Chapter 41 Fallen Witcher VS Superpowered Individuals 4 (Third Update)
According to the information I found in Luoshan, some strange phenomena can indeed allow people to travel between the past and the future, but these are extraordinary phenomena that cannot be replicated by human power, and are rare experiences that can only be encountered by chance.
Just how firm is Luo Shan's claim that this thing is "unrepeatable" and "something you can only hope to encounter"? A glance at their publicly available archives will tell you. Ritual knowledge related to time travel is brazenly displayed there for anyone to consult. In short, it says, "I successfully traveled to the past and future through these steps, but for some reason, I can't seem to succeed anymore. Anyway, I'll write it down here; believe it or not."
While Luo Shan's attitude towards it wasn't as disdainful as that of a serious scientist regarding "amateur science enthusiasts who suddenly have an epiphany and invent a perpetual motion machine," he genuinely didn't care at all.
If the creator of the monster wasn't lying, he likely traveled to the past or future through a method that cannot be replicated. Considering the innovative nature of the monster's technology, it's more likely to be the future. Of course, he could also have obtained technology that wouldn't appear for a long time to come through "foresight," but his tone doesn't suggest that. And if I want the Seed of the Heart to be mine forever, starting with the "future" seems like a viable direction.
I don't know how to "predict the future," let alone "travel through the future." But without any other clues, I can't just sit idly by. I have no choice but to put the ritual knowledge I found in the publicly available archives into practice. Repeatedly describing and emphasizing the various difficulties in my mind is meaningless; everything must begin with practice.
Then I went to kill someone.
The prey this time is, of course, still those with special abilities from the common people. People with special abilities—or rather, "magic"—can often replace many ritual materials. Killing them on the spot and using their blood as material for ritual arrays is enough to make many ritual arrays exert effects beyond expectations.
As a detective in Luoshan, if I rashly collected a lot of ritual materials through connections, it might arouse suspicion from those with ulterior motives, and murder would be the easiest way to do so. At the same time, due to the nature of my work, I am more adept at discovering people with magical powers from among the common people. Soon, I found a tenant in a neighborhood relatively close to Xianshui University.
On the surface, he was just an ordinary employee at a company, renting a room on the fifteenth floor of an apartment building. In reality, he was a dormant superhuman. The moment I saw him, I could smell the high-quality fragrance of his soul emanating from him.
Leveraging my official identity as Detective Luo Shan and my years of experience, I quickly gained his trust to some extent. Through investigation, I learned that his ability was "penetration," which allowed him to become a phantom and pass through any object.
In other words, during the activation of his ability, nothing can harm him. Even if a nuclear bomb were to fall on him, or even an asteroid were to hit him, he would be invincible as long as his ability was active. This is an extremely valuable ability that emphasizes defensive capabilities.
The reason he didn't reveal himself was probably because he still held a sense of awe for the nation and society, and was uninterested in a new and exciting life. However, it's clear that his eyes held arrogance towards the masses; he no longer considered himself an ordinary person. Even living among people, he probably saw himself as a wolf lurking among sheep, taking pride and finding joy in that.
Unfortunately, most of these "superpowered" individuals, who only have one exceptionally long ability, can be taken down by a sneak attack from behind. They are invincible while their ability is active—which, conversely, means that once they can't activate their ability, they are just ordinary mortals.
I sent out a stand-in, and with a little trickery, I easily killed him in his rented room. He didn't even have time to activate his "invincible" superpowers until the moment of his death.
As for the ritual array set up with his blood, one or two of them are array symbols used to search for the target time and space. Since I cannot determine exactly how many years into the future the source of the monster's technology is, I cannot write them in. As a substitute, I added my own blood as a monster to the array, which theoretically can serve as a substitute search condition.
And as expected, theory is theory, but I still failed.
Not only that, the magical fluctuations leaked out during the defeat also attracted Luo Shan Wuchang, who was patrolling the area at the time.
The impermanence in charge of patrolling this area at the time was Zhu Shi. She was not as easy to deal with as that superpowered person, and I didn't want to make things worse, so I had to order my stand-in to retreat temporarily.
Then, eight months later, today...
After repeated hunts, the strength of my Seed of the Heart has reached its limit.
The creator of this eccentricity told me that if I wanted to break through to the next stage, I either had to overcome my inner demons and my soul would naturally be elevated, or I had to devour a sufficient number of souls to forcibly elevate my own.
I chose the latter path.
Many other things also happened during those eight months.
First, the monster maker has added another monster to Saltwater City.
I had some secret contact with this strange man. He never hid his crimes and had an inexplicable hatred for the powerful and wealthy. He was actually quite wealthy himself, but he resented those who were richer and more powerful than him, and in the past two or three months, he had murdered five local dignitaries.
I loathe him. He even carelessly leaves biological clues at crime scenes. I deliberately had my double leave some hair with follicles in the fifteenth-floor room to easily distance myself from him. What was his purpose in doing that? Fortunately, Luo Shan's forces in Xianshui City lack modern criminal investigation experience and have temporarily conflated me with him. But perhaps sooner or later he will expose himself and implicate me.
Dealing with him covertly isn't so simple. We weirdos all have the ability to summon mirror images of ourselves using the power of shadow. Although these mirror images are much weaker than our original selves, he also has an inherent ability called "Shadow Shift," which ignores spatial distance and allows him to instantly swap positions with a distant clone.
This superpower also has a cheating function: it can be triggered passively. If he encounters a fatal blow that he cannot react to, the superpower will activate itself to protect his life through a mysterious judgment mechanism. It's practically the epitome of cheating.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons he acts so recklessly; I, for one, am powerless to do anything about it. Now Zhu Shi is handling his case, and I only hope he dies by Zhu Shi's sword soon.
Then, the day before yesterday, I met a mysterious person with superpowers.
This happened during the day. I was resting at the Luoshan office across from the police station when an unprecedented commotion broke out. When I rushed over, I learned that someone had broken into the police station to steal firearms and ammunition—a major incident for them. And I even smelled the scent of ghosts there.
Just as a carnivore can smell its wounded, bleeding prey in the air, I can find my soul-wrenching prey even more easily if I'm near one. And that's the scent I smelled. I commanded my Stand to move in that direction and found the source of the scent behind a fried chicken shop.
It turned out to be a girl of about thirteen or fourteen years old, pale and exhausted. She was holding a real gun, which meant she was the criminal who had broken into the police station to steal firearms and ammunition earlier.
Based on my assessment of her aura, she should have been a formidable esper. When she was in good condition, she probably wouldn't have given me or my Stand a second thought. But her current state is extremely poor; she's even weaker than my Stand.
As long as I devour her soul, my Seed of the Heart will surely break through to the next stage, and there will even be more surplus!
I immediately ordered my double to ambush her, but the result was very disappointing.
She actually possessed the power of spatial teleportation. Although she was initially at a disadvantage and severely injured, she immediately teleported to a distance beyond the reach of my soul and senses.
But soon after, an unexpected turn of events occurred. My superior gave me information on someone and ordered me to find them by any means necessary. This target was none other than the girl who had previously escaped from my sight.
It wasn't just me who wanted to find this girl, nor was it just my superiors; their superiors, and other factions in Luoshan, all sprang into action. They were all well aware that the girl possessed the power of spatial teleportation, and therefore even planned to expand the search nationwide, determined to bring her into their own hands no matter what.
The storm was beyond imagination, plunging my mind into a raging torrent.
—Who exactly is that girl?
-
Since the incident was of such a serious nature, I dared not make any further moves against the girl and could only focus on another matter.
This is something I can't ignore either: Zhu Shi's brother, Zhu Chang'an, rented the fifteenth-floor room eight months ago—the residence of the person with the penetrating ability—and discovered the ritual array I left behind. And that ritual array activated on its own without my noticing.
I don't know if it was successfully activated. I heard that a mysterious cave appeared at the center of the ritual circle, which I can only interpret as the effect of the ritual circle. After Zhu Shi told me about this and asked me to go and investigate, I set off without hesitation.
This time, I was disappointed again. I didn't see the cave from the fifteenth-floor room; instead, I saw Zhuang Cheng.
Zhuang Cheng was a somewhat well-known figure within the local Luoshan forces. In this increasingly chaotic world, it was simply unbelievable that someone like him, who tracked down strange things, would repeatedly return empty-handed. I and a few familiar Luoshan detectives would occasionally get together and discuss him casually; even my superiors and several local shamans remembered him.
Even after learning about him, I had my doubts. I wondered if he had truly encountered strange events but was deliberately hiding his experiences, pretending to be completely ignorant of our world. So what would be his motive for deliberately concealing his knowledge? It was only natural that I began to suspect that he had benefited from past strange events, or even gained strange powers.
Or perhaps, it was precisely because he possessed strange powers that he was able to escape from bizarre events. Unable to reveal his experiences while concealing his powers, he chose to remain silent.
And these people with special abilities are my prey.
But perhaps it's just a coincidence. In the past, whenever I wanted to spy on and hunt down Zhuang Cheng, I would always abandon my original plans for one reason or another, and in the end, nothing would come of it.
(End of this chapter)
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