'You have been entangled by an ominous aura.'
'You are silently reciting the Lin Character Secret. The ominous aura has been integrated, and your proficiency in the Lin Character Secret has increased.'
In his mind, that blurry figure slowly emerged, seeming to gaze across the distance at the Eight-Armed Three-Headed Statue on the altar.
The abnormality throughout the Buddha Hall swiftly subsided. When he looked up again, the Eight-Armed Three-Headed Power Awareness Bodhisattva Statue on the altar no longer possessed its earlier eerie, soul-stirring quality.
Though it remained sinister, it no longer tugged at one's heart.
"Why must you, benefactor, entangle yourself in karma?"
The hoarse voice exploded against his spine, and Xu Yunfan's hairs stood on end.
His robes tore through the air with a hiss as he spun and retreated. One hand had already seized the Weng Gold Hammer, and he shot back into the courtyard.
More than thirty meters away, on a cushion beneath the altar in the Buddha Hall—
An Old Monk sat facing him, his body as shriveled as a bamboo insect wrapped in human skin. The hem of his kasaya was heaped in spiderweb-like folds.
Most horrifying were his eyes—two points of golden light floated within those murky pupils, as though all the temple's incense offerings had been refined into ashes at the bottom of his gaze.
Human or ghost?!
Alarm bells blared in Xu Yunfan's mind, and his scalp went numb.
It was the first time he had ever seen someone with such a bizarre appearance.
Without the slightest hesitation, Xu Yunfan stomped down. The Blue Stone Brick beneath his foot instantly exploded into fragments, and he abruptly retreated.
As Xu Yunfan was about to vault over the high wall—
The folds at the corners of the Old Monk's mouth suddenly lifted, exposing