Back when Dragon Buddha plotted against the World-Honored One, the first thing he did was kill Samantabhadra—not only because of Samantabhadra's importance to the Pure Land, but also for the sake of Sun-Moon Decline Severance!
To kill a Celestial Being, first sever the Celestial Path. For the funeral of one World-Honored One, one Transcendence must die to set it in motion.
Later, the World-Honored One indeed died within those forty-nine days.
How was today any different from that day?
Ksitigarbha had taken part in killing Gongsun Xi. The resulting Sun-Moon Decline Severance had thoroughly muddled the Heavenly Secret. Though it could not erase the Celestial Path's favor toward Ksitigarbha, it directly disrupted Ksitigarbha's use of heavenly intent.
And was this not another kind of karma?
On this foundation, the Central Son of Heaven created an opportunity. With Ruan Qiu of Qi State bolstering him through the Sea-Viewing Terrace, Jiang Wang was able to assume a fully liberated Celestial Being state and, with the influence he wielded as the foremost beneath Transcendence in the deep sea of the Celestial Path, stir up raging waves that shook the entire deep sea of the Celestial Path!
Jiang Wang, with his Thirteen Heavens state liberated, was not necessarily in his strongest battle state. With his demonic intent fully released and his heavenly state completely liberated, he had to pay an even greater price to maintain his True Self.
But in this state, he undoubtedly exerted the greatest influence upon the deep sea of the Celestial Path.
Jiang Wang stood upon the Sea-Viewing Terrace, as though severed by time and space—his body in the underworld, yet also in the Heavenly Sea.
Within the boundless Heavenly Sea, the billows raged in fury, water peaks rising in clusters.
He merely stood alone, hair hanging loose and robes