Chapter 710: Call Me Your Majesty

"Captain, I remember we just arrived at Gensokyo."

"That's right."

A group of Black reincarnators stood rooted to the spot.

"Our mission is to investigate why the previous reincarnation squad vanished in Gensokyo?"

"Mm."

"Then why—"

【Mission Trigger: The reincarnation squad has been wiped out. Participate in the resurrection tournament and investigate the anomalous phenomena in Gensokyo.】

"We got taken out the moment we landed?"

"There's also some extra memory of a 'sage' in my head."

"Same here. Captain, what about you?"

"."

No idea. His mind was almost a blank. One moment he'd just been teleported from the Main God Space; the moment he opened his eyes, he'd been prompted that he was already dead and had to fight in some resurrection tournament.

Up in the sky there was also some thing called the Golden List, playing a recap he couldn't understand at all.

What was this Dragon Raja business with Hui Liyi unleashing Heaven-Breaking Earth-Shattering and Lu Mingfei stepping on a black serpent with a greatsword, slashing at each other?

【Commentary: Lu Mingfei, in order to change the fate of his beloved, resolved to become a king. Identity: Nidhogg, Odin, Elden Lord, The Last Ashen One, Blazing Sun Martial God, Immortal King.】

Smack—!

Not far away, a transmigrator youth who possessed a Lord Panel and had been halfway to becoming the Great Lord of Gensokyo before dying midway slapped himself across the face.

"What the hell, where the fuck have I ended up?"

He recognized every person up there, but what the hell was this recap showing, including the previous recaps too.

He knew Otto loved Kallen, Kallen loved Yae, but what was this about Yae loving Otto? And being called Yae Reimu? A worldline where the Hakurei shrine maiden was adopted by the Yae family?!

And there was some Flame Emperor—whether it was Hun Yan or Especially Especially Especially Xiao Yan—refining all living beings, preparing to use the Desolate Heaven Emperor to refine pills? You guys are from the same worldview?!

Refining heaven, refining earth, and refining people too—why don't you just say you're Gu Yue Fang Yuan?!

【"Spring Autumn Cicada, oh, take me down the River of Time once more"】

His black robe flapped in the wind, his gaze deep and still like an ancient well, and surrounded by a crowd of people, the man curved his lips into a smile and detonated himself with a thunderous roar.

【Top 10 Anomalies of Gensokyo, No. 7 — Featured Protagonist: Gu Yue Fang Yuan】

The sound of breathing abruptly vanished, followed immediately by a rapid series of slaps.

"Teacher Luo, don't be like this."

A hand suddenly grabbed the transmigrator youth.

"I don't have the surname Luo." The transmigrator youth stared blankly at the person who had suddenly appeared beside him—black hair, black eyes, looking somewhat like the one currently being featured on the Golden List—

He glanced up at the sky.

"Oh, I'm Gu Yue Fang Zheng."

"Pleased to meet you."

After a few seconds of silence, with a whoosh, the transmigrator youth vanished in a trail of dust, his figure already gone.

"Why run?"

TMD! Who didn't know that Fang Yuan loved using Fang Zheng's name out in the world?! If he didn't run, was he supposed to wait to die?!

He couldn't be bothered with any resurrection tournament, nor with any Golden List—his heart held only the word "run."

Wait, who was speaking just now?

The moment this thought arose, the space around him slowly solidified, and the man who called himself 'Gu Yue Fang Zheng' stared at the transmigrator youth inside the crystal in his hand, lost in thought.

"Where did I give myself away? Whatever, I'll deal with this first."

With a single thought, he returned to the Golden List's inner space and tossed a few crystal chunks into a corner.

"National Fortune Battlefield. Datafies all things, making them part of oneself, then throws them into other worlds as a virus, gradually eroding and infecting to achieve assimilation. Let's see, found you."

An arm like a deep-blue starry sky crossed dimensions, stirred the abyss, and finally pinched out a soul body with a terrified face.

"The quality can't even compare to Su's old toys, the Celestials."

A look of disgust crossed his face. Then he opened the Myriad Heavens Golden List and ground out through gritted teeth: "Four featured, only two usable—can't this list be improved?!"

【Respected Master, I-I was only going by the weight of cause and effect, tracing back through time and space, projecting the images and memory scenes of these beings as seen by other living beings.】

"That's the only use you have!" Su Doupo Cangqiong waved his hand irritably, and the Myriad Heavens Golden List spat out a wisp of fortune, a wisp of faith, a wisp of spiritual light, and a segment of a time-space slice.

He kneaded the soul body in his hand, broke off a piece from it, and tossed it into the slice.

A few breaths later—

"Hehe~ hehehehe." A low laugh rang out. The 'Especially Especially Especially Xiao Yan' wreathed in sinister aura in a black robe fixed a greedy gaze on the person before him: "This Sovereign—"

"Hehe your mother!" Su Doupo Cangqiong slapped 'Flame Emperor' on the head: "Get over here and refine pills for me!"

After that, using the same method, he grabbed a dark-skinned reincarnator and stripped from him a soul fragment radiating strange light.

"This one's quality is passable."

Another time-space slice transformed into a human form, this time taking on the appearance of 'Lu Mingfei.'

"Bro, not cool—" the long-haired, greatsword-wielding Nidhogg said with a strange expression.

Before he could finish speaking, Su Doupo Cangqiong kicked him out of the Golden List's inner space and gave him the order to run poison while carrying the Golden List.

"Keep up the recaps. If my ultimate warband plan succeeds, restoring your true form will only take a single thought." Su Doupo Cangqiong sneered:

"But if you dare slack off, I'll turn you into a system sprite and send you off to be f*cked by someone."

Smack!

Su Doupo Cangqiong slapped his own mouth, his face twitching a few times.

"And undergo the tribulation of love with the holder."

Smack!

His chest heaved violently; he took several deep breaths, and finally organized his words.

"I can elevate you, and I can also take back everything I've given you."

【Understood, understood.】 The Golden List of All Heavens trembled slightly and said respectfully: 【Master, you—】

"Call me Your Majesty."

【.】

"Are you deaf?"

【This servant obeys the decree.】

"Hahahahahaha— cough, choked on it."

Hui Liyi choked on her own saliva, covering her mouth as she coughed repeatedly.

"Laugh again and I'll refine this Immortal Gu of yours away."

That damned Golden List can appraise the same person twice?

Su Lin had a vague, subtle feeling — not quite negative, but that Golden List really knew how to pick its timing, choosing exactly the moment he was worried about being pushed to the ultimate sublimation, when his laws were scattered and had yet to fuse.

"This concubine's forever was already given to you, you just didn't want it ahhh I'm tired, don't want to run anymore."

"Really envy Hui Liyi, shut in for so many years and still has the strength for a grand escape toward the sunlight — reality really is different from fiction."

"That's not right, Lu Mingfei even took Hui Liyi for a ride in a sports car back then, don't you have a Ferrari?"

Lying on the stone, Penglai Mountain Hui Liyi looked like a sun-bathing seal, listlessly draping both hands over her body, looking every bit like a seal who's already done for.

"Use your system, your Main God, prayer or whatever method to whip up a car, that should be fine, right?"

Makes sense.

Su Lin opened the system, preparing to exchange for a nuclear-powered dump truck, planning to send this person to another world, then write a light novel titled "Is There Something Wrong With The Shut-In Hui Liyi Of Eientei Being A Hero?".

"And how come that sword of yours feels even more powerful than before?" Hui Liyi glanced at the Azure Jade Void Sword.

Powerful?

Su Lin lowered his head to look at the azure-blue longsword gripped in his right hand.

Come to think of it, he had just given it a casual swing earlier, and it had become capable of slicing through space with ease.

Hold on a moment.

Su Lin temporarily stored the item back into his pack to check the description.

【Azure Jade Void Sword】: A sword of slaughter, yet not a sword of killing. Forged by Yuan Shi Tianzun, the Zhang Sect of the Jade Void Palace of the Heavenly Origin Realm, it circulated through the Three Realms, later falling into the hands of the Nameless One and stirring up a great upheaval, until the Heavenly Court of the Heavenly Origin Realm set twelve layers of seals upon it. (I see that all sentient beings suffer much sorrow, so I take this sword to question the heavenly light)

Previously it was lent to Meng Qi as a prop, but that guy ended up absorbing three layers of seals left by Yuan Shi Tianzun, boosting his own cultivation.

What's going on now?

He took out the Azure Jade Void Sword again, channeling a wisp of immortal energy to probe it carefully; a seal outlined in crimson-glow azure light emerged, its pattern arcane, yet now it dimmed away like silk being unwound.

A flash of spiritual light was absorbed by Su Lin, and he found he could somehow understand what the characters on the seal meant — 【Seal of the Hun Tian Di】?

Hold on, buddy, there was no reaction when I turned into the Hun Tian Di of the Journey to the West Heavenly Court before.

【Unseal】

Light flickered, the talisman seal rotated, like a long-sealed mechanism being activated and running irreversibly; in the instant before Su Lin could even react, a blood-red calamity blotted out the sky.

"All sentient beings suffer, only by self-salvation!"

"Wandering through life and death, forever sinking in the sea of suffering!"

"Kill — to end destruction through killing—!"

"KILL!!!"

The roar of tides swept forth, obliterating everything; the starlight surging up from the earth scattered, and violent, frenzied blood-fiend energy converged, dyeing the entire starry sky crimson as it surged toward Su Lin's spiritual consciousness.

—Put down the sword!

The blade's edge began to gush forth ghostly blue spiritual light, as if suns, moons, and stars were roaring along the sword's body; a vision of immortal gods falling emerged, and amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood, all those unwilling wills turned their gaze simultaneously toward the one holding the Azure Jade Void Sword, as if crossing the distance of time and space.

"Not as many as I've killed in movies, what a fuss."

Su Lin's expression remained unchanged, but before he could respond, those blood shadows knelt in half in perfect unison, then vanished.

The blood-light exploded instantly, and the surrounding trees were blown sideways by the gale.

Specks of stardust drifted free, azure-blue light forming a vortex.

"."

Something seemed a bit off.

Su Lin stared at the sword in his hand in silence for a moment, then looked toward the spot behind him: "How long are you going to keep watching?"

"Eh?!"

As if startled, immediately followed by branches and dead leaves being trampled at the spot where nothing had been.

"A ferocious yokai..."

A somewhat flustered girl's figure appeared, raising a spell card aimed at Su Lin and Hui Liyi: "Don't you dare cause trouble in Gensokyo, if this resurrection match is all fought with spell cards—"

She seemed to be facing some fearsome evil spirit, timid yet unyielding, intending to initiate a duel with Su Lin.

Among the outsiders fighting in the resurrection match, there's still a girl who loves Gensokyo this much and is sworn to defend its peace?

That old hag Yukari is way too cruel.

If it really won't work, take her in as a shikigami — Yakumo Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Purple, Black, White — make a color squadron, how nice that'd be.

"She looks a bit familiar." Hui Liyi squinted and examined her carefully.

Familiar?

Carrying an erhu, blonde hair tied with a bow at the back, barely noticeable.

"Saigyouji Rin?" Hui Liyi asked tentatively.

Su Lin turned his head in surprise, and the sword slipped from his palm and sank into the ground.

"Eh?!" The girl froze for a moment, then said, "You're Kaguya."

Oh my god.

Laolin came out to play the resurrection match?

Having arranged everything properly, Yukari Yakumo hummed a little tune as she stepped into the gap; one after another, her figures began to vanish, leaving only the sole one within the darkness.

"Good day, it's been a long time~." She smiled faintly and folded her blooming parasol shut.

"If you insist on putting a number on it, it hasn't been that long." In her red-and-white miko outfit, the slender girl's pupils swam with slitted irises that did not belong to any human:

"Measured by our human lifespan, for you it's no more than the length of a single nap or hibernation."

"I haven't hibernated in a very long time." Yukari Yakumo curved her lips and said, somewhat surprised:

"But I never expected even you to be resurrected. If I'd known, I might as well have paid some price to smooth over the matter of the Moon Princess being provoked~"

"The saying 'cleverness overreaches itself' was made for you — you think you can be omniscient, but in truth you're just driven by obsession, stirring a pot about to boil over to manufacture a surface calm." The miko did not bother to hide her mockery:

"Every time the Great Barrier restarts, whether it's you or the youkai and gods inside Gensokyo, you're all nothing more than lodestones for authority."

"Even without these people or events that suddenly appear, sooner or later, that power that keeps clinging and grows boundlessly through reincarnation will splash out as it's stirred, scalding that hypocritical face of yours rotten."

"Put away your useless tricks."

【The Boundary of Omniscience and the Unknown】

Countless red eyes were gradually closing, and the many scenes of Gensokyo reflected by Yu Yingzhao grew blurred and indistinct.

"A rare reunion, yet you say such venomous words." Yukari Yakumo tapped her folding fan against her lips and said, disappointed:

"You are the one being devoured by obsession. But then again, it's only natural — every reincarnation you have to re-stitch your soul fragments together; even I couldn't bear that."

"A miko was always meant to stand on the side of humans, born to exterminate youkai. If she spent every day laughing together with youkai, that would be the true incident." The miko said coldly:

"I have come precisely to resolve this final incident, and return the history of Gensokyo to its proper course."

Yukari Yakumo said nothing. The folding fan in her hand sliced open the boundary line, causing countless Hakurei Shrines across time and space to flash within the rift.

The wooden torii of the Meiji era overlapped with the concrete foundation of the Heisei era; spring cherry blossoms merged with winter snow, and beneath the morning sun a torrential downpour fell.

"Want to make a wager?" Yukari Yakumo smiled.

"A wager? With you as you are now, or do you think that bunch of outsiders currently making a fuss can change anything?"

"After all, it's the unknown that makes it interesting~"

Yukari Yakumo suppressed her smile and said, "Although I could wear you down over several reincarnations, the opportunity before us is rare—you don't want to miss it so easily, do you?"

Crackle-crackle—!

In an instant, as the breath of nothingness collided with the boundary-youkai's realm of illusion and reality, the Great Barrier shattered with the brittle sound of breaking glass.

The miko smiled, her dragon eyes fixed on the other: "What are you wagering?"

Yukari Yakumo's lips curled up at both corners:

"Before every possibility is annihilated, let's see whether the Dragon God's resentment destroys the Great Barrier first, or the 129,600 years of Hakurei karma drag you back to the human world."

As the barrier was on the verge of collapse, the countless wishes and prayers accumulated turned into motes of light that drifted down to every corner of Gensokyo.

But in an instant, a gap that transcended the concept of worlds swallowed the entirety of Gensokyo into itself.