“Is this a challenge… Maya?”
Itihasa asked calmly.
He cast a sidelong glance toward Maya. Within those cold yet radiant eyes of the God of truth, there was neither joy nor anger—only an increasingly penetrating scrutiny.
“Perhaps…” Maya met Itihasa’s gaze directly.
Their eyes collided fiercely across the void. In an instant, the overlapping illusions and the laws of reality within the deep palace intertwined with violent intensity, yet neither was willing to yield even half a step.
“Then…”
Itihasa slowly withdrew his gaze, his voice heavy as a thousand-weighted mountain.
“Let us continue watching.”
“By now, the endless kalpa-flood that once submerged even Śubhakṛtsna Heaven has already begun to recede, inch by inch. Before long, the human realm will give birth from the earth to the primordial essence of Heaven and Earth—the ‘Earth Essence.’ Its exquisitely sweet fragrance will tear through the Nine Heavens and drift across the realms of the gods and the Brahma sanctum.”
“And if Shuo Lei truly manages to break free from this first forbidden trap of the mortal world—the sweetest temptation in the entire universe…”
Itihasa deliberately let his voice trail off.
Once again, he turned his profound gaze toward Maya, a meaningful, cold smile playing at the corner of his lips, silently inviting her to finish the thought.
Maya naturally understood what he meant.
Following the movements of this celestial game of causality, she exhaled slowly.
“Then… he will be worthy of our continued attention.”
“And I will finally have a chance to escape this long, tedious, endlessly repeating fate of emptiness. At the very least… at the end of this age of catastrophe, there will finally be something worth looking forward to.”
“To see your ending with my own eyes.”
“To see whether you, stripped of your authority over the ‘Law of Truth’… can truly pluck the star you desire from the depths of your heart.”
“…”
Itihasa did not answer.
Neither between his lips nor within the deepest domain of his mind did the slightest ripple of divine intent emerge.
Only his slightly narrowed beast-like eyes remained silently locked with Maya’s mesmerizing gaze.
That gaze alone was already the ultimate answer, one that stood above all laws—
“Then let us wait and see, Maya.”
Itihasa’s voice was deep and inscrutable.
“If Shuo Lei can escape the intoxicating primordial fragrance of the ‘Earth Essence’… then, when the time comes, we shall naturally know the answer.”
……………………
Deep within Itihasa’s divine castle, the gates of the Main Hall of Fate opened with a thunderous roar of their own accord.
A tall, imposing divine figure, majestic as an emperor of primordial antiquity, crossed the threshold.
He was a youthful-form deity, brimming with heroic vigor. He wore light silver armor belonging to a warlord, while around his waist hung a verdant divine sash—the kind once worn only by the ancestral warriors of humanity throughout the ages.
Amber skin, eyes black as ink, and long raven hair contrasted magnificently with the two vajra-crystal short swords at his waist, each one crackling with blinding white lightning.
All of it made this supreme deity who governed the passage of time appear even more solemn and awe-inspiring.
For he was none other than the supreme ancestral god of every royal lineage throughout the human realm.
“You’re back? Masakti…”
Itihasa shed the arrogance he displayed before outsiders. His voice became filled with the utmost tenderness and sincerity as he called to the God of Time.
He did not summon the exalted title he habitually used before the gods and Buddhas of the heavens—
Bhadrakāla , the god of Time.
Bhadrakāla merely gave a slight nod, a faint smile appearing at the corner of his lips—a smile belonging only to Itihasa.
He then walked to the lacquered divine desk directly opposite Itihasa and sat down.
The God of Time’s slender fingers continuously moved across the circular celestial-calculation platform before him, constructed from the trajectories of the stars.
Stroke by stroke, he quietly recorded the causal deductions of the River of Time.
Itihasa simply remained seated before him, silently accompanying him and watching.
At last, Bhadrakāla completed the celestial calculations in his hands.
The God of Time closed the divine register and raised his head, meeting the eyes of this closest of friends, a man who seemed almost like his twin brother.
Then, in a teasing tone that only those bound by the deepest intimacy could understand, he asked:
“Do you want to know?”
“Whether Shuo Lei will ultimately have his primordial light devoured by that supreme fragrance of the ‘Earth Essence’?”
“Of course I do,” Itihasa replied.
“But I absolutely do not want you to risk yourself for this.”
“Simply by revealing Shuo Lei’s causality in advance, you have already touched the iron law and heavenly punishment of the Divine Council. So… there is no need to take another risk, my anchor.”
Itihasa’s voice and gaze overflowed with a tenderness that none of the gods and Buddhas of the heavens had ever witnessed.
Bhadrakāla answered with the same profound affection.
“Every causal future I glimpse from the emptiness of what has yet to come must be handed over to you for examination and judgment.”
“Which futures may truly manifest within the Three Realms… and which are merely dreamlike bubbles of illusion… that has always been yours to decide.”
“So even if I were to cross the boundaries of my duty over the River of Time, secretly handing futures that have not yet entered the game into your hands, and thereby suffer the punishment of the Nine Heavens…”
“I would gladly accept it.”
“Indeed, so long as everything is for you, I can feel the highest happiness.”
Bhadrakāla revealed a smile gentle enough to melt glaciers.
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“Because… throughout the endless ages, we have had only each other.”
“No need, Masakti.”
Itihasa gently shook his head, his fingertips brushing lightly against the void.
“This time, you need not risk yourself and bear heavenly punishment for my sake.”
“Because just now… I have already deduced the outcome through the Law of Truth.”
“Shuo Lei will certainly pass safely through this exceedingly sweet primordial trap of the ‘Earth Essence.’”
“Oh?”
The God of Time leaned forward with interest.
“What celestial secret has made you so certain?”
“Maya.”
Itihasa answered in a low voice.
“Because she once bestowed upon Shuo Lei a karmic blessing.”
“If, in the future, Shuo Lei is reborn within the mortal human realm, and his wholesome karma from previous lives remains sufficiently deep… then he will be able to descend through spontaneous generation, and in every lifetime be reborn with a great wholesome resultant consciousness unassociated with wisdom.”
“From this deduction… that blessing of Maya’s, containing her heaven-piercing ingenuity, will certainly protect Shuo Lei and help him evade the god-slaying power of the ‘Earth Essence.’”
“Not only that…”
“She also went along with the current and suggested that Shuo Lei continue retaining the six sensory faculties forcibly imposed upon him by Arati.”
“She claimed that she wished to see with her own eyes whether Shuo Lei could escape the supreme temptation of the ‘Earth Essence.’”
“And as it happened, Shuo Lei himself seemed quite interested in her proposal.”
“Therefore, he ultimately did not return, as originally ordained, to the completely sensationless and deathly still state of the Formless Realm Brahma.”
“And when I carefully deduced the causal laws of all things through the Law of Truth…”
“I even discovered that Arati, daughter of the Demon King Vasavatti, seems to have unknowingly become an inverse force within our game.”
“Her heaven-defying power to ‘deny reality’ is indeed dangerous.”
“Yet precisely because of her tyrannical interference, Shuo Lei, who should have been little more than an empty and insubstantial existence, came to possess subtle sensory faculties through which even the demon race could intervene.”
“And this twist of fate, contrary to all expectations, granted Shuo Lei an exceedingly brief period of awakening during the cosmic kalpa.”
“It allowed him to suddenly awaken from the meditation of Naivasaṃjñānāsaṃjñāyatana, after having slept for hundreds of millions of years.”
“And precisely because of that fleeting awakening, he gained the supreme opportunity to make a great vow before the gods and Buddhas of the heavens—to liberate all sentient beings.”
“He also gained the fortune to create supremely wholesome verbal karma and pure mental karma.”
“Such an opportunity…”
“Since the primordial antiquity and the Great Flood, no Brahma of the Formless Realm has ever dared hope for such a supreme chance.”
Itihasa’s earlier disdain gradually vanished from his voice.
Each word now carried tremendous weight, uttered with utmost seriousness.
“Furthermore, consider the natural state of the Brahmas of the Formless Realm.”
“They merely sit here in stillness, waiting for the merit and blessings accumulated from their previous lives to run down like sand in an hourglass.”
“Although during their endless slumber they have almost no opportunity to create even the slightest evil karma…”
“At the same time, they possess absolutely no opportunity to establish new wholesome causes or accumulate new merit.”
“But Shuo Lei is different.”
“He has already broken through the deadlock of the Formless Realm and seized the key to accumulating supreme wholesome karma once again.”
“And what is more…”
“That merit was born from the supreme compassion with which he purified and liberated even his mortal enemies.”
“Combined with Maya’s encouragement and guidance…”
“From this point onward, he will surely carry this exceedingly rare, heaven-defying fortune into the rolling mortal world and continue accumulating immeasurable merit.”
A faint smile lifted the corner of Itihasa’s lips.
“Therefore, no matter from which principle of law or causal chain we deduce the matter…”
“His wholesome karma is already deep enough—deep enough to allow him to see through and effortlessly escape that mortal-world taboo known as the ‘Earth Essence.’”
“Is that not so, Masakti, my anchor?”
Bhadrakāla did not answer directly.
He merely raised his head and met Itihasa’s gaze, revealing a tender smile that only the two of them could fully understand—a smile born from complete knowledge of what lay within the other’s heart.
In the silence, that smile seemed to speak without words:
“Of course.”
“My irreplaceable one.”
“Since all laws are already within the game, then for now… there is nothing we need to do.”
Itihasa leaned back against the chair of law, his posture arrogant yet utterly relaxed.
“We need only sit quietly within our castle and fish.”
“Wait for the ‘Earth Essence’ born at the beginning of the world to be devoured by those other Brahma gods blinded by greed.”
“Wait for the human realms in every direction to recover their order and completeness after the Great Flood.”
“And then…”
“Wait for Shuo Lei to truly descend into the mortal world, beginning his reincarnated cultivation and his journey of accumulating immeasurable merit.”
Upon his peerless and beautiful face appeared a cold smile, the smile of one content to sit back and watch the great spectacle unfold.
“This will surely be an unprecedented drama of the highest order, a spectacle the ages have never witnessed.”
“And besides…”
Bhadrakāla softly took up the thread of his words, his eyes clear and filled with affection.
“This splendid drama will, to some extent, help us forget the boredom of our causal duties amid this endless night of emptiness.”
“After all, the cosmic destiny you and I bear…”
“Until our own karmic fruits are completely exhausted and the heavens themselves fall utterly silent, it will never reach its final curtain.”
.....................................
At the same time—
Within Paranimmita-vasavatti Heaven, deep inside the Demon King’s palace that had only just awakened from annihilation in this new kalpa, hundreds of divine flowers bloomed in abundance, their delicate fragrances drifting through the air.
A breathtaking woman in a pale-pink silk gown stood silently among the sea of celestial flowers, seemingly absorbed in admiring the blossoms of the heavenly realm.
She was Arati, daughter of the Demon King Vasavatti—
and the eldest princess of the demon realm, feared throughout the heavens and by all gods and Buddhas, known as one of the most terrifying and dangerous demonic beings in the infinite universe.
At that moment, a tall and imposing divine figure quietly manifested beside her.
He was a handsome god with narrow, hawk-like eyes, his entire body clad in cold, imposing silver armor of vice-king rank.
He was neither one of the loathsome lowly demons nor an ordinary Dark God.
He was a high-ranking darkangel, standing above the Nine Heavens and equal in rank to the great ministers of the heavenly realms.
Though he possessed astonishing divine might capable of overturning Heaven and Earth, beside the Princess he concealed all of his domineering authority that normally looked down upon the Three Realms.
Only a trace of profound affection remained hidden deep within his eyes.
This man was Bati, the dark almighty who governed the defiling energies of Heaven and Earth—the Fire of Grudge, Resentment, and Wrath.
He was one of the supreme commanders of the demon realm’s armies, and the blood brother of the Grand Demon Chancellor, who commanded the undefeated Dark Demon Army.
“It seems…”
“Even the God of Time, Bhadrakāla, the God of Truth, Itihasa, and even that Illusion Queen of the Three-City realm have begun taking an interest in that Formless Brahma.”
“Your Highness.”
Bati respectfully lowered his head, his voice hoarse and restrained.
Yet beneath the canopy of the Demon Palace, bound by the iron laws of rank and status, he could only suppress his feelings and address her with the formal title of “Your Highness.”
Arati’s face revealed neither sorrow nor joy.
Only her fingertips slowly crushed a demonic flower.
“Heh…”
“It is not only them.”
“I myself am also exceedingly interested in that Formless Brahma named Shuo Lei.”
“Then…”
“How does Your Highness intend to arrange the next move of the game?”
Bati’s gaze shifted slightly as he asked with straightforward innocence.
“I intend to watch from afar within the depths of the cosmos and wait for developments.”
Arati answered calmly.
“The new kalpa has only just been born, and all laws are beginning to flourish. There are far too many interesting games for me to amuse myself with, and far too many causal threads that I can personally deny and sever.”
“More importantly…”
She slowly turned around.
Her pink silk dress swept through the air in a graceful arc, while beneath her long hair, only the cold glint in her eyes grew deeper and deeper.
“The first blessing Maya bestowed upon that Formless Brahma allows him to be reborn in the mortal world through a resultant consciousness of great wholesomeness unassociated with wisdom.”
“In the eyes of others, this may seem like protection granted by Heaven and Earth.”
“But in my eyes…”
“This is nothing more than that woman’s earth-shaking calculation.”
“A supreme trap concealing malicious intent.”
“…”
“It means that from the very beginning, his morality and concentration have already been deprived of their most important support.”
“Because…”
“No matter how strict the precepts may be, they can never replace wisdom.”
“And a being whose path of cultivation lacks the illuminating insight of true wisdom from the very beginning…”
“How is such a being any different from those foolish and blind mortals of the human world?”
“They spend their entire lives immersed in the so-called path of accumulating goodness.”
“They continually perform good deeds, give alms blindly, and pile up merit enough to fill the heavens…”
“Yet in the end, they forget the most fundamental and ultimate mystery of all—The Noble Eightfold Path.”
“Thus, what should have led them toward eternal Nirvana…”
“Instead becomes a force that draws them onward into delusion through their attachment to ‘Dharma-bliss’ and to the wholesome karma of their past lives.”
Arati smiled faintly.
The smile was cold and cruel.
“In the end…”
“Souls without wisdom to govern them will gradually arrive at what is known as False Nirvana.”
“And that place…”
“Lies within the domain governed by my power.”
The Princess slowly turned once more, directing her gaze toward the vast sea of flowers blooming anew.
Her long dress fluttered in the wind.
Only the ultimate coldness of one who denied all laws remained in her eyes.
“So…”
“I have absolutely no need to do anything unnecessary.”
“As long as I remain here, watching coldly from afar within the Demon King’s Palace…”
“That will be enough.”
“Isn’t that so…”
“Bati?”