Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 506: The god with the power to give life and death

Chapter 506: The god with the power to give life and death

When initially observing this branch base, both Liu Shuying and I felt that the time and space here were deeply unusual, as if a patch had been applied to a fractured reality. This intuition turned out to be correct, because Xu Gou had indeed overlaid a section of severed time and space here.

As for why Xu Gou chose to join Taoyuan Village, even this Great Success Rank Impermanence didn’t know. However, the first plausible explanation that came to mind was that Xu Gou perhaps wanted to merge his consciousness into the "Paradise" and reunite with his lover in a dream.

But on closer scrutiny, this motive doesn’t really hold up. Considering Xu Gou’s own strength and external conditions, would he so easily give up on the possibility of resurrecting his lover in the real world?

Suppressing this doubt for now, I explained the reasons behind the earlier changes to Changan and then turned back to the Great Success Rank Impermanence, continuing to interrogate him regarding intelligence tied to the Taoyuan Village Master.

The Taoyuan Village Master currently seems to be in a state where he cannot move freely.

The construction of "Paradise" appears to be a particularly arduous and uninterruptable long-term endeavor, requiring the Village Master to constantly use his true self to maintain the existence of "Paradise." Therefore, when I invaded "Paradise" and was relocated to the quarantine zone, he merely sent an incarnation to confront me.

This doesn’t mean his true self is completely immobile, but even if he wanted to move, it would have to be between the critical nodes covered by the dream-like network of "Paradise." In other words, he can only appear at certain key strongholds of Taoyuan Village scattered around the world. Unless absolutely necessary, he would normally remain at the Headquarters.

The location of Taoyuan Village’s Headquarters, while an important secret, is nonetheless known by this Great Success Rank Impermanence.

Logically, someone betraying their original organization by divulging secrets would find it hard to gain the trust of another group. But Taoyuan Village is a very peculiar organization—over eighty percent of its members are traitors from various organizations large and small, scattered across the world. Taoyuan Village, being an organization that naturally connects the consciousness of its members, can easily assess the loyalty of others.

It’s not as though there’s no way to exploit loopholes in this loyalty testing, but this Great Success Rank Impermanence, having been bestowed a high-grade Seed of the Heart by the Taoyuan Village Master, has absolutely no loopholes to exploit. Not to mention that Impermanence inherently has the ability to discern emotional fluctuations in their target, and with the high-grade Seed of the Heart, the Taoyuan Village Master can, through their connection, grasp every memory and psychological activity of the individual as if reading their mind.

This Great Success Rank Impermanence’s pursuit of "Paradise," this ultimate otherworldly realm, is sincere. Perhaps due to the fervor of a convert, he is even more passionate than other believers of Taoyuan Village and has therefore been allowed to take part in highly advanced organizational operations.

After gathering all the intelligence I wanted, I concluded the interrogation process.

"That should just about cover it," I said. "Thank you for your effort, Changan. I’ll send you back to rest now."

"It’s all right, Ah Cheng. Compared to me..." Changan glanced again at the victims. "What do you plan to do with them?"

"Looking at them, it seems they no longer wish to live. I’m planning to end their lives," I said. "There’s no need for you to worry. It will just be a moment, and I can guarantee they won’t feel even a shred of pain."

"Ah Cheng... Can you save them?" Changan asked.

"They’re beyond saving. I can heal their bodies, but I can’t heal their hearts," I replied. "Or are you suggesting I use the Illusion Technique to reforge their broken personalities? Aren’t you going to find such delicate work a bit too challenging in your current state?

"Although, theoretically it’s not impossible. But the ones created this way wouldn’t be the same individuals as they are now, would they?

"More importantly..."

Without my needing to elaborate, Changan clearly understood the difficulty of such a move, but he still seemed to be contemplating whether any other method existed to save the victims.

Seeing his expression, I said, "...Fine, let me give it a try first."

Then, facing the victims, I uttered the Word Spirit.

"—Restore."

As those words reverberated, all the victims, reduced to shattered flesh and broken souls yet refusing to die, were restored to pristine health. Not only did their bodies recover, but their damaged souls were also fully healed.

However, they all collapsed to the ground like puppets, their eyes vacant, appearing more like soul-loss patients than living beings. Even though their eyes were open, it was clear—they were like vegetative husks. Their tormenting, hellish memories had stripped them even of the most basic attachment to life.

The changes didn’t stop there. Likely triggered by the Word Spirit of "restore," another intertwined Word Spirit, "halt," was inadvertently overridden. Slowly but steadily, their bodies began to turn translucent and vanish. At this present moment, they should be nothing more than the dead. Even the world denied them the right to exist, seeking to correct their "living" states back to "death."

Even the Great Success Rank Impermanence crumpled at my feet was beginning to fade. Having fully exhausted his utility to me, he had been categorized in my consciousness as an unnecessary existence, leading me to unconsciously relinquish the Word Spirit power that had once held his fading at bay.

"As expected..."

Witnessing this, even Changan couldn’t conceal his expression of helplessness.

This is the most challenging aspect of saving these victims. How does one rescue those already lost to death’s grasp in reality?

But... solely speaking of saving lives, it’s not as though I have no means whatsoever.

In the past, Gua Tianshi once used his Power of Word Spirit to resurrect Dong Che, who had fallen into a state of premature death but had not yet reached their destined time of demise. These victims, however, find themselves in a paradoxical state. While they exist in a reality where they died, their presence here has been artificially severed and patched by Xu Gou using the Power of Cutting from a timeline in which they were still alive—an overlapping quantum state of both life and death.

Since the world leans toward letting them die, I’ll lean toward reviving them. Lu Chan once mentioned that Impermanence could use the power to rewrite history to revive some inconsequential ordinary individuals and demon hunters, and technically, it was feasible. Though he did note, "A few or a dozen wouldn’t be too difficult..."

Remembering this, I casually counted the victims before me. There were over a hundred... Could I really handle this?

Besides, the situation now is fundamentally different from Dong Che’s back then. Dong Che, being a genius and rank-achieved Impermanence, was revived with ease because while they had died, it wasn’t yet their time—this didn’t require altering history. These victims, conversely, have their death sealed as a fixed event, temporarily undone only because of Xu Gou’s "time-space glitch." Comparing the two is entirely unreasonable.

Well, I’ve already made my promise to Changan. No use dwelling on this; let’s push forward recklessly and give it a try.

Moreover, I’m quite curious myself about what I can achieve.

Facing these victims who had sunk into the sea of despair, utterly devoid of vitality, I uttered my next Word Spirit:

"—Live."

As the words left my lips, the victims who had been fading away as if blown away by the breeze started to transform. The mist-like remnants of their being promptly reformed into flesh-and-blood, tangible bodies. I could distinctly feel that they were no longer spectral fragments pulled from history but embodied, breathing lives fully restored to the present reality.

Remarkably, it worked on the first try.

And it seemed... surprisingly effortless.

"They’re all alive again!" Changan’s eyes widened in amazement.

Feeling the echoes of the sensation, I analyzed and said, "After all, they’re just ordinary people whose lives produced no significant impact... Had there been among them individuals capable of altering the world substantially, reviving them all likely wouldn’t have worked."

"To those ordinary people themselves, the end of their life is no different from the end of the world," Changan retorted.

Seeing those who once suffered under his torment now restored to life, the fading Great Success Rank Impermanence seemed to awaken from the haze of indoctrination, as if a flickering ember of will had been reignited. Struggling weakly, he stammered with trembling lips, "I... I don’t want to die..."

"Then die," I said.

Hearing this cold, damning verdict, his faint hopes extinguished entirely. His body disappeared without a trace, vanishing into the air.