Had all that painstaking effort ultimately amounted to nothing more than a tool for showcasing someone else's glory? It was certainly tragic.
Fu Qian understood Yuan Shan's feelings completely.
The title of divine envoy had sounded strange from the start, but what it mostly conveyed was a sense of nobility.
Now that Old Man Henry had explained it in detail, the helplessness and supporting-role status involved were comparable to being forged a thousand times over, only to be made into a sword's scabbard.
Not to mention that Chief Yuan's teacher was in an even worse state—not even as good as a scabbard.
The closer one got to the end, the more one could feel just how bizarre the path of transcendence was.
Someone like Chief Yuan, who focused on the present rather than reaching beyond her station, had chosen a pretty good approach.
Of course, when it came to strangeness, she had yet to see anything more abstract than herself. She was a Second Order, and had even made an apostle out of herself.
Back when she'd completed the Second Order ritual with Emperor An Jing's help, she'd already found its logic fascinating.
And the scene that followed, when she consumed the trait and chose divine skin, had been even more spectacular.
But now, with Yuan Shan's explanation as a reference, some things were starting to feel eerily familiar. Did choosing divine skin back then count as an alternative reflection of the end of her divine path?
Though what she'd reflected wasn't from her own path.
And did her current situation count as reflecting it so thoroughly that it had been welded onto her?
She'd even suddenly developed a sense of belonging.
Always adept at finding the bright side, Fu Qian quickly reflected on herself, not forgetting to confirm how