"Zhang Jin! Do you know what you're saying?!"
Xu Chen stared at the man before him in disbelief. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that the other man would defy his orders.
"Of course I know, and I know very clearly! Never have I been this clear!"
Zhang Jin turned to Xu Chen, then swept his gaze over the cultivators on the shore. At this moment, his emotions surged like stormy seas.
"All of you here are geniuses, heaven's favored, those blessed by the heavens and favored by fate!"
"I—only I! My talent is utterly ordinary. Yet through unrelenting effort and bitter, extraordinary struggle, after striving for one hundred and eighty-six years, I finally reached this point!"
"Before this, you! You! And all of you! Who among you ever thought that I could reach this point?!"
"Xu Chen! Do you still not understand? I! I, Zhang Jin, am the one destined by heaven to seize this supreme treasure!"
"My fate shall be rewritten here! In the future, I shall step into the Three Realms of Enlightenment. I will not stop at True Intent—I will go higher! Higher still!"
Overcome with emotion, he raised a hand and pointed at everyone present.
"And you, this pack of so-called geniuses and heaven's favored! You are nothing more than witnesses to my great achievement!"
When Zhang Jin finished speaking, the entire place fell utterly silent.
Xu Chen stood frozen where he was. He could not understand how Zhang Jin, who before entering the ancient path had obeyed his every command and showered him with flattery, had become like this.
The instant Ban Kuizhen heard Zhang Jin call himself a "man destined by heaven," everything clicked in his mind, and he understood what had happened.
Just as Zhang Jin himself had said, no