The Glazed Pure Land had no fixed dwelling, drifting hidden within the great chiliocosm, exceedingly difficult to find.
Yet as the spirit treasure gathered the spiritual opportunities of the Western Desert, the entrance to the Pure Land anchored in place, turning mere legend into reality.
The heavens were dim, the moonlight pristine and clear.
Over a hundred figures lingered about the entrance, their faces fraught with curiosity and dread.
Unable to resist, a low-tier cultivator crept toward that glazed realm veiled in moonbeams. Yet before he could come within a hundred zhang, a tremendous force thrust him back.
That force was grand, majestic, and upright, yet remarkably gentle, devoid of any malice.
Someone beside him chuckled. "Liu San, forget about it. At your Foundation Establishment stage, you can't even cross the threshold."
Liu San's face flushed crimson. "Does the Glazed Pure Land require the Golden Core realm just to enter?"
As he spoke, he instinctively glanced at several Golden Core cultivators nearby.
Yet meeting his gaze, they all looked away.
Evidently, even Golden Core cultivators were not qualified!
Just then, escaping lights drifted slowly from afar as a grand, magnificent procession gradually entered view.
The cultivators looked up and saw a great banner hoisted high.
[Liang]
"People from the Great Liang Kingdom have arrived!"
"Looking at the scale of this honor guard and that imperial carriage, could the arrival be the contemporary ruler of Great Liang, Xiao Yan?"
"Most likely. If one speaks of the royal courts in Monan that revere the Buddhist sect the most, the Great Liang Kingdom definitely ranks in the top three. That ruler Xiao Yan even cultivated in seclusion at Mount Wutai for a time, and upon his return, he vigorously erected eight hundred Buddhist temples across the entire realm."
"To think the emergence of the Glazed Pure Land has drawn forth even the sovereign of a nation."
"This is the Glazed Pure Land, after all—a minor sacred land rumored to harbor a true Buddha within. More than half of the Monan Royal Court believes in Buddhism. With this place appearing, who knows how many powerhouses it will attract?"
While chatter surged outside, the man within the opulent carriage remained unmoved.
Through the curtain, he gazed at the entrance to the Pure Land, hesitation etched across his face.
"That demoness and Mara opposed Mount Wutai and destroyed Master Cihai's physical body. They are genuine apostates to the Buddha. Why would the Glazed Pure Land take those two in?
"Should We enter?"
Owing to this hesitation, the Great Liang King did not act rashly. Instead, he quietly waited outside with his retinue.
As they waited, more and more cultivators gathered outside the Glazed Pure Land.
After all, the place where the Pure Land's entrance emerged happened to lie near the Monan Royal Court.
Moreover, the Monan Royal Court was the most populous and expansive region in the Western Desert.
Among its thirty-six kingdoms, large and small, the majority practiced Buddhism, and many immortal cultivation clans shared ties with the Buddhist sects of the Western Desert.
The Glazed Pure Land was a treasure belonging to the founding abbot of the Hanging Temple, purported to harbor a true Buddha within.
Yet hundreds of years ago, it had broken away from the Hanging Temple, wandering outside ever since.
Mortal rumors held that whether one entered the Glazed Pure Land or obtained this treasure, one stood a chance of crossing the sea of suffering and becoming that true Buddha.
Now that it had emerged, who could remain indifferent?
The arrival of Great Liang's Xiao Yan was merely a harbinger.
As time slipped by, the number of Monan powerhouses gathering outside surpassed everyone's expectations.
A procession wafting an exotic fragrance and playing instruments arrived in grand fashion—that was the Xiangji Kingdom.
Its sovereign, Tapo, was a genuine Nascent Soul powerhouse.
Hundreds of monks with plain, homely features and austere garb walked over step by step from afar—they hailed from the Ascetic Kingdom, which pursued bodily mortification as their cultivation path.
All hundreds of monks belonged to the Tuluo Sangha.
There were those who descended from the heavens riding golden divine birds, led by a man of extraordinary bearing who looked like a celestial god.
The moment he arrived, cries of astonishment broke out in waves.
"It's Dafan Tianzi!"
"The foremost powerhouse of Monan, the greatest figure below the Hanging Temple, the very Dafan Tianzi who once turned down the position of First Seat of the Prajna Hall—he has actually come too!"
Dafan Tianzi's arrival shook the entire assembly.
Even Great Liang's Xiao Yan, Xiangji's Tapo, and the leader of the Tuluo Sangha, who had previously remained steady as Mount Tai, showed themselves one after another to greet him.
"In my view, there is no need to wait."
Dafan Tianzi had a handsome face like a celestial god, and when he spoke, his voice seemed to carry ripples of Buddhist chants.
His gaze fell upon the entrance, eyes brimmed with curiosity.
"I wonder how far fellow Buddhist Xuan Du has walked along his path in the five hundred years since he departed the Hanging Temple?"
As he spoke, he stepped forward to test the boundary himself.
That same force surged forward once more to repel him.
A faint smile touched Dafan Tianzi's lips, yet his pace did not halt in the slightest.
A hundred zhang, fifty zhang, ten zhang...
Just as he was about to cross the entrance, Master Xuan Du's gentle voice drifted from within.
"Fellow Buddhist, once you step into this place, you will bear a Buddhist Tribulation. Have you truly made up your mind?"
Dafan Tianzi's brow furrowed.
"What is meant by a Buddhist Tribulation?"
No further explanation came from inside.
Yet in the next moment, Dafan Tianzi recalled what King Xiao Yan of Great Liang had said—that two fiends had been sheltered within the Glazed Pure Land.
Now that the entrance stood wide open, eminent monks of the Buddhist sect would surely arrive over time to subjugate the demons.
A monumental battle was unavoidable.
Judging by this posture, was Master Xuan Du, the master of the Glazed Pure Land, determined to protect those two?
Dafan Tianzi cared nothing for this. With his abilities, having dominated Monan for hundreds of years, what spectacle had he not witnessed?
Passing through tribulations without perishing was merely routine for him!
With a faint smile, he stepped straight into the Glazed Pure Land.
Behind him, Xiao Yan, Tapo, and the others could no longer hold back either, following him inside one after another.
Yet the moment they entered, everyone was stunned.
Inside the Buddhist temple shrouded in endless moonlight, a white-robed monk drifted slowly in midair, his monastic robes billowing as his body drew in vast streams of spiritual qi.
Not only that!
A passageway seemed to open in the void, where a glazed soul rose and fell amid the emptiness.
Dafan Tianzi blurted out, "Spiritual opportunity entering the body, the Primordial Spirit escaping into the void—this is the sign of breaking through to Soul Formation!"
For a moment, everyone exchanged stunned glances.
...
In the Central Lands of the Western Desert.
Mountains clustered around, winding like jade dragons.
The grasslands were lush and green, presenting a scene brimming with vitality.
Yet atop that towering mountain lay a place enveloped by endless astral winds, blocking all prying eyes from the outside world.
That was the Verdant Mist Screen!
A precipitous barrier that had sheltered the Hanging Temple for thousands of years.
For thousands of years, the Verdant Mist Screen had blocked all external perils and had never once been breached from without.
Even several years ago, when an army of the demon race led by the Ancient Red Sand Scorpion marched all the way from the extreme west, they were ultimately stopped outside the Verdant Mist Screen.
The Ancient Red Sand Scorpion itself had been struck from afar by a palm from Mahakala, the Arhat and master of the Hanging Temple, sustaining severe injuries and fleeing back to the extreme west in disgrace.
This demonic upheaval that had plagued the realm for over a century was ultimately brought to an end by the personal intervention of the Western Desert's sacred land master.
The Tianyuan Dao Sect, which had eyed the Western Desert for so long, also returned empty-handed, thoroughly abandoning their ambitions to claim dominion over the region.
Rumor had it that when the Ancient Red Sand Scorpion retreated in defeat, it had once roared in fury: "The Peng King has failed me!"
Thus, some speculated that had the Ancient Red Sand Scorpion joined forces with the Golden-Winged Peng, they might have had a chance to shatter the Verdant Mist Screen.
Yet during that battle, the Golden-Winged Peng had indeed never appeared.
The Verdant Mist Screen continued to preserve its reputation as one of the world's most impenetrable domains.
Especially after the other two perils of equal fame, the Arctic Yama Heaven and the Nether Abyss, had been breached one after another, the weight of the Verdant Mist Screen's title as an absolute peril grew even greater.
Consequently, the saying that as long as the Verdant Mist Screen remained unbroken, the Hanging Temple would forever suppress the Western Desert sank even deeper into people's hearts.
And right now.
The piercing, endless astral winds of the Verdant Mist Screen suddenly weakened significantly.
Figures walked out from behind the screen one after another, each radiating thick, concentrated Buddhist power—an emblem of formidable might!
After appearing, they did not leave immediately, but stood waiting for something.
Before long, a deep voice sounded from behind the Verdant Mist Screen.
"An apostate seeks to attain the Arhat fruit in Monan. It is inconvenient for this seat to intervene personally. Monks, go and apprehend him."
Thirty-six figures chanted the Buddha's name in unison and thundered their assent.
In the next instant, someone behind the screen unleashed an earth-shattering divine ability, parting the clouds and winds into a rainbow bridge that enveloped the monks.
"Go!"
"Remember, bring the Glazed Pure Land back!"
With a thrust of a massive hand, the thirty-six monks entered the rainbow bridge, shooting southward at unimaginable speed.
...
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Piercing winds howled, and ice and snow carpeted the ground.
A figure sat cross-legged amidst it all, motionless as a boulder.
Yet upon closer inspection, bizarre tremors could be seen running through the physical body beneath the blanket of snow and ice.
His skin was a bruised blackish-green, his body covered in sores and pustules, and his mouth emitted continuous, mournful whines.
Suddenly!
This battered physical body began to shatter and split open.
Like a lotus blooming, the entire body began tearing apart into petal upon petal of blood-colored blossoms.
Throughout this process, vast amounts of heaven and earth spiritual qi poured into his body from the outside, sustaining him in this half-shattered state.
*This is rather similar to when my body underwent nirvana back then?*
Luo Chen pondered this while refining the immense spiritual qi flooding in from outside into magic power.
Not only was this spiritual qi immense in quantity, but it was also exceedingly pure, containing virtually no impurities.
He merely needed to circulate it for a cycle or two before stamping it with his own mark, turning it into his own magic power.
Inside his purple mansion, the languid Nascent Soul greedily devoured the newly converted magic power, its condition ascending day by day.
From his initial astonishment to his subsequent familiarity, Luo Chen had come to understand the origin of this pure spiritual qi.
It was a gift from Master Xuan Du!
The master was in the midst of advancing to the Soul Formation realm. With his Primordial Spirit delving into the ocean of origin qi, he could mobilize vast reserves of origin qi of heaven and earth.
Sharing a fraction of it as a gift to Luo Chen was no difficult task.
However, whether doing so would affect the master's breakthrough was something Luo Chen could not say.
*The time is ripe. It is time to cultivate that divine ability!*
Luo Chen glanced at his panel.
Over these past few months, the proficiency of *Three Heads and Six Arms* had crossed into the [Practiced] stage, merely one step away from mastery.
Such speed of progress was likely something even Master Xuan Du himself could never have imagined.
Yet upon closer examination, it was simply the classic principle of accumulating deeply before erupting forth.
Luo Chen's physical foundation was far too robust; even without cultivating this divine ability, he was already among the world's foremost body cultivators.
Moreover, possessing the talent of flesh rebirth, the constant process of his body rupturing and reassembling vigorously drove the evolution of the *Three Heads and Six Arms* divine ability.
Finally, at its core, this divine ability placed heavy emphasis on the path of transformation.
And when it came to transformation, whether the pseudo-demon transformation or the giant spirit transformation, Luo Chen had mastered them to perfection.
Using this foundation to transition into *Three Heads and Six Arms* was merely letting water flow into an existing channel.
Now, he was about to take the final step!
"Hah..."
With a low shout, Luo Chen circulated his entire body's source power, and his physical frame began to swell.
As his body expanded, those sores and fissures also grew larger and larger.
In particular, four massive fleshy bulges sprouted around his shoulders and arms, while two slightly smaller bulges emerged on either side of his neck.
"Emerge!"
With a thought, Luo Chen drove a massive amount of source blood to surge against the six fleshy bulges.
Yet as though bound by some shackle, the bulges merely swelled without ever bursting open.
*Is it still lacking a bit?*
Luo Chen kept his composure, shifting his line of thought to sort through the various powers residing within himself.
He shifted all his source power toward the small fleshy bulge on his left shoulder.
"Break!"
With a deep cry, that small fleshy bulge abruptly split open, then grew at an unimaginable speed into a face identical to Luo Chen's, save that the skin was not fair like his original body, but exceptionally flushed and ruddy.
The crimson head had appeared!
Still unsatisfied, Luo Chen began mobilizing his mixed poison power, refined baleful qi, pill aura, and the demonic qi that had formed at some unknown point, gathering them together to assault the other bulge.
Only this time, the assault proved somewhat arduous and obstructed.
The process of breaking through the barrier felt exceedingly protracted.
It seemed as though an eternity had passed, yet it also felt like the span of a single breath.
Accompanied by Luo Chen's suppressed, beast-like growl:
"Break!"
*Pfft!*
The bulge on the right side also split down the middle.
Facial features began to coalesce, and flesh and blood reassembled.
In the blink of an eye, another head emerged.
Yet this time, it did not share the same countenance.
A bruised blackish-green face, sharp fangs—hideous to a shocking degree.
It was precisely the visage of an Asura Yaksha from before!
Having accomplished all this, Luo Chen could not help letting out a sigh of relief.
A fair face, a crimson head, and a Yaksha visage.
These were his three heads!
Each head represented a different power under his command:
Magic power, source power, and a medley of mixed powers.
What followed would be relatively simpler.
Luo Chen pursed his lips. His main divine soul trembled, immediately dispatching six split souls to inhabit the crimson head and the Yaksha visage.
Three heads, driven simultaneously by three identical minds.
*Rip!*
*Rip!*
*Rip!*
*Rip!*
At his shoulders, thick limbs sprouted from the front, back, left, and right.
Four arms tore through the flesh and emerged.
Six eyes rotated in unison, scanning his body repeatedly, as though sensing something amiss.
With a thought, his physical body began to swell, adjusting his frame bit by bit.
Several days later.
Within the freezing Eight Cold Hells, a figure with three heads and six arms sat cross-legged upon the snowy frozen ground.
Reflected in the solid ice, the figure appeared uncanny and eerie.
It was completely different from the three heads and six arms cultivated by ordinary Buddhist Vajras!
Normal three-headed, six-armed forms faced a single direction, with the extra pair of arms merely extending from the waist and ribs.
Yet Luo Chen's form exhibited a three-faced, unified body.
Three heads, each facing a different direction.
Six arms, distributed across the three sides.
Viewed from any single side, he appeared almost no different from an ordinary human.
Yet if observed from a distance, it looked as though three people were fused together, back to back.
If one were to describe it, only four words would suffice:
Inspiring dread and terror!
"Is this what the divine ability looks like upon initial completion?"
Three voices rang out simultaneously from three mouths, carrying a faint, rumbling echo.
Luo Chen slowly rose from the ice, feeling an unspeakable sense of wondrous comfort surging through every part of his body.
Only a trace of pent-up breath lingered in his chest and abdomen.
Unable to hold back, he opened all three mouths at once and let loose a long roar.
"Roar!"
The mighty roar traveled vast distances. Wherever it passed, ice mountains collapsed, revealing the original form of a towering white pagoda.
The solid ice melted, and billowing spiritual qi vented in all directions.
Free, exhilarating, and brimming with power from head to toe!
Chapter 988