Illusory Splendor Thousand-Blossom Soul-Extinguishing Haze.
Radiant light gushed from his palm, filling the sky with dazzling colors, as though an immortal had truly descended into the world.
A brilliant sun of iridescent light rose out of thin air, enveloping all of Great Beginning Mountain.
Its radiance was breathtakingly beautiful. Red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and violet—countless colors flowed and intertwined, like the most magnificent painting in the world slowly unfurling before their eyes.
But what this painting brought was not good fortune. It was death.
The radiant light silently swept over the mountain gates, the training grounds, the Scripture Depository, and one Buddhist pagoda and monks' residence after another.
Countless monks fell, smiles still lingering on their lips.
They seemed to be marveling at the exquisite scenery even as they died amid its illusory splendor.
Death came in an instant, without the slightest pain. That was what made this Daoist art so terrifying.
Inside the Great Hero Hall, the wooden-fish mallet in the abbot's hand snapped in two with a crack.
He abruptly raised his head, his cloudy old eyes turning toward the sky outside the hall, and his expression changed drastically.
"He's here!"
The Human Immortals in the hall rose together.
The Nation-Holding Heavenly King stepped outside and looked up at the sky, his pupils contracting sharply.
Corpses littered the ground.
On the mountain paths, in the training grounds and monks' residences, and before the Scripture Depository, fallen monks lay everywhere.
Their faces were peaceful, their lips smiling, as though they were merely asleep.
Yet the Nation-Holding Heavenly King could sense it perfectly clearly: apart from those inside the Great Hero Hall, not a single living person remained in the entire Great Zen Temple.
Tens of thousands of monks had all died.
**"You scoundrel! How dare you do