Great Emperor of the North Pole's Fury

Wang Ye stared at Maitreya's gradually changing expression, dumbfounded.

That was far too

natural.

He admitted that Zhang Ziliang, Lu Qing, and Zhao Hai were all superb actors, but they only put on an act occasionally, at most for a few days.

Only Lu Qing had kept it up for over a month at his Ghost Gate Pass, which already counted as a long time.

But if Maitreya had maintained this state all along...

Then...

For a thousand years, perhaps even longer.

To perform as a completely different person day after day for a thousand years, switch freely between personas, and remain unaffected by it all—there was only one word for it: terrifying.

Among all these strategists, Maitreya was the one everyone looked down on the most.

Even Wang Ye always subconsciously underestimated Maitreya. He had no idea why, but he always felt that Maitreya was not actually that clever, that he was rather weak, and perhaps not impossible to contend with.

That impression had come from nowhere.

Perhaps it was also the image Maitreya had painstakingly crafted over the past thousand years.

Today,

he had seen it.

At that moment, Wang Ye felt only relief. Maitreya's arrogance, sharpness, and resolve in the instant he had stepped out of the secret realm had been utterly unforgettable.

If his shift in mindset had not briefly prevented him from reining himself in, perhaps no one would ever have known that another side still lay hidden in his heart.

Dressed in a somewhat tattered monk's robe, Maitreya lowered his eyes and meekly strode into the darkness of the Wasteland. His back was straight, his steps firm, and he pressed onward without hesitation.

For one fleeting moment, Wang Ye saw a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood behind him.

Perhaps

Maitreya could