Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 538 - 504 Catastrophe Demon?

Chapter 538: 504 Catastrophe Demon?

The wandering soul was excavated from the rubble by me; he lay on the ground gasping for breath. After regaining some spirit, he showed a ferocious demeanor, just like last time.

Now the iron chains restraining his entire body are no longer connected to any other object; he can move freely, allowing him to lunge at me with bared teeth and claws.

Without mercy, I shattered the kneecaps of his two legs, once again rendering him unable to move freely.

Tan Xiang had heard the cartographer mention the wandering soul, and had seen my previous attempts to awaken the wandering soul. He came over and said, "Are you trying to get information from him? But now he’s like this, how are you going to dig the nails out of his brain?"

"Like this." I extended my finger.

I am not a neurosurgery expert; of course, I can’t safely remove the nails from his brain tissue without harming his life.

However, the cartographer was in the same position as I was back then. The reason he could "safely" drive nails into the wandering soul’s brain was entirely because the wandering soul possessed an undying body.

So, I have no need to overly consider the life safety of the wandering soul.

I made a handgun gesture, and with the thought of "not killing the opponent," I fired a tiny flame bullet. The seemingly fleeting tiny flame possessed the power of a bullet, shattering everything above the wandering soul’s neck, splattering blood and bone fragments and gray brain tissue everywhere, mixed with several thick, rusty iron nails.

Even though Tan Xiang might have already gotten used to bloody and terrifying scenes within a short half day, he instinctively held his breath.

And I noticed more details. It seemed like the cartographer didn’t only embed nails in brain tissue but also intertwined iron wires within the wandering soul’s throat. This was likely to prevent the wandering soul from speaking — or rather, perhaps prevent a maddened wandering soul from inadvertently uttering some spell to cast a spell.

Before the cartographer showed his hand, I originally had the idea of trying my luck chatting with the wandering soul and seeing if he might unconsciously reveal some clues. Turns out this plan was useless from the start.

I casually pulled the iron wires out of his throat, bloody and wounded, and threw them aside.

Then, the headless "corpse" of the wandering soul wobbled and fell to the ground. I took two steps back, watching this "corpse." Seconds later, a mutation occurred.

The blood and fragments of flesh that splattered outside, as well as other biological tissues, evaporated and disappeared like water droplets on a hot iron skillet, while the wound cross-section of the "corpse" erupted with highly unusual vitality, numerous granulations and bony tissues rapidly grew and repaired. Before long, the wandering soul’s skull grew out, flesh covered facial bones, skin covered flesh, hair and beard also returned, and even the blood and dust covering his face inexplicably returned.

It was more like "blood and flesh regeneration," interpreted as "time reversal" in the form of flesh regeneration ... or perhaps it should be said to be denial of established facts? I felt that the wandering soul’s body autonomously overturned the "death" history, recompiling reality with the result of "I actually did not die." In this respect, it resembles Yinyue’s power to modify reality.

However, compared to the power of modifying reality, the wandering soul’s power seems extremely limited, far from being comparable to the former.

The nails and wires, however, remained in their original place, not returning to the wandering soul’s brain and throat. Presumably, the wandering soul’s power has some intelligent advantages, removing some elements that are disadvantageous to the user.

"Died, yet revived..."

However, Tan Xiang had never seen such peculiarly strange powers before; upon witnessing this mutation, he seemed to feel strong envy amidst his shock.

"He doesn’t seem to have awakened yet?" he asked.

I stepped forward and kicked the wandering soul a couple of times, and slightly roasted his fingers with flames; he reflexively showed a pained expression but still did not awaken.

After careful observation, I had understood his predicament. It’s nothing serious, it’s just that his soul hasn’t recovered yet.

The human brain and soul have a mysterious connection; the state of the brain can strongly affect the state of the spirit. And in the Doomsday Era, once a person’s mental state is chaotic, it easily synchronizes with frenzy, becoming contaminated.

The wandering soul has long been in a mentally insane state, which originally might make him degenerate into a Sin Demon. But presumably, the cartographer also didn’t want an extra Sin Demon to exist upstairs for no reason, and probably did some processing, like using that direction-guiding power to suppress the wandering soul’s trend toward Sin demonization from the spiritual level.

Currently, the wandering soul hasn’t shown any sign of Sin demonization; just leaving him on the ground like this, letting him lie for a while, he will wake up on his own.

During this time, I might as well "clean up" the battlefield.

During the previous battle with the cartographer, there were many things I deliberately didn’t burn, the most important of which is the blessings in the safe house, and the cartographer’s blessing lantern.

I had Tan Xiang watch the wandering soul closely, while I rummaged through the debris and rubble to find the white-glowing lantern, while the blessings in the safe house hovered in place, then I had to figure out a way to take them away.

As for the boy and girl following the cartographer, those two children had disappeared at some unknown time.

To be honest, I hadn’t paid much attention to those two children before, nor thought of registering them on the flame’s whitelist.

Speaking of my current mood, actually, I didn’t really plan to kill them. It’s also good to keep them alive to ask about information related to the Catastrophe Demon, so maybe at that time, I subconsciously put them on the whitelist. However, on the other hand, they harbored malice and murderous intent towards Tan Xiang and me, and my Flame Power has an automatic counterattack mechanism against such people, so they might have been burned to death without me even knowing.

Alternatively, it’s also possible that they were accidentally caught in the chaos space during the battle and got teleported elsewhere? Anyway, it’s not important; I don’t care whether those two kids are dead or alive.

No, thinking back, I may have some complex feelings toward that girl.

Because the group she was with in the past was wiped out by a bizarre phenomenon suspected to be the Catastrophe Demon, perhaps even her parents died that way. And the Catastrophe Demon might be my future self. Therefore, if I killed her here, it might mean I’m pursuing an innocent girl and delivering two devastating blows to her fate.

Would I feel guilty about this? After all, it’s not even certain if this is true, and I’m not at the stage where I have to ask myself this question. But just the thought of such a possibility inevitably stirs an indistinct sigh in my heart.

Thinking this way, I found a new target amid the debris.

It’s the Cartographer’s diary.

This brown-covered diary was something I had in mind, but since it was the private item of someone "who harbors goodwill towards me," I held off my curiosity. Yet, since the person is dead, particularly since they once even tried to kill me, I feel no guilt in browsing through this item now.

I returned to where the ghost lay, intending to check the diary content carefully.

Upon opening it, before I could clearly see the contents, I noticed something slipped out from the middle of the pages. At first, I thought it was a bookmark, but on closer inspection, I found it was a folded sheet of paper.

I unfolded the paper. It’s A4-sized, covered with a large number of chaotic black lines. The lines vary in thickness, and the drawing has no sense of order, reminiscent of a mentally ill person’s doodles.

What is this thing?

To a normal observer, this seems just like a piece of waste paper. However, saying it’s merely trash would be an understatement for the meticulous way it’s folded. The edges meet each other with a kind of deliberate precision. Moreover, I feel there’s a kind of order hidden within these chaotic black lines.

This hidden order reminds me of the chaos space of the Doomsday Era. Yes, these chaotic black lines seem to portray the hidden order in the chaos space in a two-dimensional form.

Tan Xiang also saw this piece of paper and, with a thoughtful expression, said, "Is this... a map?"

"A map?" I looked at him. "Why do you think that?"

"Uh? It’s just..." Tan Xiang said, somewhat flustered, "I don’t know... just had this sudden inspiration."

I turned my gaze back to the paper, and just as Tan Xiang inexplicably said, this black line doodle probably is a map.

But this map is too crude. Let’s not even talk about how to interpret its specific content; you can’t even tell which way is up or down, nor do we know where we stand on the map.

The cartographer once mentioned wanting to make a map in the Doomsday Era for a long time. Could this be the result of his past work?

Uncertain, I had to put it away first and then check the Cartographer’s diary again.

I directly turned the diary to the last entry.

Yes, I’m the type who can’t resist starting from the last page when reading mystery novels.

The last diary entry had rather fresh handwriting, easily comparable to the previous entries, indicating it was written not long ago. In other words, this is probably the diary the cartographer wrote before fighting me, so it could be considered his testament.

I developed a strong interest in it and read on carefully.

The cartographer wrote in the last entry:

"Finally, after being outside for so long, I found new survivors, and it’s two people. Thank God, this way, I can finally save those two unfortunate kids.

"The only downside is that the first survivor I found—Zhuang Cheng, is a Blessed Monk skilled in manipulating Flame Power. If the first one I found was the weaker Tan Xiang, I wouldn’t have allied with Zhuang Cheng.

"What’s even more concerning is how Little Grass reacted with such fear upon seeing Zhuang Cheng’s flame.

"After comforting her, I asked why, and she told me that Zhuang Cheng’s flame felt similar to the Catastrophe Demon that once destroyed her survivor group and burned her parents to death.

"Is Zhuang Cheng the Catastrophe Demon?"