Star Lord of Water Virtue took a sip of tea and continued leisurely, "Back when the Buddhist Land expanded eastward, it sought to use the Buddhist sect to pry loose the foundations of the Heavenly Court's Incense Fire.
At the time, everyone thought that raising that monkey was meant to seize the Incense Fire and even the fortune of the mortal world, to overturn heaven and earth.
But what was the result?
The Buddhist Land flourished, while the Human Sect declined.
Those sorcerers of old who made their living refining pills, seeking immortals, driving off ghosts, and telling fortunes vanished from then on, all swallowed by the Buddhist lands.
The Great Heavenly Venerable merely watched from the sidelines.
You and I both believed that His Elder wished to use Buddhism's hand, through the prosperity of the West, to divide up half the Human Sect's mortal fortune.
Yet who could have known that the one sabotaging the Buddhist Land's eastward expansion was none other than Tathagata Heavenly Venerable, the one in charge of this whole affair!
And Elder Brother spoke of secretly forming cliques?
Tell me, along that short stretch of the western road, what mountain and what river was not a battlefield of factional struggle?
The lesser gods and lowly immortals could not see through the barriers within.
But with Elder Brother's status, how could you possibly fail to see through them?"
—Whoosh!
Within the blazing hall, a chill that seeped into bone and marrow silently spread.
Star Lord of Fire Virtue stood where he was. After pondering for a long while, he slowly turned around.
"Then according to Worthy Brother, the unfinished undertaking from a thousand years ago is truly about to begin anew?"
"Elder Brother knows the answer in his heart. Why spell it out so plainly?"
Star