It Must Be Today

The Bright Buddha rose into the air. Raising a hand, he summoned a wooden staff, and golden Buddhist light suddenly blazed in his eyes. Behind him, the Myriad-Phenomena Buddha Kingdom unfolded, its Daoist aura manifesting as the kingdom’s wondrous visions spread across the sky and earth, blotting out the heavens like a Buddhist realm reflected in the sky.

Amid the flowing radiance, golden jade pavilions emerged indistinctly. Drums resounded, and the chanting of sutras rolled like thunder.

On the ground, Boluo raised his head and gazed at the myriad scenes of the Buddha Kingdom above, watching as the kingdom descended before his eyes like a real world.

His voice grew feverish.

“Having attained the Mahayana Dharma, one’s body becomes as though it has merged with the Dao.”

“Heaven and earth reverse, while cause and effect weave together.”

“This prodigy of heaven is truly peerless. Just from this encounter, I can tell that you may not necessarily lose to a True Immortal.”

The Bright Buddha did not reply. He merely looked down at Boluo with a calm gaze.

In an instant, ten thousand hands emerged from the Buddha Kingdom in the sky, each forming a different mudra.

For a time, myriad techniques surged forth. Rivers and mountains changed course, the earth rose and collapsed, and thunderbolts swept through the air like dragons while raging flames burned everything in their path.

Time stagnated. Curses clung to their targets. An oppressive might descended from above.

The ten thousand hands formed ten thousand seals in an instant, yet not one of the countless attacks was weakened in the slightest. Every move seemed to have been personally executed by the Bright Buddha with painstaking effort.

As Boluo dodged between the attacks, he tore off the ocher monk’s robe draped over his body. A point of red light ignited in his eyes. His originally slight frame transformed into the true form of a rakshasa, blood-colored markings etching themselves across his body. The long spear in his hand became a trident.

“Open!”

With a furious shout from Boluo, a suit of battle armor appeared around him. Raising the trident in his hand, he looked toward the attacks surging in from every direction, his scarlet eyes fixed on the golden hands reaching straight for him.

He lifted the blood-red trident and cleaved out a slash that seemed capable of tearing the firmament apart.

Part of the Buddha Kingdom’s myriad hands was shattered by the blow, but immediately afterward, another ten thousand hands extended forth. Their movements were slow and gentle, yet they lightly pressed down and suppressed that earth-shattering strike.

Boluo gripped the trident tightly, his gaze turning excited as he looked toward the Bright Buddha standing in the air. His body shot directly toward him.

Countless attacks swept toward him, and golden Buddhist hands rose to press down as well.

Boluo neither dodged nor evaded. The boundless power of his origin surged from behind him like a great tide, rushing directly toward the attacks.

As the distance closed, Boluo endured the attacks he could withstand head-on, forcing his way forward beneath the Buddha hands bearing down from above.

When he was only a hundred zhang away, Boluo delivered his most confident strike.

A dazzling crimson flash flickered faintly.

The attacks and the Buddha hands seemed to collapse of their own accord, quietly scattering like flowing sand.

The scattering came afterward. The attack came first.

This strike could not be seen—or rather, it was so concealed that no one could perceive it.

Sometimes, even Boluo did not know how he had comprehended this move. It was like the profound and mysterious principles within the Mahayana Dharma: he could sense them, but he could not truly understand them.

This move had been born from the teachings of the Mahayana Dharma. Its might far surpassed that of an ordinary divine ability. Only someone in the Tribulation Transcendence Realm could execute it—or even comprehend it.

Boluo had named it the Trace Strike.

Only a miracle could lead one to comprehend it.

Without knowing the reason, one could only grope blindly, like a blind man trying to understand an elephant.

As long as he remembered the sensation, he could execute it. He did not know its foundation, yet he could still unleash it.

Once the move left his hand, even Boluo could no longer sense where the strike had gone.

He had originally intended to save this move for Bai Xuanling, but now it seemed that the Bright Buddha was no less terrifying than Bai Xuanling.

The Buddha Kingdom hung in the heavens, severing cause and effect.

Boluo could even sense that this terrifying Buddha Kingdom had yet to unfold completely. If it were to fully expand, he feared he would truly have no means of fighting back.

Under such a Buddha Kingdom, it was as if he were facing an unknown number of Bright Buddhas.

Boluo stared fixedly at the Bright Buddha. In his heart, he hoped that one strike would break through the Bright Buddha’s defenses, yet he also wanted to know whether the Bright Buddha could block it.

“So bright.” The Bright Buddha spoke softly.

At those words, Boluo’s pupils contracted. Then he witnessed an unbelievable sight.

Layer upon layer of colorless and intangible defensive techniques before the Bright Buddha were peeled apart by the strike, turning into shattered golden radiance. The Bright Buddha narrowed his eyes, as though they had truly been stung by some unbearable brightness.

But he had only enough time to shift his body slightly before turning his head to the side.

The Bright Buddha’s patchwork robe was torn apart. His right arm was ripped open, a trace of golden blood flowing from the wound. The wooden staff in his hand was also snapped directly into two pieces.

Then it seemed as though the strike merely grazed past him.

With a breath, the Buddha Kingdom behind the Bright Buddha suddenly appeared to fracture, folding into two separated sections across the vast sky. Yet after only a moment, the two halves reconnected as though they had been glued together.

Boluo let out a hollow laugh and tightened his grip around the trident. Drawing a deep breath, he looked toward the Bright Buddha.

“You could see it? Why could you see it?”

The Bright Buddha cast him a sidelong glance as the Buddha hands of the kingdom continued to press downward.

“This should have been born from the Mahayana Dharma, shouldn’t it? You appear to look up to the Mahayana Dharma, but deep down, you still hold it in contempt.”

“You have not attained the true Dharma. You cannot see it yourself, can you?”

The power of Boluo’s origin surged around him, but it no longer felt as inexhaustible as before. Resisting the Buddha Kingdom blotting out the sky had clearly become much more difficult.

He bared his teeth in a grin.

“I think you’re even more terrifying than Chu Xingchen.”

The Bright Buddha also chuckled.

“The self is the cause, yet the effect is not the fruit.”

“Believe it or not, I have seen through the river of cause and effect. All I see are peaceful living beings. I do not see you coveting power or committing evil.”

“No matter what the result is today, or how things develop in the future…”

“No matter whether it is Chu Xingchen in the end…”

“You will never succeed. I possess the virtue of giving life. I advise you today: lay down the butcher’s blade. Those who have not stained themselves with blood may yet survive.”

Hearing this, Boluo endured the techniques attacking him from every direction and the Buddha hands of the kingdom that continued to crash down around him. He laughed aloud.

“I would rather die unjustly than live on my knees.”

“I thought I could delay things a little longer, make more preparations, and perfect everything further.”

“But after witnessing Your Eminence’s might today and hearing these words, I understand now.”

“This world has imprisoned countless living beings for millions of years, and over those millions of years, it has also raised countless monsters.”

“Time waits for no one. Time waits for no one.”

“There is no perfect plan in this world. Naturally, there can be no perfect beginning, nor can there be a perfect ending.”

Boluo tightened his grip on the trident and raised it heavily, pointing it straight at the Bright Buddha.

“But I want to win! Even if I win by only a little! Even if the price of that victory is one that no one can afford!”

“I’m not ready, and Chu Xingchen isn’t ready either. That means this is the most advantageous moment for me.”

Boluo reached toward one of the beating hearts within his body. Then he lightly tapped it with a finger, and a colorless, transparent energy fluctuation belonging to Authority spread outward.

The next moment—

The world seemed to suddenly lose all its color, leaving behind only black and white.

The Buddha Kingdom blotting out the heavens also fell into stillness.

As strange radiance twisted and turned, a black-and-yellow force of wishes surged from Boluo’s body into the sky.

In the blink of an eye—

With the faint tremor of his eyes—

That willpower spanning heaven and earth had already broken through the Buddha Kingdom above.

The scarlet color in Boluo’s eyes transformed into black and yellow. The surging force of wishes clung to his body like starving bloodsucking mosquitoes, devouring everything within him.

At the same time, it became Boluo’s energy in that moment.

Boluo’s body transformed into something indescribable. This state could only be called—

A pure monster.

“If my fellow comrades continue to sit back and watch the fire from the opposite shore, then today will be the day our people are destroyed.”

Boro clutched his heart and drew a deep, ragged breath. His voice rang out like the demonic murmur of all living beings:

“Desire and greed—all shall be fulfilled in this moment!”

“To cling on is a sin. It must be done now!”

“To answer my great tribulation, today is the day!”