Chapter 505 The Great Demon of Calamity?
I dug the wandering soul out from under the rubble. He lay on the ground, panting for a few breaths. After regaining some strength, he revealed a ferocious expression, just like last time.
Now that the iron chains binding his entire body were no longer connected to any other objects and could move freely, he bared his teeth and claws and attacked me.
I kicked his knees without mercy, shattering them and rendering him unable to move freely once again.
Sandalwood had heard the cartographer mention the wandering spirit and had also witnessed my last attempt to awaken it. He leaned closer and said, "Are you trying to get information from him? But how are you going to get the nail out of his head like this?"
“Do it this way.” I held up my finger.
I am not a neurosurgery expert, so of course I cannot safely remove a nail from someone's brain tissue without endangering their life.
However, the cartographer at the time was in the same position as me. The reason he was able to "safely" drive the nail into the ghost's brain was entirely because the ghost possessed the power of immortality.
Therefore, I don't need to worry too much about the safety of the wandering spirits.
I made a gun gesture, and with the thought of "not killing the other person," I fired a small flame bullet. The seemingly fleeting, tiny flash of light possessed the power of a bullet. In one shot, it shattered the wandering soul's body above the neck into fragments, splattering blood, flesh, bone fragments, and grayish-white brain tissue all over the ground, interspersed with a few thick, rusty iron nails.
Even though Tanxiang had probably seen a lot of blood and horror in just half a day, he still subconsciously held his breath.
But I noticed even more details. It seemed the cartographer had not only implanted nails in the brain tissue, but also added crisscrossing wires into the ghost's throat. This was likely to prevent the ghost from speaking—more precisely, to prevent the crazed ghost from inadvertently uttering incantations to cast spells.
Before the cartographer revealed his true colors, I had also considered trying my luck by chatting with the wandering spirit and seeing if it would unconsciously utter any clues. This plan, it turned out, was futile from the start.
I casually pulled the wire out of its bloodied throat and threw it aside.
Then, the headless "corpse" of the wandering spirit swayed and fell to the ground. I took two steps back and looked at the "corpse." A few seconds later, something strange happened.
The splattered blood, bits of flesh, and other biological tissue evaporated like water droplets on a red-hot iron pot, while the wound on the "corpse" burst forth with an extremely unusual vitality, with large amounts of granulation tissue and bone tissue rapidly growing and repairing itself. Before long, the wandering soul's skull grew back, flesh covered the facial bones, skin covered the flesh, hair and beard returned, and even the bloodstains and dust that covered the face inexplicably returned.
This is less a "regeneration of flesh and blood" and more a "time reversal" performed in the form of flesh and blood regeneration... or perhaps a denial of established facts? I feel that the wandering soul's body automatically overturns the history of "death," rewriting reality with the result that "it didn't actually die." In this respect, it also seems to be the power of the Silver Moon to modify reality.
However, compared to the power to alter reality, the power of a wandering spirit seems extremely limited and far from being comparable to the former.
The nails and wires remained where they were, not returning to the ghost's brain and throat. It's likely that the ghost's abilities possess some intelligent advantages, allowing it to remove elements detrimental to the user.
"Dead, yet resurrected..."
However, Tanxiang had never witnessed such strange and unusual power. After seeing this strange change, he was shocked and seemed to feel a strong sense of envy.
"He doesn't seem to be awake yet?" he asked.
I stepped forward and kicked the wandering soul twice, then gently heated his fingers with a flame. He reflexively showed a pained expression, but still did not wake up.
After careful observation, I understood the crux of his problem. It wasn't anything serious; he just hadn't recovered emotionally.
There is a mysterious connection between the human brain and the soul, and the state of the brain has a profound impact on the state of mind. In a post-apocalyptic world, once a person's mental state becomes chaotic, they are easily synchronized with madness and corrupted.
The wandering spirit, having been in a state of mental madness for an extended period, would likely have become a karmic demon. However, the cartographer probably didn't want a karmic demon to appear upstairs for no reason, so he likely took some measures, such as using the power of guidance to mentally suppress the wandering spirit's tendency towards karmic demonization.
The wandering spirit currently shows no signs of demonic transformation. If you simply place it on the ground and let it lie there for a while, it will wake up on its own.
During this time, I also took the opportunity to "clean up" the battlefield.
When I fought the cartographer, I made sure not to burn many things. Among the most important items were the Blessing in the safe house and the cartographer's Blessing Lantern.
I told Sandalwood to keep a close watch on the wandering spirits, while I searched through the ruins and rubble and found the lantern that was emitting white light. The blessing of the safe house was still floating in place, and I would have to find a way to take it with me later.
As for the boy and girl who followed the cartographer, the two children disappeared at some point.
To be honest, I hadn't paid much attention to those two kids before, nor had I ever thought of putting them on Flame's whitelist.
As for my current feelings, I didn't actually intend to kill it. Keeping it alive to ask for information related to the Great Demon of Calamity would be good, so maybe I subconsciously added it to my whitelist. However, on the other hand, they harbored malice and murderous intent towards me and Sandalwood, and my flames have an automatic counterattack mechanism against these kinds of people. They might just be burned to death by me without me even realizing it.
Or perhaps they were accidentally caught in the chaotic spacetime during the battle and teleported to another place? Anyway, none of that matters. I don't care whether those two children are dead or alive.
No, looking back, I probably had mixed feelings about that girl.
Because the girl's former party was wiped out by a strange entity suspected to be the Great Demon of Calamity, and perhaps even her parents died in the same way. And the Great Demon of Calamity might be me in the future. Therefore, if I kill her here, things might turn into me chasing after an innocent girl, inflicting two devastating blows on her fate.
If you ask me if I'll feel guilty about it, after all, it's not even certain whether this is true or not, and I haven't reached the point where I have to ask myself that question yet. But just thinking about this possibility makes me feel a vague, uneasy sigh.
While thinking this, I found a new target amidst the ruins.
It is a cartographer's diary.
This brown-covered diary was something I had been eyeing, but I had previously refrained from indulging my curiosity because it belonged to someone who had shown me kindness. Now that the person is dead, especially since they once tried to kill me, I feel no guilt whatsoever in casually looking through it.
I returned to the spot where the wandering spirit lay, intending to carefully examine the contents of the diary there.
After opening the book, before I could even see the contents clearly, I noticed something slipping out from the middle of the page. At first, I thought it was a bookmark, but upon closer inspection, I realized it was a folded piece of paper.
I unfolded the paper. It was an A4 size sheet, covered with a large number of messy black lines. The lines varied in thickness and were drawn without any rules, reminiscent of the graffiti of a mentally ill person.
What is this?
To the average person, this seems like nothing more than a piece of waste paper. However, to call it trash would be an overstatement; the folding is far too meticulous. The edges are carefully joined together. Moreover, I sense a certain order within these seemingly chaotic black lines.
This hidden order reminds me of the chaotic spacetime of a post-apocalyptic era. Indeed, these messy black lines seem to be a two-dimensional depiction of the hidden order within that chaotic spacetime.
Sandalwood also saw the paper and said thoughtfully, "This is... a map?"
“A map?” I looked at him. “Why would you think that?”
"Huh? This..." Sandalwood said, at a loss, "I don't know either... I just suddenly had this inspiration."
I turned my attention back to the paper, and just as Sandalwood had said, as if by some strange twist of fate, this black line drawing should be a map.
However, this map is too crude. Not to mention how to identify its specific contents, it doesn't even show how to hold it upright or upside down, nor does it tell us where we are on the map.
The cartographer once said that he had wanted to create a map of the post-apocalyptic era for a long time. Could this be the result of his past work?
Unable to figure it out, I had no choice but to put it away for the time being and then go back to look at the cartographer's diary.
I flipped directly to the last entry in the diary.
Yes, I'm the kind of person who can't help but start reading from the last page when reading a mystery novel.
The last entry in the diary was written in remarkably fresh handwriting; compared to the previous entries, it was easy to tell that it had been written recently. In other words, this was probably the cartographer's diary before his battle with me, something akin to his last will and testament.
I became very interested in it and then read on carefully.
The cartographer wrote the following in his last diary entry:
"Finally, I've found two new survivors outside. Thank goodness, this means I can finally save those two unfortunate children."
"The only drawback is that the first survivor I found—Zhuang Cheng—is a blessed cultivator skilled in manipulating the power of fire. If the first one I found had been that weak Sandalwood, I wouldn't have tried to recruit Zhuang Cheng."
"What bothers me even more is that Hongcao was so frightened after seeing Zhuangcheng's flames."
"After comforting her, I asked her why, and she told me that the flames of Zhuangcheng gave her a feeling very similar to the Great Demon of Calamity that had once wiped out her group of survivors and burned her parents to death."
"Is Zhuang Cheng a great demon of calamity?"
(End of this chapter)
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