In the Main Hall of Black City Monastery, Kong An raised his head.
He gazed at the brilliant burst of fireworks, his eyes heavy with thought.
One hand turned the Living Buddha's Gau Bone Beads, while the other unfurled the human-skin scroll.
As he moved, the string of Gau Bone Beads made from Black Rakshasa bones around his neck swayed slightly, actually giving off crackling sounds.
Dense gray mist began spilling outward, and the deities in the Main Hall seemed to come alive, one after another.
Not only that, the entire Black City Monastery was changing!
Every Black Rakshasa and monk in the monastery emerged from their dwellings or the halls where they performed their devotions.
They looked up at the sky, but all they could see was the raging gray aura of yin resentment, the deities sweeping past incessantly, and vultures trying to dart into the black haze.
These people could not see the brilliant fireworks.
Only those who had been outside since earlier had happened to glimpse them, and now even that sight was rapidly obscured by the changes in Black City Monastery itself.
Every member of the monastery grew solemn, their expressions increasingly devout.
Black City Monastery had two aspects. In its ordinary aspect, everyone cultivated in peace. In the other, deities roamed, and most of the time, only Sinpos or higher-ranking Black Rakshasas moved through it. This aspect was called its dharma nature.
When Black City Monastery's dharma-nature aspect manifested outwardly, it meant the deities could possess people at will without Corpse-Stripping Relics, because this was their domain.
Once a Sinpo did this, the monastery would lose a great many members. Possession by certain deities exacted the price of a life, or could even leave someone permanently disabled.
It meant something grave enough to annihilate Black