The Bodhisattva of Immeasurable Light did not rejoice in the celestial realm of Boronimilamojialuo. The two great Arhats, Dragon Subduer and Tiger Vanquisher, who possessed immense divine power, were unable to unleash even a fraction of their might before meeting the same fate as the Bodhisattva of Immeasurable Light. While they were calculating behind the scenes, Gu Xechen immediately struck hard against them. A spiritual strike from afar battered the two great Arhats until they were utterly disoriented, unaware of their whereabouts. Du Er and the other guardian celestials, whose cultivation was no less than the Arhats', swiftly moved in and apprehended them easily. A sacrificial fire was kindled, and the two instantly dissolved into Durga's magical power.

Many Buddhist cultivators in the Great Snow Mountain clearly had ties with the Bodhisattva of Immeasurable Light and the two great Arhats; these two figures represented the last flicker of hope in the hearts of these cultivators. It was under the **watch of the guardian celestials that this final shred of hope maintained their last bottom line.

Now, with the Bodhisattva of Immeasurable Light and the two great Arhats perishing before the eyes of countless Buddhist cultivators, and their deaths so ignominious, the faith of the many cultivators in the Great Snow Mountain instantly collapsed. Immediately, twenty percent of the Buddhist cultivators abandoned their beliefs and willingly submitted to the guardian celestials, becoming their demonic servants.

Another twenty percent of the Buddhist cultivators sought only death. They sat cross-legged, chanting the Reincarnation Mantra, streams of seven-colored rainbow light flickering around their bodies. With continuous sharp cracking sounds, the heads of these cultivators exploded, scattering countless Sariras that danced and shimmered in the void, their brilliant light illuminating the entire expanse.

Just as the guardian celestials were caught off guard, the bodies of these cultivators suddenly dissolved into seven-colored rainbow light and scattered, and the innumerable Sariras in the sky detonated simultaneously. This explosion resembled the simultaneous descent of billions of stars. Even the self-destruction of a Sarira belonging to a minor Golden Immortal-level Buddhist cultivator could affect an area spanning tens of thousands of miles, yet here, over a thousand Buddhist cultivators at the Great Golden Immortal level self-destructed their rainbow-transformed bodies and Sariras.

A small portion of the Great Snow Mountain was razed to the ground. Columns of fire, sometimes milky white, sometimes golden-yellow, shot skyward, and countless pits, deep and shallow, scarred the earth. The guardian celestials suffered heavy casualties; at least one billion warriors from various divisions were utterly annihilated by the great explosion, leaving not even a wisp of a remnant soul. Even the Three-Layered City could not restore these warriors to life, and the staggering losses instantly sent the heavenly gods and Asura Demon Lords of the various divisions into fits of rage.

Especially atop the highest peak of the Great Snow Mountain, three peak Great Golden Immortal-level Buddhist cultivators simultaneously self-detonated their Sariras. Indra, who had been secretly sneaking towards the sacrificial fire to peep at the beautiful body of the Goddess of Auspiciousness as she danced naked in offering, was caught completely off guard; more than half the destructive force of two Sarira detonations struck him.

Indra was blown into shattered limbs and a fractured torso; his recently repaired head was blown off by more than half, leaving only a remnant body the size of thirty odd catties of pork clinging to a wisp of soul, which frantically fled toward Vishnu.

Vishnu ground his teeth in fury. He glared fiercely at Indra, who was fleeing toward him seeking protection, wishing he could crush him to death. But this fellow, though useless, was the Emperor of Heaven after all! Vishnu snorted coldly through gritted teeth, casually reaching out and seizing Indra’s mangled body. A flash of golden light enveloped his hand, sending Indra back to the Lotus Pond in the Three-Layered City for soaking.

The immense demonic power of the Three-Layered City flowed into the Lotus Pond. Indra’s body and damaged soul rapidly regenerated; within fifteen minutes, he was restored to his original state.

The self-destruction of numerous Buddhist cultivators instilled a sense of dread in the guardian celestials. They intensified their watch over the remaining fifty to sixty percent of captured Buddhist cultivators. Countless demonic curses entangled these cultivators; if any dared to sit down and chant unknown spells, they would immediately be hacked to pieces by swords and blades, and the resulting chunks of flesh would be dipped in various sauces and devoured entirely.

The guardian celestials accelerated their actions. They no longer forced these cultivators to become their servants; instead, they continuously threw the cultivators into the sacrificial fire, offering them up ceaselessly. A pale green demonic power slowly descended from the sky, condensing into a thick, inky green cloud that blanketed the entire Huian Great Snow Mountain. Surrounded by this demonic power, the guardian celestials cheered with delight, while the Buddhist cultivators wailed toward the heavens within the expanse of green fire and green clouds.

An unprecedented catastrophe descended upon the Great Snow Mountain. The remaining fifty to sixty percent of the Buddhist cultivators were rapidly diminishing at a rate of millions sacrificed every quarter of an hour.

In the vacuum, a massive, seven-colored tree branch slowly materialized, and an indescribably vast pressure descended from above. Above the branch, a gaunt Daoist stood proudly, clad in a water-and-fire Daoist robe, his hair tied in a double bun adorned with a red flower, holding a staff made of a tree branch. The Daoist’s form was indistinct, shimmering as if condensed from mist, yet the pressure he emitted was comparable to the combined aura of all the celestial gods and great demon kings of the guardian celestials. Under this pressure, all the guardian celestials’ knees buckled, and they collapsed involuntarily to the ground.

The most ferocious demon kings, such as Poxun, roared in anger toward the sky. They tried to force their knees straight and stand up, but under that terrifying pressure, their barely straightened knees shattered, spilling vast amounts of blood from their broken bodies. Poxun and the others were forced to kneel again in frustration.

Even the Great Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu were subdued by the pressure. They propped themselves up with their hands on the ground, their bodies trembling violently. They tried desperately to straighten up, their legs kicking against the ground repeatedly, but the pressure was overwhelmingly powerful. Despite their blood vessels bursting and muscles tearing, they could not stand upright.

The remaining Buddhist cultivators of the Great Snow Mountain gazed upon the Daoist in the void with joyful expressions. They cried out repeatedly, "Mercy upon the Sage Zhunti!" Many devout Buddhist cultivators, possessing deep moral cultivation, could not contain their excitement, waving their hands and dancing with joy. Vast forces of faith surged skyward, pouring into the Daoist's ethereal form, solidifying his hazy body.

The Mysterious Old Monk, Langyue, and Biyue appeared silently behind the Daoist. They clasped their hands together and chanted a Buddhist invocation. The Daoist lightly waved the branch in his hand, and the Seven Treasures Wonderful Tree rained down a massive wave of red light. Countless Buddhist cultivators within the Great Snow Mountain were instantly lifted and began to float toward the immense branches of the Seven Treasures Wonderful Tree.

The Mysterious Old Monk simply let out a long laugh, and the omnipresent rainbow light suddenly retracted. All the Buddhist cultivators in the Great Snow Mountain vanished without a trace. By the time the Great Brahma and the others managed to stand up, the vast Great Snow Mountain was completely empty; not a single figure of a Buddhist cultivator remained.

The Great Brahma roared in fury toward the heavens, spewing forth black flames that instantly swept across an area of trillions of miles. The enormous Great Snow Mountain shuddered in the black inferno and vanished into thin smoke in the blink of an eye. "Search the entire Boronimilamojialuo Heaven, and kill every last Buddhist monk!" The Great Brahma issued a death warrant.

Innumerable guardian celestials from the Three-Layered City soared out, riding strange mounts or driving various chariots, sweeping across the Boronimilamojialuo Heaven like great storms and rain clouds. Wherever they passed, nothing survived; hills and mountains were pulverized, and every spiritual spring was plundered clean. These guardian celestials, having hidden in the mortal realm for countless years, must have been severely impoverished. This opportunity for rampant plunder surpassed even the outrageous deeds of Jiuyou Dao back then. Every monastery was dismantled and carried back to the Three-Layered City; all flora and fauna, useful or not, were snatched back. Even the slightly fertile soil was dug up and removed. As for the robes, undergarments, and even the worn-out straw sandals woven by the Buddhist cultivators themselves, not a single scrap was left behind; everything was taken back to the Three-Layered City. In their wake, the heavens were empty for ten thousand miles, and even the underground spiritual veins and various mineral deposits were entirely stripped bare. Gu Xechen’s divine sense tightly tracked the movements of the Mysterious Old Monk and his party.

However, the Daoist, clearly a clone of the Daoist Zhunti, maneuvering the massive Seven Treasures Wonderful Tree while carrying countless Buddhist cultivators, vanished without a trace immediately after exiting the Boronimilamojialuo Heaven. Even with Gu Xechen's current cultivation level, his divine sense could not detect the method the Daoist used to disappear. He couldn't discern whether the Daoist's cultivation was too high or if the Seven Treasures Wonderful Tree was incomparably profound. In any case, so many Buddhist cultivators vanished from under his divine sense, and no matter how far he searched through the Nine Heavens, the Nine Hells, or the Three Realms, he could not find a trace of these monks. "Between a Sage and anSage, even a single step creates an immeasurable gulf!"

Gu Xechen finally gained a direct and concrete understanding of the so-called Sages. If one is not a Sage, one has absolutely no qualification to play tricks or schemes in front of one. Even a mere clone of a Sage was beyond his capacity to contend with. Even though he could become a Sage at any moment, being able to become a Sage and already being a Sage represented an enormous gulf in power, akin to the difference between an immortal and a mortal—a distinction between entirely separate realms. Having suffered this unexpected blow from the Daoist Zhunti, Gu Xuchen gained a deeper comprehension of the Sages and harbored a greater wariness of their methods.

With a soft sigh, Gu Xechen’s divine sense followed Guo Hua and his party. They were rushing frantically toward Jinzhu Cave; a contingent of Jinzhu Cave disciples, including the Yellow Robe Dharma King, was still stationed there. These confidant disciples of Mahā were originally left behind to monitor the activities of the Buddhist cultivators in the Huian Great Snow Mountain. But now that the guardian celestials had completely crushed the Buddhist cultivators of the Great Snow Mountain, these Jinzhu Cave disciples had to relocate immediately.

As Guo Hua and the others reached the entrance of Jinzhu Cave, a large army of over three hundred thousand Asuras was already advancing toward the cave in full force. The nearly one hundred thousand confidant disciples of Mahā stationed at Jinzhu Cave fearlessly formed their battle lines, loudly cursing the ancestors and all the female relatives of the Asuras, cheerfully charging out to meet them.

Under his divine sense, Gu Xuchen could hear the incessant, torrent-like stream of vulgarities from these Mahā confidant disciples, and he could only shake his head repeatedly. These scoundrels and villains were truly incorrigible. However, this did align with the positioning of Jiuyou Dao; Jiuyou Dao was never meant to be a righteous sect, and Gu Xechen did not want his own disciples to be a group of rigidly conventional old scholars. After chuckling a few times, Gu Xuchen’s divine sense gathered the surrounding spiritual energy of heaven and earth, and he unleashed a great divine power spanning trillions of miles.

A colossal Buddha’s palm, hundreds of miles in circumference, silently emerged in the void. The giant palm emitted no light, appearing merely as a haze of misty vapor. The large character for "Buddha" gently pressed downward, instantly turning over three hundred thousand Asuras into dust, their souls unable to escape. Six streams of wondrous light shot out from the palm, and Gu Xechen effortlessly extracted the soul imprints of the slain hundreds of thousands of Asuras from all their past and present lives. The Buddha’s palm flipped, and these soul memories transformed into pure beads of mental power, which shot toward the Jinzhu Cave disciples, including the Yellow Robe Dharma King. The weakest of these Asuras possessed Golden Immortal cultivation. Each of the Yellow Robe Dharma King and the others received three beads condensed from mental power. Their divine souls instantly grew, equivalent to bypassing tens of thousands of years of arduous refinement and cultivation. Subsequently, the Buddha’s palm moved, and the shattered essences of the three hundred thousand Asuras transformed into over one hundred thousand streams of pure qingqi (vital energy/essence) that shot out and swiftly enveloped the Jinzhu Cave disciples, transforming them into ugly Asuras, all baring fangs and protruding tusks.

The Yellow Robe Dharma King and the others looked at each other, grimacing and mocking each other over how hideous they had become. Guo Hua and the others, witnessing this bizarre sight, immediately knew that Gu Xechen had intervened. Guo Hua sighed up toward the sky, "The gap is widening... as the eldest disciple, I feel immense pressure... so, I need to find something to alleviate that pressure!"

While he was murmuring this, Mahā suddenly erupted in laughter nearby. He almost drooled as he soared forward on a cloud of light. While flying rapidly, Mahā bellowed, "Where is my little sister Qingyin? We are a match made in heaven! Why don't you come to your brother's cave residence?" Ahead, ten streams of light shot toward them—it was the little nun Qingyin, along with ten other young nuns, fleeing frantically in this direction. Behind these young nuns were several thousand Asuras, grinning broadly, their lower bodies noticeably distended, looking as hideous as possible. Mahā possessed profound cultivation, and his light projection was terrifyingly fast. Little Nun Qingyin only saw a flash of brilliant light, and Mahā had already reached the ground, pulling Qingyin into his embrace. Mahā looked down; he had currently transformed into an Asura with three heads, twelve arms, four legs, and his entire body covered in blue scales resembling fish skin—an appearance so ugly he would have been drowned as a monster had he been born in the mortal realm! Qingyin, held tightly in Mahā's arms, struggled in panic. Wherever her fingers touched, she felt only dry, hard scales. She quickly looked up and saw Mahā’s three ugly faces grinning at her, a trace of glittering saliva hanging from his three large mouths that continuously belched bloody mist. The little nun shrieked in terror, nearly fainting. She instinctively drew a silver bright monastic sword and slashed wildly at Mahā. The sharp blade struck Mahā’s body, sparking brightly, but it could not harm him in the slightest! The other young nuns, seeing Qingyin captured by Mahā, screamed out in dismay. A dozen or so of them cried out and immediately fled in another direction, showing no interest in looking back at Qingyin, demonstrating a clear resolve to save themselves when disaster struck. The other twenty-odd young nuns, however, displayed great loyalty. Seeing Mahā seize Qingyin, they cried out in alarm and immediately summoned various magical artifacts to strike Mahā’s head. However, the cultivation of these young nuns was not high; the strongest was only at the initial stage of the Void Realm, and they possessed no truly excellent artifacts. The best of their flying knives and swords was merely a low-grade immortal artifact of passable quality. A low-grade immortal artifact was not even qualified to scratch Mahā’s itch. Mahā shrugged his shoulders, and his muscles suddenly swelled, repelling all the flying blades and swords that struck him.

The group of Buddhist degenerates, led by the Yellow Robe Dharma King, who had just changed their appearance, came laughing, encircling the pale-faced young nuns in the center. The Yellow Robe Dharma King recognized Little Nun Qingyin and burst into loud laughter: "Oh, little mistress of the monastery, have you delivered yourself to our door today? Hey, Master, hold her tight, don't let mistress run away again!" The band of Buddhist scoundrels laughed in chorus, some making obscene gestures toward the encircled nuns, while others puffed out their chests and shouted insults at the charging Asuras behind them: "Brothers, keep your eyes open! These little bald donkeys are ours; you get nothing!" The Asura tribe was vast, and constant infighting over spoils was common. The thousands of Asuras arriving from behind saw that the prey they had painstakingly chased had fallen into others' hands, and a fire of anger rose in their bellies. But upon closer inspection, the Asuras in front numbered around a hundred thousand, while their contingent was only five or six thousand—they clearly couldn't win a fight. These Asuras exchanged glances, their gazes falling upon the dozen or so little nuns who had abandoned Qingyin and fled for their own safety. Given the nature of the Jinzhu Cave disciples like the Yellow Robe Dharma King, how could they possibly rush to protect the little nuns who had abandoned their peers to save themselves? Thus, they let those panicking nuns flee, not even sparing them a glance. The Asuras who had been chasing Qingyin and the others calculated for a moment. The number of spoils had shrunk significantly from a dozen or so little nuns to just over ten. But since the opposing faction was too strong to provoke, it was better to pursue the dozen or so fleeing nuns. It was universally understood that something was better than nothing. After cursing angrily a few times, these few thousand Asuras turned their clouds of light and pursued the dozen or so little nuns.

Qingyin, held in Mahā’s embrace, was paralyzed with fear, her limbs stiff. She stared blankly at Mahā, then suddenly screamed hoarsely, "Master, save me! Grandmaster, save me! Wuwu!" The carefree Mahā looked at Qingyin weeping so miserably and burst into laughter: "Oh, a natural beauty emerging from clear water, untouched by artifice. Tsk tsk, the little nun looks much better when she cries! Hehe, cry more for this Buddha, howl more! Tsk tsk, these little teardrops plopping down!" Inadvertently, a complacent Mahā slipped back into his original voice. Qingyin, recognizing the familiar sound, cried out, "Senior Brother Mahā?" Mahā gave a strange laugh, "I am not Mahā, how could I be Mahā?"

As he laughed, Mahā was kicked flying by a foot. Prajñā flew to Qingyin's side, glanced sideways at Mahā, and sneered, "Qingyin, that fellow is Mahā... How did you all end up like this?" Prajñā also used her original voice. Hearing Prajñā's words, Qingyin immediately burst into loud sobs, "Wuwu..." She clutched Prajñā's sleeve and wept loudly, "Hurry and save my Master and the others!"

Apologies, a friend has arrived in Shanghai today. Pig Head has taken a day off to accompany him for eating and drinking. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, I should be able to write diligently and update tomorrow. Please understand, such sudden matters always happen. Ah!!! My friend just landed, and Pig Head is running off to greet him! Hey, ladies upstairs and downstairs, come out to greet the guest... Pig Head suddenly remembered that phrase! ...mF