The white mist spread thickly, limiting visibility to only a short distance. Faintly, figures could be seen moving back and forth.
Suddenly, Duan Rui felt as if he had returned to Jiangdong. Last autumn, the riverbanks of Changchuan were often shrouded in heavy fog like this, with crisp air and the gentle sound of flowing water, creating a unique charm.
A figure emerged from the mist, dressed in crimson robes and a dark cloak. She was graceful and beautiful, exuding the gentle and serene aura of Jiangdong, as if she had just stepped off a black-painted boat or returned home after gathering lotus seeds, radiating indescribable elegance.
“Yuanjing Jie!” Duan Rui exclaimed in both surprise and delight.
He had originally planned to tour the lake with Feng Yuanjing today, but seeing the heavy fog, he had worried she wouldn’t come. Yet, she had not broken her promise!
Taking a step forward, he was suddenly stopped when someone grabbed his shoulder. Irritated, he turned around, his pitch-black pupils reflecting cruel and fierce intent. However, it was Wang Siyuan, whose delicate face resembled a woman’s. Expressionless, Wang pointed around: “Look at them.”
At this moment, Duan Rui was unaware of his true location, instinctively glancing around. He saw figures—men and women, monks and Daoists—whose eyes were dazed and lifeless, walking like sleepwalkers. Their exposed skin was badly decayed, revealing bone beneath, and their aura carried the weariness of ages, as if they would continue wandering forever until reduced to dust.
This terrifying scene jolted Duan Rui back to reality. Where was he? This was clearly the “demonic land,” not the riverbanks of Changchuan in Jiangdong!
Looking again, the white mist had solidified, and there was no trace of Feng Yuanjing!
Above Wang Siyuan’s head, the “Turtle Book” rotated, its black and white dots becoming prominent, manifesting the Great Expansion numbers, embodying the one that had vanished.
An invisible, colorless light fell, enveloping Wang Siyuan, the white-haired, sightless elder, the middle-aged man in wide robes, and Duan Rui together, moving with their steps.
Duan Rui no longer lost his “purity” or saw illusions. After walking for a while, they exited the white mist and saw a string of prayer beads floating where the mist thinned or deepened. The beads were red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and purple—vividly colorful, bearing no trace of purity.
“A Buddha treasure!” Duan Rui’s eyes glowed with intense black light, filled with greed.
Wang Siyuan coughed violently, seemingly unable to bear the strain: “We’re using the power of the Luo Shu to deceive heaven and earth. Don’t touch the key items of the formation, or it will trigger a chain reaction, which would be highly disadvantageous.”
No divination is ever complete, no action ever absolute.
Duan Rui took a deep breath, reluctantly turning away with regret and followed behind.
…
After climbing the first tier of the mountain, Meng Qi paused briefly, ready to interrupt and return at any moment, then proceeded to the second tier along the mountain path.
This tier should have been shrouded in red mist, but now it had completely dissipated, leaving only slight traces in sheltered, windless rocky areas.
Wearing the swift boots that matched the “Qingyuan Dao Robe,” Meng Qi moved steadily forward.
He seemed to see a rock inscribed with the words “So it is,” and suddenly gained enlightenment. He truly mastered the “Entangling Karma,” returned to his own world, and beheaded the Thunder God with a single slash. With help from the Cloud Crane Immortal and the Fairyland, he obtained the general principles of the Buddha’s Palm, meditated for years, and finally mastered a supreme palm technique unseen since ancient times.
One palm covers heaven and earth; in the world, only I am supreme!
Fulfillment filled his heart, yet Meng Qi frowned. This feeling was eerily similar to the illusion he experienced while comprehending “Descending into the Mortal World.” Would Xiaozi soon rush into his arms with news, and Xiaosang flatter him with feigned compliance?
None of these guesses came true, making Meng Qi feel detached. He couldn’t immerse himself in the scene, let alone sink into the red dust. Compared to his previous illusions, this was even worse. How could it possibly challenge his already externalized, newly formed “Indestructible Primordial Image”?
Unconsciously, Meng Qi finished climbing the second tier and saw a shattered glass lamp.
“Has the formation’s key item broken again?” Meng Qi felt slightly surprised.
However, this strange place had existed for countless years; the damage of key formation items wasn’t too strange.
He stopped, recalling his experiences on the first and second tiers, and thought: “The second tier’s formation is clearly ‘Descending into the Mortal World.’ If so, then the first tier must be ‘Breaking Purity,’ right?”
“The biggest obsession in my heart is that A-nan’s ghost keeps haunting me, dragging in many ancient great beings, using poison against poison…”
Thinking thus, Meng Qi instinctively looked toward the fifth tier, where darkness reigned and brilliant stars occasionally streaked across:
“Could that be where the formation based on ‘Entangling Karma’ is set? Is that my opportunity?”
He turned his gaze back, steadied his mind, avoided being overambitious, and instead examined the third tier.
Before him, dark mist swirled, deep within the clouds, while on the fourth tier, red lotuses formed from condensed flames bloomed.
“An array summoning external demons? An array accumulating karma?” Meng Qi slightly frowned, realizing something: “If one couldn’t control the inner demons earlier, allowing ‘him’ to become somewhat ‘independent,’ then the first and second tiers’ ‘Breaking Purity’ and ‘Descending into the Mortal World’ would provide ‘nutrients’ for his growth.”
“Then, the ‘external demon’ summoned by the ‘summoning external demons’ formation might actually be the real ‘self,’ equally matched and hard to defeat, leading to inevitable ‘death’—the more the battle rages, the more one splits, until destruction!”
“Perhaps because of this, the fourth move ‘Summoning External Demons’ was placed before the third move ‘Accumulating Karma.'”
After regulating his breathing and adapting to the environment, Meng Qi held his sword in his left hand and saber in his right, stepping into the swirling dark mist.
…
Duan Rui glanced at the shattered glass lamp, its blue flame resembling the lights of countless households, then reluctantly turned his head away, his fury intensifying.
Suddenly, he noticed the tortoise shell had stopped rotating, and the invisible, colorless light had vanished.
“What’s wrong?” Duan Rui blurted out. Whether it was the original Duan Rui or the demonic Duan Rui, both were still young and impulsive, not yet mature—a stark contrast to the silent, sightless elder and the middle-aged man in wide robes standing beside him.
Wang Siyuan’s right thumb continuously traced calculations on the joints of his index, middle, and ring fingers, his expression calm: “The ‘demon’ ahead is not something that can be bypassed by mere concealment.”
“A demon? Is there really a demon here?” Duan Rui asked in astonishment.
Wang Siyuan gave the faintest smile: “Dharma attained the Bodhisattva fruit, touched the Buddha fruit of the future, becoming the first since ancient times. But in his later years, a great demon suddenly appeared, battling him until his pure land shattered. It took great effort to finally destroy it. Tell me, where did this great demon come from?”
Duan Rui was left speechless, the swirling dark mist before him now brimming with extreme danger!
…
The dark mist enveloped Meng Qi, giving him a faint sense of being in the underworld.
After taking seven steps forward, the darkness ahead split apart, and a figure slowly emerged. He wore gray patched robes, clasped his palms together, had no hair on his head, no beard on his face, and bore an ancient, simple expression.
This monk showed no signs of decay but had a twisted expression, his eyes pitch-black. Facing Meng Qi, he pushed forward with one palm!
This palm moved slowly, accompanied by explosive sounds, as if mountains collapsed before it, rivers reversed their flow, and even the void slightly distorted, trapping Meng Qi within its range!
Except for its immense power and the faint golden glow, nothing else about it was extraordinary!
“The Vajra Palm of Great Strength!” Meng Qi felt slightly surprised but also doubted.
If this were truly the Vajra Palm of Great Strength, given the force displayed by this demonic monk, there should be an image of a Vajra behind him and Buddha light shining down!
Meng Qi dared not slacken. He immediately slashed downward with his saber, simple and direct, purple lightning condensing at the blade’s tip.
Boom!
A thunderclap rang out, spring arrived, purple lightning exploded, dazzling the sky, merging with the saber’s own eruption, tearing through the black mist, shattering the ground, with devastating power.
Accompanied by thunder, the purple lightning saber struck the golden flesh palm.
Bang!
Visible shockwaves erupted from the point of impact, spreading in all directions, sweeping everything away.
Meng Qi’s right hand trembled slightly, while the demonic monk took one step back, his body glowing with dark gold.
Seizing the advantage, Meng Qi launched a continuous assault with his sword and saber, alternating between the Hell of Thunderous Darkness, the Illumination of the Great Sun, the Thunder of Winter, and the Birth of the Sun in the Void, never pausing, each move faster and stronger than the last, the rumbling never ceasing.
Within the area, purple lightning filled the sky, clawing its way through the heavens, while a dazzling sun nearly took form, radiating countless rays of light!
Meanwhile, the demonic monk’s dark golden glow brightened, his acupoints opened, and his palms struck repeatedly, each blow accompanied by crackling thunder. Yet, he couldn’t summon any external phenomena, and with each strike from Meng Qi’s sword or saber, his golden glow dimmed slightly.
In the heat of battle, the demonic monk was forced to the edge of a cliff. Meng Qi roared, unleashing eight phantom slashes, forming a purple thunder dragon that merged with the final strike, descending like a spinning wheel.
Thunder shakes the nine heavens!
Boom!
With the sound, purple lightning flared, and the demonic monk stood frozen.
Then, he split into two halves, purple lightning erupting from the wound, before his entire body disintegrated into black mist, merging with the surroundings.
…
The black mist dispersed, forming clouds swirling into a vortex, with a monk standing at the core of the rotation.
His face bore traces of the Southern Wilderness, a dark, large string of prayer beads around his neck, wearing gray robes, straw sandals on his feet, eyes tightly shut, his expression fierce and grotesque.
Seeing Wang Siyuan, Wang Dezhong, and Wang Bingning preparing for a major confrontation, Duan Rui became deeply interested in this demonic monk formed from black mist.
Examining closely, he suddenly found the monk’s face somewhat familiar, resembling a guardian arhat they had once enshrined at home.
“Dharma!” he exclaimed in shock.
Looking again at the monk’s fierce expression, his voice turned low:
“Evil Dharma!”
The gray-robed monk revealed a sinister smile, his right hand gently plucking an invisible flower, lightly brushing forward.
…
After dispersing the demonic illusion, Meng Qi prepared to quicken his pace and leave. If the mountain area hadn’t forbidden flight, he would have flown straight to the fifth tier.
Just then, his footsteps halted, his pupils constricted, reflecting a figure!
This was a refined middle-aged man, his black hair showing not a single strand of gray, his handsome features exuding a supernatural charm.
He wore wide robes, pinned his hair with a wooden hairpin, and stood with his hands behind his back, posture elegant, radiating boundless leisure, gazing upward as if contemplating the ultimate meaning of life and seeking the source of the Dao.
What shocked Meng Qi wasn’t merely the appearance of this figure—encountering any “external demon” here wouldn’t be strange—but that this charming man’s right foot was stepping on a glass lamp, and with a slight press, the lamp shattered.
Exactly like the key item on the second tier!
“Was it him who destroyed both the ‘Descending into the Mortal World’ and ‘Breaking Purity’ formations? Did the ‘Entangling External Demons’ formation record his presence and scene, manifesting him as an ‘external demon’?”
“But since someone has entered, why hasn’t the true intent outside the door been lost?”
Meng Qi gripped the hilts of his sword and saber, suppressing his thoughts, not daring to slacken even slightly!
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