Chapter 52
Chapter 52
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 52
>Chapter Title: Danyangzi
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“Thunder?”
The other five massive Buddhas, including Jian Dun, all looked up at the same time. Moments later, they realized that the half-moon that had been visible in the sky earlier had vanished without a trace.
The entire sky was now shrouded in dark clouds, roiling within and emitting constant rumbling sounds. It resembled thunder, but it absolutely was not.
“Cough cough.”
Li Huowang, feeling short of breath, coughed a few times before staggering to the ground.
As he lay there and looked up at the sky, he finally spotted his master again amid the black clouds. He looked as hideous as ever.
Black feathers covered his blood-drenched skin. Where his head should have been, it split open to reveal three faces of different ages.
At this moment, besides his own original organs, his bloated body had sprouted various other things that could never belong to a human.
A nightmare-black gleaming form, pus-like vertical slit pupils, filthy everted innards, coiling aberrant tentacles—all these grotesque horrors were encircled by a white silk ribbon floating ethereally in the air.
Moreover, these vomit-inducing things were not static; they shifted every moment, morphing into even more spine-chilling abominations.
He hadn’t stared for long before Li Huowang’s eyes began to fill with blood. His forehead bulged with veins, and his entire head swelled up like an ancient longevity star’s.
“No, I can’t keep looking.”
Li Huowang, weakened to the extreme, quickly averted his gaze and felt a bit better.
But it wasn’t much better. The nonstop bleeding could still drain him dry.
He reached out with his trembling hand, pulled several Blood Nourishing Pills from his waist to staunch the bleeding, and swallowed them.
The flow of blood in his body slowed, and the bleeding visibly decreased.
But that wasn’t enough. Li Huowang pulled out more pills for fortifying the foundation and nourishing vitality that he had refined back at Clear Wind Temple and popped them into his mouth.
A sudden ripping sound of flesh tearing made Li Huowang’s gaze shift upward.
He saw his master spring into action. The bizarre Danyangzi now clung to the head of the giant Buddha like a lizard, opening his three massive mouths and effortlessly tearing off a plump ear.
With a roar of fury, the hands on the Buddha’s surface behind him curled into claws and swiped toward Danyangzi.
But unexpectedly, the various twisted organs on Danyangzi’s body suddenly swelled, yanking all those hands clean off.
Danyangzi’s three mouths then forcibly tore the wound wider, and he thrust his head inside.
“Ah!!”
The Buddha let out a despairing scream as his plump body began to cave inward and wither.
In mere breaths, blood streamed from all seven orifices, and he crashed heavily to the ground.
When the blood-soaked Danyangzi appeared before the other Buddhas, Jian Dun, looking gravely serious, wasted no time and pulled out a sutra pieced together from black moles.
“Om~ Mani~ Padme~ Hum~”
As Jian Dun sat cross-legged and chanted the six-syllable mantra, the blood-red text on the sutra vanished rapidly, reappearing on Danyangzi’s body.
Covered in the scriptural text, Danyangzi trembled uncontrollably and began to proliferate.
The proliferation didn’t last long before it rapidly shrank, shrinking faster and faster until Danyangzi vanished completely from the spot.
Jian Dun, sweat pouring down his face, let out a slight sigh of relief at the sight. Good thing he’d prepared a backup plan, or they’d really be in trouble.
As he began chanting the six-syllable mantra backward, the text reemerged on the human-skin sutra in his hands.
Seeing not a single character missing, just as Jian Dun was about to close it, the entire book exploded. The text scattered everywhere, and the horrifying Danyangzi burst out from within.
No one saw this coming. Taking advantage of Jian Dun’s instinctive wide-open mouth, Danyangzi’s three heads drilled straight into his throat like an auger.
A tearing sound rang out, and Jian Dun’s neck instantly swelled to the thickness of his head. But this was just the beginning.
Amid excruciating agony, the despairing Jian Dun heard chewing sounds from inside his own body!!
“No!!”
With Jian Dun’s unwilling shout, Danyangzi burst out through his chest cavity, his three mouths yanking in unison.
The remaining three Buddhas tried to struggle, but it was futile. Soon, their efforts were drowned out by the sounds of cracking bones and ripping flesh.
After the time it takes for half a joss stick to burn, the seven Buddhas were gone, leaving only steaming bloodstains on the ground.
As Li Huowang looked toward the blood-soaked Danyangzi, he turned around. All three faces from different stages of life twisted into a meaningful, terrifying smile simultaneously.
“Kid.”
With a soft “poof,” Danyangzi’s body dissipated like smoke and clouds.
Time passed slowly. Moonlight reappeared in the sky, draping a silver veil over everything on the forest path. All settled to dust.
Li Huowang clutched his neck and struggled to sit up. He looked toward the others, still hemmed in by tree trunks. They were scared out of their wits, huddling together like statues.
Seeming to know what they were thinking, Li Huowang hurriedly explained in a weak voice,
“Don’t be afraid, all of you! Don’t be afraid! Danyangzi is really dead this time. He won’t use you as medicine primers anymore.”
Yet his words did nothing to ease the terror on their faces. The Daoist initiates were already sobbing in fright.
In the end, it was Bai Lingmiao, closest to him, who spoke up. Her face was even paler now.
“Senior Brother Li, what... what Danyangzi? We couldn’t see anything.”
Li Huowang swallowed hard with difficulty.
“You couldn’t see the Danyangzi who just killed those Buddhas? Was he invisible to you?”
New suspicions stirred in Li Huowang’s mind.
At that moment, Gouwa, shrinking behind the big man, began trembling even more violently.
He didn’t dare look at Li Huowang, squeezing his eyes shut and shouting through sobs,
“Senior Brother Li!! There was no Danyangzi at all!! It was you the whole time!!”
“What?”
Gritting through the pain, Li Huowang touched his face, feeling sticky, viscous fluid.
Feeling further down, he found his mouth torn open on both sides in long gashes, as if he’d just opened it impossibly wide.
But none of that mattered now. The most important thing was that he felt full—so very full.
(End of chapter)