"Joining Luo Mountain..."
Zhu Shi let out a sigh after a mont of stunned silence.
"So it’s still not possible?" I asked, feeling concerned.
"It’s not that it’s not possible. If you really possess such incredible power, whether you want to join Luo Mountain or do anything else, I have no reason or right to stop you."
"Then, do you think I’m faking or exaggerating my own power?" I thought her reaction was entirely understandable.
But she shook her head, "I have no doubts about your description of the previous battle."
I wish you would doubt it a bit.
I had even planned to demonstrate it on the spot.
"Before, I thought you had serious deficiencies in combat, that’s why I opposed your joining Luo Mountain; now, on the contrary, being powerful has its own drawbacks." Zhu Shi seed to be preoccupied with sothing and looked towards the scattered remains on the ground, showing a sorrowful expression, "I will explain the detailed reasons to you later. For now, let’s deal with the aftermath of the Fallen Demon Hunter."
Agent Kong appeared to be an acquaintance of Zhu Shi, and seeing an acquaintance turn evil and die must have been very complicated for her.
"I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to kill him," I said.
"You don’t need to apologize to . I know it wasn’t you who killed him, but so other unknown cause. Even if it was you, the mistake lies with Agent Kong, not with you." As she spoke, a look of sha crossed her face, "Besides... I am the Demon Hunter responsible for this area. It was my duty to bear the karma of killing."
I had initially felt sowhat illogically sorry for causing the death of Zhu Shi’s acquaintance, but now she was the one feeling guilty towards . I then rembered that Agent Kong had told one of the reasons Zhu Shi didn’t want to join Luo Mountain was because she didn’t want to kill.
That statent likely wasn’t just sothing Agent Kong said offhandedly; Zhu Shi genuinely had a very naïve side.
Agent Kong wasn’t killed directly by , but his death was undoubtedly related to . Unlike the previous Fallen Demon Hunter, my impression of Agent Kong had always been that of a human. I should perhaps feel guilty for taking a life, yet my heart was unfazed.
Instead, I felt even more regret that with the death of Agent Kong, many truths I did not understand were now buried in darkness.
Clearly, there were still many mysteries surrounding the Fallen Demon Hunter incident. Where did Agent Kong get this power from? Why did he suddenly self-destruct and die in the end? Why did the last Fallen Demon Hunter recognize ? What was the deal with the ritual array in the 15th-floor room and the cave? It felt like I had rushed through a ga only to find that I had missed many collectible items, and with real life unable to rewind, it seed I could only throw myself into the next adventure.
Not being able to enter the Shadow World through Agent Kong again was truly regrettable.
I can’t describe the inner workings of the Shadow World with human language, nor could I even be clear about what it felt like to be there. If I had to put it into words, if my existence were likened to a software program, then entering the Shadow World was like trying to open a video file with text editing software, almost turning into nonsensical gibberish.
So I had to endure and maintain my existence and thought in that place.
When Zhu Shi first heard describe this, the look she gave beca even stranger, as if she couldn’t understand what I was talking about at all. I didn’t understand it myself, I was just going with the feeling.
I had planned to observe more while I was there, but I feared that Agent Kong might escape in the anti, and I could still capture him to open the passage again, so I hurried back. But I didn’t expect...
After bidding farewell to Zhu Shi, I found other pieces of Agent Kong’s shattered body nearby. These were not large chunks, just fingers that had scattered in the explosion and were charred by flas. I picked them up and carried them away, filled with a sense of loss. Perhaps because they were charred to cinders before his death, they still retained the appearance of the Fallen Demon Hunter, which made them sowhat commorative in value.
Calling it a "souvenir" might seem morbid of , and I may encounter many more bizarre incidents in the future. Compared to those, this charred finger certainly wouldn’t count for much. However, at least for at the mont, it still ant sothing.
-
A day later, this morning, I t with Zhu Shi in a park near the university.
Perhaps she had done sothing because despite the significant commotion I caused by slicing the unfinished building in half, official personnel hadn’t co to talk to , or perhaps she was the official agent ant to speak with .
She was still dressed in a white won’s blouse and a black pencil skirt, carrying a large black guitar case, looking like a band girl.
Compared to yesterday, her complexion was much calr; she seed to have dealt with the emotional turmoil of a friend turning evil and dying, or maybe she had simply buried it all deep inside her heart.
There was no one else around, so we could talk freely. Now, as the Luoshan Demon Hunter, she was going to formally discuss my future with .
First, she asked to actually demonstrate my ability to transform my body into flas. I did as asked, and she walked around , observing and wearing an expression as if she had seen a ghost.
"Although I never doubted what you said and had ntally prepared myself but... Are my eyes okay? Am I not dreaming?"
"Is this skill really that incredible?" I asked curiously.
"It’s not just about being incredible, it’s a divine technique," she evaluated, "to freely transform one’s body into natural elents. In the world of demon hunters, this is considered ’Manifester’s Might,’ commonly referred to as ’Elentalization.’ This skill is regarded as a characteristic of Gods or Immortals by demon hunters. Although there are other thods that can forcibly mimic this divine technique, they usually co with certain conditions or prices to pay, or have limitations. It is not possible to do it as naturally and effortlessly as you."
"So what you’re saying is, I’m a God or an Immortal?" I replied, with a sense of unreality.
"... That depends on how you master Elentalization," she seed to find that a bit far-fetched.
Upon hearing this, I recalled my past experiences and explained them to her.
The process for to learn Elentalization—or what might be called my "second form"—wasn’t complicated.
Zhu Shi and Agent Kong seed to believe that Fla Ability Users, compared to ’Transcendents,’ are more like ’mortals wielding powerful weapons,’ and indeed I felt the sa way in my normal state.
In the past, I always felt an invisible barrier between myself and the flas. When I was manipulating flas, it felt like issuing commands to subordinates, there was always a gap from when "I gave the order" to when "the flas received the order." No matter how much I practiced, it seed like I was cultivating a tacit understanding with the flas rather than truly being one with them.
In theory, my flas should be my spirit, and there should be no such inexplicable delay. So I had to establish this hypothesis, that "my own spirit" and "the spirit that has transford into fla" were different.
Furthermore, it occurred to that if I couldn’t manipulate the flas as an extension of myself, it was because I was still human, not the fla itself. So why not beco the fla?
And to put this idea into action, I chose a very simple and brute-force thod.
I set myself on fire with the flas.
Unless I intended it, the flas wouldn’t harm my body. I could fill every crevice inside my body directly with fire, experiencing the sensation of becoming one with the flas.
Until one day, I finally beca indistinguishable from the fire.
I myself had turned into flas.
The process was a blur, even to .
After listening to my story, Zhu Shi was dumbfounded.
"This thod of yours..." It took her a while to say with difficulty, "I can only say that real Gods and Immortals are very clear about their own process of achieving Elentalization, even though they might not be able to describe it in words to others. For the forr, it’s an innate state; for the latter, it’s the result of enlightennt.
"As for your situation where you took an incomprehensible idea and suddenly mastered it with practice... based on my knowledge, there’s no precedent for your thod."
"I see..."
It seed that I really had no connection to Gods and Immortals. However, as a supernatural power user, I was clearly very special.
I didn’t know whether I should be happy about my "uniqueness." This peculiarity seed to an it was harder to find other reference cases, increasing the difficulty of exploring the reasons behind my own awakening of superpowers.
"I think I also understand why you never encountered anomalies," she said with a sense of closure. "Anomalies attract other anomalies, but to the extre, an opposite effect occurs. Your power is so great that anomalies would actively avoid you. It’s not just intelligent anomalous beings that would steer clear; even phenona-based anomalies seemingly can’t interact with you for so reason.
"And this is normally a special phenonon that happens with most of the Impermanence and a very few excessively powerful demon hunters."
I heard a new term and couldn’t help but beco curious: "What is ’Impermanence’?"
"The so-called Impermanence are the strongest demon hunters who reign at the peak of Luo Mountain," she explained. "They are powerful and few in number; there are less than ten Impermanence stationed at Luo Mountain now."
"You say they are powerful... how powerful are they, specifically?"
As I asked, I also made guesses. Considering that an organization like Luo Mountain hadn’t beco the ruler of this country or left its own records in history, the power of the Impermanence should not exceed that of ancient armies, and at most, not surpass modern military forces.
However... Even I was confident that I could defeat an ancient army. Could the strongest demon hunters really not do that?
Or was I underestimating the military, which throughout history had the ace up its sleeve to suppress supernaturals like ?
What Zhu Shi said next was astonishingly ludicrous:
"Excluding certain special cases that might have existed in history, to my knowledge, the Impermanence generally possess the power to single-handedly destroy an entire country."
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