Chapter 575

At this moment, the birds fell silent, the wails of ghosts and howls of wolves disappeared, and even breathing slowed down.

What does this small action of Xingchen signify?

Does it mean that the Dharma-body Buddha is willing to ferry this flesh-and-blood monster?

And it even cooperated, lowering its body, bowing its head, accepting the ferry.

If we could really reach this point, would the four words "all beings are equal" be enough to convert the bird?

But just as the flesh-and-blood monster's head was about to touch Xingchen's hand, it suddenly transformed into the head of a large black bird.

That tuft of white fur was especially conspicuous.

Its sharp beak instantly opened to its maximum, able to swallow Xingchen's entire hand in one bite.

Xingchen did not dodge at all.

The instant his hand was bitten, our eyes met.

In just one second, I understood the Little Guy's profound intention.

He was not ferrying the bird, but numbing its nerves.

This scene instantly pulled my thoughts back to the story the Seated Buddha had told me about him and the bird.

The Seated Buddha's heart was unsettled precisely when the bird asked him whether he was willing to cut flesh to feed it, in order to ferry it.

And now, Xingchen has made a choice.

He chose to ferry the bird with his own flesh and blood.

When the bird lunged to bite him, he neither dodged nor flinched, embodying the calm resolve of "If I do not enter hell, who will?"

As the bird clamped onto Xingchen's hand and blood flowed along the edge of its beak, it involuntarily narrowed its greedy eyes.

At this moment, it was satisfied, enjoying itself.

The state of emptiness upon having its wish fulfilled is also the point where it is most vulnerable to being taken advantage of.

I immediately formed hand seals and chanted, activating the fifth chapter of the Dream Weaving Witchcraft—Dream Made Real.

Condensing a cluster of Nirvana fire at my sword finger, then pointing it at the bird, the Nirvana fire spread like a prairie fire, everything in its path constantly undergoing change.

The entire space seemed to be precisely calculated and reorganized.

Amid the roaring flames, I saw a tower.

Inside the tower, a pitch-black bird, with only a tuft of white feather on its head, surged back and forth.

It let out mournful cries, continually crashing, its body as if about to be torn apart, enduring immense pain.

Heavenly thunderbolts fell one after another, each striking the tower and transforming into a sharp sword that slashed at the bird's body.

I suddenly realized that this was the bird's greatest inner demon.

This scene displayed in the Nirvana fire is everything that happened when the bird's body underwent gender differentiation back then.

It endured pain beyond what ordinary people can imagine.

From its initial desperate struggle to later kneeling and praying, its whole body lay prone on the tower's floor, looking rather pitiful.

At this moment, I even wondered whether the Heavenly Dao was truly unfair to the bird.

Why was it born to bear such a life?

Why, after it had devotedly practiced Buddhism for so many years, was it still unwilling to be ferried, thus suffering this misfortune?

How many precedents of "lay down the butcher's knife and become a Buddha instantly" exist in this world—others can, why can't the bird?

But when I saw the bird lying on the ground slowly raise its upper body and then do what it did next, my face felt as if slapped hard, a burning pain!

I saw the bird cradle from its bosom a male infant corpse only the size of a palm.

I do not know what this infant corpse endured in life; I only saw its tiny body as if it had been condensed by some special means, with only its sex symbols highlighted.

Then the bird bit by bit devoured that infant corpse...

The Seated Buddha had said that the bird wished to differentiate itself into a male form.

To ensure this, it was obvious that he had long been prepared.

In this world, who knows how many innocent lives have been buried by the bird's sinful hands.

It thought it had done everything to the utmost, mastered its own fate, never imagining that perhaps it was precisely this "evil" that caused its eventual differentiation to fail.

Therefore, the midwife's assessment of the bird at my birth was not wrong.

The bird, evil from birth.

It is a man‑killing bird, the source of all evil.

This scene continues until the bird's differentiation fails and ends.

Then this scene is restarted.

It appears over and over again in the Nirvana fire.

Dream Made Real, upon reaching a certain level, is nearly equivalent to defying heaven and altering fate.

What I will do next is, through the fifth chapter of Dream Weaving, to alter all of this and weave a utopia exclusive to the bird.

I stared at the endlessly repeating scene in the Nirvana fire, long unable to take this step.

Do I really have to do this?

Do I really have to defy heaven and change fate for the bird?

But everyone joined forces to lift me to this point; from the very beginning I had no choice, right?

This is also the opportunity I fought desperately to obtain, right?

I clearly know what I am afraid of.

I fear that all of this is merely our wishful idealization.

I fear that if I slip, I will truly ferry such a great evil villain, instead of depriving it of the soil it depends on and reducing it to ashes.

At that moment, I suddenly noticed that on the edge of the Nirvana fire enveloping the bird's heart‑demon phantom mirror, strands of black qi began to twine, as if about to devour the Nirvana fire.

This finally made me realize that if I cannot decisively take this step, we will lose this hard-won opportunity for nothing.

Doing it carries risk.

But within the risk lies great vitality, right?

Thinking this through, I no longer hesitate; I immediately formed the hand seal and pressed my sword finger toward the Nirvanic fire.

Crackle!

At the moment I chanted the witchcraft, a bolt of heavenly thunder suddenly exploded above my head.

Forcibly altering the fate of a great evil-doer against heaven is the heavenly punishment I deserve.

But this heavenly thunder did not strike my body.

The copper coin net shattered, and golden copper coins fell like rain with a clattering sound.

When the second heavenly thunder fell, it likewise failed to strike me.

Seven Golden Scales arrayed above my head, and they blocked another heavenly thunder for me.

……

Inside the tower, the bird repeatedly undergoes its personality divergence.

But its behavior is deteriorating step by step, as if rewinding a film, being altered frame by frame under my hand.

From devouring infant corpses, it regresses to holding out infant corpses.

From painful divergence, back to before the divergence.

From inside the tower, retreating outward, then further back, all the way back to the Ancient God Temple.

From the seated Buddha, retreating to the ritual of the 108 eminent monks, Heaven-Stealing Fortune.

The scene froze at this moment, yet I was stunned by what lay before me.

I saw……fortune!

At that moment, I felt as if an invisible hand had forcibly dragged me into the bird's fate.

I saw the 108 eminent monks arrayed and performing their rites; within the formation array, a heart connected to the dragon veins pulsed incessantly.

I saw eight strands of Dragon Qi gathered from eight directions into the formation array, rushing toward that heart.

Under the empowerment of Dragon Qi, the heart gradually grew blood vessels, then flesh, and at the moment it coalesced into form, a tower descended from the heavens and crashed down upon it.

My heart leapt; acting before thought, I transformed into a phoenix form, shot forth, spread my wings, and used my body to drag that tower……