Esoteric Mantra

As he marveled at the importance of money, Zhou Qing prepared to forcibly use the outer array to trigger the Heavenly Gods and Demons Array within the saber, intending to absorb the deathly aura from the Golden Silkworm.

His hand seals changed again and again, and Zhou Qing was drenched in sweat. When he had his Second Primordial Spirit, activating this formation had been as effortless and fluid as moving with the wind; now it was more than ten times harder. Zhou Qing thought to himself, It seems I'll have to cultivate my physical body more in the future. But reaching the Transformation Stage with this body is easier said than done. Without profound cultivation techniques and miraculous pills, it would take at least two hundred years of bitter effort. Zhou Qing shook his head, driving the stray thoughts from his mind. He poured all his True Essence into the twelve command banners, pushing them as though they were enormous boulders. His eyes bulged wide, veins standing out across his body. The True Essence in his dantian was nearly drained dry before the twelve command banners slowly began to revolve around the hilt of the double-headed wolf saber.

Strands of spiritual light shot from the command banners, wrapping around the saber hilt like spider silk. Zhou Qing paid them no heed. He sat cross-legged on the ground and circulated his cultivation with all his might to restore his True Essence. More and more spiritual light gathered, until the saber hilt could no longer be seen. Invisible pressure formed a vortex, and countless energies of a nature different from the spiritual energy of heaven and earth were drawn together by the twelve command banners, transforming into streams of brilliantly colored spiritual light.

Buzz! A low hum came from the saber. Green light flared from all four eyes of the double-headed wolf, and the streams of spiritual light were sucked dry. Having lost the force supporting them, the twelve command banners clattered to the ground. The Blood-Devouring Divine Saber then burst from the earth on its own and floated in midair. Blood light covered the entire cultivation room. When the deathly Baleful Intent on the Golden Silkworm encountered that blood light, it stirred restlessly, faintly seeming to gather toward the saber.

Zhou Qing was overjoyed. It really works. Although this formation is suppressing the energy of the Seven Treasures Mystical Tree Staff with all its strength, if I give it a dose of medicine, it should be able to spare some strength, right? A shrill ghostly wail came from the Golden Silkworm! The viscous bloody fluid formed by the Blood Demon Killing Curse condensed into a lump at the Golden Silkworm's head, desperately resisting the blood light's absorption. The clump of blood continuously changed into strange forms—demons, skeletons, scythes, and other bizarre shapes—leaving Zhou Qing tongue-tied. So powerful. If my physical body were struck by this curse, then... then... Zhou Qing did not dare think further.

In the end, the Blood Demon Killing Curse was still slightly inferior. After all, the title of the number one killing formation of the demonic path was not earned for nothing. The Tianxuan Blood Demon might have been formidable, but it could not compare to the great demonic cultivator who had forged the Blood-Devouring Divine Saber in ancient times. The Blood Demon Killing Curse turned into a fist-sized lump of blood and flew into the saber, where the Blood-Devouring Divine Saber swallowed it as a tonic. Zhou Qing rejoiced and hurried forward to check whether his Golden Silkworm had suffered any damage, completely failing to notice the strange changes in the Blood-Devouring Divine Saber floating overhead.

At this moment, the blood light around the Blood-Devouring Divine Saber had drawn inward, revealing its dark, ancient saber body. Rows of talismans that had originally been hidden beneath the blood light flickered across its surface, as if two forces were battling within it. Zhou Qing was fully focused on refining his damaged Golden Silkworm Primordial Spirit. Had he noticed, he would have been terrified. The struggle between the two energies inside had reached its limit. After thousands of years of conflict, the energy of the Seven Treasures Mystical Tree Staff was no longer as vast as before, while the Godly Fiend Formation within the saber continuously absorbed newly born energy from the outside world. Yet because that energy was simply too pure, it could never be eliminated, and the two sides remained locked in a stalemate. But just now, the Godly Fiend Formation had absorbed the deathly aura within the Blood Demon Killing Curse, and it became the last straw that broke the camel's back!

Gradually, the energy of the Seven Treasures Mystical Tree Staff was forced out. Zhou Qing finally sensed that something was wrong. The moment he withdrew his Primordial Spirit, he discovered the situation and nearly lost his soul. This was disastrous! If that energy burst forth, let alone his house, nothing within ten miles would remain. The power of an ancient treasure was unimaginably immense. Calling it world-destroying might have been an exaggeration, but destroying everything within a thousand miles with one strike was entirely possible. Though it was only a trace of energy, Zhou Qing could still sense the tremendous explosive force contained within it.

With a pull of his hand seal, the twelve command banners that had fallen to the ground rose into the air once more. Zhou Qing had recovered his cultivation by now, and wielding them was once again effortless. But trapping that mass of energy was far from easy. Golden

streams of light flowed from the saber body, gathering in the air into a mass of golden liquid. Boundless pressure radiated from that liquid. Zhou Qing drove the Great All-Encompassing Godly Fiend Formation to suppress the pressure within the golden liquid with all his strength, lest it erupt. The two sides were deadlocked when the Blood-Devouring Divine Saber floating in the air, whether driven by instinct or something else, saw the calamity that had plagued it for a thousand years. With a long cry, the saber body tore through space and appeared strangely within Zhou Qing's Godly Fiend Formation. The Blood-Devouring Divine Saber was the ancestor of the Godly Fiend Formation; how could Zhou Qing's incomplete formation possibly stop it?

Seeing the golden liquid within the formation, the Blood-Devouring Divine Saber seemed to have spotted an enemy with whom it could not share the same sky. Its saber radiance surged as it slashed down viciously. Zhou Qing had calculated every possibility, yet never accounted for such a disaster. His mind went blank as he watched the golden liquid explode. Buzz! A Brahma sound rang out. An object embedded within the wall seemed to be struck by that immense pressure and actually flew through the air. At the very instant the golden energy was about to erupt, that object swallowed it like a giant whale drawing in water. Whoosh! Whoosh! It sucked the golden energy completely dry and spun rapidly in midair. The Blood-Devouring Divine Saber also crashed to the ground. The trace of intelligence born from itself had been completely worn away by that strike, and it became a dead weapon once more.

In an instant, he had gone from hell to heaven, as though a lifetime had passed. When Zhou Qing regained his senses and looked at the object spinning in the air, was it not his own **? Ever since seeing the Gouchen Heavenly Book, Zhou Qing had understood that the inscriptions carved on that ** were not ancient Brahma script at all, but writing from the ancient Demon Race. Though he did not know why a Buddhist ritual implement was connected to the ancient Demon Race, Zhou Qing understood that this Dharma wheel was no ordinary item. He had even examined it closely, but its material was extremely ordinary—a mere bronze artifact. Other than the fact that the sound produced when the ** turned could calm the mind and steady one's breath, Zhou Qing could find no clue to its mystery.

The ** spun faster and faster until it became a blurred shadow. Logically speaking, spinning at such speed should have stirred up a fierce wind, yet the strange thing was that not only could Zhou Qing feel no wind at all, even the air around the ** showed no sign of movement. It gave Zhou Qing the illusion that the ** was spinning in another space.

"Om, ma, ni, ba, mi, hum." Six majestic voices emerged from the **, deafening Zhou Qing and making the walls around him tremble. Even Liao Xiaojin, who was eating, was greatly startled and leaped to his feet. "What's happening? What's happening? What is that sound?"

Thud! Little Fox was knocked unconscious by the vibration. Zhou Chen also cried out, and a trace of blood ran from the corner of her mouth. Liao Xiaojin was utterly bewildered by these successive upheavals. "Sister! What happened? How did you suddenly get hurt?" Liao Xiaojin asked Zhou Chen.

"This is Buddhism's supreme Esoteric Mantra for subduing demons. We demons can endure it the least. Fortunately, it was not directed specifically at us, so its power is limited. My younger sister was only knocked unconscious; it is nothing serious. The sound seems to be coming from where Master is in seclusion," Zhou Chen said weakly.

By rights, I'm a vampire too, so I count as a demon. Why doesn't it affect me at all? Could it be that this mantra only works on Chinese demons and becomes useless once it leaves the country? Also, I've never seen Master practice Buddhist arts. Could this guy be hiding his true depths? Liao Xiaojin's heart was stuffed full of doubts.

Meanwhile, Zhou Qing's attention was drawn to something strange.