Chapter 378 Burden of Star Fate

Although he knew that the map could not be trusted completely, Joo Joowon had not expected something like this to happen.

Kang Taewoo appeared as a green dot on the map. In theory, even if it turned invisible, he should still be able to see its location.

This taught him a lesson. In the future, whenever he needed to recruit a temporary NPC, he would have to keep it within sight. Otherwise, even if the NPC left his territory, he might not notice it at all.

If he had not been paying attention this time, he would never have noticed the brief flicker of the green dot. When he checked the map again later, he would have simply assumed that Kang Taewoo had remained inside his territory the entire time.

Joo Joowon slowly followed the direction Byeol had taken.

Byeol was a relatively small cat, but climbing walls and leaping across rooftops were well within its abilities. As a result, it took an extremely tricky route through the forest, indirectly helping Joo Joowon uncover part of the map.

However, Joo Joowon did not follow the exact path Byeol had taken. As a grown man, it would be difficult for him to move through the same places without leaving any traces. Crawling through bushes and similar actions would only make the traces he left behind even more obvious. There was simply no need to do that.

The distance between Joo Joowon and Byeol was neither too close nor too far, so Byeol did not notice that Joo Joowon was following it. It continued moving lightly through the forest.

Byeol was not afraid of this kind of environment at all.

Although it had grown up in a city filled with concrete buildings and steel structures, where it had rarely seen places with such dense vegetation, that did not stop it from running and jumping around freely. Every now and then, it would stop to scratch a tree, leaving behind a few scent marks.

Although Byeol could now understand the map, it had never considered abandoning its original methods of finding its way around.

It moved toward its destination with great focus, paying no attention to the other things in the forest that might have distracted it. Its pace was fairly quick, but every so often, it would stop to observe its surroundings and memorize the slightly complicated terrain.

Before long, Byeol arrived at the destination Joo Joowon had marked on the map.

It climbed up a large tree. Thanks to the excellent motion tracking vision of felines, it quickly spotted the creatures Joo Joowon had described and could not help swishing its tail.

This was the instinctive discomfort that living creatures felt when faced with mutated creatures. Byeol was especially sensitive to it.

In Byeol's eyes, these creatures stood out even more clearly than they did to Joo Joowon.

This was not because their bodies were unusually enormous.

As an Astral Fate bearer who had changed its own destiny even before the apocalypse arrived, Byeol was far more sensitive to matters of Fate than Joo Joowon.

This kind of extremely crude method of 'changing Fate' was entirely based on sacrificing the future. The price was not paid by the one who changed Fate, but by the living being whose Fate had been altered. It was the perfect example of benefiting oneself at another's expense.

However, as an Astral Fate bearer, Byeol could hardly help hating this kind of change.

Or rather, it hated changes to Fate that were no longer under the control of the starry sky.

For beings who possessed Astral Fate, maintaining Fate's absolute authority was almost like a program engraved into their instincts. Whenever they encountered something like this, that instinct would be triggered.

After all, if someone else could control Fate, it would indirectly weaken the legitimacy of Astral Fate itself. For Transcendents who followed the Path of Fate, this was fatal.

Once the 'legitimacy' of Fate was shaken, Transcendents who followed this Path would not only lose their chance to become powerful beings, but might even gradually lose the power they already possessed, eventually losing their lives as well.

Byeol did not care about any of this. It could hardly be considered a pure living creature anymore, but Joo Joowon was different.

Once he had embarked on this Path, it was impossible for him to turn to another Path.

Therefore, at this moment, Byeol's hatred for the red mist reached its peak.

Joo Joowon, however, did not possess the same clear perception of these things as Byeol did.

His physical body was both an obstacle and a form of protection. It made him less sensitive than Byeol, but it also prevented him from coming into contact too early with knowledge that was beyond his ability to comprehend.

Furthermore, his Fate was connected to Byeol's. The more dangerous knowledge associated with the Path of Fate had been taken on by Byeol, leaving Joo Joowon with things that were more harmless and safer.

That was why, although Joo Joowon had found the red mist strange when he first saw it, he had not felt any urging from his Star Fate at all.

But Byeol could feel it.

Normally, however, Byeol paid no attention to such things. It had no interest in the calls of Fate or the affection of the starry sky. Neither held any appeal for it. The arms of the human who fed it were far more attractive.

According to rumors in the outside world, Transcendents who followed the Path of Fate were all scheming masterminds who loved manipulating destiny. Their enemies often died without ever realizing that someone had been pulling the strings behind their deaths.

However, everyone who had stepped onto the Path of Fate understood one thing very clearly.

They themselves were the ones who could not escape the control of Fate.

Fate Patterns, Star Fate, Auxiliary Stars, Star Systems.

These layers upon layers of 'webs' surrounded them. The deeper they went, the more deeply they would be affected. Without even realizing it, they would gradually become more and more like their Star Fate, from their personalities to their abilities, and from their experiences to their futures.