Chapter 638: Kunlun Sect vs Blood Thunder Sound Temple (14)

They had never imagined eight Flower Realm masters would come.

An outright overwhelming force.

With strength enough to stride through an open gate without a second thought, it was only natural they’d be arrogant enough to assume they could smash any trap to pieces.

That arrogance would get them killed.

Once the Great Blood-Annihilating Heaven Array activated, they were walking corpses.

An extermination array where, inside the most horrific phantasm, the living would wail like children begging for their lives until they collapsed from terror.

But he—being Translucent—and the sect’s blood fiends would not be affected by the Great Blood-Annihilating Heaven Array.

All he needed to do was reap the lives of idiots too frightened to do anything.

How easy could it be.

The Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign was pleased.

Never had he been so satisfied.

He felt as if he had lived for this very moment, a fierce thrill prickling behind the knees.

—Kh-heh-heh... You who dared profane the sacred mountain with those base, filthy bodies—your crime cannot be repaid even in death. Yet I, who follow the compassionate Buddha’s will, will be generous and settle it... with your lives. Commence!

And the sun turned blood-red.

****

A vast, blood-red sun.

Too large to fit in a single gaze.

A baleful star covering half the sky.

Cracks spread across that ill-omened sphere.

Not cracks—eyelids.

Hundreds of millions of eyes opened and swept the earth.

Darkness fell across the ground.

The world inverted.

A universe overlaid in the blink of an eye.

The earth punched through with loose, gaping holes, stinking of raw, bloody meat—its surface turning into the form of half-rotten flesh.

Countless veins snaked out, thudding with a heavy beat.

The mountain-temple halls lost their true shapes and became structures of bone and viscera.

From walls that pulsed and writhed without end, myriads of parasites lashed pallid-yellow tendrils.

In an instant, dozens—hundreds—of arms erupted from the ground and coiled around the living.

Blistered arms, swelling and bursting and budding anew, oozing pus and blood in froth—those arms seized and dragged.

“W-what—l-let go!” “Hiiik—Primeval Lord above!” “Aaaagh!” “Save me!”

Chaos in a heartbeat.

Kunlun’s warriors convulsed, flailing limbs to shake the arms off, hacking to sever them.

But fists and blades passed through as if through empty air—no resistance, like slicing a phantom.

And yet it was no mere vision.

CHOMP—clammy fingers clamped around living torsos.

An endless surge of pus-slick arms clung and hauled, and the living were half-buried in the pulsing flesh-ground, shrieking in broken voices.

The Great Blood-Annihilating Heaven Array.

An extermination array that borrows the power of the filthiest star, spreading its profane phantasm across the land.

Mere mortal courage cannot stand against a star.

They only scream in terror until they die of exhaustion—

A dreadful death-array where they cry themselves hoarse, coughing blood, until they dry up and die.

Which is why Qing—

Eh? Isn’t that the friendless star?

What is this? Why is it showing up so naturally?

Qing squinted up at the sky.

Several of the countless pupils locked eyes with her—and those colorless pupils dilated wide.

A look like, What are you doing here?

And then, as if pretending not to see, they slid their gaze away.

“What... is this?”

Qing was dumbfounded.

Come to think of it, wasn’t this the scenery she’d seen to tedium at the Gate of Entering Demon?

Hers had been decorated to order with that baleful star’s special touches—far more horrific than others’.

Just then—

Sssrrrp—boneless arms stretched toward Qing with wicked intent.

SLAP.

“Excuse you. Where do you think you’re going.”

The pus-blistered hand waggled its palm this way and that as if perplexed.

Why can I touch her? Am I mistaken?

It lengthened again, a wobbling arm surging at Qing—

CRACK!!

Call it a slap, call it a hard palm clash—

Either way, with Qing’s strength, the wrist would have flown apart.

The flesh-arm went spinning.

Then, with the part touching the meat-ground dragged by some unknowable principle, it skittered away in a panic.

Huh. It’s running.

Should she chase it down and yank it out? Qing was still blinking, trying to make sense of this, when—

“Hiiik—n-no—s-stop...!”

A familiar groan—Qing’s head whipped around.

A familiar back of a head, rammed into the ground by a mass of hands.

“Ah—Iri!”

Startled, Qing lunged for Seol Iri and started tearing off the pus-blistered hands.

It did nothing.

Because an array isn’t a physical thing—it’s a phantasm felt by the mind.

Suddenly Qing remembered another array she’d endured.

What did she do then?

Ah. Right.

Qing gave Seol Iri’s cheeks a brisk—SMACK, SMACK.

Sorry, little Gunyeong. No hard feelings.

A hint of light returned to Seol Iri’s wavering gaze.

“True Person Ximen?”

“Come on, come on—focus.”

“I—I can’t move—”

Qing grabbed the forearms jutting from the flesh-ground and yanked, yank, yank.

They came off with dull snaps—no satisfying feel—and though blood and pus streamed from the sheared ends, there was no bone—what?

By the time Qing had pulled a few, Seol Iri pushed herself up and tore the rest off her body.

The hands sprouted anew to seize her—but unlike before, they froze solid before her palm and shattered.

Because Qing’s method—the smack of love—couldn’t free someone from the array’s influence.

It only flipped the recognition: from “untouchable” to “touchable,” courtesy of Qing.

“Haa...!” “Sniff... hic... let me go...” “Gyaaaah! Aaaagh! AAAAAH!”

Well, well. These little—

Qing’s eyes narrowed.

San, panting raggedly; Hee-mae, on the verge of tears; and the mad monk, screaming himself hoarse.

Good grief—my fate. How am I supposed to trust my back to this lot.

She raised her hand to dispense a little love-tap discipline—wake them up—

When someone sprang in, seized her just under both shoulders, and crushed her in a hug.

“My disciple! Are you unharmed?”

Ximen Surin, face taut with urgency.

“Yes. I’m okay. Are you okay, Master?”

“At the level of the Profound, one can tell falsehood from truth. Cheap tricks like this don’t work.”

She let out a visible breath of relief at seeing That Face on Qing.

Then—

“You—y-you tricked me! How dare you! Two Translucent, how—! Y-you—cowards! Cowardly curs! Two Translucent dare to come together—such craven scheming—and you call yourselves orthodox!!”

A voice thundered, livid.

Peeking over Ximen Surin’s shoulder, Qing saw the Sword King cutting, the Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign backpedaling as he parried.

****

The greatest moment of the Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign’s life didn’t last long.

Even when the bald monk charged him with a roar the instant the array unfurled, he’d still felt good.

So—this pseudo who worships a false Buddha had cultivated enough monkish discipline to outlast a phantasm?

Come—let me pop that skull in one strike!

He thrust out his palm; a blood-red handprint, a wall more than ~10 ft across, rose and blasted forth.

The monk stepped big to the side, planted, and punched—BOOM!

The Translucent’s Blood Handprint shattered in a single beat, and the Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign skidded back.

His eyes bulged.

“Hundred-Paces Divine Fist! You—!”

And his life’s greatest moment smashed in one blow.

“You are a vermin of the Blood Cult. So the Blood Thunder Sound Temple has joined hands with the Blood Cult—hooh... Namo Amitābha...”

“Hmph. Too late. The extermination array is active. If I tie you up—”

Right then his face twisted—he gripped his staff in both hands and whipped it across—

CLANG!

A sword of more than ~30 ft carved the sky in half and jammed into the staff’s middle.

The Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign’s legs drove into the earth up to the ankles.

The hapless flesh-ground belched rotten blood that spread in veins.

“Blood Cult, is it. Senior, you might have mentioned. So this is the Great Blood-Annihilating Heaven Array? Heard of it—seeing it in person is far more... mm, grotesque.”

A man strolled in, twirling his blade.

The Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign choked.

“What are you! Are you Translucent too!”

“I am Namgung Daero. People insist on calling me Sword King, which is embarrassing with the Great Mother senior about.”

He said it that way, but there was a quiet pride in the byname.

And honestly—if he was Sword King, “Foremost Under Heaven with the Sword” seemed apt enough.

With the Great Mother as Sword Sovereign, there was no problem with him being Sword King.

The Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign ground his teeth.

“You—you tricked me! How dare you! Two Translucent, how—! Y-you—cowards! Cowardly curs! Two Translucent dare to come together—such craven scheming—and you call yourselves orthodox!!”

“A tiger gives its all even for a rabbit hunt. All the more when it’s a blood-cult vermin—no measure is too much.”

“Ghk—damn you! Ring it!”

DING-A-LING-DING-A-LING-DING-A-LING!

He shook a bell in a frenzy.

The Martial Buddha’s face hardened—he knew that bell.

“Blood fiends...! So you truly—!”

“Bwahahaha!” “Food! Food! Fresh food!” “Hungry! Hungry!” “Yippee—funeral rice!”

THUD-THUD-THUD! The sound of doors opening—no, being smashed open—beat in succession, and waves of crazed shrieks swarmed closer.

“Cowards! I’ll not forget! Here’s your meal! Chew every last Kunlun dog to bits!”

The Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign shouted—and began to ease backward.

“Senior, please see to the Kunlun kids. I’ll handle him.”

“Be careful—he’s a cut above you.”

“I only need to hold.”

In that instant, the Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign, watching for his chance, threw himself away in a leap.

He, after all, was mid-Translucent.

He couldn’t win against the Martial Buddha alone; with the Sword King added, that was suicide.

The Sword King sprang after him.

The reason the Martial Buddha did not give chase was simple.

“GAAAAAL!!!”

Shaolin’s famed Lion’s Roar rolled wide.

The energy of “breaking the perverse and revealing the right”—the orthodox method that smashes falsehood.

A colossal voice swept the hall like a wind—whooosh—and the pus-dripping, boneless arms broke down into powder and blew away.

Kunlun’s warriors—who had been screaming and convulsing—stopped moving at once.

“Huh?” “I—I was being dragged under...”

“Wake up! Lend your ears to the Dharma and break free of the corrupt phantasm! Monsters are coming—form the sword array outside the formation—!”

A thought flashed through the Martial Buddha’s mind.

If one has not realized the Profound, the living cannot escape an array.

In that case—where have the temple’s lamas all gone?

He looked toward the Blood Thunder Sound Temple’s gate.

At some point the great door had shut.

It had been open when they entered—if someone had closed it from outside, then the rest of the monks must be outside, waiting to pounce on any who fled.

“Monsters are coming! Everyone—unfold [N O V E L I G H T] the sword formation!”

He bellowed and chanted the Mahāprajñāpāramitā—Sutra of the Diamond—loudly as he moved among the Kunlun warriors.

They were still in the middle of the array; only by maintaining the Lion’s Roar in Dharma’s form could he keep their minds from slipping.

Meanwhile, Ximen Surin met Qing’s eyes.

“There is something I must entrust to you. The Great Blood-Annihilating Heaven Array borrows a baleful star’s power. I feared you would be affected more than others—groundless worry. Since you are unaffected, you must break the array.”

“What should I do?”

“At the array’s center there will be a sacrifice offered to the baleful star. Find it and kill it. I must aid the Namgung House, and that fellow Muhak will be bound up chanting the Roar.”

She hid one more reason.

She had already heard, in her disciple’s cheerful babble, that blood fiends did not attack her.

So going alone would be far safer than guarding Kunlun’s warriors.

“Then, I leave it to you.”

“Yes—leave it to me!”

Ximen Surin gave a faint smile; her sword flew free, circled once, and set itself as a low track beneath her feet.

Lightly alighting upon it, she slid away at speed, chasing after the Sword King.