'!'
Chen felt the revelation hit him like a physical blow.
His bronze eyes blazed with a mixture of disbelief and growing rage as the scout's earlier words took on new meaning.
'Even other Great Vehicle cultivators serve him?' The thought was acid in his mind, eating away at the comfortable assumptions his hidden master had fed him. 'The chosen one of heaven, reduced to... to what? A minor footnote in that old man's story!?'
His fists clenched involuntarily, the artifact at his waist pulsing with calming energy, but even that ancient tool struggled against the tide of frustrated ambition and wounded pride threatening to overwhelm him.
The air around Chen began to shimmer with barely contained killing intent, his cultivation base fluctuating as emotion warred with the artifact's influence.
'!'
"Urgh..." Chen's breath caught in his throat, not from fear of the blade, but from the crushing realization of his own inadequacy.
'I couldn't sense him.'
