Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 537 - 503 Overwhelming Power

Chapter 537: 503 Overwhelming Power

In nature, being strong doesn’t necessarily ensure survival, nor does being weak necessarily mean you cannot survive. What’s more crucial is whether you can adapt to the current era’s environment.

During the time when dinosaurs reigned supreme, mammals, the ancestors of humans, were mostly small nocturnal creatures the size of mice. They relied on the protection of caves and crevices to avoid being preyed upon by dinosaurs. Some groups even developed the ability to dig into the ground, a feat dinosaurs couldn’t achieve by digging a few feet deep.

Right now, I feel like I’m facing an enemy adept at burrowing and diving. As a Doomsday anomaly, it’s able to evade my attacks not just through its own power, but by adapting to the chaotic space-time of the Doomsday Era. Sometimes, being strong isn’t the only key to survival. Dinosaurs, the dominant creatures of their era, exited the stage of history after a mass extinction event, whereas mammals survived and continued to evolve.

But I wonder if this might simply be because the strong weren’t strong enough?

Both dinosaurs and mammals are weak before the might of nature. If humankind, advanced enough in technology, were to travel back to the Jurassic era, they might escape the crisis of an asteroid impact leading to extinction. Conversely, if dinosaurs were powerful enough to flatten mountains, the ancestors of mammals hiding underground would not be able to evade predation simply through the protection of their environment.

What I need to do now is just that.

The debris swirling and piling up in the sky seemed to transform into a small mountain, plummeting towards the spot where Tan Xiang and I were standing with an overwhelming mass. This is probably the current stage’s full-force attack of the cartographer, now incarnated as a form of probability cloud. Because of the immense size of the mountain of building debris, it seems to be falling slowly, when in fact, it would hit the ground in just about two or three seconds.

Seeing this sight, Tan Xiang had already shown a look of despair.

However, as I slowly pressed down with my lifted palm, from even higher above emerged boundless flames.

This was the glow from my ultra-huge Flame Palm, and the fire’s light spread out with a palm length of three kilometers from fingertip to palm root, descending palm downwards as if to crush an insect, moving towards the ground at a speed far exceeding that of the mountain of building debris.

Compared to this, the mountain of building debris hurtling towards Tan Xiang and me was nothing more than an insignificant pebble. The pedestrian street we were on was only a few hundred meters long, and this giant Flame Palm was enough to engulf it all in hand.

The cartographer now seemed like a math problem, which generally needed to be solved cleverly to kill him. But I chose a brute-force solution—since he’s distributed in any location on this pedestrian street in the form of mathematical possibility, I need only launch a strike powerful enough to destroy him wherever he hides, and the possibility of his existence here would vanish entirely.

If that doesn’t work, then I’ll simply destroy this whole area of space-time. That way, it wouldn’t matter whether he’s lurking in two-dimensional or three-dimensional space.

Things like entering an abstract metaphysical realm or becoming a mathematical possibility are petty tricks of the weak. Under overwhelming power, they’re nothing but immature stunts of performing in a snail’s shell.

Power large enough can distort any logic.

This holds true even in the unreasonable Doomsday era.

Because now, I’m the one more unreasonable.

The giant Flame Palm first shattered and burned the mountain of building debris in mid-air, then pressed down onto the pedestrian street’s surface. In the boundless flames, I felt I finally made contact with the cartographer’s soul, hidden deep in the chaotic space-time. His figure seemed to reappear in my perception.

At the brink of death, his chaotic eyes seemed to regain a hint of clarity, perhaps the last trace of humanity in him, not yet eradicated during the Sin demonization process.

He glanced at the heavenly fire above, then towards me, appearing somewhat relieved.

"God..." he murmured, "Have you finally manifested... to save us?"

The light of destruction engulfed him.

After the flood of orange-hued light completely receded, the possibility of the "cartographer" as a life form was entirely eradicated from the Doomsday Era.

The battle ended.

I slowly put down my right hand and then looked around.

The cartographer’s final words seemed to linger faintly in my mind.

Tan Xiang lay on the ground trembling, closed eyes, and head in hands for quite a while before seemingly suddenly realizing he wasn’t dead, then hesitantly raised his head to survey the surroundings.

He wasn’t the only one left untouched—the pedestrian street itself wasn’t damaged by my flames. I was only thinking of destroying the mountain of building debris above and the cartographer on the ground. The giant Flame Palm automatically disintegrated and dissipated after completing its mission. Additional destruction wasn’t my intention.

It’s a good thing matters didn’t escalate to the point of needing to destroy the surrounding space-time, otherwise, I wouldn’t bet on anyone surviving from within, not even myself.

By the way, engaging in such activities as Shattered Void cannot help me reach the realm of void beyond this world.

Void is a truly "nonexistent" realm, as it is not a kind of space, thus the concept of "entering" does not apply. The fact that Huang Quan was able to exile me there makes me wonder what kind of power was used, at least I couldn’t do it, and I doubt that the Lushan Great Impermanence beyond myself could easily manage it.

"Zhuang Cheng... who exactly are you?"

Tan Xiang was not foolish enough to fail to connect the phenomenon just now with me. He sat up on the ground, looking at me with incredulous eyes, and said, "Could it be... you are a God? Like the deity the cartographers worshiped before..."

"More or less."

It would be troublesome to explain in detail about Impermanence or human gods, so I acknowledged him straightforwardly and added, "However, in the era before the Doomsday arrived, it didn’t matter much. Now, I can’t claim to be any sort of God, unable to bless or protect your future peace. Just consider me as merely a superpower holder with great strength."

"Merely with great strength..." Tan Xiang seemed inclined to retort.

"Instead of that, can you answer a question for me?" I asked.

"What’s the question? I am all ears." Tan Xiang asked cautiously.

"You don’t have to be so afraid of me," I said. "I just want to know why you weren’t poisoned by the cartographer. If it weren’t for the cunning cartographer’s abilities, perhaps you might have really had a chance to attack those two kids and take them hostage."

"Ah... you mean that." Tan Xiang realized, "It’s simple; I vomited those meals beforehand."

"Vomited them out?" I asked.

"After finishing the meal, didn’t I ask the cartographer where the bathroom was? Once I went to the bathroom, I secretly forced myself to vomit out all the food I had eaten previously. Perhaps it was a bit late, and a small portion had already been digested, so the toxins still had a slight effect on me."

Tan Xiang sat on the ground, touching his body, seemingly unable to stand up temporarily, and continued, "Actually, I didn’t know the food contained poison initially; it’s just under such a background resembling a horror story that I felt I shouldn’t accept food and water from strangers lightly... What if I eat his dish one moment, and he eats my flesh the next. Besides, I wasn’t particularly hungry to begin with.

"Just... didn’t think the development afterward would become so horrifying; he truly wanted to eat my flesh..."

As a young man growing up in a peaceful era, it was definitely his first encounter with such absurdity, and fear was evident on his face.

Despite lacking survival experience, he could still make such decisions. It may also be partly due to his persistent lack of genuine understanding of his situation. Because he was experiencing an event resembling a horror story, he adhered more to horror story logic in making decisions rather than normal realistic logic.

Nonetheless, his judgment and decision were correct. To put it bluntly, his initial performance was quite disappointing, but here I am finally impressed.

"Then... what should we do next?" Tan Xiang asked uneasily.

He was probably worried about being abandoned due to his inadequate abilities. The cartographer previously explained to him the concepts of frenzy and sin demonization, so he should be very aware of how dangerous it is to be alone in the Doomsday Era.

"Rest assured, I won’t leave you for now," I said.

"For now..." Tan Xiang murmured.

Following me may not be a good decision, as Unfortunate people power might still be entangled with my fate, so there are bound to be numerous anomalies attacking on the journey ahead. I’ve already experienced the elusive and overwhelming threat of Doomsday anomalies. Although they can’t pose a deep threat to me, it’s a different story for those who accompany me.

I turned and walked towards the distance.

Including the safe house, nearly all buildings along the pedestrian street had turned into ruins. This was not my doing but the aftermath of the cartographer’s previous actions. I rummaged through the ruins of the safe house and found what I was looking for.

Wandering Soul was unearthed from beneath the rubble, looking dazed.

The cartographer previously mentioned that Wandering Soul was not his ally, but a heavily injured Blessed Monk he captured from outside. The reason he succumbed to madness wasn’t frenzy but because the cartographer embedded a few nails in his brain.

In other words, if I want to communicate with the person holding clues about Little Bowl, I don’t necessarily need to restore my Power of Word Spirit first; I just need to extract the nails from his mind.

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