"Why?"
When she heard the woman beside her counting down from 10, Lin Sanjiu suddenly had an intuition about what was happening. She had learned her lesson. Even though she was still thinking about the situation, she hastily pointed at the man before the end of the countdown. It didn't matter which one she thought was Derik as long as she chose someone. Even if she was wrong, only the ones who recognized themselves as Derik would stay to attack her. If she was lucky, both people would disappear into the darkness.
This was also why she found the situation very hard to understand.
The man she pointed at showed his expressionless face and lowered his head. Then, he turned and disappeared into the darkness. Simultaneously, the woman giggled and changed into a dark shadow, heading fast toward Lin Sanjiu.
Sure enough, things unfolded the same way as before. After a few short minutes, Lin Sanjiu developed an instinct to deal with these people. She twisted, stooped, and dodged the attacks artfully in an experienced manner as she went with the flow. They didn't attack her in any sort of unexpected manner.
At first, Lin Sanjiu thought Derik was trying to use a huge crowd strategy, so she was puzzled. However, from the looks of things, it wasn't the case. "Why did he need me to identify Derik? No, no, if he wanted to use a huge crowd strategy, he didn't need to ask her to differentiate between the people in the groups. He could have just got the few hundred people to rush at me at once?"
Since there was limited space, if they just crowded around her all at the same time, she would already be badly injured.
The exact scenario occurred once again. Different groups of people appeared before Lin Sanjiu, asking her to guess which of them was Derik. To reduce the number of people, Lin Sanjiu just made random choices. She managed to actually make the right guess a couple of times. However, most of her guesses were wrong. The number of people was quickly reduced to about 30 to 40 people.
After fighting with a crowd like a huge ocean, Lin Sanjiu didn't fret over the 30 or 40 people. After their numbers dropped, their attack wasn't really that impressive.
Just as Lin Sanjiu thought about this, she noticed something flashing at the edge of her scanning radius. She suddenly felt the alarm bells in her mind ringing. "Dodge!" Mrs. Manas's sharp voice exploded.
Lin Sanjiu didn't have time to think too much. She instinctively leaped up and used the momentum to propel herself forward. Before she landed, she grabbed a grim-looking man. She gripped his collar and threw him backward.
A black flower that had suddenly sneaked close to her swallowed the man soundlessly. It wasn't a true flower, but it seemed to be created by the darkness around them. A few streaks of silver light seemed to twist around the darkness, creating the flower's petals. When the person's shoulder touched the flower's stamen, it opened up, and the man's body slid into the dark opening.
The flash that Lin Sanjiu saw was the streaks of light from the flower.
'This is an ability?' Lin Sanjiu was shocked. 'Why, why would they suddenly develop abilities?'
A withered young girl, about ten, held onto the black flower's roots with her two skinny hands. She stared at Lin Sanjiu creepily. She threw the flower, and it started spinning toward Lin Sanjiu. It was apparently the girl's ability.
"Are these people all posthumans?" Lin Sanjiu evaded the attack in a very unsightly manner. She looked at the few dozen people left. She ran toward an empty spot because she could see quite a few people's hands glowing. They were obviously preparing to use their ability.
Lin Sanjiu inhaled deeply. She didn't care to conserve her Higher Consciousness. She activated her [No coincidence. No story]. With her current condition, she was using her Higher Consciousness like fuel each time she activated her active ability. It expended her Higher Consciousness very quickly. Furthermore, she would have no chance of survival if she entered that state like in the Oasis.
However, she had to live through this before thinking about revival.
Since she had already started using her ability, she also decisively decided to use her [Defense Forcefield'. With two layers of protection, she took a large risk and rushed directly at the few people. She didn't know which of them activated an ability. Her abdomen hurt slightly, and almost half of her abdominal muscles, which had already developed, were consumed. Meanwhile, she activated her [Mosaic Censorship] and turned the few people into smoke immediately.
The subsequent battle was a very tough one. While Lin Sanjiu fought off her foes, Mrs. Manas strictly monitored the expenditure of her Higher Consciousness. Every now and then, Mrs. Manas would tell her to stop her attacks so that she could recover some of her Higher Consciousness.
If she continued fighting, Lin Sanjiu knew it would be a little tough, but she was confident she could kill all of them. However, the people attacking her stopped again.
Once again, the people started asking her to identify Derik. This time, she only had five seconds. Lin Sanjiu didn't know if she was imagining things, but she felt that the speed of their talking and disappearing into the darkness seemed faster. It was so fast that she couldn't really keep up with them. She could only try her best to fend off the attacks while she made her choices.
She only had one correct guess when the number fell from 38 to 19. When it fell from 19 to 9, she didn't even make a single correct guess. When the number fell from 9 to 3, Lin Sanjiu had already used up much of her Higher Consciousness. Her foot bones, tibia, and all the muscles and bones above her kneecap disappeared completely. At that moment, she was legless and floating in the air.
The three people who were left had incredible combat capabilities, and their abilities were unfathomably powerful. Lin Sanjiu didn't know where they were hiding before and why they didn't attack her earlier.
Lin Sanjiu quickly understood this mystery. They didn't fight for long, and the people stopped. Then, they faced Lin Sanjiu and asked the same familiar words, "Guess which of us is Derik?"
Without much consideration, Lin Sanjiu made a random choice. A vague thought appeared in her mind.
Two people disappeared into the darkness. The remaining person suddenly became shorter. Like an ice cream melting in summer, it just suddenly became short. After that, his appearance became something like clay. An invisible hand sculpted the person's face, and gradually, the person began to look like Derik.
This was the first time she had seen Derik since she entered this place.
"Hi! Oh boy, you really are a strange fellow," Derik laughed when his appearance stabilized and he observed Lin Sanjiu.
"I understand!" Lin Sanjiu shouted to Mrs. Manas as she had a sudden eureka moment.