Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 205 - 194 out of the cage 1_2

Chapter 205: 194 out of the cage 1_2

"I had already made this request to her when you were investigating the enemy stronghold, and she had agreed,"

"Is that so?" I asked Mazao.

After the strong enemy had left, Mazao moved back to my side, nodding, "As long as there is an item that could take over the burden of my soul, there will be no problem."

Then, she glanced in the direction where Divine Spear had departed and said with guilt, "...Zhuang Cheng, I’m sorry, I couldn’t be of any help to you, and even caused you trouble..."

"I actually like the trouble you bring me," I said.

"Eh?" She was startled.

"What I mean is... don’t worry about it."

After rephrasing, I looked at Lu Youxun and asked, "Are you in any trouble? Divine Spear seemed quite unhappy about you hiding information from me. Will he take revenge after the fact?"

"Don’t worry, he and I have some rapport, and I know how to bluff my way through. Instead of worrying about that, you should be more concerned about her," he said, glancing at Mazao. "It looks like Divine Spear won’t let this go easily. What if he suddenly comes back and kidnaps her? Relying solely on the G—— on her wrist—"

"Ah— Ah—"

Zhu Shi suddenly made a loud noise.

"Zhu Shi, what’s wrong?"

Mazao looked puzzled and turned to Lu Youxun, asking, "Also, were you just talking about my bracelet? What about my bracelet?"

Lu Youxun’s gaze darted back and forth between us, and with a strange expression, he said, "...Oh, it’s nothing, don’t worry about it."

To divert Mazao’s attention, I immediately brought the topic back, "I left the ’Firefly’ here, and now my connection with the secret base is very smooth. Having ’Firefly’ here is equivalent to my presence."

"That’s good to know," Lu Youxun nodded.

Now that the Luoshan Office was damaged, it was inconvenient for us to stay, so we directly headed to the "clinic."

Fortunately, the agents responsible for the Luoshan Office were not seriously injured during Divine Spear’s attack—actually, they were a bit injured. The sound of the Luoshan Office being blasted to ruins was so loud it caused them concussions and shattered their eardrums. Luckily, there were plenty of healing items in the ruins, and Lu Youxun decided to use them on the agents, quickly healing them.

On the way, I also briefly checked my "harvest"—

When I attacked Divine Spear earlier, I did more than just burn his arm.

Learning from the past experience with Chen Long, the flames I released now did not only possess physical destructive power but also specifically targeted the soul’s destructive force. The flames just now should have also caused some damage to Divine Spear’s soul to some extent. However, this was the first time I consciously harmed someone’s soul, and the feeling was still quite unfamiliar to me.

Strictly speaking, maybe it wasn’t the first time; in fact, when I burnt the researchers and guards at the Human Bureau’s secret base, I also had the intention to harm their souls. But to put it frankly, my opponents’ levels were not up to scratch, and I couldn’t even discern whether they died from soul damage or purely from the physical destructive power of the flames.

Since the souls of the enemies I’ve killed up to now have been turned into "ash," it means that my flames inherently possess the power to harm souls; it’s just that in the past, I was unconsciously utilizing this power. That level would not have been enough to deal with Great Success Rank enemies. But this time, I finally directly attacked the soul of a Great Success Rank enemy.

The evidence was the "ash."

After killing the Divine Spear, I was left with a large amount of "ash," which was more than half of what I had accumulated up to that point.

Hence, I could also make the inference that "ash" wasn’t the same as the "experience points" in virtual games. In virtual games, the acquisition of "experience points" could be used to deduce whether the enemy had died, whereas with "ash," it could be converted as long as the soul was burned.

Judging from the reaction of the Divine Spear, the damage to his soul didn’t seem particularly severe. Because I only burned off one of his arms, his soul was likely only deprived of an equivalent amount. For someone of the Great Success Rank, losing an arm was not a big deal, and even if it was damage at the soul level, there were probably many ways to repair it.

Actually, I feel that "damage to the soul" shouldn’t be calculated like that, or to put it another way, the soul shouldn’t be measured in terms of quantitative loss... but as a human, perhaps I can only inflict quantifiable damage on others’ souls, similar to "damage equivalent to the loss of an arm."

If I could manage not to be so chained to the benchmarks of the material world, perhaps even if I seemed to only have burned off a finger of the Divine Spear, I could completely incinerate his soul... No, that’s still a notion bound by material space-time. Why must I go through the intermediary of physically harming the body in order to damage the opposing soul?

But then, is it still fire if I wield flames that can affect an opponent’s soul without passing through material space-time?

Instead of calling it fire, it would be more like a curse in the form of flames. Nevertheless, I didn’t believe that was a direction beyond my reach. I recalled my past experiences of extending flames into the metaphysical plane.

While contemplating the evolutionary directions for my superpower, I refocused my consciousness on the secret base’s control room, continuing my investigation of the information on the bookshelves.

This time I didn’t manage to uncover any particularly important information, merely storing the experimental data and records in my consciousness. The work of the young girl Lu Chan was also progressing in parallel; she had already persuaded all the imprisoned demon hunters to join the rebellion plan and was on her way back.

As my investigation of the bookshelves neared its end, one inconsequential report caught my eye. It seemed worth mentioning—the report was about the "demon hunter in the cell next door," whom I had incidentally rescued when I first entered the secret base. Naturally, he hadn’t managed to escape from this secret base; he didn’t cause much of a stir, and he was soon spotted by the base’s internal surveillance system. He fought with the nearby guards and died in the struggle.

Although he was a stranger, I couldn’t help but sigh at the thought that someone I had rarely helped had failed to escape.

However, in such a place, it didn’t matter whether one was caught or even killed; he was already an "Earth-bound Spirit" of this living hell, unable to escape no matter what.

And now was the time to destroy hell.

I put the last folder back on the shelf, then turned around and opened the door to the control room.

A delicate and beautiful girl, fourteen or fifteen years of age and dressed in a white restraint outfit, appeared before me.

"Everything is ready," the young girl Lu Chan said.

I made a final confirmation, "Should we start now?"

At that moment, over a hundred "Fireflies" had already been dispersed throughout the secret base due to Lu Chan’s efforts. The "Fireflies" I had brought to her were not only responsible for scouting routes, but they had also self-divided and embedded into all the iron cell doors and Magic Seal Locks.

She closed her eyes, seemingly recalling the various experiences she had in this place of horror, then exhaled a deep breath, slowly opened her eyes, and said solemnly, "—Let’s begin."

As her words fell, I issued a directive to all the "Fireflies" inside the secret base.

In my perception, over a hundred "Fireflies" ignited at once, their flames coalescing and solidifying into the shape of keys, unlocking all the constraints; and the demon hunters who had joined the rebellion plan clearly sensed the Magic Seal Locks becoming inactive, as the iron doors of their cells swung open automatically.

All the prisoners were liberated.

Suddenly, numerous mana fluctuations burst forth in various parts of the base.