Above the Sea of Bitterness, bell chimes echoed. Numerous figures flew forth from the stars and radiant suns, descending toward the Dharma-Exposition Altar situated on the fifth heaven.
The altar was in truth a Buddhist mountain. Bodhisattvas and Arhats manifested upon it unceasingly, each seeking a spot to their liking—some leaning against pines, others reclining on rocks, all exuding the true essence of carefree liberation.
Atop several peaks, light drifted and shimmered; unless one drew near, it was difficult to make out the true bodies of the Bodhisattvas shrouded within. Only the central high peaks remained silent, with no Buddha manifesting to the world.
Shanle found a patch of grass where the mountainside met the foot of the peak and sat down. It was a gentle slope; slightly higher up lay several wondrous boulders—ideal perches to sit and listen to the Dharma.
Previously, Shanle had sat there as well. But ever since losing the Heaven of Joy and Bliss, he had voluntarily vacated the boulder-strewn area, walked along the base of the mountain for a stretch, and settled on the grass.
Further down the grassy slope ran a stream; those sitting by the water and near the edge of the woods were all Arhats.
Shanle subconsciously looked up the mountain and saw that the two tallest peaks were still without movement. The peak that originally belonged to King Buddha had been dormant for over a thousand years.
Among the peaks sat a simple stone bench, which prompted Shanle to take an extra look. It had clearly been chiseled by hand, somewhat out of harmony with the entirely natural scenery of the Buddhist mountain.
This stone bench had an extraordinary history; rumor had it that several hundred thousand years ago, it had been the seat of an Arhat. Yet judging by its elevation, it was situated among the Great Bodhisattvas, surpassing numerous Bodhisattvas and sitting a mere hair's breadth below the Buddhas.
It stood far above Shanle's current position—even craning his neck to look up at it was a strain.
At that moment, the bell tolled once more. Boundless Radiance spoke: "In my recent discourse with Wei Yuan, I discovered that his Three Realms Dao lineage already commands a million devotees. This is a matter of great gravity, requiring us all to deliberate together."
Baoxing then said, "The roots of the Three Realms Dao lineage also stem from our Buddhist teachings. It is no external demon, but an enemy of the Dao."
The Bodhisattvas and Arhats were visibly moved. With a single sentence, Baoxing had defined the nature of the Three Realms Dao Path. An enemy of the Dao was vastly more grave than an external demon; it dug at the roots from within. Thus, for countless millennia, the consensus across the cultivation world had always been that external demons could wait, but enemies of the Dao had to be eradicated.
Just then, an Arhat rose, chanted the Buddha's name, and asked, "Calling it an enemy of the Dao demands caution. May I ask which three realms this Three Realms Dao lineage refers to?"
This was a crucial question. In the circulated copies of the Three Realms Ruyi Sutra, there was no explicit definition of the Three Realms. How the Three Realms were defined was essentially the boundary of Wei Yuan's doctrinal teachings. The more this boundary overlapped with the doctrines of the Pure Land, the more pronounced its threat as an enemy of the Dao.
Boundless Radiance pondered briefly before saying, "The past, the present, and the future—these are the Three Realms."
The Arhat immediately chanted the Buddha's name and stepped back.
A heavy silence fell over Spirit Mountain, though countless divine thoughts exchanged words in secret. After a moment, another Arhat said, "First, we should proclaim widely to Buddhist followers across the world that this Three Realms Dao lineage is, in truth, an evil heresy. Second, through our lifetimes of cultivation, we have gathered many disciples and believers; at the very least, we possess ample karmic ties of goodwill. Now, we might pool our wisdom and strength to enlist the power of the Nine Nations and aristocratic families to purge the Three Realms' claws and fangs. As long as the Three Realms Dao lineage is confined within Qingming, it will remain a rootless tree, incapable of thriving."
Boundless Radiance praised, "Keeping the Three Realms from leaving Qingming is truly meritorious."
Another Arhat said, "Over half of Jin has already fallen into the hands of external demons. We ought to banish demons, protect the Dao, and cleanse the world. The King of Jin is foolish and depraved, long unworthy of his throne. It so happens that one of his sons is cultivating in our Pure Land, possessing innate wisdom from past lives; he could take the King of Jin's place."
A Bodhisattva frowned slightly and remarked, "That child's foundation is indeed fine, but the karma of his origins is somewhat improper. If we force him onto the throne, it might stir movement from the Tang dynasty."
Boundless Radiance replied, "No matter. I can take action to veil the karma, keeping the Tang dynasty from taking alarm for the time being. Once the Three Realms are subdued, it will not be too late to replace him."
The assembled voices answered together, "Excellent!"
The moment Wei Yuan escaped from the Sea of Bitterness, he began a thorough analysis of the gains and losses in this clash. His confrontation with Boundless Radiance had been unexpected. The Great Bodhisattva had arrived suddenly and struck with ruthless force; had Wei Yuan's Three Realms Dao lineage not grown so swiftly, his very foundation in the Sea of Bitterness would have been uprooted.
Looking back at her methods, her failure to lift the Heaven of Joy and Bliss stemmed primarily from the fact that the number of believers vastly exceeded her expectations, preventing her from budging such a colossal mass of karma.
Even so, Wei Yuan did not let down his guard. This time, Boundless Radiance could use Shanle to shoulder the karmic debt; next time, she might well have Baoxing help seize the Heaven of Joy and Bliss.
To make Boundless Radiance abandon her designs on the Heaven of Joy and Bliss, he had to increase its weight—which meant increasing its karma.
That way, not only would Boundless Radiance struggle to lift it, but the resulting killing tribulation would generate tremendous karmic debt. When that happened, a mere Shanle would never withstand it, and whether Baoxing would be willing to bear it for her was another matter entirely.
Wei Yuan believed that under the Pure Land's current path of remaining untainted by karma and seeking solitary transcendence from the Sea of Bitterness, so long as the karmic debt was sufficiently immense, no one would be willing to shield Boundless Radiance from the tribulation. After all, within the Pure Land, there was no figure like Suchan.
Wei Yuan's current study of karma had progressed considerably, putting him near the forefront even within Qingming. Those ahead of him were merely a few template Dao foundations cheating with computational tools.
Qingming had researched this long ago: so-called karma could be regarded as the sum total of all connections and relationships with every existing entity in the world.
If an individual lived in seclusion apart from the world, self-sufficient and running their natural course, they would have little karma. Conversely, in the mortal world, the greater one's ability and the higher one's station, the heavier the karma one carried.
Viewed from this angle, though the mirage demons numbered in the hundreds of millions, they merely holed up in their own tiny patch of ground to eat, sleep, and reproduce; the collective karma of their entire race did not even equal Wei Yuan's alone.
Therefore, the quickest way to increase the weight of the Heaven of Joy and Bliss was to multiply the karma of the mirage demons. But how to do so?
As he pondered the process, Wei Yuan suddenly realized something: with so many mirage demons, their souls were far from weak and their cultivation was decent. However weak they might be, could they possibly be weaker than a Ten-Thousand-Tribulation Imperishable Dharma Body?
Among nearly two hundred million mirage demons, there were roughly a hundred thousand Dao foundations, several hundred dharma idols, and four Scenery Commands. With such an enormous demographic, how had they managed to avoid doing any labor all this time? Though mirage demons were grotto-heaven creatures without physical bodies, they were not purely incorporeal; their primordial spirit forms still possessed power. Having them mine in the mortal realm might be somewhat difficult, but ten tethered together could easily match a single native miner.
Wei Yuan immediately decided to launch massive construction projects across the Splendor of the Many Realms and his dominion in the Nether Cold Realm. In the Nether Cold Realm especially, he would not only build mines but also erect vast fortifications; if there was truly nothing left to build, they would dig underground defenses. For these two regions, he would first dispatch one hundred million mirage demons.
The tens of millions of mirage demons in the Heaven of Joy and Bliss would labor where they were, repairing the realm. If designs were not ready in time, they would start by shoveling earth and digging foundations. Wei Yuan quickly resolved to construct a grand formation spanning the entire Heaven of Joy and Bliss to aid in absorbing world essence.
In the mortal realm, Wei Yuan also prepared to send ten million elite mirage demons to test the waters and see whether they proved useful at mining.
As for the incentive to make the mirage demons work, Wei Yuan had already designed a solution. First, by invoking his authority as Creation Immortal Venerable and Lord of the Mind Image World, he outright sealed the mirage demons' reproductive abilities. Doing so was virtually snuffing out ninety-nine percent of all joy in their demon lives.
Then, any mirage demon who worked for ten shichen would be permitted to reproduce for one shichen. This solved the issues of mirage demons idling about and indulging in boundless lust. Furthermore, through large-scale construction, the mirage demons would generate colossal amounts of karma with the surrounding world, multiplying the weight of the Heaven of Joy and Bliss more than tenfold at the very least. Although this method of conjuring leverage out of thin air invited criticism, matters were urgent, and Wei Yuan could not afford to care about that.
With a shift of his divine thought, an earth-shattering howling swept through the entire Splendor of the Many Realms. Countless mirage demons were cut off halfway through their pleasure, resembling roosters strangled mid-crow, suspended in agonizing limbo.
A spectacle akin to an apocalyptic disaster naturally could not escape the notice of Jun Weizhi, Fuyao, and the others. At the top floor of the Dao Hall, several of the highest-ranking cultivators in the Splendor of the Many Realms silently watched the great star of mirage demons boiling over like a bubbling cauldron.
Dugu Cangqiong suddenly shuddered, his face turning rather pale. "Th-this... Creation Immortal Venerable possesses methods like this?! Such a thing... cut off halfway through! If he felt inclined, couldn't he render a man limp for life? Have we truly been opposing an entity like that? Isn't that courting absolute ruin?"
Fuyao gave a cold sneer. "You can't even stomach this? Then you'd best grovel obediently at Creation Immortal Venerable's feet and fawn on him. If he ever decides to discipline you, he has far nastier tricks than this."
Dugu Cangqiong's pride stung. He snapped back defensively, "I'm not so useless as that! I can endure a setback like this. Besides, apart from this, what in the world could possibly be more terrifying?"
Fuyao said mildly, "Failing to get it up isn't terrifying. What is terrifying is getting it up and being unable to bring it down."
Wei Yuan, who was in the middle of drafting the detailed breeding regulations for the mirage demons, suddenly knitted his brows slightly and muttered, "Which unruly subject is badmouthing me behind my back now?"
Chapter 1324