From the end of the world

Chapter 500: Disease of the Soul

It may be too early for me to decide whether to stay in the Doomsday Era. I still don’t know much about the truth of the Doomsday Era, and I haven’t found the small bowl yet. Many questions have not been answered.

Maybe the doomsday era I live in is not the real future, or it may be as I speculated in the past, this is actually the world after death, and I accidentally passed through the door of Naraku that I tried thousands of times to knock open.

At this moment, I'd better focus on the mission I have given myself, which is to reunite with Xiaowan first. After all, whether I go or stay, I will not leave Xiaowan wandering alone in the apocalypse.

To do this, I must first restore the power of the Spirit of Words so that I can successfully interrogate the wandering soul on the second floor.

I came to the big round table on the first floor of the safe house, pulled up a chair and sat down, staring at the swaying white blessing light. The cartographer mentioned before that large-volume blessings have the effect of calming the chaotic phenomena in the surrounding space-time. So could this small-volume blessing have the same mechanism, but the effect is too weak to be expressed?
From the light of the blessing, I can feel the rhythm of pure nature, in other words, a kind of order similar to the modern world. The failure of the power of the word spirit comes from the chaos of the space-time environment. If there is a way to strengthen this blessing, maybe we can create an environment where the power of the word spirit can be used.

I try to touch this blessing with my thoughts.

I had this idea in mind when I first saw the blessing, because the blessing is like a flame mimicking light, and both fire and light are within the jurisdiction of my superpowers. It was just that I didn't want to cause any unexpected incidents on the road because of my own will, so I temporarily gave up the idea. Now that the conditions are in place, I have to test it out.

After just a brief exposure, I quickly came to two conclusions based on the feedback I received.

First, my superpowers cannot affect this blessing. Although I cannot analyze the essence of the blessing for the time being, this thing really only looks like fire and light visually, but in fact it is another mysterious substance that I cannot figure out.

It doesn't mean that as long as it looks like light and fire, I can control it. It's like someone draws a ball of fire on the computer using drawing software. I can't really control the fire in the picture - or maybe I just haven't tried it. In fact, I can control the flames drawn? In short, as long as you can understand it intuitively, it's fine.

Second, I sensed that the blessing was in a very small area around it, which was a few centimeters away from the center, and it was at a relatively stable level. If you don't use your mind to touch it carefully, you really can't find it.

In addition, although it is something unrelated to the blessing itself, I still want to mention it here because it is related to me.

My soul seemed to have undergone a subtle lesion.

As the saying goes, "If you stay in a shop selling abalone for a long time, you will no longer smell the stench." If people stay in a place with a strong odor for a long time, they will gradually ignore the stench. It is similar to the fact that people can hardly smell their own body odor and bad breath under normal circumstances. I stayed in the apocalypse for a little too long, and I didn't even realize that I was contaminated by a little bit of chaos.

I noticed that the surface of my soul was distorted as if it was moldy. This is just a metaphor. The soul is not a material thing. It is difficult to truly describe its condition to someone who cannot perceive it, just like it is difficult for a normal person to describe a color picture to a person born blind. If my soul is a pastry, this pastry now has rough edges.

Perhaps this is the distortion I acquired in the process of analyzing and adapting to the chaotic space and time. Those who gaze into the abyss will also be gazed by the abyss.

As soon as I thought about it, the flames burned on my soul, and the "rough edges" disappeared in an instant. The lesions only occurred on the surface, and this degree of distortion was not enough to truly affect my soul.

My intuition tells me that if this disease erodes deeply enough, it will gradually erase my memory, tamper with my personality, and drive me crazy. The diseased soul will change the nature of magic power, and then overwrite the nature of my own life, making me become a non-self.

It is almost certain that this is the so-called "infection of madness."

Such a subtle change can easily make a demon hunter fall into the trap, not to mention a demon hunter at the level of creation, residence, destruction and emptiness, if the handling measures are not kept up, even a demon hunter at the great perfection level can be easily deceived, and finally become a karma demon with no choice but to do nothing.

However, to Da Wuchang, this disease of the soul is nothing more than a minor cold.

Even without this incident, I could have detected the disease in my soul long before it was irreversible and solved the problem in one go. This is not a conceited or arrogant thought, but a conclusion I came to in a calm state of mind.

So, now I can’t help but have the next question - can this "natural phenomenon" occurring in the doomsday era really turn the great impermanence into a great devil?
Even if it is impossible to unfold the law of heaven and earth in the doomsday era, Da Wuchang should not be swallowed up by the weather of the outside world and become a confused demon like other survivors.

Another puzzle was recorded in the memo in my mind.

By comparing the relatively stable space-time within a few centimeters centered on the blessing with the external space-time, my progress in analyzing the orderliness of the chaotic space-time in the doomsday era has also been greatly accelerated.

After a while, I heard the sound of someone coming downstairs in the distance. It was Tan Xiang.

"I was a little scared to be alone in the room, so I came down to see..." Tan Xiang said awkwardly, "Where are the others?"

I glanced at him.

Unlike before, after I had a little understanding of the order of time and space, the noise points fed back by my perception were slightly reduced, so now I can perceive more effective information than before. For example, I can vaguely perceive the soul of sandalwood and the emotions that surfaced on the surface of the soul.

Confused, helpless, uneasy, vigilant, envious... Tan Xiang's emotions seemed to have stabilized, but in fact, there were undercurrents. He was probably still in a state where his worldview was shattered, he felt like he was in a dream, and he hoped to wake up from the nightmare as soon as possible.

On the other hand, he actually understood that this was not a nightmare, but the reality that he had to face in the future, so his heart was filled with unrelieved pain.

At the same time, some signs of pathology appeared on the surface of his soul, which were more serious than mine just now.

This is probably because he does not use his real name, but a fake name to communicate with us.

Over time, he might forget the name that symbolizes his real life, and only remember the online nickname "Tan Xiang". "Tan Xiang, it's better for you to use your real name in the future," I kindly reminded him.

"Ah?" Tan Xiang was stunned.

"Zhuang Cheng is right."

The cartographer also came down from upstairs. He said to Tan Xiang, "You may still be wary of the people around you right now and don't want to reveal your real name... but you will definitely regret it later."

"Um..." Tan Xiang looked around and said something else, "By the way...how much food is left in the safe house?"

The cartographer did not force him and replied casually: "It's only enough for the two children to have another meal at most."

"So little!?" Tan Xiang was shocked, "Then why did we eat so much before?"

"After all, this is a ceremony to welcome new partners, so we can't be too timid. Besides, the supplies we have are not enough to last for long. Why don't we have a full meal together first, and then go out to collect supplies." The cartographer said, "Don't worry, you just need to stay in the safe house with the two children, and Zhuang Cheng and I will be in charge of the outdoor exploration. Zhuang Cheng, is that okay?"

"no problem."

As I responded, I observed the cartographer's soul and emotions.

I guess the cartographer didn't expect that I had this ability, and I saw through him without him even noticing.

And this look is of great significance.

The cartographer's emotions were exposed to me, and in stark contrast to Tan Xiang's emotions of helplessness and confusion, in the cartographer's heart, malice towards Tan Xiang and me emerged.

I actually anticipated this result.

The cartographer is most likely a blessed monk, and every blessed monk is like a demon, and like the weirdos in the modern world, they have the instinct to hunt humans. Whether recovering from injuries or becoming stronger, they cannot avoid devouring human souls.

The seemingly friendly cartographer may have devoured the souls of other survivors in the past in order to gain power, and felt intense pleasure and beautiful illusions from it.

If he doesn't regard humans other than himself as prey at all, then there must be something fishy going on. When something is abnormal, there must be something wrong.

However, even for such a man with a cruel devil in his heart, he would actually shelter two powerless children in his safe house, be willing to share his survival supplies with them, and let them guard important blessings for him when he was away. This was enough to give us a glimpse of his kind nature.

Although he was given an easy job of looking after the house, Tan Xiang did not show any joy on his face. Instead, he asked, "Do we have to risk going out to collect supplies every time to get food and water? Let's not talk about water for now. Can't we get food through planting? After the apocalypse, there should be a lot of abandoned fields, right?"

"Unfortunately, no." The cartographer sighed, "Not to mention that the monsters that may attack us at any time make it impossible for us to live in one place for a long time, and the seeds of crops cannot take root and sprout in the land after the doomsday. It's as if the vitality of nature itself has been completely drained by the monster power...

"Neither nomadic nor hunting is feasible. Have you noticed that we haven't seen even a single small animal along the way? Apart from the strange things all over the mountains and a few human survivors, from what I have seen with my own eyes and heard from others, the land we live in does not even have any other living things. It is a veritable wasteland.

"If you have to say there are still some living things, it's that maggots and flies will mysteriously grow on corpses, and you can occasionally see some cockroaches. But those are more of a weird phenomenon than living things. They will appear and disappear inexplicably, and they are all highly poisonous. Eating too much of them will kill you. No matter how hungry you are, I don't recommend you eat maggots."

There are no living creatures except monsters and humans, and farming and hunting are impossible? The harsh conditions of the apocalypse have once again hit a new low point in my mind, and it is simply outrageous to a new level.

This is no longer a matter of forcing the remaining humans to death, but it makes people wonder why there are still survivors wandering around in this era.

After hearing this, Tan Xiang trembled all over, with sweat of fear oozing out of his forehead. Then, as if mustering up his courage, he said, "Doesn't that mean... doesn't that mean that the only animals that humans can hunt nowadays are humans themselves?"

"You are quite quick-witted in strange places, aren't you?" The cartographer said unexpectedly, "Yes, just as you thought, some survivors will hunt other survivors after they become insane due to hunger, and replenish fresh meat from their own kind.

"But cannibalism is an inhuman act that is exactly the same as that of the Karma Demon. In a sense, it can also be seen as an imitation of the Karma Demon. Such crazy behavior seems to attract strange effects, which will definitely aggravate the progress of one's own madness infection, and then quickly degenerate into a Karma Demon."

Tan Xiang was not at all relieved. He gritted his teeth and said, "Um...can I ask a question? It may be a little presumptuous."

"Go ahead." The cartographer nodded.

"Mr. Cartographer, you should also be a person with super powers, right?" Tan Xiang said.

"Strictly speaking, I am a blessed monk." The cartographer said it openly. "Although I am not very clear about your definition of a superpower, I am probably the same as you think. Zhuang Cheng should also be a blessed monk, but he seems to have lost a lot of memories."

Tan Xiang seemed to have other questions to ask, but he couldn't help asking another question out of curiosity: "Zhuang Cheng's ability is to shoot fireballs... Then, Mr. Cartographer, what is your ability?"

(End of this chapter)