Southern Jambu Continent, Black Tortoise Kingdom.
Inside the council hall, Zhao Xuan, the reigning sovereign of the Black Tortoise Kingdom, wore an utterly humble expression on a face already marked with a few age spots. Rather than occupying the seat of honor, he sat below it.
There was no other reason: the identities of his visitors were enough to make his scalp prickle.
One was Xie Lingyu, whom he could barely count as an acquaintance, having met before.
Xie Lingyu wore white and held a Jade Token with light flowing across its surface.
The others were all monks, none of whom Zhao Xuan knew.
What truly made Zhao Xuan's scalp prickle, however, was the halo of the radiance of all beings suspended out of thin air behind one monk's head. The exquisitely intricate halo flowed and revolved, its pale white light giving off energy that would soothe the uneasy fluttering in Zhao Xuan's heart from time to time.
Zhao Xuan naturally understood that this was nirvana, which only a Karma Buddha of the Buddhist Sect could comprehend.
That also meant the youthful-looking, kindly śrāmaṇera before him was a genuine Tribulation Transcendence Realm cultivator.
Never mind Zhao Xuan-even going back seven or eight generations, his ancestors might never have met a cultivator at such a realm.
Zhao Xuan had not forgotten the drastic measures the Black Tortoise Kingdom had taken to suppress the Buddhists over the new policies back then.
If this Tribulation Transcendence Realm Karma Buddha casually asked what had happened back then, Zhao Xuan reckoned, after searching his conscience, that he could probably only answer the question by drawing his sword and slitting his own throat.
As someone in a high position, Zhao Xuan had a deeper appreciation of such towering figures from beyond the heavens.
If they reasoned