Chapter 357: This does not stump me

Fresh blood covered the precept scar, flowing down in strands from his smooth forehead.

The monk wearing Liu Junyan's face looked at me with eyes full of injury.

My heart trembled for no reason.

At that moment, a vague sense of panic arose in my heart…… If this really is Liu Junyan, and I struck him so hard…… I instinctively reached out to touch his wound, wanting to embrace him and say sorry…… No!

I shook my head hard, staggered back two steps.

No, still not right.

The Liu Junyan I know is not like this.

If Liu Junyan were chanting sutras, and I burst in with the large smoke pot and smashed it onto his head without a word, causing his head to bleed, what would his first reaction be?

He would stare for a moment, then reach out to pull me into his embrace, ask me what's wrong, whether something happened.

He would be more panicked than I, immediately checking my body to see if I was controlled by some dirty thing.

His first reaction would only be concern for me, not looking at me with this wounded, sympathetic gaze…… He is fake!

Exactly, how could he possibly be real?

How did I suddenly forget where I just came from? The distance from Songshan Canyon to Jiangcheng is so great; how could I have teleported here?

Clearly, just a moment ago when I was hitting the monk with the large smoke pot, my mind was still clear; why did I become muddled in that instant?

Without a doubt, I am being haunted by a nightmare.

This is why Dou Zhile didn't dare come up himself but had me come up.

He said my mind is firm enough!

But I almost fell into the Dao just now as well.

I glanced again at the blood‑stained large smoke pot in my hand; is this large smoke pot too ordinary, so smashing it only causes superficial injuries and cannot break the illusory mirror?

No, this large smoke pot must possess Mana.

An ordinary coffin maker only makes coffins for the dead, like Dou Jin suo earlier.

A coffin maker with Xiūwéi is divided into four grades: Black Dou, Red Dou, Gold Dou, and Blood Dou.

Black Dou can make coffins for the living, while Red Dou is already rare in the world.

As for Gold Dou and Blood Dou, they can be encountered but not sought.

Dou Zhile obviously has some cultivation; since he returned to the Dou family coffin shop, the shop's regular opening day is always crowded, so his Xiūwéi is certainly not just Black Dou level.

So it's not that the large smoke pot lacks Mana, but…… my striking force is insufficient! And the number of strikes is insufficient too!

Thinking this, I took three deep breaths again.

Staring at the monk's face, I kept telling myself in my heart, this is not Liu Junyan, this is an illusion!

Then I lifted the large smoke pot, took two steps forward, and smashed it down onto the monk's head.

One strike…… two strikes…… I struck five times in a row.

The force was so great that my wrist holding the large smoke pot felt a little sore.

The monk's head was a bloody mess, and faintly one could see yellowish‑white matter.

His expression was painful, his face covered in blood and flesh, yet he maintained the chanting posture from beginning to end, never resisting nor uttering a word.

At this moment, I felt my scalp tingle, a bad premonition rising from my heart.

If the monk before me is a manifestation of an illusion, and if he belongs to the yin‑sha category, then striking him like this with the large smoke pot should not leave him in this state.

Leaving aside how much Mana the large smoke pot itself possesses, the smoke oil filling it is also a bane of yin‑sha entities; a few strikes should cause yin‑sha energy to leak from his head.

Clearly, there is none.

What kind of monster is this monk before me?

Not a human, not a yin‑sha entity…… Could it be…… I think I understand.

Today's scheme imitates the Buddha's path of "Cutting Flesh to Feed Eagles".

And the monk before me should be the product of this scheme.

He has cultivated the outward form of a monk, but is merely an empty shell, lacking spiritual intellect.

Or put another way, he is fabricated by imitating the Dībā pò.

Since he himself is not bound by the Three Realms and Six Paths, the large smoke pot therefore has no effect on him.

Likewise, my other attacks against yin‑sha entities also cannot kill him.

However, this does not stump me.

Since he has not yet awakened spiritual intellect, I will give him spiritual intellect!

Thinking this, I slipped the large smoke pouch into my pocket, freed both hands to form hand signs and chant, bit my middle finger, and pressed the sword finger against his blood‑stained brow.

I activated the first chapter of Ancient Witchcraft—Dream Weaving.

Since he harbors the dream of becoming a Buddha or a god, I will personally construct this dream for him.

Help him fulfill his wish.

Indeed, at the moment the Dream Weaving witchcraft was activated, the expression on the monk's face changed.

From the initial pain, he became dazed, then gradually immersed, the Buddhist beads in his hand spinning faster and faster, the Buddhist sutra he was chanting beginning to make mistakes.

The flesh and blood on his face kept fading and disappearing.

Even the hole smashed into his head by the large smoke pot was healing at a speed Visible to the Naked Eye.

In the end, even the precept scar returned to its original state.

Perhaps activating Ancient Witchcraft consumed too much; that fleeting sense of dazedness appeared again.

I tightly stared at the monk's changes, clenched my teeth and persisted.

Just as a faint Golden Light flickered on the monk's body, I suddenly withdrew the sword finger, disengaged myself, and stepped back two steps.

I warily watched him.

The monk withdrew from the drifting state of wandering in the Buddha-Dharma ascension realm just now, discovered that everything he had just experienced was actually a dream, and his defenses were broken.

He suddenly raised his head and looked at me.

The amber vertical pupil with a gold ring constricted, and then a blood-red color rose from the depths of his eye.

Just moments ago his eyes were full of compassion, but in an instant they became fierce.

He swished up into a leap, raising his hand to rush at me and grab me.

I furrowed my brows, wondering in my heart: "Did I pull my hand out too early, failing to fully achieve the peak effect of dream-weaving—dream-breaking?"

The next moment, the monk who had already assumed an attack posture let out a painful howl.

The two hands that had been about to attack me now grabbed at himself instead.

He kept scratching his own body with such force, as if trying to tear the flesh from his own body.

Bloodstains appeared on his skin one after another, and chunks of flesh fell off.

The beautiful scenery of Songshan Canyon faded away bit by bit.

A few hysterical cries of the blue hawk rang out, and everything around returned to its original state.

I stood just beside the side door of the town magistrate's pavilion, less than ten centimeters before my eyes, where a blood-stained Heaven-Earth Mandarin Duck Hook hung, with several skeletons dangling from it.

At that moment, a phosphorescent green ghost fire flickered on those skeletons—a sign that the souls sealed within the corpses were about to fade away.

No wonder Dou Zhile said the time had come.

The souls of Dou Jinsuo's parents had remained sealed within their corpses; they had been sacrificed, and attempting to forcibly extract their souls from the bodies for salvation was far too difficult.

We could only wait until they were completely sacrificed, when the seal broke and their souls were about to dissipate, before I would intervene again.