Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 534 - 501 Moonlight

Chapter 534: 501 Moonlight

I feel as if my entire body has been injected with concrete, making it difficult to move; my vision rapidly turning dark, and breathing becomes labored.

Tan Xiang, who fell to the ground, resembles a stiff corpse, but only through the cold sweat on his face, the blinking of his eyes, and the movement of his lips can you tell he’s still alive.

"Is this... poison?" My vocal organs clearly suffered a severe negative impact as well.

The Cartographer took out a small glass bottle from his pocket, with some translucent liquid still inside.

"I poisoned the food earlier."

He spoke in a calm tone, as if discussing something unimportant, "Never let down your guard just because you’re powerful—I must have warned you about this."

"Even though I reminded you, some sinister survivors won’t duel with you fairly. They will sneaky come up behind you and unexpectedly take your life, yet you remain unwary. Although Flame Ability has immense power, as long as you are of flesh, even if you can destroy a city with one blow, there are ten thousand ways to lead you to defeat."

"Originally, I planned to deal with you outside, fearing any accidents might harm those two children, but seeing your carelessness, perhaps there was no need for such caution from the start."

"Now, you look like a dead person, your ability to think normally has been stripped away. You can’t see around you, even less so can you discern which direction I’m in, right?"

That’s not quite the case.

Poisoning the food—this I really didn’t anticipate. From a general standpoint, one’s vigilance shouldn’t be reduced to the point of not suspecting food presented by strangers in such a perilous environment. But my situation is rather unusual.

After becoming Impermanence, I’ve increasingly accustomed myself to being akin to a walking flame, no longer thinking of myself as a flesh-and-blood human. Previously, I would distinctly divide between my normal form and Fire Element Form, using the former for daily life and the latter for combat, yet recently I’ve stopped separating the two. The boundary between them is blurring in my mind.

Who would ever suspect someone poisoning a flame?

The poisoning symptoms I feel now are merely physiological reactions mimicked by my body. When I used to accompany Mazao eating ice cream and got a stomachache, it was also a result of the body mimicking. In such circumstances, this body’s reaction is natural—no more than that.

Naturally, I won’t be genuinely affected by these mimicked physiological responses, I can choose to selectively ignore them.

The Cartographer’s poison trap was flawed from the outset.

Instead of focusing on retaliation, I’m more interested in understanding why he would do this.

His invitation for Tan Xiang and me to be partners seemed completely reasonable, a union conducive to survival; yet now to act against us, especially a "Flame Blessed Monk" like me, is wholly disproportionate in risk and reward.

Could it be there’s something about the Doomsday Era I don’t understand?

Or... is he insane?

"What is your purpose?" I asked.

"Still have the strength to speak, huh..." The Cartographer looked at me.

"Why do this... Didn’t you say you wanted us to be partners?" Tan Xiang also spoke haltingly, "You protected those two children, didn’t even abandon crazy partners... yet you poison us? Why..."

"I did not act out of deep hatred against you, thus before killing you, I don’t mind letting you die with clarity. If hearing me out brings you peace, that’s naturally best." The Cartographer said indifferently, "Firstly, let’s clear a misunderstanding, the madman upstairs is not my partner, and he’s not crazy either.

"I captured that Blessed Monk from outside when he was gravely injured. Initially, I intended for those two children, by consuming him, to complete Sin Demonization with me. Who knew he possessed a quite peculiar Undying Body blessing power—even after repeated attempts, I couldn’t kill him, any meat cut off would turn into phantoms and vanish.

"Without effectively killing and consuming him, it cannot be considered ’mimicking Sin Demon,’ nor can it accelerate Sin Demonization. That said, I couldn’t let him go, so I drove a few nails into his brain tissue preventing normal cognitive function, and locked him on the second floor."

"What..." Tan Xiang voiced incredulously.

From the information disclosed by the other, he grasped the core point, "You... want to become a Sin Demon? How could that..."

To him, the Cartographer’s proposition might sound as absurd as a zombie movie villain revealing his goal as "wanting to become a zombie."

"Sin Demons don’t need to eat, nor do they engage in complex thoughts; they’re freed from all worries, a pure state of existence." The Cartographer gazed at Tan Xiang with murky eyes, "Attaining that state... is that a strange aspiration?

"Perhaps in the eyes of someone as naive about Doomsday as you, it’s an incomprehensible choice. But you haven’t like us, borne so many unbearable despairs.

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