Why is the Demon Venerable Like That? - Chapter 24

The System had just returned from a failed negotiation in the backend, having begged and pleaded with colleagues for a few items, only to return to a scene that made its metaphorical eyes go dark. I may not be human, but you are truly a dog!

Lu Yuan could barely contain the spiritual power rampaging within him. The bronze lamp base in his hand finally succumbed to the barbaric force and shattered into fragments, swirling together with the remains of the Buddha statue in a wild dance through the air.

“Do you think I wanted to do this?” Lu Yuan spat out the words through gritted teeth.

The System heard the heartbreaking crack sounds emanating from Lu Yuan’s body and reluctantly handed him a bottle of liquid. [I borrowed this from a colleague on credit. Remember to pay it back! A super-tech product from the future: Heavy-Duty Adhesive. Whether it is something as small as armor or as large as a starship, it binds instantly! No worries afterward!]

Lu Yuan: “…”

Although he did not understand a few of the words, that did not stop him from guessing what the fool of a System had brought him.

Ling Chuandu waved his hand, separating the debris that threatened to strike friend and foe alike. He furrowed his brows. “You are truly not at the Foundation Establishment stage.”

Suspicion, uncertainty, murderous intent, and hesitation, various emotions flickered in Ling Chuandu’s eyes. “What did Lin Jiangxue send you here to do?”

Even without the Double-Faced Buddha taking action, Ling Chuandu was already inclined to send Lu Yuan to the Yellow Springs for a second time.

Lu Yuan cast a side-eye at him. “Is hiding one’s cultivation such an outrageous act?”

At times, he felt Ling Chuandu’s suspicious nature was identical to a cat he had raised in Jiucang City. It was timid but had a fierce temper. When frightened, it would not run away; it would just hiss and swipe a few claws at you.

“Is revealing spiritual power something that cannot be seen in the light?” Ling Chuandu said coldly.

Lu Yuan took a deep breath. “If you do not mind being turned into a meat patty by the thing that is about to send us both to the afterlife from above, I would be happy to chat with you some more.”

The two exchanged a look and simultaneously bolted toward the Scripture Pavilion. By this time, Jiezhao Temple was shrouded in the phantom shadow of the Double-Faced Buddha. The earth collapsed, mountains split, and sand and stones flew through the air. If they did not find Lu Mingzhu’s corpse now, it would be ground into fine powder along with the temple.

However, Lu Yuan had never tried to manifest the “Realm of Life and Death” in such an unstable environment. Furthermore, he would never use his secret techniques in front of Ling Chuandu, lest his junior brother think he was a vengeful spirit seeking retribution and execute him on the spot.

The Double-Faced Buddha’s phantom shadow lifted a hand, spanning several meters in an instant, and struck downward!

Lu Yuan scrambled to dodge, but fragments of brick wall grazed his face, leaving a bleeding gash. He cursed internally, This evil Buddha must be thick-headed. To kill two people, he is literally tearing his own nest apart.

He caught his breath. The strange item the System gave him did stop his body from cracking further, but it also made his spiritual power feel unwieldy. The giant, illusory Dharma image followed like a shadow. It laughed again, “All living beings are born into the three evil paths due to their evil deeds. I wish to transcend you two. Why do you persist in your delusion?”

Damn it, why is this thing even more long-winded than Abbot Liaowu! It was chasing them and lecturing them in a muffled, droning voice the entire way.

Lu Yuan scrambled, using the force of the Double-Faced Buddha’s incoming pressure to fling himself dozens of meters away. He could feel the joints in his arms nearly dislocating. With his spiritual energy locked inside this body, the painful, bloated sensation blurred his vision.

The Double-Faced Buddha’s next strike followed relentlessly. At the same time, its voice turned overjoyed, “It seems the donor has repented; then I shall send you on your way.”

The veins on Lu Yuan’s forehead throbbed. Blood raced through his meridians, yet his body was as rigid as a rock. He could only watch as the giant palm drew closer and closer.

“Demon Breaker!” With a shout drowned out by the gale, a long sword carrying a blue-black arc of light tore through the nocturnal miasma, ripped through space, and stabbed into the palm of the evil entity.

The phantom image shattered upon impact, transforming into thousands of light particles that fell like rain, a sky full of fire-tree blossoms and silver flowers.

Ling Chuandu descended in front of Lu Yuan, his expression still carrying the remnants of murderous intent. “Can you still stand?”

Lu Yuan’s gaze fell upon the long sword in Ling Chuandu’s hand.

Demon Breaker. It was originally the long spear of the former Demon Venerable, Ling Qianzhi. She had crafted the spear shaft from lightning-struck wood and forged the head from Dragon-Subduing River-Piercing steel.

After Ling Chuandu came to Jiucang City, his master had fashioned the lightning-struck wood of the Demon Breaker into a sword hilt. However, the steel of the spearhead was incompatible with Ling Chuandu’s spiritual constitution, so Lu Yuan had gone to the Northern Remnant Snow Path alone. He had guarded it for ten days, ultimately slaying a snow demon in the depths of the path to forge a new weapon from its crystal core as a birthday gift for Ling Chuandu.

He had even been snow-blind for several days after coming out of the Remnant Snow Path, but he believed it was all worth it. Even the frostbite on his hands felt like a satisfying pain.

Yet, at that time, Ling Chuandu did not call it Demon Breaker. He called it… Yuan Xue.

So… even the name had been changed?

The spiritual power he had barely suppressed began to roil again. Once, he had treated someone with such sincerity, only for that person to cast it aside like trash. This realization caused Lu Yuan’s vision to flicker between light and dark, his heart drumming against his temples.

He swallowed the hot blood threatening to spill from his lips and said, somewhat gloomily, “Lord Ling… I did not expect you to be so kind-hearted.”

Ling Chuandu wore a complex expression, subconsciously tightening his grip on the hilt of Demon Breaker. At that moment, his mouth had been faster than his heart in summoning the weapon.

So… as long as it was a similar face, it could throw him into such disarray.

The two said nothing more. Taking advantage of the Double-Faced Buddha’s wails, they hurried to the Scripture Pavilion. Behind them, the scattered fragments of light gathered once more. A ecstatic smile reappeared on the face of the Dharma image.

Lu Yuan leaned lethargically against the wall of the Scripture Pavilion, listening to the sound of walls being demolished nearby, and whispered, “A perfect case of catching a turtle in a jar.”

Except, they were the turtles.

The Scripture Pavilion was packed densely with people, huddled together in panic and bewilderment, with barely a place to stand. Seeing two figures burst in, the crowd surged backward in fear. Aside from the chaotic sound of footsteps, one could only hear the heavy breathing of the crowd.

“It is okay, it is okay. They are not evil spirits.” The little novice monk who struck the bell saw Lu Yuan and shouted anxiously. After being exhausted, he discovered that all the owl-men had gathered at the side hall where Lu Yuan was. He had returned to the Scripture Pavilion to find help, only to be met with the earth-shaking disaster.

“What is happening?!” Finally, someone spoke up.

A woman clutched the arm of the person next to her, her voice trembling, “The monsters outside! I saw them near the window just now! They haven’t left!”

During the day, they had seen the Scripture Pavilion on fire and rushed over without thinking, dousing a fire that looked large but was actually on the periphery with no real impact. While they were curiously looking for the source of the fire, they had seen a sky-blotting flock of owls flying low over their heads.

A man was silent for a long time before speaking, “That monster has a human face, but…” his face twitched, “that person is someone I know.”

A monk dressed in a black cassock with light red trim asked, “Who is the donor referring to?”

The man gritted his teeth and said, “He is my fellow villager! We came together to participate in the Lamp-Lighting Buddha’s birthday, but he went missing a week ago. I always thought he had a family emergency and went home. I never expected him to still be here! Only, he has turned into a monster!” The man gathered his courage and pointed at the monk, shouting, “There are evil spirits in Jiezhao Temple!”

The crowd was in an uproar; crying, cursing, and complaints mixed with the wails of children, filling the confined space. The monk sweated profusely as he tried to explain, but the others felt the Scripture Pavilion was no longer safe, and several people even tried to break out.

As they passed the door, Lu Yuan said coldly, “You may leave, but do not drag us down with you as burial companions.”

He feared that the moment these people stepped outside, the gates, which the evil spirits could not open from the outside, would become a welcome mat.

“Are we just going to wait here to die!” The burly man who was anxious to leave could not help but roar.

Ling Chuandu was irritated by the noise. He rubbed his temples, his tone sinister, “If you do not like waiting to die, I will send you across the Naihe Bridge right now.”

“You!” The burly man swung a fist the size of a sandbag toward Ling Chuandu’s head.

Ling Chuandu’s eyelids lowered slightly, his gaze as sharp as an unsheathed sword, like icicles beneath a cliff.

The burly man’s arm was instantly twisted into an impossible arc. He could not even scream; he stumbled back a few steps, holding his arm with a deathly pale face. His companions cried out in alarm, and the headscarf on one man’s forehead nearly fell off with his movements, straining as it clung on: “Evil spirit! You are the evil spirit!”

Lu Yuan: “…”

Just as Ling Chuandu was about to twist the man’s arm into a pretzel, Lu Yuan spoke up, “We are disciples of the Fengchi Sect, here to investigate the evil spirits.”

The man in the headscarf eyed Lu Yuan’s exquisite, pale face. “You really do not look like an immortal master of the Fengchi Sect.”

It looks more like a mountain spirit, Nie Xiaoqian of Lanruo Temple, or Xin Shiniang of the desolate monastery. The thought that this was also a temple made the comparison even more fitting.

The headscarf-wearing man glanced at Ling Chuandu with defensive fear and swallowed the second half of his sentence. “Then what have you found?”

Lu Yuan was silent for a moment, only asking, “Who among you is a follower of the Double-Faced Buddha?”

The crowd fell silent for a moment before chattering excitedly, voices overlapping one another.

“Who?”

“Is this person in the God-Buddha Compendium?”

“Never heard of it…”

“Is it another name for some Buddha?”

Lu Yuan’s gaze was gloomy as he scrutinized the crowd bit by bit. Everything must have a source. That evil Buddha must have been brought in by someone, and there must have been an agreement between the two, leading people like Lu Mingzhu to fall one after another into a woven dream. This source was hidden among all these people, watching them with dark, sinister eyes.

The noise outside seemed to have stopped, or perhaps they were just waiting for their prey.

However, the sounds inside the hall were like boiling water; dense bubbles incessantly burst, coalesced, and burst again.

Ling Chuandu pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyelids drooping slightly as he examined each face with its varying expressions.

Suddenly, he smiled and looked at Lu Yuan. “Why go through all that trouble? Wouldn’t it be easier if we just killed them all?”