Around the Golden Cudgel, azure lotuses bloomed and withered without pause. Bolts of lightning flashed into being and vanished, leaving the Demon Buddha's face shifting between light and shadow.
His right palm paused above Meng Qi's brow. A ripple stirred in those strange, fathomless eyes. Beneath his dark-gold kasaya, his unremarkable body seemed to be coming undone, giving off a sense of violence no less overwhelming than the nearby Golden Cudgel.
"How did you guess?" the Demon Buddha asked after a pause, his voice still detached and timeless.
Meng Qi's eyes seemed to hold years sealed away in dust. He looked at the Demon Buddha and sighed. "I only managed to guess after learning the truth in Ananda Pure Land: Jiangdong Wang Clan had survived the Demon Buddha Tribulation."
"Overlord was clearly Thunder God's fish. Among all those legendary great powers who lived in seclusion, why was Ananda the main force behind the ambush that killed Overlord, to the point that Number Sage saw through it and came knocking? Were you and Thunder God really so close that you'd risk the flames for him? And Overlord had also ventured deep into Ananda Pure Land, seemingly searching for something. The Overlord Imprint even stopped me from comprehending Nine Annihilations of the Divine Firmament. I'd always wondered about that, but finally understood later. If Ananda was Thunder God, everything became clear and simple."
"Bound by his Innate God body, Thunder God found it hard to make further breakthroughs, so he followed Azure Emperor's example and severed a Buddhist incarnation: Ananda. Afterward, he used reincarnation in the mortal world to seek a path to the Other Shore. But he was bound by an obsession and couldn't break free of the Sea of Suffering. He gradually sank deeper, and his imprint grew weaker and