The True Lord of Purity and Filth stared fixedly at Chen Zhou, his expression a vivid tapestry of emotions.
The words "impossible" rolled around in his throat several times before he finally swallowed them back down.
He knew the person before him had no reason to lie.
Chen Zhou sat in the main seat, resting his chin on one hand with a calm expression.
"The eighth-stage? What does the eighth-stage even count for? Is it some insurmountable chasm?"
The True Lord of Purity and Filth choked.
What did the eighth-stage count for?
Back then, he had risked his life and sacrificed the entirety of Tianchi Province just to barely touch the threshold of the eighth-stage.
Yet in this person's mouth, the eighth-stage became something that "didn't count for much"?
Chen Zhou looked at him and continued, "Through the little mouse's eyes, you should have seen it too."
"Even the Golden Buddha was brewed into soup by my subordinates. The whole city just finished sharing a drink."
The True Lord of Purity and Filth's eyes went wide.
"What did you say?!"
"That meat soup was the Golden Buddha?"
His voice was trembling.
Shock, disbelief—his mind couldn't process it for a moment, leaving him in a daze.
Chen Zhou nodded. "The taste was decent."
The True Lord of Purity and Filth opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again.
He recalled how, a thousand years ago, he had used himself as bait and laid out a massive array to fight a world-shaking battle against a horde of demons just to seize the Golden Buddha.
He remembered the ethereal sense of purity he felt after obtaining it, the illusion of being able to touch the very origin of the Great Dao.
Then, when the Golden Buddha addiction struck, it left him in agony, wishing for death but unable to find it.
In his final moment of clarity, he had used all his strength to seek death just to escape the Golden Buddha's control.
Yet this person simply had his subordinates brew the Golden Buddha into soup for the whole city to drink.
What kind of monster had Gloomlight Province produced!
The True Lord of Purity and Filth took a deep breath, then another.
He felt he needed a moment to calm down.
"Um... is there any soup left?"
He managed to squeeze out that sentence after a long pause.
Chen Zhou raised an eyebrow at him.
The True Lord's old face flushed, and he gave a dry cough. "I was just asking. Just asking."
Chen Zhou smiled. "There is, but do you want some?"
"In your current state, drinking it would be a waste."
The True Lord of Purity and Filth sighed and nodded.
Indeed, he was currently just a remnant soul residing within Plague Rat's body; drinking anything would be useless.
After a long while, the True Lord finally suppressed the turbulent waves in his heart and looked at Chen Zhou with a complex gaze.
"You... even know about the Sky-Monitoring Office and the Four-Direction Envoys? Just how much do you know about the affairs of the Central Province?"
Chen Zhou tilted his head. "A little."
"As the former lord of Tianchi Province, are you very familiar with those fellows in the Central Province?"
The True Lord of Purity and Filth gave a bitter smile.
"I was the lord of a province, after all."
"Do you think it's that easy to be the lord of an outer province?"
"Every hundred years, Tianchi Province had to offer flesh and blood to the Central Province for a heavenly sacrifice. Naturally, I know a thing or two."
Chen Zhou nodded understandingly.
The imperial family of the Gloomlight Province capital was the same, forced to conduct human sacrifices.
The Heavenly Chef, Yu He, had pitied those human sacrifices and dreamed of replacing them with the three livestock and five fruits, which led to the story of the Path of Hungry Ghosts.
"It is precisely because I know of the Central Province's affairs that I find your claim of slaying Vermilion Judgment's divine sense so unbelievable."
As the True Lord spoke, his gaze became distant, seemingly returning to a time long, long ago.
"My Lord, you might not understand yet."
"There is a fundamental gap between the gods of the Central Province and us beings of the outer provinces."
"It's not a matter of cultivation level; it's more like a difference in the level of life itself."
"Even if your cultivation infinitely approaches theirs, or even surpasses them in depth and foundation..."
"When you truly face them, everything becomes ineffective."
"I faced them personally back then... that sense of powerlessness was like a speck of dust on the ground looking up at the blazing sun in the sky."
"I can still remember it vividly even now."
Chen Zhou listened, roughly understanding what the True Lord was trying to express.
The gap in godheads.
This was indeed a secret of the divine path that ordinary cultivators and demons could not grasp.
A person without a godhead facing a ranked god was like an ant looking at the firmament—there was simply no way to resist.
Just like his battle with the Judge; even with Divine Path Authority, he couldn't pass judgment on him.
The other side basically cheated by being untargetable; what could anyone do?
Chen Zhou suddenly noticed a detail.
According to what Wu Gou told him, the True Lord had used himself as bait to seize the Golden Buddha a thousand years ago, his cultivation then skyrocketed, and finally, he went mad and took his own life.
Since he had committed suicide, when did he ever face those false gods of the Central Province?
With this thought, Chen Zhou asked directly.
"You fought with the people from the Sky-Monitoring Office back then?"
The True Lord of Purity and Filth was stunned for a moment, then smiled bitterly. "I can't hide anything from you."
"Back then, I didn't die entirely from the Golden Buddha addiction."
Chen Zhou raised an eyebrow.
The True Lord of Purity and Filth said slowly:
"My Lord, are you aware of the cultivation system of this world?"
"First-stage Qi Induction, second-stage Bone Coiling, third-stage Inner Demon, fourth-stage Core Shattering, fifth-stage Essence Devouring..."
"The higher the cultivation, the more a cultivator's body and mind slide toward aberration and madness."
"Until the sixth-stage Eerification stage, if one's mind is not as solid as a rock, they can only completely aberrate and lose their sanity."
Chen Zhou nodded slightly.
He had always thought this might be a form of convergent evolution.
In this turbid world, only evil spirits were uniquely blessed.
The higher the cultivation, the more one would gravitate toward becoming an evil spirit to adapt to the laws of heaven and earth.
Later, in the Fallen Dream, he learned that deities were actually evil spirits with autonomous thought, which further confirmed his suspicion.
What was the purpose of cultivation? Was it not for self-preservation, for immortality, to live as long as heaven and earth, and to achieve immortality?
If at the end of the path, one ascended and became an immortal recognized by heaven and earth... then in essence, wasn't that just becoming a high-level evil spirit with self-awareness that was accepted by the world?
The True Lord continued, "As long as one can cross the hurdle of the seventh-stage Symbiosis, where one is enslaved by death qi, and reach the eighth-stage Siming stage, one can truly control their own life and fate."
"The Golden Buddha did indeed help me touch the threshold of the eighth-stage."
"A Siming: one's fate is of one's own making!"
"At that level, it is almost equivalent to having an immortal body."
Chen Zhou nodded.
This was the first time he had heard of this. So the eighth-stage granted immortality. It made sense.
Since they were gravitating toward becoming evil spirits, reaching the eighth-stage and gaining the undying characteristic of an evil spirit wasn't too far-fetched.
Chen Zhou looked at the True Lord of Purity and Filth and asked, "So, is your current state also the work of those false gods from the Central Province?"
The True Lord of Purity and Filth froze.
"False gods?"
He chewed on those two words and suddenly laughed desolately.
"False gods... haha, false gods!"
"Well said, My Lord! They are indeed nothing more than a bunch of monsters who stole the authority of heaven and earth!"
"Back then, I was indeed almost seduced by the Golden Buddha into becoming its puppet."
"But I protected a province for a thousand years; I still had a shred of clarity in my bones."
"I prepared to end my own life, using death to escape the craving for purity."
"Those in the Siming stage do not truly die; I had already prepared enough contingencies for my rebirth in a secret location within Tianchi Province."
"But I was set up by Wan Xiu."
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