"You, you monster!"
"What on earth did you do? This isn't eerification! This isn't Buddhist dharma! You've... you've fallen into Infinite Hell!"
Bodhisattva Jieyin screamed.
"Congratulations, you guessed right." Chen Zhou's aura had completely stabilized.
His ghost domain, mixed with endless resentment, spread out thoroughly, beginning to frantically assimilate this dreamscape.
The pale meridians that formed the Hall of a Thousand Dreams were instantly corroded as if doused in concentrated acid.
They twitched violently and then rapidly ossified. The fragile bone fragments couldn't withstand the weight of the Hall of a Thousand Dreams; walls collapsed, and pillars snapped.
The dreamlight began to dissipate, reverting into white cocoons hanging from the crumbling ceiling.
The entire Hall of a Thousand Dreams—this Sukhavati constructed from Bodhisattva Jieyin's own body—was meeting its final destination: death.
"No, I won't lose. I haven't lost yet! I've already successfully eerified; I've long since transcended ordinary life! How could I possibly lose here?"
Bodhisattva Jieyin was like a crazed fiend. "This is my dream! I am the master here!"
"Great dream dharma—Dream Collapse!"
This was his final trump card.
Bodhisattva Jieyin intended to compress and crush the entire dream space, along with Chen Zhou, dragging them both down together.
Buzz—!
All the remaining meridians stopped collapsing at that moment. The entire space began to implode toward Chen Zhou alone.
Chen Zhou didn't panic at all.
'If your level is lower than mine, what does a trump card matter? There is no outcome other than your death.'
Even so, he slowly raised his hand.
"You enjoy constructing beautiful dreams, letting living beings immerse themselves until they cannot escape."
"Then I shall use nightmares to construct a cage for you."
He spread his five fingers and made a light grasping motion toward the collapsing world.
Upon his command, countless thick bone spikes pierced through, growing frantically from the void beneath Chen Zhou's feet, from the shadows behind him, and from the cracks in space in all directions.
They intertwined, hooked, and wove together. Their growth speed even surpassed the rate of the dream's collapse.
Bodhisattva Jieyin discovered in despair that his final trump card was being forcibly propped open.
In an instant, a spherical cage larger than the original Hall of a Thousand Dreams took shape.
The cage was composed of countless bone spikes, locking the entire Hall of a Thousand Dreams inside. Then, the Hatred Fire ignited.
New ability: 【Hate Prison】.
"Aaaaahhhhh—!"
A scream so shrill it defied description erupted from the center of the cage.
【Hatred Fire】 ignored defense. It was a curse that struck directly at the soul, roasting Bodhisattva Jieyin's very essence.
His will became chaotic, and he began to beg for mercy incoherently.
"I was wrong! I was truly wrong!
"I shouldn't have made an enemy of you! Please, spare my life! I'm willing to serve you like an ox or a horse... No, I'll give you this Hall of a Thousand Dreams! I'll offer all my believers to you!"
"Let me out... It's so hot! It hurts!"
Chen Zhou stood outside the cage with an expressionless face, quietly watching.
The Hatred Fire burned everything, yet it specifically avoided the white cocoons on the ceiling.
Chen Zhou looked through the thin walls of the cocoons. With the help of Hong Ling's 【Linglong Heart】, he could sense the poor souls inside who had long since lost their physical bodies and had only their spirits left.
Their mouths still bore happy smiles, yet their brows were furrowed, and their hollow eyes revealed pain.
Parasitized by Sukhavati, sinking in agony, they repeated false dreams over and over again.
Chen Zhou sighed. He could have ignored these souls and let them perish along with the Hall of a Thousand Dreams in the Hatred Fire.
But he changed his mind on a whim.
He slowly raised his hand, pointing at the countless white cocoons, and activated Bone Erosion.
An ultimate version of the Seed of Resentment was precisely planted into every single white cocoon.
Evil God Whispers began to pour in.
"Are you still dreaming? Wake up."
Whispers that seemed to come from the deepest pits of the Underworld rang out simultaneously within thousands of beautiful dreams.
...
A mother was holding her resurrected child, weeping with joy.
Suddenly, she heard that voice.
She froze and looked down.
The cheeks of the child in her arms began to rot. Countless fat insect eggs crawled out of his putrid eye sockets.
"Mama, why won't you let yourself be eaten along with me?"
"Aaaaah!"
...
A scholar had just married his most beloved beauty and was at the height of his happiness.
During the wedding night.
Suddenly, he heard that voice.
He looked down. The bride on the red bed, her veil removed, had opened a giant maw. Shreds of meat were still stuck between her jagged teeth.
The bride smiled at him. "Husband, your soul must taste wonderful."
"No—!"
...
Thousands of beautiful dreams were forcibly torn apart at the same moment.
Those souls, who had been immersed in Sukhavati and repeatedly tormented, finally saw the truth.
They saw themselves wrapped in cocoon walls. They saw their withered souls impaled by wriggling meridian straws.
They saw that the other end of the straws connected to a giant monster, and they saw the reality of this beautiful dream.
Countless souls erupted at the same instant with the most extreme agony of their lives and a sky-toppling hatred.
It was the resentment of souls being repeatedly tortured over endless years, the humiliation of having their self-will stripped away, and the mockery of having their perceptions tampered with.
This scam called Sukhavati had not only stolen their lives but also defiled their most cherished emotions and memories.
Every sweet moment, every deep embrace, and every joy of regaining what was lost was nothing more than a carefully choreographed play by the monster.
They were pathetic seasonings for their souls before being digested.
"Go and take your revenge yourselves," Chen Zhou sighed softly as he watched.
The hatred erupting from the countless souls acted like the most violent fuel, instantly absorbed by the Hate Prison.
After absorbing the fuel, the Hatred Fire turned pitch black and burned even more fiercely.
It transformed that infinite resentment into a curse, applying it all onto Bodhisattva Jieyin's body.
"You... how dare you hate me?!"
At the center of the cage, Bodhisattva Jieyin let out an even more terrified scream.
"Why... why wake them up?"
"Is it not good... to attain enlightenment within the dream?"
Bodhisattva Jieyin uttered a final, pained question.
Chen Zhou's response consisted of only two cold words.
"Hypocrite."
The pitch-black flames of resentment followed the guidance of those souls, burning backward along the cocoon meridians, striking directly at the core of Bodhisattva Jieyin's true body.
"Aaaaah—"
The final scream was cut short.
Within the Hate Prison, under the roasting of countless souls' resentment, Bodhisattva Jieyin's massive true body was burned into charcoal.
The cage fell silent.
After those thousands of white cocoons erupted with their final hatred, their soul fires also extinguished.
Even though their souls were scattered, they were finally... free from this day-after-day, never-ending torture.
The cocoon walls soon turned into ash and drifted away.
With a wave of Chen Zhou's hand, the Hate Prison slowly disassembled, turning into death qi that swirled back and entered his body.
In this completely shattered dream void, only two things remained.
A fist-sized light orb radiating a dreamlike aura.
And a massive corpse that resembled a charred mountain range.
Chen Zhou reached out, and the light orb fell into his hand.
【You obtained a sliver of broken divinity — Delusion】
"Delusion. Quite fitting."
Chen Zhou pocketed it casually and then turned his gaze toward the corpse, the remains of the Hall of a Thousand Dreams.
"A complete sixth-stage corpse shouldn't go to waste."
With a thought, his ghost domain expanded like a giant maw, swallowing the entire Hall of a Thousand Dreams and dragging it into the domain.
"A single sixth-stage material is worth at least a hundred fifth-stage materials, which is ten thousand fourth-stage materials."
"Once I go back and dismantle it, the new sacrificial progress should be enough to fill the bar once."
Having finished everything, Chen Zhou clapped his hands in satisfaction.
It was time for this dream to end.
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