Southern foothills of the Himalayas, an uninhabited wasteland valley.
In temperatures dozens of degrees below zero, fierce winds swept snowflakes through the valley. The biting gale had scoured the black rocks smooth, and occasionally tiny stones were lifted by the wind and hurled against the rocks, throwing up showers of sparks.
On a cliff facing the gale was a shallow cave no more than a meter deep. Inside sat a blackened, shriveled body cross-legged. Whenever the wind blew through, the tangled, clumped hair on its head swayed and scattered a few flecks of dust.
Black skin and flesh clung tightly to its bones. The body looked like an ancient corpse from a tomb, a desiccated zombie without a shred of flesh.
Yet its chest rose and fell faintly. About once every hour, its chest would rise and fall once. An invisible force blocked the cave entrance; the gale howled in with swirling snow, but not a single snowflake could fall inside.
A piercing shriek came from the sky, followed by continual explosions overhead.
The body's eyes suddenly opened. Its left eye was black, its right eye silver-white, and two swastika Buddhist seals, one black and one white, slowly revolved in the depths of its pupils. The body's black, shriveled skin suddenly burst apart. Flesh and blood splattered everywhere as its dried-out body slowly expanded like an inflated balloon. In the blink of an eye, it had become a fair-skinned, supple, muscular young man, handsome and imposing.
"My lifespan is exhausted. Eighteen years remain!"
A hoarse, low voice, like rocks grinding together, sounded out. The man slowly rose to his feet and stepped out of the cave in a single stride.
"My destined chance has come as well!"
Barefoot, he stepped upon the snowflakes drifting in on the wind. Invisible power supported his feet, and the snowflakes burst apart one after another. Countless fragments of snow formed two pristine white lotuses beneath his feet, carrying him through the air for more than two thousand meters. Borrowing force from a mountain rock, he lightly rounded the bend ahead and raced after a golden warship falling from the sky amid rolling black smoke and constant explosions.
Though the distance was dozens of kilometers, his feet never touched the ground. Relying entirely on a single breath of True Qi, he crossed through the air. The white lotuses beneath his feet grew larger and larger, eventually becoming a white lotus platform three feet across.
Qier Mo stared in terror at the rapidly approaching ground, her heart filled with regret.
As the legitimate daughter of the Eighth Elector Family among the Roman people, Qier Mo held an exalted status. But young and curious, she had secretly brought along her guards and piloted the small warship she had received on her coming-of-age birthday to Earth for sightseeing. Who could have expected that, just as she neared Earth's atmosphere, she would be discovered by a Federation Army patrol? After a barrage of missiles, Qier Mo's warship plunged toward the ground trailing thick smoke.
A Earth Federation Army patrol craft was still pursuing closely from behind, beams of laser fire continually grazing the warship's deck.
Qier Mo clasped her hands in despair and muttered a prayer to one of the mighty Nebula Gods she worshipped. This Nebula God was so powerful that, during the Roman people's long migration, he had swallowed their final and strongest fortress-class warship with his manifested body in space. This great Nebula God also occupied one of the top ten exalted positions in the Roman people's pantheon.
But the god clearly did not answer her prayer. Qier Mo's warship slammed headfirst into the ground and skidded nearly a thousand meters over the jagged mountain terrain before slowly coming to a stop.
The three surviving Roman warriors and twenty Spirit Race servant soldiers aboard the warship surrounded Qier Mo and rushed out of the vessel, which could explode at any moment. The patrol craft behind them had also deployed nearly a hundred Earth Federation Army soldiers. The excited Federation soldiers shouted and charged after them, knowing they had caught a big fish this time.
Qier Mo looked desperately toward the sky. Frail by nature, she had no strength to run across such perilous mountain terrain. Though her spiritual potential was immense, her spiritual cultivation was abysmal. With her lofty status, she had never had the motivation to undergo grueling spiritual training, and she could not rely on her own strength to fly away.
As the Federation soldiers drew ever closer and the patrol craft in the sky arrogantly descended directly above her, Qier Mo fell into complete despair.
"Namo Amitabha... The sea of suffering is boundless; sever your head and reach the shore!"
A deep Buddhist chant came from the sky. A handsome naked young man came speeding from the horizon, standing on a white lotus formed from condensed vapor. He formed a strange hand seal and lightly waved it at the patrol craft overhead. The Federation patrol craft was crushed into a lump of scrap metal like an egg pressed beneath a ten-thousand-ton hydraulic press, then fell to the ground.
Streams of vase-shaped force blasted down with howling force, filling the sky. Nearly a hundred Federation soldiers, along with the guards at Qier Mo's side, had their bodies explode and died miserably.
Qier Mo screamed in terror, clutching her head. When had she ever seen such a horrific scene?
The white lotus slowly descended. The naked young man looked Qier Mo's lovely, gentle figure up and down, revealing a satisfied smile.
"Female benefactor, this humble monk calls himself the Life and Death Buddha. You and this humble monk are fated. Please offer your body as alms."
The Life and Death Buddha seized Qier Mo by the shoulder and said with a kindly yet matter-of-fact expression, "Please compose yourself, benefactor, and accompany this humble monk back to his cave abode for yin-yang union and childbearing!"
Qier Mo's eyes rolled back, and she fainted from fright.
The Life and Death Buddha grabbed Qier Mo and slung her over his shoulder like a hunter carrying a dead wild boar, then carried her toward the cave abode where he cultivated in seclusion.