The wind and snow raged as three Roman Class-1 Battleships, brimming with murderous intent, hovered above the valley.
Naked, Qier Mo stood atop a pitch-black boulder. Her beautiful body shivered in the freezing wind, her smooth skin covered in large goosebumps.
"Give me the children." Qier Mo shouted as calmly as she could.
"They are fated for Buddha and destined to belong to the Buddhist Sect. The bond between you and me has ended. Go!" A hoarse, unpleasant voice came from a cave in the mountainside. A gentle force swept Qier Mo up from afar and sent her hundreds of meters away.
"Give me my children!" Still drifting through the air, Qier Mo shrieked and struggled desperately like a wounded lioness.
White Lotus Qi Force caught Qier Mo and carried her all the way beneath a Roman battleship hundreds of meters away.
One Roman battleship silently descended several dozen meters. An armored plate beneath it slid open, and a beam of green light shot down, drawing Qier Mo into the warship. The other two battleships slowly flew toward the cliff ahead. The armor around their bow cannons fully opened, revealing dozens of black muzzles aimed at the cave in the mountainside.
Qier Mo's voice echoed through the entire valley. "Return my children, or else... I'll kill you!"
"Good!"
A thunderous, muffled Buddhist chant rolled out from the cave. Two enormous white vase-shaped Qi forces howled forth and struck the two battleships ahead.
Amid piercing cracking sounds, the two battleships began to shatter inch by inch from their bows. In the blink of an eye, they turned into countless fragments that scattered through the air. The plasma engine units inside the ships completely collapsed in an instant, becoming countless motes of light that fell from the sky before they could even explode.
Every crew member aboard the battleship on the left was pulverized along with the vessel. The crew members aboard the battleship on the right, however, were each supported by a mass of white lotus Qi force and carried beneath the remaining battleship hundreds of meters away.
"Life-Death Illusion Destruction is merely Buddha's smile as he holds up a flower. Benefactress, you are too attached to appearances."
Other than the wind and snow, not a sound could be heard in the valley. After roughly three minutes, the sole remaining Roman battleship hurriedly landed and took aboard all its surviving companions before urgently taking off and leaving the valley.
Life-Killing Buddha emerged slowly from the cave, carrying two swaddled infants in one hand. He gazed at the battleship flying into the clouds and softly recited a Buddhist invocation.
"Namo Amitabha. Benefactress, we shall never meet again. Our bond ends in this life; in the next, this humble monk will renew our good fate."
Seventeen years later, atop Mount Everest, Life-Killing Buddha sat cross-legged facing west.
The brothers Prajna and Maha wore coarse linen robes and knelt quietly behind Life-Killing Buddha.
Life-Killing Buddha's body continuously expanded and contracted. At times it was fair and full, at times black and shriveled. Amid the alternating black and white, chaotic, indistinct Qi forces constantly surged from his body. Grayish energy enveloped his entire form, making him hazy and indistinct, as if he were no longer part of this mortal world.
"Prajna." Prajna prostrated himself on the ground.
"Maha." Maha forcefully knocked his forehead against the ground.
"Go down the mountain. Head north. Your fortunes lie in the mortal world. Remember this well: until the Life-Death Energies within your bodies flow without end and the Thirteen Chakras turn without rest, you must never fuse with the treasures your father left you."
After coughing heavily, Life-Killing Buddha tore open his own chest, took out two fist-sized purple crystals from his chest cavity, and handed them to Prajna for safekeeping.
"For these two damned things, your father slaughtered more than three thousand four hundred people from entire families. My sins are grave. After descending the mountain, Prajna, remember to accumulate merit for me and recite the Vajra Sutra one hundred thousand times to atone for my sins. Maha... do as you wish."
The brothers pressed their foreheads tightly against the snow as Life-Killing Buddha raised his head to look at the blazing sun.
A flame with a lapis lazuli hue rose from Life-Killing Buddha's brow and swiftly melted his entire body.
Life-Killing Buddha vanished completely, leaving behind not even a trace of ash, much less a single relic. All the cultivation of his life poured into Prajna and Maha, quietly concealing itself within their chakras.
The brothers silently rose to their feet and impassively recited scriptures for a while.
The next instant, Maha suddenly leaped three feet into the air. Wild with excitement, he punched toward the sky and roared, "The old bastard finally kicked the bucket! Hahaha! We're going down the mountain! Wahahahaha!"