Chapter 167 — Decisive Battle
The Sword Questions the Heavens · Page 2 of 5
The Beast Lord youth standing at the summit of wind and cloud raised his head and gave a long howl, his robes flapping madly in the gale. And with him, the giant fiend beneath his feet roared in fury far louder than he, bearing down like a mountain—a display of force unmatched in all the world!
But in that brief space, in the eyes of Dao Yan, Abbess Pucheng, and Yun Yifeng—three of the foremost cultivators under heaven—they had already seen that this fiend was bathed all in blood, hideous and dreadful, but above all that its demonic power had surged; the wounds inflicted moments ago by Yun Yifeng's pure flame were long since gone without a trace, and it was now more formidable than before. And now, as the black clouds dispersed, one could dimly make out behind the creature, within the black vapor, the piled heaps of beast-demon corpses, all shriveled like dried leaves, slumped upon the ground.
Now the giant figure spread its claws and bared its fangs, blotting out the whole canopy of heaven; its shadow in an instant fell over the heads of the three masters. Dao Yan's face was stern; he was about to act when he heard Abbess Pucheng beside him softly intone the Buddha's name. "Brothers," she said, "pray step back a little."
With that, Abbess Pucheng drifted two paces forward and faced the vast shadow plunging down from the sky; seen from afar, she was as tiny as an ant.
A ray of golden light suddenly radiated from between her hands, dazzling in that world of black cloud and baleful vapor—bright as a single point of brilliant sunlight!
On the face of that eminent monk there faintly showed a look of compassion. Her palms joined, and from her fingertips golden light blazed forth, growing from small to great, in an instant resplendent, radiating ten thousand golden rays straight up to the heavens. Within the golden light a treasure slowly rose—a disc-shaped golden wheel, blazing gold, all of gold, a foot or so across, its rim engraved with the golden forms of the Arhats in their dharma aspects, and at its center the Buddha himself, one palm joined in reverence, in the true aspect of compassion that delivers all beings.
In the distance, countless people cried out in amazement almost in the same instant!
"'The Great Compassion Golden Wheel'...!"
No sooner had this supreme Buddhist treasure appeared than the golden light grew more resplendent still. By Abbess Pucheng's power alone, this golden curtain of light seemed in no way inferior to the one just now raised by a hundred righteous-path disciples. And within the golden radiance, all manner of Buddhist mantras flickered in and out of sight; wherever the light fell there was an air of solemnity, majesty, and compassion, in sharp contrast to the baleful vapor before it.
Yet even faced with this rare Buddhist treasure, the fiend that had leapt from the depths of the black cloud, reeking of slaughter, showed not the slightest thought of retreat under the Beast Lord's goading; still it came down from the sky, crashing down and plunging headlong into the golden light.
Beyond all expectation, when that vast shadow met the brilliant golden light there was no sound at all—none of the heaven-shaking spectacle anyone had imagined. The golden light that filled the sky suddenly turned back upon itself, closing in from every direction, while the black vapor that had blanketed the earth seemed suddenly to shrink, contracting little by little, yet still it flew onward; in the end the fiend's gigantic form was compressed to less than a tenth or twelfth of what it had been.
Yet the black vapor that remained, still flying, grew ever blacker and denser, its baleful force increasing rather than diminishing; amid a dim rumble of roars and shrieks, this black arrow streaked across the sky, shattered countless golden barriers, and burst through—straight to the face of Abbess Pucheng.
A chill, sinister aura; a hideous visage—as though it were right before her eyes, there in the deepest darkness!