Chapter 464: Fengdu Ancient City

If the world knew the truth, they'd probably feel like blowing up Kamikawa Mitsu's ancestral grave.

Of all things you could have made up, you just had to invent an unsolvable existence.

Fine, make stuff up — but one would've been enough, why make two?

Kamikawa Mitsu didn't dwell on it too long. Whether He and the other player truly existed was still just a guess, and even if true, it couldn't be changed anymore.

All he could do now was see it through to the end and face it head-on.

Find out the truth of this final battle. If it really was as he had written, then uncover the identities of Him and the other player.

Of course, if it really was as he had written, there was one more thing he had to look into.

And that was why he himself knew all this.

More precisely, why he had been able to come up with it in the first place — surely his mouth wasn't really blessed.

Kamikawa Mitsu leaned more toward past-life and present-life.

The Yin Earth world was suspected to be the underworld recorded in Hua Country's mythology — the place where the dead go, where they can be reincarnated and reborn into the next life.

He suspected he wasn't just a transmigrator, but possibly also a reincarnator.

Having gone through reincarnation yet retaining memories of past lives — though some were blurred — when he wrote his script, he subconsciously wove those hazy memories into it.

That was one guess.

Beyond that, there was another guess.

That guess was too outlandish — a wild fancy of his — and the more he thought about it, the more terrifying it became, yet he couldn't rule it out.

He suspected he might have long been a chess piece.

In other words…

Everything he was doing now — the script system, his strength, his transmigration to Japan to become Kamikawa Mitsu — all of it had been arranged in the unseen, set up by Him or the other player.

The purpose was the game; he was a piece on this chessboard spanning ancient and modern times.

Even…

If it really were so, just thinking about it was despair — the future a sheet of dead gray.

His life, everything about him, seemed to be arranged by him following his own heart — but was that really his own heart? Could it not be that He or the other player had guided him step by step?

Believing his fate was in his own hands, not Heaven's.

But in reality, your thoughts, your thinking, your choices — all of them were nothing more than what the other side had arranged, guiding you step by step into having those thoughts, that thinking, making those choices.

For a moment, Kamikawa Mitsu couldn't help hesitating over whether to keep exploring.

If everything was arranged by Him or the other player…

Then this place wouldn't be something they arranged too, would it?

If not, it was also possible the other side had arranged it. For example, he was His chess piece, and now the other player had stepped in, bringing him into this mysterious fog world to learn the truth and disrupt His arrangement.

Of course, it was also possible none of it was arranged — that he had inadvertently done something that slipped out of their control, namely entering this mysterious fog world.

No matter what, he would uncover the truth.

When the time came, if he found out he was nothing but a chess piece, what would he feel?

Sometimes not knowing was better than knowing.

Rather than learn something so despairing, better to know nothing at all — that way he could still feel everything he did followed his own heart, and not live suspicious and terrified, not live in despair.

But!

Kamikawa Mitsu hesitated for only a second before giving up the idea of stopping his exploration.

He didn't want to live without knowing, didn't want to be a puppet in someone else's hands.

If all of this — including the very thought he now had to keep exploring — was arranged by the other side, then he intended to learn the truth anyway.

No one wants to be controlled, and Kamikawa Mitsu was no exception — he refused to be someone else's chess piece.

Since that was so, he had to know the truth; only by knowing the truth and the outcome could he understand everything and resist.

He was unwilling to be a chess piece.

His freedom, his own to decide.

If he couldn't escape being a piece, then he'd become the player — his own player!

Gazing at the ancient city in the distance, Kamikawa Mitsu set off toward it.

Arriving at the ancient city, half of it in ruins, Kamikawa Mitsu truly understood just how vast it was once he stepped inside.

Too magnificent!

The city gate alone was over a hundred meters wide, and that was just the gate — not counting the walls that towered even higher.

The ancient city was badly ruined — whether from the wear of ages and weather, or from a great battle that had battered it, was unclear.

The walls had mostly collapsed, leaving only a city gate that wasn't fully intact, missing a portion.

Kamikawa Mitsu's attention wasn't on the walls, nor on the gate — he stared fixedly at a plaque hanging above the gate.

Just like the ancient cities of Hua Country, every ancient city's gate bore the name of the city carved upon it.

The magnificent ancient city before him also had a plaque, inscribed with ancient characters.

Characters are the embodiment of Dao; characters formed from Dao can convey their meaning even to those who don't understand the script.

And then.

Kamikawa Mitsu was stunned.

Fengdu Ancient City!!

Seeing the characters on the plaque and reading their meaning, it turned out to be the ancient city of the Netherworld's underworld from Hua Country's mythology.

Legend has it that the underworld has a city named Fengdu Ancient City, whose gate is also called the Gate of Ghosts. When a person dies and becomes a ghost, to reincarnate they must pass through Fengdu City, where their sins in life are judged, and it is decided whether they reincarnate or remain in the underworld to suffer and atone for the wrongs they committed in life.

At this moment!

Kamikawa Mitsu could be certain — the world within the mysterious fog was the underworld.

There was the Other Shore Bridge, and there was the ancient Fengdu City — weren't these precisely the things of the netherworld?

"The Other Shore Bridge, the Huang Quan River, and even Fengdu City are all here, so where's the Six Paths of Reincarnation?"

Looking toward the ruined ancient city, Kamikawa Mitsu fell to pondering.

The netherworld is the place where people reincarnate; the Bridge of Helplessness, the Huang Quan River, Fengdu City, and so on are all in fact preparatory steps for reincarnation.

In the end, a person must enter reincarnation in order to be reborn.

Then, what is reincarnation? It should be a thing, right? One enters reincarnation and is reborn, so where is reincarnation?

"This battle took place here — perhaps it has something to do with reincarnation."

The function of the netherworld is to make people reincarnate.

Without hesitation, Kamikawa Mitsu walked into the ancient Fengdu City.

"Are those halls the halls of the Ten Yama Kings?"

The ancient Fengdu City was very large; inside it didn't seem to be used simply for judging people — there were also countless houses scattered about, with dwellings, courtyards, and even grand mansions, and palaces too, just like a normal ancient city.

Within the city there were commoners, there were the wealthy, and of course there were rulers as well.

Those ten solemn and majestic ancient halls in total inevitably called to mind the Ten Yama Kings of the netherworld.

If an ordinary person were to tour the ancient Fengdu City, they probably couldn't finish in a lifetime — it was truly too vast, at least the size of Hua Nation. Kamikawa Mitsu was an Immortal; with a single glance he could see far into the distance, and taking in the entire ancient Fengdu City was nothing to him, but ordinary people couldn't manage it.

Kamikawa Mitsu did not search house by house, nor did he head straight into those ten Yama King Halls, even though the ancient Fengdu City mainly consisted of the Ten Halls.

A golden path drew his attention.

……