"You bastard!" Jin Jianglang knocked Fire God to the ground with a punch, his face contorted with fury. "You're saying... you sent Yanyanluo to 'seduce' me?!"
Fire God lay on the ground. No sorrow was greater than a heart that had died.
"Why did you do all this?!" Jin Jianglang roared. "Why would you do these things for the patriarch?!"
Fire God gave a bitter smile and said, "Brother, I made a deal with the patriarch. He promised he would never force you or Xiao Xiang to become a 'Time Master.' But I never imagined... you would volunteer for the trial..."
Only then did Jin Jianglang understand why Fire God had looked so disappointed upon learning that he wanted to become a "Time Master."
He also understood why, out of the entire Lineage, only Xiao Xiang and Fire God seemed cheerful, while everyone else was a puppet on strings.
The irony was that all those "puppets on strings" had once had their "strings" cut, while Xiao Xiang and Fire God had kept their emotions intact.
"Brother... leave... take Yanyanluo and Xiao Xiang, cross the seas, and go somewhere better..." Fire God said sorrowfully. "Yanyanluo's 'strings' are very clean. She was never a bad person to begin with. You don't have to give her up for the title of 'Time Master'... this vast, cold, tomb-like Lineage shouldn't be where you belong."
Something in Jin Jianglang's heart snapped with a sharp crack. Everything he had clung to shattered.
The Lineage?
Xu Fu?
Shiranui?
"Jin Jianglang, who kills ten monsters."
Yes... why hadn't I realized it sooner?
The person taking the trial was the renowned "Shiranui Jinkuro," yet it still required killing ten monsters.
The trial was for a "Time Master," someone responsible for managing history, yet it still required killing ten monsters.