Beside the Eight-Treasure Merit Pool.
Scattered members of the Buddhist Sect silently cleaned the area around the pool.
Strictly speaking.
For cultivators and demons, even if they died and their Dao vanished, their flesh had long since been tempered by spiritual energy. It would never show ill signs of rotting and stinking, much less cause plagues among mortals.
Even so.
Mangled bodies and severed limbs littered the ground, flesh and blood strewn everywhere.
Leaving them so blatantly spread around the Eight-Treasure Merit Pool was, ultimately, rather unsightly.
Not to mention that these corpses themselves were worth a considerable amount.
Naturally, they could not simply be left lying beside the pool.
An unknown length of time passed.
Everyone's hands stopped at once, and they instinctively raised their eyes toward the sky.
High overhead.
An immense White Jade Lotus Platform silently swept across the heavens.
Clear radiance flowed around the lotus platform. It seemed to move slowly, yet in an instant, it had obscured half the sky.
"A Bodhisattva has come..."
Among the crowd.
Sharp-eyed older members recognized the distinctive white lotus and immediately cried out in delight.
But they soon shut their mouths again and silently lowered their heads.
Wherever the white lotus passed, vast swaths of white clouds froze into ice, crashing down before them like a shower of hail.
Such uncanny weather announced with perfect clarity just how much fury was brewing within the being atop the lotus platform.
Many exchanged glances, worry surfacing in their eyes.
A perfectly good Gratitude Assembly had ended hastily, leaving a disastrous mess behind...
Faced with a Bodhisattva's wrath, today's affair would likely be difficult to settle peacefully...
Inside the spacious hall.
The atmosphere was decidedly awkward.
Aside from the dozens of figures standing below with their hands lowered.
The three figures