Chapter 151: That's the Legendary Crappy Teammate
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
"This life-form exceeds current humans in every way."
When Nüwa’s words rang out in Lin Sanjiu’s mind once again, Aristotle’s two long left arms, with more than ten joints each, extended out like two living whips. They headed rapidly toward Lin Sanjiu. Although the "Neuhumes" were not aggressive, their combat situational awareness was even superior to that of many experienced Posthumans. Lin Sanjiu bent forward, planning to dodge the attack, but she realized that her enemy had a unique body structure, so the movement would be futile against the enemy’s sweeping attack.
Just when the two arms were right in front of her face, she dropped to the ground and rolled away, evading the attack. She felt a slight scrape on her scalp. The wave of air current which followed Aristotle's attack was so strong that it cut off a few locks of her hair.
[How much strength is required for that phenomenon?]
Before she could get up from the ground, another shadow slid to her side. It aimed a kick at her abdomen but Lin Sanjiu quickly countered with both of her hands, hoping that she would turn his leg into a mushy pulp first. However, Montesquieu suddenly made a short, sharp screech. St. Peter reacted by retracting his joints. With this maneuver that no human could ever replicate, it avoided Lin Sanjiu’s hand.
This was a one against four battle. Her opponents were not only intelligent, strong and agile, but their teamwork was also impeccable. After exchanging a few blows, Lin Sanjiu’s left arm was already wounded. She held her arm and put some distance between them and herself in a rather unglamorous manner. This was the same scenario she saw in the pocket dimension.
Nüwa left early, in the start of the fight. According to her, Lin Sanjiu only needed to incapacitate them to know the method to destroy the radiation shield. "Isn’t this a little too hard?" Lin Sanjiu mumbled to herself before leaping up into the air. An attack hit the spot she was standing just before. Concrete sprayed everywhere and white smoke rose from the ground—the attack missed. Laozi, who had somehow got behind Lin Sanjiu, drew his arms back slowly.
Lin Sanjiu knew that she had no chance of winning if she relied on hand-to-hand combat. She remembered that there were still quite a few descriptions of pretty good abilities in her [Tape recorder]—but it was too late.
After the lightning-fast exchange of blows, Lin Sanjiu had retreated backward a few times. Now, St. Peter and Montesquieu were standing between her and her tape recorder. If she looked past their long, lanky calves, she could still make out where the tape recorder was. [It’s good that they still haven’t notice that—] Just when that thought flashed through Lin Sanjiu’s mind, Aristotle walked in from another direction. He looked at the metal knick-knack and gently nudged the tape recorder with the tip of his toes.
Although Nüwa had pointed out that their intelligence was comparable to that of humans, it was a fact that they did not have the same life experiences that humans had, and this was also not Earth. To these ‘sages’, the tape recorder was a novel item that they had never seen before.
Lin Sanjiu gulped as she could only watch as Aristotle used the hand of his left secondary arm to pick up the tape recorder. His mouth seemed to be creating some sort of low-frequency sound wave. Lin Sanjiu tried her best to listen but she couldn’t hear a thing.
On the other hand, the other three Neuhumes certainly heard him. St. Peter kept watch on Lin Sanjiu to prevent her from attacking the others, while the rest of the creatures stuck their faces close to the tape recorder. They sniffed it and examined it from all angles, almost as if they were discussing and trying to determine what it was.
Lin Sanjiu felt her heart in her throat. If they destroyed her tape recorder, her chance of winning would effectively fall to zero. Yet, she really didn’t have the courage to snatch it from them because she was afraid that if her opponents knew how important it was to her, they would immediately destroy it.
The tall creature with the name "Laozi" marked on his neck started vibrating his mouth rapidly, saying some unknown language as he held the tape recorder in his eyes. Next, Lin Sanjiu stared helplessly as he pressed the ‘erase’ button.
The tape recorder made a buzzing sound as the recordings were slowly erased from the cassette tape. For a moment, Lin Sanjiu felt as though her heart was about to explode. Without thinking, she shouted "No!" Then, she rushed forward and swung her mouthpart weapon at the creatures’ heads.
St. Peter was apparently prepared. He raised two arms and grabbed onto Lin Sanjiu’s weapon and stopped its thrust. Although his light-green skin was very strong and durable, it was still cut by the sharp teeth of the weapon. His transparent blood dripped from his small wounds.
Lin Sanjiu pulled her weapon backward with all her strength and realized that it wouldn’t budge. She left the weapon alone and decided to just aim for his back. However, something extraordinary happened. Laozi turned to look at her. He cocked his head and pressed the ‘stop’ button.
The tape recorder became silent. It stopped. At that instant, the four tall ‘sages’ looked down at Lin Sanjiu who was so stunned that she didn’t know what to do. No one moved.
It definitely wasn’t a coincidence that Laozi stopped the tape recorder. When he heard Lin Sanjiu, it was clear from the look of his deep eyes that a thought was in his mind.
[Did he want to use it as a bargaining chip? Is he going to threaten me? Was he afraid of some sort of repercussion?] Countless thoughts ran through Lin Sanjiu’s confused mind in that split second.
Laozi took the tape recorder, eyed Lin Sanjiu and bent down. Then, he placed it in front of Lin Sanjiu.
"Yours," he enunciated. It appeared to be a difficult task for him to create that sound.
Lin Sanjiu looked up at the sages that surrounded her, and she took back her tape recorder blankly.
After she retrieved her tape recorder, the four tall creatures immediately backed away in a defensive manner. From the looks of it, they must have guessed that metal knick-knack was important to Lin Sanjiu because it was powerful.
The cold sensation from the metallic surface of the tape recorder was fading away due to the warmth from Lin Sanjiu's hands. "Humans would be ashamed of their existence if they were to compare themselves to them…" Almost out of nowhere, Lin Sanjiu suddenly remembered the words Nüwa said to her before.
Nüwa ordered the four Neuhumes to fight together against Lin Sanjiu. Apart from that order, their actions were all based on their own decisions.
Lin Sanjiu finally acted. She backed away and created distance between herself and her opponents again. She suddenly exhaled deeply and laughed bitterly.
"How could there be such a stupid creature?" she mumbled to herself. "If this is the case, I could just trick them and win easily."
Though she might not be the brightest bulb in the box, she already thought of a few ideas. For example, she could make a request for them to stop the fight and sneak an attack when they let their guard down. Another method was to find some excuse to leave, and when they returned to their rooms, she could kill them at one go, using whatever means pleased her.
[Cheating is an innate skill that all humans have.] Lin Sanjiu felt for a second something similar to Nüwa’s laughter in her mind.
"Damn it," Lin Sanjiu gritted her teeth and pressed down on the ‘play’ button. "I can win even if I fight fair!"
If her opponents were humans, she wouldn’t mind using some trickery; but fighting against this Neuhumes made Lin Sanjiu reluctant to display any behavior that would prove that Nüwa’s hypothesis was right.
Lin Sanjiu was unsure what ability she would gain. Other than Lin Sanjiu’s ideas, her companions could only briefly hint what the powers were. If they elaborated further, it would activate her Pygmalion Choker and the ability would be wasted.
A familiar voice she hadn’t heard for a long time came from the tape recorder. It was Hu Changzai. Lin Sanjiu held back her emotions as she listened to his words silently.
"Xiao Jiu, I suddenly thought of this idea. Perhaps, it could be very useful!" He was still a bit long-winded. "You know I have allergies right? When triggered, I really can’t do anything… Your new ability would be to make your designated target enemy sneeze non-stop!"
Touching her Pygmalion Choker, which was gradually growing warmer under the bandages of her neck, she was flabbergasted. If Hu Changzai was in front of her now, she would beat him up on the spot.
[Who knows if these Neuhumes even sneeze?!] She looked over at the four silent figures. She already had her answer.