Kill.
Judgment passed.
The bone pillar cracked once more, opening the path to the next space.
Chen Zhou looked at the empty ground with a hint of regret.
What a waste for a demon to be absorbed like that, without even leaving any flesh behind for him.
He had originally intended to collect the opponent’s corpse—after all, it was sixth-stage—but he hadn't expected that as soon as the victor was decided, the body would be swallowed whole by the bone pillar.
Chen Zhou had roughly figured out the rules of the Golden Buddha's trial.
To put it bluntly, it was a gladiatorial arena.
The Golden Buddha locked everyone into bone pillar cages; the winners advanced, while the losers turned into nutrients, skin and bone, to be absorbed by the space.
While it filtered for the strongest individuals, it was also frantically plundering the flesh of the weak.
After all, there was no such thing as a free lunch. One's own flesh was the ticket to enter the competition.
Chen Zhou didn't delay any longer and stepped into the bone pillar.
A slight sensation of weightlessness came over him.
When his vision cleared, Chen Zhou was standing in a new bone pillar space.
This area was much wider than the previous level. On the surrounding bone walls, hideous reliefs vaguely emerged, as if countless evil ghosts were howling.
Chen Zhou did not move, simply standing in place for the time it took to drink a cup of tea.
Hum—
The bone pillar split open again, and two foul-smelling winds rushed toward him.
They were two massive demons covered in barbs, looking like hogs or hedgehogs.
As soon as they appeared, their eyes locked onto Chen Zhou, and they cried out in terror.
"It’s... it’s that fiend!"
One of the demons had clearly heard of the Lord of Two Domains' fearsome reputation, having heard that the two seventh-stage demon kings, Moon-Swallowing and Thousand-Eyed, had both died at the hands of this ruthless man.
The demon’s legs went weak, and it immediately dropped to its knees to beg for mercy: "Exalted one, I surrender! I am willing to submit!"
"I just surrendered, I won't go back on my word, if you don't believe me, ask..."
Puchi.
Before it could finish, a bolt of grayish-white death qi had already pierced its head.
Chen Zhou withdrew his hand, his expression cold.
"Surrender? Not accepted."
Seeing this, the other demon roared, intending to fight for its life, only to be pinned down by bone hands emerging from the defiled earth in the blink of an eye. Chen Zhou then crushed its chest with a single stomp.
Clean and efficient.
No unnecessary words.
As soon as the two demons breathed their last, the bone pillar sucked them dry until they were nothing but two shriveled animal skins.
The pillar writhed for a moment, and then, refusing to let even the skins go, swallowed them as well.
Chen Zhou watched with a strange expression.
'Sucking them up so urgently... just how hungry is this Golden Buddha?'
A ridiculous thought rose in Chen Zhou's mind.
Perhaps the Golden Buddha was pulling a scam. It was possible that the final 'reward' of flesh and blood was actually just the condensed remains of these losers.
After all, the wool had to come from the sheep's back.
Chen Zhou shook his head and walked toward the newly opened passage once again.
This time, the transmission felt shorter than before.
As soon as Chen Zhou appeared in the new space, he felt a sharp blade intent locking onto him.
He looked up.
Not far away, a middle-aged man was slowly sheathing a blade.
Their gazes met in mid-air.
Chen Zhou's brow twitched.
It was the Coffin-Carrier from the Western Region.
Back below the Star-Picking Platform, Chen Zhou had only caught a fleeting glimpse, thinking the man had a stable aura. Now that he was close, he realized how unique the man was.
Chen Zhou noticed that black smoke was occasionally drifting off the Coffin-Carrier's body.
It was sinful karma.
Immense sinful karma!
His karma was so deep that it was several times more intense than Yin Wudao's. He looked like an evil ghost that had just crawled out of a pool of blood in hell.
No wonder he could move freely under the golden light.
'I didn't expect to meet him so soon,' Chen Zhou thought to himself.
While Chen Zhou was sizing him up, the Coffin-Carrier also slowly raised his head.
His eyes were bloodshot yet exceptionally calm.
He didn't show fear or cunning like the previous demons. He simply reached out and gripped the battle-blade he had just sheathed.
"Western Region, Tuoba Feng."
The Coffin-Carrier's voice was raspy, as if his throat were filled with grit.
Then, he cupped his hands in a polite salute to Chen Zhou, his movements meticulous.
"Forgive me."
The moment his words fell, the aura on Tuoba Feng's body suddenly exploded. He drew his long blade and charged toward Chen Zhou with a roar.
There were no fancy probes; he struck with full power from the start!
Chen Zhou didn't waste words either. His grayish-white ghost domain instantly expanded, directly meeting the slashing blade-light.
The two forces collided in mid-air.
Boom!
Chen Zhou was jolted back half a step, a flash of surprise in his eyes.
'He can actually cut through my ghost domain?'
He was currently wearing the Eternal Calamity Karma-Fire, which should grant immunity to any attack that wasn't of a higher stage than his own.
This meant this man was also at the seventh-stage first symbiosis contract!
The ghost domain deflected the opponent's blade edge.
In that brief moment of contact, Chen Zhou sensed that the man's blade carried an extremely condensed soul power, somewhat similar to Bodhisattva Jieyin from Sukhavati.
However, it wasn't sinister; instead, it held a sense of solemnity.
Besides the soul power, he also carried the aura of black spots, exactly like Yin Wudao and the previously infected Cangming.
The two auras were mixed and clashing within his body, repelling each other yet forced into coexistence.
Chen Zhou felt that if the balance were tipped even slightly, this man might explode instantly.
'A freak.'
That was Chen Zhou's assessment.
He could sense that this man might hold even more secrets than the Golden Buddha.
"Since you've come, don't be in such a hurry to leave."
A sharp light flashed in Chen Zhou's eyes. He wasn't in a rush to use a killing move.
This man held clues about the Western Region and likely the secrets of the black spots. Killing him directly would be a waste; it would be better to restrain him first.
As for the sacrifice and Faith Conferment, there was no need to use them yet—those had to be saved for the Golden Buddha at the end.
"Hate Prison!"
Chen Zhou made a grasping motion with one hand. Countless pitch-black bone spikes shot out from the void, weaving into a massive cage that descended toward Tuoba Feng.
At the same time, numerous ghost servants that had long been prepared swarmed forward, attempting to subdue the man the moment the chains bound him.
However, faced with this overwhelming assault, Tuoba Feng neither dodged nor retreated. Instead, he gripped his blade with both hands.
With a wide sweep of the massive blade, a circle of black ripples emanated outward.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The ghost servants were instantly sent flying. Limbs snapped, and several of the weaker ones were blasted apart in mid-air by the strike.
He cleared the field with a single blow.
'What an overbearing blade.'
Chen Zhou's gaze narrowed. The man was indeed powerful.
He no longer held back. Hatred Fire surged along the bone spikes, and Withering Venom was released simultaneously.
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