When he saw the earthen wall that had stood in front of Bai Sui collapse, the abbot assumed it had been destroyed by the Buddha's hand. Though he wondered why there had been no sound of impact, the knot in his stomach loosened a little. He thought there might still be a chance to turn things around.
After all, those of them on the outskirts had only seen the Buddha's hand strike at Bai Sui and shatter the moment it touched the earthen wall.
Now that the wall had crumbled too, they thought the two forces had canceled each other out. They weren't among the twelve monks, and they couldn't see chakra, so they had no idea what had actually happened.
Even the twelve monks were still somewhat bewildered. They knew only that the chakra forming part of the Buddha's hand had vanished, for reasons they couldn't fathom.
Seeing the Buddha frozen in place, the abbot couldn't help shouting at the monks to attack Bai Sui.
After Bai Sui realized how effectively his domain countered ninjutsu, he grew bolder. He rose into the air and flew straight toward the Buddha Form.
Every part of the Buddha Form that entered his domain crumbled, and the entire figure rapidly shrank.
Unlike the chakra Buddha, which was gradually fading, the space around Bai Sui began to glow as it filled with vast amounts of chakra.
From a distance, Bai Sui looked like he was walking through the sky, his whole body radiating boundless light. Wherever he went, even the Buddha bowed its head and lowered its eyes. Many of the faithful who had knelt at the Buddha's arrival now turned and knelt before Bai Sui instead.
As the Buddha continued to shrink until it stood less than three meters tall, the twelve monks finally thought of a way to counter him.
The monks shouted, "Guizang: Boundless Light!" *12
The Buddha, which had been shining with boundless radiance, immediately dimmed. Not only that, in the blink of an eye it turned pitch-black, like a sculpture carved from ink jade.
The transformed Buddha was even smaller than before, barely over two meters tall. Perhaps realizing just how severely it had shrunk, it finally rose from its seated position on the lotus throne.
Once standing, the black Buddha regained a height of three meters, restoring some of its imposing presence.
At the same time, Bai Sui realized that this black Buddha was indeed different. Its chakra was much denser. Although his spiritual sense could still dismantle it, it no longer crumbled at the slightest touch.
For his own safety, Bai Sui couldn't just wait for the other side to attack. He decided to strike first.
He had accumulated a vast amount of chakra in the domain around him. Since it was of no use to him, he decided to test his theory.
Guided by his spiritual sense, the chakra began to gather in enormous quantities. He transformed all of it into wind and blasted it toward the black Buddha. The chakra now amounted to nearly half of what had formed the previous Buddha, so its power was easy to imagine.
Bai Sui hadn't come here to kill anyone, so he didn't transform it into fire. Otherwise, he would likely have created a sea of flames.
Of course, that enormous mass of chakra wasn't just for show. Even transformed only into a blast of wind—not so much as a wind blade—it still blew down a Buddhist hall behind the black Buddha.
As for the black Buddha, it dispersed as soon as the twelve monks were blown away.
Of course, Hongan-ji Temple, a great monastery that had stood for centuries, had more than just those twelve warrior monks.
The abbot, who had realized something was wrong earlier, had already run off.
By now, he had gathered the rest of the warrior monks and was preparing a way to deal with Bai Sui.
Before, Bai Sui had been interested in the Buddha Form, so he had let them prepare. But things were different now. He wasn't a fool, and he wasn't about to leave himself in constant danger.
He rose into the air, flying higher and higher until he was around thirty meters above the ground, with the entire temple spread out beneath him.
From there, he could clearly see what the warrior monks were doing. Under the abbot's coordination and direction, they followed his orders and channeled chakra into the stone lanterns, pagodas, and various statues around the temple.
As the chakra flowed into them, it gradually linked the objects into a vast chakra formation. From above, the statues lighting up below formed a large swastika.
As the symbol gradually took shape, tiny scriptural characters began to spread across the ground throughout the temple. On closer inspection, they were passages from the Three Pure Land Sutras.
Bai Sui sensed a threat from the formation before him. Though he didn't know exactly what it did, he clearly wasn't going to wait for them to finish.
Bai Sui used his Qi Sword for the first time in a long while. A bright white sword of energy shot from his mouth toward the nearest statue below.
The warrior monks below naturally noticed his move. One pressed his left hand against a stone lion while swinging a monk's staff with his right to strike at the white light.
But the sword energy Bai Sui had nurtured for years was far sharper than the monk had imagined. It sliced through the metal staff in his hands and continued on, severing the stone lion's head.
It didn't stop there. Once it had destroyed the stone lion, it headed straight for the next monk. In just a few breaths, it had destroyed the statues at more than a dozen nodes.
Bai Sui watched closely from the air. At first, destroying a few nodes had no effect on the formation. Only when he cut through one entire side of the swastika was the formation truly disrupted.
The script that had been rapidly spreading in every direction stopped in its tracks, and the light on it began to flicker.
As Bai Sui's Qi Sword darted around, the bright nodes below gradually went dark.
To keep the people below from trying anything else, Bai Sui also used the sword to cut down the halls, preventing them from making moves where he couldn't see.
Of course, Bai Sui had come here to exchange knowledge and investigate, so he hadn't harmed anyone. He had deliberately avoided the crowds. So far, only a few foolish monks who had tried to block the Qi Sword with their bodies had been seriously injured; everyone else was unharmed.
As Bai Sui's Qi Sword swept through the temple, the once-grand and ornate buildings became heaps of rubble. The whole grounds looked as if they had been plowed. Yet even after all that, no deity appeared, much to Bai Sui's disappointment.
The monks weren't stupid, of course. Once they realized Bai Sui had no intention of hurting anyone, they stopped resisting. After digging the abbot out of a pile of rubble, they all surrendered to Bai Sui.
Looking at the monks prostrating themselves before him, Bai Sui didn't make things difficult for them. He simply took a few items from the temple as compensation.
Bai Sui had come alone, but on his way back he had a carriage. Inside were the items the abbot had insisted on giving him.
There were two large chests of gold coins, ten chests of silver coins, and a large chest of jewelry. There had been too many copper coins, so Bai Sui hadn't taken them.
But Bai Sui didn't care about any of that. His real haul was the five chests of books, filled with books and scrolls collected from various temples.