In this calamity, where even greed and rebellion are part of the plan, the only thing that can pierce the eternal lie is the paradox rising from the ashes of a fragment in the boy's palm:
'If a god sits at the end of the road to immortality, then I'll kill it. If killing a god is itself a script it wrote, then I... will become a new taboo.'
It turns out the entire age of cultivation is merely a gluttonous feast, repeated a hundred thousand times at the table of the ancient gods.
