Yet in the Buddha's very presence, he committed a grave sin.
The river raged, its hidden currents surging.
Golden Buddhist light and scarlet spirit power met head-on beneath the dark water, their violent collision shaking the riverbed.
In the shadows of a withered willow, Black and White Impermanence stood side by side, silently watching the catastrophe poised to swallow the mortal world.
The churning Qiantang River had turned the dark yellow of dead amber. It no longer resembled mortal water, but the River of Forgetting in the underworld—an entire current of tears shed by ten thousand souls as they surrendered their past lives.
"The embankment will break."
White Impermanence gazed upon the amber river, her eyes hollow.
"This flood is not drowning Jinshan. It is drowning the Heavenly Dao itself."
A violent wind rose above the water.
Black Impermanence stepped in front of her, shielding her completely with a body broad as a city wall.
"Come back."
A tension that brooked no argument sharpened his voice.
"The great snake is raising the river. Do not remain on the bank."
White Impermanence did not move. She continued looking past his shoulder toward the mortal world on the verge of being consumed by blood and water.
"The Heavenly Court passed its judgment, and your master, Taishang, bound our two souls within a single body with his own hands."
"Three thousand years. You used your own flesh and bones as a towrope and bound me against your heart. Cousin, have you grown tired from pulling me all these years? Hmm?"
"No."
Black Impermanence turned and swept her into his arms with a tenderness as rough as it was absolute. Carrying her, he strode into a tear in the Nine Shades, beyond mortal sight.
"Let them fight." He looked down at the woman in his arms, ancient devotion and madness burning in his gaze. "When morning comes, we will return to collect the dead."
The water arrived.
Black river water hung high in the air like a colossal iron wall, casting all of Jinshan Temple into shadow. The wind was heavy with a bone-piercing damp.
Fahai's kasaya cracked in the gale.
He stood upon the white-jade steps like an iron tower.
Bringing his nine-ringed staff down, he struck the stone with a resounding clang.
"Humans and spirits follow different paths. The Heavenly Dao cannot be defied!" His face was iron.
"If the two benefactors will not retreat to Mount Qingcheng and resume your cultivation, do not blame this humble monk for showing no mercy in subduing spirits!"
"Cultivation?" Qing laughed in fury.
She stepped forward, eyes blood-red and veins standing at her temples. Pointing at Fahai, she spoke each word as though it wept blood.
"Return and cultivate? Then answer me—Fahai. What is it we are meant to cultivate? If you cultivate mercy, why has Jinshan torn apart a loving marriage, destroyed their own flesh and blood, and imprisoned her husband?"
The rising wind carried her voice across the mountain and shook the ancient trees before the gate.
"We're spirits, not monsters. Besides—who is the real monster? Better to tear down ten temples than destroy one marriage! In all the Three Realms, I see none more cold-hearted or faithless than you, you merciless old bald donkey!"
The fingers around Fahai's staff trembled almost invisibly. He gave no answer.
He merely tightened his grip and repeated within his heart:
Deliver spirits from their evil. Watch over all mankind.
"Amitabha!"
Boom—!
Fahai drove his right arm down. The heavy nine-ringed staff sank three inches into the stone steps. Though he released it, it stood upright.
Buddhist light surged from the ground, and all nine golden rings screamed in the wind.
Bai Su said nothing more.
Behind the white silk blindfold, a darkness capable of swallowing all things seemed to gather. He lifted the tip of the Originseeker.
The origin-mark between his brows burst into light. Glowing bright red, ever brighter, ever redder. Ten thousand crimson threads, soft and supple as silk around a finger, crept up the icy blade—instantly bathing the entire Originseeker in deep scarlet.
Its point was fixed upon the Supreme Dharma Manifestation towering above the Mahavira Hall.
The thousand acres of river suspended in the sky came crashing down.
It descended with the weight of mountains and seas, the Qiantang tide given physical mass, bearing enough force to split heaven and earth as it crushed toward Jinshan Temple.
Yet when those immense waves flooded over the temple grounds, they seemed to possess eyes.
They curved around the side halls, the scripture repository, and the monks fleeing in terror. They even avoided the golden barrier imprisoning Xu Xian.
Bai Su did not want to kill.
"Deliver spirits from their evil. Watch over all mankind! Amitabha!" Fahai roared and formed a seal with both hands.
Golden light blazed behind him. Sensing the crushing pressure, the Supreme Dharma Manifestation transformed its radiance into a colossal golden palm that covered the sky and drove upward against the black water. The source of this chapter is novelping(.)com.
The two supreme powers collided.
There was not a sound.
Yet the whole of Jinshan convulsed in silence.
The barrier that held Xu Xian inside the gate was stretched between the two world-shattering forces until it could endure no more.
Crack—!
The golden dome shattered into flying fragments of light.
The restraint vanished.
But in the next instant, a savage shockwave struck.
How could a body of mortal bone withstand it?
Xu Xian could not even cry out. The force hurled him through the air and into the violent current pouring backward beyond the temple gate.
"Xian'er—!" Bai Su cried out.
Bai Su's spiritual awareness caught Xu Xian's familiar presence for one fleeting instant. Then the muddy torrent swallowed it whole.
All sound vanished from heaven and earth.
That familiar presence was gone.
He wheeled around, his bloodstained white robes cutting toward the whirlpool.
But the current was violent, filled with broken timber and stone that smashed repeatedly against the mountain walls.
Xu Xian had vanished.
Seeing Brother desperate to find him, Qing abandoned the battle and leapt after Bai Su into the storm of water.
Without Bai Su's control, the river lost all restraint before the temple gate. Heaven and earth overturned. The Qiantang flooded back across Jinshan. Rain fell in sheets, every drop heavy as heavenly punishment.
Amid the wind and rain, a perfectly relaxed figure crouched at the top of an ancient locust tree. The spirit cat had tucked both forepaws against its chest. Its furry tail swayed as it looked down upon the spectacle.
Being a cat, it carried a hatred and terror of water in its very bones. Yet it showed no alarm.
In fact, it was gloating.
"Fight, fight! Wilder! Louder! The hotter the chaos, the better! You green worm, last time you scared this sovereign with all that talk about having kittens. Ha! Today you finally got your karma!"
It cocked its head and glanced at the black water suspended overhead.
"Ho… Bai Su's flooding is rather impressive."
Waves smashed against the cliffs with a deafening roar. Spray soaked the branches of the locust tree.
The spirit cat calmly licked one paw and snorted.
What does it matter how high the waves rise? This great lord carries a Water-Warding Pearl. Why should I fear you? When the flood reaches me, I will open a barrier, bathe in comfort, and watch you two long worms fight that bald donkey Fahai…
Boom————!
The towering wave arrived like a hand cast from mud and black water, reaching down to seize the entire temple.
Still utterly composed, the spirit cat lifted a paw and reached into the space beneath its neck.
Empty.
It had left the round Water-Warding Pearl on an altar in the Western Heaven the night before.
There was no time even to curse.
The hundred-foot wall of icy water crashed down. A divine beast of the celestial realm was instantly swept into the filthiest and heaviest current of the mortal world. Its leopard-patterned fur plastered to its body.
Like a helpless bundle of wet hair, it thrashed within the whirlpool as suffocation tightened around its throat like iron wire.
The spirit cat feared water.
And this shameful affliction was entirely Bodhisattva Manjusri's fault. Who had told that old fellow to lose his grip when the cat was young and drop it straight into the Celestial Pool?
Come to think of it, the old fellow had been in seclusion for several years. Surely the time for his return was near? Bodhisattva Manjusri……
Thrashing in the flood, the spirit cat felt an inexplicable tug of longing.
"Pah! Stop! What nonsense is this great sovereign thinking? I owe this terror of water entirely to you!"
It shook its soaked head and prepared to leap from the current through spiritual power.
Then, through a break in the rain, it saw Xu Xian.
The mortal was trapped between the pieces of a broken pillar. His monastic robe was torn; his face had turned a nearly translucent white. Blood loss and drowning worked together upon his fragile body, while the current washed away the last trace of life.
Yet one hand still clutched the mud-covered golden longevity lock.
The flood cut like knives, devouring mouthful after mouthful of the mortal shell's remaining vitality.
A divine beast regarded the mortal world without sentiment. Human life and death were only wisps of smoke passing through the palms of the underworld.
It did not want to interfere.
And it certainly had no reason to help those two snakes.
But in that instant, amid the rain flowing backward through the sky, it remembered the warm thread of kitchen smoke beside the stove.
This mortal did not know it was a divine beast. Not long before, that foolish physician had simply stroked its head, smiling with almost childish kindness.
"Slowly. No one is fighting you for it. Take care not to choke."
The faint warmth of that palm somehow crossed hundreds of years and overlapped with the old monk who had once rescued it from a hunter's trap.
Whether mortals lived or died belonged to karma and fate.
Yet this time, its heart moved.
The spirit cat clenched its teeth, forced down its terror of water, and plunged into the torrent. It bit through the coarse monastic cloth at the back of Xu Xian's neck.
Kicking wildly against the whirlpool, it dragged the heavy body toward the bank inch by inch.
"Daolin… Benefactor Xu? Oh, no… How are you here?" In the distance, Dao'an stumbled through the rain.
The spirit cat collapsed upon the rocks, its spotted fur making it look like a drowned rat.
It spat muddy water in disgust, glanced at Xu Xian—who had recovered the faintest breath—and then at the approaching lantern light.
Hmph. This great sovereign cannot allow anyone to see a divine beast looking like a drowned chicken.
Its long tail flicked.
An instant before the lantern reached it, the spotted figure vanished into the deeper rain and darkness.
The spirit cat slipped away unseen.
But the monstrous flood born from obsession had only just torn open the bloodiest act of the disaster beneath Jinshan Temple.
Half of the temple's vermilion gate had collapsed into the mud. Inside the Mahavira Hall, the towering Supreme Dharma Manifestation had begun to show thin fractures beneath the ceaseless assault of black water.
If the Supreme Dharma Manifestation fell, it would be tolerated by neither Heaven nor Earth.
"The Dharma Manifestation cannot fall. Jinshan cannot be destroyed!"
Fahai's eyes were bloodshot.
He stared at the Buddha's golden image on the verge of being swallowed, and something nearly obsessive hardened in his gaze.
He drove the nine-ringed staff into the stone beneath him and formed an immensely complex seal with both hands.
His chanting rolled like thunder.
"Deliver spirits from their evil. Watch over all mankind! Amitabha! Buddhas of transcendent wisdom, turn the stars and shift their stations—reverse!"
The great formation around Jinshan Temple flared into a vast curved barrier. Under the brutal pressure of Buddhist light, the hundred-foot waves about to strike the temple were forced aside. They turned down the steep slope and thundered toward the foot of the mountain.
Fahai saved Jinshan Temple.
He saved the Supreme Dharma Manifestation.
But he had forgotten one thing.
Below the mountain lay Lin'an, defenseless beneath its curling kitchen smoke.
Ten thousand lights burned there.
Ten thousand mortals lived there.
The black flood, bearing the might of a natural catastrophe, charged toward their homes like a beast freed from its chains.
Houses collapsed.
Whole streets vanished beneath the water.
Through the rain came the distant cries and screams of the city below. Fahai's tall body swayed.
Blood rose in his throat.
Every trace of color vanished from his face.
It was already too late.
He stared down at the streets swallowed in an instant, his voice breaking.
"How could this be… Amitabha… the Buddha is merciful…"
He preserved the Buddha's Supreme Dharma Manifestation.
Yet before the Buddha's image, he created a monstrous karma.