Chapter Ninety-Five: Trash! The kind of trash that can shatter mountains!

Before the monk’s words had fully fallen, both men were frozen in place, staring at him in disbelief. Did he even understand what he was saying?

The old monk met their stunned gazes with an untroubled expression, smiling faintly, unhurried and unflustered, as though patiently waiting for their answer.

“If I wanted this entire temple sealed off, you would still have no objection?” After a long silence, a fierce light flashed through Zhou Yi’s eyes as he looked at the monk and asked.

“If doing so can dispel the resentment in your hearts, then even if it costs this old monk his life, what of it?”

The monk still smiled, seemingly utterly unmoved by the murderous intent in Zhou Yi’s words. And then—

With a soft hiss, a blade appeared in his hand out of nowhere. It was a foot long, its surface gleaming with a cold, sharp light, exuding a chilling aura. One glance was enough to tell it was an exceptionally fine and deadly weapon.

Turning the blade over, the old monk held the hilt out toward Zhou Yi, smiling.

“If that is truly what must be done, then please, honored guest, take action yourself.”

Zhou Yi fell silent. So did Song Hai, who had been watching with a grin all this while.

Staring at the hilt before him, Zhou Yi felt complicated emotions churning within him. From the monk’s words and actions, he could tell very clearly that everything he said was sincere. This was no trick.

“Why go to such lengths? Why?” After a long while, Zhou Yi let out a deep sigh. He could not bring himself to kill so many people merely for the sake of his own anger.

“If I’m not mistaken, with your strength, if you truly wished it, I would never be your match!” Zhou Yi said, still puzzled, gazing at the monk.

“In terms of strength, yes. Though you are only at the peak of the celestial realm, your actual combat power has already reached the level of the first pool of pseudo-elixir formation,” the old monk said with a smile, his gaze toward them growing even gentler. “And yet, even so, if this old monk truly intended to, you would indeed not be my opponents.”

“However, what meaning would that have?”

His calm words reached their ears, and for some reason, Zhou Yi felt a hidden sorrow within them, a sorrow so thick it could not be dispelled.

Zhou Yi and Song Hai exchanged glances. Seeing the look in each other’s eyes, they instantly understood that both of them had sensed that sorrow.

“You do not understand?” Seeing their bewildered expressions, the old monk smiled slightly.

“Many things—ignorance is a blessing.” His words carried a profound sigh, and the sorrow in his voice became all the more apparent.

“What exactly happened?” The monk’s tone suddenly stirred a surge of desolation in Zhou Yi’s heart, and for a moment he felt a strange, sympathetic heaviness. Then, a heartbeat later, he came back to himself. Why would I feel this way?

Noticing that something was wrong, Zhou Yi immediately looked at the monk.

Song Hai also looked at him, curiosity in his eyes.

“Do you think it is impressive, for one at the peak of the celestial realm to possess pseudo-elixir strength?” The old monk posed the question in a low, distant voice.

“Right now, given enough time, with a mountain a little smaller, you could even shatter it. Do you think your strength is formidable?”

Without waiting for Zhou Yi to answer, the old monk posed another question.

Zhou Yi turned both questions over in his mind and came to a conclusion: with my current strength, I may not dare call myself number one under heaven, but however it may be said, I should at least not count as weak.

At the very least, I ought to be considered a master, shouldn’t I?

“I…”

“If I told you that your current strength is nothing but trash, would you believe me?” the old monk said softly, instantly upsetting the hearts of both men.

“How is that possible? You just said before that I’m more or less at the level of shattering mountains, and now in the blink of an eye you say my strength is only trash!”

“How could that be? In any realm, in any world, no one would dare say that a strong man capable of shattering mountains is trash, would they?”

Zhou Yi and Song Hai looked at the monk with indignation.

Seeing their disbelieving expressions, the old monk could only let out another sigh.

“I know you do not believe me. If I had not gone there, how could I have believed it myself?”

“Gone where?” Song Hai asked in confusion, then immediately understood and hesitantly said, “The Island of the Unparalleled?”

“That’s right. The Island of the Unparalleled.”

The old monk nodded, confirming his guess, then continued in that same distant tone: “Only after going to the Island of the Unparalleled did I finally understand that the strength we have always been so proud of really amounts to nothing.”

“Trash? To put it bluntly, with your current strength, you may not even deserve those two words.”

The monk’s voice was calm, devoid of much emotional fluctuation, yet it made both listeners feel a chill rising from within. An indescribable feeling, like water seeping silently into their hearts, flowed through them with every word he spoke.

“Trash? So now we do not even count as trash?”

Zhou Yi was dumbfounded. After all they had endured along the way, after all the suffering, they had finally gained this cultivation, capable of sealing a mountain with one palm and shattering it with another—power that was nothing short of astonishing.

He had thought that was enough.

Yet suddenly, someone stood before him and told him that the strength he had been so proud of was actually nothing but trash. Who could bear that? Who could accept it?

He could not accept it. He could not.

“Why do you say that?” Zhou Yi’s heart was in turmoil, and his expression darkened as he asked the monk in dissatisfaction.

“Why?”

“Heh heh.”

Hearing Zhou Yi’s question, the old monk suddenly laughed, a laugh filled with boundless suffering. “Why? I would like to ask that as well. Why? Why? Why?”

The monk abruptly grew frenzied, his laughter tearing at the heart. In the sunlight, a glimmer suddenly flashed at the corner of his eye, and it was impossible to tell whether it was tears from laughter, or something else entirely.

Seeing the monk’s frantic state, both Zhou Yi and Song Hai fell silent at once. An invisible pressure descended on them like a mountain, making it hard to breathe for a brief moment.

Boom.

In the midst of that silence, the old monk suddenly raised a hand. A streak of black light flashed out and vanished into the mountain shrouded in mist.

In an instant, the peak that Zhou Yi had already sealed began to dissolve, like water vapor beneath the sun. In the blink of an eye, it disappeared without a trace.

The water elemental sphere Zhou Yi had exhausted himself to create was shattered and dispersed in an instant by a single motion of the monk’s hand.

Such power was truly terrifying beyond words. At the very least, from the information Zhou Yi sensed in the collision between the water sphere and the black light, he could understand the monk’s horrifying strength all too clearly.

Far beyond his expectations.

“Now, what do you think of my strength?”

After unsealing the mountain peak, the old monk looked back at the two of them and asked with a bitter smile.

“Strong. Very strong.” After a moment of silence, Zhou Yi replied in a low voice.

“Very formidable.” Song Hai’s expression also became serious.

“You think my strength is strong?” Hearing their answers, the old monk suddenly lowered his head, his voice deep. “And yet, do you know that with my current strength, even on the Island of the Unparalleled, I am still nothing but trash?”

“How is that possible?”

“That can’t be right?”

The moment the old monk spoke, both men were once again stunned, unable to believe it. Zhou Yi was especially shaken.