Yuan Ci spoke with half-truths and half-lies, making him impossible to read. People called him a charlatan, yet he carried the fleshly Buddha of a divine monk on his back. The legends claimed he could foresee the future and know the past, which lent his words considerable credibility.
Li Poxiao and I had both saved each other before, while also standing as opponents. We were even as Yuan Ci had said: entangled without end, killing one another despite sharing the same roots.
Should I save him or not? If I left him to sink into despair, the Nine Swords Living Slaughter would catch him, and that would be a dead end. But if I saved him, I would be rescuing a troublesome opponent.
Yuan Ci left with a carefree air, and I drew a deep breath. How was he any better off than I was?
His younger sister, Quan Chanyu, had entered the demonic path, while he himself was the reincarnation of a numinous Buddha of the Buddhist school, burdened with the responsibility of saving all living beings. Yet he could not even save his own sister. The irony was simply too cruel.
The demon within Quan Chanyu had already reached the Enlightenment stage, and the disparity in strength was enormous. Seeing his sister was like seeing the God of Death. Yet he had never given up. That alone was worthy of respect.
I borrowed a path back to the underworld and took the Universe Dao Sword down from the wall of my cave abode. I drew it, then sheathed it again. I looked at it over and over, my heart full of reluctance. I had originally planned to hang it in my cave abode as a trophy, but now I had to return it.
Fortunately, apart from the Universe