Song of Joyful Hearing and Transformation

The sky suddenly transformed into a deep, blood-red hue.

Accompanied by a desolate dirge, it seemed to represent an undying hatred for the faithless.

Thousands of snow-white, jade-like hands extended straight into the Hualin Garden offices.

They reached into those corpses that had been possessed by black shadows and turned into ice sculptures.

They looked like strands of snow-white umbilical cords.

As the umbilical cords writhed... at the other end, those corpses actually came back to life.

Their toes touched the ground, stepping onto the cold floor tiles of Hualin Garden in complete silence.

With pale eyeballs, sallow skin, and scarlet mouths agape.

They exhaled cold air.

In unison, they called out the same names.

"Prince of Yuzhang!"

"Xiao Dong!"

"Where are you!"

Zhu Yuanzhang snapped his eyes open.

Feeling the darkness that had surrounded the giant black eye recede rapidly after it was entangled by the jade hands.

He knew it was time.

"Commander Fu! Quickly, go meet the Prince of Yuzhang!"

Though his words were polite, Zhu Yuanzhang's large feet showed no mercy.

He kicked Fu Qi hard in the buttocks, launching him straight toward the location of the Hualin Garden offices.

"..."

Mid-air, Fu Qi, who had been feigning death, opened his eyes in terror.

Because he suddenly realized that although Zhu Yuanzhang's kick hadn't been heavy.

Half an incense stick of time had passed, yet he showed no signs of falling while flying through the air.

And the pulling sensation coming from before him.

It was as if something was leading him forward from directly ahead.

Fu Qi turned his head cautiously.

When he saw clearly what was pulling him toward the Hualin Garden offices.

A bitter smile could not help but tug at the corners of his mouth.

"Consort Ding... this subject shall certainly do his utmost to rescue His Highness Xiao Dong from Taicheng."

He said slowly.

Following this, the force pulling him intensified suddenly.

Yet the movement became a few degrees gentler.

Zhu Yuanzhang, whose body was already more than two-thirds transformed into a Deep One, saw it clearly.

What was pulling Fu Qi's body was a pair of hands.

A pair of hands hanging down from the blood-red sky.

Those hands were snow-white and slender.

Like the finest white jade in the world.

If one ignored their terrifying length, they would truly be the most beautiful pair of hands in the human world.

And it was thousands of such fair hands, stacked together and crisscrossing in the blood-red sky, that covered the giant eye composed of myriad black shadows.

Inscrutable!

Terrifying to this extent!

This was Zhu Yuanzhang's assessment of the strength displayed by Consort Ding, the birth mother of Crown Prince Zhaoming.

Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes, hidden beneath his tiger skin, gazed quietly in the direction of Fu Qi until he saw him swallowed by the eerie and terrifying Hualin Garden offices.

What followed would depend on Fu Qi's own abilities.

Consort Ding did not trust the Tongtai Temple monk, Minghe.

Looking at the few walking corpses outside the door, connected by snow-white "umbilical cords" and wandering about the room.

Zhu Yuanzhang had a premonition.

As long as he dared to take a single step toward Hualin Garden.

These mummified corpses would charge forward without hesitation to entangle his feet.

These mummified corpses were not terrifying; Zhu Yuanzhang felt that dealing with these few walking corpses would only take a single punch.

But doing so would mean that Zhu Yuanzhang had chosen to become an enemy of Consort Ding, the terrifying entity that had already suppressed Hualin Garden.

Better to endure for now...

He switched back to his variegated tiger form.

Zhu Yuanzhang lay half-recumbent on the ground.

His pair of tiger eyes were slightly closed, using only the corners of his vision to stare at the Hualin Garden government office at the end of the road.

He would slack off while he worked.

He would wait for the return of Fu Qi.

October 30th, night.

A full day and night had passed since Fu Qi entered the Hualin Garden government office.

At this moment, the giant black eye overhead had its dharma form collapse under the constant pulling of Consort Ding.

It revealed its true form.

It was streaks of pitch-black, misty vapor, resembling clouds.

This constituted the primary source of the deep darkness within Hualin Garden.

Now, under the blood-red firmament, it appeared exceptionally conspicuous.

It looks a bit like the... Dao Sin that Faming turned into after his death.

Zhu Yuanzhang narrowed his eyes, looking up to observe that thing carefully.

It was exceptionally familiar.

[Dao Sin: Mahakala]

Above the giant black eye, which was being firmly covered by thousands of slender, jade-like palms, pitch-black text emerged.

His stomach and esophagus once again transmitted an unbearable sensation of blockage and choking.

Several pale, small hands tapped continuously against the inner walls of Zhu Yuanzhang's oral cavity along his trachea.

They were attempting to crawl out from within Zhu Yuanzhang's body.

I've seen Consort Ding's true form again.

However, this was already a familiar routine for Zhu Yuanzhang.

Dingguang Demon-Subduing True Fire, burn!

He incinerated the arms and digestive system within his body into ash.

Subsequently, brand-new, non-human organs sprouted in their place.

It's already completely unnecessary.

Facing the situation where his body was almost entirely occupied by the organs of a Deep One, Zhu Yuanzhang thought with a sense of resignation.

He estimated that his complete transformation into a Deep One would occur within these next few days.

Ever since his Mountain-Shrinking Fist broke through to the second level, the balance between the Mountain-Shrinking Fist, the Great Wisdom Zen Technique, and the Dingguang Demon-Subduing True Technique had been shattered.

The Mountain-Shrinking Fist held the absolute advantage; even though Zhu Yuanzhang had forcibly pushed the Dingguang Demon-Subduing True Technique to the second level by consuming his own lifespan, it had only slightly delayed the speed at which the Mountain-Shrinking Fist was remodeling his body.

The second-level Fixed-Light Demon-Subduing Art remained in a state of extreme disadvantage when facing the second-level Mountain-Shrinking Fist.

Zhu Yuanzhang guessed this was because he had not faced the Bitter Sea directly to comprehend a dharma form.

Impermanence Aspect.

Although Zhu Yuanzhang had comprehended it once before, he still had no clue how to cultivate this dharma form.

He guessed that unless he had another potent medicine refined from the essence blood of Crown Prince Zhaoming, pushing him to enter the Bitter Sea once more with the Dingguang Demon-Subduing True Technique to observe the true form of the Dingguang Buddha on the other shore, it would be impossible to cultivate the "Impermanence Aspect" again.

Just like the two terrifying creatures still battling each other in the sky, "dharma forms" also possessed certain traits of being "impossible to look upon directly" and "impossible to comprehend."

Was there some sort of connection between the two?

Zhu Yuanzhang wondered in his heart.

Plop! Plop!

From the distance came the sound of bare feet slapping against stone slabs.

Two figures, one old and one young, suddenly emerged from the darkness.

It was Fu Qi!

But his expression was deathly pale and his eyes were filled with panic, half of his body covered in a layer of frigid white frost.

Strands of white hair hung down his back, and his left eye had turned pitch black, leaking a steady stream of purplish-red blood.

His official robes were tattered and torn, his appearance utterly wretched.

In his right hand, he clutched a youth of no more than fifteen or sixteen years.

It was the very same youth Zhu Yuanzhang had seen imprisoned within the Giant Eye in his previous life!

The grandson of Crown Prince Zhaoming!

The Prince of Yuzhang! Xiao Dong!

"Zen Master Minghe! Run!"

Seeing the fierce tiger staring straight at him from inside the broken window, a flash of joy appeared on Fu Qi's face, and a glimmer of light returned to his eyes. He pulled the youth and rushed urgently toward the tiger, shouting desperately.

"That evil spirit is closing in!"

Behind Fu Qi, a black ghostly shadow loomed, wearing a crown of blood and possessing six arms.

Its limbs were intertwined atop a lotus throne constructed from ten thousand blades.

It seemed to be standing, yet also sitting.

But it moved with terrifying speed, trailing right on Fu Qi's heels.

When Zhu Yuanzhang locked eyes with this trident-wielding Mahakala, a sensation of frozen, sinister cold instantly enveloped his body.

Even his thoughts began to sluggishly grind to a halt.

"Hmph..."

As Fu Qi's voice faded, a cold, raspy female voice echoed in the ears of the three.

"It is merely a dharma body refined from the karmic sins left behind by the demonic monks of Tongtai Temple."

The voice was ethereal, its source impossible to pinpoint.

Yet it sounded like thousands of blades slicing through rotting flesh.

Immediately following, accompanied by the shrieks of vengeful spirits connected by thousands of umbilical cords, that hauntingly beautiful dirge rang out once more.

"Severing arms to drink pure blood, cattle and sheep held to sacrifice to heaven."

"Life extinguished to become dust and earth, yet never ceasing this mutual pity."

Song of Joyful Hearing and Transformation