The Buddha Was Always Present

Just as Lu Mian was thinking about their bodies, he suddenly heard that eerie chanting.

"The Buddha is always present... all manner of terrors..."

This time, Lu Mian kept a firm grip on his mind and pinched the cut on his arm!

The intense pain kept the chanting from clouding his mind.

Lu Mian took out a pouch of talisman water and poured it over the entire blade of his machete. Then he held a mouthful of talisman water in his mouth and headed toward the source of the chanting.

Before long, he arrived outside a wooden house.

An old monk sat inside the dark house with his palms pressed together, chanting ceaselessly.

Bloody tears streamed from his eyes, his expression sorrowful and despairing.

"Old monk, what are you crying about...?"

Lu Mian asked.

"The Buddha is gone... the Buddha is dead."

The old monk shook his head.

"If he's gone, he's gone... what do you chant scriptures and pray to the Buddha for?"

Lu Mian asked again.

His words made the old monk stop crying, though blood continued to flow from his eyes.

"For liberation and nirvana, of course."

The old monk spoke.

"Then perhaps the Buddha's death was a form of liberation, too."

"Maybe one day he'll be reborn through nirvana."

Lu Mian said it as though it were only natural.

The old monk sank into thought, seemingly moved by Lu Mian's words.

He had originally been the abbot of a temple. After the heavenly calamity, he had led his disciples from place to place, fleeing disaster.

Along the way, he had witnessed far too many tragedies.

Thus, he had come to the abandoned Xu Family Village to perform rites, repeatedly calling upon the Buddha in the hope that he would bestow his supreme power and drive away the evil demons.

But in the end, he had received no response.

The old monk's faith had utterly collapsed.

He believed the Buddha was dead.

He believed heaven and earth were about to perish.

Even after his death, the despair born of his shattered faith had transformed him into a Weird Being, an Evil Spirit.

Yet the old monk had attained a certain level of cultivation. Even after becoming a Weird Being, an Evil Spirit, he had retained his humanity.

The other monks from his temple, however, had become nothing more than Evil Spirits and Weird Beings that harmed people.

"Benefactor... if what you say is true..."

"Will the Buddha appear again someday?"

The old monk asked earnestly.

"How would I know...?"

"Even if the Buddha really is dead, couldn't someone else become a Buddha?"

Lu Mian shook his head.

"Someone else could become a Buddha?"

The old monk suddenly smiled.

Though bloody tears still flowed from his eyes, making him look terrifying.

"Amitabha... this old monk was too attached to appearances."

The old monk pressed his palms together, rose, and bowed to Lu Mian.

Lu Mian was about to say something else when he noticed the old monk's body gradually becoming insubstantial and fading away.

"Dissipating weird evil power detected. Spend thirty years of lifespan to absorb it?"

The system's voice rang out.

"Thirty years of lifespan?!"

When Lu Mian heard the system's voice, he thought he had misheard.

Was the weird evil power dissipating from this old monk really that strong?!

Previously, absorbing it had always cost him ten years of lifespan. This sudden thirty-year price genuinely surprised him.

I still have forty years of lifespan.

Even if I spend thirty, I'll still have ten left.

Lu Mian was also eager to find out just how powerful a supernatural ability that cost thirty years to absorb could be.

Absorb, he commanded silently.

"Congratulations, host. You have acquired the supernatural ability, Deluded Monk: No Truth."

[No Truth: The power of despair born of shattered faith. It can influence a target's thoughts, causing them to waver or even become lost in confusion.]

"No wonder it wanted thirty years of my life. This must be a mental attack."

Lu Mian marveled.

No Truth sounded somewhat complicated, but in practice, it could shake another person's convictions.

Take Lu Mian's earlier fight with Han Can, for example.

Han Can had believed he would definitely win.

But if No Truth had affected him, his conviction would have wavered. He might have begun to think he could lose to Lu Mian, which would have affected his attacks.

That was what made No Truth so terrifying.

It could influence another person's mind without a sound or a trace.

Lu Mian felt those thirty years of lifespan had been well spent.

After all, he believed that once he entered the first realm: qi accumulation, his lifespan would surely increase again.

As the old monk's obsession dissipated, Xu Family Village seemed to return to normal.

Lu Mian made a point of searching the village again.

There was still one person who had yet to appear.

Sun Feifei.

She was the only person on the team whom Lu Mian did not dislike.

Soon, Lu Mian found the unconscious Sun Feifei inside the village's ancestral hall.

"This..."

The scene inside the ancestral hall shocked Lu Mian.

Lotus lamps stood on the floor, seemingly arranged in some strange formation.

"Is this a ritual... or some kind of array?"

Lu Mian frowned deeply.

Then he suddenly noticed what appeared to be a gap in the pattern formed by the lotus lamps.

"Wait... this gap..."

Lu Mian thought of the ritual flag he had found on Han Can.

Had Han Can been planning some sort of sacrificial ritual?

And were the intended sacrifices Lu Mian, Sun Feifei, Yu Hao, and the others?

Had everyone unexpectedly scattered under the influence of the old monk's voice, causing Han Can's plan to go awry?

Lu Mian's mind raced, piecing together a conclusion.

"Whether that's true or not... you're taking the blame for this."

A new idea emerged in Lu Mian's mind.

Instead of waking Sun Feifei, he ran to the village entrance, carried back the bodies of Yu Hao, Han Can, and the others, and placed them in the middle of the lotus oil lamps.

Next, Lu Mian fabricated some signs of a fight.

Only after everything was ready did he wake Sun Feifei.

"Miss Sun."

"Miss Sun... wake up."

Lu Mian called to her several times.

Hearing Lu Mian's voice, Sun Feifei groggily woke.

When she saw Lu Mian, her mind went blank for a moment.

A few breaths later, Sun Feifei cried out, "Lu Mian, watch out for Han Can!"

"He was the one who attacked me!"

Lu Mian hurriedly reassured her. "Miss Sun, don't worry."

"Han Can is already dead!"

"Look!"

Sun Feifei followed Lu Mian's pointing finger and immediately saw Han Can's severed head, its eyes still wide open in death. She let out a startled cry.

"This..."

Sun Feifei could not believe her eyes.

Then she saw the bodies of Yu Hao and the others, and her terror intensified.

"Han Can ambushed me and dragged me here, too."

"He seemed to be performing some kind of ritual. He killed Yu Hao and the others..."

"Then an old monk appeared and started fighting him."

"The sounds of their fight woke me up. I happened to see Han Can destroy the old monk, but he was badly wounded himself."

"I seized the chance to attack him from behind and chopped his head right off!"

Lu Mian explained the whole sequence of events to Sun Feifei.

Sun Feifei had only just woken and was not fully lucid. Hearing Lu Mian's account, she made no judgment of her own and believed him completely.

She even overlooked a few details.

"So that's what happened... Han Can wanted to sacrifice us... no wonder he suddenly attacked me!"

"He must have wanted to break through to the first realm: qi accumulation!"

Sun Feifei began filling in the gaps herself.