No matter how many resounding voices filled this world, no matter how many companions walked beside him on the long journey, Jiang Wang could no longer hear them. Nor could he see them.
His world held nothing.
Only the sword in his hand, the regret in his heart, the strength earned through day after day of bitter cultivation, and the Golden Body Venerable Buddha he challenged—Jiang Wuliang, who had usurped the throne.
Longing shone like a mirror, reflecting the solitary heart of the sword. At this moment, his sword was so pure!
Like moonlight falling upon a golden Buddha, draping its body in snow, the swords of all living beings were offered to the Venerable of Zen.
Over these years, the countless cultivators' explorations of Jambu Sword Prison—were they not also the myriad beings' interrogation of fate, their questioning of the Buddha?
Could beings so fundamentally different, with such disparate experiences, sorrow and joy alike within them, attain ultimate bliss in the same world?
"Sure enough, it was the late sovereign who understood you better."
Jiang Wuliang met the blade as though cloaked in moonlight, snow filling His eyes as well. His voice rang with emotion. "Letting go before Delu Palace back then was precisely because he had seen your path clearly and understood your heart."
"He also understood Us—Qi State could release the Marquis of Wu'an, but the World of Ultimate Bliss could not abandon Avalokitesvara."
"Just as We pushed the Dao contention between True Ksitigarbha and the Underworld Son of Heaven forward, leaving the late sovereign no way to avoid it last night... after grievously wounding Us, the late sovereign also used a belated Green Sheep Celestial Contract, drawing upon a reminder from the past, to bring the Dao contention between Us and you forward to today."
"We