From the end of the world

Chapter 40: Fallen Demon Hunter vs. Psychic 3
The changes that the Heart Seed brought to me are more than just the ability to transform into a goat-headed demon and manipulate the power of shadows.

According to the Monster Maker, this is just the standard configuration of the Heart Seed. If the Heart Seed and the Combiner have a high enough compatibility, the Combiner will have its own unique ability.

But he also said that the couplers he personally selected were not chosen randomly, but were all those he believed had a high enough compatibility to produce unique superpowers, so I am not special here.

Since he calls himself the "Monster Maker", the person who combines with the Heart Seed is naturally called a "Monster". As the name suggests, it is a person who transforms into a monster.

My unique ability as a weirdo is "stand-in".

I can temporarily transfer the Heart Seed from my body and turn a human other than myself into a monster. During this period, all the power will be transferred to this person, and I will temporarily lose my power, and my desire for the soul will also be transferred.

The humans I turn into monsters through this method will become my substitute puppets. I can give them any orders and share senses with them remotely. When necessary, I can also take back my power, and the desire for the soul will return. This process only takes a moment, so there is no need to worry about not being able to take back the power when my original body is in danger.

Monsters can continue to evolve their own power by hunting humans and devouring their souls, and the Stand can do the same thing. And when I recover my power, the growth progress of the Stand's power will also be fed back to me. As a price, the Stand will die.

Even though I had never used this ability before, I had mastered its details. These things came to my mind like instinct, and I would not misunderstand the nature of my ability.

The Monster Maker asked about my special ability when he came to check on me. Since I didn't know his background, I had no choice but to hide or lie, and could only tell him the truth. After hearing the details of my special ability, he showed a somewhat surprised expression.

"I didn't expect it to be this kind of power." He sighed, "Of all the monsters I have created so far, your power may be the closest to the original."

I immediately asked what the Primarch was, but he seemed to be just saying it casually and didn't intend to elaborate on the subject.

"Compared to this, you don't seem to have devoured a soul yet." He looked at me meaningfully, "If you don't devour human souls, sooner or later you will lose control and run wild under the urge to kill, and then become the target of Luo Shan's crusade, and die under the sword of some impermanence. Can you accept even this ending?"

"...I don't want to kill anyone." I struggled to say, "Do I have to kill people and devour human souls? Can't I kill animals too——"

"No," he said, "Since you can think of that method, you should have tried it. The Heart Seed will only accept human souls."

"Then... can you remove the seed of heart from my body?" I immediately regretted saying this.

"Are you sure? The Heart Seed has been deeply integrated with you. Unless you die, the Heart Seed cannot leave you."

“……” I was silent.

He thought for a moment and then said, "However, there is another situation in which the Heart Seed will leave your body."

"What's going on?" I asked.

"In order to prevent the Heart Seed from being captured by Luo Shan, when the monster is in an inescapable predicament, the Heart Seed will automatically leave the monster. Of course, in this case, the monster will still die due to the loss of the Heart Seed." He said, "Unfortunately, the Heart Seed itself does not have the function of judging the situation. After all, it is you who judges the situation. Therefore, when you are desperate and resigned to your fate from the bottom of your heart, and believe that you are powerless to change the situation..."

“…I will die,” I said.

"That's right. So, hurry up and kill people, Kongda." He smiled. "Once you give up thinking and allow yourself to accept the future of being conquered by Luo Shan, the seed of the heart will leave you. You will return to the self who can do nothing and die without accomplishing anything."
-
After struggling for a long time, I still chose the path of killing.

Because I don't want to lose my power, and I don't want to die.

In order to avoid being tracked down by Luo Shan and official forces, the person who kills cannot be me, but only my substitute.

The quality and loyalty of the Stand itself is not important. Anyway, my ability will raise it to a usable level, and the other party cannot resist any of my orders. I don't have any huge ambitions, and I don't plan to manipulate the powerful in society. As long as they are human, it doesn't matter if they are marginalized people in society.

And there is also a problem with those who manipulate power, that is, the person who is turned into a substitute by me will directly become the form of a goat-headed demon, and the transformation cannot be undone even after death. If I am "a human who can turn into a goat-headed demon", then the substitute is directly transformed from the physiological aspect by the strange power and becomes the goat-headed demon itself.

So I found a homeless person who looked very down and out. No one would care if this type of person disappeared from society. It was the safest option.

There was just one small surprise. Nowadays, even homeless people should not be underestimated. I have seen similar news on the Internet before, saying that some homeless people who were picking up rubbish on the roadside were recognized by passers-by. It turned out that they were multi-millionaires or other powerful people a long time ago, and they fell into such a state after experiencing misfortunes.

I thought that kind of news was something far away, but after asking around, I discovered that the homeless man I caught was actually the leader of a feudal and superstitious force.

He was originally living a comfortable life in the countryside, but a high school folklore enthusiast suddenly appeared out of nowhere, uncovered all his tricks, and assisted the official forces in clearing up his crimes. He lost support and was almost burned to death by angry followers. If he hadn't prepared a scapegoat who had been brainwashed and had plastic surgery, he might have really died there.

However, things change, and he probably never dreamed that he, who had survived by relying on a scapegoat, would one day become my substitute. Under the influence of my supernatural power, his mind was quickly broken.

My Stand ability is not an outrageous power that works unconditionally. Not everyone can be transformed into a Stand by me. When I use this ability on a target, the target will be imprisoned in a fantasy world before being transformed.

The monster maker told me that the monster's supernatural powers are closely related to his past life experiences and his inner wishes.

The illusion I created was the dead end that once terrified me and plunged me into despair.

The more fear and despair a person has in a fantasy world, the longer they will be imprisoned. It would take a normal person several days to get out of it, but it only takes me one minute to transform my target into a substitute puppet.

The "trapped" stage can still be resisted with magic power, but the "transformation" stage is a regular process that ignores the power gap. As long as this minute passes, no matter how powerful the person in the illusion is, he will only become a puppet at my mercy.

After getting the substitute, I started ordering him to kill people.

Although the Stand can bear the murderous urge on my behalf, if I allow him to accumulate the murderous urge, when the Seed of Heart returns, I will inherit all of his murderous urges, and that is not acceptable.

However, I didn't intend to let him kill ordinary people casually. Anyway, I'm controlling a stand-in now, and he's determined to kill people, so I might as well put aside all my scruples and conscience and go hunt down the demon hunter.

Most demon hunters' magic power comes from their souls, and they often have higher quality souls. Even if the Heart Seed is not in me for the time being, I am still a weirdo who can sense whose soul is higher quality.

As long as I devour those souls, I can gain even greater strength, and since it takes longer to digest those souls, I don't have to kill so frequently.

Just in case, I didn't go to hunt down Luoshan's demon hunters, but targeted civilian demon hunters. They are called civilian "demon hunters", but in fact they may not have the experience and desire to hunt demons. It is more appropriate to say that they are superpowers.

While I was acting in secret, I had other dark clouds in my mind.

——Of all the monsters I have created so far, your abilities are perhaps the closest to the original.

These are the words of the Monster Maker, and I have never dared to ignore them, or forget them.

The original body sounds like the prototype or source of our monsters.

When the monster is in despair from the bottom of his heart, the seed of the heart will leave. So... where will the departing seed of the heart go in the end?

My ability is to transplant the seeds of the heart into other humans, and after retrieving them, I can obtain all the powers of the stand puppet. So... in the eyes of the original body with similar powers, are we monsters also his stand puppets?

Perhaps at some point, the original body will activate his own supernatural power and recycle the heart seeds of all monsters.

All weirdos will return to their powerless selves and die without accomplishing anything.

I feel horrified when I think of that scene.

I must explore... explore the source of the Heart Seed and all the information related to it. I must know how to prevent that kind of situation, or at least how to survive it when it happens.

Whenever the weirdo maker came to visit, I would give him some indirect advice.

I don't know if he was really lacking in vigilance or felt that it didn't matter if he shared that kind of information, but he mentioned it to me during a casual chat.

"The technological prototype of the Heart Seed comes from a realm that completely overlaps with the real world in terms of space."

"Completely overlaps with the real world...you mean other time?" I was shocked.

In the mysticism that I have come into contact with, there are alien dimensions that "almost overlap" with the real world, but there are no alien dimensions that "completely overlap" with the real world.

If I have to give an example, it can only be different times in the same space.

That is the past, or... the future.

(End of this chapter)