“What is the matter?” The Ancient Buddha Dipamkara sat loftily upon his lotus throne, his golden form majestic, taking in the anomaly of A-nan’s shadow with a glance before speaking.
A-nan withdrew his gaze, a faint smile reappearing on his face as he replied with an air of nonchalance, “A trivial matter—my imprint within the Peerless Blade has been erased.”
“Does that not mean the Peerless Blade is now free of all restraints, able to unleash its full power?” The solemn voice of the Ancient Buddha Dipamkara, usually as steady as the recitation of scriptures, wavered slightly.
How could this be a trivial matter?
If the Peerless Blade of the Overlord could completely break free from its shackles, it would become an entity of the Nirvana level. Any chance of success in his own schemes would vanish, leaving him no choice but to await the “will of heaven”—and even that might not suffice!
Even more terrifying was the fact that Su Meng could then strike first. With the Nirvana-level beings yet to return, his own survival would be in grave peril!
A-nan chuckled darkly, “No matter. It’s merely a case of driving a tiger to devour a wolf. Though the wolf is gone, the tiger remains. The Peerless Blade won’t be able to shed all its fetters anytime soon.”
“Driving a tiger to devour a wolf…” The Ancient Buddha Dipamkara recalled the two words A-nan’s shadow had whispered earlier—”Taiyi”—and, combining this with his deductions, grasped the general sequence of events. “Su Meng took a reckless gamble, introducing remnants of the Eastern Emperor into the Peerless Blade to drive the tiger to devour the wolf, thereby erasing your imprint. But the traces of the Eastern Emperor aren’t so easily erased, are they?”
“Indeed,” A-nan replied with a smile. “Mine was merely an imprint, while the remnants of the Eastern Emperor still possess a fleshly vessel. Even if severely wounded by the ‘tiger devouring the wolf,’ they won’t be so easily wiped out. It’s even debatable whether the Peerless Blade can still perform at its previous level.”
“Namo Amitabha. Su Meng has often reaped the rewards of his recklessness, but this time, the losses outweigh the gains. No wonder you and the Buddha of Guidance both say that those with great fortune face great calamities. The balance of the world, the interplay of yin and yang—indeed, fortune turns, and he has now fallen to the lowest point…” The Ancient Buddha Dipamkara murmured a Buddhist chant, his tone lightening slightly.
“Now is the time to strike while he is weak,” A-nan’s shadow said with a face of compassion but words of ice. “But he has many protectors. The most crucial task is still to find a way to help me escape.”
If the Demon Buddha were to emerge, even the Green Emperor of this era would have to retreat from his might, barely able to resist. Su Meng’s life or death would rest entirely on his whim!
And when it came to his own perfection and the embryonic form of the Dao Fruit, how could he possibly let Su Meng live?
The Ancient Buddha Dipamkara’s face took on a faint golden hue, appearing sacred and transcendent under the glow of the crystal lamp. He gazed at A-nan’s shadow with compassionate pity and spoke frankly, “Fellow Daoist, your actions of destroying Buddhism and the Dao, your intent to drown all living beings—these are beyond my power to stop. As I’ve said before, until the Buddha of Guidance truly returns and establishes a counterbalance, I dare not assist in your escape.”
A-nan’s shadow showed no anger, instead laughing lightly. “I destroyed the Zen monasteries and slaughtered Buddhas and Bodhisattvas—all to guard against something. Fellow Daoist, you surely understand. That Supreme True Buddha is a mortal threat to us both. Without such measures, we could never sever its path.”
“Namo Amitabha. Why not find a way to eradicate it completely? Once the Buddha of Guidance and the Ancient Buddha Bodhi return, it will surely be unable to stir up trouble, just like the Heavenly Dao monstrosity of ancient times.” The Ancient Buddha Dipamkara formed a mudra with one hand while holding the crystal lamp in the other.
A-nan shook his head with a smile. “If it were truly so easy to eliminate, why would I have shown mercy when it was first sealed within Mount Ling? Matters of the Dao Fruit are beyond reckoning. We can only take preventive measures.”
“But why must you descend into the demonic path for this?” The Ancient Buddha Dipamkara sighed with regret.
A-nan burst into laughter. “If we speak of ‘demons,’ was I not a ‘demon’ when I betrayed Mount Ling, inverted the grand formation, and caused ten thousand Buddhas to fall? Later, when I practiced asceticism through the ages, reincarnating life after life, breaking through the red dust yet compassionately saving the world—was I not a ‘demon’ then?”
His expression then turned solemn as he declared with gravity, “Good and evil are matters of the mundane world. Beyond good and evil lies the Dao Fruit.”
His voice, like the whisper of the most terrifying heavenly demon, seeped into the Ancient Buddha Dipamkara’s ears, stirring certain restless thoughts deep within his heart.
…
Deep within the Great Snow Mountain, at the core sealed by the nine ancient tombs of the Immortal Venerables.
Wang Siyuan’s hair lifted without wind, each strand distinct, like countless black serpents stretching and growing endlessly, nearly filling the entire space.
His eyes gleamed with a dark, chaotic madness, veins and tendons bulging grotesquely across his face as if they had a life of their own, transforming his once beautiful, almost feminine features into something horrifyingly sinister and grotesque.
His hands, neck, and every part concealed by his robes pulsed violently, as though countless monsters writhed beneath his skin.
A terrifying aura of savagery, cruelty, and madness radiated outward, causing Sheqin, who had barely regained consciousness, to clutch his head and wail in agony. His innate spiritual light seemed on the verge of extinguishing, leaving him a mindless husk.
Around Wang Siyuan, the nine encircling tokens shattered one after another, leaving only thirty percent intact in a short time. The glow of the Luo Book enveloping him dimmed, and the black-and-white dots representing the laws of heaven and earth faded one by one.
Were it not for the invisible ripples of water blocking the way within Wang Siyuan’s body, he would have already become a puppet of the Eastern Emperor Taiyi’s remnants—worse off than Sheqin had been before.
At this critical moment, a soundless thunder seemed to explode. The dark chaos in Wang Siyuan’s eyes immediately weakened, his endlessly stretching black hair snapping apart, the bulging veins and tendons subsiding… Everything was eerily suppressed, or rather, the previous madness had lost its foundation.
Seizing the opportunity, the Luo Book descended, wrapping Wang Siyuan completely. Waves of water rippled from within his body, countering the overwhelming will.
Darkness suddenly engulfed the surroundings, followed by countless symbols and calculating rods rising and intertwining, forming what seemed like fundamental equations describing the laws and principles of the world. These then condensed into a complex, illusory sphere.
The sphere contracted abruptly, drilling into Wang Siyuan’s body. Strange phenomena emerged but were suppressed by the ancient tombs, unable to manifest outside.
After a long while, the Luo Book, its glow dimmed, entered Wang Siyuan’s mud pill palace. His presence grew even more tenuous, as if he were now composed purely of numbers, formulas, and calculations.
His face was paler than ever, as though he might collapse at any moment, vanishing into dust. With a slight frown, he looked toward the tomb’s exit and coughed softly, “Cough… What exactly… cough… happened?”
Though his venture had been risky, even mad, he had not embarked on it without any certainty. After confirming his theory, he had planned meticulously and prepared thoroughly. The initial stages of transferring and absorbing the Eastern Emperor’s remnants from Sheqin had gone smoothly, and it seemed he would complete the transformation without incident. But then, the Eastern Emperor’s remnants suddenly went berserk, as if provoked by something external, destroying his many contingencies in one fell swoop and turning his hopes of success into despair.
Just as he was about to become an avatar of the Eastern Emperor, a puppet of Taiyi, the madness abruptly ceased—weaker than before—allowing him to seize a sliver of hope and achieve complete success.
“Did the piece of the Eastern Emperor’s flesh severed by the Lingbao Heavenly Venerate go awry? Freed first, then suppressed again?” Wang Siyuan roughly deduced the truth.
That piece of flesh had been severed from Sheqin—the connection between them must be profound!
Realizing this, Wang Siyuan suddenly laughed, his mirth bordering on madness, like a lunatic:
“Truly, the cleverest schemes often lead to the greatest folly—almost costing me my life!”
“The will of heaven is hard to defy!”
…
Unaware of Wang Siyuan’s situation, Meng Qi could only laugh bitterly at his own predicament.
After all his efforts to neutralize the danger, all he had achieved was replacing the Demon Buddha’s imprint with the Eastern Emperor’s flesh—the Peerless Blade’s power remained unchanged.
Truly, calamities are never without their trials and setbacks, not so easily resolved… Meng Qi sighed, flicked his sleeve to store the Golden Turtle Island within his inner cosmos, and returned to the Jade Void Palace of Mount Kunlun.
Immediately, he half-submerged his divine sense into the Peerless Blade while simultaneously connecting it to the eerie blood peach, hoping to provoke a reaction and gain some hidden benefit.
Of course, his Great Dao Tree was poised to act, lest the blood peach spiral out of control after its transformation.
With half-lidded eyes, he carefully drew out a wisp of the Eastern Emperor’s residual aura, establishing a new karmic link before channeling it into the space where the eerie blood peach resided—behind Gu Xiaosang’s back.
At the slightest touch, the peach’s hidden vascular structures beneath the skin bulged violently, releasing a vast, ancient, and desolate terror.
The little peach seemed intoxicated, wildly excited. Beneath its skin and vessels, faint ripples of light shimmered like a condensed nebula or a coiled river. Countless Dao patterns floated within, forming its core, while their extensions manifested as ancient texts ranging from profound to rudimentary—titles like the “True Scripture of Life Extension,” “Essentials of Immortality,” and “Ode of Nine Ages.”
Meng Qi was unsurprised by these. What delighted him was that the little peach seemed to embody the aspects of longevity and time from the Eastern Emperor Taiyi’s illusory Dao Fruit. Even if incomplete, this was no small matter!
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