Chen Zhou's thought moved, and the grey Ghost Domain contracted.
The next instant, he sat high atop the Bone Altar.
Lady Zhi, whose skin had been shredded, leaving only a crazed, dancing neural grid, was imprisoned before the altar by the Ghost Domain, bound by chains of death qi.
"Buddha Lord! Senior! Mercy!
"This little one is also a member of the Buddhist Sect. We're on the same side, Buddha Lord!"
Lady Zhi twisted into a pleading shape, filled with terror.
Chen Zhou didn't bother to correct her form of address. He transformed death qi into a whip and lashed Lady Zhi.
The death qi caused Lady Zhi's nerves to ossify continuously, the pain striking her very essence.
It further convinced her that such divine powers must belong to a great master of the Bone Temple.
Lady Zhi trembled in agony, her mental fluctuations intermittent.
"All sounds are suffering, only dreams are eternal. In the Pure Land of Great Dreams, we ascend to Sukhavati together.
"Buddha Lord, this little one serves under Bodhisattva Jieyin of Sukhavati...
"Could you, out of respect for Lord Jieyin, spare my life..."
Chen Zhou continued the lashing. "What is Sukhavati?"
The pain left Lady Zhi no time for deep thought; she didn't even have the chance to wonder why a fellow Buddhist from the Bone Temple wouldn't know of Sukhavati.
She could only answer by instinct.
"Sukhavati is a pure land opened by Bodhisattva Jieyin using supreme Buddhist methods in the crack between reality and dreams.
"He guides fated beings drowning in the sea of bitterness to enter the dream and cultivate, seeking... seeking transcendence..."
Lady Zhi's words became noticeably sluggish when touching upon core details, clearly restricted by a seal.
She spoke with high-sounding words, but given her previous actions, Chen Zhou snorted in contempt.
Chen Zhou said, "What were you plotting in my City of the Wrongfully Dead?"
Lady Zhi answered mechanically, "Lord Jieyin sent me to investigate the Bone Temple..."
Midway through her sentence, Lady Zhi seemed to trigger a keyword.
Buddhist characters lit up within her mental core. Lady Zhi shrieked once and collapsed on the ground, barely clinging to life.
Chen Zhou changed the question: "Who else besides you serves under Bodhisattva Jieyin?"
"Replying to the Buddha Lord.
"Plague-Eating Stove, Bedfellow, and I. The three of us serve the Bodhisattva in the Hall of a Thousand Dreams. We are all half-step eerification.
"Only waiting... waiting for the opportunity planned by the Bodhisattva to descend, then we can... then we can..."
Her words stuck again, the neural network twitching violently due to the backlash of the seal.
Chen Zhou intensified the erosion of death qi. "No one else?"
Lady Zhi's mental fluctuations struggled fiercely, as if wanting to nod or reveal more.
But suddenly.
"Ah—!"
A scream so wretched it warped the air. At her exposed core, an illusory Buddhist seal flashed and vanished.
It brought about an annihilation that bordered on total collapse.
She didn't dare utter another word, only twisting frantically to show she could say no more.
Seeing that he could get no more core intelligence about Sukhavati, Chen Zhou turned his questioning. "What about the Bone Temple? How much do you know?"
Lady Zhi's consciousness was already blurred by the death qi and seal backlash.
She responded intermittently, "Beautiful faces turn to bone, all forms are empty. Only by discarding flesh and blood can one see the true Buddha."
Then she reacted sluggishly. "Buddha Lord, aren't you a Buddha of the Bone Temple...?"
Chen Zhou remained silent. Having no choice, Lady Zhi continued her answer.
When it came to matters unrelated to Sukhavati, she spoke much more smoothly. Unfortunately, she wasn't part of the Bone Temple and didn't know much.
"The Bone Temple believes that a parasite host is still a shackle. One must completely discard flesh and blood to forge the soul into an immortal golden body."
Chen Zhou understood, gaining a general idea of the Buddhist Sect's power structure here.
The Aspect of All Beings refined hosts with copper poison, seeking the Arhat's body.
Sukhavati hid in the dream layers of hosts, weaving so-called bliss.
And the Bone Temple took an extreme route, discarding flesh to pursue a pure golden body.
The three factions didn't interact much and didn't understand each other.
As for the copper poison, Piao was already on her way. She could eat anything, so that shouldn't be much of a problem.
Sukhavati was hidden deeper, but Chen Zhou wasn't worried. At least Hong Ling could see those things. By having her cooperate with Jian Huaishuang, they could follow the clues.
But the Bone Temple had yet to appear. Chen Zhou felt that even if he overturned Lantao City now, he might not find a trace of them.
Just like this Lady Zhi—if she hadn't come to his door voluntarily, Chen Zhou might not have discovered that Sukhavati's existence was so unique.
Thousand Isles County was vast; Chen Zhou couldn't personally inspect every inch of land with his Ghost Domain.
"Quite devious. Almost like me."
Chen Zhou tried torturing her with death qi for a while longer, but Lady Zhi was nearly completely broken, her skin entirely shredded.
She was like a clump of soaked instant noodles, slumped there, unable to yield any more useful information.
Chen Zhou intended to try a bit more. After all, it was his first time encountering this form of life, a lab rat that had delivered itself.
However, a vibrant green pine needle arrived from nowhere.
Ignoring the barriers of space and dreams, it was faster than perception, instantly piercing through the slumped mass of Lady Zhi's body.
Sssst—
Like a punctured balloon, Lady Zhi's remaining vitality drained away at an unprecedented speed.
The neural grid withered and dimmed rapidly, the dream-light dissipated, and she grew ancient.
Chen Zhou snapped his head around, looking toward the edge of the Blood-Prison Pool.
He saw the unaging pine, which had been playing dead all this time, shaking its canopy in disgust.
Then, using its thick roots like human feet, it took a small, revolted step backward.
Its posture was exactly like someone who had watched a brat play with filth all day and, finally unable to bear it, stepped in to clean up while terrified of getting any on themselves.
Chen Zhou was very surprised.
Jian Huaishuang was an evil spirit, and his paper man subordinates were also evil spirit creations.
Yet without a Ghost Domain, they still couldn't lock onto Lady Zhi in the dream layer.
Hong Ling could see her because of her red trait [Linglong Heart].
But this unaging pine could not only see her but also lock on so accurately for an instant kill, piercing directly through the dream level.
An auspice actually possessed such aggression?
"Ah well. Having another powerful defense unit in the city is a good thing."
In the blink of an eye, everything remaining of Lady Zhi was sucked dry by that pine needle.
On the unaging pine's canopy, light flashed, and a new unaging pine cone quietly condensed.
Where Lady Zhi had completely dissipated, no trace was left.
Only a spherical glow of dream-light and the Dream-Weaving Shuttle remained.
The orb of light was a sliver of broken divinity.
Chen Zhou summoned it into his hand from across the distance. Upon probing it with his divine sense, a wave of negative emotions washed over him—hatred and spite from the deepest parts of a nightmare.
【You obtained a sliver of broken divinity—Hatred】
Thoughtfully, he put away this newly acquired divinity for the time being.
Now, he had two slivers of broken divinity with different attributes.
He looked at the unaging pine again. Seeing him put away that bit of divinity, the old pine tree shook violently once more.
This time it was even more exaggerated. The unaging pine pulled all its roots out of the soil.
Like someone lifting their trouser legs, it scurried back several steps, moving even further from the altar.
The disgust conveyed by its intent was almost tangible.
'Not only did you play with filth for half a day, you even picked something out of it and saved it?'
Chen Zhou watched the unaging pine's actions, somewhat speechless.
'What a wasteful thing. You don't know the value of resources.' This was good stuff, after all.
Chen Zhou also inspected the Dream-Weaving Shuttle.
It was a Mysterious Grade artifact. Its only function was to induce sleep and allow entry into dreams.
Since Chen Zhou had no dream-related abilities, the Dream-Weaving Shuttle was quite useless to him.
Rate on N.U.
