Chapter 468: Tathagata

"You seem to have broken him." Su Lin prodded the crumbling mass of spirit insects before him with a stick.

Kleen shrugged. "It's not my fault—it's Tianzun's problem."

I only let Tianzun revive for a moment in that historical projection—who knew this guy looked powerful but had such low resistance to mythic beings?

Unfortunately, after waking, Tianzun quietly went back to sleep.

Kleen remembered the image of the patterned, slimy tentacles retreating from Su Lin's side and silently shifted his foot backward.

"What do you mean?"

"Tianzun affected me."

Kleen explained to Su Lin: "I couldn't find Liu Li Ge, so I came looking for you. Liu Li Ge, you should be coming back soon."

Being cautious about this unknown thing is fine, but there's no need to hide this long—could it be you're worried about some last-ditch counterattack?

Su Lin's fingertip glowed faintly as he touched the crumbling historical projection, gradually restoring it to its original state. In no time, a silver coin bearing a human head fell to the ground.

Su Lin picked up the silver coin, studied it in his palm for a moment, then sent a message to Weigong Shilang in the group, telling him to return to his own world.

After a while, he opened a portal, his right hand radiating divine light as it enveloped the silver coin, then reached into another universe.

"The Fate Eater."

Su Lin pulled his hand back and smiled at the silver coin: "You wish to devour my fate?"

"N-no, wrong!" A section of the human-head coin twisted spatially: "I'm willing to do anything for you—it was that Reincarnator named Ya who harbored ill intentions toward you all. I was bound by a contract to act this way."

"Amitabha." Su Lin's voice turned cold: "You say I'm wrong?"

The Fate Eater froze—he hadn't meant that at all.

"Generally speaking, I always give others a chance. After all, who among mortals is without fault?"

Yes—that's exactly what I meant!

"All phenomena arise from conditions; all phenomena cease due to conditions."

"If emotion is not strong, one does not take birth in Saha; if love is not deep, one does not fall into samsara."

"Do you understand the principle behind these two sayings?"

Su Lin asked.

Not only was the Fate Eater confused, but even those around him didn't understand—they assumed Su Lin was just playing tricks or had read too many sutras lately.

Along this journey, he'd been nothing but eating meat, drinking alcohol, and studying Buddhist scriptures—making people marvel that this Tang Seng actor truly had professional dedication.

"All things arise from conditions and perish due to conditions; no phenomenon is destroyed without cause."

"Every person in this world is steeped in desire and passion; otherwise, they would not have been born here, nor endlessly trapped in samsara."

Before the other could answer, Su Lin spoke to the Fate Eater in his hand:

"Good and evil are fixed; heaven and earth do not defy this."

"There are so many wicked beings across the myriad realms—I cannot, nor do I wish to kill each one. After all, I am merely a cultivator, not a righteous guardian."

He forcibly stabilized the medium, preventing it from dispersing.

In his mind surfaced scene after scene of lives seized and twisted by the Fate Eater—corrupted, grotesque, revolting distortions.

In short, this guy's life was a walking anthology of NTR.

"Master, what do you mean?" The Fate Eater noticed the look in his eyes was strange.

"Don't understand?" Su Lin's eyes, where countless contradictory laws merged and were embraced by Buddhist light, glowed: "I am a true pure-love practitioner!"

Solid Buddhist light pierced from the sky into the earth, surging into the soul fragmented by the Fate Eater—every law, whether of this world or beyond it, clashed and fused, transcending space and time to directly act upon the Fate Eater's true self through karma.

No mutation, no distortion—only the removal of eternity and constraint, allowing the contradictory laws to surge and run wild.

Filled with regret, suffering, and hatred toward Ya, the Fate Eater's true body and all his fragments collapsed together.

Shortly after, those who had been possessed—the City Medical Kings, Asuras, War Gods, Soldier Kings; sect outcasts, top disciples, Sword Immortals; imperial dragon heirs, transmigrators, noble scions—suddenly awoke, recalling their actions, overwhelmed by a sense of unreality.

"Yue'er… why did I sell her to a brothel!?"

"What did I do to Lüzhu… these past years… what have I done?"

"Sister! Sister!"

The suffering of having one's life stolen—like waking from a dream—brought a crushing self-loathing far greater than any physical or spiritual corruption.

This was not over, yet Su Lin felt the nine-ring staff in his hand tremble, resonating with the Buddhist power within him, while his Brocade Sutra Robe emitted a faint, shimmering glow.

He did not stop it; instead, with sudden insight, he activated his Heavenly Buddha Formless Body. Behind his head, a halo of merit shone pure and clear, radiating dazzling Buddhist light.

From every corner and boundary of the Journey to the West world, countless gazes turned toward the vicinity of She Pan Mountain and Ying Jian Chou—where a terrifying will awakened from the rippling Buddhist light.

Infinite light, infinite lifespan, infinite wisdom—tiny, brilliant, pure specks of light emerged, coalescing into an incomparable golden Buddha body.

The laws of heaven and earth instantly stirred, as if refusing to permit such a being to display true power in the mortal realm. Yet countless illusory white lotuses spontaneously bloomed; the void rippled like water, layer upon layer, opening and closing in endless cycles.

Above the Thirty-Three Heavens, a group of celestial bureaucrats returned, carrying the severed heads of demons, staring in stunned silence at the scene projected in the ancient bronze mirror.

A Buddha sat, one hand pointing to heaven, one to earth; colored lapis lazuli flew everywhere, and light rained down upon the mortal world.

"If you see all forms as non-forms…"

Seated upon the River of Time, the chanting of mantras reached beyond the heavens; one pure, liberated white lotus after another appeared, illuminating the boundless dark universe with the radiant, pure light of salvific merit.

In Baoxiang Kingdom, where corpses littered the land and wild dogs feasted on flesh, three demons feasting on a "transcended" cultivator from a small world suddenly felt a strange sense of familiarity.

Countless white lotuses bloomed across every corner of the earth; the world's malice and calamity diminished slightly.

Gazing upon the rising pure Buddhist light, one felt the rise and fall of causes and conditions, seeing through all external forms to confront one's true heart.

"Tathagata!"

Heavenly Buddha Formless Body.

All forms are illusory.

If you see all forms as non-forms, you see the Tathagata!

The Underworld—the place where essences and bodies sleep and dissolve.

A black archway bore three ancient, blood-red characters in bold, sweeping script: "Ghost Gate Pass."

Below, numerous three-headed dogs, bathed in the pure Buddhist light, grew agitated and began barking wildly.

A River of the Underworld, seemingly appearing from nowhere, churned violently; countless souls within it seemed desperate to touch the Buddhist light, waves of the River of the Underworld crashing against the Ghost Gate Pass and the Huang Quan Road.

At the clear boundary between the River of the Underworld and the Huang Quan, a black-robed skeleton standing on a wooden raft lifted his head, gripping a three-meter-long scythe, its tip touching the surface of the River of the Underworld.

A chilling cold that froze souls spread outward, turning the entire River of the Underworld into ice.

He glanced at the Buddhist light, folded a red paper boat, and set it adrift upon the Huang Quan, letting it drift toward the depths of the Underworld.

Along the way, countless headless titans rose from the lava, repairing their shattered, ruined bodies.

"Looks like you still don't understand," Su Lin rubbed his hands; the silver coin instantly turned to powder, streaming down between his fingers. He sneered: "I, a monk, do not eat bull-head meat."

Because of what Tony's diary described of the future, he hated nothing more than the act of usurping another's existence, compounded by the bull-headed warrior race's traits from Thunder Cliff.

"I see you have already courted death."

He clapped his hands; after the vision vanished, he mounted his horse and retrieved the Sky-blue Jade Void Sword, intending to take the reincarnator named Crow to the Guanyin Zen Monastery to study Mahayana Buddhism.

In Li Huowang's eyes, Su Lin's Ten Emotions and Eight Sufferings showed a noticeable fluctuation in the suffering of hatred—though not as intense as his previous roar of "Five Million," it was clearly present.

Lu Mingfei shrank his neck; rarely had he sensed such clear anger from Su Lin. "What's wrong?"

"If someone replaced you and still enjoyed loving Hui Liyi while wearing your skin, what would you do?" Su Lin asked.

Lu Mingfei said directly: "I'll kill his horse!"

Bull-headed demons, die! Hui Liyi belongs to me alone!

Lu Mingfei suddenly realized something, clenched his teeth, and his golden pupils blazed like golden suns.

"Can I release the Apocalypse Word-Spell now?"

"Good. You've got spirit," Su Lin said.

Meng Qi smiled faintly; his demeanor aligned with Heaven above, Earth below, and Nature within—calm, humble, and serene—as he gently stroked the Thundering King's Blade.

Crossing the border between Tang Dynasty and the Western Fan Kingdom of Hami, without the concealment of human destiny's qi, countless karmic secrets manifested before his eyes.

If you play the first, don't blame me for playing the fifteenth.

Even if my temper is mild, if someone disgusts me, I will return it tenfold.

"I advise you all to be more forgiving. It's unbecoming for cultivators to be so irritable."

"Captain! You made the Pilgrim team vanish!" A Reincarnator with half his body cybernetically augmented burst into the Guanyin Zen Monastery.

Li Hantian heard this, looked down at the demon count performing a bloody sacrifice, and asked: "Likely heading this way—can you handle it?"

"Looks impressive but useless. Wait until I construct the portal—I'll bring all the demon soldiers from my territory," Count Chimoke stroked his beard.

"Compared to that troublesome light, this is nothing."

A demon count of the Abyss level requires at least an S-class team to challenge; to assault their territory, only a well-established, seasoned S-class team stands a chance of success.

Although the opponent only opened the portal after being startled by the Buddhist light, and

Isn't that token only meant to summon you and your guards?

Hearing the confidence in the other's voice, Li Hantian said no more. He recalled Crow's sudden departure and still felt uneasy.

"Gray Wolf, I suggest our two teams merge and act together," he sent a message to the Desert Speech team.

Though rivals, having accepted the Soul-Shaking team's mission, this rivalry could be temporarily set aside—the priority now was how to deal with this troublesome Pilgrim team.

"Isn't the Purple Gold Gourd and the demon count enough on your end?" came the voice of You You, captain of the Desert Speech team. "I only asked you to probe, not to die."

You You had naturally seen the Buddhist light that had just appeared from the position of Ying Jianchou. With the Contract of the Destiny Devourer now broken, she believed the Pilgrim team must have used some hidden trump card to achieve such power and effect.

"If you don't understand 'when the lips are gone, the teeth feel the cold,' then fine," Li Hantian said. "Listen—I'm already regretting taking this mission. If you agree, come here and take over."

"Captain! The monkey!! The monkey broke in!!" The tech-side Reincarnator shouted again.

Monkey?

What monkey?

Li Hantian momentarily froze, then extended his spiritual sense outward, piercing through layers of halls and corridors, toward the cypress and cedar grove at the mountain gate.

There, his team's seer had pre-deployed a True Realm, capable of erasing or restoring any object according to the caster's will and preference.

Strengthened along a single path to this point—even erasing the moon in the last mission—and combined with the Consumables and enhancement potions provided by Crow, it should at least hold out for days against the world's immortals.

"Demon! Eat Old Sun's staff!" A thunderous cry rolled like a storm.

The horizon turned crimson, like a sea of fire or a cloak of flame; war drums and strange music echoed through the heavens as a black, ever-lengthening rod suddenly descended.

Crackling!

The barrier protecting the entire Guanyin Zen Monastery shattered like glass, then was swept away entirely by the black rod, reduced to ash.

With one strike accomplished, the Ruyi Jingu Bang spun and flew toward a position, caught by a furry golden monkey arm. When he looked closer—he saw the Phoenix-Wing Purple Gold Crown, the Chainmail Golden Armor, the Lotus-Thread Cloud-Walking Boots.

Sun Wukong?!!!

Li Hantian's eye twitched; he stared blankly at the monkey whose aura rivaled the sea, nearly collapsing the entire Guanyin Zen Monastery—he had never imagined such a turn of events.

The space beside him twisted like a vortex; a man with a Mangekyō Sharingan stepped out, his form flickering: "Captain…"

"Go!" Li Hantian grabbed his teammate and flew toward Count Chimoke.

No time to judge whether it was truly Sun Wukong—just one strike shattered the barrier. This power must be avoided at all costs!

"What's the panic?" Count Chimoke frowned at their haste, waved his hand, and two demon knights, still adorned with pure white holy light, stepped forward.

As the count's most elite guard, each possessed the strength of a demon viscount—capable in some worlds of serving as the lowest-tier dungeon keeper in the Abyss Game Party, managing entire planets with civilizations.

Moreover, these demon knights' armor was stained with that troublesome holy light; tests showed it had powerful mental-intimidating effects on other beings.

The Undead Living Armor, once crafted at great cost, had unexpectedly upgraded during this campaign against Count Guna. He truly owed thanks to that foolish friend.

Though Count Guna himself had now been buried and re-forged in the Abyss's surface time-vortex.

"Take him alive," Count Chimoke turned, hands behind his back, every motion exuding elegance.

(End of Chapter)