"The words you said, I don't understand." At that moment, Warden of Highspire's companion, Young Wraith King, and Logan Sullivan's companion, William Sherman, suddenly spoke at the same time. To Logan Sullivan, the clear voice of the youth and the deep tone of the man blended into a strange duet, making him suddenly feel as if he were personally experiencing it, unable to distinguish himself from Warden of Highspire.

Suddenly, a sentence inexplicably appeared in Logan Sullivan's mind, and he blurted it out uncontrollably, his words overlapping with those of Warden of Highspire from thousands of years ago: "To seal the ghost clan is indeed unfair, but when the sins of slaughter and extermination were trapped by me in the witch clan and then all washed away by the great flood, they had already fallen upon me. I have a clear conscience, and bear my guilt without fear. If the reincarnation and immortality spoken of by Embergrower cannot be achieved, if we fail, if we are wrong, if we cause an even greater disaster... then it is nothing more than a mistaken attempt and struggle. If we all die, new gods will descend into the world. They will, like us, make the next struggle for eternal life, even though we all know deep down that absolute permanence does not exist, just as all humans must eventually die."

Warden of Highspire suddenly turned his head to look at Young Wraith King behind him, then his gaze slid past him, as if falling on Logan Sullivan thousands of years in the future. Even though he knew nothing could be seen, Logan Sullivan still had the illusion that he was confronting himself across the abyss of time and space.

"If 'death' is chaos, then 'life' is constant struggle." As Warden of Highspire said this, he gently stretched his lips into a faint smile, with dimples appearing on his cheeks. The smile was childlike, but his eyes were like those of an old man.

"Lifesmith," he said, "you go first. With me here, you don't need to worry about what comes after."

Logan Sullivan finally heard the complete conversation, and finally understood how William Sherman had managed to extract just a few words from such a compassionate speech, turning it into something with a completely different meaning.

Lifesmith gave Warden of Highspire a deep look. The colored stone flashed, and a string of rainbow-like, dazzling stones flew into the sky, rumbling as they collided with the heavy clouds, erupting in earth-shaking thunder and lightning. Everyone—humans and demons alike—on the mountainside involuntarily bowed in worship. The thunder lasted for an unknown time before it finally ceased. Several months later, the clouds parted, auspicious clouds appeared, and the sun once again shone in the sky, falling upon the barren, scorched earth below.

In the silent sea of clouds of Penglai, Lifesmith's body suddenly fell apart, her three souls reformed into Great Seal, her body became Earthmother, and her seven spirits scattered across the mountains and rivers, allowing the tender shoots of grass to sprout green from the cracks in the rocks.

The aged Embergrower had somehow climbed to the mountain peak and said to Warden of Highspire, "I'm leaving too."

After he finished speaking, his body collapsed to the ground, stiff in death. The soul of the god, suppressed by a human body, howled as it plunged from the sacred mountain into the earth, transforming into reincarnation. The souls that wandered the sky day and night seemed to be drawn by something, all following him. The earth trembled gently, suppressed by the descent of the Terra-Spike, the Reincarnation Sundial on the Lifemark Stone began to spin, and the Virtue Quill hung high on the Virtue Tree, floating up along the thousand-zhang Veilwater, so that every soul had a record of both merits and faults.

"There's still one last thing left," Warden of Highspire said softly. At that moment, the sky above his head suddenly changed from endless clouds to heavy, dark clouds, with lightning and thunder in the midst, as if divine thunder from the nine heavens was about to strike. "My soul fire ignited the Blighted Grounds, burning the ghost clan out of the earth, then abandoning them, deciding their fate for my own selfish reasons—this is indeed a grave sin. But there is still one thing I haven't finished."

Logan Sullivan watched as he took out his heart's blood, turning it into a lamp wick, then transformed his body into a lamp base. Suddenly, he felt as if he knew all these things—not just from seeing them in the Primewood and Sealstone, but as if... they had truly happened, and he simply couldn't recall them for the moment.

Thus, reincarnation was finally established, the cycle of life and death completed, and from then on, there was neither life nor death.

Highspire's primordial spirit left his body, the vast mountain wind sweeping up the wailing Little Wraith King, and together they descended to the underworld to guard the gate for Great Seal.

Logan Sullivan turned to William Sherman: "And then? Why did you say you and Embergrower are mortal enemies?"

Chapter 93 Soulbound Lamp …

William Sherman didn't answer at first. He looked in the direction where the heartbroken Little Wraith King had disappeared, a strange smile appearing on his face, as if a bit nostalgic, yet also a bit embarrassed. After a while, he finally said softly, "I actually respect Embergrower Line very much. Compared to you and Lifesmith, he is even more like a true god."

"Wait, wait, wait." Logan Sullivan raised his hand to stop William Sherman, frowning as he thought for a moment. "If you ask me, this is all your fault. You never explain things to me properly, always tricking me with bits and pieces. Now my head is spinning."

William Sherman closed his mouth. He felt as if he had always been waiting for Logan Sullivan to pronounce the sentence, "I never want to see you again," but it never came. It was as if he were hanging from a cliff by a single blade of grass, unable to live or die.

Logan Sullivan caught a glimpse and suddenly said, "William Sherman, do you know what the greatest pain in life is?"

William Sherman turned his head to look at him.

"It's marrying a wife who's both awkward and a pain in the ass, with too many thoughts in her head, and you can't get a straight word out of her even if you kick her three times... cough, in the end, you'll be so confused by her endless ideas that you won't know which way is up."

William Sherman: "..."

Logan Sullivan: "That's right, I'm talking about you. Right now, I'm completely lost."

William Sherman seemed to catch a hint, but he wasn't sure. His gaze shot to Logan Sullivan's eyes, suddenly shining with a piercing brightness: "So?"

Logan Sullivan had long been conditioned by William Sherman: whenever he showed even a hint of sadness, Logan Sullivan would rack his brains to comfort him. But whenever William Sherman showed even a little bit of forcefulness or aggressiveness that Logan Sullivan couldn't handle, he couldn't help but want to tease him, to flirt and provoke.

So Logan Sullivan reached out and rubbed his own chin, putting on the deep expression of a big bad wolf: "So what? As for us, it all depends on you being honest and open. Comrade William Sherman, anyone who tries to play tricks in front of the people will eventually be drowned in the tide of popular resistance, you understand?"

William Sherman's lips moved, but in the end, he said nothing—he had probably lost the ability to express himself directly with words, as he had when he was young.

Logan Sullivan said, "Let me sort things out first: let's not go over the earlier stuff. Starting from when the great beauty Lifesmith created humans in the leek song—Highspire, currently suspected to be myself, apparently had just stopped wearing split pants at the time, and as a not-so-bright, missing-a-screw kind of guy, was standing by making snarky comments about there being something in the clay used to make humans. Lifesmith then discovered that humans brought with them the three poisons—greed, anger, and delusion—from the earth. Did Lifesmith foresee back then that these three traits would eventually lead to an irreparable war between gods and demons? Hmm, this shows..."

Logan Sullivan paused: "That great beauty had a persecution complex."

William Sherman wasn't used to his unserious way of speaking, but after a moment of silence, he felt that Logan Sullivan wasn't wrong, so he nodded with difficulty. "Yes."

"Later, Lifesmith called Faelan Sage, and the two of them built the Faelan’s Seal together, suppressing the Groundfire, which created the Blighted Grounds," Logan Sullivan said, then changed the subject and asked William Sherman, "Oh, by the way, I've always wanted to ask—legend has it those two were a couple. Is that true?"

William Sherman: "...It's true."

"Damn, so some gossip is actually real. Then, after a few years of peace, the first war between gods and demons broke out... Or, to put it in a more popular way, it was Golden Sovereign versus Ironhorn. As they fought, Ironhorn realized his opponent was too tough and couldn't hold out, so his primordial spirit left his body and went to Highspire Peak to find Warden of Highspire, seeking help from the Mountain Sage—which is me—to protect his little brothers, the witch and demon clans. Warden of Highspire was the kind of guy who couldn't even be bothered to flip the pancake hanging around his neck, so of course he didn't want to get involved. But he couldn't resist the great god's three kneelings and nine kowtows, bowing all the way up like a wedding ceremony, plus he had a gluttonous, stupid cat who accidentally licked Ironhorn's blood, so Warden of Highspire had to return the favor and agreed. By the way, that cat was Darrin Grant, right? Damn, I always knew that fat cat was a total troublemaker!"

William Sherman turned his head away, not wanting to look at this "father" who had been tricked by a cat.