Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 234 - 220 Do not stay here1

Chapter 234: 220 Do not stay here1

I was counting on Mazao being able to lock onto the identity of the hostile Impermanence through the skull of the Divine Spear, and at the same time, I didn’t put all the pressure of this task on her shoulders. The backup plan hidden on Lu Chan was the direction of my efforts.

During the final battle at the old stronghold of the Human Bureau, when I had the other two demon hunters take Lu Chan back, it wasn’t just a casual comment made to go along with the mood. I also had the intention of tracking him afterward. Even if I hadn’t said anything, Lu Chan would have been taken back anyway, and I secretly planted a thermal energy marker inside his body.

I had also considered whether I should do the same thing to the other two demon hunters, but they were well-trained experts, and I didn’t have the skill to implant the thermal energy marker in their bodies without them noticing. The information restrictions in their consciousness were not just about preventing them from verbally disclosing information related to the person behind the scenes. Even if they wanted to guide me through their actions, they wouldn’t be able to do so. Aware that they were marked by me, they could only do the opposite.

This intelligence wasn’t something I got from interrogation earlier, it was something I discerned—though saying "discerned" isn’t quite accurate; it seems that I now possess some inexplicably powerful "vision." This might be due to my awakening or perhaps my more profound grasp of the metaphysical essence. I could intuit how the information restrictions on them might manifest under different circumstances.

I plan to see if the hostile Impermanence lurking behind the scenes will make contact with Lu Chan afterward, or if the "other Transcendentalism accomplices" who interact with Lu Chan will reveal the true identity of the Impermanence behind the scenes during their communication. From the past statements by Lu Youxun, it can be seen that this Impermanence is ruthless towards those who do not obey, and may even punish Lu Chan for failing his mission.

Mazao had already found some information related to Lu Youxun from within the skull of the Divine Spear.

"He’s likely what’s known as a ’night patrol,’" she told me.

"Night patrol?" I asked.

"In Luo Mountain, ’patrols’ seem to be divided into ’day patrol’ and ’night patrol,’" she said. "Among them, day patrol refers to the regular patrol, which is the identity he reported to us; the night patrol, on the other hand, specializes in some clandestine intelligence activities and usually doesn’t reveal their identity."

Since ancient times, intelligence work has been associated with darkness. Since patrols are specifically in charge of intelligence, it is only natural that there would be a branch like the night patrol within the Dark Department. I just never anticipated that Lu Youxun would be a character from the shadows.

And such people, once they fail their mission, might be purged by their superiors. Therefore, there’s a possibility that Lu Chan will be killed by his own kind later on. Of course, I must emphasize that I have no intention of protecting Lu Chan; I merely want to trace back to the existence behind the scenes via the thermal energy marker I’ve secretly set.

It’s just a pity that no such traces have appeared yet. After that, Lu Chan was sent to a certain base on Luo Mountain, and only woke up today. After awakening, he didn’t contact his Transcendentalism companions but continued his convalescence honestly.

The current Lu Chan seems both familiar and strange to me. He remains affable and polite in dealing with people and spends most of his time reading and resting in his room. He probably hasn’t initiated contact with Transcendentalism Mountain because he has now reverted to "Governance Ideology’s Lu Chan." Additionally, perhaps due to the sudden change from "Lu Youxun" back to "Lu Chan," his soul seems somewhat unstable and needs time to settle and digest.

Perhaps he has already regained control of his "possibility avatar," but his soul is in poor condition, so he can’t use it for now. According to Mazao’s observations so far, if the soul has issues, even the perception of Mana can be affected, so it’s uncertain whether the current Lu Chan can sense the unique marker that I’ve placed inside his body.

I have no choice but to continue spying on his daily life.

Besides, I’m also investigating another matter.

I took a trip to the Arctic in my spare time.

Suddenly mentioning something like this might give people quite a shock, but in reality, it isn’t anything to be overly astonished about. Speaking of the Arctic, it is indeed a place very far from our country and could even be described as "the ends of the earth." It would be an exhausting journey for ordinary people to reach there, but that’s a concern for normal people. For me, it’s a different matter—I just need to find a secluded spot and shoot a Fireball towards the north.

The straight-line distance from the city I’m currently in to the Arctic is only about six thousand kilometers, and my Fireball at full speed would reach in just a couple of minutes. After that, using this Fireball as a coordinate to teleport myself to the Arctic is a piece of cake. The question is what to do next.

I only know that the North Pole might be extremely important. According to the clues from the "illusion", one must come to this place to obtain the complete divine seal. However, the North Pole is simply too vast, searching for clues related to the divine seal here is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I wonder if bringing Mazao here would make related clues automatically converge to us.

After all, what does it really mean to "obtain the complete divine seal"? At first, I thought that what was referred to as "obtaining the complete divine seal" in the memories accompanying the "illusion" meant that the last Divine Seal Fragment was in the North Pole, and that collecting it would restore the divine seal to its totality. However, considering the contradictory nature of the divine seal being "intact yet shattered", it’s possible that an unbroken divine seal is indeed buried in the North Pole.

The so-called "accidental wish of splitting the world into two" from the Master of Divine Seal also sounds intriguing. The division of the world is likely referring to the separation of the "normal world" and the "abnormal world". In the past, I thought that the Master of Divine Seal had made a wish to separate the two. But now it seems that this separation phenomenon is simply an unexpected byproduct, and the Master of Divine Seal’s true wish is something else—assuming the information obtained from the "illusion" is entirely reliable.

There is also another point, only becoming clear to me after actually venturing to the North Pole—that this planet is truly too small.

It only takes me a few minutes to travel from this country to the North Pole, and if I wanted to, I could simply set tens of thousands of "Firefly" coordinates around the world and combine them with my speed to reach any corner of the Earth in a very short amount of time.

Even expanding my range to the moon isn’t out of the question. I’m not afraid of extreme temperatures, nor do I fear the vacuum and radiation. It’s not impossible... to send "Firefly" coordinates to Mercury and Mars... Of course, given the great distance to Mercury and Mars, reaching them would still require a long interstellar voyage.

What I mean is, if I am determined to chase and kill an enemy, even if they escape Earth, they might still be killed by me. And if even I can do such a thing, it wouldn’t be difficult for Impermanence and other beings of Great Success Rank to achieve similar feats. I once fleetingly considered if it was feasible to flee overseas with Mazao, but now looking back, it was just naïve thinking.

If I now take Mazao to the North Pole to investigate, it might instead provide an opportunity for the hostile Impermanence to ambush us, putting Mazao in danger. Considering that overseas there are likely organizations managing supernatural affairs, there could be room to maneuver while considering territorial disputes and the like, but as outsiders like Mazao and I handle it, we would likely be outwitted by our own cleverness.

That being said, continuing to stay in this city isn’t a good idea either. When we were having dinner at a restaurant outside, Mazao was sitting on the couch, looking through the floor-to-ceiling window at passersby and vehicles from time to time, showing a worried expression. It’s rare for her to divert her attention away from good food. I asked her what she was worried about, and she opened up.

"—Is it really okay for us to stay here?" she asked.

I probed further: "What do you mean?"

"If that Impermanence really decides to take action, this city might be destroyed," she said.

This truly wasn’t baseless worrying.

I also looked out of the floor-to-ceiling window at the street view, imagining my battleground with Yinyue would be here...

If that unknown Impermanence, just like Yinyue, recklessly threw around strategic nuclear bomb-scale spells in the city, the city would definitely be leveled to the ground. Although based on Impermanence’s attitude of observing the secular world, such an act might not happen, but such an attitude is inherently vague and does not impose any objective restraint on Impermanence. The uproar caused by my fight with Yinyue was so huge that nobody dared to object. I even suspect these Impermanence beings have long wanted to attempt that.

Especially the Impermanence adherents of Transcendentalism, who do not regard humans as humans, might not care at all if a few hundred thousand or even millions of civilians died.

Logically, Mazao shouldn’t need to remind me that a supernatural power user with massive destructive capabilities like me should always be aware of how fighting others could harm bystanders, yet I really never considered this before. My flames can distinguish between friend and foe; for example, in the battle against the monster creator, even if I summoned a Fire Sea in the busy district, I could ensure no one was harmed. With this assumption, I became too accustomed to staying in urban areas and never pondered how unsuitable I am for living amongst the crowd.

Upon reflection, for someone like me residing in populated areas, it’s as if humanity is walking around in a micro-city bonsai.

The street view in front of me is unchanged, yet it feels as if it has transformed into a landscape from another world.

An indescribable sense of detachment emerged in my heart.

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