The Strange Dao of Cultivation: I Can Exempt Myself from the Price
"Something feels wrong..."
Pig Daoist swallowed hard. He seemed to sense a change in the rules of Jingzhou, as though it signaled the beginning of the Ten Thousand Buddhas Pilgrimage, yet Fude Tathagata remained completely unmoved.
The lake continued expanding, and its growth had already exceeded one-third of its original area.
Boom, boom, boom...
The edges of Jingzhou rose up, forming mountains that towered into the clouds, like a prison enclosing the entire Deeper Layer World.
Fude Tathagata released Buddhist aura, but the area it covered continued to shrink.
Clearly, the mastermind was driving the Buddhas toward the center of Great Buddha Heaven, not even intending to spare ordinary monks.
The dense Buddhist aura corroded the elderly and frail monks, who were promptly reduced to withered corpses, while the young and strong were able to barely survive.
For the Buddhas, however, it was precisely the opposite. The previous moment, they had still been surrounding and attacking the extraterritorial demons in Small Buddha Heaven, but once they lost the protection of the Buddhist aura, their souls immediately showed signs of collapse.
The surviving cultivators stared at their surroundings in shock before collapsing to the ground from exhaustion.
After days of slaughter by the Buddhas, the surviving cultivators had long since been scared out of their wits. Faced with such a terrifying situation, they had no intention of staying any longer.
They scrambled desperately to leave Jingzhou, but the moment they crossed the mountains at its edge, the Three Souls and Seven Spirits within the Mud Pellet Palace inexplicably vanished, leaving corpse after corpse lying at locations no more than ten meters from the waters.
In merely a moment, thousands of people in the Deeper Layer World died indiscriminately.
Ren Qing controlled his Immortal Office and merged it into Fude Tathagata while signaling the Ghost Shadow to gather up the remaining population.
The Buddhas had their souls stripped away and carried to the Yellow Springs, while the monks were drawn into the Western Buddhist Realm. Any cultivators who had ascended were sealed in the cells on the third level of the Underworld.
He did not understand the mastermind's intentions, but he certainly would not let the other party have their way.
The monks standing in the palms of the various Buddhas could not endure the increasingly dense Buddhist aura. Quite a few died violently, staining the lake a pale red.
The situation had developed far beyond expectations. There was not the slightest appearance of a Buddhist ritual.
Aside from Ren Qing, who could still escape through the Stomach World, it seemed that the Deeper Layer World had already become a prison, trapping them all.
The Buddhas present, whether they were disguised by Heavenly Aberration realm cultivators or were Compassionate Insect Buddhas, could not help becoming nervous.
Yet the Dipankara Buddha Qi filling Jingzhou seemed to possess some inexplicable power.
Even at this point, there were still cultivators immersed in the possibility of making contact with the Heavenly Dao. They had not even considered escaping.
They repeatedly looked toward Fude Tathagata, apparently hoping to determine the truth of the Ten Thousand Buddhas Pilgrimage from its reaction.
Unfortunately, Fude Tathagata remained completely unresponsive.
Ren Qing's face showed pity. From the actions of the cultivators who had died in Small Buddha Heaven, it was clear that only after leaving the range of the Buddhist aura could they even conceive the thought of fleeing.
Otherwise, no matter how dangerous the situation became, they were more likely to simply sit there and await death.
Lady White Bone controlled her Buddha and sneered, "Fude Tathagata is nothing more than a puppet. Who exactly organized the Ten Thousand Buddhas Pilgrimage?"
She had thought her words would provoke the displeasure of the Buddhist sect, but none of the Buddhas spoke.
Lady White Bone immediately understood. Even the Buddhist sect itself did not know much about it, and they had apparently already tacitly accepted the truth about Fude Tathagata.
She could not be bothered to say anything more and closed her eyes, searching for clues about the Ten Thousand Buddhas Pilgrimage.
Ren Qing's Immortal Office had already burrowed into Fude Tathagata's body. He discovered that even the flesh was filled with Buddhist aura, making it extremely difficult for the Immortal Office to advance.….
Taking advantage of the opportunity, he attempted to communicate with Fude Tathagata, only to discover that its consciousness possessed no intelligence whatsoever.
Strangely, although Fude Tathagata's consciousness was chaotic, neither its body nor soul showed any signs of Heavenly Dao transformation. There was a chance that they had been transferred to Dipankara Buddha.
The Deeper Layer World continued to transform. Under Ren Qing's arrangements, the Restraint Officers' Hall in the Inner Layer World had already begun withdrawing in succession.
Daoist Mu Snake muttered to himself, "It seems like... corpses. So many corpses."
As an undead being who cultivated Yin Qi, he could sense the unique scent of corpses, as though it were emanating from the Buddhist aura.
As the Buddhist aura spread in every direction, corpses fell from the sky in an extremely bizarre manner, like raindrops.
The lake was suddenly filled with countless corpses out of nowhere. Most were monks who had died in various horrific ways, their expressions twisted with terror.
Pig Daoist's hair stood on end. "What does the Ten Thousand Buddhas Pilgrimage have to do with corpses?"
Daoist Mu Snake shook his head before looking toward Ren Qing. The latter had remained motionless for a long time, seemingly deep in thought.
Wangsheng Bodhisattva repeatedly contacted Fude Tathagata, just as he did during his usual morning liturgy.
Fude Tathagata normally never gave the slightest response, and it was the same now. But this time, there was not even any soothing of its own Buddhist aura.
Wangsheng Bodhisattva wore an incredulous expression before reaching into the water and pulling out a corpse.
The corpse looked exactly like him, except for a long, narrow wound around its neck. Clearly, that was the cause of death.
The Buddhas all noticed the similar corpses, as though the lake were a mass grave.
The cultivators each had their own thoughts. Before they realized it, the aura of their techniques had begun to spread, and traces of barely restrained killing intent emerged.
Ren Qing's Immortal Office had already reached the vicinity of Fude Tathagata's internal organs. He found a vague phantom of an Immortal Position, and the two were gradually merging.
At the same time, he observed the strange phenomena occurring outside.
Ren Qing suddenly realized something. His pupils instinctively widened. After remaining silent for a long time, he finally spoke at the moment the atmosphere had become most tense.
"Wangsheng Bodhisattva, may I ask you an impertinent question?"
"Extraterritorial... demon... you..."
Wangsheng Bodhisattva half rose from his seated position. His thousand-meter body created a palpable sense of oppression.
Every gaze fixed upon Ren Qing.
Ren Qing ignored Wangsheng Bodhisattva's threat and spoke to himself, "Do you still remember how you died when you were alive?"
"Extraterritorial demon, how dare you..."
Ren Qing's brows furrowed tightly. The light and shadows constituting his body became even more distorted, and even the surface of the lake began to boil as his aura surged.
"Wangsheng Bodhisattva, I'll ask you one more time. Do you still remember how you died when you were alive?"
Daoist Mu Snake became fully alert. The collision of his vertebrae produced a series of sounds as he prepared for battle, while Pig Daoist could only grit his teeth and follow his lead.
Lady White Bone recalled Daoist Mu Snake's identity. After so many years apart, he had actually become willing to work for someone else.
What shocked the cultivators even more was that Wangsheng Bodhisattva actually chose to answer.
"The same way as the corpse."
"I was the abbot of Dragonhead Temple when I was alive. Someone slit my throat while I was sleeping..."
Ren Qing pointed toward several inconspicuous Buddhas. They were not actually disguises created by Heavenly Aberration realm cultivators. "And how did you die?"
"I was beaten to death with an iron staff while begging for alms..."
"I accidentally fell from a cliff while sweeping the stairs..."
Ren Qing pulled corpse after corpse resembling them from the lake and casually threw them in front of the respective Buddhas.….
Wangsheng Bodhisattva appeared rough and crude by nature, but in truth, he concealed quite a few calculations. His earlier reckless behavior had merely been a means of probing the situation.
"The corpses in the lake are indeed related to us, but that doesn't prove anything..."
"It proves that the Ten Thousand Buddhas Pilgrimage truly exists."
"You're talking nonsense. Where did that Merit Monk go?"
One cultivator immediately objected. They had gone to such lengths solely for the opportunity to make contact with the Heavenly Dao, yet they had not even seen the slightest trace of the person they were looking for.
Ren Qing said nothing further. Just moments ago, it had sounded like nothing more than the careless ramblings of a madman.
The Deeper Layer World once again manifested strange phenomena.
The vegetation, mountains, and rocks gradually began to decompose. The Inner Layer World was also disappearing, as though Jingzhou were returning to its most primitive state.
Yet the Blood Moon enveloping Jingzhou did not stop rising.
The heavens and earth were plunged into a vast expanse of white.
The Buddhist aura isolated them upon the surface of the lake, and some cultivators had already grown impatient.
Once a cultivator circulated Buddhist aura, they could naturally prevent the Buddhist aura from entering their bodies, but they had already lost the best opportunity to escape.
Buzz...
Elephant Lord let out a low growl. His body expanded from just over two meters to a thousand meters. His elephant foot directly crushed the flesh lotus beneath him, and when it landed in the water, the resulting splash rose more than a hundred meters into the air.
He could not even be bothered to attack the Buddhist sect and instead attempted to shatter the surrounding Buddhist aura.
Wanlai Bodhisattva said in a deep voice, "What exactly are you planning to do? Was the disaster in Great Small Buddha Heaven caused by you?"
"Why don't you go ask whoever arranged the Ten Thousand Buddhas Pilgrimage?"
Elephant Lord repeatedly punched the surface of the lake, sending columns of water soaring into the sky.
Fude Tathagata truly was nothing more than a decoration. This emboldened the Heavenly Aberration realm cultivators even further. Besides, there was no way they could simply sit around and wait for death.
The pressure within the Deeper Layer World grew heavier. As the Buddhist aura surged, dreamlike scenes appeared in the sky. They could no longer see any trace of Small Buddha Heaven, only an enormous sun.
The sun was being reflected inward from beyond the Blood Moon, representing the disintegration of Jingzhou's rules.
The tense atmosphere was on the verge of erupting. The various Heavenly Aberration realm cultivators no longer intended to maintain their disguises and revealed their true forms one after another, eyeing one another warily.
Lady White Bone crawled out from the top of Baizhi Bodhisattva's head. The latter still retained consciousness and let out a shrill scream.
After only a few breaths, Baizhi Bodhisattva had become a pile of mangled flesh.
The hostility between the two sides was intense.
Fortunately, the Heavenly Aberration realm cultivators looked down on the Buddhist sect, while the Buddhist sect lacked the strength to contend with them. This allowed the situation to remain barely on the verge of losing control.
The cultivators sought a way to survive, using their various techniques to break through the Buddhist aura sealing them in.
The Buddhist aura ultimately originated from Dipankara Tathagata, a Buddha far beyond the Earth Immortal realm. How could a group of Heavenly Aberration realm cultivators possibly get their wish?
Even Pig Daoist and Daoist Mu Snake had joined the ranks of the cultivators, but it was nothing more than an insect trying to stop a chariot.
Wangsheng Bodhisattva, on the other hand, remained extremely calm and actually walked over to Ren Qing of his own accord.
"What exactly do you know?"
"Wangsheng Bodhisattva, I'm curious. Do you know the source of the Buddhist aura here?"
Wangsheng Bodhisattva was immediately rendered speechless. Not long ago, he had still believed that the resurrection of Great Small Buddha Heaven was a blessing granted by Fude Tathagata.
Ren Qing's words reached the ears of every person present. While asking Wangsheng Bodhisattva, he was also effectively asking all of them.
Lady White Bone covered her mouth and laughed softly, showing not the slightest concern over Jingzhou's sudden transformation. "This lady knows. But I still don't know what to call you, sir."….
"Heavenly Court, Lord of the North Pole Star."
They had originally thought that the Heavenly Court had vanished without a trace, yet it had already extended its reach into the heart of Jingzhou, and the one who had come was not even the Dragon King of the Four Seas.
Lady White Bone continued in a tone that brooked no doubt, "Based on the properties of the Buddhist aura in Jingzhou, it should originate from Dipankara Buddha, the bearer of the Tathagata Fruit Status."
"If nothing unexpected has happened, the mastermind who arranged Jingzhou is the Dipankara Buddha's Son."
"What do you think, Lord of the North Pole Star?"
Ren Qing smiled without answering. Instead, he replied, "You can escape Jingzhou from underground, but you'll have to excavate within the lake's boundaries. So for the time being, this isn't a dead end."
They had also realized that Jingzhou was rapidly rising, and what Ren Qing said indeed made a certain amount of sense.
Elephant Lord could not help stomping hard on the shore, immediately blasting out a several-meter-deep pit. It looked far more reliable than the airtight Buddhist aura.
"But the Ten Thousand Buddhas Pilgrimage really does exist. If you stay, you might be able to make contact with the Heavenly Dao."
No cultivator listened to Ren Qing's second sentence. Surviving in a desperate situation was already difficult enough. How could they dare to entertain fantasies about an opportunity whose authenticity was unknown?
Lady White Bone, meanwhile, found the man before her increasingly incomprehensible.
Ren Qing looked at the ritual site, now in complete disarray. Buddhas knelt on the ground in prayer, cultivators scrambled to dig their way out, and the Blood Moon had already risen more than ten thousand meters into the sky.
Wangsheng Bodhisattva followed up anxiously, breathing heavily. "What are you talking about?"
He could not shake the feeling that their conversation contained unimaginable information, yet he could not understand any of it. All he could do was watch helplessly as the apocalypse descended.
At the thought of this, Wangsheng Bodhisattva's face twisted.
But before he could react, Jingzhou's Immortal Position rules affected the Gu Insect transformation, causing even the Buddhas to lose control of their bodies and souls.
Wangsheng Bodhisattva plunged headfirst into the lake. His thousand-meter body quickly sank to the bottom as the cold water poured into his mouth and nostrils.
"What if Dipankara Tathagata never existed in the first place, or what if the mastermind never existed?"
Ren Qing lowered his head and thought silently, his gaze seeming to cross the long river of time.
He had a vague guess about the mastermind's true identity, but the connections involved were enormous. It might even be tied to the truth from thousands of years ago.
To figure it out, he could only wait for Jingzhou's subsequent developments.
If Ren Qing's guess was correct, the Ten Thousand Buddhas Pilgrimage might have already begun, but the main battlefield was not the collapsing Jingzhou.
He narrowed his eyes. Although it was only his avatar in Jingzhou, his main body trembled involuntarily. It was an instinctive reaction to the unknown.
Ren Qing weighed the gains and losses. During this time, his Immortal Office had already been completely implanted into Fude Tathagata, so he had the Ghost Shadow excavate an underground passage. It soon formed a space large enough to accommodate the Corpse Forbidden.
Boom!!!
A tremendous crash came from within the Buddhist aura, as though a mountain peak had suddenly risen from flat ground.
Ren Qing sensed a familiar aura. It was unmistakably unique to an Immortal Position. The third Immortal Position forming the rules of Jingzhou had finally revealed itself.
The Insect-type Immortal Position was likewise sealed by the Buddhist aura, trapped inside a gigantic stone resembling a lake.
He released the Dreamflower toward the source while closing his eyes and sensing the condition of Taiyin Star Lord, carefully pondering the changes in the situation.
Ren Qing deliberately shrank his body to just over ten meters and then used the Heavenly Demon Tribulation to erase his presence. Before he knew it, he had already been forgotten.
The cultivators might have had an extremely strong impression of the Lord of the North Pole Star only moments ago, but none of them realized that they seemed to have forgotten someone.
One Buddha after another transformed into corpses. The drastic changes in the rules were fatal to them.
Wangsheng Bodhisattva spat blood from his mouth. Until the moment of his death, he could not understand the actions of the extraterritorial demon, nor why Great Small Buddha Heaven had been destroyed in an instant.
"Fude Tathagata, shouldn't you have blessed us..."
His tongue had already rotted away, and he had barely enough strength left to move his eyes.
Only before his death did Wangsheng Bodhisattva notice that the Buddha amber covering Fude Tathagata's body was shattering one piece after another, while its appearance became increasingly unfamiliar.
His eyes remained wide open as the vitality in his body completely extinguished.
The deaths of so many Buddhas represented the gradual liberation of the three Immortal Positions from the Buddhist aura's control. The mastermind's arrangement was about to emerge.