Death Game: Starting as a Trickster, Pretending to Be a God

”Senior, you truly have remarkable courage,” Lin Yu praised upon hearing the old man’s words. ”To think you could come up with a plan where one wrong step leads to certain death—you deserve to be called a righteous man!”

”Merely fulfilling my duty. I couldn’t just let this demon lord rampage across the world,” Mystic Cloud Master sighed. ”But my cultivation still isn’t deep enough. Even after sacrificing half my life and crippling my own divine ability, I only managed to block four of its revival backup plans.”

”And to quickly restore my cultivation and prevent accidents, I had no choice but to swear a Dao Oath, binding my future cultivation solely to attacking demons.”

As Mystic Cloud Master spoke, Lin Yu nodded.

Shen Bingmiao’s files had mentioned ”Dao Oaths.” Among Fangshi and Daoist sect masters, one could swear a Dao Oath to gain certain enhancements—though it couldn’t create something from nothing or exceed one’s own limits, and the price was often immense.

”No wonder you couldn’t attack those bandits, Senior,” Lin Yu said softly.

Mystic Cloud Master sighed. ”The path of righteousness is fraught with hardships and obstacles... Though I wished for a perfect solution, I had no choice but to make sacrifices.”

After this exchange, the remaining players no longer harbored doubts about Mystic Cloud Master.

Though the old Daoist had seemed suspicious, now that they had arrived at the Taoist Temple, every concern had been explained away.

He was truly a good man from a noble sect who cared about the world.

Thus, Snowy Owl stepped forward and cupped her hands.

”My apologies for my earlier rudeness, but I still have one question.”

”What exactly is the connection between the Thousand-Eyed Thousand-Silk Demon Lord, Xie Chong, and Willow Town?”

”I only know they are closely linked, but I don’t know the specifics.”

Hearing Snowy Owl’s question, Lin Yu felt deeply relieved.

He couldn’t ask these questions directly himself—his established persona wouldn’t allow it.

After all, Lin Yu was presenting himself as a determined fighter who had come for Xie Chong’s Mutilated Body and the spider demon. While he might not know everything, being too ignorant would make it hard to earn Mystic Cloud Master’s trust.

Both sides were testing each other with suspicion—the players hadn’t trusted Mystic Cloud Master at first, and likewise, Mystic Cloud Master surely had reservations about them.

But Lin Yu genuinely needed to learn the truth from Mystic Cloud Master. Snowy Owl’s direct question about what Lin Yu wanted to know saved him a lot of trouble.

Sure enough, Mystic Cloud Master pondered briefly upon hearing Snowy Owl’s question.

”This connection is indeed hard for ordinary people to deduce...”

”Willow Town’s link to the Thousand-Eyed Thousand-Silk Demon Lord began when my Taiqing Sect’s founder first discovered the demon lord—it was hiding in Willow Town.”

”But the Willow Town of then and the Willow Town of now are not the same place. Several hundred years ago, Willow Town was the first town of Fire Hell. Even across the entire Two Mountains, Six Hells, it was one of the rarest, most prosperous, and wealthiest towns.”

Lin Yu nodded. This was easy to see from Willow Town’s architecture—it was far more luxurious than Chen Family Fort.

Mystic Cloud Master continued. ”When the Thousand-Eyed Thousand-Silk Demon Lord emerged, my founder was summoned to subdue it. At that time, all the martial arts and Daoist masters, and even many heretical Fangshi, joined the fight.”

”They battled the Thousand-Eyed Thousand-Silk Demon Lord for a long time, but each time they paid a heavy price to kill it, they discovered it was merely a puppet clone!”

”Before long, the Thousand-Eyed Thousand-Silk Demon Lord would emerge again.”

”Though the heroes of that era had deduced the demon lord’s Causality Silk divine ability, they hadn’t found a way to counter it...”

”Until my founder, leading Taiqing Sect disciples, tracked the demon lord’s true body to Willow Town!”

”He originally planned to retreat with the disciples and summon righteous friends for help, but the Thousand-Eyed Thousand-Silk Demon Lord saw through his intentions and trapped my founder and the Taiqing disciples in Willow Town!”

”The two sides engaged in a protracted battle within Willow Town, which ultimately ended with my founder’s victory.”

”However... the price was that the entire Willow Town sank underground, and not a single resident survived!”

”This was my Taiqing Sect founder’s lifelong regret. Though the townspeople had already been deeply rooted with Causality Silk by the time they were discovered, turned into Puppets the moment the demon lord acted,” Mystic Cloud Master lamented, ”my founder still believed that if preparations had been more complete, if they had acted to suppress the demon lord before it noticed, perhaps an entire town’s lives could have been saved!”

Hearing this, High Mountain was visibly moved.

The conviction of the Taiqing Sect truly ran in an unbroken line.

Both the Taiqing founder from centuries ago and Mystic Cloud Master today, when faced with their inability to save more people, felt self-blame for not being strong enough or doing enough.

Seeing this, High Mountain seemed to think of many friends in reality and comforted Mystic Cloud Master. ”As you said, Daoist, perfect solutions in this world... are rare.”

As he spoke, Mystic Cloud Master gave a bitter smile.

”Indeed... and that is the origin of the connection between the Thousand-Eyed Thousand-Silk Demon Lord and Willow Town.”

”Though my founder, perhaps to prevent future disciples from unknowingly falling prey to Causality Silk, didn’t leave overly detailed records, I can gather from his brief notes, directives, and my own years of observation that... the Thousand-Eyed Thousand-Silk Demon Lord has likely merged itself with Willow Town’s past!”

”This is also why it cannot be killed—it silently operated for generations, manipulating the living souls of all Willow Town’s people, rewriting all their pasts, and binding its life to the millions of Willow Town’s population. And since Willow Town was the first town back then, those people’s causal entanglement spread across nearly all of Two Mountains, Six Hells.”

”Thus, to kill it, the very concept of ’Willow Town’ must be completely erased. This was my founder’s final directive. He likely arranged for people to erase all traces of Willow Town from the world.”

”And this... is also why the spider has grown increasingly restless recently. Because Willow Town is truly on the verge of disappearing,” Mystic Cloud Master said, unable to hide the hope on his face. ”If this continues, in another hundred years... no, perhaps just decades, it will lose all means of revival!”

”Especially since a century ago, some senior had ’Liu Town’ renamed to ’Willow Town,’ likely someone who knew the secret of this matter.”

Mystic Cloud Master paused here. ”However, the Thousand-Eyed Thousand-Silk Demon Lord is no ordinary demon. It naturally won’t just sit and wait for death.”

”And that brings us back to Xie Chong, the man who stirred up chaos across the martial world!”