Great Thunderclap Temple.
The bell tolled long and clear, ringing out endlessly—this was the welcome bell.
Quinn Shepherd carried Village Chief up the mountain and saw a majestic World-Honored Buddha leading a host of monks to greet them. In that moment, the youth felt a pang of melancholy: the cold-faced, warm-hearted King Ma had, in the end, become Great Thunderclap Temple's World-Honored One—a Buddha.
He couldn't let go of the place where he grew up. The monks of Great Thunderclap Temple had indeed killed his wife and child, but it was not the doing of the Elder Buddha—it was the monks beneath him.
He was the Elder Buddha's disciple; the Elder Buddha knew him deeply, and he, too, understood the Elder Buddha well. The Elder Buddha had grown old and could no longer control the monks beneath him. When the arhats of the Arhat Hall and monks of the other courtyards went down the mountain, his wife and child lost their lives as a result.
The Elder Buddha severed his own arm and returned it to him. Though it did not resolve the hatred in his heart, he had to inherit his master's mantle and could not let Great Thunderclap Temple fade into oblivion.
When he returned to his old home and sat upon the World-Honored throne, the wind swept clouds past him; as the mist dispersed, he suddenly attained true suchness, breaking through the final realm of the Grand Buddha Mahayana Scripture and achieving Great Brahma Heaven.
From Indra Heaven to Great Brahma Heaven is a kind of sudden enlightenment—a perfect awakening.
On the Golden Summit of Great Thunderclap Temple, Quinn looked at the old King Ma who had raised him to adulthood, his heart swirling with emotion. In the end, he called him 'senior brother.'
This World-Honored One of Great Thunderclap Temple had attained the supreme realm—Great Brahma Heaven. Body, spirit-sense, and true suchness were perfected. Behind him stretched twenty Mahayana heavens; the Great Brahma King sat cross-legged, surrounded by gods and Buddhas of all sizes, radiating endless light—holy and compassionate.
"Senior brother." Old King Ma returned the greeting.
Quinn felt a pang of sorrow. Once Old King Ma sat in this seat, he was no longer the man he used to be, but the World-Honored One. He had to let go of worldly matters—see all as empty.
Crippled Joe was there too. Officially he was just a guest, but in truth he was worried for King Ma's safety, afraid the monks of Great Thunderclap Temple might harm him.
But now King Ma had reached the highest realm of the Grand Buddha Mahayana Scripture and no longer needed Joe's protection. Crippled Joe grew restless—there were treasures everywhere in Great Thunderclap Temple, rare and precious things all around. The old thief was uneasy, itching to steal but feeling guilty. When he saw Quinn and Village Chief arrive, he couldn't help but suggest they leave early.
Quinn wanted to stay a few more days, but at night the northern sky blazed with lights—Qingmen Pass. Such brilliance meant fierce fighting at the pass.
Beside Qingmen Pass lay Nethergloom Ravine, home of the two White Bat Demons—not far from Great Thunderclap Temple.
The next morning at dawn, Quinn rose to take his leave, bringing Village Chief, Raina Bear, Crippled Joe, and the others along.
"When I first met Old King Ma, he was the most famous constable in the land—known as Ma the Divine Catcher. He nearly caught me."
Crippled Joe looked back. Sumeru Mountain’s Golden Summit blazed with golden light; Buddha-sound rolled out in waves, so dense it became tangible—turning into words, lotus flowers, and countless phantom Buddhas swirling around the sacred mountain.
Crippled Joe was lost in thought, murmuring, "He caught me many times, we matched wits again and again. I feared him most, yet respected him most. When I was young, I was an orphan with nothing, begging everywhere. When hunger was too much, I stole—but I never robbed, since I was small and weak. Later, an old constable caught me. He didn’t hand me over to the authorities, just stopped me from stealing, taught me skills, became like a father. I followed him, dreaming that one day I’d be a constable too. Old King Ma reminds me of him. When King Ma is stern, he’s especially like that old man..."
Quinn sat silently atop Dragon-Qilin, listening as Crippled Joe recounted his past, with Village Chief and the others by his side.
"I never had a father. To me, the old constable was my dad. Those years with him—I worked hard, I was happy. Then one day, the old constable died."
Crippled Joe's eyes widened, his voice eerily calm: "It was midnight when his enemies came for him. I was still asleep, heard the shouting and killing outside. He burst in, fought to the death to get me out, and told me, 'Son, be a good person... run!' I ran out naked, nothing but skin—ran and ran, faster and faster, begging people for help, but no one came out, no one..."
A skinny boy, naked and helpless, running and pleading for help—but no one helped him.
Crippled Joe ran from night into day, covering tens of thousands of li. When he came to his senses, he returned to the old constable's home, but it had been burned to white ash. All he could dig out were the charred bones.
"He told me to be a good person. He spent his whole life being good—what did it get him? I won’t be good! He told me not to steal, so I stole."
Crippled Joe said bleakly, "I stole and ran, stole and ran, until my reputation grew—I became the God Thief. Seals, forbidden arts, none of it fazed me. I outran wind and cloud and lightning, stole across the world, every sect and holy land. I finally found his killers, stole their heads, offered them as sacrifice. When I mourned him, I thought about being good, but I was hooked on stealing—couldn’t quit. Then I met Old King Ma, who reminded me of the old constable. I didn’t fear him, I respected him. Now he’s the World-Honored One, all compassion and majesty. Makes me wonder if the old constable became a Buddha somewhere too..."
Village Chief poked his head out of the medicine basket: "Old King Ma won’t stay a Buddha. When a new World-Honored One arrives, he’ll take off the kasaya and be the old King Ma again."
Crippled Joe looked up at the sky. "I hope so."
Quinn let out a heavy breath and whispered, "King Ma will come back..."
Along the way, Quinn completely purged the poison from Raina Bear's body and prepared several spirit pills to nourish her vitality. At last, they reached Nethergloom Ravine. The two White Bat Demons flew into the canyon, hung upside down from a tree, and bid farewell to Quinn and the others.
"Cult Master, come visit when you have time—we won't eat you!" Ethan Fu called.
Quinn burst out laughing and waved goodbye. The two White Bats immediately flew deeper into the gorge, shouting, "Wake up the ancestors, have them give birth to a few daughters to carry on the bloodline!"
"If they're born, they'll be our ancestral grandmothers—how are we supposed to continue the bloodline? And what if both ancestors are male?"
"Shut up!"
......
Dragon-Qilin left Nethergloom Ravine, and soon they saw a vast, rolling battlefield. The forested Duck-Tongue Strip had been flattened; the thousand-li stretch of hills and woods was now trampled down, transformed into the war zone between the Wild Di Kingdom and the Everpeace Empire!
When Quinn and his companions arrived, a massive battle was raging. Tens of thousands of soldiers clashed before the two passes, divine arts blotting out the sky. Towering war-beasts thundered forward, carrying countless cultivators, who hovered around them, floated in the air, or rode on their backs.
Beneath the colossal beasts, warriors wielding sabers and swords charged forward, colliding with enemies on the ground—blood and flesh flying in an instant.
Above the beasts' heads, warships and towered battleships sailed through the sky, banners streaming. Artillery thundered on deck, and beams as thick as buckets blasted into the enemy ranks, vaporizing everything in their path!
In midair, countless spinning Saber Pills and Sword Pills flashed, their light weaving through flesh and blood.
There were also Golden Palace great shamans, transformed into golden bird-headed, human-bodied forms, soaring with wings spread, scattering rays of light in every direction with a wave of the hand.
Underground, golden giants with elephant heads and human bodies rampaged through the chaos.
On both sides' fortress walls, banners and great mirrors shone overhead. The mirrors cast down beams that revealed the souls of cultivators, while the banners whipped the wind and clouds, unleashing thunder like rain onto the battlefield.
Giant Cloud-Car Siege Wagons, dragged by bare-chested giants, barreled into the fray, leaving carnage in their wake. At the front lines, the giants stopped and opened the wagons, revealing countless gourds. When the gourd mouths were uncorked, swarms of gu insects buzzed out, blotting out the sky and burrowing into enemy soldiers to gnaw them alive.
Sacrificial altars were rolled out, and Golden Palace great shamans performed witchcraft atop them—no one knew what spells they cast, but their magic targeted Everpeace commanders, trying to leave the army leaderless.
Everpeace, in turn, sent out elite sword cultivator units, cutting through the killing formations to reach and slay the Golden Palace shamans atop the altars.
The scene was truly awe-inspiring. Both sides had clearly fought countless times; blood flowed like rivers, and the Duck-Tongue Strip had become a living hell.
It was the first time Quinn had witnessed such a grand spectacle. His heart trembled—this was the battlefield men yearned for, but also the place they died.
Raina Bear held little Kira close, her face pale. She whispered, "How do we get across such a battlefield? My cultivation still hasn’t recovered..."
Her cultivation was only back to Heaven-Man level, which meant nothing here; even Heaven-Man experts could die at any moment in the killing formations formed by clusters of Seven Stars soldiers.
Even Life-and-Death level experts would struggle to survive if they forced their way into the battlefield.
Raina Bear had once been a cult master. She scanned the field and saw that wherever groups of thirty to fifty gathered, formation patterns lit up—on the ground, in the air, spinning and shifting. The battlefield was huge, the armies vast, but the arrays never lost their order.
Anyone who tried to break through would be shredded by the killing formations—if one array didn’t kill them, another would.
Quinn tightened the medicine basket straps. From inside, Village Chief laughed: "Just walk across. Quinn, you’ve learned the move ‘One Sword Opens the Pioneer Era, Blood Like an Ocean,’ right? I’ll show you again."
Quinn’s heart stirred. Suddenly, boundless sword light erupted, flooding the battlefield. In an instant, sword radiance blanketed the front between the two great passes; countless soldiers found themselves bathed in an ocean of swords, blade-light swirling and twining around their bodies so tightly that no one dared move!
On the walls of both fortresses, soldiers and generals stared in terror. The land below had become a sea of sword light, engulfing everyone in its glow!
"Sound the gong and retreat!" came the fierce shouts from both city towers, but no one on the battlefield dared move—not a single army withdrew, not even the warships in the sky.
Move, and it meant death.
If the ocean of sword light surged, it would truly become ‘blood like an ocean.’
"A master has arrived!"
On the wall of Qingmen Pass, a middle-aged man walked out and looked down. There, a massive Dragon-Qilin strode unhurriedly through the ocean of sword light.
"Imperial Preceptor!" The officers and soldiers all saluted.