When they saw that half of the Demon Cultivator’s remains was a decrepit skeleton, while the other half had been sculpted into the Golden Body of an Arhat in the Buddhist Dao.
Li Qingran could only feel astonished.
By all accounts, something like this should be impossible.
Buddha Qi and Devil Qi counteract each other, unless… the Devil had already embraced Buddha, or perhaps the Buddha was the Devil!
So was it a disciple of the Buddhist Dao who was controlling the Demon Cultivator’s remains? The Zen Sect… or perhaps, Cleansing Fire?!
“I didn’t want to use this method, but you left me no choice!”
Huikong stopped pretending. The Demon Cultivator’s remains pressed its palms together and pushed forward with one hand.
Sinewy white bones wrapped in Buddha light formed a giant palm that was half-devil, half-Buddha. In the blink of an eye, it had flown right before them.
Li Qingran threw out all her superior-grade thunderfire talismans.
Boom Boom Boom ——!
Thunderfire split down from the sky, part of it canceling out the giant Buddha-Devil palm.
The remaining thunderfire continued on toward the Demon Cultivator’s remains but was blocked by a shield erected by the Arhat Golden Body section of the remains.
“Friend, if you cooperate willingly, you’ll suffer less.”
Huikong pressed his hands together again and pushed out another palm.
This palm was even more powerful, condensing into a swastika symbol in mid-air and pressing down with overwhelming force.
This female cultivator had already used ordinary, medium-grade, and superior-grade thunderfire talismans.
Superior-grade talismans were already quite rare.
He didn’t believe that the opponent could still pull out something even rarer.
However, the next second,
Huikong saw Li Qingran reaching into her storage bag.
“Amitabha! Surely not!?”
Huikong felt his vision go black, completely astonished.
Because she really pulled out an extremely rare supreme-grade thunderfire talisman.
And there were two of them!
Wasn’t the Sword Pavilion the poorest sect in the Cangyun Realm?
Didn’t disciples of the Sword Pavilion often lack resources, with even the elders and sect relying on plundering to supplement their resources?
Could these rumors all be false?
Otherwise, how could this female cultivator of the Sword Pavilion possess so many precious talismans?
Who exactly is the true genius of the sacred land!?
Li Qingran didn’t know that her actions had already made a Buddha son doubt reality.
Holding the two supreme-grade thunderfire talismans in her left hand, the edges of the talisman paper ignited with purple-gold flames. The vermilion-drawn thunder patterns writhed like snakes, burning up in less than a breath.
Two deep rumbling thunderclaps sounded in the sky.
“Trouble!” Huikong sensed impending danger, as supreme-grade thunder talismans were indeed exceedingly rare.
Even before the thunder arrived, he felt goosebumps all over his body. Without hesitation, he revealed his identity and summoned his innate magical tool—the nine-ringed staff—transforming it into a golden bowl filled with incantations that inverted above his head.
It seemed as though the sky had been torn open.
A water-bucket thick pillar of golden lightning struck straight down, colliding with the golden bowl and instantly transforming into thousands of golden snakes.
Huikong, controlling the Demon Cultivator’s remains, felt an immense pressure bearing down upon him.
Despite being protected by the shield, the demonic part of the remains still dissolved under the righteous energy.
Crack ——!
The second bolt of lightning struck.
The golden bowl shattered.
A hundred miles away, Huikong the monk, sitting in meditation before the sect ruins, spat out a mouthful of blood.
As the thunder light dissipated, all grass and trees within a hundred-zhang radius turned to ashes.
Before Li Qingran appeared two overlapping large pits. In one of the pits, the broken body of the Demon Cultivator’s remains trembled, then fell face down.
Only the head, which hadn’t yet been burned by the lightning, maintained half the features of an Arhat.
Its white teeth opened and closed, revealing the unmasked voice of Huikong the monk.
“Very well! Very well! I originally intended to capture you for a stroke of luck! Since you’re so disrespectful…”
Before the sect ruins, Huikong the monk formed seals with both hands: “Nest the Mount Meru in a mustard seed, observe the three thousand worlds in a speck of dust! Seamless Crossing!”
With that, he instantly disappeared from where he stood.
Only a Bodhi leaf drifted down, scattering into sand at the slightest breeze.
…
Seamless Crossing – akin to the Daoist art of shrinking the earth.
Although flight was forbidden in the Small Secret Realm, similar techniques like shrinking the earth were usable.
However, such techniques required extremely high cultivation talent; otherwise, one would only qualify to learn after reaching the Yuan Ying stage.
Huikong the monk, with his talent, had already mastered the Seamless Crossing technique by the middle Golden Core stage.
He emerged from the Buddha light, standing atop the ash of the Demon Cultivator’s remains.
“Amitabha.”
Huikong clasped his hands together. Blood flowed profusely from his eyes, mouth, and nose.
For someone at the Yuan Ying stage, crossing a hundred meters in an instant wasn’t much of a feat.
But he was merely at the Golden Core stage. Forcibly activating the secret technique had severely injured him. Even so, dealing with this Foundation Establishment grandmaster before him was more than enough.
“It’s you?!”
Li Qingran looked at Huikong the monk in absolute shock.
Huikong the Buddha Son’s appearance was very distinctive, impossible to mistake – a robust body topped with a small head.
That face was so gentle it resembled a woman’s, and even with blood flowing from all seven orifices, it didn’t appear disheveled but rather gave off an eerie charm.
Still,
Compared to the master’s face that was devastatingly handsome, there was no comparison.
Such a body paired with such a face made her feel nauseous, as if his body was pieced together.
“Female friend, since you’ve seen my face, it means you must come with me today!”
Behind Huikong, Buddha light rose. The late-Golden Core aura shook the flying ash in the thunder pit into a cloud of black mist, obscuring the surroundings.
“The disappearance of our Sword Pavilion’s three direct disciples is your doing? Including the Demon Array that trapped everyone, it’s all your conspiracy?! What have you done to them?”
Huikong remained silent, taking one step closer.
The upward curve of his lips answered her question.
The ground trembled.
With every step, his height increased by three zhang, his body swelling by one zhang.
After seven steps, he had become a colossal Buddha, shaking the ground beneath him.
Li Qingran’s expression darkened slightly, but there was no fear, only a tightening grip on her plain-string sword.
Foundation Establishment Grandmaster against Huikong whose aura reached the peak of Golden Core… this was bound to be a tough battle.
She had thought the controller of the remains might be a Buddhist cultivator, and she had considered the Zen Sect and Cleansing Fire Sacred Land, but the worldly impression of the sacred lands still confined her thinking.
And now, the bloody truth lay before her.
“Friend, come along with me!”
Huikong waved his hand, summoning a golden Buddha hand towards Li Qingran.
Li Qingran stared intently at the illusory Buddha hand, Qinglian Sword Canon’s first two moves flashing through her mind. Her right hand pressed against the hilt, ready to draw her sword.
At that moment,
Clang ——!
A streak of blood-red blade light shot out from behind her.
First, it severed the illusory Buddha hand, then cut off Huikong’s arm.
“Huikong Monk, you won’t take anyone away today.”
A tall figure had appeared on a stone pillar behind Li Qingran without her noticing.
The blood moon hung overhead, frost lines condensed in the brick seams.
Mo Shumei stepped lightly on the moon shadow, the silk ribbon on her sword sheath fluttering in the wind.
“How much time is left?”
[Less than a quarter of an hour.] The demon blade trembled.
“Enough!”
As the words fell, Mo Shumei transformed into a demonic shadow, leaping down from the stone pillar.
Her blade pointed directly at Huikong.
