Who Said Tang Sanzang Took Your Place as the Scripture Seeker? Tathagata Goes to the Present

The Tathagata Buddha statue, which should have dispersed after the matter was settled, froze completely in place at that moment.

Golden light shone from within the statue, brighter than before, bathing the ground of the entire ruined temple in a faint golden glow.

The statue's face still bore that compassionate expression of lowered brows and downcast eyes.

Yet the light pattern between its brows rippled faintly, like a stone cast into water, sending circles of ripples spreading outward.

Tathagata did not speak.

His gaze fell upon Jinchi, sweeping from the top of his head to his heels, from the outer layer of his soul to its deepest depths.

He examined him twice. Each time, he looked with meticulous care and employed the Buddhist Sect's most fundamental methods of discernment.

A thin layer of remnant soul was indeed attached to the surface of Jinchi's soul. Its aura was identical to Tang Xuanzang's, replaced from the very root.

The destiny of a Ten-Lifetimes Virtuous Person, the origin of Jin Chanzi's reincarnation, the Heavenly Mandate mark of the scripture seeker.

All of it had been stripped away and affixed to another person's soul!

Tathagata had never seen such a method before.

This was not ordinary body possession.

Body possession could only seize a physical body. It could not steal one's destiny, much less strip away the mark of the Heavenly Mandate along with it!

Tathagata did not raise an alarm.

He lifted his right hand, spreading his five fingers slightly. A pale golden light spread from his palm, silently filling the entire ruined temple.

The light passed through the temple walls, through the holes in the roof, through the trees at the edge of the clearing, enveloping the entire temple and the space several hundred zhang around it.

Wherever the golden light passed,