Chapter 827: Arrow Points to the Brow to Shoot the Demon Monk

Heita carefully selected an arrow; it was a magic arrow made of ten-thousand-year iron wood cut by the Woodcutter Gang and a cold iron arrowhead.

One piece was also roughly equivalent to a magic artifact with three layers of seals.

Qian Chen had also seen the poverty of many scattered cultivators, such as the Daoist Zhen from the earliest times, who, when he bumped into Qian Chen, was only for a diseased plum tree growing on a malevolent vein and a big snake inside.

But this kind of iron wood that grows one inch thick after a hundred years in the north and becomes material after ten thousand years.

One tree was already no worse than the tree and snake that Daoist Zhen had plotted in the past.

But in the army, for one ten-thousand-year iron wood, after removing the best tree heart for the Yang Spirit True Immortal to build a building, the remaining magic arrows that could be made were at most ten thousand.

And the mental effort to refine magic arrows, although there was a military craftsman and a military industrial magic artifact system passed down, the mental effort spent was no less than Daoist Zhen refining a Earth-Malevolent Dragon Snake Sword.

This kind of heterodox-level flying sword was just a volley in the army.

Of course, the power of a volley was enough to shoot and kill a hundred Daoist Zhens here...

When a real great war was encountered, all kinds of resources and spirit objects were spent like flowing water. In the past, when the Xianbei people were outside the fortress, the entire savings of many small tribes couldn't come to this level of war.

Even with the power of the Northern Wei state, supporting the Six Towns' war against the northern demon department and Rouran every year was a bit strenuous.

Now that the supplies from Chang'an were gradually cut off, the army was in poverty, and even this kind of iron wood arrow was something Heita had never encountered before.

He held three flying arrows between his thumb and index finger, and prayed silently, tying his spirit and Qi to one arrow.

Then, Heita suddenly became enlightened without a teacher, took out a dagger, and carefully carved a shallow seed talisman on the arrowhead, and then the 'Military' character seal in his sea of consciousness flew out of his brow and branded it on the iron wood arrow.

Heita raised his arm and held the bow, with the bowstring parallel to his brow.

Then he pointed the bow straight into the long sky, pulling the bowstring from his brow to his heart.

Holding the bow horizontally, the whole person was like an arrow set on the bowstring, one foot bent and retracted, standing on one foot like a crane.

This strange posture made the comrades whisper to each other.

Pojuliuhan complained even more: "What kind of shooting method is this? Isn't it just playing around?"

Tuoba Tao raised his hand to signal everyone to wait, just saying calmly: "This is just the first arrow!"

Sure enough, Heita opened his eyes, golden light floated in his eyes, and then he released the bowstring. The arrow was like a white rainbow, instantly piercing the refined steel target, shooting out from its heart.

It didn't stop until the arrow shadow sank into the black wall behind, and only a bit of its tail feathers could be seen outside the stone, not even trembling...

"Good archery!"

Tuoba Tao couldn't help but cheer.

But Heita drew his bow again in the blink of an eye. This arrow did not land in the eyes of anyone watching, and everyone was very strange, looking left and right.

"The second arrow, called Speed!"

Someone dared to say: "Heita, are you too anxious and missed the target?"

Only Qian Chen didn't care, while Tuoba Tao stared closely at the white dot on the black wall in the distance, calling to the people around him: "Go and pull the arrow out!"

At this time, the personal guards around him ran up, and seeing the arrow on the black wall, they gasped.

"There are three arrows here... one shot here, one arrow following the previous one, splitting this arrow, and then sinking into the position where the original arrow was in the stone, piercing through it..."

At this time, the military cultivators finally saw that what Heita had shot was actually a string of arrows.

Tuoba Tao was extremely satisfied. He came to Heita, took out an iron box from his waist, and said: "But these are all minor paths. The true archery for a general is only accuracy! Only the art of the eye is the Great Dao."

"Do you know what this is?" He opened the iron box.

Heita shook his head honestly.

"This is the Dust Demon Louse of the north, an exotic louse parasite living on the demon king of the northern demon department. It moves as fast as the wind and is imperceptible when it sneaks in. In the past, the demon king of the demon department often used this louse to spy on our human race's secret military intelligence."

"It is not only as small as one ten-thousandth of a speck of dust, but also has the divine ability to sneak and hide."

"This one is a hybrid selected by my Tuoba tribe, but it is also one-tenth as powerful as a real demon louse. I will give you a quarter of an hour now to lock onto the aura of this louse. Then I will release this insect!"

"In this Huaihuang Town, you can shoot wherever you want. If you can shoot and kill this louse within three arrows, I will let you lead a team alone!"

"Remember, the Bodhi Heart Eye and the Goose-Cry precious bow are your only possibility of shooting and killing this louse..."

Once this test came out, even Pojuliuhan couldn't sit still.

He quietly pulled Tuoba Tao's sleeve and said in a low voice: "Isn't it too much to do this! This kind of archery..."

"He who is a general carries the safety of three armies and the survival of the country on his shoulders! When he moves, blood flows and drifts, covering the wilderness for ten thousand miles; when he is quiet, he consumes the wealth of ten thousand families, mountains of gold and silver to raise them... Such a great responsibility, how can it be easily borne? Therefore, I am the military seed, and you are the personal guard under my command."

"Only if he can show the posture of a military seed can he bear my heavy responsibility."

"Otherwise, just honestly go be a regular soldier! Being commanded by others, life and death are handed over to the commander..."

Tuoba Tao said solemnly.

The Han-surname noble Gao Ao, who was beside him, heard this and could only say bitterly: "We disciples of the Six Towns, those with high aptitude all demand this of themselves; those with low aptitude also sacrifice their lives, tempering their bodies and armor, honing their skills, and resisting the demon race and Rouran."

"But what about those people in Chang'an?"

"Between laughter, they treat us as grass, trees, cattle, and horses; in their rashness, they decide the major affairs of the country."

"We have to be like this to be generals, like this to get generals! But over there, they are on the bed, in pure conversation, ascending the general-appointing platform, and getting the title of the Four Generals..."

"How can this make our Hebei men convinced?"

"Xianbei and Han people, those trapped here are all military families, those enjoying themselves in Chang'an are the nobles. Is the distinction of race really more disparate than the origin of rank? Will those nobles and powerful people still remember our Six Towns military families?"

"They will!" Cold light appeared in Tuoba Tao's eyes, and he said in a low voice: "One day, we will go back and make them remember firmly!"

Heita held the iron box, staring at the tiny louse in the box for a full quarter of an hour. The 'Military' character seal had completely absorbed all his accumulations, condensing into a golden true word talisman, hanging in his sea of consciousness.

The 'Military' character seal controlled the Bodhi Heart Wood, turning his spirit into a kind of invisible divine sense.

He locked onto the aura of the demon louse tightly...

"Who could have expected that Tuoba Tao would not only play dumb, but after I mentioned the silver cup, he still refused to offer it to Master, and even that novice monk was detained by him under the pretext of chanting sutras for his grandmother."

"On the very next day, the disciple heard that the novice monk had not entered the manor, but had been sent by him to the Wilderness Market, so I went to convert him!"

"As a result, I unexpectedly encountered a natural Buddha born within a stone. Seeing such a stone with Buddha-nature, the disciple wished to invite it back to present to Master on the day of your great birthday, to show that the Buddha had descended to bestow blessings upon you. But Tuoba Tao interfered again and snatched it away..."

Lena Tilo tilted his head and said indignantly, "Master, how can anyone repeatedly and incessantly show such disrespect to our Nantu Temple?"

Patriarch Dalabatu's gaze grew heavy and deep; he stared fixedly at the center of Lena Tilo's brow and snorted coldly, "Tuoba Tao, you are truly rude to the extreme!"

Having said this, he waved his sleeves to lock the four gates.

With a gloomy face, he sat in meditation upon the lotus flower enshrined in the main seat of the hall.

Seeing that his Master had ignited true fire, Lena Tilo felt a surge of joy, and then saw his Master sitting in the Buddha's position.

He knew that Patriarch Dalabatu had a very high level of comprehension and held himself in very high regard. In the past, when he studied Esoteric Buddhism at the Great Snow Mountain, he was taught various secret mantras, yoga, and great hand seals, all of which he could master in a few days; it was said he possessed profound cultivation from a previous life.

But this lasted until he was taught the two great methods of the Esoteric Sect: the Diamond Realm Mandala and the Womb Realm Mandala.

A high monk from the Han lands came to visit and debated sutras with the Great Wheel Temple of the Snow Mountain. During the debate, the phrase "seeing one's nature to become a Buddha, the Buddha is in the heart" guided Patriarch Dalabatu to see the Vulture Peak within his own heart, and he saw a Buddha sitting upon it.

Yet, in his previous life, he had been an Arhat sitting beneath the Buddha.

Instantly, he no longer worshipped the Mahavairocana of the Esoteric Sect, but instead worshipped the Buddha of the Vulture Peak in his heart.

The Esoteric Sect denounced this as heresy and stopped teaching him the two great methods, driving him down from the Great Snow Mountain...

Now, Patriarch Dalabatu sat upright on the lotus flower, sitting in the Buddha's position in the main hall—not because he considered himself not beneath the Buddha, but because he believed the Buddha was in his own heart, so only by sitting on the lotus flower, in the Buddha's position, could he rectify his status.

A Buddha of wood or clay can be sat upon...

The Buddha in my heart is infinitely more sacred and possesses infinite Buddha-nature than them; why can I not sit there?

The previous abbot of Nantu Temple had debated sutras with Patriarch Dalabatu because, as soon as the Patriarch arrived at the temple, he pushed over the Buddha and sat upon it himself.

As a result, the abbot lost the debate, then engaged in a battle of dharma, and lost that as well.

Finally, he brought in the nobles of the city to uphold justice, but Patriarch Dalabatu revealed his cultivation, causing the nobles of the city to support him one after another.

The abbot had no choice but to take a few close monks and slink away!

He left Patriarch Dalabatu to occupy the temple, where he gathered the heterodox sects that worshipped his Buddha-dharma, and even the original monks of the temple, to teach them the Buddha-dharma.

Lena Tilo knelt hurriedly before the 'Buddha'.

He felt the center of his brow becoming increasingly itchy, but he dared not reach up to scratch it, waiting obediently for his Master's disposal...

Meanwhile, on the drill ground, Yuwen Heita was already numb!

That louse, as large as a dog, was clearly crawling on the center of Lena Tilo's brow.

In Heita's eyes, that tiny patch of space was like countless rolling hills on a vast plain, with hairs standing tall like towering trees or thousand-foot-high pagodas; beneath them, a ferocious and terrifying louse the size of a small dog was crawling there, sucking fresh blood.

His right hand had been pulling the string for a long time, and although he had the full cooperation of the precious bow, the bone patterns of the Great Strength Bull Demon on the bow erupted with divine radiance; but at this moment, the radiance was gradually fading, and the arrow resting on the Goose-Cry Bow began to tremble...

If this continued, the precious bow would become unstable, and he would not even have the chance to shoot this arrow!

Yet the demon louse remained crawling on Lena Tilo's brow, and Patriarch Dalabatu sat on the Buddha-lotus, watching coldly from there, his gaze locking onto him through the infinite void, wanting to see if he could shoot that arrow!

And the demon louse was originally refined by Tuoba Tao as a gu-insect for gathering intelligence.

He had heard every word of Lena Tilo's previous remarks; he felt both the urge to kill this petty person and dissatisfaction with Heita, so he allowed the demon louse to crawl on Lena Tilo's brow, wanting to see—whether Heita's arrow was accurate and steady enough to shoot the demon louse without harming a single hair on Lena Tilo's head.

If that were the case, then Heita could not be kept!

Find an excuse to kill him...

If Yuwen Heita was accurate but not steady, and accidentally killed Lena Tilo!

Then he would have no choice but to let him go and apologize to Patriarch Dalabatu!

Or perhaps he shot the arrow, but it was intercepted by Patriarch Dalabatu; that would be a lack of opportunity, and he would take Heita to apologize in person, letting him honestly serve as a personal guard under his command.

Yuwen Heita faced the cold, detached gaze of a great Yin Spirit cultivator.

The target demon louse was crawling on that person's brow...

And he had already wasted the previous two arrows!

Sweat poured down like pulp, and his arm trembled even more.

Qian Chen watched coldly; everything was the operation of karma, meaning Heita only had one arrow left; otherwise, if given two more chances to shoot, Qian Chen would have let him know what the invincible archery divine ability of the military strategist was, and today, Patriarch Dalabatu would likely have died right here!