Within the Pure Land of the blue-gray Stone Temple, the bizarre vortex conjured by the Origin of Life and Death had vanished, and everything had returned to normal. The bodhi trees were lush and green, the spirit spring burbled, and the Sura Flowers bloomed in serene harmony.
Suddenly, a flash of blood-red light—dark as black—appeared, and a massive figure slowly took shape. It was none other than the Ancestor Asura, who had escaped the Origin of Life and Death.
Of the nine heads bearing expressions of rage, slaughter, lust, and destruction, six had vanished. Of the thousand eyes, barely three hundred remained, and nearly half of those were empty and lifeless, oozing black, bloody pus as though they were weeping. The nine hundred and ninety-nine arms that had once blossomed around him like petals were now sparse and scattered, and his twenty-four scale-covered legs were unevenly arrayed. His appearance alone was pitiful beyond measure. Despite his realm and the Flesh and Blood Derivation of his half-divine, half-demonic body, there was no sign of his wounds knitting back together. It seemed the parts he had lost were gone forever.
"Zhenwu has actually reached such heights..." The Ancestor Asura couldn't help sighing inwardly.
Though the boost he received from the Origin of Life and Death was nowhere near what the Nine Abysses would have given him, the fact that he couldn't even withstand a single sword strike from Zhenwu was still beyond his expectations. It was like spending sixty years cultivating in a remote mountain, finally mastering one's martial arts, and then trying to stride into the mortal world to command the winds and rain—only to discover that one couldn't withstand a casual blow from the enemy one had imagined.
The Ancestor Asura drew his wounds shut, kept his pitiful appearance, and