Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 493 - 463 heading to the destination

Chapter 493: 463 heading to the destination

This is the map Lu Chan submitted to me earlier, marking three suspected branch bases.

At first glance, Lu Chan’s list of suspects seems shorter, as if he has delved deeper than Liu Shuying, but the areas marked on the two maps mostly do not overlap. This might be unavoidable, as Ming Zhuo himself is inherently suspicious, making all associated branch bases appear suspect.

One of them used social networks for the investigation, while the other likely used the powers of Impermanence; hence, their standards and directions of suspicion differ, but it’s like devouring from two ends of the same line, eventually converging at the same point.

Both Lu Chan and Liu Shuying insisted that there is definitely one real "culprit" on their lists, and there’s one overlapping mark on both maps. I think the location we need to focus on is this one.

This branch base is located in the outskirts of a coastal city within the country. Additionally, Lu Chan wrote a short annotation on the map’s edge, suspecting this place to be a branch base where Extraordinaryism conducts small-scale social experiments.

The data he submitted also mentioned that despite initially suspecting that the Extraordinaryism’s experiment site would be at the border, further investigations led him to explore other directions. The real places to suspect are not the border areas but the regions with less attention from Luoshan forces.

In the past, Luoshan was purely an organization with the mission of hunting anomalies, so regions gaining more attention were often those where anomalies gathered, rather than economically prosperous areas. Although these two types of regions overlap in many cases, it’s accurate to say that the more humans gather in a place, the more susceptible it is to anomalies; however, there are some economically well-off areas less prone to encounters with anomalies, like the city near this Luoshan branch base.

This situation may be because this city only recently became a new economically well-off area, with human gatherings outpacing the gathering of anomalies. Yet, for ordinary people today, the powers of Luoshan’s Extraordinaryism are a more terrifying darkness than the so-called anomalies. If such special conditions attract the "favor" of Extraordinaryism, it would be better not to be so special.

I explained the map to Liu Shuying simply, and he thoughtfully said, "Oh... it seems you have some formidable talent there, perhaps that Lu Chan? He is quite renowned in Luoshan. Many doubt his credibility, yet few have ever questioned his ability."

I did not follow up on this but proceeded directly: "Now that we’ve locked onto the target, let’s take swift action."

"Alright."

He nodded briskly, then showed a hint of curiosity and said, "But... I thought it would take several days to persuade you. I didn’t expect you to agree so readily... Is there a special reason?"

"Is there any other reason needed to deal with Shan Liangyi?"

While asking rhetorically, I observed him.

Through a series of interactions and conversations, I still couldn’t definitively conclude if he is Shan Liangyi. From a reasoning perspective, proving he isn’t Shan Liangyi is premature; from an intuitive perspective, I don’t think he is.

However, assuming as an imaginary enemy someone capable of opening the third gate, intuition isn’t reliable under such circumstances; the opponent might well have the capability to deceive and fake on this level. Even so, compared to my average mind, I still trust my intuition more.

Moreover, although I am interested in his topic of "taking some risks," I haven’t actually been consumed by the impulse to take risks.

If Liu Shuying is truly Shan Liangyi and later bares his fangs against me, then I’ll meet him head-on and settle the match. Fire and Earth don’t have an elemental restraint relationship, although Shan Liangyi has the central Yellow Dragon’s identity as a power source to suppress, at any time my showdown with him would necessitate facing such a situation. It’s not an obstacle to be overcome with some tricks.

In a scenario where Shan Liangyi isn’t the Taoyuan Village Master, the current Shan Liangyi only has the Yellow Dragon Seed and is at his weakest. According to Water Navy Xuanwu, as long as the Liangyi Inheritor becomes the Impermanence, Shan Liangyi cannot unconditionally retrieve the opponent’s Power Seed.

Thus, Water Navy Xuanwu’s fixation on seizing other Liangyi Inheritors’ Power Seeds is to become Impermanence, qualifying to stand before Shan Liangyi. Considering water is restricted by earth, Water Navy Xuanwu’s initial desire for my Power Seed might also include wanting to break free from the restraint relationship.

In other words, this is also a challenging opportunity for me.

If I were to evade even this opportunity and say "let’s talk later," I would find it hard to believe that I could muster the courage to face challenges in the future. Moreover, I never thought real crises would kindly wait until everything is ready before striking.

Although this timing came unexpectedly, I decided to act when the time is ripe.

Of course, even if Liu Shuying truly isn’t Shan Liangyi, it doesn’t mean he has no other schemes in this matter, perhaps he is hiding his intentions in other directions, which I must observe later.

"Moreover, I’m somewhat interested in you as well," I said.

"In me?" Liu Shuying seemed able to read my mind as he asked rhetorically, "Aren’t you worried I have other plots?"

"I’m only worried you don’t have any plots," I replied.

He was slightly stunned, then looked at me, for some reason displaying a joyful expression.

"Yes, yes, that’s exactly it!" he said energetically. "Perhaps we’ll get along well."

-

We left the Luoshan Headquarters and instantly arrived at the outskirts of the coastal city.

On the way moving around the branch base, I asked him incidentally, "Since you’ve used the power of Prophet in the past to investigate Shan Liangyi, have you obtained more detailed information?

"For example... if the Liangyi Inheritors should kill each other, would the seed of the one who died be transferred to Shan Liangyi’s hand, or would it just vanish on the spot?"

As for whether it would automatically transfer to the body of the surviving Liangyi Inheritor from the massacre, I think that’s unlikely. Water Navy Xuanwu said it is something only someone who has deeply studied Shan Liangyi’s rituals and partially decrypted the mechanism could do; in fact, I did not feel any water attribute power appear in my body after killing Water Navy Xuanwu.

However, I suspect that the Xuanwu Seed may have already fallen into Shan Liangyi’s hands. Although Water Navy Xuanwu now appears to be resurrected, during his death, the Xuanwu Seed may have transferred, and whether it would automatically return from Shan Liangyi to Water Navy Xuanwu upon his revival seems highly unlikely to me.

"You want to ask about Xuanwu’s situation, right? I can answer that for you," Liu Shuying said. "If a Liangyi Inheritor dies at the hands of someone other than Shan Liangyi, the Power Seed will automatically transfer to Shan Liangyi’s body — however, this is the general case.

"Since Shan Liangyi’s Power Seed also possesses attributes that transcend time and space, if the slain Liangyi Inheritor will be resurrected in the future, the Power Seed will prioritize traversing time and space to transfer back to the revived Liangyi Inheritor...

"Or to put it this way, for something that transcends time and space, past, present, and future exist simultaneously, all times are one time. If someone who died in the past will be resurrected in the future, it can be seen as if the person never actually died, merely skipped the intervening time. For the Power Seed, it’s as if it skipped that gap along with the person, never having left the person’s body."

Human logic follows the cause-and-effect relationship, with causality following the temporal order; hence, once time issues arise, causality tends to collapse, and regular logic loses its footing.

The Power Seed is an existence inapplicable to regular logic.

"Do you have any other questions? I’ll answer within my ability," Liu Shuying said.

"Really? Then could you answer about the Doomsday prophecy?" I asked. "Why do you think the world will end?"

Liu Shuying gave me a meaningful look, then said, "... It’s regrettable; that’s a question beyond my ability to answer."

"Even though you are the one who predicted Doomsday?" I questioned.

"Prophets can only see the outcome of the future, not necessarily know the whole string of causes leading to the result," Liu Shuying explained. "If the world were a test paper, the Prophet would be a cheating student with the answers in advance, and the sad part is, this answer doesn’t include the deduction process."

He was probably telling the truth, but I still believed he was concealing something. Perhaps normal Prophets indeed have such limitations, but I do not think he is a regular Prophet. Apart from anything else, a newly debuted Impermanence of merely four years possessing prophetic abilities surpassing even Gua Tianshi in some aspects is abnormal.

His power of Prophet, including this temporary diminishing with time, very much resembles Shan Liangyi’s Reincarnation. So, even if he isn’t Shan Liangyi, he might be a time transmigrator or reborn type. The advantage gained from foresight gradually reduces as one increasingly influences the future, quite reasonable indeed.

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