"Marvelous! Simply marvelous!"
After Lin Tian's assault passed, Zhunti remained unharmed, but his face was filled with gloom. His once-rosy complexion had turned deathly pale.
By contrast, Lin Tian wore a broad smile, delight filling even his eyes and brows.
As it turned out, Zhunti's actions just now had greatly shortened Buddhism's lifespan.
Buddhism was unlike the Demon Race. It had been born when Laozi converted the barbarians and had survived two Karmic Calamities without being destroyed. Such flourishing fortune was unheard of.
Although Lin Tian had disrupted the Journey to the West and killed the Buddha, plunging Buddhism into a crisis of life and death,
it was still only a crisis of life and death.
Saints played their game upon a board laid out by the Heavenly Dao's ordained fate.
As long as Jieyin swept through the Primordial World, appointed another Buddha, and used an object bearing great merit to reestablish karma, Buddhism could be reborn, and Zhunti could regain his Saint Position.
Zhunti had just invoked Buddhist doctrine to draw upon billions of Buddhist disciples and followers to sustain himself. Though he had avoided falling at Lin Tian's hands, he had inflicted yet another wound upon Buddhism's prospects of revival.
Meanwhile, on the Outer Heaven Battlefield, Daoist Jieyin sensed what had happened. With a retch, he spat out a mouthful of blood, utterly consumed by despair. He muttered, "Buddhism cannot rise again. Buddhism cannot rise again..."
Tongtian also briefly stopped attacking and glanced toward Zhunti, a trace of delight appearing on his face. He knew that, after this, Buddhism would vanish from the world just as the witches and demons had.
But the sole remaining uncertainty lay with Golden Cicada...
With Tathagata passing into nirvana, a new Buddha had to be appointed. Within Buddhism, that burden should fall