Doomsday Wonderland Vol. 14: Cloudwalk Heights [Complete]

1757: Two Lives

So it wasn't time to go home yet.

Ye De forced his eyes open, but whether it was from exhaustion or the tears blurring his vision, he couldn't see anything clearly. All he could make out was a faint, pale blur above him.

Ye Jing was gone. The sunlight outside the orphanage was gone. He was back in the cold, silent, expressionless night.

The effects of the coffee had nearly run their course. Weakness and exhaustion crept into the edges of his mind like shadows, waiting for the moment to seize him.

His temples throbbed violently, as if his brain were about to snap under the strain. His thoughts scattered like broken shards, and the only thing he could focus on was a bewildering question: why had he stopped falling mid-air?

Anton, in his mutated form, could still stretch his arm to grab the city wall above. But with his weight, no wall or rock could hold him. Yet here he was. What was he holding onto?

Distracted by his confusion, his muscles relaxed slightly. Immediately, he felt his hands slip from whatever they were clutching, and gravity reclaimed him, yanking him straight down toward the smog below. The pale blur above him seemed startled and dove downward. It was at that moment Ye De remembered and understood why everything had felt so strange and awkward.

It was as if someone were grabbing him by the collar and lifting him off the ground. It was an utterly impossible notion, yet it was the essence of his current situation.

Ye De reacted instinctively. Just as he started to fall, the round, silver head of his Silver-Head ability dove after him. In his panic, he reached out and wrapped his arms tightly around it, stabilizing his descent.

He gasped for breath, every muscle in his body tensed, afraid to move even an inch. Only his eyes shifted downward for a glance.

He was much closer to the smog layer than to Chimeric City now. He could smell the unique, suffocating scent of the smog, like countless fingers pressing against his face, searching for a way inside.

Below him, the dense, solid-looking smog seemed almost like a tangible surface, stretching endlessly in the dim, black night. His gaze couldn't penetrate the smog, and he couldn't see where Anton had fallen, or whether he was alive or still trying to climb back up.

It was almost unimaginable that, amid the terror of falling from a cliff and the impending exhaustion from the coffee's fading effects, he had retained just enough rationality and willpower to summon the Silver-Head in time and cling to it to halt his fall.

He knew he didn't want to die. He carried two lives with him—his own and Ye Jing's. As long as he was alive, every breath he took seemed to breathe life back into Ye Jing, allowing her to keep seeing the world and this city through him.

But the same force keeping the Silver-Head suspended in mid-air came from his own strength. The tighter he clung to it, the heavier the burden on himself. He could feel his energy rapidly draining in this precarious tug-of-war balance, his strength slipping away with each passing second.

Forget about sending a message to Lin Sanjiu; he was already pushing his ability to its limits just to keep the Silver-Head afloat. Its other functions were entirely out of reach. He couldn't rise back up or call for help. Had all his planning amounted to nothing more than a few extra minutes of life?

No—wait. He wasn't completely out of options yet.

Panting, Ye De clutched the silver sphere with his left arm, letting his full weight hang on it. Instantly, the sphere wavered in mid-air, trembling as though it might slip and fall at any moment. The instability sent a jolt of fear through him, cold sweat breaking out across his body.

He held his breath for two seconds, and when he realized he hadn't fallen to his death, he quickly reached for his coffee cup with his right hand. Using his teeth, he carefully pried the lid open and poured the last three or four mouthfuls of his emergency coffee reserve into his stomach.

The familiar, reassuring warmth coursed through his veins almost immediately, invigorating him. The silver sphere beneath him seemed steadier too, no longer trembling precariously.

Once his senses sharpened again, Ye De faintly heard voices carried on the night wind.

"Eight-Heads De!" That name—he pieced it together from the fragmented, indistinct shouts. "Eight-Heads De, are you still alive?"

It sounded like... Anna.

"Eight-Heads De!" she yelled. She must have been calling from the edge of the cliff, her voice strained from the effort. Even from such a distance, it reached his ears. "I found some people! We can figure out a way to pull you up. Where are you? Call out!"

How long had she been shouting? She still refused to believe he might have fallen to his death, didn't she?

For a moment, Ye De felt a surge of emotion—part laughter, part tears. As the tangled feelings rose to his throat, they turned into a loud shout. "Anna! I'm here!"

The night wind quieted, leaving him suspended in the dim darkness. After what felt like an eternity, he finally saw beams of flashlight cutting through the faint mist above, sweeping back and forth in search.

The Silver-Head managed to lift him a few inches higher, its maximum capability with his weight. This slight movement caught the searchers' attention, and the beams of light quickly fixed on him. Anna's sobbing voice cried out, "You're alive! I knew it!"

A long rope, patched together from multiple segments of rope, sheets, and fabric, swayed down toward him.

When he was finally pulled back into the city alley by several warm hands, Ye De collapsed to the ground in a daze. He felt as if he had died several times over. The brick pavement under him, the cup of water brought to his lips, and the hurried footsteps around him all seemed separated from him by more than one lifetime.

Unfamiliar voices murmured, "Thank goodness," while someone gasped at the sight of his injuries. Ordinary hands placed something soft under his head. Anna knelt by his side, crying too hard to say anything.

Ye De hovered on the brink of unconsciousness, but he still remembered that he wasn't the only one sent into the city to investigate. He knew he wouldn't last much longer. He had to report the situation here to Lin Sanjiu so she could decide on the next step.

The Silver-Head floated near his shoulder, freed from the burden of carrying his weight. Its remaining strength could just manage to send a message to Lin Sanjiu.

Ye De gasped out the message and waited.

No response. He sent it again.

After a few minutes, still nothing.

Ye De slowly pushed himself upright. He concentrated all his remaining energy into the Silver-Head, letting it float higher to scan for Lin Sanjiu's signal.

Lin Sanjiu, like so many ordinary people, seemed to have vanished from Chimeric City.