Chapter 113: Divine Shadow

Duan Rong sat cross-legged on the Black Earth within his Spirit Sea, his five centers facing the sky!

He kept his eyes tightly shut, silently reciting the incantation!

The murmuring sound of the incantation, dense as raindrops, echoed within this ancient and majestic space, like the whispers of gods and demons...

Following the rapid and dense sound of the incantation, it echoed and boomed within the space...

The churning, thin mist actually began to slowly come to a standstill...

They no longer churned...

The stilled mist began to settle...

The originally thin mist began to grow dense...

The dense mist, appearing as a layer of grayish-white, settled on the surface of the Black Earth...

Duan Rong sat cross-legged in this layer of dense grayish-white mist; only his head remained exposed, as the grayish-white mist had spread up to his neck...

Duan Rong's expression was serene, immersed in a state of joy...

After the mist settled, this space became exceptionally clear, as if it were a cleansed, pure world...

The sky was like transparent glazed glass...

After the mist settled, Duan Rong felt his mind become exceptionally clear; this clarity made his inner heart become patient and unmoving, and he was enveloped by a deep sense of joy...

In the scriptures of the Womb Treasury Sutra, there is a clear warning here: one must not be greedy or immersed in the joy of this place...

Thinking of this, Duan Rong's heart suddenly jolted, and he was immediately jolted awake!

His brows furrowed slightly, and his hands began to form seals within the grayish-white mist, causing the mist before him to churn for a moment...

Following Duan Rong's hand seals, a faint roar suddenly echoed from afar above the firmament...

That roar gradually became clear, rolling across the heavens like muffled thunder...

As the muffled thunder rolled by, Duan Rong's heart became even more suddenly purified, as if some subtle distracting thoughts hidden in the depths of his heart were suddenly shattered by this roar...

The grayish-white mist that had settled on the surface of the Black Earth actually settled by another third, reaching Duan Rong's chest...

Just at this moment, suddenly, in the east, south, west, and north, the four cardinal directions of this world, four huge divine statues appeared, standing between heaven and earth!

Those huge divine statues were as towering as great mountains, reaching the firmament, standing tall against the sky!

Acala, with a body of dark blue, fangs exposed, holding a Sword in his right hand and a rope in his left, was surrounded by Red Lotus Karma Fire, which illuminated the northern sky in a deep red!

Vajrayaksa, having three faces and six arms, had five eyes wide open on his front face, with three eyes on each of the left and right faces; his six arms each held ritual implements such as a bow, Arrow, Sword, Wheel, Five-Pronged Vajra Pestle, and Vajra Bell.

Trailokyavijaya, holding a Spinning Cover in his right hand and a Vajra Pestle in his left, was dark green in color, with his hair standing upright like a galloping horse neighing in anger, the mane standing up, looking ferocious and eerie!

Hayagriva, with a body of deep red, three faces and eight arms, three eyes wide open, fangs exposed, and hair and beard of red and yellow, appeared with the fearlessness of a lion.

The four divine statues were different in form, but all were exceptionally ugly, with ferocious faces, appearing in wrathful forms, terrifying to behold!

These four divine statues, like divine shadows descended from heaven, had an astonishing aura, and a pressure capable of destroying heaven and earth filled this world!

Duan Rong, sitting cross-legged within the mist, suddenly felt terrified, as if he were in the presence of a true god!

But if one observed carefully, the forms of these four divine statues were somewhat blurred, as if looking at flowers through a mist!

It was not that Duan Rong's Painting Skill was poor, but how could it not lose fidelity when changing from a painting to these divine statues that filled the heavens and earth?

Within the Taiyi Sect, there is a real Mandala!

Four mountain-high, huge divine statue sculptures stand between heaven and earth!

Practicing the Womb Treasury Sutra within this Mandala is almost equivalent to the personal arrival of a deity; those with a weak Divine Soul might even have their Spirit Sea shattered on the spot!

But, at this moment, even these four blurred divine statues already made Duan Rong feel as if Mount Tai were pressing down on him, somewhat unable to bear the burden!

Duan Rong did not know that it was precisely because his conditions were crude that he had escaped a disaster!

Because his Mental Power was too weak!

Even if he had used four sculptures the size of his own body to construct a Mandala to practice the Womb Treasury Sutra, with his weak Divine Soul at Level 1 Mental Power, he would have been unable to withstand the instantaneous pressure of the divine statues entering his Spirit Sea!

His Spirit Sea would surely have shattered, and he would have died in a state of madness!

Although using paintings to construct a Mandala belongs to the lowest level of Mandala, it was within the range he could withstand!

Enduring the pressure of the four great Wisdom Kings, Duan Rong dared not delay and immediately formed seals and operated his cultivation technique!

Incantations with ancient and obscure words were recited from Duan Rong's mouth!

Once this incantation was uttered, those four huge divine statues all shook their bodies, and divine light shot from their eyes, sweeping across in all directions!

Then, they opened their large mouths, like a whale inhaling!

The settled grayish-white mist churned, and like a tornado, it rolled into a ball, shot into the sky, and followed the whale-like inhalation of the divine statues into their large mouths!

The grayish-white mist entered through the large mouths of the divine statues, and after a short while, it was sprayed out from their nostrils!

The sprayed grayish-white mist then settled again!

However, several strands of light, as thin as hair, were stripped from the grayish-white mist sprayed out from the nostrils!

Those light strands were about half a foot long, and once stripped from the mist, they flew toward the dome like living things...

They circled endlessly above the firmament, weaving and intersecting...

Duan Rong, sitting cross-legged beneath the dome, was greatly astonished by this strange sight!

Then the large mouths of the four divine statues opened and closed incessantly, and the grayish-white mist sprayed from their nostrils!

Batches of light strands were stripped from the grayish-white mist and gathered above the dome!

Gradually, those light strands became more and more numerous, and they actually gathered into a blurred, faint light shadow!

It looked like the outline of an infant!

It was curled up, as if it were still in the mother's womb...

And the subsequent light strands were all injected into the face of this blurred infant light shadow; although its body was still hollow, its face became increasingly solid!

Gradually, its facial features began to emerge!

Its eyes were tightly shut, its mouth and nose were small, and it emitted a milky-white, glowing halo!

Just as Duan Rong was struck with terror, a strange change occurred once more!

He saw that milky-white infant light-shadow suddenly open its small mouth, and a wisp of cyan ghostly light actually drilled into his mouth!

Duan Rong's whole body trembled; he realized that those wisps of cyan ghostly light actually originated from the Tree Spirit Light Sea in the southwest direction of the Black Earth!

In the place where he had devoured the eighty-one Tree Spirits, wisps of cyan ghostly light were peeling away and floating from within the Tree Spirit Light Sea, swimming like fish toward the infant light-shadow above the dome, and drilling into its small mouth...

"This is..."

The bizarre scene before his eyes was definitely not recorded in the techniques of the Womb Treasury Sutra!

After all, the Womb Treasury Sutra would not mention that Tree Spirits existed within the Spirit Sea of spiritual clarity!

Duan Rong also did not know what kind of strange change this scene would produce!

He had originally even wanted to stop the operation of the technique immediately, but he saw that after those wisps of cyan ghostly light entered the infant light-shadow's small mouth, its originally hollow body was actually gradually solidifying very quickly!

The ready-made light threads within the Tree Spirit Light Sea were clearly much more abundant than the light threads separating, one by one, from the gray-white mist of the four divine statues!

That infant light-shadow was like a hungry baby drinking its fill of milk, sucking madly without stop!

The Tree Spirit Light Sea seemed to be evaporating, as one Tree Spirit after another turned into light threads and disappeared!

Fellow Daoists can try to visualize breathing, specifically the switching point between an inhalation and an exhalation. This is a method for entering meditative stillness during sitting meditation!

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(End of this chapter)