The Seed of the Heart had brought me more than just the ability to transform into a Ram-headed Demon and manipulate shadow power.
According to the Monster Maker, those were merely the Seed of the Heart's standard features. If the compatibility between the Seed of the Heart and its host was high enough, the host would develop a unique supernatural ability.
However, he had also said that the hosts he personally selected had not been chosen at random. They were all people he believed had compatibility high enough to produce a unique supernatural ability. So I was not particularly special in that regard.
Since he called himself the "Monster Maker," it was only natural that those who merged with the Seed of the Heart would be called "monsters." Just as the name suggested, they were people who had become monsters.
And my unique ability as a monster was Doppelganger.
I could temporarily transfer the Seed of the Heart out of my own body and turn someone else into a monster. During that time, all my power would be transferred to that person, while I temporarily lost my powers. My craving for souls would also be transferred.
Any human I turned into a monster this way would become my doppelganger puppet. I could give them any command, and I could remotely share their senses. When necessary, I could also reclaim my power, and my craving for souls would return as well. The entire process took only an instant, so I did not have to worry about being unable to reclaim my power in time if my true body fell into danger.
A monster could continue evolving its power by hunting humans and devouring their souls, and a doppelganger could do the same. Moreover, once I reclaimed my power, the doppelganger's progress would be reflected back to me. The price was that the doppelganger would die.
Even though I had never used this ability before, I understood its details perfectly. All this knowledge had surfaced in my mind like instinct. There was no chance I would misunderstand the true nature of my ability.
When the Monster Maker came to examine me, he had asked about my ability. Since I knew nothing about him, I could not choose to hide the truth or lie. I could only answer honestly. After hearing the details of my ability, he wore a somewhat surprised expression.
"I didn't expect it to be this kind of ability," he remarked. "Among all the monsters I've created so far, your ability may be the one closest to the original body."
I immediately asked what the original body was, but he seemed to have mentioned it casually and had no intention of elaborating on the subject.
"More importantly, it seems you haven't devoured any souls yet." He looked at me meaningfully. "If you keep refusing to devour human souls, sooner or later you'll lose control under the influence of your urge to kill and go on a rampage. Then you'll become a target for Luoshan's extermination force and die beneath some random sword. Can you accept an ending like that?"
"...I don't want to kill people." I struggled to speak. "Do I really have to kill people and devour human souls? What about animals—"
"No." He cut me off. "Since you thought of that method, you must have already tried it. The Seed of the Heart only accepts human souls."
"Then... can the Seed of the Heart be removed from my body?" I regretted saying it the moment the words left my mouth.
"Are you sure? The Seed of the Heart has already merged deeply with you. Unless you die, it cannot leave you."
"..." I fell silent.
After thinking for a moment, he said, "There is, however, one other situation in which the Seed of the Heart will leave you."
"What situation?" I asked.
"To prevent the Seed of the Heart from being captured by Luoshan, it will automatically leave a monster when that monster falls into an inescapable predicament. Of course, in that situation, the monster will still die from losing the Seed of the Heart." He said, "Unfortunately, the Seed of the Heart itself cannot judge the situation. That judgment ultimately comes from you. Therefore, when you become truly desperate from the bottom of your heart and resign yourself to your fate, convinced that there is no way to turn things around..."
"...I'll die," I said.
"That's right. So hurry up and kill someone, Kong Da." He smiled. "The moment you stop thinking and accept a future in which Luoshan exterminates you, the Seed of the Heart will leave you. You'll return to the powerless self you once were and die having accomplished nothing."
-
After struggling in every possible way, I still chose the path of killing.
Because I did not want to lose my power, and I did not want to die.
To avoid being tracked down by Luoshan and the official forces, I could not be the one to kill. It had to be my doppelganger.
The doppelganger's qualities and loyalty did not matter. My ability would raise them to a level where they could use the power, and they could not resist any of my commands. I had no grand ambitions, either, and I had no plans to manipulate those in power. As long as the person was human, that was enough. Someone on the fringes of society would do just as well.
Besides, manipulating someone powerful came with another problem. Anyone I turned into a doppelganger would directly assume the form of a Ram-headed Demon, and even death would not undo the transformation. If I was "a human who could transform into a Ram-headed Demon," then a doppelganger was physically altered by supernatural power and became a Ram-headed Demon itself.
So I found a homeless man who looked utterly destitute. Even if someone like him disappeared from society, nobody would care. It was the safest option.
There was just one small surprise. These days, even homeless people could not be underestimated. I had seen similar news online before, about homeless people scavenging by the roadside being recognized by passersby as former multimillionaires or other influential figures who had fallen into poverty after suffering some major upheaval.
I had thought such news was all far removed from me. But after questioning the homeless man I had caught, I discovered that he had once been the leader of a feudal superstitious cult.
He had originally thrown his weight around in the countryside and lived an incredibly comfortable life. Then, out of nowhere, a high school student who was interested in folklore had exposed all his tricks and even helped the official forces bring his crimes to light. After losing his support, he had nearly been carried out and burned alive by enraged believers. If he had not prepared a scapegoat in advance—someone he had brainwashed and subjected to plastic surgery as a precaution—he might really have died there.
But fortune was fickle. He probably could never have imagined that the man who had escaped death by using a scapegoat would one day become my doppelganger.
Under the effects of my ability, his mind quickly collapsed.
My doppelganger ability was not some absurd power that worked unconditionally. Not everyone could be transformed into a doppelganger. When I used the ability on a target, they would first be imprisoned in an illusion before the transformation began.
The Monster Maker had told me that a monster's supernatural ability was closely connected to their past life experiences and their heartfelt desires.
And the illusion I created was precisely the dead end that had once terrified me and plunged me into despair.
The more frightened and desperate someone became inside the illusion, the longer they would remain imprisoned. An ordinary person would need at least several days to escape, while I needed only one minute to transform a target into a doppelganger puppet.
The "entrapment" phase could still be resisted with magical power, but the "transformation" phase was a rule-based process that ignored differences in strength. Once that minute had passed, no matter how powerful the person trapped inside the illusion was, they would become a puppet at my mercy.
After obtaining my doppelganger, I began ordering him to kill.
Although the doppelganger could bear the urge to kill in my place, if I let him accumulate too much of it, I would inherit all of it once the Seed of the Heart returned. That would not do.
However, I had no intention of letting him slaughter ordinary people indiscriminately. Since I was controlling a doppelganger anyway, and I had already decided to kill, I might as well abandon all restraint and conscience and hunt Demon Hunters.
Most Demon Hunters drew their magical power from their souls, and they often possessed higher-quality souls. Even though the Seed of the Heart was temporarily not inside me, I was still a monster and could sense whose soul was of higher quality.
As long as I devoured those souls, I could gain even greater power. And because digesting those souls took longer, I would not need to kill so frequently.
To be safe, I did not hunt Luoshan's Demon Hunters. Instead, I targeted independent Demon Hunters. Though they were called "Demon Hunters," they did not necessarily have experience or even a desire to hunt demons. "Superpowered individuals" was a more accurate description.
While acting in secret, I also had another shadow weighing on my heart.
—Among all the monsters I've created so far, your ability may be the one closest to the original body.
Those were the words the Monster Maker had spoken. I had never dared to ignore or forget them.
The original body. It sounded like the prototype of us monsters, or perhaps our source.
When a monster became truly desperate, the Seed of the Heart would leave. Then... where would the Seed of the Heart go in the end?
My ability was to implant the Seed of the Heart into another human and gain all the doppelganger puppet's power after reclaiming it. Then... from the perspective of the original body, which possessed a similar power, were all of us monsters its doppelganger puppets?
Perhaps one day, the original body would activate its ability and reclaim the Seeds of the Heart from every monster.
Every monster would return to their powerless selves and die having accomplished nothing.
The thought of that scene filled me with terror.
I had to investigate... investigate the source of the Seed of the Heart and all related information. I had to learn how to prevent such a situation. At the very least, I had to ensure that I could survive if it came to pass.
Whenever the Monster Maker visited, I would probe him indirectly.
I did not know whether he truly lacked caution or simply felt that there was no harm in sharing such information. During one casual conversation, he brought it up himself.
"The technological prototype of the Seed of the Heart came from a domain that completely overlapped with the real world spatially."
"Completely overlapped with the real world... You mean another time?" I asked in shock.
In the occult knowledge I had encountered, there were extradimensional spaces that "almost overlapped" with the real world, but no extradimensional space that "completely overlapped" with it.
If I had to give an example, it could only be the same space at a different time.
The past, or perhaps... the future.
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