From the end of the world

Chapter 505: The Great Demon of Disaster?

I dug the wandering soul out from under the rubble. He lay on the ground and took a few breaths. After recovering a little, he showed a ferocious look just like last time.

Now the iron chains that bound his body were no longer connected to other objects and could move freely, so he attacked me with his fangs and claws.

I kicked both of his knees mercilessly, breaking them, leaving him unable to move freely again.

Tan Xiang had heard the cartographer mention the wandering spirit, and had also seen my last attempt to awaken the wandering spirit. He came closer and said, "Do you want to find out something from him? But now that he's in this state, how can we dig the nail out of his brain?"

"Do this." I held up my finger.

I am not an expert in brain surgery, so of course I cannot safely remove the nail from the brain tissue without endangering the person's life.

However, the cartographer at the time was in the same position as me. The reason why he was able to "safely" drive the nail into the wandering soul's brain was entirely because the wandering soul possessed the power of immortality.

Then, there is no need for me to worry too much about the safety of the wandering souls.

I made a pistol gesture, and with the intention of "not killing the other party", I fired a small flame bullet. The tiny flame seemed to be fleeting, but it had the power of a bullet. With one shot, the body above the neck of the wandering soul was shattered into pieces. Flesh, blood, bone fragments, and gray-white brain tissue were immediately smeared all over the ground, mixed with a few thick and rusty iron nails.

Even though Tan Xiang might have been accustomed to seeing bloody and horrific scenes in just half a day, he subconsciously held his breath at this moment.

I noticed more details. It seemed that the cartographer not only implanted iron nails in the brain tissue, but also added intertwined iron wires in the throat of the wandering soul. This should be to prevent the wandering soul from speaking - to be more precise, it may be to prevent the crazy wandering soul from inadvertently reciting some spells to cast spells.

Before the cartographer showed his hand, I had thought of trying my luck by chatting with the wandering spirits and seeing if they would unconsciously read out some clues. But this plan was futile from the beginning.

I pulled the wire out of its bloody throat and threw it aside.

Then, the headless "corpse" of the wandering soul staggered to the ground. I took two steps back and looked at the "corpse". A few seconds later, something strange happened.

The blood, flesh, and other biological tissues that had been splattered all evaporated like water drops on a red-hot iron pot, while the wound section of the "corpse" burst out with extremely abnormal vitality, with a large amount of granulation tissue and bone tissue growing and repairing rapidly. Soon, the skull of the wandering soul grew out, flesh and blood covered the facial bones, skin covered the flesh and blood, hair and beard also returned, and even the blood and dust that covered the face returned inexplicably.

Rather than "regeneration of flesh and blood", it is more like "rewinding time" in the form of regeneration of flesh and blood... or should it be said that it is a denial of the established facts? I feel that the body of the wandering soul seems to have automatically overturned the history of "death" and re-edited reality with the result that "I am not actually dead". In this respect, it is very much like the power of Silver Moon to modify reality.

However, compared with the power to modify reality, the power of wandering souls seems to be extremely limited and far from being comparable to the former.

The nails and wires remained in place, and did not return to the wandering soul's brain and throat. It was probably because the wandering soul's ability had some intelligent advantages, which would remove some of the elements that were unfavorable to the user.

"Dead, but resurrected..."

However, Tan Xiang had never seen such a strange power. After seeing this strange change, he was shocked and seemed to have a strong sense of envy.

"He doesn't seem to be awake yet?" he asked.

I stepped forward and kicked Youhun twice, then slightly warmed his fingers with flames. He reflexively showed an expression of pain, but still did not wake up.

After careful observation, I finally understood what was wrong with him. It wasn't a big deal, it was just that his soul hadn't recovered yet.

There is a mysterious connection between the human brain and soul, and the state of the brain will have a strong impact on the state of the spirit. In the apocalyptic era, once a person's mental state is disordered, it is easy to synchronize with madness and be corroded.

The wandering soul had been in a state of mental madness for a long time, and it was very likely that it would become a demon. However, the cartographer did not want a demon to appear on his floor for no reason, so he probably took some measures, such as using the power of guidance to curb the wandering soul's tendency to become a demon from a spiritual level.

The wandering soul now shows no signs of turning into a demon. Just put it on the ground and let it lie there for a while, and it will wake up on its own.

During this period, I also happened to "clean up" the battlefield.

When I was fighting the cartographer before, I deliberately did not burn many things. The most important ones were the blessing in the safe house and the cartographer's blessing lantern.

I asked Tan Xiang to keep an eye on the wandering soul, while I found the lantern emitting white light from the rubble. The blessing of the safe house was floating there, and I had to find a way to take it away later.

As for the boy and girl who followed the cartographer, the two children disappeared at some point.

To be honest, I never cared much about those two children before, nor did I think about registering them in the Flame's whitelist.

As far as I'm concerned, I don't really plan to kill him. It's good to stay and ask for information about the Great Demon of Disaster, so maybe I subconsciously registered him in the whitelist. But on the other hand, they have malice and murderous intentions towards me and Tan Xiang, and my flames have an automatic counterattack mechanism for such people. Maybe they were burned to death by me without anyone noticing. Or, maybe they were accidentally involved in the chaotic time and space during the battle and were teleported to other places? Anyway, these are not important. I don't care whether the two children are dead or alive.

No, looking back, I might have had a bit of a complicated opinion about that girl.

Because the team that girl used to be in was destroyed by a monster that looked like the Great Demon of Disaster, and maybe even her parents died that way. And the Great Demon of Disaster could be me in the future. Therefore, if I kill her here, it might turn out that I'm chasing an innocent girl and giving her fate two devastating blows in a row.

If I were to ask myself whether I would feel guilty about this, after all, I was still uncertain whether this was the case, and I had not yet reached the stage where I had to ask myself this question. But just thinking about this possibility made me sigh in my heart.

While thinking this, I found a new target among the ruins.

It’s a cartographer’s diary.

This diary with a brown cover was also something I had been thinking about, but I had previously considered it to be a private item of "someone who had good intentions towards me", so I temporarily put aside my curiosity. Now that the other person is dead, especially since the other person once wanted to kill me, I don't feel the slightest bit of guilt for flipping through it casually.

I returned to where the wandering soul lay, intending to carefully examine the contents of the diary.

After I opened it, before I could read the contents clearly, I noticed something slipping out from the middle of the page. At first I thought it was a bookmark, but when I looked closely, I found that it was a folded piece of paper.

I unfolded the paper. It was A4 size, and there were a lot of messy black lines on the paper. The lines were of different thicknesses, and the drawing method was irregular, reminiscent of the graffiti of a mental patient.

What is this?
From a normal person's perspective, it seems to be just a piece of waste paper. However, to say that it is just waste, the way it is folded is too delicate. It is a folding method that carefully fits the corners. Moreover, I also feel that there is a certain order in these messy black lines.

This hidden order reminds me of the chaotic space-time in the apocalyptic era. Yes, these messy black lines are the product of depicting the order hidden in the chaotic space-time in a two-dimensional form.

Tan Xiang also saw the paper and said thoughtfully: "Is this... a map?"

"Map?" I looked at him. "Why do you think so?"

"Ah? This..." Tan Xiang said at a loss, "I don't know... I just suddenly had this inspiration."

I turned my attention back to the paper. Just as Tan Xiang said as if possessed by a ghost, this black line graffiti should be a map.

However, this map is too rough. Not to mention how to identify its specific content, we can't even tell how to hold it right side up or upside down, and we don't know where we are on the map.

The cartographer said that he had wanted to make a map of the apocalyptic era for a long time. Could this be the result of his past work?

Unable to figure it out, I put it away and went back to look at the cartographer's diary again.

I turned directly to the last entry in my diary.

Yes, I am the kind of person who can't help but start reading from the last page when reading a mystery novel.

The last entry was written in fresh handwriting. Comparing it with the previous entries, it was easy to tell that it was written not long ago. In other words, this was probably written by the cartographer before he fought me. It could be said to be his suicide note.

I became very interested in it and read it carefully.

The cartographer wrote in his last diary entry:

"Finally, I found two new survivors outside. Thank God, this way, I can finally save those two unfortunate children.

"The only drawback is that the first survivor I found, Zhuang Cheng, is a blessed monk who is good at manipulating the power of fire. If the first person I found was that weak Tan Xiang, I would not have tried to win over Zhuang Cheng.

“What concerns me even more is that after seeing Zhuang Cheng’s flames, Hong Cao was actually frightened like that.

"After I comforted her, I asked her the reason. She told me that the feeling given by Zhuang Cheng's flames was very similar to that of the Great Demon of Disaster that had destroyed her team of survivors and burned her parents to death.

"Zhuang Cheng is the great demon of disaster?"

(End of this chapter)