Before I learned about the existence of the Great Impermanences, I always believed I had the strength to stand against the entire world on my own. Even if I couldn’t defeat them outright, at least they wouldn’t be able to defeat me either. I had no grand ambition to actually oppose the whole world, but deep down I carried that kind of quiet confidence—whether it was true self-assurance or just arrogance, I couldn’t quite say.

  But then Zhu Shi told me that Luo Shan’s Great Impermanences could wield energy on the scale of hundreds or thousands of nuclear explosions, unleashing massive natural disasters. Compared to monsters of that caliber, I was clearly nowhere close. After that, the thought of measuring myself against the entire world never crossed my mind again.

  And yet, under the premise that the Great Demons of the apocalypse era were fallen Great Impermanences, my earlier speculation that the Calamity Demon might actually be the future version of myself was obviously me overestimating my own potential by a ridiculous margin.

  That kind of guess was something I could never voice out loud to anyone else—it would sound exactly like the delusional fantasy of a middle-school boy convinced that once he “turned dark,” he’d become some legendary villain. If I heard someone else say it, I’d probably mock them in my head. Still, my reasoning wasn’t completely baseless. Even if the current me is far from Great Impermanence level, my power hasn’t stopped growing. Who’s to say the future me won’t eventually reach that tier… and then fall into becoming a Great Demon?

  Of course, it would be far better not to fall at all. The trope of “the future me becomes an infamous supervillain” is something I personally find incredibly appealing, but…

  When I really think about it, there isn’t much of a “but” that matters. Since I’d never say this to anyone else, I might as well admit it to myself: I really am kind of childish. Somewhere deep down, I’ve actually been secretly hoping for a plot twist like that.

  As for my earlier question, Alice gave me a negative answer—she couldn’t clearly recall whether she had ever seen Zhu Shi back in the apocalypse era.

  Due to the pervasive madness of that time, aside from No. 2—Little Bowl, who had been by her side day and night—she could no longer remember most people’s faces. If they met again, she might recognize them. Or it might just be a vague sense of familiarity—that was what she told me.

  By now, Alice had gradually calmed down. She seemed to have noticed some details she’d overlooked in her earlier panic.

  “Z, can I take another look at your divine seal fragment?” she asked.

  I had no reason to refuse. I took it out again and handed it to her openly.

  She examined it for only a few moments before returning it to me, her expression filled with deep confusion.

  “Is there something unusual about this fragment?” I asked curiously.

  “It’s not so much that there’s anything strange about the fragment itself…” she said, utterly perplexed. “It’s the very existence of this fragment that’s abnormal. The divine seal I’m looking for shouldn’t be like this at all…”

  “This isn’t the divine seal fragment you were searching for?” I asked, surprised.

  “I did say I wanted to find the divine seal, but I never said I was starting from its fragments,” she replied, still baffled. “According to the records from the apocalypse era, the divine seal only shattered after the apocalypse arrived. In other words, in this era, the divine seal should still be intact and whole.”

  Intact and whole? The realization hit me instantly. Right—of course. The divine seal was tied to the arrival of the apocalypse precisely because of its world-altering power. For that to be possible, the seal in this era had to be complete. Only a complete divine seal could possess the power to reshape reality.

  So how did I explain the fragment in my hand? I obtained this piece from the basement of the fifteenth-floor apartment. Could it be that the basement somehow connected to the future—after the apocalypse had already come?

  That theory felt like too big a leap. And even setting Little Bowl aside, how had No. 1 and No. 4—Xuan Ming—obtained their own fragments?

  After thinking it over, I offered a hypothesis. “What if the divine seal in this era was broken from the very beginning, only for someone to gather the pieces back together later? Then the apocalypse arrived, and it shattered again?”

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  “…From everything I’ve read, the divine seal should only have shattered once—at the moment the apocalypse descended. There shouldn’t have been an earlier shattering…”

  Alice fell into a troubled silence, lost in thought.

  It wasn’t until we finally reached the front door of my home that she seemed to surface, at least temporarily, from the mire of her contemplation.

  I unlocked the door and ushered her into the entryway, flicking on the lights. Since she had only been gone for three days, everything in the living room was more or less exactly as she’d left it.

  She removed her cat-whisker mask and gazed at the familiar space, a faint trace of nostalgia crossing her face.

  “Welcome home,” I said, trying to make it feel warm and lived-in. “Dinner first, or bath?”

  “No need for a bath. Zhu Shi probably already explained my ability to you—I can reset my body and clothes to a clean state,” she replied. “As for food, I don’t actually need to eat. I can reset my hunger level too. Although…”

  As she spoke, I could tell she was still tempted. These past three days, she probably hadn’t eaten a proper meal at all. Before she could say “never mind,” I quickly cut in. “I’ll make something for you right now.”

  “Mm…” She nodded shyly.

  I pulled ingredients from the fridge, stepped into the kitchen, tied on an apron, and began cooking for Alice just like before. Going through those familiar motions, I felt as though a runaway train had finally returned to the tracks. The heavy stone that had been pressing on my chest finally lifted.

  Alice had finally come back…

  My whole body relaxed involuntarily. The constant tension in my mind loosened, and everything felt alive again.

  Whether it was the looming apocalypse like a collapsing skyscraper or the unfathomable depths of Luo Shan—none of it mattered to me as much as Alice, the one who had truly changed my life.

  Of course, I had considered the alternative: if the apocalypse was inevitable, all I had to do was sit at home and wait for the grand adventure to come crashing in. But was the future truly set in stone?

  What if the apocalypse never arrived? What if, while I sat here waiting like an idiot, Alice—or someone else—managed to stop it? The apocalypse was still a thing of the future, uncertain and unpredictable. To me, it was no different from an empty promise.

  Even now that I believed in its existence and could seriously analyze its details, I still couldn’t bring myself to look forward to it with my whole heart. I couldn’t compare it to Alice—someone real, tangible, someone I could reach out and touch.

  The same went for Luo Shan. Zhu Shi had told me before that unless I could figure out why I repelled anomalies, even joining Luo Shan wouldn’t let me connect with them. Now that the reason had been identified, we still hadn’t found a solution. That would just lead to the same dead end.

  Honestly, part of me was curious about how that rejection would play out. Now that I’d connected with Zhu Shi and Lu Patrol, and even become an Outlaw Impermanence of Luo Shan, how exactly would the rejection force me out of the anomalous world? It seemed logically impossible.

  But I wasn’t reckless enough to test that mystery through experimentation. As the saying goes, I could clearly distinguish between one full meal and meals forever. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice a return to ordinary life just to solve a puzzle that wasn’t even particularly fascinating. At most, I’d entertain the thought.

  In my worst imaginings, if I never managed to find Alice again, the world around me might slip back into normalcy. “Demon Hunter Zhu Shi” would vanish, leaving only “college student Zhu Shi.” The Zhu family would cease to be a hunter lineage and become just another low-profile wealthy local clan. Characters like Lu Patrol would fade away entirely, never appearing in my life again.

  I knew that kind of change defied common sense. But if my inability to connect with anomalies was itself a manifestation of something anomalous, then expecting it to follow ordinary rules would be wishful thinking.

  And even in less extreme scenarios—like that time I investigated the abandoned construction site with Agent Kong, using every soul-attracting talisman we had, yet no evil spirit ever appeared—even something that mild would be unacceptable to me. It would mean that no matter where I went, I’d be surrounded by dead water. Even standing beside someone destined to encounter anomalies wouldn’t help.

  Come to think of it, back when I was with Agent Kong, I should still have been under the influence of Alice’s jinx constitution… which would mean that place genuinely had no evil spirits after all?

  Just then, my phone rang.

  I was in the middle of stewing meat and could spare a hand, so I pulled it out and glanced down.

  It was Zhu Shi calling. I stepped out into the hallway to take it. Her voice came through, saying she had already handed the severed hand over to Lu Patrol.

  “What did Lu Patrol say?” I asked.

  “Not good,” she sighed. “That anomaly really does have anti-divination properties. Lu Chan and I talked it over and think the issue lies with its Shadow Exchange ability.

  “Unlike the previous one, which could only redirect damage elsewhere, this anomaly—when its power triggers passively—can transfer all causality affecting its body to another location. Divination techniques were probably influenced by that property, which is why last time it misdirected toward the previous anomaly.

  “In short, we can’t count on Lu Chan this time. Didn’t Alice say she could track targets with her own ability? Could you ask her about it later?”

  “Sure, I’ll ask,” I said.

  “Also, don’t forget to remind her to be careful about being discovered by the Transcendentalists,” she said gravely. “It’s best if Lu Chan doesn’t know we’ve already found her.”

  “Got it,” I replied. “By the way, I have a very important question for you.”

  “What is it?” she asked curiously.

  “You told me before that the reason I can’t encounter anomalies is because my power is too overwhelming—and that Great Impermanences face the same issue, right?”

  “Yes, more precisely, aside from Great Impermanences, a very small number of exceptionally powerful hunters experience the same problem,” she answered.

  “So how did they solve it?” I asked.