Fallen Demon Hunter vs. Superpowered Individual 4

According to the information I found in Luoshan, some strange phenomena can indeed allow individuals to travel between the past and the future. However, these are extraordinary phenomena that are absolutely impossible for human power to replicate, and they are also rare experiences that are hard to come by.

How firm is Luoshan's stance on this "unreplicable" and "hard to come by" assertion? You can find out by looking at their public data repository. Knowledge about rituals related to time travel is actually displayed openly for anyone to consult. In essence, it summarizes as: "I successfully traveled to the past and future through the following steps, but for some reason, I could never succeed afterward. Anyway, I'm writing it down here, believe it or not."

Although Luoshan's attitude isn't as dismissive as that of a serious scientist looking at an amateur inventor claiming to have created a perpetual motion machine overnight, they genuinely don't take it seriously at all.

If the Monster Maker isn't lying, he likely also traveled to the past or future through an unreplicable method. Considering the innovativeness of the Monster technology, it's more likely the future. Of course, he might have also obtained technology that wouldn't be invented for a long time through "precognition," but his tone doesn't suggest that. If I want the Seed of the Heart to become permanently mine, targeting the "future" seems like a viable direction.

I don't know how to "precognize the future," nor am I confident in my ability to "travel to the future." However, without any other leads, I can't just sit around. So, I'll start by putting the ritual knowledge I found in the public data repository into practice. Dwelling on the difficulties in my mind is the most pointless thing to do. Let's start with practice.

Then, I'll go kill someone.

My prey this time is, as always, a special ability user from the public. And those with special abilities—or "mana"—can often serve as substitutes for many ritual materials. Killing them on the spot and using their blood as material for the ritual array is enough to make many ritual arrays perform beyond expectations.

As a Luoshan agent, if I were to rashly gather a lot of ritual materials through connections, I might arouse suspicion from those with ill intentions. Killing is the most convenient method. At the same time, due to the nature of my work, I'm quite adept at discovering individuals with mana among the public. Soon, I found a tenant in a residential complex not far from Xianshui University.

On the surface, he's just an ordinary employee of a company, renting a room on the fifteenth floor of a residential building in the complex. In reality, he's a superpowered individual in a dormant state. The moment I saw him, I could smell the high-quality soul fragrance emanating from him.

Leveraging my official status as a Luoshan agent and my years of experience, I quickly gained his trust to a certain extent. After some probing, I learned that his ability is "Penetration," which allows him to turn himself into an illusionary form, capable of passing through any object.

In other words, while his ability is active, nothing can harm him. I suspect that even if a nuclear bomb were to land on him, or even an asteroid were to strike, he would be invincible as long as he's activating his ability. This is an ability with extremely high value, emphasizing defensive capabilities.

The reason he hasn't exposed himself is probably due to his lingering respect for the country and society, and his lack of interest in a novel and exciting life. However, it's evident that there's arrogance in his eyes towards the masses; he no longer considers himself an ordinary person. Even while living among people, he probably sees himself as a wolf lurking among sheep, taking pride and pleasure in it.

Unfortunately, most "superpowered individuals" with such a single, exceptionally strong trait can be dealt with through a surprise attack from behind. Being invincible while the ability is active—this statement can be reversed to mean that if you can't activate it in time, you're just a common mortal.

I dispatched my Stand and, with a little trickery, easily killed him in his rented room. He didn't even have time to activate his "invincible" superpower before he died.

As for the ritual array set up with his blood, one or two of the ritual array symbols for searching target spacetime could not be written because I couldn't determine the exact future year of the Monster technology's origin. As a substitute, I added my own blood as a monster to the array. Theoretically, this could serve as a substitute search condition.

And as expected, theory is theory, and I still failed.

Not only that, but the mana fluctuations leaked during the failure also attracted the Luoshan Wuchang who was patrolling the area at the time.

The Wuchang responsible for patrolling this area was Zhu Shi. She's not as easy to deal with as that superpowered individual, and I didn't want to escalate things, so I ordered my Stand to retreat for the time being.

Then, time skipped forward to today, eight months later.

After repeated hunts, the strength of my Seed of the Heart has reached a bottleneck.

The Monster Maker told me that to break through to the next stage, I either have to overcome my inner demons and achieve natural soul sublimation, or devour a sufficient amount of souls to forcibly sublimate my soul.

I chose the latter path.

And many other things have happened in these eight months.

First, the Monster Maker created another monster in Xianshui City.

I secretly contacted this monster. He never hides his traces of crime and has an inexplicable hatred for the powerful. In fact, he himself is quite wealthy, yet he resents those who are richer and more powerful than him. In the past two to three months, he has consecutively killed five local dignitaries.

I despise him intensely. He even carelessly leaves his biological clues at the crime scene. I deliberately had my Stand leave some hair follicles in the fifteenth-floor room to distance myself from the incident. What's his motive for doing this? Fortunately, the Luoshan forces in Xianshui City lack modern forensic investigation experience, and they've temporarily conflated me with him. But perhaps he'll expose himself sooner or later and implicate me.

Dealing with him discreetly isn't simple. We monsters have a skill to summon our mirror image clones through shadow power. Although these mirror image clones are much weaker than our main bodies, he also possesses an innate ability called "Shape-shifting," which allows him to instantly swap positions with a distant clone, ignoring spatial distance.

This ability also has a cheating function: it can be triggered passively. If he encounters a fatal blow that he cannot react to, the ability will activate on its own based on a mysterious judgment mechanism to protect his life. It's truly the epitome of cheating.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons for his recklessness. I, for one, am powerless against him. Zhu Shi is currently handling matters related to him. I just hope he dies under Zhu Shi's sword soon.

Then, the day before yesterday, I encountered a mysterious superpowered individual.

This happened during the day. I was resting at the Luoshan office opposite the Public Security Department when unprecedented chaos erupted across the street. When I rushed over, I learned that someone had infiltrated the Public Security Department to steal firearms and ammunition. This was a major incident for them. Moreover, I smelled a soul there.

Just as a predator can smell wounded prey in the air, I can more easily find a wounded soul nearby. And at that moment, I smelled such an aroma. I ordered my Stand to move in that direction and found the source of the smell behind a fried chicken shop.

It turned out to be a pale and exhausted girl, about thirteen or fourteen years old. She was holding a real gun, indicating she was the culprit who had infiltrated the Public Security Department to steal firearms and ammunition.

Based on my judgment of soul auras, she should have been a very powerful superpowered individual. When she was in good condition, I suspect even someone like me or my Stand wouldn't be worth mentioning. However, her current condition was extremely poor, making her inferior even to my Stand.

If I devour her soul, my Seed of the Heart will surely break through to the next stage, and there will even be a surplus!

I immediately ordered my Stand to sneak attack her, but the result was deeply disappointing.

She possessed the power of spatial transfer. Although she was initially at a disadvantage and heavily injured, she quickly transferred to a distant location beyond the reach of my soul-sensing ability.

Shortly after, an unforeseen change occurred. My superior gave me the information of a certain individual and instructed me to find them by any means necessary. This target was the girl who had escaped from me earlier.

It wasn't just me, my superior, or even my superior's superior and other factions within Luoshan who were looking for this girl. They all knew she had the power of spatial transfer and were even planning to expand the search scope nationwide to capture her at all costs.

An unimaginable storm swept my mind into a tempest.

--Who exactly is that girl?

Given the gravity of the situation, I didn't dare to pursue the girl any further and could only focus on another matter.

This matter itself is also something I cannot ignore: Zhu Shi's brother, Zhu Changan—he rented the fifteenth-floor room from eight months ago, the residence of the penetration ability user, and discovered the ritual array I left behind. And that ritual array activated on its own without my notice.

I don't know if it was a successful activation. I heard that a mysterious cave appeared at the center of the ritual array, which I can only interpret as the effect of the ritual array. After Zhu Shi informed me of this and asked me to investigate, I set off without hesitation.

And this time, I still came up empty. I didn't see the cave in the fifteenth-floor room; instead, I saw Zhuang Cheng.

Zhuang Cheng is a somewhat well-known figure within the local Luoshan forces. In this increasingly chaotic world, it's almost unbelievable that someone like him, who tracks strange phenomena, would repeatedly return empty-handed. I and a few familiar Luoshan agents occasionally gather and chat about him. Even my superiors and some local Wuchang remember him.

After learning about him, I couldn't help but suspect him. I wondered if he had truly encountered strange phenomena but deliberately concealed his experiences, pretending to be ignorant of our world. Then, for what motive would he deliberately hide his experiences? I naturally became suspicious—he benefited from past strange events, perhaps even gaining strange powers.

Or perhaps, it was precisely because he gained strange powers that he could escape from strange events. Since he couldn't explain his experiences to others without revealing his powers, he chose to remain silent.

And this type of special ability user is precisely my prey.

But perhaps it's a coincidence. In the past, whenever I intended to probe and hunt Zhuang Cheng, I always abandoned my original plan for one reason or another, ultimately letting it go.