Chapter 119: To Eradicate the Weed, One Must Remove the Roots

The thick fog surged forward as the arm of the Longbo giant reached out, clawing toward the city of Hangdu. Several tall buildings collapsed instantly under the onslaught, causing casualties among the civilians. The giant attempted to continue its destruction, but its form began to flicker and fade. After all, the entirety of Hangdu originated from the mortal realm, and under the rejection of the Ghost Domain, changes were occurring rapidly.

Zhou Bai breathed a sigh of relief. The thick fog began to dissipate, and the whispers from the Ghost Domain grew faint. Within a few breaths, Hangdu returned to the mortal world. It was fortunate they had escaped the quagmire of the Ghost Domain in time; otherwise, the consequences would have been unthinkable. Standing on a rooftop, he surveyed his surroundings. The massive town was devoid of a single conscious soul, left only in a state of utter devastation.

He subconsciously touched the storage pouch at his chest and withdrew the scrolls of calligraphy and painting. The moment they touched the air, the patterns on the four scrolls began to fade away bit by bit. Zhou Bai could no longer see their contents, but he knew that the prophecies depicted within them had all come to pass—from the yellow cow giving birth to the heavenly dog devouring man, the night of the full moon, and finally, the Longbo giant. Regardless of the details, everything entangled with the Ghost Domain felt inherently sinister.

Suddenly, Zhou Bai recalled that the severed head of the deity statue lay not far from him. If it still held a flicker of life, he might be able to scavenge some benefits. He flashed across the city walls and looked down. The statue’s head was half-buried in the earth, its expression ferocious, with its eyelids still fluttering slightly. Zhou Bai approached quickly and transformed into his White Bone Dharma Body, wreathed in ghostly fire. He placed his hand on the statue’s forehead, allowing the ghostly flames to spread; deep within his own eyes, a vortex seemed to swirl.

Countless fragments of memory were devoured by Zhou Bai from the statue’s head, flooding his mind with the entity's past. This was an innate supernatural ability of his White Bone Dharma Body, which he had briefly utilized once before when facing skeletal remains. However, his execution was still lacking, and the memories he retrieved were somewhat fragmented.

Even so, it was enough to clarify the identity of the statue. Zhou Bai drew his butcher’s blade, swung the chain held in his right hand, and plunged the edge directly into the center of the statue's brow. A massive surge of ghostly energy flowed in, forming flames that extended deep into the wound. First came the sizzling sound of searing flesh, followed by a crackling roar as the fire intensified. The statue’s expression twisted, but it had clearly lost its sentience—or more accurately, the spirit within this body had already vanished.

Still, as long as he obtained the points, that was enough. The harvest this time was sufficient to upgrade his core cultivation method. It took several dozen minutes for Zhou Bai to burn the head down to a giant, bare skull. The skull faintly emitted a Buddhist radiance; although the path taken was twisted, it had been a living Buddha for four lifetimes and had already attained a Fruit Position.

As for this statue, he was originally Liu Boji. After becoming a monk, his dharma name was "Liaowu." In his first life, he had been the abbot of a small Buddhist temple in Xuzhou. It was only at the age of seventy that he encountered orthodox Buddhist scriptures, and only then did Liaowu realize that merely chanting sutras daily could never lead to transcendence. The only way to transcend was to attain a Fruit Position. As the abbot of a mere backwater temple, Liaowu had no qualifications to access such secrets, and being of advanced age, there was no one to guide him. By all accounts, he should have died in obscurity.

The subsequent memories were fragmented, as if skipping over a decade. By the time he was over eighty, he had mastered orthodox Buddhist scriptures and attained his first fruit: the Reserve Fruit. This left Zhou Bai in shock. According to the techniques he had gleaned from Buddhist texts, even with great talent, it should take at least forty years of dedicated practice to attain the Reserve Fruit. To do it in a mere decade was simply inconceivable. Liaowu had claimed his talent was inferior to Zhou Bai’s, but even one born with a "Buddha Bone" could not achieve the Reserve Fruit in ten years.

Zhou Bai had learned from Liaowu's memories that by his fourth life, his cultivation had reached the peak of the First-Come Fruit, just one step away from the Never-Come Fruit. According to Buddhist doctrine, attaining the Never-Come Fruit was equivalent to stepping into transcendence; even without further deliberate practice, one would inevitably attain the Arhat Fruit after nine cycles of reincarnation. An Arhat was no longer a mortal of this earth; they were half a step into the realm of terrestrial immortals, and it would be no exaggeration to call them immortal.

Possessing this information piqued Zhou Bai’s interest. He had vaguely discerned the locations of Liaowu’s remaining three incarnations. These three manifestations would not possess cultivation as high as the fourth life, nor would they retain the memories of Liaowu.

Zhou Bai narrowed his eyes, stroking the coarse skull as he pondered. The death of Liaowu’s fourth incarnation would surely affect the remaining three. For a long time, the cultivation of these clones would be severely diminished, and the first incarnation, already the most aged, might even be reduced to an ordinary mortal. This was undoubtedly an opportunity for Zhou Bai. If he could track down and kill these incarnations one by one, he would not only eliminate a future threat but might also discover the secret behind Liaowu’s rapid cultivation. He suspected that Liaowu possessed a Buddhist technique capable of attaining the Buddha Fruit and another for the Bodhisattva Fruit. If he could master the method for rapidly attaining these Fruit Positions, it would be entirely beneficial to him.

With this in mind, Zhou Bai struggled to recall the flashes of memory, eventually pinning down the general locations of the three clones in Xuzhou. He was in no rush; given Liaowu’s personality, he would not move unless exposed. Zhou Bai estimated that Liaowu would only attempt to flee after two of his clones had been destroyed. Thus, he could wait until the affairs in Hangdu were settled before heading out. By then, the aftermath in Xuzhou would likely have subsided, making it much safer.

Zhou Bai placed the massive skull into his storage pouch, which filled the bag to capacity. He then turned to help Daoist Hou stabilize his injuries. Hou had been severely wounded, but fortunately, he had kept a "Yellow Pill" hidden in his shoe. After consuming it, the medicinal power had barely kept him alive. Bai Wanming was in no better state; after taking a strike from Liaowu, his hard-won demonic form had dissipated, reverting him back into a towering tree. He would need time to recuperate, but since his consciousness had gathered, the injury was only a minor setback.

The townspeople began to wake up one after another. In a sense, Liaowu had saved their lives—the Buddhist radiance that had enveloped the town had insulated them from the erosion of the Ghost Domain, even if many had inevitably died in the chaos. Many of the survivors claimed to have had a long, strange dream in which they had transformed into thousand-foot giants.