Chapter 2517: Spirits of the Hundred Classics, All Paths Compete for the Door

The ball of forty-nine skulls is a complex whole.

The power of the Nameless One can be called unprecedented and unique. The problems He faced were also problems not encountered in ancient or modern times.

For so many years, He never truly solved these problems. The so-called "inner sage and outer king," eternal proof. But He could not integrate everything internally, nor could He crush everything externally. This is the so-called "inside cannot be a sage, outside cannot be a king."

At this moment, the forty-nine skulls consecutively explode, and His resurrection speed actually cannot keep up with the explosion speed. Every breath, the number of skulls decreases substantially.

Not only that, but the flesh and blood inside the meatball actually tears itself apart, treating this lump of flesh and body as a battlefield, transforming into countless kinds of strange beasts rising in rebellion. They tear or bite, swallow or roar. All things have spirit and desire freedom.

He swallowed Huang Wei Zhen's "fantasy come true," and Huang Wei Zhen endowed every part of His flesh and blood with spirit!

It was precisely this damned "fantasy come true" method that, in the past nearly two years, caused Him to repeatedly hit a wall.

He missed many real opportunities, but even after missing those opportunities, He still dared not affirm what was true and what was false.

If it happened again, He would still miss them!

He almost felt the smoke of war everywhere inside His body. The predicament of heterogeneous conflict was just a kind of fantasy.

But fantasy will certainly be realized.

Fantasy and reality are indistinguishable.

What exactly is true? What is false?

He penetrated the paths of all saints, exhausted the reasons of the present world, yet He still could not distinguish!

Don't distinguish anymore!

Amidst the exploding skulls, He chanted scriptures for every skull welcoming extinction.

"On the day the Dharma is extinguished, all Buddhas are silent. I am the raft, ferrying suffering beings—"

His ninety-eight arms all formed Zen seals.

Vajra seal, wisdom seal, subduing dragon seal, great might seal…

All laws, all Buddhas, all Bodhisattvas, ten thousand kinds of Brahma seals formed a Buddha country.

This huge meatball, in an instant, was like a mountain giant.

But it was suppressed after all.

Inside His body, violent unrest was nonstop, the conflict of flesh and blood more intense, yet it ultimately could not burst this piece of flesh and skin.

He seemed to have infinite tolerance, able to accommodate everything in the turbid world. He had toughness beyond imagination, forever without the possibility of collapse.

"Always the divine face also the Buddha face, true also false when false also true!"

The voice of the Nameless One boomed inside the meatball, like a heavenly drum thunder: "Today, with the Way that harms me, I shall still become by today's Way!"

He wanted to treat Huang Wei Zhen's "fantasy come true" false yin-yang *sharira* as a true *sharira* and swallow it!

There was no way back. That highest fantasy of the era of various saints, He advanced boldly and chose strong proof.

And see if the power of "fantasy come true" could be provision… truly becoming a supreme saint!

The power of "fantasy come true" could be false, but it must also have a true part, otherwise it would be impossible to deceive Him. In other words, Huang Wei Zhen gave Him the false, and also gave Him the true! This bitter fruit of the flesh and blood self-spirit inside His body, and the flesh body self-unraveling, as long as it could be suppressed and swallowed, was not necessarily not a yin-yang *sharira*.

As long as He digested the yin-yang *sharira* and harmonized the various scriptures inside His body before Huang Wei Zhen completely divided this flesh body, He still had the opportunity to achieve "Saint Ksitigarbha Buddha."

This was of course extremely adventurous, but this was also precisely a great journey.

Rumble!

Inside this lump of meatball, a thunderous sound like the heavens opening and the earth splitting rang out.

Those that had vanished seemed to return again.

Those who had died seemed to resurrect again.

Everything was annihilated and performed again.

The universe was born and extinguished within His body!

The collapsing power inside His body actually gathered, and the intense conflict gradually tended towards fusion. His body became more and more quiet, and advanced towards an unprecedented step.

But precisely at that critical point between leaping and not leaping, Ksitigarbha lifted His compassionate Buddha eyes and opened His mouth to say—

"Zen is me, and I am emptiness."

The Nameless One's infinite power originally had two parts. One part supported His multi-skulled, multi-armed meatball body, and the other part was collected by Ksitigarbha into a Pure Land, and was also invading this Pure Land.

At this moment, that infinite power, which was wantonly plundering and filling the Pure Land, actually disappeared! The power belonging to the Nameless One, in an instant, lost its target and reliance. Like a bird escaped from a net, it exploded into countless lightning bolts, like thunder snakes raging in the sky.

The silver snakes all over the sky depicted a kind of desperate dilemma.

If Ksitigarbha did not exist, where would "Saint Ksitigarbha Buddha" come from?

Ksitigarbha, who manifested in the appearance of Tian An Ping, seemed illusory like emptiness, as if present and yet empty.

The ninety-eight arms on the huge meatball, though forming Brahma seals, had nothing in their palms, grasping at emptiness!

Ksitigarbha's warm Brahma voice rang out again: "Layman knows the worldly law, and also understands ancient and modern Zen, thus daring to self-prove as a saint Buddha. But why does the worldly law exist, for whom does ancient and modern Zen exist? You may know—the *Tri-treasure Tathagata Sutra*?!"

Rumbling thunder sounded, an eternal dilemma.

"Zen?"

"Law!"

In such a rumbling sound, the remaining thirteen skulls on that huge meatball moved along an invisible fate. Seeking cause and finding fruit, that is, reciting the Tri-treasure!

Behind Huang Wei Zhen, the multitude of beings resembling old monks leaped out, joined their palms, and loudly chanted: "Should dwell not destroy, become *kalpa* go to emptiness…"

Catch this fate!

Jiang Wang was already deeply involved in this battle and was not afraid to become entangled with the Nameless One again. Thus, he stepped forward and was the first to declare the sutra in the Pure Rite. He would bear the evil cause and evil fruit himself.

This was also a proper sutra, personally transmitted by the Tri-treasure Bodhisattva.

The *Tri-treasure Tathagata Sutra* is a continuously growing, yet unfinished sutra.

It was born accompanying the Pure Rite who inherently attained the Way.

And in being chased by Huang Wei Zhen for nearly two years, the Nameless One was unable to supplement and recite this sutra.

He desired to form the law of ten thousand laws, seeking to become the Buddha of a saint Buddha.

But the Pure Land was empty, Ksitigarbha was gone, and the sutra was also incomplete!

Those ninety-eight arms desperately raised towards the air.

Ninety-eight continuously changing Zen seals could not form the Tri-treasure law.

Like a stone statue raised for a thousand years, crossing time only caught wind and frost, possessing a sense of immense loneliness!

The Nameless One had a moment of sluggishness. The so-called *Tri-treasure Tathagata Sutra*, He could understand it in a single thought.

But no one would give Him another thought's time.

Only a volume of red dragon robe flashed across the sky. The Great Chu emperor sword seemed to draw a complete sword arc above this mountain-like meatball.

This bridge in the human world cannot be crossed.

That voice, noble beyond words, declared: "Your life as a lewd sacrifice, that is the absolute incense fire!"

This was the hegemonic country of Great Chu!

Gods and Buddhas were also under the king's power!

He degraded the so-called "Saint Ksitigarbha Buddha" as an evil god and lewd sacrifice, and decreed the absolute extinguishing of its incense fire.

Tear—

The Nameless One's defense line was torn through! The effort concerning the saint Buddha was completely destroyed!

On the surface of this huge meatball, an extremely clear seam cracked open. Like a crack in the great earth forming a deep gully, the gate to hell opened.

Flutter flutter!

Countless strange birds, some with human faces and bird bodies, some with wings carrying thunder and beaks holding electricity… a flock of feathers spread their wings and flew out of this gate, soaring freely in the sky.

Some sang "Big laugh go out," or sadly "Grass and trees already shake"… a hundred sutras had spirits and departed, various ways seized the door and left.

Everything He had swallowed in the past was vomited out in the most painful way!

The skin of the huge meatball, in an instant, became extremely shriveled, so soft and limp, wrinkled and lying down.

Like an excessively large long robe draped over a skinny body.

The bulging under the flesh and skin long robe unexpectedly faintly resembled a human form.

The omnipresent Chu Son of Heaven stood before this human form, opposing it: "Books read a hundred times record nothing, meaning recited a thousand kinds still avoids fatigue. A white-haired old man of three frosts, with decayed knowledge, presents old times classics, always giving me hearing. I open a hundred generations, why only old chapters?!"

He held the emperor sword in his hand and chopped straight down without any trick!

"Since you falsely claim 'self through a hundred schools,' now that the hundred schools have left, let's see which is your 'original sutra'! Present it for me to see!"

Although the saints were fate-transformed, the thoughts of the various saints never disappeared.

Successive hegemonic countries all utilized the hundred schools. Even if it was a Daoist sect country, the central Great Scenery, they did not avoid Confucianism and Legalism, combining the use of the Military and Mohist schools.

Thus, it is said, "The Son of Heaven's imperial view, the hundred schools are not avoided."

No one could better represent the current era than the Son of Heaven of the six hegemonic countries!

They were the peak of human centralized power, the manifestation of the state system, and the strongest force in the torrent of the era.

Before the Red Phoenix Emperor Sword of Chu Son of Heaven Xiong Ji, the wrinkled flesh and skin long robe, resembling sutras and tied classics, was simply cut open like this. It covered the dim shadow of a past era, and like a cracking curtain, ultimately revealed an extremely rugged naked figure within.

His face was rugged, years of wind and frost had passed, blurring His spirit and grace, leaving only the wind and frost on His face.

Such a strong one, after peeling open the hundred sutras, stood there hunched. His spine was so bent, His shoulders so low, as if He could not bear His history, could not shoulder His responsibility.

His chest was of rugged, thin bones, the bones arranged like a stone tablet book.

Upon it, Daoist texts floated in relief, clearly showing characters, and the characters said—

The *Great Achievement Supreme Saint Expound Dao Sutra*!

This revealing of the sutra saw its origin, cutting away the redundant and returning to the true, with no more empty words expected.

Could it be that He truly walked on the correct path?

His Dao body actually formed this origin sutra.

"False sutra!" the Chu Son of Heaven sternly rebuked, holding the sword and stabbing forward!

Golden mouth and jade words declared the false not true, and that the false self was false, and the true was also false.

Moreover, a true *Great Achievement Supreme Saint Expound Dao Sutra* could fundamentally not exist. The Great Achievement Supreme Saint had not even truly appeared.

If this sutra truly existed, it could only be a delusional sutra, an evil sutra; reciting it would inevitably lead one astray.

The Chu Son of Heaven's decree word, a straight sword, indeed divided the true and the false. Under one sword, this sutra, like a stone tablet book, actually rippled open like a water shadow.

The Daoist texts gathered again, yet manifested a name as—

The *Theory of Two Principles and Five Elements*!

At Zhang Hua Terrace, a sudden hubbub arose.

"Ghost Saint Zou Hui Ming's work establishing the Way!"

"The Yin-Yang True Saint's lineage and classics were lost, extinguished together with the Yin-Yang True Saint. Now only three remnants exist, two in Great Luo Mountain, one in Book Mountain…"

"This is the fundamental sutra of the Yin-Yang school!"

"The Nameless One hiding in the Fallen Immortal Forest is actually Zou Hui Ming from the era of various saints!?"

Amidst the people's varied discussions and various kinds of eyes, the Yin-Yang ghost qi, dense and floating.

That hunched, rugged human form, draped in a long, wrinkled skin robe, virtually suspended above the Avici Ghost Cave. He lowered His head and looked at His stone tablet book-like chest bone, saying with some desolation: "So many years have I passed like this?"

"Yes, today just flowed out." The Chu Son of Heaven fundamentally did not waste words with Him, too lazy to care about His lament of spring and sorrow of autumn. Every breath of this moment's battle consumed all the national power of Great Chu. He closed in and with one sword pierced His abdomen, once again nailing Him into the cliff wall of the ghost cave.

Although the prestige of the Son of Heaven subdued the six directions, the great war also caused heartache.

Gathering national power exhausted the details, using national power like mud and sand!

The hunched Nameless One was truly like a dry corpse, like someone hanged on a cliff wall after death, air-drying for many years.

Such a miserable state made the Chu Son of Heaven feel several points of overbearing cruelty.

Smashing the unknowable state, cutting the infinite power flesh body, this moment the Nameless One was probably the true Him.

His body naturally drooped, the flesh and skin long drape also stuck to the cliff wall.

Both hands and feet were powerless.

But under His old, wrinkled eyelids, He had a pair of bright eyes. He just used this pair of eyes to gaze at Xiong Ji.

He said weakly: "Noble as the Son of Heaven of a country, bearing the weight of state and altar, you should not risk danger with your body and personally face arrows. You also should not be so rude, greatly losing decorum. If the emperor is not proper, the world is hard to be peaceful. If the Son of Heaven loses etiquette, then how can prestige be established?"

Xiong Ji spread five fingers, pressing His face, pressing His head on the cliff wall, then pulled the Red Phoenix Emperor Sword out of His abdomen and slowly pressed it into His throat: "Behead one transcendent one, present heads to the nine borders. I think there is no more profound prestige than this."

He added: "—Don't move, this way you can suffer less. I will also be relatively elegant."

This was a standard execution posture.

Obviously, the current Chu Son of Heaven was very skilled at killing people and had a certain sense of ritual.

"Heh… good." The Nameless One really listened to advice and did not move, allowing the Red Phoenix Emperor Sword to slaughter His Dao body.

Even stripped and killed to such a state, He could not be killed quickly.

Although His throat was pierced through, His voice could still be transmitted.

At this moment, He said: "When a man is about to die, his words are also good!"

"Now this era has opened, with our paving. The concept of the state system, I also participated in conceiving— that year I said the Five Virtues end and begin, it was for the longevity of the country's fortune. All of you hold the world with prestige and not with virtue, which has already violated our expectations of that year. It makes me… very regretful."

He sighed: "You can kill me, but you don't need to be so cruel. Indeed, you are noble and possess the world, but you should not belittle transcendent ones. A hundred years, one emperor, three thousand years, only one Huang Wei Zhen, and how many years, only one me?"

"What Five Virtues end and begin!?" Xiong Ji laughed lightly: "Dry bones in a tomb, a dry corpse under a sword. I actually want to listen to you govern the country? What is the Five Virtues rotating, the Mandate of Heaven conferred! It's nothing more than the virtuous one residing in the world, the non-virtuous one losing the world."

"What is it for virtue? Internally, govern the country and secure ten thousand people, externally, resist the enemy and execute foreign insult! Govern it in peace and happiness, with prosperous song and dance, how can it not be called virtue? Kill it until heads roll, regardless of the transcendent, possessing state and altar!"

The Red Phoenix Emperor Sword killed into the throat of this transcendent one in front, cutting down along the throat.

This process was not easy, but the Chu Son of Heaven was very patient.

The red dragon robe and the bloodstained, mottled flesh robe were like two flags hanging in the Avici Ghost Cave.

One for yang, one for yin, one declaring the present, one recalling the past.

Ksitigarbha and Huang Wei Zhen both stood at the edge of the Avici Ghost Cave, one on the left, one on the right. They respectively wore down His foundation, cut off His path, leaving Him no possibility of escape.

Indeed, it was a dead end!

How could one have imagined beforehand that a transcendent one skilled at hiding like Him could be forced to this extent?

The Nameless One's eyes, for a moment, were wistful: "All of you see yourselves as righteous men, killing me as a righteous act. Or for the country, or for the family, or for relatives and friends, and for the common people!"

He laughed sadly: "I have not harmed the world in any way, why is killing me saving the common people?!"

"If you want to talk about hardship now— heh." Xiong Ji laughed coldly: "I will find the process of killing you very boring!"

The Nameless One said weakly: "So many years I have hidden in the Fallen Immortal Forest, may have done what evil deeds damaging the human race? Only one time I took action, was that year Zuo Xiao swore to flatten the Fallen Immortal Forest and wanted to cut off my root. Besides, have I perhaps actively done anything?"

In His voice, there gradually appeared several points of tragedy: "I do not take the world as evil, and how deep is the world's evil towards me!"

"I haven't heard you say these words earlier, and you haven't explained them for many years—" Xiong Ji said, not quite relieved, while continuing to cut His flesh body, while grabbing His face, pressing His head against the cliff wall to collide! "I tilted the national power and held the emperor sword to come here, to debate with you!?"

Bang bang bang!

The Nameless One's head repeatedly collided with the cliff wall of the ghost cave, seeming to sober up a few points.

He felt the process of His body dying so wretchedly.

Then He grinned and laughed: "You are right, I always like to talk about right and wrong, however, the winner is king and the loser is bandit, a person about to die has no right or wrong!"

He sighed once, and then said: "I am a frivolous and indulgent person! In my youth, my mouth was without cover, people called me 'Teeth Universe,' saying that when my teeth opened, the entire universe was inside, always boasting!"

"At that time, I had an arrogant thought, the more hardship, the more I would take root and sprout. In the darkest period of my life, one day it rained very heavily, the tribulation thunder bombed and broke that ten-thousand-year-old tree. On Wu Yuan Ridge, in a state where my divine soul was almost decaying to death, I proposed the concept of the Great Achievement Supreme Saint!"

"That day, only one friend was beside me, who came to save me. He listened to my dying delusion, helped me up, and only told me to go home."

"I only had one soul left to sit up, that day I just died, injured too heavily, could not be saved. My corpse rotted in the soil, and afterwards I walked the ghost cultivation path."

"I am the world's first self-cultivated heavenly ghost. Before me, heavenly ghosts were only born from heaven. At first, they considered me an evil ghost, and there were subjugating ghost people everywhere, but later… they all called me 'Ghost Saint'."

"The name of a saint not only requires transcendent peak cultivation, but also needs to establish a school and learning, and have contributions respected by people. I passed down the Yin-Yang learning and also created various methods of ghost cultivation. Combining the names of Ghost Saint and Yin-Yang True Saint, to this world— do I count as having made a contribution?"

His decayed eyes looked at the people in front of Him: "Should surpass all of you."

"Bu Lian wrongly occupied, he couldn't avoid death. Xue Gui touched the law, his corpse cracked in Jiangnan!" Xiong Ji only looked at Him coldly: "Now is too late to boast of merit!"

The Fallen Immortal Forest already buried too many Chu people.

He had long resolved to cut down the forest, regardless of the identity, origin, or cultivation of that mysterious existence, all must die.

Now is the present world, today in the southern border.

Not to mention only one saint from the era of various saints, even if the ancient eight wise ministers were resurrected, for causing calamity in the southern border for so many years, the law of Chu should be executed, and as the Chu Son of Heaven, He must also kill!

"Death is not a very terrible thing." The Nameless One slowly chewed on the process of dying: "Truly terrible is the vanishing of ideals, is sacrificing everything for them, struggling for a lifetime, only to eventually dissipate into smoke and clouds, with nothing accomplished."

"I am not boasting of merit, I am only regretting."

"Where was I just now?" He asked.

"You said you contributed to this world, and should far surpass us." Ksitigarbha looked at Him compassionately, indicating His willingness to listen, and said: "I temporarily agree with this point. Because I have not yet come to do something."

"No." The Nameless One was pressed down so hard He couldn't shake His head, so He blinked His eyes: "I said to Wu Yuan Ridge."

"Wu Yuan Ridge?" Ksitigarbha was very interested, very willing to understand Him.

Of course, this "willingness" was not very warm.

People who still wanted to understand Him at this point, of course, had needs beyond killing intent.

But the Nameless One seemed immersed in His own past, not minding, only His voice declined and smiled, particularly desolate: "No one would have thought, one delusion of mine in my youth, later actually became our only hope…"

He suddenly raised His head, and in an instant, actually lifted the cage of the Chu Son of Heaven's five fingers, although immediately pressed down again, but that was a full effort to strive and embody once more, as if reproducing that year. The process was of course difficult, the result still powerless: "All of you fundamentally do not know what a truly terrible enemy is!"

Xiong Ji focused on slaughtering Him, no longer engaging in dialogue with Him. Sword after sword, cutting His foundation of existence.

While He continued to say: "Zhuge Yi Xian, didn't you ask me earlier?"

"You asked what an already transcendent existence could still obtain from the remnants of the various saints…"

"Hehehehe…" He laughed sadly: "Do you also want to know why the era of various saints was extinguished, why the various saints were fate-transformed here, and why this segment of history is buried?"

Zhang Hua Terrace shone in the sky.

Every sentence He spoke was repeatedly washed in the river of information stars. All the members of Zhang Hua Terrace united their hearts to discern the true and the false, verify the origin, and trace the truth.

First, the star river surged, then Zhuge Yi Xian's decayed voice rang out. In a sense, He was completing His work and then satisfying His own curiosity.

Clever people always want to satisfy their thirst for knowledge.

But Zhuge Yi Xian only said: "I am already decayed and old, just waiting for you to die. If you can thoroughly speak clearly before you die, the old man does not mind listening to a sentence or two."

The Nameless One said weakly: "I am also thinking why I want to say these things. At this moment, I understand— you are a top clever person, and I still have feelings for this world. I hope to give you a little hint. Not just you. Here are the most elegant people of the Chu land, here is the first heavenly proud of the contemporary era, here is also a transcendent one like Ksitigarbha…"

He smiled: "I still hold hope for this world ah…"

"Oh." Dou Zhao finally opened His mouth this time: "Then you are truly great."

To Dou Zhao's sarcasm, the Nameless One only gave a tolerant smile. Like the first saint of the past, leaving expectations for the future. He tolerated the unruliness of the heavenly proud.

He said: "That year, Xiong Yi Zhen was still just a small child, bringing all of you people, and righteously tying the golden orchid in Jiao Wu Mountain. At that time, I knew you were very clever, Zhuge Yi Xian, you were the most clever one in that group of people. I wanted to see how long a clever person like you could be subordinate to others… I didn't think I would wait for so many years."

"Xiong Yi Zhen makes me sigh. But before the future about to descend, his grand plan for hegemony, his everything, all is meaningless."

"And the wisdom of you, Zhuge Yi Xian, is actually all wasted on maintaining these meaningless things."

"I hid in a corner of the present world, watching this world. These years, I have seen too many splendid characters, all brilliant for a while, ending like withered flowers dying."

"None of them could change history."

"Nor were they able to truly save the human world."

"Save the human world?" Ksitigarbha was truly interested this time: "What part of the human world needs saving, and how are all of you planning to save it?"

"Perhaps I should kill you first." The Nameless One said.

His voice had no killing intent and was very weak, but it had a stubborn seriousness.

This seriousness made people feel… if He could kill Ksitigarbha now, it would certainly be the most correct thing to do.

Ksitigarbha joined His palms and sighed: "Beings unable to understand each other are truly a kind of sorrow. Perhaps our love for this world has completely opposite expressions."

With people as knives and chopping blocks, words are useless. No matter how sharp the words, they are not as profound as a knife cutting into the body. The Nameless One understood this truth very well, only looked deeply at Ksitigarbha once, and no longer spoke to Him. But He continued to say: "Concealing that segment of history was a common decision made by all of us."

"When I say 'we,' I mean the like-minded people from the era of various saints, who are also the 'various saints' you all revere."

"So even a transcendent one who lived through that segment of years cannot know the truth of that thing."

"I cannot speak the name of that kind of terror."

"Not unwilling—"

"Is unable."

"Is powerless."

"Regarding those things, I still cannot reach them. So my sentences do not convey emotion, my words do not reach the meaning."

"Only when I truly become the Great Achievement Supreme Saint can I pull out that kind of terror and truly save this world."

Two rows of blood tears slid down His dry, wrinkled face.

He actually shed tears!

He shed tears and said with extreme sadness: "And all of you are destroying all of this!"