At those words, something stirred in Wu Fei's mind. What the protagonist said had made him think of something else.
They were trapped here now, surrounded by nothingness. If he did something out of character in front of Yin Fan now, would the life-and-death tribulation still appear...
If it did, it might just be the key to breaking out of their current predicament.
With that thought, he raised his eyes to Yin Fan, considering how to draw out the life-and-death tribulation.
Yin Fan, however, was taken aback by his gaze. "Why are you looking at me like that, Buddha's Son?"
"You must already know, Demon Venerable," Wu Fei said with a faint sigh.
"Know... what?" Yin Fan's eyes widened slightly.
For some reason, Wu Fei had suddenly risen and approached Yin Fan with an intensely oppressive air, gripping his shoulder with one hand and bending down toward his ear.
Yin Fan froze, feeling soft breaths against his ear and hearing the Buddha's Son's quiet voice.
"The true cultivation I've been hiding."
As Wu Fei spoke, a faint, eerie gleam surfaced in his eyes. Over the past few days, he had vaguely noticed something different about the way Yin Fan looked at him. Thinking it over, he reckoned that when they fell that day, he had instinctively circulated his spiritual power and accidentally leaked a trace of his aura, allowing Yin Fan to notice...
As his words fell, Wu Fei's aura began to climb steadily.
Middle-stage Spirit Transformation... peak Spirit Transformation... early-stage Mahayana... peak Mahayana!
Yin Fan's pupils abruptly contracted. Wu Fei was actually at peak Mahayana. The aura he had sensed that day truly had not been his imagination.
"You..."
Before he could finish, they suddenly sensed an evil aura surging rapidly toward them. A cold glint flashed through Wu Fei's eyes.
That came pretty quickly!
Releasing the Silent Dust Pearl to block the gray mist, Wu Fei took Yin Fan and flashed several miles away in an instant. Standing in midair, he looked down upon the thick gray mist that had appeared from some unknown place.
Yin Fan also temporarily put Wu Fei's cultivation out of his mind. The Blazing Cold Sword flew from his hand, trailing endless demonic qi as it joined the Silent Dust Pearl in holding back the gray mist.
Just then, the gray mist paused before suddenly streaming backward. Behind its layers, an eerie city emerged before their eyes.
The instant the city appeared, Wu Fei suddenly clutched his chest, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.
Thump, thump, thump...
His Exquisite Heart began beating rapidly, as though heralding the boundary between life and death.
"Wu Fei!" Yin Fan steadied the Buddha's Son, who for some reason could barely stand. Blood dripped onto his white Buddhist robes, blooming into little red plum blossoms.
When he first met Wu Fei, the serene-faced Buddha's Son had suffered a hideous gash on his arm, crimson blood flowing from the wound. That sight had drawn Yin Fan's attention to Wu Fei and stirred an involuntary trace of destructive desire in him. Now, seeing a similar scene again only filled him with panic.
He pressed his palm firmly against Wu Fei's back. What flowed from his hand was not demonic qi, but pure spiritual power.
Yet while the spiritual qi could nourish the injured meridians throughout his body, it could not come anywhere near Wu Fei's Exquisite Heart.
Covering his chest with one hand, Wu Fei watched the protagonist risk exposing his identity to save him, a dark gleam churning in his eyes. I was careless. It looks like I'll have to use that thing...
Just as Wu Fei was about to take that item from his storage ring, waves of sutra chanting echoed through the silent space. His gaze changed, and his movements stopped.
Why is there sutra chanting? The sound is coming from... that eerie city?
At the sound of the chanting, his Exquisite Heart settled slightly. Wu Fei pressed down on Yin Fan's hand, cutting off the flow of spiritual qi, then sat cross-legged on the spot and circulated his cultivation method. A faint, gentle white light rose around him.
Yin Fan stood beside him, his ink-dark eyes fixed intently on Wu Fei.
As the chanting grew louder, countless pale golden runes slowly emerged above the once-eerie city. Yin Fan looked closely and recognized them as the Sanskrit script commonly used in Buddhist texts.
The golden Sanskrit characters drifted out of the city and finally merged into the white light surrounding Wu Fei.
After a long while, his Exquisite Heart finally settled completely, and Wu Fei slowly opened his eyes. He had thought his exquisite state of mind had already reached perfection, yet with the chanting's help, his state of mind had actually risen another level.
By the time he opened his eyes, the city had vanished. Wu Fei looked toward the Demon Venerable beside him.
Without standing on ceremony, Yin Fan took his wrist and examined him. Finding that all his injuries had healed, he inwardly sighed in relief and teased, "This little ordeal nearly kept you from making it back in time for the Heavenly Dao Assembly, Buddha's Son."
At that, Wu Fei asked, "How much time has passed?"
"Two full months and five days."
That long... Wu Fei was somewhat astonished as well. After a moment's thought, he asked, "That city..."
Wu Fei still remembered that at the critical moment, a burst of sutra chanting from the city had saved him and raised his exquisite state of mind another level.
Yin Fan recounted what had happened after Wu Fei entered meditation.
Wu Fei had meditated for two months, and the sutra chanting in the city had continued for two full months, until Yin Fan had nearly memorized it.
"Before you woke up, a voice suddenly came from the city..."
The voice belonged to the same person who had been chanting. He told Yin Fan and Wu Fei to take the token and head west. After three days and three nights, they would see the exit and be able to leave this place.
After saying that, the voice disappeared along with the city.
Wu Fei caught the token Yin Fan tossed over and paused. "This is..."
A life tablet from the Buddha Spirit Sect?!
No, that's not right.
Wu Fei carefully examined the token in his hand again. Slightly cool to the touch, it was indeed made of soul-nourishing jade, and its shape was identical to a life tablet from the Buddha Spirit Sect. However, it lacked the engraved swastika.
This was certainly no coincidence. The person in the city was clearly well versed in Buddhist teachings. Could he have once belonged to the Buddha Spirit Sect?
As he pondered, one shoulder suddenly grew slightly heavier. Wu Fei turned his head a little and lowered his eyes to the arm the Demon Venerable had draped over it.
Yin Fan's expression was natural. "Do you recognize this token, Buddha's Son?"
Wu Fei replied, "It looks somewhat familiar. The person chanting may have some connection to the Buddha Spirit Sect."
"I see." Yin Fan nodded, then leaned a little closer to Wu Fei. "Since you're all right now, Buddha's Son, isn't it time we discussed certain things..."