Inside the Gui-Xu Hall, the candle flames flickered violently, casting light upon the Great Elder's wrinkled, wood-like face.
"The prophecy of the Buddha-God's return..." The Great Elder let out a tragic laugh, his voice echoing through the cavernous hall with a bone-chilling tremor. "Holy Monk, did you truly think what was written in those scrolls was 'salvation'? No. It was a 'Sacrificial Offering,' Hahaha! Do you wish to know the truth behind Juling Island's origins? To be honest, we owe it all to gods like you!"
Cang Yaochen's eyes narrowed slightly, and the prayer beads between his fingers came to a dead stop.
"Speak."
The Great Elder closed his eyes. "The world believes Juling Island is a blessed sanctuary of the immortals because its spiritual veins reach the heavens. But only the successive Great Elders know... what lies beneath this island is no spiritual vein. It is the unburied, unpurified shattered corpses of gods from the Great War ten thousand years ago."
Cang Yaochen's hand paused on the beads, a flash of profound irony flickering in his eyes.
"So, your so-called 'Spirit-Gathering' is actually feeding off the power of dead gods?"
The Great Elder nodded painfully. "For ten thousand years, we used the Nine-Turn Exquisite Array as a 'grindstone.' we ground the resentment and despair radiating from those divine corpses into spiritual energy for cultivators to absorb. It brought the sect ten thousand years of prosperity, but the cost... the cost was the resentment beneath us. It piled up, layer by layer, until it became impossible to suppress."
Cang Yaochen walked slowly toward the Great Elder, his deep cyan robe sweeping across the floor with a soft hiss.
"And so, you devised the Cleansing Ceremony to drain the spiritual energy of your own disciples to keep it down, correct?"
"Yes. It worked at first. But slowly, the island demanded more and more energy. We had to hold the ceremonies more frequently, and the disciples began to grow suspicious. This was supposed to be the last time, but your arrival... it ruined everything." The Great Elder let out a long, unwilling sigh.
"We intended to use Jiang Li as a 'shell' to absorb the fragments," he continued, his voice barely a whisper. "Then, we would use the power of the Mirror during the ceremony to suppress the darkness once more. If Jiang Li was indeed the one from the prophecy, she would surely be able to crush the resentment beneath the island—perhaps even consume that power for herself." A glimmer of greed slowly ignited in the Elder's eyes. "Then, we could create a god. A god that belonged to the sect, a god that obeyed us. At that point..."
Cang Yaochen sneered, the Buddhist light around him instantly becoming as sharp as a blade. "So this is the 'righteous' sect that claims to protect the world. You truly have opened my eyes."
The Great Elder slumped his shoulders in defeat. "The woman who took Jiang Li... she is likely the 'Evil Intent' birthed from the Nine-Turn Exquisite Array itself, manifested from ten thousand years of resentment. Legend says that array was created by a War God to imprison demons."
Suddenly, the Elder looked up, his eyes wide with terror. "Holy Monk, once that woman completely devours Jiang Li, she won't be bringing back fragments. She will bring back something that will destroy this entire world—an Evil God!"
At the very moment the truth was revealed, Cang Yaochen's heart tightened. It was feedback from the Covenant of the Buddha.
In a void thousands of miles away, he sensed an extreme cold. Jiang Li's consciousness was sinking, like a white lotus being stained by ink, devoured inch by inch by the darkness.
"Kill me..."
A whisper, so faint it was almost inaudible, exploded in Cang Yaochen's mind. His breathing broke rhythm for a split second. The Buddhist essence he had left in her was being frantically gnawed by that "Evil Intent." The pain of having his soul torn apart was transmitted directly back to him through the covenant.
The pain only caused the darkness in his eyes to deepen.
"An Evil God?" Cang Yaochen whispered to himself, his voice laced with disdain.
"How many shards of the Mirror do you have left?" He pulled his thoughts back, his gaze piercing the Great Elder.
Knowing there was no escape, the Elder tremblingly pulled a pitch-black jade box from his robes.
"In ten thousand years, the sect only found three. One was the shard you found before, which is in the box; one was absorbed by Jiang Li during the ceremony; and inside this box... lies the final 'Returning Heart' fragment. It is our only clue."
Cang Yaochen took the box. The moment his fingers touched it, a grand map flashed in his mind—it pointed across the vast ocean to the heart of the world: the legendary Central Continent, where geniuses gather and gods and demons rise.
"The woman must have taken her to the 'God-Fall Valley' in the Central Continent," the Elder whispered, his life fading. "The largest wreckage of the Mirror is there, the final resting place of ten thousand gods. If you want your power back, or if you want to break this prophecy, you must go there."
Cang Yaochen turned, his robes snapping in the night wind. He raised his hand, but the light in his palm was no longer warm; it held the icy coldness of divine judgment.
"Holy Monk! What are you doing?!" The Great Elder scrambled to his feet in terror.
Cang Yaochen did not answer.
The Elder took a deep breath, as if drawing from his very last reserves of strength: "The last page of the sect's secret scrolls reads: 'On the day the Buddha-God returns to his seat, all spirits shall wither; use all living things as fuel to light the True Buddha's throne; the island shall sink, the sky shall fall, and the Returning One must personally sever his last thread of affection.'"
The Great Elder looked at him in despair. "Holy Monk, this prophecy doesn't say you will save us. It says the day you reclaim your throne, this world will be your sacrificial altar. And Jiang Li... she is not your lover. She is the 'Thread of Affection' you are destined to kill with your own hands!"
Cang Yaochen's heart jolted violently.
"Holy Monk, I beg of you... I have told you everything." The Great Elder began to kowtow frantically. "The prophecy speaks of the Returning One! If the Returning One offers his own divine blood into the dark underground rivers, it can cleanse the miasma and save the sect! Please, save these ten thousand disciples!"
Cang Yaochen looked down at him, his gaze devoid of even a spark of warmth.
"Sacrifice me?"
He leaned down, his slender fingers gripping the Great Elder's chin, forcing him to look into his eyes. In that instant, the Elder saw no mercy—only an endless, frozen vacuum.
"Great Elder, you seem to have forgotten. I am a Buddha, but I do not save the greedy, the arrogant, or the ungrateful. I finally understand how the world became this way. It seems the mercy the gods showed to humanity ten thousand years ago was entirely wasted."
He crushed the prayer beads in his hand. With a flash of golden light, he soared into the sky, heading straight for the northwest.