Chapter 121 Sleeping Together 1
After saying goodbye to Zhu Shi, I headed home. Asao naturally came with me. Still affected by the devastating news, we weren't in the mood for much conversation on the way. Asao seemed preoccupied as well.
Even during the earlier interrogation of the monster creator, she remained silent. I thought she would eventually ask more questions, since her goal was to gather information related to the "apocalypse" through the monster creator.
“Your ring…” Ma spoke first, looking at the pocket where I kept the black rope heart-locking ring. “You used it during the day too. Was it a tool that could force someone to tell the truth?”
"Yes."
I took the opportunity to explain the origin of the black rope heart-locking ring, and then asked her why she had been silent earlier.
“That was the enemy you defeated, and you should lead the conversation. I only provided some support at the end; I have no right to interfere. Besides, you helped me ask the questions I was concerned about,” she said. “Moreover, the subsequent investigation is my main ‘battlefield.’ If there’s anything you want to know, I can use my abilities to trace it back.”
"Speaking of abilities, how's your soul?" I asked with concern. "You almost collapsed again recently."
"It's not as bad as it looks." It was hard to tell whether she was telling the truth or just putting on a brave face. "It's more strenuous for my blessing power to return to the outside than to return to itself. If I'm not careful, I can overexert myself and aggravate my injuries. But I can recover by returning to myself. As long as I'm not so injured that I can't use my power at all, it's fine."
I think we still need to find a way to heal her soul. Even if it's just a temporary fix, it's better than not trying at all.
We're back home now. It's almost nine o'clock in the evening, and I'm getting quite hungry.
Before we began our operation to ambush the monster creators, we only bought a few things along the way to fill our stomachs; it wasn't really dinner. As a flame aggregate, I don't actually have a strong need for food and water; hunger is just a mimicry of my physical needs. Asahi, on the other hand, can reset herself to a fully healthy state thanks to her blessing power, so she probably needs even less nutrition than I do. But I still decided to make dinner first.
Eating helps with mental recovery. After all, I've fought with people, even killed someone, and moreover, killed my friend's biological father. Even I would inevitably have some mental burden. Asahi also seemed to have lingering tension in her mind. After the meal, we both felt a little better.
She watched TV in the living room, while I went back to my bedroom to examine my superpowers.
After my first murder, my superpowers seemed to change. Now that I've killed the monster creator, have my superpowers changed again?
The answer is yes.
Previously, I focused all my attention on the monster creator and didn't pay close attention to whether my superpowers had changed. Actually, such changes are not easy to perceive. Last time, I only noticed it because I was more focused on my psychological feelings while killing; in other situations, I might not even have known my superpowers had changed. Now, I've activated my superpowers again and found that not only have they changed again, but they're also much more significant than when I killed the Shadow-Switch monster.
Now I can describe this change in a rudimentary way.
I believe some people who are passionate about sports might understand how I feel right now. It's like putting down your favorite sport for three or four days to focus on studying, and then when you pick it up again, there's a slight disconnect between your skills and practice. It's like your skills have overslept and become a little rusty, not quite meshing with your memory yet. It's like sand has been thrown into the cogs of a machine.
To put it another way, the Shadow Changer is at most a small handful of sand, which can be held between your thumb and forefinger. The Monster Creator, on the other hand, is a handful of sand, which requires you to close your palms to hold it.
It's just a handful of sand, which will soon be completely ground down by the gears of the machine. But my job isn't to grind it down, but to pick it out of the machine and see what it is.
I raised my right hand, summoning a fireball in my palm, and then stared intently at it. Now I must imagine that this is not a fireball, but a gear machine. I must invert this machine and let the sand inside separate and fall off on its own.
Not long after, I saw a tiny black shadow emerge from inside the fireball.
The shadowy figure grew increasingly conspicuous until it ceased to change, at which point I withdrew the fireball. The shadowy object then fell into my palm, its true form revealed before my eyes.
This is a dark, hard object.
A black, thumb-sized, irregularly shaped, hard substance. It felt like coal to the touch. I had absolutely no idea what it was or why it was in my flames. I tried using my superpowers again and found that the discomfort had completely disappeared. It seemed that what was affecting my feel was this mysterious black object.
I couldn't figure out what it was no matter how hard I tried, but I had some vague guesses. Since it was affecting the operation of superpowers, then in relation to superpowers, it was undoubtedly an "impurity." The impurities that appeared after burning an enemy to death with flames felt like the remnants of the enemy's life left behind in my flames.
While my flames possess the destructive power to vaporize a target, "evaporation" is not "annihilation"; it merely transforms the target from a solid or liquid state into a gaseous one. And after vaporization and sublimation, some substances always remain. It's like how distilling seawater leaves behind salt and other impurities… no, that might not be quite accurate. It's more like the "slag" that appears during pyrometallurgical processes…
That's right, it's "slag." Although something still seems a bit off, I think this metaphor is closer to the core idea.
I took this small piece of "slag" to Ma Zao for her opinion. I thought that if this piece of "slag" were to be classified, it should also be considered a strange object. When it comes to strange objects, she is far more knowledgeable than I am.
"You're saying this piece of coal affected your superpowers?" She looked serious as she examined the "slag" repeatedly.
"Yes, but it's alright now," I said.
"Will it reduce the power of your flames, or decrease the precision with which you manipulate them?" she asked.
"No," I said.
“But you said your handling has become rusty, and that it’s like a machine that’s been covered in sand,” she pointed out.
"That's just a superficial analogy." I carefully reflected on my feelings. "In reality, its impact is limited to making me feel like there's a foreign object on my phone, like there's a small pendant on it that I'm used to. It might feel a little strange at first, but you can't say that the pendant is affecting the phone's performance."
My analogy didn't seem to resonate with her, but she seemed to have managed to process it, then handed me the "slag" and said, "Then, can you put it back into your own flame?"
I summoned the fireball again, and at the same time took the "slag" and stuffed it into the fireball. The result was smooth; the "slag" disappeared without a trace in an instant within the fireball, and the foreign object sensation reappeared vaguely.
Then, just like last time, I made the "slag" appear from the fireball. Practice makes perfect, and this time the "slag" appeared immediately.
Ma Zao took the piece of "slag" and said strangely, "Has the shape of this thing changed?"
I peered over and saw that it was indeed true. The "slag" had been somewhat flat before, but now it had become relatively three-dimensional.
Asaho handed me the "slag" again, and I tried several more times to collect it into the flames and then retrieve it, finally confirming one thing: I could control the shape of the "slag" when it appeared in the flames. The reason the shapes were different the first two times was probably because I unconsciously changed its initial shape.
“This ‘slag’ seems to have some kind of soul.” Mazao used the name I gave to this substance, but it seemed that was all she could see.
“Soul…” I pondered.
If the "slag" is the residue left after my flames burned away the enemy's soul, then wouldn't that mean I "killed and refined the soul" of the "monster creator"—Zhu Shi's father? Just thinking about it makes me feel like I'm in "hell."
Compared to Ma Zao, Zhu Shi seems to have a more systematic understanding of strange things, so I've considered whether I should let her examine the "slag." But now it seems that handing over the substance that appears after refining the soul of her biological father to her for inspection is just too twisted. I don't want Zhu Shi to dislike me, so I'll give up.
However, this makes it somewhat understandable why "slag" only appears after I kill someone.
Neither Agent Kong nor the immortal monster died from my flames, so their souls were not consumed by them. The Shadow Changer and the Monster Creator, however, were completely different. The former was burned to death by my flames, while the latter had his entire consciousness network burned to ashes by my flames. Especially the latter; it's truly unbelievable that his soul wasn't consumed by my flames.
When the creator of the freak explained the relationship between the body and the soul to me, he explicitly and implicitly revealed that the human soul, spirit, and consciousness are actually the same existence, which makes perfect sense.
Ma and I studied it for quite a while, but we still couldn't figure out what the "slag" was for. We had a few guesses, but none of them had a way to verify them. In the end, I had no choice but to put the "slag" back into the flames.
"Is it really okay to put it in the flame?" Maya asked with concern.
To be on the safe side, it's indeed better to keep something of unknown origin out of your possession. However, just like I sensed before ambushing the monster creator, I still believe that the appearance of this "slag" isn't, at least not causing my superpowers to change for the worse. When it comes to superpowers, I trust my intuition.
The issue of "slag" is temporarily put aside, and I will now begin to ponder another important question.
Eccentric Creator...
Or rather, is his true form, Ying Lingyun, really dead?
(End of this chapter)
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