In the darkness of Bado Manor.
A monk reached out and groped through the darkness, finding someone standing beside him. He said, "Senior brother, which way should we go now? Why are you standing here instead of moving-"
As he felt the person, he sensed a slight chill beneath his hands. Then he touched the person's face and discovered, to his horror, that it had no features-
"Ah!" Then the monk felt a pair of hands reaching for his own face.
The monk screamed, then felt himself suffocating. Something was covering his mouth and nose.
He wanted to scream, but discovered that his mouth was gone. Then his nose-
Unable to breathe, his face flushed crimson, and the veins in his neck bulged. His hands struggled frantically as he tried to draw a breath, but he simply could not breathe-
Then his eyes vanished, leaving nothing before him but pure darkness, a darkness so deep that he could see nothing-
Thud!
Then he toppled to the ground. Just like the person he had touched, his features had been stolen, and his body gave off the putrid stench of a rotting corpse-he had become a featureless corpse.
He wandered through the darkness, searching for the next person with facial features to steal-
Qu Zan witnessed this scene.
Not just one. At least six or seven monks had been attacked and killed like this by the faceless walking corpses beside them-
"So this is the eerie power of the Formless Tathagata-" Qu Zan moved swiftly through the darkness, dodging one faceless walking corpse after another.
I must never let those faceless things touch my face, or my features will be stolen, Qu Zan thought.
"Junior Brother Gyatso! Junior Brother Gyatso!" It was Namkha speaking. He called toward Qu Zan.
"What is it?"