Chapter 526: The Zen Mind Breaks the Tribulation, Revealing the Tathāgata (Part 2)

“How could this be…”

The past flashed before his eyes. Scenes of him and his master, together, played over and over in Yan Sea’s mind. They were his solace during years of suffering, the very source of his will to persevere. Embellished with every recollection, these memories had likely long been warped from their original form—a distortion of his own making.

Fortunately, Yan Sea had already reached the Grandmaster Realm. His spiritual soul was unified and utterly pure, enabling him to trace those memories back to their original form.

He recalled the outside world’s impression of the Tribulation Sword lineage.

Ascetics… Yes. After mastering the Tribulation Sword, his martial brothers had all become grim, silent ascetics.

They had indeed grown numb to the outside world, only truly coming alive in the heat of battle, reveling in the slaughter.

Yan Sea had never seen a problem with their asceticism and numbness, as he had always been that way himself.

But now, after what Yu Fei had told him, he recalled some of the junior brothers who had joined later. They had been so lively at first!

“How could this be!”

‘Yu Fei wouldn’t lie to him. He had no reason to. The Cyan Lotus Sword was right there…’

But why? Yan Sea had cultivated the Frenzied Blood Spirit for many years. Deep down, he had long harbored a secret fear: something was wrong with the Cultivation Technique.

His Qi Blood, Inner Qi, and True Essence all strengthened his physical body against his will. His spiritual soul was being corroded by Evil Qi. The cultivation was excruciating—not even a demonic art should be this agonizing.

He recalled the information Su Yue had found for him: a medieval demonic sect’s method for refining puppets, the Blood Flood Dragon Guard.

That technique was so incredibly similar to the Frenzied Blood Spirit he practiced…

He had always buried these doubts deep within him, but now…

Yan Sea felt like he was being torn in two, just like his fractured life.

One half of him screamed, roared with indignation and fury!

The other half was utterly relieved, relaxed, and at ease.

He had not failed Sima Hong. He owed him nothing.

So agonizing, yet so exhilarating!

In the cultivation of a Grandmaster, the spiritual soul is more vital than True Essence, and superior to the physical body.

In this moment, Yan Sea’s entire worldview suffered an unprecedented blow. This sudden, monumental upheaval triggered a cataclysmic transformation in his spiritual world.

The sea of blood capsized, the blood flood dragon raged out of control, and the lotus platform disintegrated.

At this moment, all the symbols in Yan Sea’s spiritual world clashed violently, attacking and annihilating one another.

Caught in the shockwaves of this violent conflict, Yan Sea’s spiritual form began to fade, dissolving into scattered, shimmering flecks of gold.

BOOM!

The world returned to chaos, like an apocalyptic calamity.

The power Yu Fei had channeled into him was swept away by the shockwaves. Just before it was expelled, he faintly heard Yan Sea chanting a verse.

“Twenty years past, as if in a deep dream!

Today I see myself, and I am finally me!”

Yu Fei only heard those two lines. Looking at Yan Sea’s body, which was as still and lifeless as deadwood, his heart filled with worry. But alas, there was nothing he could do.

All he could do was wait. Whether Yan Sea would overcome this tribulation and be reborn, or simply perish, was all up to his own destiny.

“What a mess!”

Yu Fei felt a surge of frustration.

Su Yue was submerged in the tank. The indicators on the display screen were rising steadily, albeit slowly. Everything was heading in the right direction.

He was genuinely afraid that by the time Su Yue woke up, all he would have to offer them was Yan Sea’s cold, stiff corpse!

‘Teacher! You have such a strong will, don’t mess it all up at the last second!’

Yu Fei could only pray!

Meanwhile, the cataclysm in Yan Sea’s spiritual world was still unfolding, growing even more intense.

In reality, Yu Fei had underestimated Yan Sea. Or rather, everyone had underestimated Yan Sea.

The Frenzied Blood Spirit did indeed originate from the demonic puppet-refining art, the Blood Flood Dragon Guard. In that ancient era, high-level Martial Artists were exceedingly rare and elusive. As such, Gang Qi Martial Artists were considered the supreme power one would encounter in the world.

The Blood Flood Dragon Guard was a method capable of creating puppets at the Grandmaster Realm. When a Martial Artist used this Cultivation Technique to break through to the Dharma-form Grandmaster level, they would be completely consumed by Evil Qi and transformed into a merciless killing machine. A demonic Cultivator could then use a higher-level technique to obliterate the victim’s spiritual soul and seize complete control.

Even so, the technique was incredibly difficult to practice. It required casting tens of thousands of Cultivators into the most brutal battlefields for endless slaughter, all to yield just one or two Grandmaster puppets in the end.

Yet, Yan Sea had managed to reach the Grandmaster Realm with this technique while retaining his sanity, his mind largely unchanged—a testament to his formidable willpower.

Afterward, he switched to cultivating Buddhist mind-arts. The two Buddhist sutras Zhuo Feiming gave him were considered secret transmissions even in medieval Buddhism. It was only because Buddhism had declined in the present day that Yan Sea, a cultivator of demonic arts, had the chance to dabble in this supreme Buddhist Cultivation Technique.

Of the two Buddhist techniques, the Purification Skill was more straightforward; it simply possessed an extraordinary and unique efficacy in purifying Evil Qi.

The more crucial of the two was the Mahaprajna Sutra. Yan Sea had only just begun to practice it, but he had always struggled to grasp its core principles. This difficulty was precisely why Buddhist techniques had fallen into decline.

Such techniques depended on karmic affinity and innate disposition. Without great perseverance and profound wisdom, they were impossible to master. Moreover, one had to enter and overcome tribulations to attain various wondrous Divine Powers, such as realizing the non-abiding nature of the mind, the non-duality of emptiness and form, and Observing the True Reality.

To put it in simple terms: a Cultivator could not practice it for power’s sake. Throughout their cultivation, they had to maintain an inner state of peace and benevolence, and this had to be completely genuine.

It demanded that a Cultivator possess a supreme will and unwavering persistence. They had to endure all manner of trials, demonstrating the ability to both take up and let go of attachments, and through these many tribulations, achieve a radiant wisdom from which Divine Powers would naturally arise.

Even more bizarrely, this technique actually did not place much importance on a Martial Artist’s cultivation aptitude.

Thus, due to these numerous conditions, the Mahaprajna Sutra was left to gather dust on a high shelf. Even modern Cultivation Technique research only explored its philosophical concepts; no one actually chose to practice it.

There were many ways to gain power; why choose the most painful one? And don’t think it was easy just because it didn’t require high aptitude. In fact, having no aptitude requirement made it even harder to succeed.

And Yan Sea… Did he have perseverance? Was he sufficiently benevolent? Was he cultivating the Mahaprajna Sutra for the sake of power?

As for tribulations… was a life of being so thoroughly deceived and wounded not enough?

Within Yan Sea’s spiritual world, an unprecedented transformation was taking place.

The past unfolded before him. Like a detached observer, he reviewed his fifty years of life. Tears streamed down his face—tears of indignation and regret, but ultimately, of release.

“Teacher! Although your motives were impure, you did, after all, give me hope and warmth. I stood guard for you for ten years, staking my entire path on it. I do not owe you!”

Yan Sea kowtowed in the void. Then, with an air of liberation, he sat cross-legged in the emptiness, formed the Three Dharma Seals with his hands, and began to softly chant:

“All conditioned things are impermanent. All dharmas are without self. The five aggregates are not self…

“Behold, the five aggregates are ablaze; the body, a gathering of foam.

The mind, a cascading waterfall; each thought arising without a place to stay.

If there is a ‘self,’ then where can it be found?”

…

“The five aggregates are all empty, illusory, and transformative…

Living beings mistake the mirror for truth, the light for substance, the shadow for the self. Thus arise the notions of a self, a person, a living being, and a life-span…

To see things in this way is to make the fortress of ignorance crumble and the iron chains of ego-attachment unlock on their own.”

…

As Yan Sea continued to chant the scriptures, a sense of great freedom and liberation welled within him. Never in his life had he felt so light, so unbound by form or convention.

He examined his own path and finally reached a conclusion.

‘I’M NOT WRONG! SIMA HONG IS THE ONE WHO’S WRONG!’

If he wasn’t the one in the wrong, then why should he have to perish for it?

With this single shift in thought, it was as if the entire world had opened up before him!

Su Yue was still waiting for him. Yu Fei was worried about him. He still had a band of comrades-in-arms in the Shenxiao Army and a few friends in Tianning County.

And so, Yan Sea recited the closing lines from the third scroll of the Mahaprajna Sutra, a fundamental truth dawning in his heart.

“To see no dharma that can be established is called ‘self’;

To see no dharma that can be destroyed is called ‘no-self’.”

“This is what is meant by ‘all dharmas are without self’—primordially liberated.”

Suddenly, a brilliant light filled his spiritual world. The roiling sea of blood transformed into a tranquil lotus lake. From its waters, a golden dragon emerged, coiling around Yan Sea’s waist and arms.

At the heart of the lake, a lotus platform rose, carrying Yan Sea’s spiritual soul into the air.

The spiritual world had shrunk considerably, now only twenty percent of its original size, but its substance was radiant, its nature resilient, and its spirit vibrantly alive!

His state of mind shattered and was rebuilt. His spiritual world was reforged. In the outside world, Yan Sea’s physical body began to change. It was no longer deathly still and rigid; a boundless vitality was now welling up from within.

Yu Fei was left speechless. The physical body that Teacher Yan Sea had tempered was actually a notch stronger than his own Great Sun Glaze Body at its current stage.

Sensing Yan Sea’s changes, Yu Fei was finally relieved!