"It was you... He Ping. When did you get inside my body... No, that's not right..."
Dragon-Elephant Sage Buddha's long eyebrows trembled as well.
"It was my master, Vajra Wisdom, who planted some sort of restriction in my soul. Well done—worthy of being my benefactor and master. To think he would scheme against his own disciple like this!!"
"Wrong. This is the Golden Circlet Skull-Squeezing Great Mantra, created by your patriarch Ai Hui Lianhuasheng through a secret karmic art. This mantra is bound to the continuing chain of your own trapped karma. So long as I recite it, I can make you unable to live, yet unable to die."
"Lianhuasheng?"
Dragon-Elephant was stunned. Then the old monk suddenly came to his senses. "What a scheme. The Buddhist sects of the Western Regions truly know how to scheme."
He Ping gave a dark laugh, chanting the mantra as his hands formed the spell seals. Once again, he employed the secret art passed down by Ai Hui Lianhuasheng and invoked the Golden Circlet mantra.
The halo immediately tightened. Dragon-Elephant Sage Buddha let out a cry of agony. His Dharma power had utterly vanished, and his cultivation seemed to have been sealed away. He could not escape at all, trapped within the enemy formation, while his mind burned unbearably, as though a red-hot iron band had been clamped over his head.
"It hurts! Fuck, it hurts too damn much!"
An invisible, scorching iron circlet hissed as it licked at his skull. In an instant, all five senses failed him, and the pain defied description. Dragon-Elephant screamed without pause. Before his eyes remained only a boiling, blood-red haze. He could not even sense with his Primordial Spirit, merely rolling and writhing on the ground, wishing he were dead.
At that moment, the old monk