Chapter 643: Kunlun Sect vs Blood Thunder Sound Temple (19)

It was the wretched look of the Foremost of Tibet.

His skull was split and bleeding; one eye was so swollen he couldn’t even open it, and his nose had long since bent vertical, pouring out twin streams of blood.

His robes had not a single intact panel left—reduced to rags that showed stringy, gaunt flesh in strips.

The three Translucent-realm elders had sheathed their edges.

Of course, Martial Buddha Muhak doesn’t use a blade, but Ximen Surin and Sword King Namgung Daero had actually put their swords away and were swinging the scabbards.

Thanks to that, it was all the racket of a straight beating.

The Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign floundered, at a loss, doing nothing but get hit and scrabble to flee in panic.

But his leg was already injured so he limped, and three fingers dangled loose—hm. And still, the little bastard’s toughness is downright incredible.

To onlookers it would seem like three on one, a merciless assault.

And yes, even to me, that’s how it looks.

But I caught the elders’ intent.

They’re driving him without intent to kill—aiming to take him alive.

Probably smash all four limbs, shatter the core, and lock him in the Repentance Hall.

It seems the Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign has realized as much; he’s guarding his feet with desperation.

He flails his arms to block every attack headed for his legs—CRACK!

Ah. There goes a forearm too.

It is immensely cathartic, a sight that blows a hole clean through the chest.

It is—winning......

Mm. Master, Elder, is this... right?

You know, the exalted pageant of high-level martial arts the Translucent masters are supposed to display—

Ah, Master, the Great-Sage Shakes-Heaven Demon-Staff!

Oh. You’re beating him with the Great-Sage Shakes-Heaven Demon-Staff.......

Even while the three pound one, Ximen Surin keeps her hands behind her back and holds a poised, elegant figure.

It’s a teensy bit impious to say, but isn’t this why Master perfected the Sword-Rider art?

She’s said it countless times: a woman of arms must keep dignity and beauty and be an exemplar.

Even now, in the middle of a brutal thrashing, she alone stands as a lofty beauty.

I shift my focus off the Translucent elders.

At this rate he’ll be dragged over soon enough with all four limbs broken.

****

The hundredth, no, the thousandth, or the ten-thousandth Main Hall (Jeokgwangjeon)?

The unknown light bleeding through the paper lattice doors sits a murky yellow, as if a dim afternoon; time can’t be reckoned, and the instant stretches long as eternity.

The lamas of Blood Thunder Sound Temple do nothing but run and keep running, cutting across the endless interior of a Buddha hall.

They can’t remember where they came from—everything is vague—and when they come to, they realize everyone else is gone, and they’re alone and heaving for air.

“[Master? Jutan? Jaom?]”

The lama murmurs like he’s questioning himself.

Some instinct, a dread that says he mustn’t make a loud sound.

At some point the world goes quiet—perfect quiet without any sound at all.

Because there is no other sound, only the noises he himself makes boom out.

For the first time in his life, the lama realizes how loud his own breath is, how riotously his heart pounds like thunder.

Suddenly, the world heats up.

There is no other way to say it.

A sixth sense—a boundless ill-omen soaking into the upper dantian—hurls a violent premonition.

Something fearful is coming! Something harmful is coming!

Your end is coming!

And—DRRRRK!

“Aaagh!!”

The lama screams and shoots out his palm.

The Blood Handprint flashes and rips across, smashing the chest of the uninvited guest who opened the door and stepped in.

Stench collapses to the floor.

A voice boils with blood as it spills out.

“[M-Master? How—]”

Only then does the lama grasp the intruder’s identity.

He’s one of the junior allocation disciples whose attainment is far lower—the youngest.

“[W-what have I done!?]”

But the disciple’s chest is caved in.

“[Kh-hak!]”

With his last cough, spatter of blood patters across the lama’s face.

The disciple’s body slackens into a heap.

The lama stares down blankly at him.

That instant.

DRRRRRK!! With a racket, every door of the Main Hall flies open at once.

And from every door, a lama steps out.

Among them, Lhundup Rinchen sees a lama collapsed with a wounded man in his arms, starts, and rushes over.

“[W-what—What has happened! Who dares—!]”

“[I-it’s... The disciple, the disciple...]”

The lama squeezes his eyes shut.

An accident—nothing but a misfortune.

“[......I do not know for certain.]”

“[How—How could this......]”

Lhundup Rinchen is chanting with a devastated face when—

TONG-TONG-TONG-TONG......!

From a place immeasurably far away, a clatter like iron sheets falling races toward them.

The lamas’ expressions harden.

Because the sound is coming fast.

And because it is charging in from every direction all at once.

“[Master! What should we—!?]”

One lama clutches Lhundup Rinchen’s lapel.

It’s the height of irreverence, but those pleading fingers lay bare his desperation.

Yet Lhundup Rinchen has no answer to give.

When the sound is drawing near from every direction, where could one even flee?

TONG-TONG-TONG!!

All at once the sound is much closer.

Without meaning to, the lamas sidle toward the place farthest from the noise—into the very middle of the Main Hall, the point farthest from all four sides—and huddle together.

Then—TONG-TONG-TONG!! TONG!!! TONG!!!!

The final crash booms right at hand.

From the room across, the Main Hall opposite.

The lamas swallow in unison.

SCREEEECH......!

With the sound of wood twisting, the paper-latticed walls on the four sides of the Main Hall tilt backward.

To the huddled lamas clinging to one another, the scene behind the falling walls is revealed.

A colossal auditorium set in the round.

Endlessly tiered and raked upward, the stands run on into the far darkness—an infinite gallery of seats.

And in them, packed full, translucent human shapes glare down at the lamas, each with only its stark, wide-opened eyes—dull, dead pupils without a gleam—aimed at them.

TONG!!

At last, the crash as the walls finish falling flat.

And on one side—the direction where the Principal Buddha of the Main Hall had stood—a great barrier rises, and leaning his torso against it, a gigantic human figure.

A giant wearing a judge’s cap.

The instant they perceive him, the lamas recognize who it is.

Yama. Lord Yama.

“[I will render judgment!]”

With a voice like thunder rolling in, the giant pronounces an icy sentence.

“[Revival for ten thousand years, Black Rope for ten thousand years, Crushing for ten thousand years, Screaming for ten thousand years, Great Screaming for ten thousand years, Heating for ten thousand years, Great Heating for ten thousand years, Avici for ten thousand years—one full round—repeat it ten thousand times!]”

He named the worst hells, the Eight Hot Hells buried deepest in the Buddha-teachings.

A ghastly punishment: rotate through the Eight Hot Hells for ten thousand years each, and do that ten thousand times.

The lamas plop down where they stand.

Being disciples of the Buddha-law, they know all the more how cruel a sentence that is.

Only one man holds his feet—the abbot, Lhundup Rinchen. With knees trembling, he somehow manages to look up at the judge of the underworld.

“[Lord Yama! There must be—there must be some mistake! We are practitioners who dispense the Buddha-law for the salvation of all living beings! How can you consign us to hell!]”

At that, Yama’s face twists, and a voice laden with hatred peals out.

Those who killed the innocent—Revival!

Those who dispensed evil sermons—Black Rope!

You murdered to glut your greed—Crushing!

You murdered to fill your bellies—Great Screaming!

You deceived and harmed others—Great Heating!

And those who claimed the Buddha’s name and profaned it—Avici!

“[When did the Buddha ever teach you to kill for your people! You ask because you do not know your sins? Your sins have already borne witness here!]”

“[We only—]”

“[That one killed me! Because I followed the customs of the Central Plains!]”

A ragged scream cuts off Lhundup Rinchen’s words.

“[That bastard gathered bandits and ordered murder! My corpse is still frozen in the cold mountains and cannot close its eyes!]”

“[He did this to me—]” “[That fiend—]” “[That one—]”

From the infinite stands, the pallid shapes rise and point their fingers.

Lhundup Rinchen’s face locks stiff.

“[How miserably you squirm! In life you never shut your mouths, boasting you would go to hell yourselves while you committed evil—yet before judgment you would claim grievance and try to refuse!]”

“[We, we only......]”

His words trail away.

If we do not go to Hell, who will.

For the long-held wish of the Tibetan people, I will gladly take the lead and open the precept of killing.

Suddenly, the voice he used as a verbal tic seems to sound from within himself.

A sticky reek of blood creeps up; Lhundup Rinchen drops his gaze, and his hands are—when did they become so—smeared all over with blood, shaped into something foul.

His expression empties by degrees.

Then—

“[Your sins are not yours alone!]”

A stern voice.

Lhundup Rinchen snaps his head up.

A heart sinking into an endless ill omen.

A premonition that words worse than anything are about to follow.

“[Your greatest sin is that you preached sin with a perverse teaching; your people distorted the Buddha’s will and brought it to shame. Thus your people, not one excepted, will all suffer in hell! Because of your sin—because you whispered evil and led them to be sinners! Because of you!]”

“[L-Lord Yama! No! How, how can you lay our sin upon our people—]”

“[Because you taught that killing is righteous, that pillage is virtuous, that all the sins committed by invasion are only natural.]”

“[Then hold us to account—]”

“[Sin cannot be borne by another! Your people will never be born human again; they will revolve only as beasts and suffer forever! So shall your people vanish from the saha-world, and the severity of the law of the afterlife be made a stern teaching known to all!]”

“[No! Not that! We will, in their stead—]”

That instant.

Into the dim underworld, a baleful radiance strikes, and a hideous color unseen in the world begins to fill every side.

A monstrous celestial body fills the sky before anyone knows it.

In every direction, tens of thousands of ominous colors that exist nowhere in the world whirl and lash, and a baleful star hangs a vast, hollow eye.

“[What is this! Who dares obstruct the execution of the underworld! You—no, you mustn’t! Quickly! Get the sinners into hell at once!]”

Lord Yama’s urgent command.

From every side, guardian generals with cocks’ heads pour down.

As they close the distance on the lamas all at once—

Tok.

A drop of water.

One bead of unwholesome light falls at the lamas’ feet.

And then—

A silver lake expands at infinite speed and shoves the scene of the underworld back in every direction.

In an instant, the underworld vanishes.

Only the furious voice of Yama echoes faintly.

“[Judgment upon you utterly wicked sinners has already been rendered. This is but a brief reprieve—nothing can change the future that is already fixed......]”

A world reflects in the lamas’ eyes.

Only a silver horizon with nothing upon it.

And then the most evil gaze in the world, the most baleful voice in the world, drives straight into the lamas’ heads.

[You are the offerings dedicated to me.]

[By you I have spread my domain over the saha-world; the bargain is already done.]

And an image rams into their minds.

The Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign, with a crooked smile and a jeer: O Baleful Star, I offer up these wretches as sacrifice. Lend me your power and reveal yourself to the world with the Great Blood-Annihilating Heaven Array.

And the baleful star whispers on.

[You are mine now.]

[It would be best to fight to the death to live.]

[After your deaths, the hell prepared for you awaits in any case.]

[Now—struggle.]

At the same time, the world begins to collapse.

Far off, a door rears up and flings brazen radiance.

The lamas dash as one.

With faces more desperate than anyone in the world—and packed with nothing but desperation.