Northern Liao, Origin Capital Circuit.
This circuit lay at the very center of Northern Liao, with broad plains, mountain ranges, great rivers, and placid lakes in abundance. It screened the entire Prosperous Capital Circuit behind it, bordering the Northern Sea, and had always been a vital stronghold guarding Liao's Capital.
To the west lay ridge upon ridge of hills, where green woods and trailing vines grew everywhere amid poisonous flowers and noxious weeds. This was the Profound Secret Demon Land, known in ancient times as [Houji Liang] and now called [Heavenly Yi Forest], a realm unto itself, cut off from the secular world.
Within the circuit were pure lands in all ten directions and a hundred tiers of jeweled mountains, stretching nearly tens of thousands of li across, all supreme Buddha Land.
The highest point here was a lotus-shaped Buddhist mountain that reached straight into the clouds and touched the bounds of heaven. It seemed built of white jade and colored glass, gold and agate, with nine hundred and ninety-nine ancient temples and precious monasteries perched high upon it, radiating ten thousand shafts of golden light and a thousand ribbons of auspicious mist.
[White Lotus Mountain]
Temples stood separately across the summit. Nine great temples occupied the lotus petals around it, each casting its own jeweled radiance: black flames towering into the sky, pearls and jade merging together, thunderous bells booming, and other manifestations of nine wholly distinct pure lands.
Naturally, the temple surrounded by all the others was [Great Lotus Vow Temple]. It had ten halls and six towers, golden pavilions and jade terraces, with countless hazy strands of white light swirling above it.
Yet now, bursts of argument came from the golden-and-jade hall at its very center, followed one after another by furious, thunderous roars.
Inside the hall.