"I originally had no attachments, a man alone in this world with nothing to worry about."
Great Peng tilted his head back to gaze at the bright moon overhead. Its light spilled over him, yet his black robes remained pitch-black.
As though they had melted into the night...
"Back then, I watched Phoenix Venerable grow up. I wanted to tell her the truth about that catastrophe. But with her temperament, so like the previous Demon Venerable's, I feared she would make the same choice as the Confucian Sage."
"So I chose to hide that secret, intending to face everything alone. If I refined the flesh and blood of half the people in the world, I would have a chance at sainthood entry!"
Great Peng spoke hazily of the past...
"Once I entered sainthood, I could easily slaughter my way through the Forbidden Lands and into the other half of the Nine Heavens."
"To win ten thousand years for our world..."
"Even so, I would have no place in either Nine Heavens, becoming a sinner condemned by a thousand pointing fingers!"
"But I didn't care. There was no one in this world worth holding on to anyway."
"Those who seek a future for the world are destined to be alone..."
Great Peng looked at Su Jingyan and continued, "But your appearance in the Forbidden Lands was beyond my expectations."
"With your own life, you bought the Nine Heavens several thousand years."
"Yet I fell into confusion..."
"It seemed I was gradually losing sight of this world!"
Great Peng spoke as though to himself, while Su Jingyan merely listened in silence.
The cool night wind seemed to carry many things beyond comprehension, sweeping up bewildered things as it wandered between heaven and earth.
It also seemed to have become entangled with true