"Aaah!"
Tuo Jie broke down completely.
Like a snake with its tendons severed and thrown into brine, he rolled madly across the black stone slabs. The chains rattled as he yanked them, biting into his flesh, but he felt nothing. He only rolled, writhed, and roared.
"Then why change! Why cultivate!"
His mouth hung open, saliva mixed with black blood running down his chin as he stared fixedly at Xuanzang. His eyes were red, chaotic, filled with everything and nothing that could be made out.
"If I can't change! If I'm going to Hell no matter what! Then what are you doing here spouting all this rubbish, you damned monk!"
"You're toying with me! You're all here to laugh at me!"
He lunged toward Xuanzang. The chains tightened on their own and dragged him back, and a beastlike roar tore from his throat:
"Kill me! Just kill me!!!"
"Let me suffer in Hell for all eternity! Stop playing with me!"
"Isn't it enough that I admit I'm beaten!"
Xuanzang did not move.
He stood quietly where he was, watching Tuo Jie claw and flail before him, neither retreating nor dodging.
Then he took a step forward, bent down, and reached out to hold Tuo Jie's shoulder firmly.
Tuo Jie froze, then struggled backward, but that hand did not let go. It simply held him.
"In the latter half of his life, King Evil-Born suffered the torments of illness and betrayal, enduring pain most people could scarcely imagine."
Xuanzang's voice softened. Its earlier coldness was gone, yet it carried an almost cruel serenity.
"Even though he later did good, the people he killed, the common folk he oppressed, the evil he committed-their resentment and hatred became tangible karmic consequences. Those did not diminish because of the good he did."
"He