Judgment

Wu Pifu discovered a trait of the Tiger Demon Art: when caught between life and death, the Sleepless Spirit-Sense would rapidly grow stronger, allowing him to absorb and suppress even more stray thoughts and demonic thoughts.

He had broken through the introductory stage of the Tiger Demon Art and first obtained the Sleepless Spirit-Sense during his desperate battle with the Mud-Buddha Yasha.

And now, with life and death hanging by a thread, his Sleepless Spirit-Sense expanded once more, suppressing all manner of negative thoughts surging up from the depths of his heart. Even as he faced that twisted gigantic humanoid, he remained clear-headed.

However, the Tiger Demon Art did not grant immunity to negativity or illusions. It merely allowed one to remain clear-minded when negative and distracting thoughts ran rampant.

As he drew closer to the twisted gigantic humanoid, countless illusions arose in Wu Pifu's mind.

Vaguely, Wu Pifu saw an incomparably massive mountain. Even with only a fleeting glimpse, even if it was merely an illusion, that mountain still gave him a sense of sheer, overwhelming vastness. It was as though the very word "big" had been created for this mountain. Even gazing up at the starry sky had never made him feel anything as immense as looking directly upon it.

The mountain had four levels, and there seemed to be structures atop its summit, though he could not see them clearly.

Countless living creatures dwelled upon the mountain—innumerable intelligent beings as countless as the sands of the Ganges, each living peacefully.

Then something descended. Wu Pifu saw those countless beings begin to mutate. Some turned into something like mud, some sprouted innumerable deformed organs, some had all the flesh and blood drawn out of their bodies into threads, while others fused together into shapeless masses...

Just then, a goddess transformed into five lotus flowers—azure, gold, red, black, and yellow—which arranged themselves in five directions and carried away a corner of the enormous mountain, vanishing into the surrounding void.

The tiny trace of Sleepless Spirit-Sense within Wu Pifu's sea of consciousness blazed with light. The next moment, reality returned before his eyes. He was only two or three meters from the round hole beneath the twisted humanoid.

At that moment, Wu Pifu's focus reached an unprecedented level. Countless distracting thoughts arose in his mind—an itch somewhere on his body, what he had eaten yesterday, the pain in his palms, how dark the sky was—but all of them were suppressed by the Sleepless Spirit-Sense.

In his eyes, even the twisted humanoid vanished. Between heaven and earth, only he and that round hole remained.

Everything around him became quiet. Time itself seemed to stop at that instant. Only Wu Pifu's Sleepless Spirit-Sense continued to circulate, while his body made minute adjustments.

Countless pieces of information flowed through the depths of his consciousness.

"Lotus-Seated Force is simulated Dan Force..."

"My experience is visualization. Visualize a lotus at the dantian..."

"Probe little by little, gather little by little, and concentrate your qi, blood, and strength upon the visualized lotus..."

In that moment when heaven and earth stood still, Lin Heier's explanation of the essential points of Lotus-Seated Force, along with the essential points of the simulated Dan Force, echoed through Wu Pifu's mind.

Then, beneath the barrage of countless stray thoughts and demonic thoughts, illuminated by that tiny spark of Sleepless Spirit-Sense, he suddenly spoke a single word.

"Emptiness."

"Not visualizing a lotus, but emptiness..."

Wu Pifu was only about a meter from the round hole. Countless threads swept toward him, and in that instant, he actually abandoned the cross-legged seated stance. Instead, he lowered his body slightly. The movement was small, but at that moment, the qi and blood throughout his body rolled downward and gathered at a place in his dantian that lay between existence and nonexistence...

Then, in the next instant, Wu Pifu thrust out both palms, smashing all the flames burning across his body into the round hole. Nor was that all. The Sleepless Spirit-Sense seemed to follow that attack, which had exhausted every scrap of qi, blood, and strength in his body, and struck the round hole as well!

"...Exhaust all bonds of existence, and the heart shall attain freedom..."

"...All shall never retreat from unsurpassed, perfect enlightenment, and all shall attain dharani..."

Rhythmic tones rang in Wu Pifu's ears. None of those tones were formed from syllables. Rather, they consisted of countless wails, curses, sobs, and certain indescribable, inexplicable sounds. They seemed to form one word after another, yet they exploded completely within Wu Pifu's consciousness. Every syllable seemed to become a living thing, shifting from illusion into reality and merging with his flesh, beginning to alter his genes on an invisible level...

Then, all of a sudden, a small amount of sludge seeped from the arm that had previously fused with Buddha Mud. The sludge flowed all across his body, and the changes caused by those grotesque sounds immediately subsided.

At the same time, the round hole cracked apart inch by inch, while the twisted gigantic humanoid slowly dispersed amid those inexplicable sounds. The several hundred dangling threads vanished along with it.

In an instant, heaven and earth became clear. The terrifying atmosphere from before abruptly disappeared, and Wu Pifu felt refreshed throughout his entire body. Though he was in fact grievously injured—both palms were nearly ruined, his veins and meridians were a complete mess, and his internal organs were severely damaged—he was in a worse state than an ordinary person struck and sent flying by a heavy truck.

Fortunately, he was a master of Chinese martial arts. Moreover, in that incomprehensible moment, he had comprehended Half-Step Emptiness, advancing even beyond the simulated Dan Force of Lotus-Seated Force. His force coursed freely through his entire body, gathering everything at that point between existence and nonexistence in his dantian. At this very moment, his control over force, qi, and blood even surpassed that of a Transformation Force grandmaster. Calling him Half-Step Golden Elixir would not be an exaggeration!

He silently rose higher through the air, then began to descend rapidly. Falling from a height of several dozen meters, his body remained completely natural, relaxed, and empty. Yet anyone with sharp enough eyesight could see that every part of his body was constantly trembling and changing in accordance with the wind of his descent. At the instant he touched the ground, he raised himself onto his toes, landed at an angle, then forcefully swept both feet forward like the webbed feet of a duck or goose.

Wu Pifu's body shifted from a straight plunge into a diagonal glide downward. Two pits were punched into the ground by his toes as he slid more than twenty meters. His airborne glide turned into a run once both feet touched down, then eventually into a jog. When he finally stopped, a dense pale-red mist rose from his body, while beads of blood seeped from the surface of his skin. He looked utterly terrifying, yet his eyes were so alert that they seemed to shine.

When Lin Heier saw Wu Pifu descend from the sky unharmed, the heart that had nearly leaped out of her chest gradually settled. But when Wu Pifu turned to look at her and the half-paper man, her heart jolted, and she nearly cried out, "Lightning in an Empty Room!?"

Legend said that when a Chinese martial arts grandmaster advanced further, converting external martial arts into internal martial arts and straddling the Golden Elixir realm, their life would transcend mortality. In a pitch-black room, one could even see light shining from their eyes. This was known as Lightning in an Empty Room.

But it was only a legend. Lin Heier had never witnessed it. Even the three grandmasters she had encountered, her master, and the records of her martial school had never included anyone who had seen it with their own eyes. Yet now, she seemed to have witnessed such a mythical phenomenon!

Wu Pifu did not answer. He merely glanced at Lin Heier and the half-paper man, whose flames were gradually dying out, then directly assumed a stance. One punch, one kick, one palm strike, one claw strike—he began practicing slowly.

Seeing this, how could Lin Heier fail to realize that Wu Pifu had received some great opportunity, something akin to sudden enlightenment? She was deeply envious, but she still immediately raised her torch and, enduring the intense pain throughout her body, positioned herself between the half-paper man and Wu Pifu.

As the strange phenomenon in the sky vanished, all the flying chunks of flesh, paper doll fragments, mist, and drowned ghosts disappeared completely. Only the half-paper man remained, and the flames on its body gradually ceased. It was now the object of Lin Heier's utmost vigilance.

But contrary to her expectations, the half-paper man made no move at all. It merely stared blankly at Wu Pifu's practiced stances, studying every move and every form closely. Knowing how rare such an opportunity was, Lin Heier also focused most of her attention on Wu Pifu, watching his martial practice from the side.

After practicing for roughly two or three minutes, Wu Pifu stopped. He stood where he was, let out a deep sigh, and said, "My foundation is too shallow. This is as far as I can go... Such a wonderful opportunity, truly wasted by me."

At that point, the state of emptiness, the flavor of Half-Step Dan Force, and the sensation in his dantian between existence and nonexistence all vanished. It was like waking from a dream, with the memory of that dream rapidly fading away.

Perhaps he could enter that realm again in the future, but then it would no longer be an opportunity like this. He would have to reach it through step-by-step, painstaking training.

Even so, Wu Pifu felt that those two or three minutes of martial practice had gained him as much as three to five years of arduous training. The raw awkwardness of having just entered Dark Force had completely vanished. He had even gone a step further, vaguely touching upon the understanding of spreading qi, blood, and force throughout his entire body.

Only then did Wu Pifu turn his attention to Lin Heier, the half-paper man more than ten meters away, Xu Rongyu lying farther off, and Yamadai and Xu Shilan, whose fates remained unknown.

Wu Pifu walked toward the half-paper man. It was in a miserable state: the flesh portions of its body had been burned black, while the paper doll portions were gradually fading away. It looked as though it was about to fall apart.

Yet the half-paper man did not attack. It looked up at the sky, then cast a seemingly casual glance toward Xu Rongyu before clasping its fists at Wu Pifu. "Stele-Slamming Hand, Xu Zhenshan... I have seen it."

Wu Pifu froze. Looking at the half-paper man's condition, he solemnly clasped his fists in return. "Tiger Demon Art, Wu Pifu. I have seen it as well."

The half-paper man laughed loudly. Amid its laughter, its body dispersed, and its limbs and head fell to the ground, turning into a corpse.

Only after the half-paper man had completely died did a mouthful of blood surge up from the broken ribs in Wu Pifu's chest to his throat, which he then spat out.

After spitting out the blood, Wu Pifu's face turned deathly pale. Lin Heier tried to step forward to support him, but she too collapsed weakly to the ground.

Wu Pifu did not pause. He ran several steps to where Yamadai and Xu Shilan had fallen, carefully checked their pulses and examined their conditions, and his expression darkened.

Yamadai's spine had bent backward. His breathing was extremely weak, and life and death hung in the balance. Yet he was somehow still conscious, only giving Wu Pifu a smile uglier than crying.

As for Xu Shilan, her chest had caved in, her throat was dislocated, and she was no longer breathing. But she had only been dead for a short while... or rather, her heart had stopped beating only a few minutes ago.

Wu Pifu immediately stood and called to Xu Rongyu, "Xu Rongyu, who owns this funeral house? I want to buy it!"

Xu Rongyu was clutching one thigh and wailing in pain. Having also watched his own father die, he was sobbing bitterly. He froze upon hearing this, but cowed by Wu Pifu's imposing presence, he immediately replied, "The Yi family has been wiped out, so this place is ownerless. But it still needs official approval. A little silver will settle it. My father had connections in Xuanhua Prefecture, my father..."

"Fine!" Wu Pifu immediately shouted. "I'm buying this funeral house!"

He was not saying this merely for Xu Rongyu to hear, but for the Main Brain as well. Wu Pifu did not know whether it would work. He could only treat a dead horse as though it were alive.

He had to return to Gaia as soon as possible, place Yamadai and Xu Shilan into suspended frozen sleep, and revive them once he had enough carbon-based nanounits!

As for leaving his name in history or establishing a power, he could no longer worry about such things. He could only choose the fastest and simplest option: purchasing a building.

As soon as those words fell, the Main Brain's voice sounded in Wu Pifu's mind, like heavenly music.

"Building purchase confirmed. Faction establishment requirements met. Event requirements met. Determining..."

"Determination complete."

"Special shelter confirmed established. Reward tier upgraded."