Chapter 235 Strange Coincidences 1

In mythology, Yama is the deity of the underworld, responsible for managing the order of life and death and reincarnation. "Resurrection" is undoubtedly a phenomenon that violates the order of life and death and reincarnation. If there really is a deity in this world that manages death, it is very likely that it would not sit idly by and ignore "resurrected" people like Asaho.

In the memories accompanying Silver Moon's "illusion," Luo Shan seems to have originated from a place called "Naraku." Naraku—in Buddhism, this is another name for hell. It's as if to say that at some point in history, Luo Shan truly existed in the afterlife. Considering titles like Impermanence, Wanderer, and Ghost Soldier (an old term for agents), as well as the name of the organization Luo Shan itself, Luo Shan's underworld connotations are so strong that it's impossible not to think about it.

Just as Xuanming was probably the fire god Ebo in mythology and the ancestor of the Shang dynasty in legend, this Wheel-Turning King may also really be the Wheel-Turning King in mythology.

The materials the Zhu family gave me included brief introductions to the eight Great Impermanences, but almost none about the Wheel-Turning King. In Luoshan, the Wheel-Turning King is considered the most mysterious of the Great Impermanences, rarely appearing in public, leading some demon hunters to doubt his existence; many others believe he truly possesses the power to "manipulate the cycle of life and death," and his followers are numerous.

Could this Great Impermanence be the mastermind behind the scenes, directing the sharpshooter to attack Asahi? Is it because Asahi violated the order of life and death, that he must kill her?

Lu Youxun once said that if Ma Zao were sent to the mastermind, her fate would be certain death, which seems to validate the above line of thought. And if the followers of King Yama were to speculate, they might offer similar opinions.

Furthermore, the black rope heart-locking ring that Lu Youxun gave me in the past seems to be a prop related to the belief in the Ten Kings of Hell, with the "black rope" referring to the Black Rope Hell, which could be related to King Yama. If one had to nitpick, it would be that the one in charge of the Black Rope Hell was not King Yama, but Emperor Song.

Moreover, Luoshan itself is synonymous with the underworld. Even if Lu Youxun possessed the religious artifacts of the Ten Kings of Hell, it wouldn't be enough to prove that he was a subordinate of King Yama...

Without realizing it, I seem to have become a bit obsessive. Perhaps I'm too fixated on King Yama, when he's clearly not the only suspect. But for some reason, the name "King Yama" inexplicably draws my attention. Is it because he's the only one bearing the title of Yama, the King of Hell?

Speaking of names that seem out of place, I think the Great Impermanence named "Willow Shadow" is just as bad. Among all those names that sound more and more like names that don't sound like people at all, only his name is proper and includes both a first and last name.

Let me temporarily pull my attention away from this and regain an objective and neutral perspective. King Yama may not necessarily be the enemy, but regardless of whether he is or not, my resolve will not waver in the slightest.

Even if the enemy is the real King Yama, they can't take Mazao from my hands.

-

Mazao seemed to be fatigued from using the power of blessing for a long time, so she went to sleep in the middle of the night. I, on the other hand, didn't sleep at all, focusing my energy on investigating the Fufeng base and practicing my strength.

Let me first talk about the Fufeng base. Although we didn't see many other people on the way when Fufeng led us to the residential area, we found out after using "Firefly" to conduct a full survey that there were actually quite a few people in this base.

Most people were in the work and training areas, with the ratio of demon hunters to agents roughly 50/50. Some were in the canteen and living quarters, among other places. Besides, like the Humanitarian Division's secret outposts, many areas of the Fufeng base were equipped with anti-detection barriers, and some "fireflies" were instantly eliminated upon approaching. It's unclear if there's some detailed identification mechanism, but although the "fireflies" were eliminated, no alarms or similar things were triggered.

Incidentally, Fufeng probably wanted to help us avoid being noticed, so he deliberately avoided the base members when leading the way. Considering that he came in person to meet us, he is probably the only person in this Luoshan branch base who knows our true identities, with Dongche being the most likely addition.

However, we probably couldn't always keep ourselves hidden from others, so Fufeng arranged out our public identities for us the following morning.

Ma Zao and I are currently, nominally, peace-loving demon hunters temporarily staying at the Fufeng base due to mission requirements, sharing the same stance as Dong Che, though the latter is probably closer to being under house arrest. Fufeng clearly wants to continue to win me over to the peace-loving side, but fortunately, he doesn't seem to be in a hurry, instead wanting to influence me subtly. In this respect, he's quite similar to Lu Youxun.

Based on my observation, although this is the newly established Luoshan branch base to contain the fragments of the Divine Seal, only a very small number of people actually know about the existence of the fragments. Perhaps, just like my existence and Ma Zao's, only Fu Feng himself knows about them.

Next, let's talk about my training of my strength.

Although I have practiced my strength before, I now feel a greater sense of necessity. It's not just because I will be fighting against the Great Impermanence later; even setting that aside, I have already felt the serious lack of skill in my battles against other Great Completion level cultivators.

Or rather, I should have realized it by now... it seems I often get hit head-on by enemy attacks.

This is partly because I was confident that my defense was far superior to that of ordinary demon hunters. Both Chenlong and Yinyue were far more skilled and experienced in combat than I was, making it difficult for my attacks to hit them; on the contrary, they could hit me as long as they intended to.

In many fictional battle stories I've read before, characters with superhuman regeneration abilities are always left battered and bruised, while those with immortality are frequently fatally wounded. Perhaps the biggest reason for this is that the creators wanted to create scenarios to showcase the characters' regenerative abilities and immortality; but ignoring this, and only considering the perspective of "people who actually possess such abilities," it's easy to develop a dismissive attitude of "I won't really die, so what if I get hit?"

This is a mindset I must be wary of. The enemies that appear in the future will likely be far more powerful than I can handle with such a casual attitude. Being hit by a "guaranteed hit and penetration" attack from a sharpshooter is one thing, but I must at least learn to avoid attacks that don't have special accuracy bonuses.

Indoors, it would be inconvenient for me to practice dodging and weaving skills, so I focused on developing my superpowers first.

If I were suddenly asked to develop a new skill, I certainly wouldn't be able to. Therefore, I'm mainly exploring the special properties of fire power in other aspects. For example, when I was mentally synchronized with Lu Youxun and the young girl Lu Chan in the past, they both expressed to some extent that if malice appeared during the mental synchronization process, they would suffer a backlash from my fire power.

Yes, it's not just that my malice towards them causes them harm, but their malice towards me also does. This peculiar property is somewhat concerning. Generally, as long as I don't have that intention, flames won't harm targets I come into contact with. However, during mental synchronization, the nature of the flames can change depending on the other party's intention.

It is said that in medieval Europe, witches were burned at the stake and told that if they were innocent, they would not be burned alive. This practice was both torture and a trial. Of course, this is superstition, a robber's logic, but my flames do seem to possess a similar function of judgment.

Even those who are not “people I consider enemies,” but merely “people who consider me enemies,” may still be burned by the flames. Perhaps it is because they place themselves in a relationship of opposition to me that my flames manifest an opposing posture in their minds—the subjective spiritual attributes of my flames are strangely revealed.

This property previously only affected targets that interfered with my mind, but I should be able to use it on ordinary targets if I wanted to. If used well, it might even become a kind of malice detector. In the future, if I want to know if someone harbors malicious intentions, I can just burn them with fire first.

Perhaps I could try it with Fufeng and Dongche first—no, forget it. I haven't fully mastered this skill yet. Just as Lu Youxun once said, even close friends may harbor subtle malice that they themselves are unaware of. I must first figure out a method to set a threshold for this anticipated malice that triggers the fire counterattack.

Around noon, Fufeng came to our room again, saying he wanted to show us around the base.

“You may be living here for a while, so at least you should get to know where you are first,” he said.

I don't think he was completely unaware that I was using "fireflies" to wander around the base; he was probably just trying to create an opportunity to talk to me. If he really just left me and Asaho to stay in the base eating and sleeping without doing anything, how was he going to try to recruit me into the social order?

This was, after all, his territory, and I wasn't so tactless as to refuse even such a basic invitation, so I followed him out the door. Asahi naturally followed as well, staying right beside me.

We hadn't gone very far when the winter car appeared on our inevitable route, as if it had foreseen our arrival.

(End of this chapter)