Arc 16Chapters 376–400
No recap yet.
No recap yet.
Xu Taiping learned from Qingxiao’s letter that his senior brother believed his death could save Xu Ziyan, then chose to guard Lotus Temple and prepare to face the cultivators coming for them. When Shang Jiu led 132 cultivators into Lotus Grotto-Heaven, Xu Taiping unleashed All Beings Are Equal as they attacked.
Xu Taiping used Duedu Asura’s precept to suppress the attacking cultivators’ power and fought them with help from divine general Zheng Wen. After killing two Yellow Maple Valley disciples, he saw their azure qi form halos around the Rakshasa phantom and wondered whether it was being entangled by evil thoughts.
Xu Taiping cut down cultivators drawn to the Bodhi Fruit while evading Nie Chen and using the Divine General phantoms to hold Shang Jiu back. As Taixuan Mu Yunying fought Shang Jiu, Xu Taiping continued attacking from concealment, leaving Nie Chen furious after he froze only a clone.
Xu Taiping’s blade force faltered when Nie Chen used Profound Ice Armor and an alternating assault formation to contain him. After Blade Ghost urged him to stop yielding, Xu Taiping unleashed his full resolve, shattered the formation, and killed Nie Chen, whose golden light escaped with a vow of revenge.
Xu Taiping exhausted his strength fighting the cultivators and Shang Jiu, then used the power of All Beings Are Equal and the Flood Dragon Token to force them both into the Wilderness Heaven. He challenged Shang Jiu to settle their fight with martial artists’ blades.
Xu Taiping and Shang Jiu began a saber duel without their Flood Dragon Tokens, relying on their tempered physiques. Xu Taiping’s strength surpassed Shang Jiu’s expectations and wounded him, leaving their fight unresolved.
Xu Taiping used his Blade Domain experience and gradually layered Thousandfold Force to injure Shang Jiu’s blade hand during their exchange. Shang Jiu caught on before his hand was crippled, then switched his blade to his left hand and revealed that he had trained it to be even stronger than his right.
Xu Taiping and Shang Jiu fought a brutal saber contest, repeatedly clashing with hidden force while Xu Taiping sacrificed his senses to renew All Beings Are Equal. After Spring Tiger Twenty-One broke, Xu Taiping refused to concede and raised his empty hand as if it were still a saber.
Xu Taiping defeated Shang Jiu with Water-Cutting and received a jade token, then asked Patriarch Kasyapa’s divine sense to protect his senior siblings and punish those who had plotted against them. That night, the Duedu Asura appeared at a manor to attack Ye Xuan, Jin Hezhi, and the Black-Robed Man.
Xu Taiping dreamed that the Demon Lotus multiplied across a lake before a boy formed from a hand-shaped tree swallowed the lotus and merged it with the tree. He woke in an old house beside Dugu Qingxiao and asked how long he had been asleep.
After waking from a month and a half unconscious, Xu Taiping learned that Ancient Buddha Kasyapa had saved his Second Senior Brother and returned Xu Ziyan’s soul, though complications remained. Qingxiao prepared a Soul-Calming Pill for him and promised to explain what happened in the Thousand Buddha Kingdom after taking him to see Ziyan.
Dugu Qingxiao explained how Su Chan and Jin Hezhi had plotted against him in the Thousand Buddha Kingdom, leaving Xu Taiping to understand that the scheme was tied to the Azure Profound Sect's leadership. Su Chan’s deeper reason for trying to force Ninth Uncle to act remained unknown.
Xu Taiping and Dugu Qingxiao agreed to prepare for a Sword Inquiry against the Azure Profound Sect’s sect master, while Xu Taiping stayed in the Thousand Buddha Kingdom to cultivate and help search for its Heavenly Dao’s Seven-Regulated Verse. The chapter left Xu Taiping flying toward the kingdom’s Annihilation Grounds with Bai Yu.
Xu Taiping completed the three-year restoration of the Reclining Buddha and received Buddhist Prayer Beads granting him the power of All Beings Are Equal. As Cloudview Palace cultivators arrived to claim the statue, he took up his Flood Dragon Token and released his suppressed aura.
After three years in the Wilderness, Xu Taiping revealed his tempered python flood dragon physique to Cloudview Palace cultivators and discovered that a rock he had found was valuable Chaos Stone. More Cloudview Palace cultivators arrived, and their leader ordered Xu Taiping to leave, setting up a confrontation.
Xu Taiping agreed to guard the Buddha Statue for another hour in exchange for a Buddha Plaque, then faced down the Cloudview Palace cultivators while they waited for reinforcements. He took their Gold Essence Coins to stall for time as the restrictions on the statue continued to activate.
Xu Taiping demanded three thousand Gold Essence Coins from Cloudview Palace, then confronted the arriving elders after they refused to pay. He defeated Elder Yun Zhong with one punch, leaving the clash with the other powerful cultivators about to begin.
Xu Taiping fought Yun Zhong, Zhu Chen, and Ouyang Xuan to protect the Buddha statue, using All Beings Are Equal to overwhelm the three elders. As the Cloudview Palace disciples began to flee, Venerable Jiaye asked Xu Taiping to stop them because he still had use for them.
Xu Taiping and his spirit beasts captured the cultivators who had tried to kill his Second Senior Brother, and he prepared to kill them. Yun Zhong stopped him by revealing that a mysterious person and the Poison King Cult’s Holy Maiden had hired the Ghost Market assassin Blood Hand to kill Xu Taiping, who was now being hunted in Black-Clothed Town.
Xu Taiping learned that a 60,000 Gold Essence Coin bounty had been placed on him and forced Elder Yun Zhong, Zhu Chen, and Ouyang Xuan to reveal secrets in exchange for their lives. After Xu Taiping left, Yun Zhong planned to use his hidden jade disc to alert Blood Hand and the other assassins, believing they could kill Xu Taiping once his power of all beings are equal stopped working outside the Thousand Buddha Kingdom.
After escaping the Feather Prison, Zhu Chen, Ouyang Xuan, and Yun Zhong were trapped by Venerable Jiaye’s divine sense and ordered to rebuild the Reclining Buddha Temple. Xu Taiping then discovered through the jade disc that Blood Hand’s group was plotting to lure him into an assassination trap.
Xu Taiping learned that assassins planned to use Xu Miaoyan as bait, then discovered she was the junior sister of the cultivator surnamed Liu and decided to save her. On the Black-Clothed River, Xu Miaoyan’s planned confrontation with the Little Madman instead began with the arrival of a sinister young man who trapped her boat.
Xu Taiping rescued Xu Miaoyan from Qi Zhaoyan but demanded her as payment, leaving her convinced he intended to claim her. Across the river, Su Su and Black Hound watched the encounter as assassins recruited by Blood Hand.
Xu Taiping used his clone to carry out the fishing-family ambush while he tracked the assassins’ plans and learned Blood Hand would only intervene if the others failed. He incapacitated Su Su and Black Hound at the inn, hoping to draw Blood Hand out and uncover the mysterious client’s identity.
Xu Taiping used Su Su and Black Hound to confirm Blood Hand had met the Mysterious Man, then his clone entered Xu Miaoyan’s bath to serve as bait for Blood Hand’s allies. As Nan Zhen and the Old Man of the Moon moved to kill the seemingly poisoned clone, Xu Taiping sprang his trap with razor-sharp strands of gang wind.