The Stone Buddha Spoke
One Zen staff after another struck at Lu Xiaotian's true body like pillars holding up the sky. He stood motionless in midair, arms rising one after another to meet the incoming staffs.
The Five Peerless Monks swung their staffs faster and faster, raining blows down like a fierce storm. Lu Xiaotian was like a reef amid raging seas: whenever a staff came down, another pair of arms reached out to meet it. After the seven pagoda Buddha images merged, Lu Xiaotian now resembled a Thousand-Armed Buddha.
All anyone could see were staffs and arms filling the sky. It looked as though Lu Xiaotian were catching the Five Peerless Monks' staffs with his bare hands. In truth, his Pagoda Buddha images were also formed around magic treasures; they had merely taken on the appearance of Buddhas.
The auras of each Buddhist Buddha image shared a common source: the sarira and the Ancestor Buddha Ancient Seal. What differed were the seven distinct aspects, such as the Fighting Monk, Black Heaven Supreme Sage, and Universal Bright King.
The battle between Lu Xiaotian's true body and the Five Peerless Monks seemed exceedingly simple, with just one kind of move. In reality, every staff strike contained countless variations, leaving no way to evade it. All manner of divine abilities had been condensed into a single blow.
Meanwhile, Lu Xiaotian's magic treasures had merged into one: the sarira, the Ancestor Buddha Ancient Seal, and the Demon-Suppressing Tower had combined, forming a seven-tier Pagoda Buddha image. The seven tiers had fused together, and every strike contained variations drawn from the three great Buddhist disciplines. To ordinary cultivators, the two sides' battle looked simple to an extreme. In truth, it was the Great Dao returning to unity.
As the two sides fought, waves of