Southern Wilderness, Divine Elephant City.
This great city covered dozens of li, its outer walls piled from enormous boulders, thick and imposing.
Most of the buildings within were made of wood and stone, their style simple and crude. Even so, it was a first-rate great city in Demon Race territory, a holy land to the Demon Race.
In the north of the city stood a vast plaza. Demon Race members from all directions knelt upon the ground, their faces devout as they listened to Golden Lamp Dharma King preaching from the high platform.
Golden Lamp Dharma King had dark skin and wore a black-and-red kasaya, his right arm left bare. Seated upright upon the platform, his treasure-like visage solemn, he expounded the Scripture of Infinite Light.
"Follow the precepts and keep bright light in your heart; thus shall you attain prajna wisdom and clearly behold your true nature... Beyond the Buddhist gate, all are alien kinds and heretical paths. We must spread the Dharma and confer the precepts, delivering them from suffering and calamity..."
At that moment, an exceptionally tall elephant-headed, human-bodied demon below suddenly raised his voice and asked, "Dharma King, what if they refuse to study the Dharma or accept the precepts?"
"The Buddhist gate is vast; it does not save spirits without affinity. Such foolish and stubborn people must be subdued with thunderbolt-vajra methods," Golden Lamp Dharma King said sternly.
His voice was already deep and resonant, but when he spoke the words "subdued with thunderbolt-vajra methods," it was like thunder descending from the Ninth Heaven, its roaring tremors sweeping through the entire city.
The hundreds of thousands of demons in the plaza all pressed their heads to the ground at the sound.
After a pause, the demon who had asked the question shouted again, "The human