"Do you think Empress Wuyue, Lady Wuyou, Empress Tianzong, and the other Empresses descended at this moment because they truly fear your schemes against the Spiritual Awareness and Demonic Thoughts within You Di?"
"No!"
"They are not afraid at all, because they understand better than anyone that the Spiritual Awareness and Demonic Thoughts on You Di's person cannot be suppressed by you, cannot be schemed against by you, and cannot be controlled by you."
"Just like Peacock Great Emperor, Changfeng Great Emperor, and Xuanyang Imperial Lord, the reason they stepped forward to stop you is simply because they do not wish to see you throw your lives away for nothing."
"They have also come to repay a debt of gratitude—to repay the kindness of the Immortal Dao, the kindness of the Demonic Dao, the kindness of the Buddhist Dao, the kindness of the Ghost Dao, the kindness of the Demonic Dao, the kindness of the Heavenly Dao, the kindness of the Sage Path, and the kindness of these Three Thousand Great Daos!"
"They were born from the Three Thousand Great Daos, grew within the Three Thousand Great Daos, and it was the Three Thousand Great Daos that achieved them, that forged them. They owe the Three Thousand Great Daos a debt of gratitude, and so today, they have come to repay that debt to the Three Thousand Great Daos!"
"Including my husband, Blood River, and myself, it is the same for us all."
"The Three Thousand Great Daos are destined to be slaughtered. No one can stop it. No one."
"Although I do not wish it, I must admit that each of you carries the hope of these Three Thousand Great Daos. After the Three Thousand Great Daos fall, only you can continue to pass on the legacy of the Three Thousand Great Daos!"
"They cannot save the Three Thousand Great Daos, nor will they attempt to save the Three Thousand Great Daos. The reason has already been made perfectly clear by Da Xing the Mad Monk: the Three Thousand Great Daos are already riddled with holes, utterly rotten and decayed, rotten to the very core. Only by uprooting them completely, by slaughtering the very Sources of the Three Thousand Great Daos, can the true Great Dao, in the midst of this Calamity, be broken and then re-established, undergoing nirvanic rebirth. Only when the Great Dao is reborn can you pursue the Three Thousand Great Daos of your own hearts and minds."
"If it were not so, why do you think the various Empresses planted Karmic seeds within You Di?"
"It was precisely to repay the kindness of the Three Thousand Great Daos during this Calamity!"
Cang Yan's words were profound, yet also not profound.
Those who could understand did so without needing to think, while those who could not understand would rack their brains in vain and still fail to grasp it.
For example, when Cang Yan said that only by slaughtering the Three Thousand Great Daos could the Great Dao be reborn, and only when the Great Dao was reborn could they pursue the Three Thousand Great Daos of their hearts—those who could not understand simply could not comprehend it. If the Three Thousand Great Daos were slaughtered, how could one still pursue the Three Thousand Great Daos of one's heart?
Those who could understand knew that what Cang Yan referred to as the 'Three Thousand Great Daos' actually meant the Three Thousand Sources of the Great Dao, such as the Source of the Immortal Dao, the Source of the Demonic Dao, the Source of the Heavenly Dao, the Source of the Sage Path, and so on.
The Immortal Dao was not guilty. The Heavenly Dao was not guilty. The Sage Path was not guilty. What was guilty were those Sources of the Great Dao.
What was meant by 'slaughtering the Three Thousand Great Daos' was precisely slaughtering the Three Thousand Sources of the Great Dao.
What was riddled with holes was not the Three Thousand Great Daos, but the Three Thousand Sources of the Great Dao. Perhaps it was precisely the Three Thousand Sources of the Great Dao that had caused the Three Thousand Great Daos to become rotten and decayed.
Within the Lotus Hall.
Cang Yan poured herself a drink, a profoundly meaningful smile hanging on her peerlessly beautiful face. As if engaged in light conversation, she spoke sentence by sentence: "Of course, I advise you all not to think of the various Empresses as too selfless, nor to think of them as too kind-hearted. They are not that kind-hearted, nor are they that selfless. And I am even more so."
"My stepping forward to stop you, like the various Empresses, is also to repay the kindness of these Three Thousand Great Daos. But I do not care about your lives or deaths. I will only do what I must do—step forward to stop you. As for whether I can actually stop you, or whether I can preserve your little lives, I do not know, I cannot be bothered to know, and I do not care."
"The only thing I know and the only thing I care about is that I have done what I ought to do, which is equivalent to repaying the kindness the Three Thousand Great Daos showed in forging me."
"Only by repaying this kindness of the Three Thousand Great Daos can I sever the Karma between myself and the Three Thousand Great Daos. And only by severing the Karma between myself and the Three Thousand Great Daos can I transcend myself, find my True Self, and seek the true Great Dao."
"This is the only thing I care about."
"It is the same for me, and no exception for my husband. Floating Life Imperial Lord, Xuanyang Imperial Lord, and Changfeng Great Emperor are all the same!"
"Only by severing the Karma with the Three Thousand Great Daos can Xuanyang Imperial Lord transcend himself, seek his True Self, and pursue the Xuanyang Great Dao of his heart!"
"Only by severing the Karma with the Three Thousand Great Daos can Floating Life Imperial Lord transcend himself, seek his True Self, and pursue the Hunyuan Great Dao of his heart!"
"Only by severing the Karma with the Three Thousand Great Daos can Changfeng Great Emperor transcend himself, seek his True Self, and become the impartial, selfless Lord of the Azure Heavens who presides over justice!"
"Empress Wuyue, Lady Wuyou, Lady Youming, Empress Tianzong, Lady of Nature, and even my junior sister Suhua are all the same!"
"Peacock Great Wisdom King said something quite correct earlier. He said that stopping the Eight Sects of Buddhism was his own selfish desire. That is indeed true, because he, like us, can only transcend himself, seek his True Self, and pursue the Great Dao of his heart by severing the Karma with the Buddhist Dao."
"And I, including Floating Life Imperial Lord and the others, and even the various Empresses stopping you—we all have this same selfish desire!"
"Therefore, they, like me, fundamentally do not care about your lives or deaths. They will only do what they themselves ought to do. Whether they can preserve your little lives, they fundamentally do not care. As long as they do what they themselves ought to do, it is equivalent to repaying the kindness of the Three Thousand Great Daos. Repaying the kindness of the Three Thousand Great Daos is also severing the Karma with the Three Thousand Great Daos."
"This is both the only thing I care about and the only thing they care about."
"Earlier, I said that Floating Life Imperial Lord was one of the few people present who cared about your lives or deaths. Aside from Floating Life Imperial Lord, there are three others: one is Free Emperor, one is Da Xing the Mad Monk, and the last is the one who entrusted me to deliver this message—Genggu Wuming."
"It is precisely because Genggu Wuming cares about your lives or deaths that she entrusted me to deliver this message."
"Moreover, I can also tell you that Genggu Wuming risked revealing the secrets of heaven by having me deliver this message. What should be said, what should not be said—she has had me tell you everything. This is the cause she has created, and in the future, bitter fruit will surely await her."
"This is your last chance. Whether you listen or not, whether you believe or not, it is entirely up to you."
"This Calamity, from the very beginning, was not a Calamity concerning the life and death of the Three Thousand Great Daos, nor was it a Calamity about whether the Era of No Dao could begin, and even less was it a Calamity about the Original Sin True Master dominating heaven and earth!"
"It is a Calamity to sever Karma, transcend oneself, seek one's True Self, and master one's own destiny!"
"This is true for the Great Dao, true for heaven and earth, and true for every single one of you."
"We have lost ourselves. The Great Dao of heaven and earth has also lost itself. Precisely because it has lost itself, the Great Dao must slaughter the Three Thousand Sources, transcend itself, and seek its True Self!"