Chapter 474

The game board!

Kamikawa Mitsu thought of the terrifying entity’s identity: “the other player.”

As the one who held the game board of this world, the terrifying entity had taken no action since arriving, showing not the slightest sign of being a true player.

Now, the terrifying entity showed signs of impatience.

Could it be that the game began precisely at this moment—because the terrifying entity felt… bored, meaningless?

Of course, this was only speculation.

Kamikawa Mitsu had still not seen the Departed appear.

The Departed, the first player to challenge the terrifying entity—why could he not be seen at his origin?

Legend said the Departed was not a being of the past, but came from the future. This first part of the speculation could be confirmed; the second part remained uncertain.

In the past era, Kamikawa Mitsu found no trace of the Departed, clearly proving he was not born in the past; whether he came from the future remained unclear.

So far, the Departed had never appeared in the future.

Thus, another possibility could not be ruled out: the Departed was not a being of this world, but came from nothingness, like the terrifying entity.

If the Departed was absent, how could the game have begun? Or perhaps the game started as a one-sided affair—a single player playing alone, then the Departed joined, lost, and the terrifying entity replaced him as the new player?

It was not impossible.

Kamikawa Mitsu did not rush; he watched quietly.

Like the terrifying entity, he observed the changes in the River of Time. Throughout, the terrifying entity had never attacked him; combined with the entity’s words—“the game restarts”—Kamikawa Mitsu was ninety percent certain the terrifying entity would not act against him here.

The entity still needed him to play.

Before understanding the entity’s memories and uncovering the truth, the terrifying entity would not move against him; any action could only come when the game restarted.

The terrifying entity was emotionless and thoughtless, yet its intentions were not unfathomable—it sought to play a game to relieve the boredom and emptiness of nothingness, to engage in a meaningful world-game.

Kamikawa Mitsu suddenly understood.

Perhaps… the only player who treated all beings as ants was the terrifying entity—this was the true mastermind manipulating the world.

The Departed and he might have been forced into this.

Unwilling to be oppressed, unable to be controlled, they had no choice but to resist, to fight—to play this game against the terrifying entity.

Kamikawa Mitsu felt he was nearing the truth; all that remained was verification.

Yet one point still eluded him—and he suspected the Departed and he himself had not understood it either: where did the terrifying entity come from?

This thing had indeed walked out of nothingness.

But it could not be said with absolute certainty that it was born from nothingness—what if nothingness contained more than one world?

The terrifying entity came from a more terrifying, more extraordinary world.

Or perhaps… nothingness was itself a single world!

Kamikawa Mitsu thought of the Pot of Heaven—if the world inside the pot was nothingness, then perhaps each drop of water within was a world.

Before Kamikawa Mitsu could ponder further, the River of Time continued to change. The terrifying entity no longer merely watched—it intervened, just as Kamikawa Mitsu had guessed.

Since the macro Guilv of the River of Time had been understood, it had become dull.

Then the task was simple: make the dull interesting.

For example, when a toy grows tiresome, break it apart. Playing with a toy and breaking it apart were both enjoyable, yet fundamentally different.

Meanwhile.

The future of the River of Time.

A generation birthed six Supreme Beings—the most brilliant era yet. Yet the next era did not decline as expected; it became even more brilliant!

The terrifying entity intervened.

“He’s trying to see if he can create an even more brilliant era—an unprecedented golden age,” Kamikawa Mitsu exclaimed.

Then, after much anticipation, Kamikawa Mitsu finally saw the Departed.

The Departed was born in that most brilliant era, grew through life and death, blood and fire, and attained Supreme status. Under the terrifying entity’s gradual interventions, this era became dazzlingly brilliant.

All beings reveled in this unprecedented golden age—even the Supreme Beings of the past were stunned.

They never imagined the future could be so brilliant.

Kamikawa Mitsu felt an inexplicable sorrow. No one—not even the Supreme Beings—realized this so-called golden age was orchestrated by a hidden hand.

The terrifying entity had forged this unprecedented golden age.

Its brilliance lay not only in the emergence of geniuses or the birth of Supreme Beings, but in the fact that this era gave birth to the One.

The Departed became the One.

With immense willpower, character, talent, and wisdom, he rose above all others in this golden age and became the One.

Immediately after.

Having become the One, the Departed finally saw the terrifying entity—and learned the truth.

In that moment, how utterly despairing.

He believed he had become the sole supreme being, the undisputed number one—only to discover that this golden age was the result of another’s intervention. His own relentless efforts were real, yet they had merely fulfilled the hidden master’s desired outcome.

The hidden master wished to create an unprecedented golden age.

Honestly, upon learning the truth, even the Supreme Beings were shaken—and the Departed himself was moved.

He saw the terrifying entity, yet the entity ignored him and continued to intervene.

Because the entity had found amusement in the once-endless River of Time, and now sought to prolong that amusement—to continually forge even greater golden ages than the Departed’s era.

Kamikawa Mitsu understood why the Departed was called “the Departed.”

From his era onward, the River of Time had already departed; the future had departed. There was no longer a free-evolving future—it had become the terrifying entity’s amusement.

The world would be shaped exactly as the entity willed.

All beings crave to challenge higher heights; none are ever satisfied. The terrifying entity was no different—he sought to create even greater golden ages.

But how easily could an unprecedented golden age be engineered?

In the era following the Departed, the terrifying entity intervened—but the results were unsatisfying. It failed to surpass the brilliance of the Departed’s era; instead, excessive interference plunged that era into chaos.

It was an unprecedentedly mad age—Supreme Beings slaughtered one another, corpses littered the land.

A dark future!

This outcome was not what the terrifying entity desired. It had not broken the golden age—it had only made it worse. It was like losing a ranked match in League of Legends after a desperate, high-stakes game, due to a terrible teammate.

That feeling was infuriating, burning with rage.

The terrifying entity was emotionless, but that did not mean it could not feel anger. It was furious—the era had failed to meet its expectations. This was an insult.

Angering a being even the One feared—consequences were unimaginable.

That era went mad, becoming a mass grave. The terrifying entity vented, making the madness even wilder, the cruelty so extreme it defied description—worse than the earliest battlefields.

After venting, the terrifying entity did not destroy the River of Time. It would continue. One failed promotion does not make a player uninstall the game—they keep playing.

But the future was clearly bleak.

The terrifying entity would never be satisfied with an unprecedented golden age. It would forge them again and again, surpassing all prior ones. To surpass them, it would do anything—even interfere with the past.

But golden ages are not so easily forged. You might forge one, two, three—but can you forge countless times?

Impossible.

It’s like reaching the top rank in your server—what then? Can you surpass number one? No—you’ve hit the limit.

At that point, the terrifying entity would find it dull again.

No one knew what the terrifying entity would do when bored—but the consequences would surely be horrific.

Kamikawa Mitsu realized this.

The Departed realized it too—he knew he must act.

The game was born at this moment.

The Departed understood he must do something. He could not watch the world that gave him birth become a plaything, destined to be destroyed or utterly reshaped—until the world was no longer a world, but merely the Pot of Heaven. It was despair.

So he proposed a game to the terrifying entity—a contest of wills.

The game board was this world.

The terrifying entity was interested in this world, in these beings. The game could only be played with the world as the board and the beings as pieces. This was the Departed’s only idea—and the only way to persuade the terrifying entity.

The game began.

As for the game’s outcome, the clues had already been given.

The Departed lost the game—he did not defeat the terrifying entity.

The terrifying entity was too powerful. This power was not merely in strength—otherwise, it could never have birthed an unprecedented golden age under its interference.

……