Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way

Gu Suihan and the Huangquan Evil Ghost ran with all their might for about fifteen minutes.

They began to slow down and their faces were tensed as they watched the densely packed, countless devils move and shriek as they headed for the whirlpool above them that kept growing in size.

“Do we head there now?” asked the Evil Ghost via telepathy as it bent down after glancing at that hair-raising sight.

“There’s no hurry.
Unless you want to be caught by You Hantian again and turned into a bargaining chip meant for claiming credit,” replied Gu Suihan in a low voice as he turned himself into a tall, broad shouldered and nasty faced devil with a long spear in his hand.

He had his considerations too.
He didn’t know what the situation on top was like, but he figured that it wasn’t going to be much better up there.
The devils were great in number, but they were useless when it came to fighting.
Everyone leaving now were only going to be vaporized instantly by the will of this world or burned up from just looking at You Hantian.

The difference in the level of cultivation was not always something that numbers could really overcome.

And so, he decided to wait.
He was going to wait for a devil that could compare to Marahu to appear.
That way, he could use that devil to stall You Hantian and the rest and draw attention away from himself.
Otherwise, even if he knew a thousand different spells or ten thousand god level techniques, he wouldn’t stand a chance with so many high level cultivators around.

“Look over there…” The Evil Ghost suddenly raised one of its claws and pointed at something in the distance.
Its yellow-brown green bean sized eyes instantly lit up and its ugly face was filled with excitement.

“Not enough.” Gu Suihan’s eyes lit up for a moment when he followed where the Evil Ghost was pointing to before calming down again.

That was a devil covered in disheveled hair, one horn on its head, its fangs bared, and with a tail that was slightly more than three meters long.
It carried a long staff in its hand that looked more like a metal pillar.
The darkened bloodstains on it showed that this devil definitely had a good number of vengeful spirits under its control.

Unfortunately, while it looked imposing, it was only equivalent to a cultivator at Peak Origin Core.
It was going to be too difficult for it to deal with a scheming, meticulous fellow like You Hantian.

“There’s another one!” Gu Suihan had just looked away when he suddenly looked back in the same direction.
The devil with the long staff wasn’t actually the leader of that group of devils.
In fact, it was standing very respectfully in a subordinate position.
The leader of the group was a devil that looked a lot like Marahu, except that it was holding a one-sided halberd.

“Our chance…is here!”

The Evil Ghost exchanged glances with Gu Suihan.
They could see the delight in each other’s eyes.

ROAR! The leader gave some instructions, then waved its halberd.
The devils behind it started yelling excitedly and waved the strange objects in their hands that resembled ritualistic items.
They then dashed into the whirlpool fearlessly.

“Let’s go!” Gu Suihan grabbed hold of the Evil Ghost with one hand while crushing a devil next to him with the other.
He sucked out the devil’s soul and swallowed it.
As he squeezed himself into the large group of devils, he quickly read through the memories of the devil he just killed.

“Gosh,” thought Gu Suihan to himself.
This Devil Abyss was indeed connected to that legend and the things in here were rather shocking.
But soon after that, his expression displayed not only shock, but also…excitement.

“&%#$*@*£#!”

The clamoring, roaring, ramming noises were filled with uncontainable excitement.

A vomit-inducing, disgusting putrid stench kept hitting Gu Suihan’s nostrils.
Thankfully, he had been through too many centuries of life to be bothered by such things.

Gu Suihan and the Evil Ghost got caught up with the rest of the group and were pushed into the whirlpool together.
Everything went black for just one second and they soon found themselves back on land again.

The Evil Ghost stared at the sight before it and went into a daze for a moment before finally cursing, “What….the fuck?”

“Shouldn’t these monks be meditating in some temple? Why the hell are they here?” Gu Suihan’s lips twitched as his expression fell.

He didn’t have any prejudice against Buddhism and didn’t even have any extreme ideas about them.
But that didn’t stop him from hating monks.

These weak pieces of trash refused to cultivate in this life, yet they hoped to have a next life while they misinterpreted the Way, karma and other such rules.
Their hypocritical behavior and seemingly humble appearance really disgusted all cultivators.

If the cultivators had not needed people who twisted the rules about heaven, earth, morality and justice in order to keep the ordinary people, or the lowest of humanity, in check, they would have wiped out all Buddhists by now.

Even so, the cultivators never bothered to be nice to the buddhist cultivators.
If they had been nice, these monks wouldn’t have had no choice but to run to the Lower World to escape from danger.

Why were they described as those who twisted morality and justice? Or in other words, they twisted the Way.

That was because the Way…was a set of laws governing heaven and earth.
It encompassed millions of things.

Buddhism was just one of the barely noticeable branches of the Way.

At the same time, the phrase “Buddhism itself is the Way” were not words said for fun.
They were merely a branch, yet they wanted to be on equal standing as the Great Way.
That had to be a gross overestimation of themselves, no?

Not only that – they thought themselves as very clever, twisting the meaning of the rules of karma and forcibly merging it with buddhist teaching.

They seemed amazing for doing this, but the bad karma they had created from doing this was a million times worse than the amount that Gu Suihan had accumulated.

After all, at the end of the day, Gu Suihan had merely massacred a lot of lives, and people would see him as a demon.
That was the worst case scenario.

But Buddhism had lied to thousands of worlds, hidden the Great Way and cut off the basis for countless factions of cultivators to reproduce and survive.
The karma all of this had created wasn’t something that could be erased just by making some Bodhisattva vow and be done with it.

So, Gu Suihan’s opinion was that the current things that Buddhism practiced were definitely going to get themselves killed.
And that they deserved what they got.
The fates and karmas of lives across different worlds wasn’t something that one “Buddha” could take responsibility for.

But even though he hated them, he didn’t think it was worth giving them any attention.
They were a bunch of pitiful idiots who enjoyed lying to others and themselves, that’s all.

The loud and majestic chanting of Buddhism incantations echoed continuously within a 100 mile radius.
Countless devils wailed miserably and slowly turned into wisps of demonic qi as they were forcibly wiped out.

In that instant, the sounds of wails and cries, angry and anguished roars shook the sky as they rang out one after another.

“You…are seriously annoying!” Gu Suihan raised his head with a start and stared at the will of the world that kept raining lightning down from above.
The murderous glint in his eye intensified with time.

He had already noticed this earlier – even though the will of this world seemed to be sentient and even seemed to get emotional at times, it was nothing compared to that mysterious and incomprehensible thing from Earth.
The two were at completely different levels.

If his guess was right, this thing was probably like the Huangquan Evil Ghost.
It was something that the empire had made out of the soul of a cultivator and was made to resemble the will of heaven.

But there was something lacking in their technology or something.
This “will of heaven” was equivalent to leaving one person on a deserted island to watch over it.
Never mind whether this one person could get the job done properly or not – the wild animals and birds on such an island were like the cultivators of this world.
To be able to survive was already an accomplishment.

“World Cleansing Dark Lotus – Burn the Heavens, Submerge the Soul!”

His long fingers kept making mysterious rune after mysterious rune and a tiny whirlpool seemed to gather in between his fingers.
The demonic qi that kept filling the air around him suddenly changed directions and began gathering within Gu Suihan’s palm.

The laws of nature became obvious.
Qi blew wildly like a storm.

The Evil Ghost was very careful in protecting Gu Suihan.
This concerned its own life, so it made sure to remain as alert as possible.

The runes began to wriggle as dao laws gathered.

A dark but majestic aura slowly began to spread.

The devils, the monks and You Hantian stopped fighting and immediately turned to look.

The giant eye in the sky kept blinking and a look of fear began to appear in its gaze.
After that, the lightning strikes were like dragons gone wild as dark clouds gathered and ran poured down.
Countless laws of nature gathered and kept attacking Gu Suihan as he stood next to the whirlpool.

“Block…them!” Gu Suihan barely squeezed these words out of his mouth.

The Evil Ghost was a little hesitant as it watched the eye in the sky rain down such violent attacks, but it let out a long howl and its body suddenly grew much larger.
It waved its claws about to create black ripples in the air.
It nearly scratched a crack in spacetime.

Kaboom! Countless devils turned into ash instantly.
The whirlpool that kept getting bigger also kept shaking, as though it was about to fall apart.

Piak! Piak! Tiny crisp explosive sounds slowly began to ring from Gu Suihan’s hands.

Black mist surrounded him as demonic qi continued to gather.

This slowly turned into a dark, beautiful, elegant and mesmerizing lotus.
It had 36 petals, which represented the number of heavenly spirits, and 72 seeds that contained the essence of the earthly fiends.
The complex interweaving runes also strangely gave off a depressing and pitiful aura.

“RUN!”

“@…#$29*&#!&*3$!!!”

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Zhan Wuchang and the rest instantly felt a chill creep down their heads and into the rest of their bodies.
Their hair all began to stand on end as well.
A fear, anxiety, terror and reverence rose from the bottom of their hearts and ate away at their resilient heart for the Way.