Outside the Yellow Court Mansion, the Xuanhuang fire blazed furiously, obliterating any trace of the area's original appearance.
Standing amidst the immortal fire, Xu Ying could constantly sense Nuo masters from across the myriad worlds opening their Yellow Court cave-heavens and drawing the divine consciousness immortal medicine from within the immortal flames.
The number of Nuo masters was staggering, yet the immortal medicine seemed inexhaustible, showing no signs of ever running dry.
"The Nuo methods have spread throughout the myriad worlds, and the Qi Refiners cultivating the six secret depositories are beyond count. Even if this place were the Dao domain of a Supreme, its energy ought to have been thoroughly refined away by billions of Nuo masters.
"Yet the immortal medicine here still seems limitless. What kind of place is this, truly?"
Xu Ying rose into the air amidst the sea of fire and cast his gaze outward, rendered speechless for a long time.
At the outer reaches of the Xuanhuang immortal fire lay a boundless ocean of the two qi of Xuan and Huang. The Xuan qi hovered above while the Huang qi rested below. The Huang qi was as dense as a roiling sea of clouds, while the Xuan qi surged like tens of thousands of black steeds galloping wild and free.
The two qi intertwined in a state poised between separating and merging, divided by a hair's breadth yet achieving an extraordinary equilibrium.
His gaze pierced through this boundless boundary line. Wherever he looked, heaven was not quite heaven and earth was not quite earth; the cosmos was poised between separating and merging. The scale of this sea of Xuan and Huang qi was far vaster and more astonishing than the Xuanhuang Realm, surpassing the breadth of the heavens and possessing immeasurable weight!
Locked closely together, the two qi formed a cosmic expanse. As Xu Ying flew between them, he saw that the Yellow Court Mansion resembled a lamp wick, while the Xuanhuang immortal fire was its flame, floating along the narrow seam between the Xuan and Huang qi. The two qi served as the lamp oil sustaining the wick's burning!
Yet this flame simultaneously drew from both the ocean of Xuan qi and the ocean of Huang qi, absorbing their power to fuse them inside the gigantic furnace vessel forged by Xu Ying's first life, transforming them into divine consciousness immortal medicine!
The two qi of Xuan and Huang were the medicinal ingredients required by the Yellow Court Mansion's alchemy furnace, constantly drawn into the vessel and refined into immortal medicine.
As long as this vast ocean of the two qi was not exhausted, the immortal medicine would never cease, and Qi Refiners practicing the Nuo methods would continuously harvest it without end.
"I really was incredible..." Xu Ying muttered.
His first life had actually been capable of forging such an exquisite Yellow Court Mansion and alchemy furnace, gathering the two qi of Xuan and Huang and refining them into immortal medicine within the vessel. Such genius and imagination left even the present Xu Ying in awe.
The two qi had never naturally blended, yet inside the furnace vessel they were fused and refined into immortal medicine. That concept alone surpassed countless ordinary minds throughout the world.
"Where did this ocean of Xuan and Huang qi come from?" Xu Ying wondered.
He surveyed his surroundings. This primeval expanse, neither separating nor uniting, felt bizarre—as if an ancient sacred being had begun creating heaven and earth, only to abandon the task halfway through and run off on their own.
"Perhaps this is merely a natural anomaly. The universe is full of wonders; strange spectacles are hardly unusual."
As this thought occurred to Xu Ying, another notion suddenly surfaced in his mind.
The people of Xujiaping on Kunlun had already been cultivating Nuo methods before Xu Ying's time, opening the Six Secret Depositories of the Human Body and connecting to the six great other shores.
Back then, people cultivated methods of immortality, and their Nuo techniques were far more complex than those of today. They had to harvest the two qi of Xuan and Huang and refine them into divine consciousness immortal medicine inside their cave-heavens, or gather the Qi of Chaos to refine the immortal medicine of longevity.
Every cave-heaven corresponding to a secret depository had intricate refinement methods.
Later, the first-life Xu Ying improved the Nuo methods, placing a massive alchemy furnace at each of the six great other shores to refine the immortal medicine directly there.
All a Nuo master needed to do was open their six secret cave-heavens and harvest the pre-refined immortal medicine to absorb into their bodies.
"In that case, who opened the six great other shores?"
Xu Ying blinked. The six other shores had clearly not been opened by his first life. What his first incarnation had done was refine the six great immortal mansions and palaces—such as the Yellow Court Mansion and the Mud Pill Palace—and forge the six alchemy furnaces, transforming the Dao power of the other shores into distinct immortal medicines to simplify the Nuo methods.
Yet opening the six other shores was definitely not something he could have accomplished! An ocean formed from the two qi of Xuan and Huang was beyond human power to create, just as the Sea of Chaos could never have been opened by mortal hands.
"Could it be that the 'other shore' people speak of isn't this cosmic ocean of Xuan and Huang qi, but the land blanketed by this sea of fire beneath my feet?!"
Xu Ying froze, murmuring, "So-called 'opening an other shore' was actually creating a foothold between the two qi of Xuan and Huang!"
Neither the ocean of Xuan and Huang qi nor the Sea of Chaos could be forged by mortal power. Therefore, opening the other shores simply meant clearing out a foothold between the Xuan and Huang qi, or carving out a sanctuary within the Sea of Chaos!
Xu Ying fell into contemplation. "Perhaps the one who opened the other shores was an ancestor of my Xu family, or perhaps the Xu family received the legacy from someone else."
Just then, the torrent of geomagnetic origin power surged violently. He quickly looked over and saw Yingzhou drifting farther away from the Yellow Court other shore. The geomagnetic torrent connecting the two was on the verge of severing.
Without hesitation, he leapt up and sped along the geomagnetic torrent toward Yingzhou.
After a long time, he dashed out of the cosmic ocean formed by the two qi of Xuan and Huang, traversing the geomagnetic torrent like a tiny insect scurrying across the vast, boundless void.
"Emperor Wu Shen Luo once mentioned that he visited all six other shores and sensed they were opened by the same person. Who was that person?"
Though he had unraveled the mystery of the Yellow Court other shore, even more questions welled up.
"To carve out the six great other shores from nothing, their strength must have been supreme and their aptitude extraordinary. Having mastered the six secret depositories, they would certainly possess longevity. Do they still exist in this world?"
Yingzhou and the Yellow Court other shore were simply too far apart. Xu Ying traveled for two or three days without realizing it. Looking ahead, Yingzhou appeared near, yet in truth it remained hundreds of millions of li away.
Not a single soul was in sight along the way, only him and several immortal corpses drifting in the path of the geomagnetic torrent. Judging from the wounds on their bodies, they had likely died at the hands of Sword Lord Jinhe.
"Back then, the Son of Heaven of Zhou and Grand Master Jiang must have followed the geomagnetic torrent to find the other shores, right?"
Xu Ying strained his eyes into the distance. In the void, apart from the receding Yellow Court other shore and the skull of Weixu, only Yingzhou remained.
"What kind of place is this? It's so vast that it probably isn't any smaller than the myriad worlds."
Xu Ying summoned the Third Heavenly Pass and attempted to open a path to any random world among the myriad worlds, only to discover that while the gateway opened, no world appeared.
Behind the gate lay only the void.
Though his Third Heavenly Pass was an Immortal King treasure, it could not breach this expanse of void.
Xu Ying traveled for another two days, yet Yingzhou remained in the distance, seemingly unreachable.
"Right, my Buddhist prayer beads have been fully refined. This treasure should be able to pull that young monk out of the dark spacetime. But for some reason, he hasn't contacted me at all lately. Could he have given up?"
While channeling the Buddha Ancestor's prayer beads, Xu Ying attempted to direct his divine consciousness to connect with the young monk trapped in the dark spacetime.
"Perhaps I can only make contact with him once I reach the Great Thunderclap Temple," he thought to himself.
He dearly wished to find a companion to walk this path with him.
***
Taishi Great World, Mount Sumeru, the former site of the Great Thunderclap Temple.
Brilliant Buddhist light soared into the heavens like a great torch, illuminating the dome of the sky. A massive Buddha Primordial Spirit sat in the void, radiating grand Buddhist chants. Around the great Buddha, countless phantoms of Buddhas from the past and future appeared together. Sanskrit chants buzzed and resonated, making Mount Sumeru feel as if it had returned to the golden age of the Buddhas!
Yet amidst the sky full of Sanskrit chants, a deep, resonant voice rang out: "Daoyuan, I have already told you: the Buddhas have entered Parinirvana and died down to the very last. You cannot borrow their strength to suppress me!"
The voice emerged from the underground palace beneath the Great Thunderclap Temple's ruins. It belonged to the Evil Buddha Jieputi—heavy, sonorous, steeped in malevolent obsession and boundless karma.
Merely hearing his voice caused karmic fire to ignite involuntarily within one's heart, scorching one's Dao heart and spirit.
"Daoyuan, are you still blind to the truth? I told you, borrowed strength will always remain borrowed strength, never genuine reality. Now that the Buddhas have entered Parinirvana, can you still borrow their power to suppress me?"
Though Jieputi had not yet broken free, the Dao voice issuing from his mouth harbored miraculous power.
"Perish!"
As the word was uttered, the myriad Buddha phantoms surrounding the great Buddha in the sky shattered one after another. One phantom after another tumbled from their lotus seats, struggling as they plummeted into the dark void.
Beneath the Buddha Primordial Spirit, Master Daoyuan's qi and blood churned from the shockwave of that single word, yet he showed no fear. His hands formed the Lotus Seal, the Treasure Bottle Seal, the Lion Seal, and various other mudras in unpredictable succession, imprinting Buddhist seals upon the gateway of the underground palace that held Jieputi.
The runic seals on the gateway flared with dazzling brilliance. Alongside the seals of the Buddhas, Xu Ying's sixteen-character seal was also actively resisting Jieputi's destruction.
Surges of karmic fire poured from the underground palace, relentlessly charring the seals upon the doors. The sounds of chanting and rattling chains drifted out from below, laden with wicked obsession as boundless karmic fire clashed with Master Daoyuan's seals. The Buddhist chants sought to corrupt Master Daoyuan's Dao heart, tempting him to fall and become an evil Buddha alongside him!
Master Daoyuan had once sat at the Wangxiang Platform in the Netherworld for hundreds of thousands of years, doing nothing but striking his wooden fish in silent immobility. His Dao heart was so steadfast that not even Jieputi's corrupt Buddhist voice could shake it in the slightest.
"Little bald donkey!"
Jieputi rattled his chains, lunging against the doors of the underground palace and gritting his teeth. "To think your Buddha-nature is so high! Had the age of the Buddhas still endured, you would likely have become a Buddha long ago! What a pity..."
He sneered, "The era belonging to the Buddhas has already passed! You could have attained Buddhahood and realized the Dao, yet this world no longer offers the heaven and earth to permit it. Your lifelong cultivation, your unmatched talent—all of it is merely a sacrifice to the era, destined to be buried!"
*Tok!*
Taking advantage of his opponent's wavering composure, Master Daoyuan struck the wooden fish. As the sound echoed, Jieputi's aura fell into disarray, the shock forcing the karmic fire to flow backward.
*Tok!*
Master Daoyuan struck it again. Karmic fire raged furiously inside the underground palace as the chains clattered and tightened, binding Jieputi and dragging him back onto the Karmic Fire Lotus Platform.
Master Daoyuan struck a third time, activating the seals of the Buddhas. The karmic fire within the underground palace returned to the lotus platform, immolating the Evil Buddha Jieputi.
This karmic fire had been forged by Jieputi himself. In ancient times, during the height of the Buddhas' power, Jieputi's mindset had strayed while cultivating the Buddhist Dharma. He sought to temper a Buddha heart using karmic fire to break through his realm and become second only to the Buddha Ancestor.
To that end, he committed immense slaughter and perpetrated every manner of evil, destroying countless living souls until he finally forged supreme karmic fire to refine his Buddha heart. Consequently, the Buddha Ancestor and the Buddhas turned his own karmic fire against him, locking him upon this Karmic Fire Lotus Platform to burn day and night for hundreds of thousands of years, hoping to purge the sins upon him.
Forty thousand years ago, when God King Xuankong was demoted to Mount Sumeru and discovered the underground palace of the Great Thunderclap Temple, the "demonic path" he unleashed had in fact been Jieputi's cultivation burned out by the karmic fire.
That cultivation alone had been enough to pollute the Taishi Great World, nearly driving its Heavenly Daos back to the ancient era!
Jieputi shouted:
"Daoyuan! As the final successor of the Buddhist sect, to reach such heights during the Dharma Ending Age proves your dazzling brilliance!"
*Tok!*
Daoyuan struck the wooden fish. The vibration tightened the chains, binding Jieputi securely so he could not budge.
"What a waste of your talents!" Jieputi shouted. "Had you been born earlier, even I would have shown you deference in the Great Thunderclap Temple! But you were born too late! You cannot become a Buddha; you possess boundless Dharma power and supreme Buddha-nature in vain, unable to attain immortality, trapped in a mortal body! Right now, the only one who can elevate you is me! Release me, and you shall obtain eternal life!"
*Tok!*
Master Daoyuan struck once more. Layer upon layer of seals began locking down Jieputi's five senses and eight consciousnesses.
Terror seized Jieputi's heart. It had taken him two to three hundred thousand years to free his five senses and eight consciousnesses from the seals of the Buddhas, granting him the power to resist the suppression and the possibility of escaping the underground palace.
If Master Daoyuan sealed him again, would he not have to spend another two to three hundred thousand years just to break free?
Moreover, he might not even have that much time left!
Most of his cultivation had already been dissolved by his own karmic fire. What remained would never sustain him through another few hundred thousand years!
This terror shattered his great enlightenment.
Master Daoyuan raised the wooden mallet, preparing to deliver the final strike. An unconscious smile appeared on his face. Ever since parting with Xu Ying, he had rushed back to Mount Sumeru to exert all his strength suppressing his Martial Uncle Jieputi. Today, he could finally seal Jieputi away once and for all.
A thought flashed through his mind: *From now on, whether the Buddhist sect exists or not no longer matters. The final karmic link left in this world by Buddhism shall vanish into dust with this single strike.*
The mallet descended.
At that exact instant, a violet blade light flashed, striking silently from behind him and sweeping across his neck.
Master Daoyuan's head flew into the air. Drifting midair, his eyes turned in bewilderment to see Young Master Yuchuan bowing as he raised a broken sabre!
That broken blade was the Ziyou True Sabre that the Imperial Monarch had left above Xuandu Jade Capital Mountain in the past.
Though it had been severed by the Zhuxian broken sword Xu Ying had "summoned," the terrible power preserved within this treasure remained terrifyingly immense!
This single strike severed all of Daoyuan's life force!
*Tok.*
Though the striker landed upon the wooden fish, it carried no power.
"Just one step away... from complete merit..." Master Daoyuan's severed head stared wide-eyed as his consciousness plunged into absolute darkness.
Young Master Yuchuan had wielded the blade, making it appear as though he had struck the blow, but in truth the Imperial Monarch had driven the blade's power from the Immortal Realm. This strike not only destroyed Daoyuan's physical body, but obliterated his Primordial Spirit as well!
Young Master Yuchuan straightened up, delight washing over his face. He strode swiftly toward the gateway of the underground palace, casually kicking the wooden fish aside, and smiled. "Lord Buddha Jieputi, this junior has come on the orders of my ancestor, the Imperial Monarch, to slay this villain and rescue you!"
With that, he unfurled a scroll with a flourish.
As the scroll unfolded, dazzling radiance burst forth, immortal light erupted, and Dao resonance echoed endlessly!
The seals of the Buddhas upon the stone doors were dismantled layer by layer. Even the sixteen-character seal left by Xu Ying dissolved into nothingness at this moment!
The stone doors trembled slightly. Young Master Yuchuan quickly retreated several paces, bowing respectfully as he waited.
From behind the doors came the heavy clatter of chains, as if a colossal beast were shaking its body, loosening the bindings wrapped around itself.
Next came the sound of heavy footsteps, approaching the stone doors step by step.
Suddenly, the stone doors shattered soundlessly, turning to powder that drifted through the air.
A tall, muscular Buddha stepped forward, draped in chains. Built with formidable, rugged muscle, he possessed an extraordinarily imposing physique. Yet a halo of Buddhist light hovered behind his head, and his face held a look of profound, sorrowful compassion for all living beings.
At that moment, however, Young Master Yuchuan felt a wave of boundless ferocity wash over him. For an instant, he felt as though he were standing amidst mountains of corpses and oceans of blood where shields floated upon rivers of gore. Countless mortals, gods, and demons, all maimed and broken, writhed and wailed in agony within the sea of blood!
Cold sweat poured down Young Master Yuchuan's forehead; he kept his head bowed, not daring to look up.
The Evil Buddha Jieputi walked past him, stopping before Master Daoyuan's headless corpse.
"Daoyuan, what a pity you were."
A tear slipped from the corner of Jieputi's eye, as though mourning Master Daoyuan's death.
With a flick of his finger, karmic fire flared, instantly engulfing Master Daoyuan's body and reducing it to ash in the blink of an eye.
The evil Buddha raised his head, and his terrifying divine consciousness swept out in all directions, traversing the void and invading the myriad worlds, reaching every corner of every realm!
"The Buddhas have entered Parinirvana! In this world, only I am the orthodox lineage of Buddhism! Only I, Jieputi, am the Buddha Ancestor!"
Chapter 429