The ability to create hallucinations is extremely convenient.
In the eyes of the exhausted young crewman, the condition of the airship's cargo hold probably looked the same as before. To him, the steel shelves have not been destroyed by Lin Sanjiu's skeletal wings. There were probably also no dents and holes on the floor. Consequently, without even batting an eye, he slammed the door of the cargo hold shut once all the passengers walked out of the airship.
The next second, the airship, the size of the town center, made a thunderous sound, spat out a strong gust of air current, and lifted off. It took quite a few minutes before the airship gradually disappeared into the distance.
When it had totally disappeared from the sky, the seawater that was displaced by the air current it created rushed back with a roar. The seawater created a high wall of almost ten thousand tons. Then, it crashed down on the surface of the ocean near a cliff islet with a terrifying speed. The surface of the ocean rippled. Even though this mini tsunami did not touch the cliff islet, the strong current of wind it generated created waves which rained down on the cliff as well as Lin Sanjiu and the other "passengers".
That young crewman must have known that the waves would make the cliff wet, so he naturally didn't think to remind the passengers that they would need to look out for the seawater.
Even though her clothes were thoroughly soaked, she could feel the tinge of pain as the seawater crashed down on her. After she wiped the water from her face, Lin Sanjiu felt slightly relieved.
At least, these creatures were isolated from other people, being in the middle of the ocean with her.
"Is this the transfer point?" Walter—Lin Sanjiu had habitually associated the person with this name—looked around. Lin Sanjiu couldn't tell if he was praising or mocking the place when he said, "Things seem disorderly here, but this world is actually quite well-organized."
Lin Sanjiu pursed her lips. She neither said a word nor move.
She felt uncomfortable just looking at Walter's smile another second longer.
In the short one minute interaction with the Souls Queen, Lin Sanjiu, as a human, already noticed that the woman did not understand the meaning of a smile.
The Souls Queen had been smiling non-stop.
Even as the seawater covered and soaked her, her smile remained. As a result, that gentle, light-hearted smile gradually became strangely empty and out-of-place.
"I see. You, humans, don't like having water on your faces," Soulsqn 1 concluded after she examined Lin Sanjiu. However, she continued lifting the corners of her lips. Then, she raised her hand. The other Souls behind her immediately wiped the water off their faces.
"Why are they imitating human behavior?"
After suppressing the uneasiness she felt, Lin Sanjiu scanned her surroundings. This cliff islet which had been used as a transfer point was not very large. The surface of the cliff wasn't leveled and there were a few dark green plants growing between the cracks of the rocks. There was a small wooden hut at the far end of the cliff islet. Lin Sanjiu didn't know what it was for. Due to the humid environment, there were mildew and layers of fungi growing on the wooden walls.
Lin Sanjiu tried her best to remember what she could see in her mind. Using her higher consciousness, she could tell that everything she saw now was real. She couldn't tell if it would remain the same, though. After all, her opponent was the queen of an entire species. Lin Sanjiu certainly wouldn't make the assumption that the combat ability of the queen was on the same level as AYU's.
Soulsqn didn't seem to be in a hurry to wear Lin Sanjiu. In fact, she showed an extraordinary level of interest regarding this particular "skin".
"Ever since our red nautili shell had been defeated, we had been hibernating and recovering." Soulsqn tilted her head as she looked at the pair of wings on Lin Sanjiu's back. Suddenly, she commented, "But after all this time, this is my first time seeing a human that can alter her own body and develop such a powerful biological weapon. You are a growth-type, plus you have hypervariable genes…"
"Hypervariable genes." Lin Sanjiu didn't expect that Soulsqn could make such an accurate judgment in such a short time.
Even though the smile on her face did not change, her voice suddenly quivered, as if to express her excitement. "Do you know what this means? After I eat your innards, I might be able to replicate the method you use to develop these skeletal wings to create a reproductive system for us, Souls. Ah, this human pouch is simply perfect."
After she said that, she paused for a moment. AYU, standing behind her, immediately lowered her head as if she heard something, "Thank you for the compliment, my queen."
Soulsqn wasn't having a conversation with Lin Sanjiu, rather, it was more like she was talking to herself. Even though Lin Sanjiu did not reply, she did not seem to mind. "To top that off, ever since you came to this world, you have been interacting with our kind… According to you humans, this should be called fate, right?"
"Wait, how did you—" Lin Sanjiu was stunned.
"Are you going to ask me what happened to you before you boarded the airship? Or do you want to ask me why I know all that?" Soulsqn looked at Lin Sanjiu through Walter's eyes.
"Both."
"Oh, so you still haven't figured things out. One of us cheated a book from you. The mission I gave to that Soul was to gather Special Items from humans. Somehow, that book was a little weird. It activated automatically. It forced him to crawl out from his own skin pouch… Then, you met that kid, Sajee."
For some reasons, Soulsqn intentionally left out some details when she explained Lin Sanjiu's predicament to this point, instead, she turned to look at the kinspeople behind her. Other than that Redhead Ol' Jack, her other kinspeople looked like a group of normal humans.
"The reason I know all this is because I'm the queen. I know the physical location and condition of every single Soul, and whether they are alive or dead. I know all that," Soulsqn said as she smiled.
At that every moment she said her last word, a shadow behind Soulsqn dodged to one side. The person moved so fast that her green dress made a swoosh. Two other black shadows lunged at that shadow in a split second. They quickly subdued the green shadow.
When Lin Sanjiu realized that one of the shadows was that strange-looking Redhead Ol' Jack, instinctively, her body reacted faster than her brain in response to the situation. Her muscles trembled due to her sudden burst, she kicked herself forward with her legs. As her body leaned forward, she aimed her wings ahead of her, using the momentum of her movement. Before Soulsqn could react, the sharp spines on Lin Sanjiu's wings had already pierced through Redhead Ol' Jack.
There was a screech. A piece of flesh with stumpy limbs crawled out from the Redhead Ol' Jack's body. It was one size larger than it was before. It leaped into AYU's arms. While Redhead Ol' Jack's corpse hung from her wings, Lin Sanjiu swung her bone and flung the other black shadow far away. That seemed to be the nameless man.
Even though Lin Sanjiu had temporarily defeated two of her opponents, Soulsqn's attack had almost reached her. Lin Sanjiu did a forward flip in mid-air, pulled back her arms, and let her wings fully extended. Then, she landed on the wet ground of the cliff islet once more, in a less than glamorous way. However, Lin Sanjiu had achieved her goal with that attack.
Jade Zhang took a deep breath in Lin Sanjiu's arm. "Ah," Jade let out a heave of relief after realizing that she was still alive.
"That scared... scared me. So, she knew…" her exposed skin, outside her dress, was whiter than usual. There wasn't any bit of color. It was also cool to touch. However, when Lin Sanjiu squeezed her wrist, that strong pulse explained everything.
Her pink lipstick on lips had been washed away by the seawater, revealing her pale lips. Her whole body was shivering either from being cold or because of her fright.
"You didn't die!" Lin Sanjiu's heart pounded twice, "Why? Why didn't you save—"
"I nearly died!" Jade Zhang suddenly yelled out. The next second, her voice became feeble as if she had lost all the energy in her body. She gestured to Lin Sanjiu, "When I returned to Area R, it was already late. I thought I could just pretend to be them and fake it till I could escape, but…"
"But, you didn't know that I had known all along?" Soulsqn walked slowly toward them. It was only then that Lin Sanjiu realized what had attacked her from behind.
It was the cliff islet.
The cliff islet acted as if it was satisfied with this group of visitors. The part of the cliff that Lin Sanjiu had been standing at had already been crushed and misshapen and squished into the cracked which opened beneath it. If Lin Sanjiu was a little slower, Jade and herself would have been crushed in the same manner. Of course, even if Lin Sanjiu's body had been crushed beyond recognition, Soulsqn could still wear her body.
"You are quite astute and lucky." Soulsqn nodded at Jade Zhang praisingly, "When you killed that Soul that was supposed to wear you, I didn't have the time to deal with you. Thinking back, this is quite meaningful… After all, a human pouch that is smarter is better than one that is stupid. It is a little strange if you think about it. Since the person's brain would be consumed, you would think that it is just a layer of skin and that it shouldn't make a difference."
Lin Sanjiu instantly understood what Soulsqn meant.
If Jade Zhang had created some sort of disturbance on the airship and attracted other humans, it would create unnecessary complications. Soulsqn had intentionally allowed Jade Zhang to pose as one of them so that she could lure her to get off the airship. Then, she wanted the Soul in Redhead Ol' Jack's body to consume Jade—
Lin Sanjiu's turned her gaze to that disgusting thing in AYU's arms.
Even though Lin Sanjiu already knew that the Souls were a highly intelligent species, perhaps because of their external appearance, she didn't really take them seriously. It was only at this moment that Lin Sanjiu truly witnessed for herself that the intelligence of this species could match that of any human.
Jade's cold fingers held Lin Sanjiu's elbow as she blurted anxiously, "What should we do now?"
"My suggestion is that both of you should even give up struggling," Soulsqn's smile looked as if it had been carved into her muscle. She lifted one hand and a large wave grew from behind the cliff. A strong current of water struck Lin Sanjiu. Both Jade and Lin Sanjiu could not react in time and they were slammed to the ground. However, the huge wave avoided Soulsqn as if it had eyes and splashed lightly against Walter's trousers.
"I'm different from my kinspeople. They can only create hallucinations. I can create realities."
Instead of using the Souls Queen or Queen of Souls everywhere, I've simplified it to this name.