"Ananda!"
Countless voices, seething with hatred, rose and fell all around them. Against the Great Sage Equal to Heaven's furious roar, they made the dark, dreadful Spirit Mountain seem all the more uncanny.
Meng Qi opened his eyes and looked at Jiang Zhiwei and the others. He saw the same confusion in their eyes:
What role had Ananda played in the battle at Spirit Mountain all those years ago, to leave behind so much resentment and hatred, so intense and so vast?
Meng Qi had a guess. Could Ananda have been responsible for the Demon Race army's destruction, with only the Demon Saintess escaping? Had that left one of them caught between love and hate, pursuing the other to the ends of the earth and refusing to let her go, life after life, branded as a fickle, faithless killer, while the other entered the mortal world to reincarnate, unable to let go of her obsession until the mark gradually faded and she finally fell into the demonic path?
"For the Demon Saintess to dare attack Spirit Mountain and invade the Saha Pure Land, she must have made a breakthrough, crossed the Sea of Suffering, and reached the Other Shore. She had become a true great figure. At the time, Ananda hadn't yet reversed the practice of Buddha's Palm and entered the demonic path. He was only a Great Arhat in the Legendary Realm. What could he possibly have done to force the Demon Saintess to leave Spirit Mountain alone?" Jiang Zhiwei voiced her doubts.
Zhao Heng considered this for a moment. "The Buddha's passing must have meant he attained the Dao Fruit and transcended. Perhaps he left behind some contingency that Ananda used to trap the Demon Saintess. Still, she shouldn't have overlooked that possibility. It's highly unlikely she would