The sky was growing dark, and Jiang Ruoxue led Gu Yu and me to a nearby building to rest.
Thanks to her, I actually got along well with this boy I had just met.
The three of us sat inside the room, and Gu Yu used the flint he carried to light a campfire. He said he had been a magician before coming here.
Jiang Ruoxue gave us a brief introduction, seemingly hesitant to reveal my identity as the “Extreme Path King,” only calling me an “Extreme Path practitioner.”
But the next words out of her mouth nearly made my jaw drop.
She said Gu Yu was actually a traveler from another city.
I had encountered many identities in the “Land of the End,” and I had even been a “thief” myself, but I had never heard of a “traveler.”
“So… what’s the difference?” I asked. “Between your place and ours.”
“Well…” Gu Yu slowly lowered his head. “The underlying logic is the same, but the way it manifests is completely different…”
Gu Yu explained the situation in his “Jade City” in detail. Jiang Ruoxue must have heard it before, shaking her head helplessly on the side.
I had to admit, this was a scenario I had never imagined, but upon reflection, it made sense.
Once someone accidentally builds an organization to a certain scale, others are forced to join—otherwise, they have no chance of survival. This leads to pathological organizations growing larger while normal people dwindle.
The organizations in “Jade City” seemed like an infectious disease, drastically altering its “participants.”
“So, what do you think?” I asked. “Do you want to escape that city, or save it?”
“I… don’t know,” Gu Yu murmured, lowering his head. “I know my limits… I’m just a performer who draws a crowd, not a sage who can rule a city. But there are people there who matter to me… I’ve been wandering for a long time. If I don’t go back to help them soon, things might fall apart.”
“You don’t even know what you want?” I asked.
“Yeah… Zhichun, I’ve laid out my situation for you. If it were you, what would you choose?”
He tossed the question back to me, but I knew he just wanted my advice.
“Sorry, but my advice probably won’t help much,” I said. “In this world, I only love myself. I wouldn’t play the hero, risking my life to save a city—that sounds absurd. I’d just focus on surviving, doing what I can within my limits. If I can help, I will. If not, well, at least I tried.”
After hearing my words, Gu Yu lowered his head again, looking somewhat dejected.
“Xue… what about you?” he asked. “Do you think the same way?”
“Hmm…” Jiang Ruoxue pondered for a moment. “I love myself too, but my approach is different from Zhichun’s. If you want to save people, then go save them. If you want to stay, then stay. After all, if you don’t act on what you believe in, you’ll just waste time tormenting yourself. But… if you die there because of your own choices, you can’t blame anyone. You went because you wanted to. That’s your karma.”
Jiang Ruoxue and I had given him two completely different paths. No one knew what Gu Yu would choose.
He had already been conflicted, and after hearing our words, he seemed even more torn.
Well then, let me help him out.
“My advice is to just leave for another city,” I said. “Anyone can see that place is beyond saving.”
“Leave for another city…? Easier said than done…” Gu Yu shook his head. “Every time I travel to another city, it takes a long time… If the people in my room catch on and force me to stay, I’ll never be able to leave again.”
Gu Yu shared some information about the other cities.
He said that aside from our “Path City” and his “Jade City,” two other cities had long since lost all normal people, and one was barely hanging on.
Gu Yu had spent years in that barely surviving city before recently arriving here.
But that city, called “Vortex City,” sounded eerily similar to his “Jade City.”
The massive city had only one ruler, who led everyone in a desperate struggle against the “Zodiacs,” directly betting their lives every time they entered the game.
They believed that if they could gamble all the “Zodiacs” to death, it would count as a “participant” victory, rendering the cycle meaningless.
But… did they really not know that the “Zodiacs” could endlessly respawn?
After thinking it over, I quickly realized.
In “Vortex City,” who would willingly put on a mask and become a “Zodiac”?
There, being a “Zodiac” was clearly a high-risk job, facing immense danger every day. They were exhausted from the constant waves of “participants” flooding in, even wanting to escape.
Under those circumstances, would any “participant” pick up a mask and willingly become a “Zodiac”?
It was like being on a battlefield, with both sides fighting fiercely. Just as our side was suppressing the enemy with firepower, a soldier suddenly decided to put on the enemy’s uniform.
In other words… whether in “Vortex City” or “Jade City,” everyone had ended up with different gaps in knowledge due to various coincidences.
The people in “Vortex City” didn’t even know that “participants” could become “Zodiacs” by wearing masks.
No… if their situation had persisted for years, it might be similar to “Jade City’s” predicament.
Even if their leader, Nie Bei, had noticed something was wrong, he couldn’t turn back.
After all, the entire organization was pushing forward with the belief that gambling all the “Zodiacs” to death was their sole purpose. How could the leader possibly say, “We’ve been wrong all along, all those comrades died for nothing”?
He wouldn’t—couldn’t—accept that reality.
The whole of “Vortex City” was an arrow already loosed, impossible to retrieve. Even if they knew a steel wall lay ahead, they could only crash into it and shatter.
Otherwise, they’d have no way to justify themselves to anyone.
“You said ‘Vortex City’ is barely hanging on?” I asked again.
“Yeah,” Gu Yu nodded. “If you think about it, ‘Vortex City’s’ numbers are dwindling every day. The comrades you fought alongside in one cycle might vanish in the next. The survivors, seeking revenge, throw themselves back into the games, creating a vicious cycle… Before long, there’ll be no one left alive in that city.”
No…
Something didn’t add up.
If Nie Bei was truly capable of leading a city, he must have realized this.
He would have prepared a backup plan—even if “Vortex City” fell, someone would survive to carry its legacy.
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