Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 106 - 103 Shadow Swapping Monster 7

Chapter 106: 103 Shadow Swapping Monster 7

The man’s charred body seemed to have become a fragile eggshell, and what hatched from it was an alien monster far larger than the body it emerged from.

Its head as hideous as that of a Damascus goat, and its muscles, black and swollen with rage, formed a towering figure three meters tall... The creature that could only be described as a "Demon" now appeared before the eyes of the people in the nightclub’s rest area.

The small girl who had been standing behind the massage chair fell to the ground in terror, her young voice trembling as if she wanted to scream but unconsciously suppressed it. Because she wore a rabbit mask, it was initially difficult for me to judge. Now, I realized that this petite girl must be one of the nightclub workers Changan mentioned, younger by seven or eight years than Jinyu.

But I didn’t have the energy to pay attention to that right now. The monster had appeared, and he was my target. After revealing its combat form, the monster was still entangled in flames, continuously wailing in agony.

Its consciousness must still be very hazy. Who would expect to be set ablaze while enjoying themselves in a nightclub? The Shadow Clones summoned by the man in the black suit I had killed earlier seemed to have no connection with the host. Just like the Undying Monster had said, the monster and its Shadow Clones did not share senses.

The onlookers finally seemed to snap out of it, fleeing in terror. However, the Shadow Swapping Monster did not attack others as they might have assumed. Instead, it targeted itself first.

It transformed its right arm into the shape of a blade, seeking to slash its own throat.

This was an obvious attempt at suicide. But when it occurred to him, the situation was not so simple. If he committed suicide, his superpower of Shadow Swapping would be triggered involuntarily, causing him to exchange spatial positions with a clone of his, of whose whereabouts he was unaware, and transfer all the flames entwining him to the clone. In other words, he was trying to escape.

I had thought at first he might not be clever enough to consider this technique, but I had underestimated him. However, I was well prepared for this. The moment I noticed his abnormal action, I had already manipulated the flames around him and created a giant Flame Palm, using it to wrap around him and pin him down.

His movements were immediately restrained, and he became unable to budge. Then, the giant Flame Palm hurled his massive body diagonally upward.

Just as one would throw a discus with full force inside a house made entirely of fragile glass, the body of the Shadow Swapping Monster was flung through the wall, creating a clean pass-through. After piercing the wall, his momentum remained unchecked as he smashed through several more walls and ceilings, eventually soaring high above the nightclub into the open air.

The giant Flame Palm I created possessed an extraordinary strength; after being ejected from the nightclub, the monster flew horizontally for five or six hundred meters and finally landed in a small forest away from the bustling city.

Had it been the body of a mere mortal, they would have been smashed into pulp. However, the opponent was a monster, with a body more robust than armored steel. Capable of withstanding gunfire and explosions, surviving a high-altitude fall was trivial. Though he landed hard, it seemed he was merely dazed and not seriously injured.

Through the thermal energy marker implanted in his body, I could sense the scenery within a certain distance around him and freely summon flames in this range. The next second, I called forth a flame at a distance ahead of him and teleported myself there.

In the blink of an eye, my view switched from the bustling streets to the rarely traversed forest, with the shaky monster standing twenty meters away.

He lifted his head and caught sight of me.

Then, his nose quite visibly twitched. Since his current head resembled more an animal’s than a human’s, I suspected his sense of smell might be exceedingly sharp, not just his muscular strength. Perhaps by scent, he had identified me as the "culprit" who had secretly launched the fire attack last night—it enraged him, and he let out a murky roar, "Is it you!?"

"Yes, it’s me." I intentionally attracted his attention while lifting my palm, summoning a volleyball-sized Fireball.

"You think I would give you a chance!" he bellowed.

Believing that I would launch an attack, he promptly charged at me.

It seemed he had no intention of fleeing for the time being. To receive such a beating at my hands and still not retreat—no, perhaps it was precisely because he had suffered so much that he wanted to lash out against me. Whether he could win the fight might not even have entered his consideration.

The confidence he displayed was undoubtedly rooted in his superpower of Shadow Swapping. On reflection, this line of thinking was quite understandable. Shadow Swapping was both an immortal’s shield and a guarantee for an escape from any battlefield at any time. With personal safety absolutely ensured, one can be as bold as they dare. Moreover, I appeared to be a lone Flame Ability User, which made him all the more unrestrained.

Overcoming his Shadow Swapping superpower was a challenge that we had to tackle. For us, defeating him was easy; the real difficulty was killing him, especially making sure that his brain’s information wasn’t destroyed by the seed of the heart after his death.

For this, Zhu Shi was indispensable.

In the moment the Shadow Swapping Monster’s attention was focused entirely on me, Zhu Shi, clad in a straw raincoat and wearing a wide-brimmed hat, appeared behind him wraithlike, with a drawn sword and eyes a piercing lake-blue.

And Mazao emerged from another direction—having removed her kitty whisker mask, she was rushing towards the location from afar.

The small woods were a battleground we had deliberately chosen, with Zhu Shi and Mazao lying in ambush around the area. That being said, the parabola of my throw of the Shadow Swapping Monster was not very precise, and the landing point had a huge deviation. Fortunately, we had discussed this point beforehand, and the two were concealed at different locations within the woods. This way, at least one person was guaranteed to be relatively close when the monster landed.

Now, it seemed that Zhu Shi was the closer of the two. As she approached, she went straight for the back of the neck of the Shadow Swapping Monster with a sword strike.

At the same time, the Shadow Swapping Monster appeared to sense her killing intent and violently turned around to look.

Zhu Shi’s potentially fatal strike ultimately failed to take the life of the Shadow Swapping Monster. Just as she was about to succeed, a dark arm mysteriously grew from her shoulder and grabbed her sword-wielding wrist.

Although the distance was significant, I was still able to see the truth of this startling change clearly with my thermal energy perception. It was an arm formed from a shadow. It was the Shadow Swapping Monster manipulating a shadow to stop Zhu Shi’s slash.

Speaking of shadows, they always give people the impression of creeping on the ground, but shadows can be formed anywhere. They might cast on walls or appear on a person. If I’m not mistaken, it could be that tree shade was cast upon Zhu Shi, and the Shadow Swapping Monster was precisely manipulating that tree shade.

More shadowy substances emerged from Zhu Shi’s body, turning into blades to attack their host.

However, almost instantly, I saw a burst of silver sword light envelop Zhu Shi, wildly flashing and flickering around her, grinding all the shadowy substances to pieces. It turned out that Zhu Shi had switched her sword to her left hand and dealt with all the shadowy substances on her body at a speed that the naked eye couldn’t capture.

The Shadow Swapping Monster didn’t pursue Zhu Shi but continued to sprint toward me. Perhaps in its view, dealing with me, the one with the greatest firepower, was the top priority. Compared to the previous encounter with the Undying Monster, this Shadow Swapping Monster’s skill in manipulating shadows and its combat thinking were clearly more sophisticated.

This was fine by me, as I wanted to see if I could overcome his shape-shifting superpower with my own strength.

Taking advantage of the brief moment Zhu Shi had bought for me, I slapped a Fireball onto my chest with the back of my hand, igniting my own body.

I had entered the Fire Element form.

Under this form, I didn’t have as many inconveniences as in my normal state, my consciousness operated at a blazing speed, so much so that the passage of time seemed to slow down to a crawl in my eyes.

Leaves seemed to be frozen in mid-air, sounds around me stretched and distorted, and what looked like a speeding arrow of a monster rushing at me now appeared as slow as a worm crawling. Moreover, it seemed I could further speed up the operation of my consciousness.

Zhu Shi, who had just dealt with the shadowy substances, was catching up. Although her speed also appeared slow to my senses, she was visibly faster than the Shadow Swapping Monster. Considering I might make a mistake later and wanted to give her a chance to join in, I patiently waited for her to close some distance before launching my own attack.

I extended my right hand toward the Shadow Swapping Monster, like squishing an ant with my finger, and a column of fire several meters wide descended from the sky, pressing the unsuspecting Shadow Swapping Monster into it.

Under the baptism of fire, the body of the Shadow Swapping Monster evaporated on the spot.

Of course, I was still controlling the intensity. Consciously differentiating, the fire only eradicated the part of the Shadow Swapping Monster below the neck, while the head remained intact, not even singeing half a hair.

With my current speed of consciousness, the head even appeared to be floating in mid-air. But that wasn’t the case; it just hadn’t had time to fall yet. And what followed was the challenging part.

Through the fire surrounding its head, I once again had that incredible sensation, like last night—something metaphysical, unable to be described in terms of size or shape, had appeared. This entity wanted to escape swiftly from my flames.

Perhaps this was what Zhu Shi referred to as "cause and effect." The superpower attempting to swap the original and clone’s existences symbolized the cause and effect of the Shadow Swapping Monster’s original body trying to escape.

Last time, unprepared, I could only watch helplessly as this entity fled; but this time, not only was I prepared, I had also entered my strongest Fire Element form in advance. There were no more problems with my reaction time, and the speed at which the superpower activated seemed slow to me. I had ample time to observe and study it.

So, could I now directly intervene with the cause and effect itself?

Watching this cause and effect, I quickly came to a conclusion.

I could directly interfere with this cause and effect through strength.

But this kind of interference seemed different from what I wanted.