"History proceeded as normal. Your life was not interfered with."
"Everyone's path lay beneath their own feet."
"If any offense was caused, I apologize."
At last, rows of words appeared in the void and entered Maitreya's sight.
Maitreya looked at the words before him, gave a derisive laugh, and shook his head. "I want to know exactly what connection I have to this so-called course of history."
"And if, as you said, everyone's path lies beneath their own feet and has nothing to do with you, then why did you say that third sentence?"
"If any offense was caused?"
"Do you think a mere apology is enough?"
"Why should my path, Maitreya's path, be altered by you?"
Maitreya laughed in extreme fury, his gaze growing ever deeper as strands of golden light emerged from his body, dazzlingly brilliant.
Inside the barrier were the people discussing matters at Spirit Mountain a thousand years ago.
Outside the barrier stood Maitreya at the peak of his strength, a thousand years later.
The contrast created at this moment was stark, yet tragically, the people outside the barrier were powerless to act.
While those within the barrier knew nothing at all.
"Law of Time."
"What a Law of Time. This world, all living beings, every god—under this so-called Law of Time, were they all nothing more than chess pieces?"
"On this chessboard of the world, I, Maitreya, can make moves. Lu Qing can make moves. Li Changgeng can make moves as well."
"Even Wang Ye, I acknowledge that he is qualified to sit outside the chessboard."
"But you alone, Law of Time, are not qualified to make moves."
"When time becomes a tool controlled by an outsider, when it develops its own selfish desires and purposes, the destruction of this world will not be far