continued to bubble and undulate on the Pumpkin Route like they were alive.
More and more empyesis were squeezing out from the large and small black holes on Santa Claus' body, and before the new one dropped to the ground, the previous one had already slid away leaving a little space behind. However, even this was not enough; very soon, a sea of trembling empyesis had appeared on the whole area.
If she threw everything into the wind, dropped to the ground and charged at Santa Claus head-on, Lin Sanjiu believe that she would share the same fate as that male posthuman before she could even brush Santa Claus' side.
"What are you doing? We're running out of time!" Puppeteer urged her again.
Lin Sanjiu ignored him and swiftly looked at her second card: [PHOTOSHOP/CS6]
Prized for its superb function, this Special Item was as magical as the software of the same name. Stretching a person's leg or making a person's chin smaller were only rudimentary uses while the full potential of this Special Item had yet to be uncovered. Right now, only two features, "Stamp" and "Eraser", were opened to the user Lin Sanjiu based on her combat capability.
"Good grief that I have some basic knowledge on how to use Photoshop," Lin Sanjiu grumbled under her breath. Then, she read the directions patiently and practiced the function again in her mind, "Otherwise, this wonderful piece would be useless to me."
In a circumstance like this, basic knowledge was more than enough. With her determination intact, Lin Sanjiu swung and climbed up to another lamp with her legs. While she was retracting her rope, a tragedy happened. She did not know if she was too bulky or had she loosened her grip, but she gasped as she fell from the lamp post.
"Ha ha ha, let me show you the second stage of my ability!" a sickly, sweet voice sounded out from the dried ball-like head of Santa Claus. Then, his tone raised, "Microwave heating!"
In the meantime she was falling, Lin Sanjiu struggled to find something to keep herself from falling. Despite her effort, the weight of her two large and skeletal wings had neutralized all of her attempts and pulled her even quicker towards the ground. Upon receiving the order from Santa Claus, the black and red empyesis gurgled even more violently and turned white and translucent one after another. White fumes drifted up from the empyesis as if they were heated by fire.
The white fumes veiled all the infrastructure on "Pumpkin Route" the moment it was released. All of the houses and lamp posts began to melt from their tops like a melting frost and streamed down along whatever was remaining.
Seeing this phenomenon, it was no wonder Santa Claus was so relaxed watching both of them swinging here and there like Tarzan.
However, Lin Sanjiu no longer had the chance to see it as the entirety of her slender figure disappeared into the densely packed empyesis without leaving any trace.
"If I were you and knew that it would have come to this, I would've kicked myself for not returning the thing that did not belong to me," said Santa Claus as head aside. It looked at the Puppeteer who had lost his only standing ground and forced a few loud laughs through its ragged ridge, "Birds of a feather flock together. Useless punk would always turn to and fro for help from an—"
Santa Claus staggered to its feet before he could finish his sentence. Its voice softened as it weakly uttered the words "useless," and a smile finally found its way to Puppeteer's face.
As if a power outage had occurred, the gurgling empyesis suddenly stopped, and the white fumes began to dissipate. As Santa Claus convulsed on the ground, a few white fumes came out somewhere along the road. However, Santa Claus had reached the end of its tether. It finally dropped after its last attempt to stand up and thrashed on the ground in its death throes.
"Sleepy, I'm so sleepy…" it mumbled. Perhaps, this was the first and last time it said those words after it was dead, "I want to sleep."
Santa Claus would never have imagined that Lin Sanjiu had successfully sneak upon it and planted the [Sequelae of Sleep Deprivation] on its body. The long-lost eye soreness and grogginess once again returned and instantly flooded Santa Claus.
When it feebly raised one of its legs to parry the attack launched by Puppeteer, a head with an ashen white a face popped out from the sea of empyesis not far away from it. Jumping into the air, she found herself a lamp post that had not completely melted and clung tightly to it while pulling herself away from the ground.
It was Lin Sanjiu, and she had to admit that Puppeteer's Special Items were terrific.
Even though the description for the second Special Item was plain, however, it wasn't exaggerating. The Special Item had turned the whole area into layers, allowing her to edit the thing inside to her desire!
By utilizing the "Eraser" of [PHOTOSHOP/CS6], Lin Sanjiu had "erased" all the empyesis on the ground below her before she landed. It completely violated all known physics that existed in the world, yet that area filled with empyesis had disappeared. Then, Lin Sanjiu quickly hurled the image of empyesis that she copied with the "Stamp" function onto the space and stopped the remaining empyesis from gathering onto the space.
After making sure that no empyesis was approaching that area, Lin Sanjiu heaved a sigh of relief and jumped down.
She had tested the effect of "Stamp" with the [Sequelae of Sleep Deprivation]. She found out that the thing copied with "Stamp" did not carry any abilities of the original object but could only be used to create a mirage. She took advantages over this features and successfully deceived Santa Claus. Since the original owner of [PHOTOSHOP/CS6] was Puppeteer, it was no surprise to her that he wasn't affected.
It was so unfortunate that such a powerful Special Item could only be used twice a day. Sighing, Lin Sanjiu went to check the third card.
"Hey?"
The [Parchment Contract] sparked memories somewhere in her brain.