Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 580 - 544 Old Prophecy

Chapter 580: 544 Old Prophecy

I have thought countless times about whether the Doomsday Era might actually be the Post-mortem World. Today, I’ve encountered more than one clue that links the two together, enough to make me wonder. Even Little Bowl seemed to take this assumption seriously, and I believe Little Bowl’s intellect surpasses my own, which is one reason I can’t let go of this path.

On the other hand, if this assumption is true, the problems that accompany it will explode exponentially. The problems that arise are far more numerous than those that would be reduced. In the past, even though I knew the Doomsday Era might be the Post-mortem World, I always tended to consider the Doomsday Era as the future relative to the modern world because of this.

And No. 7 gave me a direct affirmation right in front of my face.

Little Bowl exhaled a breath, not showing a hint of shock but rather like a heavy stone in his heart finally settled down, confirming a long-held speculation.

"The Doomsday Era... is the Post-mortem World?"

I struggled to digest this critical information and suddenly noticed a detail in No. 7’s words that couldn’t be ignored, "Wait... did you just say this place ’used to be’ the Post-mortem World?"

What do you mean by "used to be"? Does it mean this is no longer the Post-mortem World now?

And regardless of whether it used to be or not, if this place is the Post-mortem World, why do so many Doomsday survivors roaming this space-time unanimously identify this place as the era following the advent of Doomsday?

"I want to first confirm, how much do you know about the Post-mortem World?" No. 7 asked me first.

I cooperated and replied, "The Post-mortem World, as the name implies, is the world where human souls automatically go after death. Also called the Netherworld, Spirit Realm, Dream Realm, it opposes the material world as the Spirit World.

"In the material world, human souls must reside in their bodies. If the soul is water, the body is the container. Losing the container, the soul cannot maintain itself. In many ancient legends, souls wandering outside are so fragile they can’t even withstand sunlight, shattering on the sound of thunder.

"Many demon hunters can use the Soul Out of Body Technique, but the soul out of the body is also unstable. They’re able to maintain their form because there’s still a link to their body. If the body is found and killed, the soul out of the body will die too. Even if by chance it becomes a ghost, it cannot be considered the person before death, only a semblance or an echo with similar thought patterns."

Completely getting rid of the material container, purely independent soul form is the domain of the dead.

Ghosts formed after human death mostly lack the intelligence for normal communication. Even the few that seem eloquent don’t have the potential for further growth. Because they’ve died, they’re already finished beings. No matter how much time passes, they can’t change their nature. Thus, many demon hunters see them as "walking wills" or phenomena running under specific programs.

A characteristic of the Manifestation realm is being able to become a purely spiritual life as a living person. Souls are stable like matter yet as adaptable as water, so Manifestation is seen as an achievement of soul materialization. Ascending means flying in the cosmos, hidden implies lurking beneath the waves. Completely free from the frailty of flesh, it’s an eternal existence.

Even for a strong individual at the Great Success Rank, completely shedding the material container to exist purely in soul form in the mortal world is as hard as climbing to the sky, achievable only through certain special abilities and super-advanced spells, a practice called Fake Elementalization.

Impermanence might simulate similar effects with its overwhelming power, yet it remains far from the essence of Manifestation.

"...But it’s different in the Post-mortem World," I said, "because it’s inherently a spiritual world, where souls can exist freely as living people do in the material world, without fear of dissolving due to bright environments or loud sounds.

"Of course, ghosts and spirits are ultimately just phenomena, like a wind that never stops. These phenomena will one day dissipate, becoming Naraku’s sediment. Occasionally, they may reappear like stirred lakebed sediment but are merely disparate, lonely souls who are no one."

"However, during the late Qing Dynasty over a hundred years ago, the situation dramatically changed — as the Gua Tianshi prophesied that hell would be destroyed and overflow into the mortal world, Luo Mountain Headquarters withdrew from the Post-mortem World to fully prepare for this upheaval. Yet, the situation did not unfold as Gua Tianshi said. Not only did the Post-mortem World not spread into the Living World, but it abruptly lost all contact with it. Luo Mountain could no longer enter the other side, not even establish communication.

"Since then, living people in the Living World... their souls, after death, can no longer reach the other shore, essentially left to their own devices in the material world."

This is all my understanding of the Post-mortem World.

Then No. 7 nodded first, then went on, "Gua Tianshi’s prophecy was very accurate; the Post-mortem World indeed faced destruction and truly began to flow toward the Living World.

"The perceived discrepancies in the prophecy might be because it emerged from the seer’s own subjective perception of time.

"Gua Tianshi is an ancient, ultra-ancient Impermanence existing before humanity first used fire, the oldest known Impermanence in the world. His experience spans at least a hundred thousand years. For such an ancient being, even a ’soon’ could exceed ordinary human lifetimes.

"Speaking of today, over a century later, the evidence of the Post-mortem World affecting the Living World... Zhuang Cheng, surely you’ve observed the phenomenon of countless living souls inexplicably disappearing in the Living World?"

"Are you referring to the soul loss event?" I asked.

"I’m not sure what you call this phenomenon, but I can share the conclusions of my own investigations with you," No. 7 said. "Under the advent of Doomsday’s collapse of the Post-mortem World, it summoned many souls from the Living World to sustain itself. The more severe the Doomsday process in the Post-mortem World, the more intense this phenomenon.

"Now, some survivors wandering in this ’Doomsday Era’ were originally ghosts in the Post-mortem World, while others were living victims caught in this summoning phenomenon."

The souls of soul-loss patients indeed went to the Doomsday Era—this speculation is also true!

However, unlike what Mazao and I initially calculated, they did not go strictly to the Doomsday Era, but to the Post-mortem World.

There’s so much heavyweight information, just like swallowing a lot of food without proper digestion, stuffing so much news into this side’s brain made it feel a bit numb. But this state might just be what’s needed. Now, I possibly need the ability to think "calmly."

On the particulars of soul loss, even Xuanming had previously asked the Master of Divine Seal, and even the latter couldn’t provide answers, but No. 7 claims to have figured it out personally.

No. 7 wouldn’t dare lie in front of Little Bowl, plus the clue that "the Master of Divine Seal might not know the details of Little Bowl"...

Could it be that the near-omniscient ability of the Master of Divine Seal can’t cover the Post-mortem World?

"I see... that’s why survivors in the Doomsday Era can’t grow normally." I now reasoned, "Because this is a soul world, the soul’s appearance depends on one’s self-recognition...

"And due to the influence of Frenzy, people’s memories cannot accumulate, and their minds can’t grow. Children remain children, youths remain youths, and the elderly remain elderly..."

No. 7 nodded, saying, "Yes. However, some souls from the Living World might somewhat link to the growth of their bodily containers. Just like water changes according to the container, the soul changes according to the material body.

"Souls with excessively strong self-assertion won’t change in this way. But if they experience growth in this ’Doomsday Era’ that significantly affects their mental development, their soul could become more mature than their bodily state in the Living World—until they forget this.

"Similarly, if one becomes crazily insane, their appearance becomes insanely twisted. Thus, people falling into Sin Demons turn into twisted and terrifying forms.

"Appearance springs from the heart, this is the fundamental law of this world.

"As for what exactly the ’Frenzy’ leading these survivors to such downfall is... I suppose there’s no need for me to clarify further?"

This is a soul world, where the chaos of time and space, matter and energy are fundamentally soul chaos. Thus, people existing here as souls can easily get infected, lose themselves, and eventually transform into a form of madness.

Once the truth of the "Doomsday Era" is grasped, such matters can easily be deduced.

"However... there’s one thing you haven’t told me, why does Doomsday fall upon the Post-mortem World first?" I asked, "And... what exactly is Doomsday?"

I think if it’s No. 7, maybe she knows the truth of Doomsday.

No. 7 paused for a while, perhaps judging if this involved a "secret not to be disclosed without authorization."

After a moment, she seemed to have decided, then said, "——for convenience, I’ll start with answering the first half of your question.

"This is because the source of Doomsday is human history."