Had Gu Changqing been there to see Zhunti acting so cautiously, as though facing a formidable enemy, he probably would have shaken his head with a laugh, taken another great gulp of wine, and muttered, "Was all that really necessary?"
For he knew perfectly well what that Sky-Mending Stone truly was.
What gestated within it was no ancient, mysterious supreme being, nor some earth-shaking figure capable of overturning the balance of the Primordial World.
It was the future so-called Great Sage Equal to Heaven.
Or rather, the protagonist of the Journey to the West Measureless Calamity in the original Heavenly Mandate.
Sun Wukong.
According to the original course of the Heavenly Mandate, the time for this Sky-Mending Stone to give birth was still far off.
It needed to continue absorbing the essence of the sun and moon within the Primordial World, gestating through endless ages until the time was ripe. Only then would the stone burst apart in an earth-shattering eruption, and a Spiritually Attuned Stone Monkey leap out.
At that time, Zhunti-or rather, his incarnation, the Bodhi Patriarch-would quietly appear, take Sun Wukong as his disciple, and teach him supreme divine abilities such as the Seventy-Two Transformations and the Somersault Cloud, laying the groundwork for the Buddhist School's Eastward Journey and the Journey to the West to Obtain the Scriptures.
All of this had originally been woven into the Heavenly Mandate, each link fitting neatly into the next.
But now...
Everything had fallen into chaos.
Gu Changqing's arrival had been like a flood dragon leaping out of the River of Destiny, churning its once-calm waters upside down.
The Xuanmen Saints had suffered setbacks one after another, while the Buddhist School had been so battered by him that its vitality was gravely wounded. Jieyin had coughed up blood in his