Chapter 65
Chapter 65
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: [Unnumbered]
Chapter Title: Defeat of the Evil Bodhisattva
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Young Master Xiao's carriage, along with Li Jindou inside it, flew out and slammed into the cliffside with a bang. The carriage shattered to pieces, and the four exotic steeds were smashed into pulp.
The coachman tried to petrify himself before colliding with the cliff wall. However, the Evil Bodhisattva's power was too overwhelming—even turned to stone, he was still smashed to fragments!
Li Jindou forced down the fresh blood surging into his throat, only to hear the crack of porcelain from his legs. Looking down, he saw that both his legs had been shattered by the Evil Bodhisattva's strike.
A wave of desolation washed over his heart. Without his legs, his standing in the Li family would plummet. He wondered if he could still protect Li Tianqing and her son.
"Why am I dwelling on this? Tianqing and I might both die on Qianyang Mountain!"
Li Jindou pushed off hard with both hands and leaped into the air. Six Yin Jade Wheels whirled around his body, howling as their power grew ever fiercer. Ahead, the Evil Bodhisattva caught Jin Hongying's sword qi in one hand. Dozens of strands of sword qi rang out sharply—ching, ching, ching—before merging into one.
The sword qi's power exploded upward, only for the Evil Bodhisattva to crush it with a snap!
The Sheep Horn Heavenly Spirit Lamp shot forward, shining on the demonic soul. Granny Sha's soul fused with her divine embryo. Chanting the Supreme Eight Trigrams Bodyguard Register, she lifted her foot along with her soul and stomped down hard. Black qi roiled up instantly, and a cyan stone path unrolled from beneath her feet with a clattering rush. The surrounding mountains and rivers warped strangely, as if to drag the Evil Bodhisattva into the underworld!
"Come stir up chaos in the underworld with this old lady!"
The stone path reached the Evil Bodhisattva's feet. Granny Sha unleashed every ounce of her power, her face twisting somewhat ferociously as blood seeped from the corners of her mouth and eyes. Warm blood streamed from her nostrils in two crimson rivulets.
"Down to the underworld together!"
She bellowed fiercely, and the Evil Bodhisattva's body had already sunk halfway into the underworld.
That underworld was a realm of horror and gloom. Bony hands reached out from the encircling darkness, clawing toward the pair on the cyan stone path—utterly unlike the sights from the River of Forgetfulness before.
Even the Evil Bodhisattva felt a chill of fear. He stomped down hard, and the cyan stone path crumbled beneath his godlike, crushing might. Granny Sha hacked up a gush of blood and collapsed to her knees, drained of all strength.
"Chii!"
A streak of cold light flashed through, piercing the Evil Bodhisattva's heart and bursting from his chest before veering straight for his brow—heaven's gate. It was the Little Shrike Sword.
The shrike—a bird most skilled at snatching others mid-flight, impaling them on thorns, pecking open their skulls, and devouring their brains.
Young Master Xiao had named this little sword of his the Shrike Sword for precisely that reason.
It excelled at piercing chests and cracking skulls. Even grand monks and lamas who had forged diamond-indestructible bodies—several had fallen to it.
Yet just as the Shrike Sword neared the Evil Bodhisattva's brow, it halted as if seized by an invisible grip, frozen an inch shy, unable to press forward!
One of the Evil Bodhisattva's faces fixed on the Little Shrike Sword. The blade quivered faintly, then began to warp and distort!
"You sacrificed your soul into this sword, merging man and blade as one."
Another of the Evil Bodhisattva's faces glared murderously at Young Master Xiao. The Young Master had lost all his former refined poise. Instead, his body twisted and deformed just like the Little Shrike Sword, gripped head to toe by some unseen force and locked into its very pose!
"No wonder you pierced my heart. But with your soul in the sword, you've handed me the perfect chance to kill you."
At the Evil Bodhisattva's chest, strands of muscle writhed like leeches and worms, weaving and gnashing together to mend the punctured organ.
It wrenched suddenly. The Little Shrike Sword's blade twisted a full rotation—and Young Master Xiao's body followed suit. Bones cracked loudly, blood rushed to his head, and his face swelled beet-red, as if bleeding.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
Six jade wheels streaked in. Li Jindou channeled everything he had into driving them, slashing at the Evil Bodhisattva to rescue Young Master Xiao. But the creature flung up its six arms, splaying six palms. The six jade wheels froze midair, crushed ever smaller by its immense magic power.
A series of bangs—and the Six Yin Jade Wheels shattered.
"How many can you stop?"
Li Jindou screamed in frenzy. The air around him shuddered wildly as Six Yin Jade Wheels erupted from him in a suicidal torrent, so many that even the Evil Bodhisattva furrowed his brows. Then a single glance swept over. Li Jindou, hovering in midair, petrified on contact—transformed into a legless porcelain doll plummeting earthward.
He had poured all his magic into the jade wheels, leaving himself defenseless against the Evil Bodhisattva's power. The petrification spread with terrifying speed.
He was about to smash onto the rocks and shatter when Jin Hongying darted in from the side. She became a fluttering red gown, sweeping up the porcelain Li Jindou.
Jin Hongying took the weight of the falling porcelain figure without breaking, though sorely wounded. She shifted from gown to human form and tried to rise when the Evil Bodhisattva's gaze swept across her.
Damn, she thought, and sought to flee as a red gown. But the crimson fabric had barely lifted—baring her fragrant shoulder in mid-flight—when she petrified too, frozen stiff.
Granny Sha clutched the Sheep Horn Heavenly Spirit Lamp, struggling to stand unsteadily when the Evil Bodhisattva's gaze found her. She became a porcelain figurine of a hunched crone gripping the lamp, utterly still.
"Now, only you remain."
The Evil Bodhisattva's eyes settled on Young Master Xiao. Rather than petrify him, it twisted the Little Shrike Sword, delighting in how his body contorted and spun in sync.
It savored the thrill of torturing lives.
Suddenly, it sensed deadly peril closing in—a peril that hurled it back to the day that man had captured it, when it had felt so frail and helpless.
It whipped toward the threat, only to have half its vision drowned in golden light: a blaze of glory, hazy with the forms of gods or immortals drifting amid the radiance. A spectacle for mortals, but agony for it. Black, sticky tears oozed from its myriad eyes.
"This is sorcery."
Realization dawned. It glared at the towering figure emerging from the glow and roared, eager to wring Young Master Xiao into pulp before charging the intruder.
But then it felt alien energies swirling around its body—yet spied no spells.
Spells were manifesting all around it instead, encasing it tight.
Its instincts could shatter most mortal spells, but trapped inside—how to break free?
It abandoned Young Master Xiao. Eight arms lashed out in a frenzy, unleashing havoc to sunder mountains and fill seas. Yet the spells around it reformed instantly after each breach: simple fire talismans and water talismans at first, then Five Elements Mountains, Eight Trigrams Furnaces, Nine Palaces, Twelve Elemental Phases, Twenty-Eight Mansions, Thirty-Six Heavenly Gang Stars, Seventy-Two Earthly Fiends.
In the searing golden blaze, phantoms of countless gods and immortals bore down, pounding its body to ruin time and again, scouring away its flesh!
It dissolved into a cloud of demonic qi and a lump of near-indestructible meat, new blue-and-white porcelain skin sprouting ceaselessly. Destruction and rebirth cycled without end!
Young Master Xiao seized the moment to reclaim his Shrike Sword and gazed at the Evil Bodhisattva. All around it swirled a Luotian Grand Rite: twelve hundred divinities of the Huaxia God Continent, each conjured from unique talismans, registers, and seals.
Talismans were imagistic spells—patterns dominant, script supportive.
Registers invoked gods' and demons' true names—script dominant, patterns supportive.
Seals spoke the tongue of gods and demons.
What he beheld was their fusion: twelve hundred God Continent divinities jointly refining the demon!
"Supreme spellcraft..."
Young Master Xiao dabbed blood from his lips with a handkerchief.
"The last time was in West Capital."
The Evil Bodhisattva could not fight back.
It was not unwillingness—it was impossibility. No spellcraft or stratagem could stand against the Luotian Grand Rite's apparition.
It knew death loomed: total erasure, utter oblivion!
Panic gripped it, terror just like its countless victims.
"So I too am but an ant."
That thought struck, then it spotted the foe's frailty and burst into狂 laughter.
"You're Chen Yindu—another speck of evil, another undead wretch! We're kin! Why cling so desperately? Moonlight's already tainted you. You're just guarding that Dao heart of yours. Ha! So brittle—the moonlight's eroded your spirit this far!"
Writhing amid the Luotian Grand Rite, its qi and flesh dwindling, it exulted all the same.
"You're bottling your urges, warring with your essence! Wrong, Chen Yindu—you died long ago. You're a walking corpse, an evil! Let me lend a hand!"
Young Master Xiao glimpsed it then: amid the Luotian's golden blaze, the gods grew tarnished. Forms warped, faces turned savage, limbs sprouted like tentacles into nameless horrors!
"Master Chen's corrupted!"
Shock jolted him.
"Yes—exactly!"
The Evil Bodhisattva whooped in rapture.
"Indulge those urges wildly! No holding back, no suppression! Unleash them, feed them—you'll be just like me!"
The Luotian gods darkened further, twisting vile. Foul thoughts stained them into fiends more deranged and wicked than the Evil Bodhisattva itself!
Boom!
Thunder crashed. Golden light erupted from Chen Yindu's crown, rocketing skyward to clash with the Evil Bodhisattva's old demonic domain.
The gold swiftly blackened, bleeding across the domain's membrane in rivulets that spread wide.
More—it expanded outward, shoving the once-stable hundred-li domain farther!
The dragon banners Provincial Governor Zhao Tianbao had arrayed around the domain's edge swayed unsteadily. The golden dragons crouched atop it faltered in their suppression.
Abruptly, the dragons wounded, they rose against their will, dissolving into golden rays that fled into the banners!
Heavenly Dragon Demon-Locking Array—breached! Its guardians reeled in horror and spurred their mounts hell-for-leather toward Xinxiang Province to alert Governor Zhao Tianbao.
By his arrival, the domain had swollen another li or so!
"How can this be?"
Zhao Tianbao paled in dismay, at a loss.
"Yes—just like that! Shun no so-called rites or morals to chain yourself. At birth, humanity knows no rites, no morals—desire alone drives us."
Within the Luotian Grand Rite, the Evil Bodhisattva—refined down to a fist-sized clump—raved on in ecstasy.
"Cultivators seek rebirth's purity! Does an infant grasp bonds, rites, morals? Shed those fetters, loose your cravings—you'll find new realms! Chen Yindu, we're alike: true persons, their so-called demons!"
Mumbling drifted from Chen Yindu's lips like a trance.
"You're right. We cultivate for infant purity, for utter freedom. Rites and morals must not bind us."
The Luotian Grand Rite faded away.
The Evil Bodhisattva, all but form and soul extinguished in the spells' forge, somehow endured. As the rite dissolved, it reformed—palm-sized now, still four-faced and eight-armed.
It guffawed, standing beside Chen Yindu: one giant, one dwarf—an absurd sight.
Young Master Xiao's heart plummeted.
The Evil Bodhisattva flailed its four arms, its voice a deafening thunder.
"Polluted mortals are the demons—we're the true ones! Chen Yindu, abandon all to become ultimate. First, slay your grandson..."
It got no further. The demonized elder's aura shifted.
"Slay my grandson?"
The Evil Bodhisattva started. It jerked its head up to see a colossal foot like a black mountain plummeting down!
"Slay my grandson!"
Rage incarnate, the elder pulped it underfoot. The mud-flesh squirmed, reforming—only for the foot to crash down anew. Darkness swallowed all as the stomp hurled the Evil Bodhisattva toward the underworld!
Boom!
The underworld quaked. A titanic foot sole plunged from above, pinning the Evil Bodhisattva and smashing it through, obliterating form and spirit alike!
"Slay my grandson... be on your way!"
Demonic qi erupted from Chen Yindu, blasting apart the Evil Bodhisattva's crimson domain and leaving only a swelling dark one behind.
Violence seethed fiercer within him. Teeth lengthened madly; hunger for flesh surged. His eyes snapped to Young Master Xiao.
"Master Chen..."
Young Master Xiao's hand jerked beyond control. The churning dark domain had ballooned to 120 li across, rolling up to Zhao Tianbao and his retinue.
Xinxiang Province's might—every expert—flanked the governor, all forced back step by step.
They roared as one, souls and spirits flaring to resist—yet skidded rearward under the crush.
Despair reigned. This new domain defied all force!
Suddenly, the dark domain halted its creep.
"It's you, Young Master Xiao—I thought you were some villain." On Qianyang Mountain, Chen Yindu's wits cleared in a flash. He smiled at Young Master Xiao.
Young Master Xiao exhaled in shaky relief—then spotted a black-clad youth on a distant boulder, oiled paper umbrella in hand. It was the spirit of Great Serpent Xuanshan. Xuanshan and the umbrella had quelled Chen Yindu's demonic surge.
"Kid Du, you can't linger in the mortal world any longer."
The black-clad Xuanshan spoke.
"Xuanshan, grant me time—a few days more. Let me bid farewell."
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