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Chapter 757: My heart and actions are as clear as a mirror
After Bakura escaped, since Dark Yugi, Hayato, and the others were not in good condition, the rest did not pursue.
It would have been fine if it was just Hayato and Priest Shada, as they were only slightly exhausted from overusing their spirit power.
Priest Shada's **Ankuriboh** was originally a Newborn Spirit that had only recently awakened, yet the battle situation forced it to squander its power repeatedly. As for Hayato, it was his first time using the power of **The Winged Dragon of Ra** alone without the support of Millennium Ring and other items. Furthermore, using it in the form of a Card rather than the Tablets prevalent in this era resulted in poor Conversion Efficiency, so he was temporarily out of commission.
The biggest problem was Dark Yugi. In his battle with Bakura, his soul was reduced to zero in one go. This was much more serious than having Life Points reduced to zero in a Duel. Even if it wasn't a Dark Game where losing would mean having his soul erased by darkness, it was very close.
However, miraculously, with the arrival of Yugi and the others, Dark Yugi's soul, which should have been completely reduced to zero, actually recovered slightly. Even Seto couldn't explain this incredible phenomenon, let alone the fact that he couldn't even see Yugi and the others who were right beside him. He didn't notice them at all, even when Joey Wheeler was just a few centimeters from his face.
"Hmph, the Pharaoh is not in life-threatening danger. That's fortunate." Standing up, Seto, who had finished checking Dark Yugi's condition, looked at Hayato beside him. "This time, it truly is thanks to your presence, Hayato Kobayashi."
Hearing Seto's words, Joey Wheeler put his hands on his hips and said confidently, "Alright, I'm sure now. This guy is definitely not Kaiba."
"Idiot, didn't Hayato just explain it to us? This is the Memory World within the stone tablets, from three thousand years ago. Some people might look very similar to people we know, but they aren't them. This Priest who looks a lot like Kaiba Seto is named Seto," Téa said helplessly upon hearing Joey Wheeler.
Joey Wheeler pouted and said, "It's because Hayato said this guy is called Seto that I find it strange. 'Seto,' 'Seto' (Sè rén), aren't they basically the same sound? And that Bakura who looked exactly like Bakura just now, the sound 'Bakura' is also exactly the same as 'Bakura' (Mò liáng)."
"If I wasn't absolutely certain that Kaiba would never thank anyone, and therefore this guy called 'Seto' couldn't possibly be Kaiba Seto, I would almost suspect that Kaiba and Hayato were in cahoots to trick us."
"More importantly, aren't our current circumstances weirder?" Tristan's words drew their attention. Tristan was currently reaching out to touch the warhorse carrying the sleeping Priest Shada, but found that his outstretched hand couldn't touch anything and passed straight through the warhorse. "Not only can't Seto, who looks like Kaiba Seto, see us, we can't even touch anything. It's like we're ghosts!"
Yugi hadn't gotten close to Seto while he was checking Dark Yugi's condition. Hearing Tristan's words, he thought for a moment and said, "Is it because we're inside The Other Me's Memory World? And we weren't pulled into this World by Bakura through a Dark Game like Hayato was."
"In this Memory World Three Thousand Years Ago, no one knows of our existence, which means that to this World, we simply don't exist. If that's the case, it makes sense why others can't see or touch us."
Looking worriedly at Dark Yugi on the ground, Yugi continued, "Perhaps The Other Me and Hayato can see us because they have memories related to us."
It must be said, people are different. Though they came to this Memory World and faced the same situation, Yugi's conjecture was completely unlike that of a certain individual with an advanced Dragon Obsession, whose mind was filled with nothing but Dueling and Science.
Hearing Yugi's words, Joey Wheeler also looked at Hayato and said, "Speaking of which, it's only just started, why has Hayato been sitting there without moving? Is he asleep? No wonder that Seto, who looks like Kaiba, offered thanks."
With Priest Shada asleep, Hayato unmoving, and Dark Yugi unconscious, Seto, who couldn't see Yugi and the others except for the Soldiers, naturally assumed he was the only one still awake. It became understandable why he spoke his Inner Thoughts without reservation.
However, Hayato wasn't asleep. The reason he remained silent was because he was currently sinking his mind into the **Millennium Ring**.
The sun disappeared from the sky, replaced by soft moonlight that couldn't illuminate everything. But even so, a large Dark Cloud drifted over and covered this meager radiance, plunging everything in the Small Village into night.
In this lightless night curtain, a guest arrived in the Small Village. This was a turbulent era, but the villagers knew that life was hard for wanderers, so they still welcomed the cloaked guest into the Village.
Then, the mischievous boy hiding in the cabinet, waiting for his family to find him, saw everything in his line of sight covered in blood.
He had thought it was a wandering traveler, but after entering the Village, the person immediately killed the two Guards at the Village entrance and used their blood to establish a domain that separated the inside from the outside, as if a butcher had closed the gate of a pigpen before slaughtering pigs.
"For the continuation of the Kingdom, the power of the **Millennium Items** is necessary! People of the Thief Village, sacrifice yourselves for the great cause of the Kingdom!" Perhaps to intimidate the villagers, or perhaps to convince himself, the cloaked butcher began a massacre among the villagers.
The villagers fleeing in panic were killed one by one by the person wielding a sword. The way that person acted was as if he wasn't killing fellow humans, but merely one puppet after another, with ease and casualness. Furthermore, when possible, the butcher even deliberately inflicted wounds on the villagers he caught, not rushing to kill with one blow, but letting them fully experience pain and die in despair.
What could the boy do? Go out and resist, only to have his weapon easily cut down by the sword in the butcher's hand and be killed like the other resisting adults? All he could do was curl up in the wardrobe, watching the bloody massacre outside the window through the gap in the cabinet door, while desperately covering his mouth with his hand, daring not to make a sound.
Were the villagers innocent? The boy knew that wasn't the case. Although this was just an ordinary Village at first, because it was near the Valley of the Kings where past Pharaohs slept, the Village's pillar industry was building pyramids and various tombs. Life wasn't exactly rich, but they mostly got by.
But after the new Pharaoh's ascension, King Aknamkanon, according to the Uncle in the Village who liked to chat about state affairs, seemed to be engaged in strife with the Old Religious Nobility and promoting religious reform, moving the Capital City from Thebes to the newly built Akhetaten. As a result, his Tomb was also built to the east of the new capital, no longer in the Valley of the Kings.
This caused everyone in the Village to lose their jobs. Let alone maintaining their past life of ease and plenty, being only skilled in construction but not in farming, they couldn't even achieve basic sustenance. In their fear and unease about the future, forced by livelihood, the adults in the Village chose to commit the Kingdom's most serious crime—relying on their familiarity with tombs to steal from the nearby royal tombs.
The former "Village of Artisans" Kul Elna, because adults were caught by the Tomb Keepers one after another, became completely infamous and turned into the "Thief Village" that everyone reviled.
And the boy who grew up in this Village naturally also knew that if the adults who were caught hadn't insisted they had no connection to the Village to avoid implicating their families, according to the Kingdom's law, the entire Village would already be unforgivable sinners.
But, this shouldn't be the penalty. Even according to the Kingdom's law, some people in the Village, like himself, who had never engaged in tomb robbing, should have survived, even if it meant slavery or the Dungeon. Instead, it was this bloody scene before him, with the villagers he knew dying one after another in the massacre!
The Village wasn't very large, and the total population was only about a hundred. The boy, limbs cold, curled up in the wardrobe, watching the cloaked butcher pull the sword from the chest of the pregnant Older Sister next door, then stab her belly again, erasing even the life that hadn't yet been born.
Seeming to think that everyone in the Village must have been killed, or perhaps just having gathered the required number of people, the butcher took off his hood, revealing a face the boy had seen before. Before the Current Pharaoh moved the capital, the boy had also gone to the Capital City to see the excitement on the day of his ascension. The butcher who killed everyone in the Village was a member of the Royal Family by the Pharaoh's side at the time!
Was it the Pharaoh? Did the Pharaoh issue the order to massacre the Village? It must be like this!
The boy's heart was filled with fear, resentment, and wrath, as if to engrave the appearance of the person before him completely into his mind. He watched the other person use the long sword stained crimson with blood to engrave a complex pattern on the ground.
The moment the complex pattern was completed, the river of blood flowing on the ground rushed towards the pattern as if being drawn, completely filling the indentation on the ground. The despair, unwillingness, and resentment in the blood were extracted in a unique way. In the golden radiance that should have been sacred and brilliant, but now gave off darkness and despair, a huge tablet rose from the ground.
On that tablet was a human figure relief. The boy, who had never received an education, did not recognize the image of the deity, but his line of sight was firmly fixed on the golden jewelry and decorations on various parts of the human figure.
The blood within the domain on the ground rushed towards the tablet, flowing into the Golden Artifacts. But just before those artifacts were completed, that member of the Royal Family who massacred the Village immediately took several of them, so that those few items were not stained with blood.
The blood flowed into the tablet, granting the remaining three Golden Artifacts the most powerful strength. But the incomplete state caused a certain existence within the tablet to let out a roar: "Aknadin!"
Dark Aura rose from the tablet, turning into a Claw that was about to grab the few Golden Artifacts in the Royal Family member's arms. But the Royal Family member's actions were one step faster, and he took out the remaining three items from the tablet first, causing the Claw made of Dark Aura to disperse into nothingness before it could attack him.
Having lost all the Golden Artifacts, that existence within the tablet seemed to have also lost all its power and fell silent, slowly sinking Underground. And the Magic Circle that had absorbed the blood of nearly a hundred people also lost its radiance and disappeared after that.
Leaving behind only corpses on the ground, and that member of the Royal Family named "Aknadin" who already held seven Golden Artifacts.
"Is this what is recorded in the **Millennium Spellbook**, the **Millennium Items** that possess the power to realize everything? So strong, I can already feel the power within them!" The boy heard Aknadin mutter to himself, raising a golden eyeball and placing it before his eyes. "**The Millennium Eye** that can read Inner Thoughts. Only you, to prevent others from knowing my secret, I must be the one to use you."
Aknadin, who had easily massacred the entire Village, was ruthless to others, and even more ruthless to himself. Without the slightest hesitation, he took out the **Millennium Eye**, which was the third to last item taken, and crammed it into his eye socket, directly crushing his left eye and replacing it with this golden eye!
After a moment, seeming to have adapted to the power of the **Millennium Eye**, a look of ecstatic joy appeared on Aknadin's face. But after lowering his head and looking at the corpses on the ground, he sighed and muttered to himself, "Ninety-nine lives, exchanged for the power of the **Millennium Items**. However, the sacrifice of these ninety-nine lives, I will use to save ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine people. Everything is for the continuation of the Kingdom!"
"My heart and actions are as clear as a mirror, everything I do is justice!"
While saying this, Aknadin picked up a Torch used for lighting in the Village and began setting fires without hesitation. He wanted to bury this sin in the ashes with flames.
In the Village, flames began to spread. The intense heat swallowed everything. Aknadin watched for a long time, and only after seeing another house in the Village collapse did he leave, unaware that a small figure was wrapping his body with corpses and escaping from the Sea of Fire!
The next moment, everything came to a standstill. Hayato, who had been standing beside the boy watching everything from the beginning, heard a voice ring out beside his ear:
"This is the dark truth of the **Millennium Items**..."
"This is the past of the Kingdom you protect..."
"Even after seeing such a truth, will you still stand on the side of this vile Kingdom?"
Hayato glanced at the White-Haired Youth protecting himself with corpses and said coldly, "Heh, what does it matter to me how people died three thousand years ago? I don't care about such boring things. Stop pretending to be a ghost, Bakura."
"No, Bakura!"
After Bakura escaped, since Dark Yugi, Hayato, and the others were not in good condition, the rest did not pursue.
It would have been fine if it was just Hayato and Priest Shada, as they were only slightly exhausted from overusing their spirit power.
Priest Shada's **Ankuriboh** was originally a Newborn Spirit that had only recently awakened, yet the battle situation forced it to squander its power repeatedly. As for Hayato, it was his first time using the power of **The Winged Dragon of Ra** alone without the support of Millennium Ring and other items. Furthermore, using it in the form of a Card rather than the Tablets prevalent in this era resulted in poor Conversion Efficiency, so he was temporarily out of commission.
The biggest problem was Dark Yugi. In his battle with Bakura, his soul was reduced to zero in one go. This was much more serious than having Life Points reduced to zero in a Duel. Even if it wasn't a Dark Game where losing would mean having his soul erased by darkness, it was very close.
However, miraculously, with the arrival of Yugi and the others, Dark Yugi's soul, which should have been completely reduced to zero, actually recovered slightly. Even Seto couldn't explain this incredible phenomenon, let alone the fact that he couldn't even see Yugi and the others who were right beside him. He didn't notice them at all, even when Joey Wheeler was just a few centimeters from his face.
"Hmph, the Pharaoh is not in life-threatening danger. That's fortunate." Standing up, Seto, who had finished checking Dark Yugi's condition, looked at Hayato beside him. "This time, it truly is thanks to your presence, Hayato Kobayashi."
Hearing Seto's words, Joey Wheeler put his hands on his hips and said confidently, "Alright, I'm sure now. This guy is definitely not Kaiba."
"Idiot, didn't Hayato just explain it to us? This is the Memory World within the stone tablets, from three thousand years ago. Some people might look very similar to people we know, but they aren't them. This Priest who looks a lot like Kaiba Seto is named Seto," Téa said helplessly upon hearing Joey Wheeler.
Joey Wheeler pouted and said, "It's because Hayato said this guy is called Seto that I find it strange. 'Seto,' 'Seto' (Sè rén), aren't they basically the same sound? And that Bakura who looked exactly like Bakura just now, the sound 'Bakura' is also exactly the same as 'Bakura' (Mò liáng)."
"If I wasn't absolutely certain that Kaiba would never thank anyone, and therefore this guy called 'Seto' couldn't possibly be Kaiba Seto, I would almost suspect that Kaiba and Hayato were in cahoots to trick us."
"More importantly, aren't our current circumstances weirder?" Tristan's words drew their attention. Tristan was currently reaching out to touch the warhorse carrying the sleeping Priest Shada, but found that his outstretched hand couldn't touch anything and passed straight through the warhorse. "Not only can't Seto, who looks like Kaiba Seto, see us, we can't even touch anything. It's like we're ghosts!"
Yugi hadn't gotten close to Seto while he was checking Dark Yugi's condition. Hearing Tristan's words, he thought for a moment and said, "Is it because we're inside The Other Me's Memory World? And we weren't pulled into this World by Bakura through a Dark Game like Hayato was."
"In this Memory World Three Thousand Years Ago, no one knows of our existence, which means that to this World, we simply don't exist. If that's the case, it makes sense why others can't see or touch us."
Looking worriedly at Dark Yugi on the ground, Yugi continued, "Perhaps The Other Me and Hayato can see us because they have memories related to us."
It must be said, people are different. Though they came to this Memory World and faced the same situation, Yugi's conjecture was completely unlike that of a certain individual with an advanced Dragon Obsession, whose mind was filled with nothing but Dueling and Science.
Hearing Yugi's words, Joey Wheeler also looked at Hayato and said, "Speaking of which, it's only just started, why has Hayato been sitting there without moving? Is he asleep? No wonder that Seto, who looks like Kaiba, offered thanks."
With Priest Shada asleep, Hayato unmoving, and Dark Yugi unconscious, Seto, who couldn't see Yugi and the others except for the Soldiers, naturally assumed he was the only one still awake. It became understandable why he spoke his Inner Thoughts without reservation.
However, Hayato wasn't asleep. The reason he remained silent was because he was currently sinking his mind into the **Millennium Ring**.
The sun disappeared from the sky, replaced by soft moonlight that couldn't illuminate everything. But even so, a large Dark Cloud drifted over and covered this meager radiance, plunging everything in the Small Village into night.
In this lightless night curtain, a guest arrived in the Small Village. This was a turbulent era, but the villagers knew that life was hard for wanderers, so they still welcomed the cloaked guest into the Village.
Then, the mischievous boy hiding in the cabinet, waiting for his family to find him, saw everything in his line of sight covered in blood.
He had thought it was a wandering traveler, but after entering the Village, the person immediately killed the two Guards at the Village entrance and used their blood to establish a domain that separated the inside from the outside, as if a butcher had closed the gate of a pigpen before slaughtering pigs.
"For the continuation of the Kingdom, the power of the **Millennium Items** is necessary! People of the Thief Village, sacrifice yourselves for the great cause of the Kingdom!" Perhaps to intimidate the villagers, or perhaps to convince himself, the cloaked butcher began a massacre among the villagers.
The villagers fleeing in panic were killed one by one by the person wielding a sword. The way that person acted was as if he wasn't killing fellow humans, but merely one puppet after another, with ease and casualness. Furthermore, when possible, the butcher even deliberately inflicted wounds on the villagers he caught, not rushing to kill with one blow, but letting them fully experience pain and die in despair.
What could the boy do? Go out and resist, only to have his weapon easily cut down by the sword in the butcher's hand and be killed like the other resisting adults? All he could do was curl up in the wardrobe, watching the bloody massacre outside the window through the gap in the cabinet door, while desperately covering his mouth with his hand, daring not to make a sound.
Were the villagers innocent? The boy knew that wasn't the case. Although this was just an ordinary Village at first, because it was near the Valley of the Kings where past Pharaohs slept, the Village's pillar industry was building pyramids and various tombs. Life wasn't exactly rich, but they mostly got by.
But after the new Pharaoh's ascension, King Aknamkanon, according to the Uncle in the Village who liked to chat about state affairs, seemed to be engaged in strife with the Old Religious Nobility and promoting religious reform, moving the Capital City from Thebes to the newly built Akhetaten. As a result, his Tomb was also built to the east of the new capital, no longer in the Valley of the Kings.
This caused everyone in the Village to lose their jobs. Let alone maintaining their past life of ease and plenty, being only skilled in construction but not in farming, they couldn't even achieve basic sustenance. In their fear and unease about the future, forced by livelihood, the adults in the Village chose to commit the Kingdom's most serious crime—relying on their familiarity with tombs to steal from the nearby royal tombs.
The former "Village of Artisans" Kul Elna, because adults were caught by the Tomb Keepers one after another, became completely infamous and turned into the "Thief Village" that everyone reviled.
And the boy who grew up in this Village naturally also knew that if the adults who were caught hadn't insisted they had no connection to the Village to avoid implicating their families, according to the Kingdom's law, the entire Village would already be unforgivable sinners.
But, this shouldn't be the penalty. Even according to the Kingdom's law, some people in the Village, like himself, who had never engaged in tomb robbing, should have survived, even if it meant slavery or the Dungeon. Instead, it was this bloody scene before him, with the villagers he knew dying one after another in the massacre!
The Village wasn't very large, and the total population was only about a hundred. The boy, limbs cold, curled up in the wardrobe, watching the cloaked butcher pull the sword from the chest of the pregnant Older Sister next door, then stab her belly again, erasing even the life that hadn't yet been born.
Seeming to think that everyone in the Village must have been killed, or perhaps just having gathered the required number of people, the butcher took off his hood, revealing a face the boy had seen before. Before the Current Pharaoh moved the capital, the boy had also gone to the Capital City to see the excitement on the day of his ascension. The butcher who killed everyone in the Village was a member of the Royal Family by the Pharaoh's side at the time!
Was it the Pharaoh? Did the Pharaoh issue the order to massacre the Village? It must be like this!
The boy's heart was filled with fear, resentment, and wrath, as if to engrave the appearance of the person before him completely into his mind. He watched the other person use the long sword stained crimson with blood to engrave a complex pattern on the ground.
The moment the complex pattern was completed, the river of blood flowing on the ground rushed towards the pattern as if being drawn, completely filling the indentation on the ground. The despair, unwillingness, and resentment in the blood were extracted in a unique way. In the golden radiance that should have been sacred and brilliant, but now gave off darkness and despair, a huge tablet rose from the ground.
On that tablet was a human figure relief. The boy, who had never received an education, did not recognize the image of the deity, but his line of sight was firmly fixed on the golden jewelry and decorations on various parts of the human figure.
The blood within the domain on the ground rushed towards the tablet, flowing into the Golden Artifacts. But just before those artifacts were completed, that member of the Royal Family who massacred the Village immediately took several of them, so that those few items were not stained with blood.
The blood flowed into the tablet, granting the remaining three Golden Artifacts the most powerful strength. But the incomplete state caused a certain existence within the tablet to let out a roar: "Aknadin!"
Dark Aura rose from the tablet, turning into a Claw that was about to grab the few Golden Artifacts in the Royal Family member's arms. But the Royal Family member's actions were one step faster, and he took out the remaining three items from the tablet first, causing the Claw made of Dark Aura to disperse into nothingness before it could attack him.
Having lost all the Golden Artifacts, that existence within the tablet seemed to have also lost all its power and fell silent, slowly sinking Underground. And the Magic Circle that had absorbed the blood of nearly a hundred people also lost its radiance and disappeared after that.
Leaving behind only corpses on the ground, and that member of the Royal Family named "Aknadin" who already held seven Golden Artifacts.
"Is this what is recorded in the **Millennium Spellbook**, the **Millennium Items** that possess the power to realize everything? So strong, I can already feel the power within them!" The boy heard Aknadin mutter to himself, raising a golden eyeball and placing it before his eyes. "**The Millennium Eye** that can read Inner Thoughts. Only you, to prevent others from knowing my secret, I must be the one to use you."
Aknadin, who had easily massacred the entire Village, was ruthless to others, and even more ruthless to himself. Without the slightest hesitation, he took out the **Millennium Eye**, which was the third to last item taken, and crammed it into his eye socket, directly crushing his left eye and replacing it with this golden eye!
After a moment, seeming to have adapted to the power of the **Millennium Eye**, a look of ecstatic joy appeared on Aknadin's face. But after lowering his head and looking at the corpses on the ground, he sighed and muttered to himself, "Ninety-nine lives, exchanged for the power of the **Millennium Items**. However, the sacrifice of these ninety-nine lives, I will use to save ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine people. Everything is for the continuation of the Kingdom!"
"My heart and actions are as clear as a mirror, everything I do is justice!"
While saying this, Aknadin picked up a Torch used for lighting in the Village and began setting fires without hesitation. He wanted to bury this sin in the ashes with flames.
In the Village, flames began to spread. The intense heat swallowed everything. Aknadin watched for a long time, and only after seeing another house in the Village collapse did he leave, unaware that a small figure was wrapping his body with corpses and escaping from the Sea of Fire!
The next moment, everything came to a standstill. Hayato, who had been standing beside the boy watching everything from the beginning, heard a voice ring out beside his ear:
"This is the dark truth of the **Millennium Items**..."
"This is the past of the Kingdom you protect..."
"Even after seeing such a truth, will you still stand on the side of this vile Kingdom?"
Hayato glanced at the White-Haired Youth protecting himself with corpses and said coldly, "Heh, what does it matter to me how people died three thousand years ago? I don't care about such boring things. Stop pretending to be a ghost, Bakura."
"No, Bakura!"
