The moment Hai Shu spoke, the entire Myriad Buddha Hall trembled. An evil aura suddenly grew dense, filling the air, even stranger than the black mist seeping from the cracks underground.
One golden-bodied Buddha statue after another crashed down. The ground behind Hai Shu gradually bulged upward, as though something were about to bore out from beneath the earth.
Guang An had originally been trembling, the fear still not gone from his face. Seeing this, he instinctively backed away.
The next moment, his eyes widened, and even his breathing seemed to stop.
The ground split apart, swelling into an enormous mound covered in holes, like a honeycomb.
Dense incense-and-faith essence drifted from those huge holes. Great amounts of green smoke poured out, followed by torrents of thick, black sludge.
A hand stretched out from one of the holes and gripped the edge.
Strings of prayer beads were embedded in the arm's flesh, and even the fingernails had turned black.
Then, a face slowly poked out from the hole. Its eyes were pitch-black, meeting Guang An's terrified gaze head-on.
Guang An was so frightened that he collapsed onto the ground. His mouth hung open, yet he could not make a single sound. His entire body trembled uncontrollably.
Only when that terrifying gaze slowly shifted away did Guang An feel as if a mountain had been lifted from his body, leaving him utterly limp.
Plop.
The man walked out of the hole, breaking free from the countless clumps of black sludge clinging to him, finally revealing his full appearance.
He was tall and powerfully built, draped in a kasaya but wearing no monk's robes beneath it. Piety could be seen on his face, but there was even more unfathomable madness there. He felt like a snake flicking a black tongue.
When his