Tokyo Detective Chronicles

Fushimi Iori carried Hoshino and proceeded in the direction she pointed out.

The space of the mortal world is disordered and chaotic; the passageway space may be reorganized at any time, and the side paths may disappear or appear at any time.

But the girl had a wonderful sense of direction.

She doesn't need to look at a map; she only needs to close her eyes, feel the air, or listen to the faint sounds coming from afar to accurately determine which road is the right one.

Fushimi was unaware that this was because he had lived in the ordinary world for a long time and had developed a tacit understanding with this space itself.

Or is it some kind of innate ability...?

They first passed through a passageway that resembled a riverbed overgrown with withered grass.

Then, the tiles beneath my feet somehow turned into damp mud, the walls on both sides disappeared, and in their place grew waist-high, withered yellow reeds. Suddenly, the world opened up, and countless stars shone down...

The feeling of being confined and cramped vanished without a trace.

When the wind blows, the reeds rustle, like countless people whispering.

The air was filled with the smell of river mud.

For a moment, Fushimi even had the feeling that he had left this world...

Hoshino nestled on Fushimi's shoulder, her little hands clutching his clothes, her eyes curiously scanning their surroundings. She didn't seem to frequent this area, and had never observed it from such a high vantage point before; her expression held a hint of wonder.

Fushimi's steps were steady.

He held Hoshino in one arm, and held an axe at his side with the other.

Occasionally, a grayish-white, deformed monster would dart out from the reeds, but most of the time they didn't even have a chance to get close. The shadow stretched out from Fushimi's feet, keeping watch on everything around him.

Once discovered, Fushimi would precisely pierce their skulls or hearts with his ice spear.

Black blood splattered on the withered grass and was quickly absorbed by the soil.

Hoshino looked at the fallen monsters, her expression unchanged. She was already used to the deaths of these monsters; it was something that happened every moment in this mortal world.

Even without Fushimi, they would still fight amongst themselves, maintaining a relatively stable number.

Fushimi looked up at the clear starry sky, a sight rarely seen in cities these days... He never imagined he could see such a view in the mortal world; he wished he could stay a little longer...

But there are more important things to do now.

Crossing the withered grass riverbed, the sensation underfoot changed once again.

The soil turned into pebbles of all sizes, smooth and round.

Rock walls appeared on both sides, covered with dark green moss and occasionally dripping water from the top, making a crisp "drip-drip" sound in the silence.

Fushimi thought for a moment and then placed several talismans on the outside of the rock wall.

The light dimmed.

Fushimi had to slightly enhance his spiritual vision in order to see the road ahead clearly.

Hoshino, however, seemed quite comfortable with the dimness; her eyes actually appeared brighter in the gloom, like two tiny cat eyes.

She patted Fushimi on the shoulder and pointed to an inconspicuous crack in the rock wall on the left.

Fushimi understood and slipped inside.

The crevice was very narrow, only wide enough for one person to pass through. Fushimi held Hoshino even tighter to prevent her from being scraped by the rock wall.

After passing through a crack about ten meters long, the view suddenly opened up, and at the end of the line of sight, the outline of a building could be vaguely seen.

It was a broken bridge.

As you get closer, the view becomes clearer.

It was an ancient stone bridge, its body made of large bluestone blocks, its surface covered with dark green moss and dark brown water stains.

The bridge was wide enough to accommodate two carriages side by side, but it broke in the middle, with jagged sections, as if it had been smashed by some enormous force.

The other end of the bridge disappeared into the darkness, with only the opposite bank faintly visible.

A stone tablet stands at the bridgehead. The tablet is also made of bluestone and is about the height of a person. The text and patterns on the surface have been erased, leaving only a blank tablet.

Suspended in the air are rusty iron chains, as thick as a baby's arm, one end of which is attached to the stone railing of the bridge, and the other end extends into the void, its destination unknown.

A bluish flame burned quietly in the air, without heat, yet it would not go out, emitting a faint, cold light.

Fushimi knew they had arrived at their destination and took the girl off him.

He had placed a large number of talismans on Xiaoxingye beforehand to ensure her safety and prevent any accidents from happening.

The entire bridge was shrouded in a damp and oppressive atmosphere.

I never imagined that such a place existed in this ordinary world...

Gone are the modern, neatly laid-out tiles and bright lights of the passageways; everything here appears ancient and worn, as if time has stood still for centuries, making it seem out of place elsewhere.

Fushimi stood at the bridgehead, looking up at the broken bridge.

Hoshino grabbed his trouser leg and hid behind him, only peeking out half of her head. She looked around but didn't seem very nervous.

Just then...

"Splash—!"

Suddenly, the water in the deep pools on both sides of the bridge churned violently! The chains were shaking!

The pool beneath the bridge was so deep that its bottom could not be seen, and its color was a deep blue that was almost black.

The water surface bulged, forming a huge bulge, and then...

A huge, pale face emerged.

Although he had never seen it before, Fushimi recognized it at a glance. It was the same old face he had encountered in the passageway before... right behind him, the one with the strange smile that Hoshizaki had described.

But this time, Fushimi saw the details clearly.

The face was ridiculously large; the eye sockets alone were the size of millstones, and the pupils were a murky green.

The wrinkles on his face were as deep as ravines, his eyes were squinted into slits, and the corners of his mouth were slightly upturned. He was actually a traditional noodle from Yingzhou.

The urn's face slowly rose, bringing out the body below...

That's not a human body.

It's a... dragon?

A transparent dragon body, gleaming with a faint white light, slowly rose from the deep pool. Its scales shimmered with tiny lights in the water. The dragon's body was tens of meters long, winding and coiling.

Fushimi could see that it was extremely weak and could dissipate into the air at any moment.

Even in his extreme weakness, he was still a genuine master of the world.

The oppressive aura emanating from him made Fushimi's heart race.

The old man's face hovered in mid-air, his enormous face looking down at the two people on the bridge.

Then, a voice rang directly in Fushimi's mind.

It was a weary, aged voice, as if coming from the end of time, flowing backwards, each word carrying a heavy echo:

"Stop, son of man."

"The other side of this bridge is the land of the other shore."

The moment the sound faded, the dragon's head lunged forward.

The strong wind caused Fushimi's clothes to flutter loudly, and Hoshino was so frightened that she buried her face behind Fushimi's legs.

But Fushimi did not retreat.

With a blank expression, he bent down and used the wide sleeves of his windbreaker to shield Hoshino from the splashing water.

Then he raised his head and calmly met the gaze of that huge old face. Fushimi did not sense any malice.

A few seconds later.

Weng's expression...froze slightly.

Seeing that she hadn't scared him, the smiling mask now looked a little embarrassed.

The cloudy eyes blinked, then slowly shrank back, creating distance.

"Cough cough..."

The aged voice echoed in Fushimi's mind again, this time accompanied by a cough meant to cover up his true feelings:

"Um...who are you? Why are you trespassing on my territory?"

Fushimi did not answer this question.

He looked the almost transparent World Lord up and down, his gaze lingering for a moment on its weak body and dull scales.

"You're about to die."

This statement is quite straightforward.

Weng's expression completely lost its composure.

silence.

A silence that lasted for more than ten seconds.

Only the faint sound of blue flames burning quietly on the chains and the soft ripples of the deep pool could be heard.

He intended to yell "You bastard!" and teach this ignorant little fellow a lesson.

After much deliberation, it finally lowered its head slowly, bringing its enormous face even closer, almost touching Fujian's face.

"...You figured it out?"

The affected, authoritative tone was gone from his voice; only weariness and helplessness remained.

Fushimi nodded.

The Lord of the Eternal World should live as long as the Eternal World itself. As long as the Eternal World does not perish, the Lord of the Eternal World, who is equivalent to the creator god in this world, will not die.

But the person in front of me... looked incredibly old.

In contrast, this world itself is very young, and time can even stand still for a long time.

To prevent the aging of beings in the mortal world...

Soon, Fushimi realized something was amiss: time here wasn't static, but rather, all the aging and changes were being borne by the Tokoyo-no-Nu (Lord of the Twilight) before him...

They single-handedly withstood the passage of time across the entire level.

Therefore, this Lord of the World's actual age is much younger than he appears...

A few seconds later, Wengmian, with his dragon body, slowly retreated, and then began to change.

As the fluorescent light shifted, the enormous body gradually shrank and deformed, eventually transforming into a blurry humanoid outline.

The outline falls on the other end of the broken bridge.

As the light faded, Fushimi was able to see the view on the opposite bank.

An old man, chained to a stone chair, sat there.

His face did not look too old, but his white hair was sparse.

He was wearing a worn-out white hunting robe, old-fashioned in style, with tattered cuffs and hem.

His hands and feet were chained to the stone chair with thick iron chains, the other end of which was connected to the stone railing of the bridge.

This is actually a World Lord imprisoned here...

The old man raised his head, looked at Fushimi at the bridgehead, and gave a smile:

"I've been seen through..."

He tried to shrug, but the chains restricted his movement, allowing him only to move his shoulders slightly.

"I thought I could fool you again."

He was referring, of course, to the time when Fushimi had just entered the world of eternal life...

Fushimi did not laugh.

He took Hoshino's hand and walked onto the broken bridge, stopping about ten meters away from the old man... That was the edge of the break, and one more step forward would lead to emptiness.

Then, He took a deep breath and proclaimed loudly, "I am the lord of the Hakuhei River, a tributary of the Arakawa River!"

"Son of man, why do you see me?"

Fushimi looked down at the iron chains binding the old man, then at the bottomless pool below the bridge.

"Lord River God... are you the Lord of Eternal Life here?"

Fushimi used a very tactful form of address to make the final confirmation.

The river god nodded.

"It used to be..."

He said, "Right now... I'm just an old man locked up here waiting to die."

His tone was calm, without self-pity. He raised his chained hand and pointed to himself.

"You saw it?"

"Um."

The river god spoke calmly.

"Decades ago, a group of humans broke in... They wanted to worship their 'Buddha' here."

"After that Buddha descends and becomes the new Lord of the World, he will kill me and seize my divine status."

He paused, then added:

"Fortunately, twenty years ago, another group of humans intervened, interrupting the ritual and severely injuring that being, allowing me to catch my breath. But..."

He raised his chained hand, the chains on his wrists rattling.

"No one will remove these chains from me; my strength will be drained from this place day after day to maintain its stability."

"And with the resistance against the encroachment of those foreign monsters, the area I can control is getting smaller and smaller... All that's left is this cave and that riverbank outside..."

That's why he's become so weak, to the point where he's almost dead.

As Fushimi looked at the emaciated Tokoyo-no-Nushi, who was chained to a chair, a complex emotion suddenly welled up in his heart.

It's... a kind of sigh.

A deity who once ruled over rivers and was worshipped by the people has now fallen to this state, locked away in the depths of the mortal world by a group of cultists, awaiting his slow demise.

Of course, by now, the river called Bailuchuan is long gone, and a city has been built on it.

The river god seemed to have noticed the emotions in Fushimi's eyes.

He suddenly smiled, and then his body began to change.

As the light shifted, the old man's image faded, replaced by a boy of about seventeen or eighteen years old, with black hair and black eyes, wearing a clean kimono, and a naive smile on his face.

The old man's face was hanging on the left side of his face.

"How is it? My true form is actually quite handsome."

Fushimi: "..."

The boy transformed again, becoming a beautiful woman in her early thirties, dressed in a white shrine maiden's robe, with hair as black as clouds, skin as white as snow, and eyes that exuded charm. The only thing that remained unchanged was her profile.

The beautiful woman covered her mouth and chuckled softly, winking at Fushimi, her voice alluring:

"Or like this... do you like it?"

Fu met him with a blank expression.

"Are you really going to waste your remaining divine power on such a trivial matter?"

The beautiful woman, or rather the river god, froze on her face.

Then the light changed again, returning to the image of the old man locked in the chair.

The old man sighed:

"You son of a man, you are truly boring."

But as he said this, the corners of his mouth turned up slightly, as if it had been a long time since anyone had talked to him... Even his personality had become a strangely manic persona.

But soon, his expression turned serious again.

"Let's make a deal... mighty Son of Man."

The moment the words left his mouth, Fushimi's pupils contracted slightly.

He saw a blue orb of light slowly emerge behind the river god.

It wasn't large, about the size of a fist, but its color was incredibly pure, like solidified jade... The sphere of light slowly rotated, emitting a soft glow.

That's... an obsession?

The obsession of a former god, now the Lord of the World?

Fushimi suppressed his surprise and regained his composure.

"What kind of deal?"

The river god raised his chained hand, pointed to the deep pool under the bridge, and then pointed to the distance... that was the direction they had come from.

"Those humans left two problems at this level..."

He was referring, of course, to the Creation Cult...

"One place is the site of the sacrifice, where the vengeful spirits and remains failed to completely dissipate, transforming into some... unclean things."

He paused, then continued:

"The other place is the passage to the next level. Although those scourges have retreated to the deeper levels, the path still exists, and a constant stream of evil spirits climb up along it."

The river god looked at Fushimi, his green eyes filled with a certain expectation:

"If you can clear away these two troubles for me, my strength will be restored somewhat. In return..."

"..."

He paused, then looked up and said:

"Is there anything you want?"

The river god knew that he didn't have much left to offer... and Fushimi Iori was the only person who could possibly help him all these years.

After all, the humans who fall to the outer perimeter are generally too weak; even survival is a struggle, let alone helping Him...

Fushimi remained silent.

He was thinking that this was the best possible scenario for him. If he could gain control of the Path of the World through this, he wouldn't even need to figure out how to blow up the Path.

"I want this layer of the mortal realm... the authority to open and close the channels."

The River God raised an eyebrow: "That's all?"

"I'm going to shut off this passage leading to the deeper levels."

Fushimi looked at the blue sphere of obsession behind Him and did not make any further requests.

The river god smiled.

That was genuine, hearty laughter that echoed through the empty area of ​​the broken bridge, making the chains tremble slightly.

"Ha ha ha ha……"

He laughed for a while before stopping and wiping away the tears that had welled up in his eyes.

"In fact, even if you hadn't mentioned it, I would have closed that passage once my strength recovered somewhat... It was a path that those humans forcibly opened up, and leaving it open would only continue to erode my power."

After a moment of silence.

The river god of Bailuchuan seemed to feel somewhat embarrassed for taking advantage of a mortal...

"Then I'll grant you the status of an agent, allowing you free access to any mortal realm... how about that?"

Fushimi nodded, not refusing.

"Then it's a deal."

"readily."

The river god said, "Then, the contract is established."

Despite being bound by chains, the gesture of raising His hand still carried a certain divine solemnity.

Fingertips traced lines in the air.

Azure light flowed from his fingertips, condensing into complex runes in the air.

The runes rotated and combined, finally transforming into a beam of light that split in two, flying towards Fushimi and the river god's foreheads respectively.

Fushimi did not dodge.

The moment the light entered his forehead, he felt a connection being established.

At the same time, he had some more information in his mind.

The contract is complete.

The river god lowered his hand, looking even more exhausted.

"The first problem is in the direction you came from; at the end of the sandy area, there are ruins—that was the sacrificial site from back then. The second problem is..."

His voice suddenly stopped.

The cloudy old eyes turned to Fushimi's back, to the little girl who had been hiding behind Fushimi's legs, only showing half of her head.

The river god stared at Xiaoxingye for a long time.

Then he spoke slowly, his voice carrying an emotion that Fushimi couldn't understand:

"This child..."

Kohoshino seemed to sense the gaze and buried her face even deeper.

Fushimi stepped to the side, completely shielding the little girl behind him:

"What's wrong with her?"

The river god was silent for a few seconds, then shook his head:

"No, it's nothing."

He looked away and turned his gaze back to Fushimi:

"I'll tell you about the second problem after you've dealt with the first one..."

Fushimi noted it down.

"I'll handle it," he said.

The river god nodded and then closed his eyes.

His body began to become transparent, shimmering with light, and transformed back into the enormous, transparent dragon, tens of meters long. The dragon's body slowly sank into the deep pool, leaving only the huge mask floating on the surface.

The masked figure looked at Fushimi, then at Hoshino behind him, and finally said one sentence:

"Watch out for those... monsters."

After saying this, the dragon's face slowly sank into the water and disappeared.

Blue flames burned quietly on the chains.

The broken bridge has returned to silence.

Fushimi stood there, looking at the calm waters of the pond, and remained silent for a long time.

Then he turned around and took Hoshino's hand:

"I'm gone."

Hoshino looked up at him, blinked her big eyes, and then nodded vigorously.

The two turned around and retraced their steps.

Fushimi looked down at Hoshino, who was holding his hand tightly beside him.

Unexpectedly, the first place that Hoshino brought him to was the location of Tokoyo-no-sama... and things progressed much more smoothly than expected.

Those two remaining red dots might be the two troubles the river god mentioned?

Fushimi's intuition told him that the old man was obviously hiding something about Hoshino... or deliberately avoiding something. Fushimi didn't believe that such a little girl could have survived to this day in the Mortal World without His or something else's protection.

But if He doesn't want to talk, no matter how much Fushimi asks, he will never get an answer.

The little girl seemed to notice his gaze, looked up, and smiled at him.

Fushimi reached out and ruffled her hair.

"Are you hungry?" he asked.

Hoshino nodded vigorously.

Fushimi took a piece of chocolate from the shadows, unwrapped it, and handed it to her.

Hoshino took it and nibbled on it, her eyes squinting with satisfaction.

……

Behind them, deep within the broken bridge, the river god slowly opened his eyes.

It transformed into a different appearance... This is its original form... Gazing in the direction the two had left, a complex expression flashed in its turbid eyes.

Then He lowered His head, looked at the chains on His wrist, and sighed softly.

"I'm sorry, son."

"Some rules... even I cannot break them."