Chapter Sixty-Two: An Old Acquaintance?

Gazing at that serene face, surrounded by radiant Buddhist light, halos formed by countless strands of brilliance slowly expanded outward.

“Master, so there truly is an ancient Buddha here!”

Nie Xiaoke clearly felt an intangible pressure, causing the Buddhist light around her to tremble unceasingly, as if it were about to break through the massive prison formed by layer upon layer of spectral sword energy.

“Master, this is the lingering soul of a Buddha who had cultivated the Golden Body of Ten Thousand Fathoms. Even now, this remnant soul has not been destroyed by time. Moreover, in this sealed treasure vault—which is also something of a tomb—the power of this Buddha, whose mastery of Buddhist law is profound, is certainly far from negligible. We just don’t yet know whether he is friend or foe to us.”

I nodded in acknowledgment.

Looking up at this Buddha, wholly suffused with golden radiance, I could distinctly sense a subtle, almost imperceptible familiarity emanating from him, a feeling of reassurance.

My intuition told me that this Buddha would not trouble me.

“May I ask, venerable master, who you are...?”

I suppressed my own aura. Though the countless rays of Buddhist light pierced through me, causing great discomfort, it seemed that because I had relaxed my body and completely restrained my aura, the intensity of the light lessened considerably.

“I am Minglu. I did not expect that after so many years, you would have already passed through so many lifetimes. What surprises me even more is that your body now carries so many extraordinary encounters. It seems the path you chose back then was indeed the right one.”

Listening to the words of this ancient Buddha called Minglu, I seemed to sense a hidden meaning.

“Venerable Minglu, I confess I do not fully understand your words.”

At my response, Minglu suddenly laughed softly and said, “It matters not. Of course you do not know now, but you will come to understand in time. I believe that before long, you will know why I say these things. At present, you are shackled, unable to find release, your mind in turmoil. Naturally, you do not know who you truly are, and the road ahead of you is still long. But already you are walking steadily toward the right path. You are fortunate.”

The more I listened, the more confused I became, standing there bewildered, looking at Minglu in utter perplexity.

The indistinct face gradually became clear, revealing the visage of a middle-aged Buddha.

“Since you have entered this place by a twist of fate, it shows that all this was beyond your expectation. There are no other rare treasures here—only some fractured talismanic laws left over from the great cataclysm of the ancient world. I see that in your hand you carry a nameless ancient sword capable of piercing my world at will. I shall entrust these talismanic laws to your sword, hoping it may aid you in the future.”

The aged voice grew faint. In that instant, the Sword of All Beings in my hand soared skyward. Nie Xiaoke was simultaneously bound by countless rays of Buddhist light, her whole body encased in a suit of luminous armor woven from those radiant strands.

“Old friend, Mingdao has long since died. This sliver of my consciousness was forcibly separated from my body during the great cataclysm of the ancient world to protect the Buddhist realm. Now, I am able to survive by inhabiting this ancient sword. If, within a thousand years, you can return me to the Buddhist realm, I have the means to reforge my golden body and break my shackles.”

“You and I never belonged to this world. The destruction of the ancient great world wiped us all from existence. Even then, we knew that only you could lead us out of this world and into the ancient realm. Now, it seems all proceeds according to the path you once revealed to us. Should the day come when I, Minglu, am truly revived, I hope to follow you once more, waging war across the vast worlds and journeying to the once ineffably mysterious ancient world!”

The voice faded, frail and indistinct, until it vanished completely.

At that moment, I was stunned. I had never imagined that, before the myriad great worlds of law and Buddhism, there existed an even more ancient, mysterious world. Could that so-called ancient world be the celestial realm Tu had once spoken of?

Or might it stand even above the celestial realm?

I hastily communicated with Tu in my mind, recounting all I had just heard.

To my surprise, neither Tu nor Nie Xiaoke had heard a single word spoken by the ancient Buddha Minglu.

Upon hearing my account, Tu, visibly shocked, told me that long before the Old Man of Yin and Yang and the Lord of Heaven and Earth, there were indeed other mysterious worlds. However, the cosmos and its great worlds are destroyed every tens of thousands of years, and after each destruction, only a few survive. The Old Man of Yin and Yang was so powerful precisely because he survived several such cataclysms.

As for the Buddhist realm, the world of law, and the like, they had endured even longer, only to be wiped out entirely in the most recent great disasters. After all, with every cosmic calamity, terrifying powers arise.

The more I thought, the more daunting this all seemed—it had utterly surpassed the bounds of my imagination.

“But Master, for now, you must not dwell on these matters. The cycles of fate and retribution are inexorable; everything unfolds according to a hidden order. Our main task now is to recover our strength, increase our power, and address the problems at hand.”

I nodded, taking a deep breath. By now, the Buddhist light throughout the entire treasury was gradually dimming, though the spiritual energy remained as pure as ever. The Sword of All Beings was now completely enveloped in pure Buddhist light and talismanic runes, its whole form gleaming with gold.

Indeed, there were still many pressing problems before me—the most immediate being that terrifying Vajra corpse, and with less than a month left before we had to visit the mysterious, uncanny village of Painted Eyebrows.

Painted Eyebrows Village?

Could it be the very place my soul had visited in a dream?

So many uncertainties remained in Chengdu, and I was still so weak. The Master of Yin and Yang had only just begun his studies, capable of little more than rudimentary techniques. Without the Blood Array of Tu and the Sword of All Beings, I doubt I could handle even a single vengeful spirit.

Master of Yin and Yang, half-step Master, true Master.

This, I had learned from the secret techniques of Azure Dragon, was how the masters of Mount Azure Dragon classified those who cultivated the arts of Yin and Yang. Both Chen Chuyi and Zhao Shiwuwere only just at the half-step stage. As for true Masters, perhaps they were at least on the same level as Xiyue. Yet this was only a rough classification used by the experts of Mount Azure Dragon for practitioners across China; there were many finer distinctions I had yet to study, and Tu told us that in their time, the divisions between these realms were even more precise.

Suddenly—

As the Sword of All Beings let out a long, piercing cry, the whole space instantly dimmed, and the spiritual energy around us began to thin and dissipate...

“Master, grab the hilt, quickly! We must leave at once—this place is about to collapse!”