ATPnovel Chapter 714 - 315: Buddha Will Not Save Me (Part 2)
Chapter 714 - 315: Buddha Will Not Save Me (Part 2)
Died a hundred years ago?The stronghold of the Five Immortals Sect was destroyed sixty years ago by the demons of Wansui Mountain. Did someone use Sun Daoming’s identity, or did Sun Daoming only feign death in the past?
He was bewildered.
But at this moment, Jin Buhuan conveyed another message.
"Brother Xu, there’s something you need to know. This Sun Daoming is from the same hometown as Han Wangshan you’re looking for! Both are from Yunmeng Plain in Wan Chuan State, and Sun Daoming is Han Wangshan’s Guiding Daoist!"
Xu Guang was startled.
This...
A premonition arose in him, urging him to visit Yunmeng Plain.
He didn’t know why he felt this way, but the feeling was overwhelming, almost like a sudden impulse.
It was as if not going to Yunmeng Plain meant a lifetime of regret.
Xu Guang was somewhat resistant to this feeling, as if he were being drawn by some terrifying power.
After contemplating in the dungeon for a long time, he decided to go anyway.
Once he confirmed with General Wei that the aura of the Wansui Fox King was no longer present, Xu Guang finally decided to leave.
He didn’t leave from the ground but used the Concealed Return Divine Techniques, aided by the Five-Colored Divine Light, to shuttle underground.
If someone saw him escaping underground using such divine light as the Five-Colored Divine Light, they’d likely be amazed.
Under the disregard for the depletion of vitality.
In just over an hour, Xu Guang exited the territory of Wansui Mountain.
Two more hours later.
Xu Guang had traveled six thousand miles and arrived at Yunmeng Plain.
The terrain was flat, and it was already night. The sky seemed like a vast cover, with the galaxy hanging low and the brilliant starlight seemingly within reach, forming an incomparably splendid canopy casting over the lands, breathtakingly beautiful.
It seemed worlds apart from the demonic land filled with killing intent and ominous aura from a couple of hours ago.
Xu Guang quietly advanced, gazing at this place of stunning beauty.
It was truly a dream-like place.
...
In an unknown place.
Yan Zhen sat on the ground, with an astounding Buddhist aura emanating from him, seemingly with a light reaching the heavens, but he couldn’t break through this place.
This was an expansive black lotus world. However, it wasn’t a sightless black but a spiritual space containing peculiar powers, where all darkness gave a feeling of infinite hope.
It was like... a sacred black lotus.
The purity and ominousness intertwined, as though carved from the purest onyx. Each petal flowed with tranquil, profound dark light, both devouring everything and nurturing an inexpressible "hope" — a twisted peace that could lead one to indulge.
Yan Zhen sat cross-legged at the center of the black lotus, shrouded in Buddhist light that was originally as radiant as the sun. Yet, it appeared as if being bound by invisible shackles, striving to break through the barriers of this space but only stirring ripples at the lotus petal’s edge, ultimately unable to break free.
That light struggled, carrying a barely noticeable... anxiety.
Before him, a massive image floated, clearly reflecting the scene in a hidden gorge of Wan Chuan State — Mu Yusheng, the Tianya Saint Heir, with a gentle jade-like appearance, stood before a crystal-like coffin.
Inside the coffin lay his childhood sweetheart, Yu Luolian.
But at that moment, the gentleness on Mu Yusheng’s face was replaced by a near pathological fervor and greed.
His hands formed bizarre seals, with strands of gray-black airflow surging from his fingertips, entwining around the coffin, extracting, and refining Yu Luolian’s nearly exhausted essence!
The coffin slightly trembled, and the figure inside seemed to endure immense pain, unable to utter a sound.
"Look, Yan Zhen, this is the world you once wished to enlighten."
A deep, enticing voice resonated throughout the black lotus world, omnipresent yet formless and intangible, as if emerging from Yan Zhen’s own heart,
"Compassion? Heh, what did compassion bring? It brought Han Wangshan a century of solitary waiting, ultimately turning into flying ash, without seeing his beloved one last time! It brought Mu Yusheng, a demon in human skin, harming comrades, and devouring kin!"
Yan Zhen’s face was expressionless, akin to a golden sculpture. Yet upon close scrutiny, within his seemingly closed eyes, eternal compassion and serenity were being devoured by a blazing anger. That anger was not mundane wrath but stemmed from extreme disappointment and helplessness, an accumulation of witnessing countless tragedies and yet being confined by rules, unable to lend a hand.
His hands resting on his knees, the knuckles turned slightly pale from exertion.
In the image, Mu Yusheng’s refinement seemed to reach a critical point. Yu Luolian’s face visibly withered, with vitality dwindling like a candle in the wind.
Mu Yusheng’s smile grew brighter, filled with a chilling sense of satisfaction.
"What are you still persisting with? Your ’This Moment, That Moment’ magic, peering into past and future, discerning the threads of causality, ought to wield supreme power to set things right! And yet? You adhere to those laughable commandments, saying nothing can modify history arbitrarily, nothing can disturb what’s predetermined! And now? Are you going to watch Han Wangshan head to doom, observe Ye Xihan being trapped in the Emperor Tower, and this innocent woman being refined alive by her senior brother?"
The demonic voice sharpened, piercing into Yan Zhen’s heart spirit.
"Look at this mortal world! The Sea of Bitterness is endless, where’s the shore? Malevolent thoughts proliferate, when will they cease? Don’t you feel it? That taste of powerlessness! That pain of having power yet being merely a spectator! It’s like being in the unending hell, enduring the agony of a burning heart daily!"
Yan Zhen’s breathing quickened imperceptibly. Numerous scenes flashed through his mind — Han Wangshan’s resilience amidst humiliation in the Ocean’s Eye and his final resolute transformation into a boat.
Ye Xihan’s curled, lonely figure inside the Emperor Tower.
That girl named Xiao Lian...
On countless timelines, countless tragedies, injustices, struggles, and despair surged into his heart like tides, assaulting the Zen heart he had preserved for countless years.
"Rules? Commandments? They’re nothing but shackles of comfort for the weak! True compassion is ending suffering! It’s eradicating evil! It’s using thunderous means to display a Bodhisattva’s heart! Yan Zhen, take action! Cross over the trivial time boundaries, return to the past, and extinguish Mu Yusheng’s evil thought at its inception! For you, it’s as easy as retrieving something from a pocket!"
The demonic voice roared, full of provocation and temptation.
"Let this filthy human world operate according to your will! Let this endless tragic song end in your hands! This is true compassion! This is true transcendence! This is... the Great Tathagata!!"
Finally, Yan Zhen’s seemingly closed eyes snapped open!
Those eyes, originally as clear as a newborn, containing infinite wisdom and compassion, now bore a layer of deep dark gold, and deep within, the calm lake was replaced by a vortex of dark flames!
An unprecedented aura, bearing dual meanings of destruction and rebirth, erupted from him violently, temporarily breaking part of the black lotus world’s restraints, making the entire space tremble violently.
He slowly lifted his hand, surrounded by a strange power interweaving radiant golden brilliance and profound darkness instead of pure Buddhist light—that was the form of the "This Moment, That Moment" Divine Techniques tainted by anger and obsession.
"This kind of power... is indeed marvelous, is this the reason you turned to demonic paths back then? In this moment and that, spanning numerous times, turning false to true?"
The demonic voice suddenly halted, as if sensing a difference in Yan Zhen.
This was not a complete fall to demonic paths.
Yan Zhen slowly loosened his hand, the sinister power at his fingers slowly dissipating, "If it were me from two thousand years ago, I might have done as you wished. I’m very grateful to Qin Cultivator of the past, for killing me once in Li Taizhou, for my fall into the Void Realm for two thousand years, to comprehend ’This Moment, That Moment’..."
"I am not the Great Tathagata, nor the Great Formless."
The demonic voice increasingly sensed something amiss as its voice grew more grand, causing the entire black lotus space to become even more sacred.
"But you can become the new Great Tathagata."
"I am not you, Emperor Shitian."
"It seems this time, you’ve failed again."
As the words ended, the black lotus space collapsed with a roar, countless starlight fragments spreading across the space.
Yan Zhen slowly opened his eyes, slightly lifted his head, and brought his hands together as if offering gratitude to the unseen existence within the Emperor Tower in the sky.