Chapter 504 Overwhelming Power

In nature, strength does not necessarily guarantee survival, nor does weakness necessarily preclude survival; rather, it depends on whether one can adapt to the current environment.

In the era when dinosaurs still roamed the land, mammals, who were the ancestors of humans, were mostly small, nocturnal animals the size of mice. They avoided being preyed upon by dinosaurs by taking shelter in caves and rock crevices. Some species even mastered the ability to dig into the soil and burrow underground, so even dinosaurs could not dig three feet into the ground to dig them out and hunt them.

My current feeling is like encountering an enemy skilled at burrowing and diving deep. This apocalyptic anomaly is able to evade my attacks not only because of its own strength, but also because it has been protected by its evolutionary adaptation to the chaotic spacetime of the post-apocalyptic era. Sometimes, strength is not the only solution for survival. Dinosaurs, the dominant species of their time, disappeared from the stage of history after the mass extinction, while mammals survived and continued to evolve.

However, I wonder if this is simply because the powerful are not powerful enough?

Whether dinosaurs or mammals, they were all weak in the face of the power of nature. If humans with advanced enough technology had collectively traveled to the Jurassic period, perhaps they would not have been wiped out by the crisis of an asteroid impact; and if the dinosaurs were powerful enough to flatten mountains, the mammal ancestors hiding underground would not have been able to escape predation by relying on the protection of the environment.

What I need to do now is this.

The rubble that had piled up overhead seemed to transform into a small mountain, crashing down on where Tanxiang and I were standing with overwhelming force. This was probably the full-force attack that the cartographer, in his probability cloud form, could unleash at this stage. Due to the sheer size of the mountain of construction debris, it appeared to be falling slowly, but in reality, it would hit the ground in just two or three seconds.

Seeing this scene, Tanxiang revealed a sense of despair.

However, as I slowly pressed my raised palm down, boundless flames emerged from the higher sky.

That was the light emanating from a colossal fiery hand formed by my flames. The fiery hand was three kilometers long from fingertips to the base of the palm, facing down, as if it were about to swat an insect, and it was moving towards the ground at a speed far exceeding that of a mountain of construction debris.

Compared to the mountain of construction debris that was falling towards me and Tanxiang, it was merely a tiny pebble. The pedestrian street we were on was only a few hundred meters long, and this colossal fiery hand could easily hold it all in its grasp.

The cartographer is now like a math problem. Normally, to kill him, you would have to solve the problem cleverly. But I chose a brute-force solution. Since he is distributed in any part of this pedestrian street in the form of mathematical possibilities, as long as I deliver a blow that will eliminate him no matter where he is hiding, his chances of surviving here will all disappear.

If that doesn't work, then I'll just destroy the entire spacetime in this area, so it won't matter whether he's lurking in the two-dimensional or three-dimensional world.

The idea of ​​entering the realm of metaphysics and abstraction, or becoming a mathematical possibility, are all tricks of the weak. Under overwhelming power, they are nothing more than childish games played in a snail's shell.

A force large enough to distort all reason is itself capable of distorting all logic.

This holds true even in the most irrational apocalyptic times.

Because now I'm even more unreasonable.

The colossal fiery hand first shattered and incinerated the mountain of construction debris in the air, then slammed down onto the pedestrian street. Amidst the boundless flames, I felt as if I had finally come into contact with the cartographer's soul, hidden deep within the chaotic spacetime. His figure seemed to reappear in my perception.

As he lay dying, a sliver of clarity seemed to return to his clouded eyes. It was perhaps the last trace of his human soul that he hadn't had time to erase during his demonic transformation.

He glanced at the celestial fire above, then looked at me, seemingly somewhat relieved.

"Gods..." he murmured, "Have you finally appeared... to save us?"

The light of destruction engulfed him.

After the torrent of orange-red light completely receded, the possibility of the life of the "cartographer" was also completely eliminated from the apocalypse.

The battle is over.

I slowly lowered my right hand and then looked around.

The cartographer's last words still seem to echo faintly in my mind.

Sandalwood lay on the ground, clutching its head and trembling for a long time. It seemed that it was only after a long time that it realized it had not been burned to death. Then it hesitantly raised its head to observe its surroundings.

He wasn't the only one undamaged; the pedestrian street itself wasn't destroyed by my flames either. Because my intention was merely to destroy the mountain of construction debris above and the cartographer on the ground, the colossal fiery hand disintegrated and dissipated automatically after fulfilling its purpose. Unnecessary destruction was not my intention.

It's a good thing things didn't escalate to the point of destroying the surrounding spacetime. If it had, even I can't say whether others could have survived.

Incidentally, breaking through the void does not help me travel to the nothingness beyond the world.

Nothingness is a realm of true "non-existence." Because it is not a space, there is no concept of "entering" it. I don't know what power the Yellow Springs used to banish me there; at least I couldn't do it, nor do I think that the Great Impermanence of Mount Luoshan outside of myself could do it so easily.

"Zhuang Cheng... just who are you?"

Of course, Sandalwood wasn't foolish enough not to connect the giant fiery hand he'd just seen with me. He sat up on the ground, looked at me with disbelief, and said, "Could it be... you're a god? Like the god the cartographers worshipped before..."

"More or less."

Explaining the concepts of "Great Impermanence" and "Gods and Humans" in detail would be troublesome, so I'll just acknowledge it directly. Then I'll add: "However, it doesn't matter in the era before the apocalypse. Right now, I can't call myself a god, and I can't bless you or protect your future safety. Just think of me as a superhuman with great power."

"It's just that it's very powerful..." Sandalwood seemed to want to complain about something.

"Instead of that, can you answer one question for me?" I said.

"What's the problem? I'll answer to the best of my knowledge," Sandalwood asked cautiously.

“You don’t need to be so afraid of me,” I said. “I just want to know why you weren’t poisoned by the cartographer. If the cartographer’s abilities weren’t so cunning, you might have actually had a chance to attack those two children and kidnap them as hostages, right?”

"Ah...you mean that?" Sandalwood suddenly realized. "It's simple, I threw up all that food beforehand."

"Spit it out?" I asked.

"After finishing my meal, I asked the cartographer where the restroom was, right? After going to the restroom, I secretly vomited up all the food I had eaten. It was just a bit late, so I managed to digest a small portion of it. The toxins did have a slight effect on me."

Sandalwood sat on the ground, touching its body, seemingly still unable to stand up, and continued, "Actually, I didn't know from the beginning that there was poison in the food. I just felt that in this kind of horror story setting, I shouldn't just accept food and water from strangers... Maybe I'd be eating his food one minute and he'd be eating my flesh the next. Besides, I wasn't particularly hungry to begin with."

"But... I never expected things to develop so horrifically. He really wanted to eat my flesh..."

As a young man who grew up in a peaceful era, this must have been the first time he had encountered something so absurd, and a look of lingering fear appeared on his face.

Despite lacking survival experience, he was still able to make such a decision, which may stem from his persistent lack of realism regarding his situation. Because he was experiencing an event resembling a horror story, he followed the logic of a horror story in his decision-making, rather than the logic he would use in normal reality.

But regardless, his judgment and decisions were correct. To put it bluntly, he had acted quite incompetent from his first appearance, but this finally made me look at him in a new light.

"So... what should we do next?" Sandalwood asked anxiously.

He was probably worried that he wasn't capable enough and would be abandoned by me. The cartographer had previously explained the concepts of madness and demonic possession to him, so he should be well aware of how dangerous it is to be alone in the apocalypse.

"Don't worry, I won't abandon you for now," I said.

“For now…” Sandalwood murmured.

Traveling with me might not be a good decision, as the jinx's influence may still linger on my fate, inevitably leading to numerous attacks from strange entities along the way. I've already experienced firsthand the unpredictable and unpredictable nature of these post-apocalyptic anomalies. While they may not pose a significant threat to me, the people accompanying me are a different story.

I turned and walked away into the distance.

Including the safe house, almost all the buildings on the pedestrian street had been reduced to ruins. This wasn't my doing; it was the cartographer's doing. I searched through the ruins of the safe house until I found what I was looking for.

I dug the wandering soul out from under the rubble; he looked completely disoriented.

The cartographer had previously stated that the wandering soul was not his companion, but rather a severely injured Blessed cultivator he had captured from outside. The reason it had gone mad wasn't due to insanity, but because he had driven several nails into its brain.

In other words, if I want to communicate with this person who knows the clues about the small bowl, I don't need to restore my power of words first; I just need to dig out the nail from their brain.

(End of this chapter)