Outside Sea God Pavilion, morning light spread across the ground.
Long Xiaoyao walked beside Mu En, slowly descending the stone steps. The hem of his gray robe brushed over the bluestone slabs, making a faint rustling sound.
A thin mist still lingered over Sea God Lake, blurring the rising sun in the distance.
Neither of them spoke. They walked shoulder to shoulder, their silhouettes almost identical to when they had left that Soul Master tournament more than two hundred years ago. Only then, they had been young, their steps much quicker, and they had not yet carried the debts of half a lifetime on their backs.
When they reached the lakeshore, Long Xiaoyao suddenly stopped.
Mu En stopped as well.
"Mu En."
"Mm?"
"Yesterday, when I passed through Radiant City, I heard several commoners talking outside the Duskwater Alliance. The proclamation your disciple issued jointly with Shrek has already spread throughout the Sun Moon Empire."
Mu En did not respond, waiting for him to continue.
"They said—the new regulations for identifying and dealing with Evil Soul Masters: 'Do not judge guilt by martial soul; determine punishment by deeds.'"
Long Xiaoyao sighed.
"I have lived for more than two hundred years, wasting half my life and drifting through an entire lifetime. I always thought Evil Soul Masters were pitiable people—that they had been forced into becoming what they were by the world. I attributed their evil to this world never giving them a way to survive. I thought that most of them were not bad at heart, merely driven into a corner."
He gazed at the shimmering light upon the lake.
"But that piece of paper forced me to remember—were all those Evil Soul Masters I had 'sympathized' with truly driven into a corner?"
He shook his head.
"No. Most of