The massive frame of the Vajra collapsed with a thunderous crash. A haze of pale golden mist rose from his body, within which floated many souls—all people he had slain just moments before. As the Vajra perished, the mist dissipated, allowing the entrapped souls to escape and return to the Yellow Springs Grotto-Heaven. Wei Yuan’s comprehension of the Sea of Bitterness ticked up slightly in response, and the progress bar crept forward a fraction.
Though this bit of progress seemed negligible, it was tangible nonetheless. This single Vajra had contributed a full one percent to Wei Yuan's progress. The youth was drenched in the boiling blood of the Vajra, and certain intangible essences seeped into his body, causing him to grow another two feet taller. Now standing as tall as an ordinary mighty warrior, he reached up to a Vajra’s thigh. At this height, a Vajra could no longer stomp him flat on a whim.
Looking around, the youth saw that the devotees awakened only at the very instant the killing tribulation fell upon them—only to be smashed to pulp or crushed to pieces immediately after.
A profound sorrow welled up from the depths of his heart. For reasons unknown to him, he simply knew that these were his brothers and sisters who shared his faith. Most were ordinary mortals or minor demons who sought only to live out their lives in peace, never imagining they would face such a tribulation of the Dao today.
At that moment, understanding dawned upon him: this was a war of Daos! The enemies of the Buddha were vast as the sea, while his own side was not only feeble, but scarcely anyone had awakened. Perhaps right now, he was the only one who had truly opened his eyes.
Yet, so what?
Possessing an unyielding nature, the youth wiped the blood from his face and surged forward in giant strides toward the next Vajra. Every mighty warrior who crossed his path was impaled by a single thrust of his spear.
That Vajra also spotted the youth, his expression shifting from obvious surprise to loathing upon seeing the strange Buddha-light—red shining through gold—suffusing the boy's body. He roared, "Heretical filth! You twist the Dharma, sinking lower than outer demons! Heavy is your sin! Today I shall suppress and slay you first—consider this your karmic destiny!" The Vajra charged, and fearless, the youth met him head-on, thrusting his spear forward!
Just then, a gale howled behind his head. Another Vajra had crept up unobserved, brandishing a spiked mace and bringing it crashing down with savage fury. Unable to dodge in time, the youth gritted his teeth and raised the pair of arms behind his shoulders. He resolved to sacrifice those arms to endure the strike, finish off the Vajra in front first, and only then turn to fight to the death.
Without sparing a backward glance, he drove forward with his spear, piercing straight into the heart of the Vajra before him!
With a resounding clang, an enormous shield materialized in the hands behind the youth's shoulders, absorbing the blow from the mace. The shield was plainly of middling quality, for a fracture immediately cracked across its surface, suggesting a few more strikes would shatter it entirely.
Even so, this shield dropped from the heavens had parried the lethal strike. At the same time, it threw off the judgment of the Vajra ahead, allowing Tuoba Hong to skewer him dead with a single thrust.
In the Sea of Bitterness, Wei Yuan rubbed his fingers together, feeling immensely proud of his brilliant split-second maneuver.
As Tuoba Hong felled the second Vajra, Wei Yuan felt an intangible force latch onto his fingertips from the unseen depths. It could descend alongside his mighty power to bless someone below.
This power was similar to karmic luck yet subtly different; it had to rely on the lineage of the Three Realms that Wei Yuan had constructed. It could be called karmic destiny, or regarded as karmic luck within the Sea of Bitterness.
Empowered by this karmic destiny, the effectiveness of Wei Yuan's descending power was multiplied several times over out of thin air. For example, that giant shield earlier would have shattered after taking at most one blow without the blessing of karmic destiny; now, imbued with it, it could withstand three to five more. On a battlefield where brute force ran rampant, that equated to three to five lives.
Having slain his opponent, Tuoba Hong spun around immediately and charged the Vajra who had ambushed him. Right then, a beam of Buddha-light descended from the sky, equipping him with a breastplate.
With shield and armor, Tuoba Hong's combat prowess soared. Holding the upper hand against the bare-chested Vajra, he dispatched him in moments. This kill rewarded him with a helmet, while his spare hand gained a short sword.
Truth be told, Tuoba Hong was proficient only in spearmanship and utterly unfamiliar with a four-armed dharma body. Yet he was unmistakably a genius of combat. The more he fought, the more adept he became; spells erupted amidst his spear and sword strikes in awe-inspiring displays, suppressing several more Vajras and dozens of mighty warriors in the blink of an eye.
This time, however, he received only a minor boost to his physical stamina, with no further aid.
Watching the battling youth, Wei Yuan pondered, calculating at rapid speed.
By now, the progress bar in Wei Yuan's vision had surpassed seventy percent. He had also accumulated a fair amount of mighty power and karmic destiny, enough to enlighten another Arhat. But at present, Tuoba Hong was the only one in an Arhat seat; all others were still candidates, currently meditating on the karmic attainments.
Maintaining Tuoba Hong's empowerments also required continuous expenditure. By this point, the youth had lost the element of surprise, encircled by seven or eight Vajras leading a hundred mighty warriors, while a Wisdom King loomed at the perimeter to hold the line.
Though bathing in blood in a fight to the death, the youth gradually slipped into disadvantage.
Astride the Wisdom King, the little monk was chanting incantations non-stop to suppress Tuoba Hong. Once the chants rose, the resistance Wei Yuan faced in empowering the boy grew significantly, requiring almost twice the power to maintain the original effect.
Seeing that Tuoba Hong could not hold out alone, Wei Yuan flipped his hand and slapped all the karmic destiny the youth had fought for onto himself!
The next moment, a mote of streaming light plummeted into the central battlefield. A young man who had been in a daze suddenly had eyes that cleared with brilliant clarity, and he raised his head.
In front of him, a mighty warrior had his massive hand raised high, smashing down to claim this merit.
Yet the young man simply took an ordinary step forward, brushing past the warrior while casually giving him a slap on the waist.
Past the warrior lay a Vajra.
The Vajra raised a massive foot to stomp this little bug that had suddenly popped up into paste, but his foot met only empty air. As the giant foot hit the ground, the little bug was nowhere to be seen, while his own knee felt a faint itch.
Before he could react, his knee abruptly detonated, followed by a chain of explosions that ripped upward through his dharma body until, finally, his head exploded into a mist of blood.
In the center of the battlefield, the Wisdom King turned on its own accord, fixing its glare upon the approaching young man. The little monk on its shoulder had still been chanting incantations, but was cut off by this sudden turn.
Wisdom Kings possessed innate spirituality and did not actually need commands to battle on their own; the little monk riding the Wisdom King was really just a display of status. At this moment, the Wisdom King instinctively sensed danger. It immediately raised a hand-axe and hurled the massive axe the instant it saw the young man take a step.
At that point, the young man was leaning forward, one foot suspended in mid-stride and the other behind, toe touching the ground. The step was already halfway through—a motion that should have been impossible to halt—yet it froze abruptly in midair!
The giant axe arrived in an instant, cleaving down so close it nearly grazed the tip of the young man’s nose. The axe blade, taller than his entire body, sank deep into the earth all the way to its hilt. But the young man's figure flickered, passing right through the battleaxe and continuing toward the Wisdom King. To a casual glance, there seemed to be nothing wrong with his stride, but to the little monk's eyes, he knew that the youth had never taken that second half of the step before appearing behind the axe—that half-step had vanished into thin air!
The young man did not walk in a straight line. His route curved and wound, his silhouette flickering constantly and skipping beats every now and then, presenting an unsettling, jarring sight. Yet everywhere he passed, mighty warriors and Vajras swayed on the spot as though drunk, utterly bewildered as to what to do.
The young man moved with deceptive speed; in the blink of an eye, he arrived before the Wisdom King. In front of a hundred-zhang Wisdom King, a young man barely eight feet tall was like an ant. As if recalling something, a butcher knife used for cleaving bone and boning meat appeared in his hand. He gauged the Wisdom King with it, then raised the butcher knife!
Without waiting for the little monk to urge it on, the Wisdom King let out a roar and raised its massive foot to stomp down upon the young man.
The young man seemed stunned stupid, standing motionlessly in place with the knife held high, allowing the giant foot to crash down upon him.
With a thunderous boom, the earth shook. The Wisdom King's stomp swallowed the young man whole, and the ground sank beneath the foot into a shallow crater that instantly spread for a thousand zhang. Even Tuoba Hong’s side of the battlefield was affected; the mighty warriors tumbled into a heap, giving the boy the opportunity to cut down several in quick succession.
Was he crushed to death? The little monk poked his head out, his face filled with doubt.
Beneath the Wisdom King's foot, there was no sensation of having stepped on anything. To its mind, this little creature ought to have been very tough, and there should have been a distinct feeling of something being squashed until it popped. Yet right now, there was no feeling whatsoever.
Right at that moment, the little monk caught sight of the young man once more.
The young man was still standing before the Wisdom King, but now the heavy butcher knife in his hand had already fallen, its tip pointing toward the ground. Blood dripped continuously from it in what seemed like an endless trickle.
Abruptly, the Wisdom King let out an earth-shattering shriek of agony. Its two gargantuan legs, each several zhang thick, were severed at the knees—and judging by the cut surfaces, they had been hacked countless times.
The Wisdom King crashed to the ground howling in pain, like a collapsing mountain. The little monk spun around and bolted, flying headlong toward the treasure ship, his mind completely blank.
What kind of physique did a Wisdom King possess? Even standing motionless and letting Vajras hack at it, it would take days and nights just to inflict minor abrasions. As for mighty warriors, they could do nothing more than scrape away dead skin and dirt.
Yet now, that outer demon—no, that young man—had severed both of the Wisdom King's legs with a single blade strike?
That was not a single strike... The little monk possessed past-life wisdom after all, and he had seen clearly just now: after raising the blade, the young man had actually propelled his own time forward, skipping directly to the moment the blade was brought down.
During that skipped interval, he had flitted back and forth around the Wisdom King, delivering hundreds of strikes to its knees. Every chop carried titanic force capable of sundering mountains and severing karma. The Wisdom King’s true body upon its fruition seat must have had both legs severed as well!
When the cleaving ended, because that span of time had been compressed to the absolute limit, onlookers saw only two motions: the young man raising his blade, and the young man lowering it. And then, the Wisdom King’s legs were abruptly severed.
Such a divine power... Paralyzed with terror, the little monk flew blindly toward the treasure ship. Suddenly, with a crisp clang, the back of the butcher knife lightly tapped his jade-translucent bald head with a clear, ringing note, followed by what sounded like a soft chuckle in his ear.
In that instant, the little monk's soul nearly flew from his body. His mind went utterly blank, leaving only a single thought: fly forward. Only when he had flown all the way back to the treasure ship did he realize his Buddha-head was still attached to his neck.
Looking back at the battlefield, the little monk saw the young man advancing and retreating like a god. Wherever he went, mighty warriors and Vajras fell in swaths, while his own Wisdom King lay in the dirt and mud, its fate unknown.
The little monk turned to look at the other two, only to find that the treasure ship carrying the young girl had already disengaged from the battlefield, reverted to sea-crossing mode, and was fleeing at full speed! Meanwhile, Chanming wore a look of shock, momentarily at a loss.
"Weigh anchor! Turn around! Go back!" The little monk's trembling voice resounded across the treasure ship. The vessel lifted, the surrounding phantom landmass dissipated, and it turned and sped away without a shred of hesitation.
Only Chanming was left behind, frozen in place, watching the young man on the battlefield wielding two butcher knives. From east to west, and back from west to east, it was just hand raised, blade falls; hand raised, blade falls; hand raised, blade falls...
Chapter 1259