Yellow Skinned Taoist Master

Chapter 92: Supreme God Guangmu! The Divine Embryo

"I'm... fine?"

The Yellow Peril had fully expected the sword-light to fail against the Nine-Colored Soul-Scattering Divine Light. It had braced itself for its soul to be stripped away, leaving it a vacant-eyed husk of clay and wood.

To its astonishment, the light washed over it and nothing happened.

"Chen Huangpi — did you really think that having this thing help you would be enough to kill me?"

"I, too, have allies!"

The Yellow Peril cackled wildly, teetering on the edge of hysteria.

"The sword-light..."

Chen Huangpi stared at the gleaming slash hovering before the Yellow Peril and sighed in frustration.

Master's sword was simply too powerful.

A mere afterimage of the blade — a phantom shadow — was enough to make the Calamity Eye stronger than most Calamities.Chen Huangpi could even feel that the Magic Tree, despite being nourished and strengthened by the black smoke, might still not compare to this Calamity Eye.

It wasn't that the Calamity Eye was strong.

It was that the sword-light was too terrifying.

The mutated divine statue said resignedly, "If I could recover to fifty percent, that sword-light wouldn't be able to pierce my technique — powerful as it is."

It knew what that sword-light represented.

Nothing it cannot sever. All things it shall sunder!

Those words described the Guanzhu's personal sword.

The phantom shadow couldn't possibly carry the full might of the original, but it had inherited a trace of the concept — one stroke to shatter all techniques.

"Calamity Eye! Kill them!"

The Yellow Peril had gone nearly hysterical.

It now knew Chen Huangpi was from the Pure Immortal Temple. If it didn't kill him, it would be the one to die.

Killing Chen Huangpi was the only option.

Then fleeing through the passage to the Underworld Yellow Spring.

Perhaps there was still a sliver of hope.

But the Calamity Eye remained motionless, coldly watching the scene below.

The Yellow Peril knew the Calamity Eye's sword-light wasn't infinite.

Every release wounded it.

Convincing it to strike again would require a serious promise.

Gritting its teeth, the Yellow Peril said, "I'll open the coffin for you. I'll take nothing — everything inside is yours!"

Chen Huangpi jumped in. "Calamity Eye, oh Calamity Eye — I can offer you the same deal. And more — help me kill the Yellow Peril, and I'll even refine a pill for you. I'll cure that eye disease of yours!"

Indeed, between the fleshy growths inside the Calamity Eye and the blood it dripped constantly, it did look rather like it suffered from trachoma.

Chen Huangpi was confident a single pill could fix it.

Yet the Calamity Eye remained utterly indifferent.

Fresh blood dripped downward. Sword-light brewed within.

The burial chamber was vast, but the Calamity Eye stared fixedly at Chen Huangpi.

The Yellow Peril laughed. "You're human — a human wearing an evil spirit's skin. Why would it ever help you?"

"Chen Huangpi — prepare to die!"

"Be careful — be very careful!"

The Brass Oil Lamp cried urgently, 'Whatever you do, don't get hit by that sword-light! If it touches you, you'll die or be crippled.'

"I know!"

Chen Huangpi dared not be careless. Rolling black smoke engulfed him in a protective shroud.

At the same time, he turned to the mutated divine statue. "If you can't hold, you can hide behind me. My skin is thick and my flesh is tough — and with the black smoke shielding me, I'll be fine."

Those words were completely sincere.

But to the mutated divine statue, they sounded deeply unsettling.

Was this really something Chen Huangpi would say?

Surely it was a ploy — a way to guilt it into protecting him.

As if reading the statue's thoughts—

Chen Huangpi said earnestly, "I say what I mean, I mean what I think, and I think it because that's who I am."

At these words—

The mutated divine statue was momentarily stunned.

It opened its palms. The vertical eyes in each mirrored Chen Huangpi's face.

Though black smoke obscured him.

Though the Life-reaping Ghost's skin clung to his frame.

It could still see his expression clearly.

Earnest. Candid.

Without the faintest trace of guile.

The mutated divine statue's gaze grew complex. If Chen Huangpi were scheming — if he were trying to manipulate it into fighting — he wouldn't have spoken now.

He would have waited until it was injured, then thrown himself in front of the blow.

Then the statue would have been so moved that it would fight to the death on his behalf.

Or he could have waited until the Calamity Eye's sword-light was about to strike and leaped in at the last second to shield it.

Any of those would have been more convincing than a few breezy words.

And yet — he had simply said it.

Because he truly meant it.

"Indeed, indeed!"

The mutated divine statue laughed. "I've misjudged you. You're the same as you've always been — strange and uncanny. To call you innocent would be wrong, because you've got that sly streak. To call you calculating would be wrong too, because your sincerity is so pure it loops back around to being bizarre."

"But you've also misjudged me."

"I am not like them. If I hadn't truly been at my breaking point, I never would have left you."

With that, the mutated divine statue snapped its gaze toward the Calamity Eye.

"I am Guangmu — and it is my divine duty to purge evil and slay demons!"

As it spoke, the vertical eyes on its palms slammed shut. Then, on the blank expanse of its featureless face, a pair of divine eyes — all-seeing, piercing in every direction — opened with cold authority.

Within those divine eyes, fire burned.

It was incense-fire.

Not human qi. Not spiritual qi.

Simply the flame of a single stick of burning incense.

As that incense burned, the wisps of black smoke around the statue's body thinned to almost nothing.

Its blue-black form gradually took on the luster of gold and jade.

It was burning its recovered thirty percent of divine power.

In exchange for one incense-stick's worth of time as the Supreme God Guangmu.

An invisible force gently lifted Chen Huangpi from atop its head and set him down on the ground.

At that moment—

The sword-light within the Calamity Eye had finished gathering.

Zing!!!

Like a blade unsheathed.

Every being inside the burial chamber heard a piercing sword-cry reverberate through their minds.

"Bring it!"

The mutated divine statue— no. Supreme God Guangmu.

Supreme God Guangmu opened its great maw and released a beam of pure white light that shot toward the Calamity Eye like a divine lance.

The white light was utterly pure.

Forged from divine power itself.

But the sword-light was simply too terrifying.

The white beam barely collided with it before showing signs of collapse.

Yet Supreme God Guangmu showed no fear. It immediately fired a second beam — this one black.

Black and white intertwined.

Still not enough to overpower the sword-light, but together they ground it down until only a sliver remained.

That final wisp of sword-light struck Supreme God Guangmu's body. But it passed over like a spring breeze — utterly harmless.

Chen Huangpi's eyes lit up.

He was about to shout in praise when he noticed that, wherever the sword-light had grazed, droplets of blood the size of beans were beading on the divine body's surface.

"Pay it no mind!"

Supreme God Guangmu roared, and the blood droplets vanished. Its divine form was once again flawless.

Then it unleashed another barrage of multicolored light, surging toward the Calamity Eye.

Sword-light and divine radiance clashed and tangled.

The entire burial chamber quaked from the shockwaves, dust and debris raining down.

The evil spirits dared not approach.

This was a battle beyond their league — the merest brush with a stray tendril of power would reduce them to powder.

No — actually, there was one more being capable of joining the fight.

Mang Shan Jun.

But Mang Shan Jun had no intention of intervening in the clash between Supreme God Guangmu and the Calamity Eye. It had even less interest in taking a side.

All of its attention was fixed on Chen Huangpi.

"Song Jiu, do you see it?"

"My lord, see what?"

"Buddha-nature. An extremely wicked Buddha-nature."

Mang Shan Jun's smile turned cruel. "Before, I hadn't noticed, since my attention was elsewhere. But now that I've been watching this Great King Yellow Skin closely — I can see it. A trace of Buddha-nature. And yes — he's human, not an evil spirit."

"Therefore — he is the Divine Embryo!"

Meanwhile, in a chaotic corner of the burial chamber—

Chen Huangpi and the Yellow Peril were locked in a head-to-head battle.

"You think you can kill me?"

The Yellow Peril sneered. "Without Guangmu helping you, what could you possibly use to kill me?"

Before the words had faded, streams of yellow mud sprayed forward.

But before the mud could touch Chen Huangpi, a tongue of true fire leaped up and incinerated it.

"Without Guangmu, he still has this lamp!"

The Brass Oil Lamp burned with fury. 'Chen Huangpi — hack it to pieces! If so much as a drop of yellow mud touches you, I'll write my name backward!'

"Kill!"

Chen Huangpi charged forward, wreathed in churning black smoke, the dead-branch-turned-blade in hand, and brought it crashing down on the Yellow Peril.

In the blink of an eye, countless arcs of sword qi erupted.

Even the Magic Tree's branches materialized in midair, cracking like whips against the Yellow Peril's body.

And yet—

The Yellow Peril was genuinely difficult to kill.

Even with its mobile temple hacked to rubble, even with its body slashed to muddy pulp, it always reformed.

Even the black smoke could not consume it permanently.

No — more precisely, after the black smoke devoured it—

The Yellow Peril simply resurrected.

"As long as the Yellow Springs endure, I shall never die."

The Yellow Peril cackled. "Chen Huangpi, stop wasting your efforts! If you kneel now and kowtow in apology, I might just spare your life!"

"Shut up!"

Chen Huangpi knew full well the Yellow Peril was bluffing — tough talk to hide its own weakness, trying to provoke him.

In truth, even if he couldn't kill it, it couldn't do a thing to him either.

It wasn't even worthy of killing him.

But just then—

The Yellow Peril called out, "Mang Shan Jun! Didn't you want to taste Chen Huangpi's brain? What are you waiting for?"

"You can't die anyway. What's a few more moments?"

Mang Shan Jun's eerie voice drifted from behind.

The next instant, a four-fingered black claw materialized above Chen Huangpi's head.

"Don't be afraid. I'm very fast — you won't feel any pain..."

"AAAGHHH!"

Mang Shan Jun's hand hadn't even descended when the black smoke struck like a venomous serpent.

Pain — unbearable pain!

"Sever! Sever! Sever!"

Mang Shan Jun howled in agony and severed its own arm. The limb hadn't even hit the ground before the black smoke consumed it entirely.

"Get lost!"

Chen Huangpi's voice was ice. "Come near me again, and I will end you."

With the black smoke shielding him, he feared nothing from this so-called Mang Shan Jun.

A Calamity — so what?

The last Calamity he'd encountered was still wailing inside his Kidney Temple.

And sounding far more miserable than Mang Shan Jun at that.

"This black smoke..."

Mang Shan Jun dared not approach again, eyeing the churning darkness around Chen Huangpi with wary respect.

It hadn't imagined the black smoke would be this terrifying.

Even it could not resist.

Worse — the smoke had devoured even its severed arm's true form.

But—

The more dangerous he proved, the more Mang Shan Jun's obsession with Chen Huangpi grew.

The black smoke, the Supreme God Guangmu fighting in his name, an apparently extraordinary identity—

None of that actually mattered.

What mattered most was the overwhelming Buddha-nature radiating from Chen Huangpi's body.

Mang Shan Jun had been an Arhat enshrined in the West Region Buddha Kingdom. It was inherently sensitive to Buddha-nature.

Before, it hadn't been paying attention.

But now, this close—

That tainted, twisted Buddha-nature was like a drug, making it desperate to swallow Chen Huangpi whole.

"The Divine Embryo! Fated to me!"

Mang Shan Jun wiped the drool from its mouths, its eyes blazing with hunger.