The depression of the crowd was beyond its peak on the tenth day.
Though Number 46 had said they could relax and chill after they had destroyed the number tags none of them could take a load off. The anxiety that hung heavily in the air was getting denser and denser as if it could crush them whole with its sheer mass.
There was no backing out now.
Almost every few seconds, somebody asked Harry about the absorption rate ranking. Harry gave the same answer each time yet it did little to pacify their anxiety. Instead, it acted more like a temporal comfort; they could only relax for a brief moment.
From the surface, they seemed to have owned the game, and their victory was in the bag. However, without seeing the dead body of the woman with their own eyes, they still couldn't shrug off the nervous feeling in their hearts. There was a voice, demon-like murmuring at the back of their minds, telling them that the tracksuit woman was still hiding somewhere in the greenhouse waiting for the perfect moment to strike them all down.
Hence, dominated by the demons in their hearts, most of them began to venture into the foliage starting on the ninth day. They wanted to look for the woman, and at the same time continue Number 46's demolishing plan. Even Number 45 and Number 47 had joined the pack too. Only Lin Sanjiu and Number 46 remaining relaxed on the leaf. No matter how much the crowd showered them with their cursing words, both of them showed no desire of joining them at all.
Like a swarm of locusts, they wreaked widespread havoc across the greenhouse, attacking and destroying every crop, tree, and blade of grass, leaving only barren pots and culture tanks in their wake. There remained but a single one dicotyledon plant that they took as their temporary base, standing and sprouting gallantly at the corner of the ruined greenhouse.
However, the woman was nowhere in sight.
The crowd was clapped-out when they returned to the base. Looking at their unwholesome expressions, Number 46 then opened his lips, layering his voice with contempt, "Have you all never considered the probability that she might have a Special Item or ability that can mask her presence? She's very confident that you guys won't be able to find her, so after she has lost her number tag, she refuses to show herself."
It was hard to tell from his tone that was he comforting the crowd or he was just making a sarcastic remark; nevertheless, there was nothing they could do right now even if they still could not felt at ease. The air was full of random noises. Some of them were cursing in rage while some of them were praying. If there were any similarities between them, that would be the forlorn and gloomy expressions that crawled on their faces. All of them picked a spot and sat down, biding their time as they prepared themselves for the arrival of 7 PM: the judgment hour.
For the posthumans, the thing that crushed their spirits wasn't the nine-day-long back-breaking errand but the shadow of death that remained looming over them. As the silence had finally graced the piece of safe haven, most of them had succumbed to the clutches of slumber while the rest who had yet fallen asleep, they just refreshed their spirit with their eyes closed.
Lin Sanjiu raised her head to look around. Then, without making any noises, she stood up and walked toward the other side of the leaf.
"Where are you going?" The question came from the elementary school teacher with a ponytail. His eyes opened wide and large.
The actress in Lin Sanjiu's heart instantly took the stage. Her face flushed in red as she went closer to the teacher and whispered into his ear, "... I'm just going to take a quick shower. My body smells like rotten cheese. I'm a little bit shy to do it here."
"Oh, I see," replied the teacher. His eyes rolled around before he nodded to her. Lin Sanjiu hastened her steps and jumped down from the leaf.
Baldhead and Spring Bean heard the whole conversation between Lin Sanjiu and that teacher as they were wide awake. Both of them took a peek at her figure, but they did nothing. After all, the direction Lin Sanjiu had jumped into was exactly opposite of where the indigo flower was.
Very soon, the sound of water flowing drifted up from the leaf beneath them.
The interlude didn't affect the silence that prevailed on the leaf. Everything remained quiet. Even Baldhead had stopped talking.
Perhaps they were overwrought or exhausted or, maybe both, all of their faces were bereft of any emotion. All of them sat under the hazy and murky moonlight with their eyes closed. Only a few of them moved occasionally.
Before they could call Jack Robinson, Harry's thunderous voice rang out from the sky, shattering the deadly silence and gave the crowd a huge fright.
Ashen-faced, they all stood woodenly while Harry made his announcement, "Today is the tenth day and the time now is 6:59 PM. In the next minute, when the shorthand points at seven, I'll announce the victor and the runner-ups.
"The countdown will start now: fifty seconds."
While the crowd was waiting for Harry's countdown, a round shadow suddenly flew past above their head and connected with a meaty smack on the other side of the leaf. Before the crowd could have a clear view of the shadow, another shadow appeared from the other side of the blade. Moving like a cheetah on its full throttle to kill its prey, the shadow pounced toward Baldhead.
Baldhead was taken aback for a moment and he quickly rolled to a side, narrowly dodging the ambush of the shadow. Raising his head, only then he saw that the shadow belonged to none other than Lin Sanjiu. Lin Sanjiu continued on her charging, using the momentum she had built up and rushed quickly behind Baldhead, turning his blood into ice as it clicked in his brain.
He yelled, "What are you doing?!"
However, nobody could answer him. Even though Lin Sanjiu was lightning fast, she still missed her target. Taking advantage of the brief moment Baldhead waylaid Lin Sanjiu, Sunny jumped behind them and stood by the edge of the leaf, bringing the confrontation of the two women into the light and the number tag around her neck that swung profusely in the air due to the fictitious force.
"Forty-five seconds," Harry continued his countdown apathetically.
"W-What is this? Sunny?" Baldhead stared at Sunny; his trembling voice disappeared into the fleeting commotion caused by the crowd.
The petite girl had no emotion on her face. She didn't spare him a glance. Lin Sanjiu and the other few who were quick to action had already dashed forward again. Although Harry's Farm had rendered most of the Evolving Ability and Special Item useless, binding and restraining type Special Items were still working perfectly fine. Various kind of Special Items and Evolving Ability flew through the air; there was even a fish net in the air.
However, all their efforts were in vain.
No, it shouldn't say their efforts came to nothing because their hands clearly made contact with Sunny. It was just that her body suddenly fell apart and split into countless pieces before shooting out in all directions.
"Forty seconds."
Those who had missed their target staggered off their trajectory due to the large impetus. While they were gasping to reclaim their balance, two legs wrapped in denim jeans suddenly appeared out of thin air and pushed all of them except Lin Sanjiu, who had artlessly dodged the surprise attack, off the leaf.
The moment her heel touched the ground, she charged up her speed and bolted toward the half torso that hovered in mid-air again. Unfazed, Sunny performed a graceful turn in the air and thwarted Lin Sanjiu's attack with practiced ease, her number tag in front of her chest swung in a half circle along with her motion.
Then, her artless voice reverberated in the air, as everything of this was fun to her, "Hey, since when you did you grow suspicious of me?"
Lin Sanjiu gave Sunny the cold shoulder as she gestured her hand. The [Female Slavery Bondage Rope] appeared in her hand.
"You plan to catch me with that? No offense though, but I suggest you not to do that," Sunny laughed. The countdown had gone down to 35 seconds. "Besides, have you all have forgotten something?"
Her words stupefied everybody.
"If you all don't keep an eye on the indigo flower, the woman from cluster 1 might come and grab them."
The crowd's face turned pale. They quickly turned around and to their surprise, the leaf which held all of their indigo flowers were gone.
"Thirty seconds."
"Look at yourselves," Sunny grinned widely, her brazen laughter resounded loud and clear in an undulating wave across the air above them. She was so thrilled that veins began to appear on her palm-sized face, "I wish I had a mirror now so that you guys can see the despair..."
"Twenty-five seconds."
"Who has an expression of despair?"
Harry and Number 46's voice rang out at the same time and cut into the words that were forming at the tip of Sunny's tongue.
"If you guys are looking for the flowers, we have a full bouquet in our hand right now," said Number 46 as he turned his body around and pointed to the two large bouquets of indigo flowers at his and Number 47's back.
Hearing this, the half torso froze. Then, she shrilled, "Queenie! Come over here!"
"Are you calling for the woman from cluster 1?" Number 46 asked matter-of-factly, "No offense though, I don't think stealing other people's flower is the right thing to do."
"Twenty seconds."
In the next second, Number 46 spun around and clapped his hand. A person leaped in from the leaf behind and landed beside him. Number 45's mouth was wide opened; a human head could be seen dangling from her mouth that filled with many teeth more than a healthy human.
The few people from the cluster 4 gasped in terror when they saw the head. It was something nobody had seen before. Beneath the head of frizzy and messy hair, the eyes of the woman were scarlet with anger, glaring menacingly at Number 45 with a tightened jaw. At the fracture point below her head, there was a freshly grown, red finger-sized body of an adult with four limbs.
"Fifteen seconds."
"I have to admit that the ability of you and your friend here is pretty intriguing," Number 46 said slowly, taking his time to make sure every word he said was clear enough to be heard by everyone, "We have long discovered that her ability is self-amputation. However, it's only toward the very end that we realized she might chop her head off and throw her rest of body parts into the abyss below the greenhouse. If it's only her head, she can fit perfectly into your backpack and that's why we couldn't locate her anywhere in the greenhouse. Nevertheless, the most amusing feature of her ability is that her body will stop growing if somebody touched her."
"Ten seconds."
"You couldn't help your partner to put on her number tag when you hurl her head toward the indigo flower, and now she is in our hand and she will die with us in another ten seconds," Number 46 seemed to be unfazed by the fact that he would be dead soon as well. He exuded a nobody's business aura as he continued his speech, "So what will you do? If you remove your number tag now, both of you can survive."
Every part of Sunny seemed to have lost their weight after she'd fragmented her body. All of her body parts were now gyrating, roaming, and dashing dexterously around the air, and it was hard to catch them. It was all thanks to those her body parts of her that Sunny was able to push four people off the leaf, leaving them struggling for their life by clinging onto the edge of the leaf.
"Hmm, okay, but before I remove my number tag, I have a question," The half torso suddenly blasted upward like a cannonball as she evaded another surprise attack. She dawdled after Harry had announced they had only seven seconds left, "How did you guys know it's me?"
"Because the arms are different."
"Arms are different?"
"Exactly; it's pretty obvious, to be honest. Just like the tail of a lizard, during Ms. Queenie's first attack, the arm that fell off from her body was lifeless, and it couldn't move; however, this did not happen for the second attack. During her second ambush, the arm that she shed could move autonomously and even steal our number tags—" Number 46 paused for a second when Harry announced they had only 4 seconds left. Then, he continued, "From there, we know that the two arms from the two incidents were not from the ability of the same person. The reason you didn't react to the ambush and sit alone from us isn't that you're stunned. It's because, at that time, you'd fragmented your arm and gave it to Ms. Queenie over here.
"As a woman that's willing to forsake even her own body, it's no surprise that you would cut off your arm first. It's just that you never expect Number 49 had already realized something was fishy… Oh yeah, speaking of Number 49, do you know where is she now?" Number 46 grinned after Harry said they had one second left, "The motive behind her initial attack was to create an opening for me, while I speak so much nonsense is to distract your attention."
"One second."
The moment Harry's voice was raised into the air, Sunny's face changed. Lin Sanjiu suddenly leaped out from the layers of foliage not far from them. There was something wriggling and struggling to freedom in her embrace. When she stopped on the leaf where everybody was with the thing in her clutch, everybody saw it was a woman's right arm.
"Catch the flower," Number 46 shouted sharply as he hurled a large bouquet at Lin Sanjiu. The moment the indigo flower touched Lin Sanjiu's hand, then Sunny would be dead. However, at this crucial moment, Harry's voice sounded out, "Time's up. Cluster 2's absorption rate per capita is the highest, so they are the winner while the rest of the clusters are tied at second place."
"Hahaha!" Sunny laughed; she was brought to tears. "I f*cking love this pocket dimension! I sincerely thanks you all for the wonderful show you all have put up at the twilight of your life… Oh, it's so thrilling… When I realized Number 49 had set up a trap for me, I made use of the trap and killed the red-shirted guy. I initially thought all of you were at your wit's end, and there wouldn't be any exciting overturn anymore but... Oh, you guys are really full of surprises!"
Almost everybody was frozen at that moment. Their blood turned cold, their body was trembling, and they couldn't even move one of their fingers.
The indigo flower whizzed past Lin Sanjiu and fell beside her feet. Number 46 nodded to Number 47 and the latter quickly went to Lin Sanjiu's side. He then unbuckled the indigo flower at his back and handed over to Lin Sanjiu. Only a few centimeters left, and the flower would touch Lin Sanjiu's hand.
"What are you guys doing? The maturation stage has ended and I won't die even if you touched my right hand. Those who are being left behind will definitely meet their ends here. Don't ever think that you have another chance of participating in this pocket dimension anymore. Say farewell to the world, Hah!" Sunny was too happy that she couldn't contain her laughter. Her body parts began to return to her body and very soon, a human figure was formed, and the only thing that was not there was her arm that Lin Sanjiu had. However, it seemed that Sunny wasn't in the heart of trying to struggle for freedom whatsoever; after all, the person who was holding her arm was going to die soon.
Everything seemed fine for her until the next words said by Harry that thrust her into confusion.
"So are you guys familiar with the flow now?"
"W-what? What flow?" Wide-eyed, Sunny turned her head around to see Lin Sanjiu and Number 46. Even though their faces had no expression, their expressions were not the countenances of people who were going to cross the Styx soon.
"Yep, thank you for the rehearsal, Harry," Lin Sanjiu held the arm firmly and shouted toward the sky. A moment later, she spun around, tossing Sunny a warm big smile as she stared at her grim face, "Do you really think I went to take a shower just now? I just used the sound of the water to cover the conversation between Harry and me. I asked him to walk us through the thing he was going to say at 7 pm 10 minutes in advance. I made it 10 minutes earlier so that you wouldn't feel suspicious. Frankly speaking, if Harry disagreed, I may have had to take on a hard measure but luckily, you fell into our trap."
Sunny looked goggle-eyed, her two cherry lips were wide apart yet no voice came out from them.
"Which means that we still have another 9 minutes before 7 pm," Number 46's scathing laughter was layered with sarcasm, "Truth to be told, I'm not any sort of nice guy myself. I just want you to experience the feeling of being deceived by somebody before your death arrives."
"Wait! Wait a sec!" A man and a woman voice boomed out at the same time. The crowd turned around to see that Baldhead had already climbed up to the leaf and was now running with an unstable gait to the center of where they were. While the banshee-like female voice was coming from the head in Number 45's jaw. She closed her mouth and stopped wailing after she saw Baldhead had rushed forward.
"Please don't kill her! Please don't kill her!" Baldhead had rushed in front of Lin Sanjiu. He seemed to unable to grasp what had transpired. Pointing to Sunny, he said, "I'll take her number tag away. Like that all of the clusters absorption rates will become 0, right? Everybody will win the round and nobody would get hurt..."
"Why are you protecting her?" Number 46 asked with a frown, "Even though both of you're from the same cluster, and you wouldn't die if she had won, she never thought of you while she was plotting all of her sinister plans. Cluster 1 has only one member, so Harry let her come in first; that's reasonable. But your cluster has eight members, and your team is the second group to enter the greenhouse. Do you know why?"
Dumbfounded, Baldhead turned his head toward Number 46. His blank expression suggested that he didn't understand what Number 46 had said at all.
"This is because there is one member from your cluster plotting the death of her seven other team members. She would do that if the situation called for it—the best example would be the red-shirted guy," Number 46 said cooly.
"I don't know, and I don't want to know!" Baldhead roared. He strode toward Sunny and pulled her number tag away. He turned to face the crowd and yelled at the top of his lung, "But I know she won't kill a person without a solid reason. Anyway, I have her number tag now. Please, I beg you. Please don't kill her for the sake that I have been assisting cluster 5 all this time. If you still don't feel secure enough, I will tie her up!"
What Baldhead had said was true. He had been a good ally ever since their alliance. Number 46 turned to Lin Sanjiu as he had lost his interest, "It's up to you now. I'm too tired."
Lin Sanjiu glanced at Baldhead and looked at Sunny that was standing behind Baldhead.
The girl was biting her lower lips. Lin Sanjiu couldn't tell from her face that was she scared, nervous, or she was just suppressing her giggle.
"My ability can't turn a living human into a card," After she thought for a while, she sighed, "So, I don't know if I can turn her right arm into my card. If I can, I'll let her live. If can't, sorry I have to kill her no matter what."
Baldhead's lips quivered. His face was blanched white as he agreed.
Then, Lin Sanjiu placed her hand over the pale arm. The moment the [Planar World] was activated, the arm disappeared as well.