Dead silence.
A deathly hush hung over heaven and earth.
All living beings fell silent as cicadas in winter, holding their breath as they waited.
Countless gazes shifted between Zhen Yuanzi and Zhunti, yet no one dared make the slightest sound. Even their breathing seemed deliberately hushed, lest they shatter this tension stretched to its breaking point.
Zhen Yuanzi's merciless denunciation had just exploded through heaven and earth like thunder.
"What Buddhist School? Nothing but a bunch of despicable scoundrels who call black white and white black."
How satisfying those words had been. How cathartic!
Yet to everyone's surprise, Zhunti's solemn, sacred face showed no uncontrolled fury. Instead, an aloof serenity appeared upon it, as though he stood beyond worldly concerns.
For a moment, the fire that had just kindled in everyone's hearts seemed half-extinguished by a basin of cold water.
Zhunti neither attacked nor grew angry.
He stood in the void, Buddha light flowing around his solemn, sacred form. His calm gaze rested on Zhen Yuanzi, as though those piercing words had been no more than a breeze brushing past his ears, beneath his notice.
A moment later, he spoke slowly. His voice was not loud, yet it reached the ears of everyone present with perfect clarity.
"The Journey to the West is the prevailing course of the heavenly mandate, decreed by the Dao Ancestor himself."
"Everything was inevitable. No one else can be blamed."
Two brief sentences, delivered unhurriedly and casually.
Yet those two sentences pressed upon everyone's hearts like an invisible mountain.
The prevailing course of the heavenly mandate.
Decreed by the Dao Ancestor himself.
Those words carried far too much weight.
Enough weight that no person or power between heaven and earth dared speak lightly of defying them.
Zhunti's meaning could not have been clearer.
So