"Spoiling your cultivation, ruining your merit?"
Quinn Shepherd sneered, slashing at another chain. "You're nothing but a bronze Buddha effigy—where would merit come from? Your so-called merit is just suppressing Serena Clearbrook here, and you sit idly by while she devours people right in front of you. If you ever had any merit, it's long since been squandered!"
The colossal Buddha's body shuddered. Blood-like patterns erupted with radiance across its bronze core, and the outer gold leaf made it gleam like a dazzling golden Buddha. Its voice boomed, "Do you realize, by releasing her, how many people she'll devour, how many lives she'll destroy?"
"All I know is, she's hiding countless corpses behind your back and using you to commit evil. I've never seen you do anything about it."
Quinn severed the second chain, sneering, "There's an Ice-Corpse Flood outside—it erupts several times every year. What have you ever done about it? That would be true merit, not just sitting in a temple suppressing a demon. Worse yet, you let the demon eat people. If you shattered the ice flood and saved the people downstream, then you'd have real merit!"
The Buddha statue blazed with golden light. Its hands moved, as if coming to life. Serena Clearbrook was terrified, crying out, "That bald fraud is an evil Buddha—he's trying to refine me to death! Hurry up!"
Quinn's steps flew as he darted out of the temple, channeling his yuanqi into the Grand Guardian's Sword to slash at the chains outside.
"The evil of all beings must be washed away by a great flood—only then can their wickedness be shed. This is the fruit of their own cause."
Boom.
A violent tremor shook the air. The bronze Buddha rose, its head smashing through the ancient temple roof, its voice thundering: "You heretical demon—how dare you defile the Buddha-dharma! Such sinful obstinacy cannot be redeemed!"