Below Wu'an City, pedestrians flowed like a woven stream, and the clamor and revelry continued.
On an unnamed mountain outside Wu'an City, only fallen leaves carpeted the ground. One sprawled, one stood—utter silence.
Mu Qinghuai lay dead on the ground. Wen Yong had been blinded, his future of divinity gone, the true godhood that had once seemed within reach destroyed—yet he was still shouting desperately—
But he did not know that no sound had left him!
The moment Mi Zhiben cried, "Stay!", he had already exhausted his calculations of Five Evils Basin, traced back the source of the divinity, locked onto Wen Yong's location, and, from among the pieces he had placed in Five Evils Basin, selected the most suitable one... and crushed it without hesitation.
Within Wu'an City stood a tiny nunnery, built long ago by a nun from Moon-Washing Nunnery as her dwelling. The nun had later departed, but the incense offerings had never ceased.
This nunnery had been established to pray for the former Marquis of Wu'an of Qi State. Like the city name "Wu'an," it carried a special significance.
Chan Fayuan, the great bodhisattva of Ancient Calamity Mountain, had personally converted someone here, all in preparation for the coming war between races. At least on the Southern Wu battlefield, it might become the key that tipped victory or defeat.
Buddhists sought affinities and spoke of karma. By laying out this arrangement here, they had hoped to use this nunnery to pry loose some karmic connection, so that one day, in the war against that person, they might add a weighty counter to the scales.
And today, Mi Zhiben, overseeing the whole board, drew this piece out from the incense burner... and used it now.
On the Investiture Platform, Mi Zhiben's gaunt index finger curled behind his