Seeking Truth with a Sword

Chapter 366 - 318 Golden Body

A flash of lightning seemed to streak through Li Ang’s mind as he suddenly understood everything that had happened during this period: the Prohibition that trapped everyone three hundred years later; the missing fourth Buddha statue; the legendary Weituo Bodhisattva, said to have moved the grain transport ships; the old Bell Bead that fell from the Bodhisattva’s Purifying Bottle; and that sturdy iron box which gave him a strong sense of familiarity, yet he could never open...

He whispered, "Be ready to run at any moment."

"Run?"

Sui Yi looked doubtfully at the surrounding prohibitions and the distant Mountain Guarding Array. "Run where?"

"The Floating Tower."

Li Ang answered quickly, summoning the Mo Si hidden throughout the temple.

In front of the Grand Hall, Abbot Lian Nan said grimly, "You used the Time Sand to infiltrate the Jialan Sect and break into the Floating Tower?"

"Yes."

The old scholar said, "Even though I drank Demon Blood, I was still severely affected by the Time Sand, becoming much older. After I returned to my hometown dragging my lame leg, I killed my neighbor, Yang Shijiu. He was a distant relative of mine and, after I aged, we looked quite alike. Originally, he was the first to act without waiting to be told; he hastily nailed planks studded with nails over the door of my house, causing my children to starve to death behind it. Yang Shijiu was a model devotee, utterly loyal to the Jialan Sect, so I took his place. It was perfect that he was lame and mute, so I wouldn’t need to speak. As for the Floating Tower’s Prohibition, I possessed the Time Sand that could stop time, so I wouldn’t die easily. And even if I did die, I could quickly rewind time to be revived. Time after time I explored, attempted, died, and was reborn, until finally, I found this."

The old scholar slowly took an object from his robes.

It was a delicate, palm-sized hourglass. Its central chamber was carved from transparent gemstone, while its ends were stone, inlaid with ornate patterns.

The faces of Abbot Lian Nan and Liao Wu changed drastically. The former shot out a palm strike, unleashing brilliant Buddha Light that condensed into the shape of a Buddha’s palm and flew towards the old scholar. The latter slammed his Zen Staff down, and the stone steps beneath his feet immediately split open with a massive fissure.

"It’s no use."

The old scholar let some fine sand slip through his fingers. The Buddha Light palm imprint solidified thirty yards away, and the fissure spreading across the ground at his feet quickly healed.

Step, step, step, step.

The old scholar, not glancing aside, faced the Buddha Light and climbed the steps. With each step, his white hair grew a bit longer, and the wrinkles on his face deepened.

Abbot Lian Nan, Liao Wu, and the temple elders, all unleashing their Mana, were forced to step aside, watching wide-eyed as the old scholar stepped into the Grand Hall.

"Don’t panic!"

Abbot Lian Nan shouted loudly, "Everyone, activate your Protective Golden Light! Even if he has the Time Sand, he’s still a feeble old man! Protect yourselves and continue the attack! Watch him slowly die of old age!"

"..."

The old scholar, as if he hadn’t heard, dragged his increasingly frail body to the silk cushion before the Buddha statue. Bit by bit, he poured the Time Sand through the holes in the top of the hourglass.

WHOOSH.

The sand grains striking the glass of the hourglass made a soft, continuous sound. The old scholar’s gaze was hollow. It was as if, through the reflection on the hourglass, he was scrutinizing his own visage, aged beyond recognition.

Having drunk Demon Blood and become the Evil Demon that Haotian most despised and loathed, he would even have his soul scattered, never to transcend in death.

"All I ask is..."

He ignored the barrage of Buddhist incantations and the pressure of sacred power from behind him as he carefully poured the last grain of Time Sand from between his fingers into the hourglass, struggling to close the mechanism on top.

Under the relentless assault of Buddhist techniques, he aged even more rapidly; the simple act exhausted all his strength.

"...Justice."

He desperately gasped for breath as he turned the hourglass upside down and placed it heavily on the Buddha Altar. His entire body then collapsed, and he leaned against the freshly polished leg of a nearby wooden table.

Shhh—

Sand flowed within the hourglass, trickling through the narrow passage into the bottom bulb.

Time began to change.

The candle flames flanking the Grand Hall suddenly flared and died, flared and died, over and over again.

The fruit offerings on the porcelain plate upon the Buddha Altar would rot, then grow fresh again, in a repeating cycle.

Even the Buddha statue above the Buddha Altar began to tremble.

"No..."

Abbot Lian Nan asked with difficulty, "What have you done?"

"I’ve done what I had to do," the old scholar breathed laboriously.

"Madman! You madman!" an elder cursed angrily, "You could have taken the Time Sand to revive your wife and children! Why bring trouble to our Jialan Sect?!"

"The Time Sand cannot change things that happened before I obtained it."

The old scholar slowly shook his head. "You are right. Even though I drank the Demon Blood and possess the Time Sand, I cannot penetrate your Protective Golden Light, much less kill every guilty person and their accomplices on the Mountain of Mind and Heart. I’m too old, too old to swing a knife, too old to kill a chicken—though my wife used to kill the chickens in the past. But they are different."

The old scholar tilted his head toward the Buddha statue on the Buddha Altar. "You claim that your Jialan Ancestor originally killed the four demons—Yi, E, Yan, and Wu. However, because the battle’s aftershocks caused mountains to collapse and harm the surrounding common people, he was filled with shame and forbade later generations from widely proclaiming his deeds. Heh. Four ancient masters, four demons... Your Jialan Ancestor never actually eliminated those demons. Instead, he used the Time Sand and the Sumeru Hourglass to forcibly convert the demons’ resentment, transforming them from Demons into Buddhas. That’s why you dared not speak of it. Even after the four ancient masters achieved Nirvana and passed on, you continuously repainted their Golden Bodies, terrified the Buddha statues would reveal their true, flawed nature. However, have you ever considered that these four Buddhas, born from demons and having cultivated indestructible Golden Bodies at their Nirvana, only need time to be reversed a thousand years for them to revert to... their memories and state as man-eating demons?"

CRACK!

The Buddha statue’s tremors grew faster and more violent until, on the surface of the leftmost Buddha statue, layers of gold paint cracked, revealing a deep fissure.

Pitch-black Demonic Qi immediately surged from the crevice, spreading across the floor of the Grand Hall like a cascading waterfall.

"Don’t touch the Demonic Qi!!" Abbot Lian Nan shouted urgently, but he was a step too late.

A monk accidentally touched a speck of the Demonic Qi. His entire arm blackened instantly, as if dipped in ink, and the darkness rapidly spread over his body.

SNAP!

He slammed to the floor, convulsing madly. His limbs twisted backward in spasms, contorting into positions no normal person could achieve, as he flipped over. He lay face up, his back arched off the ground, supported by his limbs. His neck, twisted several times like a rope, lolled as he spat black blood, his eyes grimly fixed on the monks before the hall.

"It has begun..."

The old scholar leaned his head back, looking at the trembling Buddha statue that oozed boiling Demonic Qi. With a hoarse voice, he recited the words that were all too familiar to Li Ang and the others, words that would echo even three hundred years later in the Grand Hall, "All of you... will die."