Ke Zixiao seemed to age tens of thousands of years in an instant, the look of a strategist with everything in hand vanishing from his face.
His body trembled slightly.
Though he had anticipated this scene all those years ago, actually facing it was another matter entirely.
"Ke Zixiao," Chen Xun said, without the slightest fluctuation of emotion.
"This junior is here." Ke Zixiao lowered his head with difficulty.
"What I hoped for?" Chen Xun said coldly. "It seems you have harbored resentment toward this Dao Ancestor all along."
He tilted his head slightly, a gleam passing through his eyes, as though he had seen through every thought Ke Zixiao had harbored across the ages.
At those words.
Ke Zixiao's expression grew grave and conflicted. His weathered gaze turned into one of absolute rationality that belonged to no living being. "It seems nothing can escape you, Dao Ancestor. Of course this junior harbors resentment!"
He bit out those last words with heavy emphasis.
"Dao Ancestor, you could have left the Heavenly Dao a path to survival, a fallback. Yet you suppressed and sealed it completely, watching it slowly march toward its demise, only to drag the Dao Lord into it in the end and have him become the Heavenly Dao..."
"Not only did you leave nothing behind, Dao Ancestor, you even deliberately departed early, declaring that you would enter seclusion beyond the heavens."
"How could this junior not resent you..."
Ke Zixiao raised his head and looked at that familiar yet unfamiliar back. "I know you will surely say that your actions prevented the Heavenly Dao from targeting all living beings and Eternal Antiquity, and that letting it linger on its last breath would still allow Heaven and Earth Sublimation to continue."
"But looking back across all ages, spanning two