The Ancestor of All Demons

Xin Ru hated Shi Feiyang to death: "You were clearly ready to abandon this world, to abandon the beings of this world, just taking your Outer Heaven Divine Mountain and flying to Spiritual Space, so why do you still oppose us?"

When she mentioned "taking the Outer Heaven Divine Mountain and flying to Spiritual Space," there was a hint of mockery in her tone, obviously, she did not believe Shi Feiyang could succeed.

Shi Feiyang laughed and said, "Us? I really don't know who you all are. I'm curious, just who is the illustrious 'Xin Ru Buddha' grouping together with to form this 'us'?"

Xin Ru was furious: "You vile creature, only taking pleasure in your tongue, today I must peel your skin, draw out your tendons, and let you know the power of Xin Ru Buddha's wrathful avatar!"

After speaking, she unleashed a vast amount of Bright Cloud, within which appeared all Buddhas of the Ten Directions and Three Worlds, simultaneously striking towards Shi Feiyang's group, and commanded her followers to attack under the blessing of her Buddha Light.

Zhu Youmu and others, having a backbone, also shone brightly, their Buddha Lights interconnecting, transforming into a mountain of light, roaring as they charged toward the enemy.

And then there was the old Shi Pi, who at this moment flicked his horsetail whisk, releasing ten thousand Blood Flame Gold Sabers, within the blood flames, ten Thunder Pearls appeared.

He directly released the Heavenly Ten Earth Ruyi Yin Thunder, but the target was not Shi Feiyang's group across, instead, it was detonated among Xin Ru's people.

The ten Child Bombs, even without the full support of his Devouring Demons, were powerful enough to turn the surrounding thousand miles into ruins, after all, it was a nuclear weapon level Magical Treasure!

Everyone's attention was on Shi Feiyang's side of the enemy, no one anticipated a change so close, Xin Ru reacted the fastest, but by the time she noticed, the ten Thunder Pearls had already expanded into a large ball of light over a hundred meters in diameter, wrapped in thick Asura Blood Flame.

She urgently shouted that it was bad, hastily summoning a large amount of Buddha Light for suppression, but it was too late, as Old Shi Pi let out a decisive shout and the Thunder Pearls exploded simultaneously!

Ten sounds stacked into one, forming a sky-shattering, earth-cracking massive explosion!

The mountain of light Xin Ru and her followers had merged from their Buddha Light collapsed instantly, blasted into a sky full of golden light.

The so-called Ten Great Arhats, Ten Great Nuns, people like Guang Ming and Guang Hui, most were directly blown into flying ash!

Even Xin Ru's Hundred Feet Golden Body was extinguished in an instant.

"Buddha!" The followers, seeing "Xin Ru Buddha" also blown apart, cried out in panic.

Yet the iron-hard fact was happening right before their eyes: Xin Ru, along with her most core followers, most were blown to pieces!

"Old demon Shi Pi! We are irreconcilable with you!" Zhu Youmu and others, coming to their senses, cursed loudly.

"Namo Amitabha Buddha!" Someone loudly chanted the Buddha's name, and then a swath of Buddha Light flew rapidly from the southwest, arriving in an instant.

Standing upon the Buddha Light were Master Fen Tuo, Master You Tan, Zen Master Kong Tuo, Zen Master Wu Ming, and Zen Master Wu Ming's six main disciples.

"You were deceived by demons, believed in the false Buddha, fallen into the Demon Path, are you still not turning back?"

The two monks and two nuns simultaneously made a move, unleashing a large area of Buddha Light, some with deep Buddha affinity and shallow demon nature were immediately awakened by this light, able to distinguish truth and falsehood, good and evil, one by one coming to pay homage beneath the Buddha Cloud.

Zhu Youmu and others, obstinately refusing to repent, cursed, "What the hell are you? What fruit have you attained? How dare you presumptuously judge what is Buddha and what is Demon?"

He directly struck from afar with a Vajra Giant Spirit God Palm.

His current Divine Skills and Mana were also at the peak level, so Master Fen Tuo and others did not dare to neglect, using a Sumeru Vajra Hand to meet the strike, with a loud boom, it exploded into a sky full of golden radiance.

Others wanted to seek revenge on Old Shi Pi, but at this moment, the old man had already flown to Shi Feiyang, bowing deeply: "Disciple pays respects to Master!"

Everyone was immensely surprised; in their timeline, Old Shi Pi had come to Jiuhua Mountain from the Star Constellations Sea, though he seemed to be just going through the motions during the previous duel, his performance was quite normal, since Red Corpse God Monarch and others were also mostly just going through the motions, only Old Shi Pi slacked off a bit more.

How come he just called Shi Feiyang Master now?

Shi Feiyang smiled and nodded, allowing him to rise: "Although I had long since stopped taking disciples, yet with you, there truly is a connection of master and disciple. Since you are unwilling to reincarnate like Huo Linger to be reborn, and still want to achieve Dao with this body, there are both advantages and disadvantages, the difficulty varies, it depends on your own cultivation."

Then he announced that Old Shi Pi was his newly accepted disciple, introducing him to Huo Wuhai, Deng Bagua, and others.

Compared to him, Huo Wuhai, Deng Bagua, Jin Xunu, along with Shaoyang God Monarch, and Hollow Ancestor, were all juniors, or even juniors among juniors.

Previously opposed, they attacked without holding back, cursed without any restraint, saying all kinds of insults, now in a blink of an eye became one of their own, even Yu Wa, who rattled off insults like "old demon, thousand-year demon, die a miserable death," had to come forward to call him senior, Deng Bagua and others even dared not act high and mighty, truly taking the attitude of senior brothers and sisters, hastily returning the salute, bowing even deeper and more respectfully.

The elderly Shi Pi was truly humble; he had become completely convinced by Shi Feiyang and no longer held any unnecessary pride, calling him "Senior Brother" and "Senior Sister" with ease.

Everyone was utterly perplexed: How did the elderly Shi Pi become a disciple of True Master Shi?

Some speculated that the elderly Shi Pi turned to Deng Yin because it was a trap set by True Master Shi, a deliberate act, and that he and the Fire Spirit God Monarch had long since sided with the Outer Heaven Divine Mountain.

They couldn't comprehend, and neither could Xin Ru.

The figure of Xin Ru that the elderly Shi Pi had shattered was merely an avatar; her true self had long been within the underground Fetus Burial Array, where the Conch Leaf Talisman and Seven Treasures Golden Banner also resided, which explained why the ten Thunder Pearls used by the elderly Shi Pi caused such catastrophic damage.

She exerted all her strength to unravel the Tai Chi Bagua Diagram that Shi Feiyang had previously thrown into the array.

Though the Shariputra and Secret Demon Divine Shuttle were formidable, they were not much of a worry to her; it was just that Shi Feiyang wielded them with exceptional skill.

Because the sharira were left by high monks and divine nuns and were the crystallization of meditative practices in "Precepts, Concentration, and Wisdom" for hundreds or even thousands of years, and those left by Master Zun Sheng were immensely powerful.

Xin Ru used them to set up arrays, intending to use the righteous Buddhist skills within to disguise the inner workings of the Demon Path, to feign a Buddhist Pure Land.

The myriad methods between Buddha and Demon were extremely complex and also involved many forbidden curses of the Demon Path.

Now Shi Feiyang was using the Buddha Nature in eight sharira to suppress the Demon Nature of the demon formation; originally, the two were like two sides of a coin. Now Shi Feiyang used the front to suppress the back, which couldn't be resolved with mere mana, breaking the front would injure the back since they were originally one.

Undoubtedly, Xin Ru possessed great mana and had the Seven Treasures Golden Banner in her hands, making solving things through brute force not difficult.

The challenge was encountering such a situation.

Especially since before Shi Feiyang came, he made a special trip to Emei Mountain...

Previously, the Three Heroes and Two Clouds of the Emei Sect had come to help break the array. Although this time no one from the Emei Sect came, Shi Feiyang borrowed the Muni Ding Bead from Li Yingqiong, the Sect Leader of the Emei Sect,.

Now, eight sharira were spinning together, and two Secret Demon Divine Shuttles formed the Taiji Yin Yang Fish.

Above this Yin Yang Fish appeared a middle-aged monk, seated cross-legged, eyes lowered, chanting Buddha mantras—it was Li Ning!

Back then, Li Ning was killed by Zhu Youmu, his physical body destroyed, and his Primordial Spirit was sealed within a rock, while the sharira that sealed the Red Flower Princess was taken.

He relied on the remaining sharira to reluctantly continue cultivation and fulfill the last instructions of his master, Bai Mei Zen Master.

Xun Lanyin deduced Li Ning was in danger and sent Li Yingqiong and Zhou Qingyun to rescue him, but Li Ning stubbornly refused to go to Emei Mountain, choosing instead to stay here.

When Zhu Youmu came a second time to seize the sharira, Li Ning had already swallowed it. Zhu Youmu then had the Yin Yang Elder use the Poison Dragon Bag to capture him and take him back to Jiuhua Mountain.

This time, Li Ning followed Bai Mei Zen Master's teachings, not using a trace of mana, and entered into deep Zen meditation.

The sharira originally left by Master Zun Sheng, after passing through the hands of Tian Meng and Bai Mei Zen Master, were naturally unmatched for someone like Li Ning who sought externally. However, upon entering deep Zen meditation, he merged into the depths of the sharira, and not even Xin Ru could forcibly extract him from it.

Once a high Buddhist monk went deep into Zen, if the skill was sufficient, they experienced a brief state of "all phenomena are non-self".

Stepping out of the Three Realms, no longer reincarnating, not even "impermanence" could find him, almost equivalent to a complete disappearance from the Six Paths.

It was fundamentally untraceable; no matter how high Xin Ru's mana, she couldn't bring him out. She had to act in reverse, using her spells to reforge the sharira, sealing Li Ning inside and attempting to refine him into the Artifact Spirit of the sharira itself or even the entire array.

As soon as Li Ning emerged from meditative contemplation, whenever "self" reasserted, he would be immediately restrained. When the enemy attacked the array and succeeded, Li Ning would suffer first; once the array was breached, Li Ning would be forced into soul scattering, putting the enemy in a difficult position. She originally predicted that the Emei Sect would definitely send someone to break the array, led by Li Yingqiong, intending for Li Yingqiong to experience: if she breaks the array, her father would vanish into dust; if she didn't, by the time Xin Ru returned from Baihua Mountain, she would bury everyone!

Last time, when Li Yingqiong came to break the array, Li Ning remained in deep Zen meditation, and once the array was broken, he completely disappeared, having lost his "self-attachment", akin to entering Nirvana.

This time, Li Yingqiong didn't come; Shi Feiyang used the Muni Ding Bead to pull Li Ning out of his meditative state.

The Muni Ding Bead contained the accumulated emotional bond of Li Yingqiong and him over their several lifetimes as father and daughter. Li Yingqiong initially intended to rescue her father personally but was persuaded by Shi Feiyang and Xun Lanyin, eventually kneeling before Shi Feiyang, imploring him tearfully to save her father. Shi Feiyang promised her, and with the deep affection of a father and daughter, drew Li Ning from the Nirvana of an Arhat back to the Bodhisattva Path.

Additionally, the Buddha Beads were also the crystallization of over a thousand years of cultivation in "Precepts, Concentration, and Wisdom" by Bai Mei Zen Master, now circling him, radiant and surrounded by Buddha Light, with wafts of sandalwood fragrance.

"Namo Amitabha Buddha!" Li Ning joined both hands in prayer and chanted loudly, "Sister Xin Ru, the sea of bitterness has no bounds, a repentant shore!"