Chapter 503 Abstraction

The cartographer's appearance had become vastly different from that of a human, and at the same time, his body, hidden beneath his cloak and coat, was writhing and churning, seemingly undergoing further twisting and mutation.

This is the first time I've witnessed a post-apocalyptic survivor transform into a demon.

This mutation is unlike any of the monstrous, goat-headed monsters I've encountered in the past. Although the Karma is the prototype of monsters, Asahi once said that the Karma of the apocalypse era looks completely different from the monsters of the modern world.

As the mutations in his soul and body deepened, the cartographer was likely rapidly losing the ability to speak like a human. He glanced at me without saying a word, then pointed at me.

Whether in a spiritual or physical sense, he seemed to have become the master of all directions. The massive amount of building debris swirling rapidly overhead was altered by him, crashing towards me like a cascading waterfall.

With such an unreserved offensive, I wonder if he was considering that there were not only me and Tanxiang present, but also the two children he wanted to "save"? I also stopped playing the passive role and raised my hand to point at him.

A fireball rapidly condensed and formed, transforming into a projectile that struck the cartographer's location. The ruins of the safe house and surrounding buildings were instantly engulfed in a massive sea of ​​fire. The intense heat, the explosion, the shockwave—even the massive waterfall of rubble falling towards me was easily blown away by the sudden burst of flames. The cartographer's power was far beyond my comprehension; this outcome was inevitable.

The sandalwood tree lying on the ground made panicked noises, probably thinking it was going to be killed by the explosion. However, I had already added it to my flame's whitelist. It closed its eyes, opened its mouth wide, and cried out for a while before realizing it wasn't injured. Its voice gradually weakened, and then it opened its eyes blankly.

"I...I'm not dead?" he said in shock.

Then, he looked at the raging flames and the ruins after the explosion, then looked at me, shocked again, "Weren't you poisoned? You caused this explosion? You're that strong!?"

Although the other person was someone I didn't know very well, seeing his attitude towards my performance still gave me a sense of accomplishment, like I was showing off in front of others.

However, the matter is not over yet.

The cartographer disappeared in the explosion, but he did not actually die.

The ground around them suddenly began to shake, and Sandalwood reacted in panic once again.

This kind of thing should never have happened. Even after being corrupted by karma and reaching the advanced level, a character who is not even at the Great Completion level could survive my attack. It's as incomprehensible as trying to crush an ant with your foot without killing it.

Could it be that the other party happened to hide in the creases of the shoe? No, that's not the case. I understand how the other party survived; it involves changes in the realms of fate and cause and effect.

In the modern world, when I unleash my power as the Great Impermanence, it is always accompanied by all sorts of incredible miracles. When I want to attack someone, their fate is automatically twisted by my will into a shape from which there is absolutely no escape. The "result" of "hitting" occurs first, while the "cause" is added later. Besides these, there are many more miracles that cannot be explained by common sense, which I will not explain one by one here.

This could be described as a forced achievement of "when the time is right, all the forces of heaven and earth lend their strength," but in the apocalyptic era, with fate and cause and effect in chaos, these convenient effects no longer exist. My attack was merely "an extremely powerful attack," without any special environmental bonuses.

The cartographer, however, was different. His soul was mostly corrupted by karma, and he was no longer human, but a kind of "apocalyptic monster".

Karmic demons are bizarre entities unique to the apocalyptic era, and can be seen as beings that have evolved and adapted in a special way to the apocalyptic spacetime environment. In my view, the chaotic spacetime environment is likely to be their perfect habitat.

The moment I launched my attack, this monster didn't flee in any direction of the real world, but instead fled towards the metaphysical realm. It was as if a three-dimensional human suddenly escaped into the two-dimensional world, or fled into an abstract world composed of words and symbols.

The cartographer had described his ability as "guiding direction," which could help him find a way out in dangerous situations. But even so, forcibly finding a way to the abstract world and then physically entering it is simply wishful thinking. No matter how unique or superior his ability is, it should only be possible to do this after reaching the Great Perfection level.

But what he did didn't stop there. In Feng Shui theory, direction—or orientation—can also influence a person's fortune. Choosing the right direction can bring good luck and a destiny of victory in every battle. Just now, while he was running away, a bizarre phenomenon similar to "when the time is right, heaven and earth lend their strength" occurred around him, further amplifying the effect of his actions.

This seems to corroborate the idea that some secular order still exists in the post-apocalyptic world.

If he hadn't gone this far, he wouldn't have been able to escape my attack. He's no longer human, so he's no longer bound by human cognitive frameworks and can even deal with my high-speed attacks without being bound by the concept of reaction speed. Just as the Silver Moon, being a strange being, can make changes of equal strength that humans cannot understand, the more abnormal the user's mind is, the wider the scope of its effects.

The wind picked up again.

As we walked along the pedestrian street, the buildings within sight began to shatter into countless pieces of rubble, which then gathered in the air.

Sandalwood stared in disbelief at all of this.

Even as a demon, the cartographer couldn't possibly possess enough magical power to manipulate so many rubble structures. I suspect it's because this pedestrian street was his stronghold; he had done extensive preparations here, distributing his power throughout the area. Now, this power, which could have been used to combat the apocalyptic anomalies, has become a weapon aimed at humanity.

Based on my experience in the field of abstraction and my current perception of the environment, I can barely determine the cartographer's current state—he is no longer an "entity" but has become a "possibility." The existence of the cartographer is now distributed probabilistically in the ruins of this pedestrian street in the form of mathematics.

He exists everywhere, yet he does not exist everywhere.

He can arbitrarily interfere with the physical world using his magical powers and the ability to "guide," while the characters of the physical world cannot directly touch him. Even if I were the Great Impermanence, it would be difficult to directly touch the existence of the abstract realm before I could analyze and adapt to the spacetime of the apocalypse.

However, such a trivial skill is not enough to save his life from my next attack.

I raised my palm to the air in front of me.

(End of this chapter)