Cultivation Begins from Infancy - Chapter 368

Volume 3 - Chapter 85: Unity of Buddha and Demon - Part 2

Amid the tremors, the mountain peak collapsed halfway up, toppling the entire summit.

The Buddhist Lord looked on as the colorful halo on his robe began to dim, fury surfacing in his eyes. Without warning, he extended his hand again, unleashing another Merciful Buddha Hand in an attempt to subdue his foe.

But Li Hao caught the hand mid-air and twisted it sharply.

With a series of cracking sounds, the hand broke, bones shattered.

Gripping the Buddhist Lord’s wrist, Li Hao swung his body, slamming him forcefully into the ground and creating deep pits across the surface.

However, the Buddhist Lord's treasured robe shielded his body like a tortoise shell, leaving him unharmed. Yet, the once-radiant Buddha light of the robe had noticeably thinned, no longer as brilliant as before.

Li Hao's eyes flashed with fury as his Earth and Heaven Meridian abruptly drew in the surrounding energy.

Immortal Ascension, seventy percent complete!

Boom!!

He struck down with a fierce punch, as if an entire mountain had descended with murderous intent.

The Buddhist Lord's body was driven hundreds of meters deep into the ground, the forceful impact causing the Buddha light on his robe to weaken further.

“Weren’t you the one insisting I become a demon?”

Li Hao plunged into the depths, seizing the Buddhist Lord’s robe, yanking his body into mid-air. He stared at the Buddhist Lord’s darkened expression and spoke quietly:

“If I become a demon, you’ll be the first I destroy!”

The Ten Extreme Sword flew to his palm; one hand held the Buddhist Lord, his gaze cold with killing intent, while the other hand fiercely swung the sword down.

The formidable sword light merged with Li Hao’s strength, striking the treasured robe. As the multicolored aura rose again, dark gray streaks of demonic energy rippled across it.

“I underestimated you, we all underestimated you.”

Despite the clash of sword light and Buddha light, the Buddhist Lord's expression remained unchanged as he stared at Li Hao.

“To push me this far and ruin my grand wish to save the world—I will see you eternally crushed beneath my seat, unable to be reborn!!”

As he spoke, rare killing intent flashed in his eyes.

The serene Buddha light in his gaze dissipated, and from the treasured robe on his back surged forth an intense and sinister demonic aura.

A dark mass of demonic energy rolled out from within the robe, and from this opened space emerged a black, monstrous essence.

This sinister energy was thick, sharp, and fierce, filling the air with piercing wails as if the cries of anguished spirits echoed across the heavens.

The figure that appeared, surrounded by demonic energy, had disheveled hair and chilling, wrathful eyes, in stark contrast to the Buddhist Lord’s previous calm.

"Heh, still relying on me in the end? I told you from the start, you’re not enough.”

“Salvation through slaughter, a path of bloodshed. The world is full of ignorant fools; your attempt to save them only shows how foolish you are!”

“Too bad—you shouldn't have provoked this brat. Now, we're forced to act prematurely before gathering enough incense power to achieve sainthood. What a waste!”

The dark figure sneered with cold disdain, mocking the Buddhist Lord.

Their bodies slowly drew closer, gradually merging until they were nearly one.

Seeing the sword light rubbing against the Buddha light encasing this scene, Li Hao’s expression turned even colder.

Recalling Jiang Lichen’s words, Li Hao finally understood. He’d once assumed the Buddhist Lord and Moruo had an alliance or that the Buddhist Lord was in disguise, but it turned out that Moruo was actually a manifestation of the Buddhist Lord himself!

Without a doubt, this overwhelming demonic aura, combined with the power of the Ultimate Dao Realm, was precisely the Moruo that Jiang Lichen had spoken of.

Many cultivators in the Three Immortals Realm used techniques to forge avatars to refine their Dao Hearts, and this Buddhist Lord had chosen such a path.

Both his true form and his avatar each possessed a Dao Heart—one was a Buddha Heart, the other a Demon Heart—and they were now merging.

“So, this is your greatest hidden secret?”

Watching the Buddhist Lord’s continuous fusion, Li Hao’s killing intent surged as he raised his sword and struck again.

Boom!

At that moment, within the robe, the Buddhist Lord abruptly opened his eyes. Though his form hadn’t fully fused with Moruo, a chilling killing intent had already appeared in his gaze.

He suddenly extended a hand from beneath the Buddha light of his robe and gripped Li Hao’s Ten Extreme Sword!

“I intended to leap from the Dao Seeker Realm, entering sainthood directly through the Ultimate Dao Realm, but you ruined my plans, so you must die!”

His eyes darkened with cold ruthlessness, demonic energy surrounding him, the Buddha light within his robe no longer pure. As Moruo’s body merged further with his own, a powerful force erupted instantly.

A booming shockwave blasted Li Hao backward.

A palm imprint, blending both Buddha light and demonic energy, crashed toward him, its strength infused with the Dao Seeker Realm, striking him into Spirit Peak.

Spirit Peak trembled, and a massive palm print appeared at its summit, pressing down dozens of meters deep.

Suddenly, a surge of violent sword intent tore through the air, slicing apart the Buddha-Demon Palm. Li Hao looked up.

The Buddhist Lord now hovered silently above Spirit Peak.

Moruo had completely disappeared, merged within him. Pure golden light emanated from the Buddhist Lord once more, making him appear like an ancient Buddha of unparalleled majesty, his golden Buddha light illuminating everything around him. Yet his eyes were now devoid of emotion as he looked down at Li Hao.

“Die.”

He chanted softly, as though murmuring a Buddhist mantra.

With that single word, boundless Dao Force gathered across the heavens and earth.

Dao Force swept forward with his words, akin to an unbreakable law, surging from all directions toward Li Hao with lethal intent.

This power seemed like fate itself, unstoppable, immovable.

With a single booming word, Li Hao’s body exploded into a mist of blood.

His Fifteenfold Dao Domain could offer no resistance against that single, Dao-empowered word.

He burst apart into a cloud of blood mist!

This Buddhist Lord was not only in the Dao Seeker Realm but had achieved the level of Dao Law Realm within it!

A true Dao-empowered command—one word of annihilation!

Watching Li Hao’s body scatter, a hint of regret flashed in the Buddhist Lord’s gaze. If given more time to gather sufficient incense power, he could have achieved sainthood upon fusing with Moruo.

He was a peerless prodigy, his ambitions far beyond the ordinary martial artist's comprehension, utterly uninterested in merely cultivating within the Dao Seeker Realm.

But now, all his schemes were prematurely exposed, and his path to sainthood would be more challenging.

As he pondered, a gust stirred on the ground below, swiftly intensifying into a fierce whirlwind.

“Hm?”

The Buddhist Lord looked down, his eyes showing a trace of surprise.

The whirlwind thickened, streams of energy gathering into it.

These energies condensed to near-solid threads, resembling silver light.

Beneath the silver glow, an almost translucent network—the Earth and Heaven Meridian—spread like a web across the surroundings, drawing in the power of the world.

At the eye of the storm was the blood mist left from Li Hao’s body, bones shattered, reduced to pure blood mist.

But now, the mist began to coalesce, droplets gathering at its core. When the blood droplets merged into a fist-sized mass, it rapidly grew, and in an instant, Li Hao’s body reformed, his whole being suffused in crimson-gold like a god reborn.

...

This scene was witnessed by Jiang Lichen, who was hiding behind a dilapidated temple on Spirit Peak. His eyes widened in shock.

As Li Hao’s reborn body took shape, his hair, once golden, gradually turned to silvery-white.

The explosive destruction had actually brought his Immortal Ascension to its peak...

“Dao Seeker Realm…”

Li Hao slowly raised his head, his silver eyes glinting with icy killing intent:

“Have you ever heard, ‘To glimpse the Dao in the morning, one may die content by nightfall’?”

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