Buddha Tomato! Buddha Tomato!!!

Lü Rang, standing behind Yuan Zhu, was terrified by the sight.

He gripped his rifle with both hands, his fingers trembling with tension as he kept clicking the trigger. If he had not engaged the safety beforehand, he would already have disrupted the ceremony by attacking first, and the believers, whose mental states were growing increasingly bizarre, would have mobbed him to death.

Now, it was not just that the monks in the center of the square had heads that swelled round and turned an uncanny red, tore free of their necks, and floated high into the air, tethered by their spines.

Upon seeing this, the believers around the perimeter showed no fear. Instead, with their mental frequencies hijacked by the Dharma net, they chanted even more fervently, sending wave after wave of psychic power to the "Tomato Heads" forming the net's nodes to resist the endlessly falling starlight.

There were far too many spectators present, all chanting with an extraordinary unanimity of fervor, and the squad's position was close to the square for a convenient view of the ceremony.

Under these circumstances, leaving of their own accord would stand out far too much and could easily make them targets for the fanatical crowd. Yuan Zhu therefore urged Lü Rang to calm down. "Let's wait and see. We don't even know whether this change is good or bad."

Beside him, Meng Xi offered her analysis. "I don't think any of this has gone beyond the Abbot's plans. Otherwise, he wouldn't look so calm."

Although the scene was bizarre and uncanny, Na Ye City's locals looked as though they had seen it all before. Perhaps this was simply the proper way to hold a Buddhist Sect ceremony? When in Rome, they could only offer their blessings and hope the spectacle that followed would return a little closer to the land of the living.

As they bowed their heads and whispered among themselves, more and more impostors' heads swelled violently into balls, tore free of their necks, and hovered in the air, erupting with bloody light as they tried to return to the Starry Sky.

Yuan Zhu could see that not a scrap of muscle or blood vessel clung to the spinal bones connecting the heads to their bodies. Yet between the severed wounds and the bones, another kind of dark green flesh, transformed into leaf veins, stretched in sticky threads. It bound each vertebra tightly to the next, preventing the heads from flying away.

"Look at those green vessels on the bones. Don't they resemble the corrupted flesh of those foul-bone mad beasts?"

"Huh? They do look a little similar."

Just then, a spherical, blood-red head swollen to its limit finally failed to contain the ceaseless influx of starlight. It opened its mouth and let out a scream of extreme agony before bursting in midair with a bang! Bright red, viscous tomato juice splattered in every direction, spraying across the ground.

In an instant, a rich scent spread through the square, impossible to identify as either fruity fragrance or the fresh fragrance of flesh and blood.

Immediately afterward, the enormous heads rapidly fattened by starlight energy burst one after another, splashing blood-red jam all over the ground. This scene was far too graphic—more intense than when he had blown beasts' heads apart in a hail of gunfire!

"Gulp..." "Slurp..." "Grrr..."

The civilians around Yuan Zhu chanted with difficulty, struggling all the while, yet their throats kept making the sounds of swallowed saliva, and their hungry stomachs growled.

The smell was simply too enticing, brimming with fruit fragrance and an alluring, bloody sweetness. Even without tasting it, their brains could automatically conjure detailed hallucinations of its flavor.

After instructing Little Elf to strengthen the shielding against invasive external hallucinations, Yuan Zhu stared fixedly at the square. He saw red starlight still shining from the spots where the heads had exploded.

The eggplant heads that had kept swelling until they were stretched round had blown themselves apart, but the Buddha Cocoons gestating inside them had not vanished. Instead, after absorbing highly concentrated starlight, they had become products possessing the dual qualities of "Buddhist Dharma" and "stellar radiance."

Their size had not changed—they were still as large as pigeon eggs—but their color had turned vermilion. They were shaped like Buddha Heads with complete facial features and compassionately closed eyes, yet green sepals grew upside down from their necks.

Viewed upside down, they were unmistakably little tomatoes with leafy caps!

The tomato Buddha Cocoons hovered in the air, emitting shafts of blood-colored starlight as Buddhist scripture BGM sounded around them. Even their original sandalwood scent had been replaced by the fruity fragrance of tomato juice.

"What exactly are these things? Buddha Cocoons? Sarira? Buddha Head tomatoes? Or Buddha Fruit?"

Pop! Bang! Boom! The suspended heads exploded one after another amid despairing wails. Tomato juice like blood plasma splashed and gushed, scattered by the wind into a bloody mist that covered the entire venue like rain.

Even Yuan Zhu failed to escape this baptism of tomato-juice blood rain. Warm, sweet juice dripped onto his cheeks, releasing an enticing scent. Unable to resist, he licked a drop himself. Sour and sweet, with a little saltiness? It actually tasted pretty good.

The ground in the center of the square was flooded with tomato juice. The flagstones rapidly sucked up the juice and pulp on their surface. Hissing, the stones softened and bulged, growing networks of blood vessels and taking on the contours of Buddha Heads. Tender green sprouts even pushed out of their mouths, beginning to extend and grow with sinuous grace.

Rustle, rustle, rustle... The originally blood-red ground was rapidly sucked dry, growing one Buddha face after another. Each spat out a thorny Eggplant Seedling that grew swiftly beneath the starlight. The stone Buddha faces beneath the plants also moaned in indistinct murmurs. "Eggplant, eggplant, eggplant! Buddha, Buddha, Buddha!"

Pointing at the sprouting green seedlings, Lü Rang exclaimed excitedly, "Ah! I recognize them. They're the plants used to imprison and seal ghosts in those villages! Were our wooden spears made from these plants too?!"

Yuan Zhu said calmly, "When these Tomato Heads explode, the tomato-juice plasma they spray is red. But those mad beasts have green blood. There has to be some connection between the two!"

Zhou Chu said, "Could their blood turn tomato-colored once they mature, while before maturity it's the color of plant leaves and stems?"

Meng Xiyue said, "Could it really be that slapdash?"

One monk after another had his head burst beneath the starlight. The wildly spraying tomato juice nourished all living beings in return, leaving only a mature Buddha Cocoon Relic gleaming with bloody light. More civilians raised their heads and greedily sucked in the tomato-juice blood rain falling from the sky, replenishing their stamina so they could continue contributing their psychic strength to the Dharma net.

At this point, the special "eggplant-headed impostors" surrounding the Abbot wore equally agonized expressions, but their heads did not swell and tear free of their necks. Instead, their features alternated between savage grimaces, their eyes flashing green, and pained expressions as they continued chanting with difficulty.

They were too far away for Yuan Zhu to hear clearly. Still, he could be certain that these freaks were not shouting "Eggplant! Eggplant! Eggplant!" Instead, like those mad beasts, their blood-red cheeks split open in gashes, green eyeballs emerging from within as they rasped something like, "Kill, kill, kill, blood, blood, blood, flesh, flesh, flesh..."

The Much-Learning Abbot took half a step forward and roared with a voice like thunder. "Wicked creatures! Convert to our Buddha at once!"

The eggplant-headed freaks immediately knelt and kowtowed hard, speaking with difficulty. "Master, save me!" "Buddha, deliver me!" "I am willing to convert!"...

The Much-Learning Abbot raised one hand, curled his five fingers into claws, and clamped them firmly around the head of the person before him. He held his other hand upright before his chest and chanted rapidly. The invisible Dharma net enveloping the venue, with the suspended Buddha Cocoon Relics as its nodes, ruthlessly squeezed psychic strength from all living beings and drew in starlight, gathering it toward him.

Yuan Zhu finally understood. This ceremony seemed to exploit the racial talents of these tomato freaks, using the Eggplant Head Monks as human filters to absorb starlight, burst their heads to refine it, and produce Buddha Cocoon Relics with a "Buddhist Dharma/starlight" dual nature through blood sacrifice.

The Abbot had sacrificed countless monks to refine this "physical Dharma net," harnessing both the psychic strength of all living beings and starlight energy, then using them in turn to extract the foul-bone toxic blood from the eggplant-headed freaks.

He understood. Now he finally understood!

The eggplant-headed freak kneeling before the Abbot let out agonized shrieks, yet his expression mingled pain with pleasure. Meanwhile, streams of thick, dark green mad blood surged out of the holes the Abbot had gouged into the top of his head, rose, and burrowed into the Abbot's arm, where the Dharma net's power suppressed them.

Withdrawing his five fingers from the first tomato freak, the Abbot continued pacing forward to the second. Another Buddha's Crown-Stroking Dragon Claw drove five fingers through the tomato's crown, extracting the viscous green mad blood and leaving behind a five-holed bowling ball. Then he moved on to the third freak, repeating the process.

As more and more mad blood accumulated inside him, the Abbot's mental state grew increasingly unstable. Dark green blood vessels filled his eyes, and his expression alternated between compassion and madness...

The "psychic Dharma net," with Buddha Cocoon Relics as its nodes, continued draining the civilians' psychic strength. Their flesh-and-blood bodies visibly withered at speed, their chanting weakened, and they gave off an air of frailty.

At that moment, the blood-glowing Buddha Cocoons sucked in another wave of starlight and projected rays of bloody light toward the crowd outside, nourishing their bodies. Their shriveled shells slowly filled out again, and their spirits became as excited as if they had drunk Red Bull. They resumed chanting.

How pitiful, how pitiful! They were practically a bunch of playthings, human batteries left for the Abbot to manipulate, torment, and squeeze dry.

Yet even doing this could not alleviate his increasingly dire mental state.

After piercing the heads of ten tomato freaks in succession, the danger within the Abbot's body also reached a perilous level. His aged, feeble body visibly swelled and strengthened, looking more and more like the prelude to an outbreak of mad blood.

"Hah!"

The Much-Learning Abbot roared angrily and raised his hand again. His five fingers pierced the eleventh tomato freak's head, ruthlessly extracting the mad blood as he solemnly swore an oath before heaven and earth:

"I, your disciple Duowen.Jiamaye, hereby make a great vow. I shall bear in my own body all the suffering of this world, deliver all living beings, quell the ghost calamity of the Yellow Springs, and rebuild the Na Ye Buddhist Kingdom. Until I have delivered every living being in this world, I swear I shall not attain Buddhahood!"

As the oath took effect, the Buddhist Dharma Power inside him suddenly erupted. Brilliant golden Buddhist light shone all around him, beginning to erode and devour the blood-colored starlight. The two forces joined together to suppress the green demonic blood within his body.

The twelfth, the thirteenth... One tomato freak after another had his head pierced by the Abbot, who extracted the mad blood and left behind his own Buddha Cocoon seed...

When the Abbot, his face full of pain, finally struggled over to the last tomato freak, he pressed his five fingers against the other's face and clenched his claw with force, tearing the entire face apart. Each finger stabbed into the head, drawing out the demonic blood.

At the same time, the Abbot's muscles swelled enormously, and the sound of tearing flesh came from his neck.

Green, fleshy leaves resembling tongues or flower sepals, with sharp barbs lining both edges, shot radially out from the front, back, and sides of his neck as though it were a stem, forming a ring.

They resembled a collar, flower petals, or enormous barbed tongues, clustering around the Abbot's head at their center to form a green, bald sun. Then the leafy petals curled backward, licking his bald head before finally wrapping around it to form the beginnings of a green flower bud.

The Much-Learning Abbot, now missing his head and bearing a green flower bud atop his neck, suddenly pressed his palms together and sat cross-legged. The green bud above him rapidly swelled into a ball.

This time, his head did not explode in a spray of pulp like those of the Eggplant Head Monks. Instead, it split open on its own with utter tranquility. Once the bud opened, his original head had been completely broken down, leaving only layers of thick red petals made of flesh, with translucent patterns of capillaries growing across them.

The fleshy petals unfurled layer by layer, finally becoming an enormous flower nourished by a human body. At the flower disk beneath the petals was the Much-Learning Abbot's old face, smiling compassionately.

The human-headed flower adjusted its position like a sunflower, turning to look toward the square. Its eye sockets and mouth opened, growing dense clusters of red, threadlike stamens that resembled writhing blood vessels.

"Our Buddha is merciful! This old monk wishes to deliver all living beings of Na Ye Country. All disciples of our Buddhist Sect, help me attain Buddhahood at once!"

In the sky, the Buddha Cocoon Relics jointly tempered by Buddhist Dharma Power and stellar radiance descended toward the fleshy flower's human-faced disk like young swallows returning to their nest.

The stamens in the Abbot's eyes and mouth also grew longer and longer under the nourishment of starlight, floating toward the heavens to connect with the necks of the incoming "Buddha Cocoons."

Now, as though fruit had found its stem, the Much-Learning Abbot bore dozens upon hundreds of Buddha Cocoon fruits on his human head—the human-faced flower disk. Was he human? Or a plant—a tomato? Like a humanoid starlight tomato plant bearing over a hundred fruits, he looked extraordinarily harmonious and brimming with Buddhist grace.

"Buddha, Buddha, Buddha... Eggplant, eggplant, eggplant... Buddha, Buddha, Buddha... Eggplant, eggplant, eggplant..."

After connecting to the Abbot, these "Buddha Cocoons" seemed to have been infused with souls. Each opened its mouth, some shouting "Buddha," others calling "Eggplant."

Empowered by the many Buddha Cocoon Relics, the Abbot's Dharma power surged. More than a dozen green vines suddenly shot out from beneath his kasaya, piercing the tomato freaks beside him and merging them with his body.

The freaks did not struggle. Instead, their faces brimmed with satisfaction and joy as they welcomed this wonderful transformation, as though they had been delivered into Buddhahood.

Meng Xiyue quipped, "Could this be what he meant by 'bearing all suffering in my own body, and swearing not to attain Buddhahood until all of Na Ye has been delivered'? As long as he connects everyone and makes them a single whole, he'll have delivered them all and can become a Buddha?"

Yuan Zhu clapped his hands. "That makes sense!"

At this point, the spectacle had become grotesque in the extreme. The Much-Learning Abbot, who had fused humanity with nature—plants—suddenly turned his fleshy flower disk toward the civilians where Yuan Zhu and the others stood. Through psychic resonance, he began preaching. "If this world knew no suffering, how would all living beings know that my Buddhist Dharma is boundless and mercifully delivers the world?! Hah!"

He roared, and the countless "Buddha Cocoons" connected to his human-faced flower disk began wailing aloud, blood streaming from both eyes as they clamored, "Kill, kill, kill... Blood, blood, blood... Flesh, flesh, flesh..."

Above the Abbot, the starlight gradually being distorted and transformed into bloody light carried streams of green mist toward the spectators. He expelled the "foul-bone mad blood" he had yet to refine, turning it into rising blood mist that mingled with the bloody light and shone across the entire venue.

"Fuck!!! We've been had!"

The mouse in Yuan Zhu's pocket let out a piercing shriek, while the Uniform on his body shuddered uneasily, creating a double defense against the distortion of the bloody light.

But the civilians around them were not so fortunate. Their minds were still trapped in the "Dharma net," leaving them utterly defenseless against the blood-colored starlight.

Bloody light poured backward into their bodies, bringing the power of evolution. Their muscles began to swell, their flesh grew excessively, and their skin could no longer contain it, splitting with ripping sounds.

Then familiar green eyeballs emerged from their wounds, turning with vivid animation... They all began displaying the traits of green versions of Foul Bone Demons.

Yet unlike those crazed beasts, the citizens of the Buddhist Kingdom corrupted by "Duowen.Starlight Tomato.Abbot" rapidly developed pigeon-egg-sized tumors on different parts of their bodies—some on their cheeks, some on their torsos or limbs—as they underwent foul-bone demonization. The growths took on the contours of green skeletal Buddha Heads.

Yuan Zhu boldly guessed that the "Tomato Abbot" intended to first refine mortals into Buddhist versions of Foul Bone Demons, then use his Dharma power to deliver them back into the Buddhist Sect one by one.

That way, he would truly fulfill his great vow: "All living beings shall fall into demonhood; I shall deliver the whole world. Only once the Buddhist Kingdom has been restored may I attain Buddhahood."

"Holy fuck, what a heartless monk!"

Seeing the surrounding civilians undergo foul-bone demonization one after another, Yuan Zhu and the others hesitated no longer. They raised their guns and fired wildly, trying to carve out a bloody path.

The Tomato Abbot was not having an easy time either. That mighty starlight was not a power his Buddhist Sect could meddle with. He had indirectly gained control of it by delivering and assimilating the tomato freaks, and naturally had to pay the corresponding price.

As he drove the blood-colored starlight too hard, he himself began showing signs of a fractured mind, screaming madly, "Eggplant, eggplant, eggplant! No, no, no, I am Duowen.Jiamaye Eggplant... I am the Buddha of Na Ye! I am eggplant, eggplant... I am Duowen... I, I, I... Eggplant! Buddha!... Aaaaaah..."

The fleshy flower trembled violently. The Buddha Cocoons connected to the stamens protruding from the human-faced flower disk also began wailing and weeping, shouting a jumble of Buddhas and eggplants as they collectively went mad and bit at one another.

"Aaaaaah... Aaaaah... Ah, I understand! I am—Buddha Tomato! I am—Duo! Wen! Buddha! Tomato!!" (仏 = 佛, Buddha. Wood Release: True Several Thousand Hands.)

The enormous human-faced flower disk roared at the heavens. The countless "Buddha Head Cocoons" connected by fleshy stamens also raised their heads toward the Starry Sky, calling loudly, "Buddha Tomato! Buddha Tomato!! Buddha Tomato!!!"

Distorted yet powerful starlight descended upon the mortal world once again, and blood-colored starlight infected everything.

At this moment, humans and plants achieved perfect symbiosis, and Buddha and eggplant became one.

The living Buddha of the Foam World: Duowen Buddha Tomato was born! For the sake of the reading experience, I won't split this up. One chapter today—this really wrung me dry.

Also, let me clarify: this book isn't one of those weird-fiction stories with a horror atmosphere, and I have no intention of taking it in a frightening or horrific direction.

At most, the imagery is a little grotesque, but at heart it's still lighthearted. For example, you can picture this Buddha Tomato as a tomato Buddha. Obviously, that's very cartoony and cute.

Finally, please support the book! While it's still new, please try to keep up with the updates and show it some support.