Spiritual qi combined with gushing murderousness almost dyed the sky blood-red. It emitted an aura that Li Qingshan found extremely familiar, reminding him of an enemy from a very long time ago—Strongboulder.
Sure enough, the rock was a Rock of Slaughter from the Asura realm!
“Huh?” Rāhu Xiaoming’s expression changed.
“What’s wrong?”
“You’ll know once you take a look.”
Curious, Li Qingshan made the Suffering Subduing abbot lead the way. The group passed through the grand hall and arrived in the back courtyard of the Salvation temple. A lush bamboo forest hid a small lake, which glistened under the setting sun. There was a stone tablet on the side, inscribed with the words “Lake of Suffering”.
Li Qingshan sensed that the spiritual qi there was extremely dense, almost giving him the false impression that he had returned to the nine provinces. He understood that a formation suppressed the Rock of Slaughter’s murderousness. As such, it only gave off spiritual qi, turning this small lake into a blessed land of cultivation.
“My king, the daemon star is at the bottom of the lake.”
As soon as he said that, Li Qingshan leapt into the lake, leading to a plop. With his arms outstretched, he swam towards the bottom. The water was only a few meters deep and completely silent, basically devoid of any life.
As the murderousness grew heavier and heavier, Li Qingshan knew he was getting close to his target. A speck of red light gradually grew larger in the darkness. A cone-shaped boulder was planted at the bottom of the lake, giving off a dark-red glow.
I found it!
Li Qingshan’s eyes lit up. He pushed back with his legs and shot towards the boulder.
At this moment, there was a roar from up ahead. The surging undercurrent attacked him.
Hu Xian’er and the others watched on from the shore in concern. Suddenly, they saw the lakewater bubble and vaguely produce the roar of a beast.
“My King!” Hu Xian’er looked back at the Suffering Subduing monk furiously. “Bald ass, is this another one of your traps?”
The Suffering Subduing monk was panic-stricken too. “I really have no idea!”
With a thump, the water exploded, and a colossal figure rushed into the air, tossed forcefully towards the shore and landing in the bamboo forest.
Zhang Xuanfeng sped over on the wind, only to discover a colossal turtle. Its shell had cracked, and it was close to death.
“There’s actually a daemon in the lake!” The Suffering Subduing monk exclaimed in surprise.
The Lake of Suffering was originally a pool in the temple for them to release creatures that were in captivity. With the entry of the Rock of Slaughter, the creatures began killing and eating each other. Despite the benevolence of the monks, they were forced to sacrifice them for the peace of the world and the development of the Salvation temple.
They never expected a survivor. It lurked at the bottom of the lake the entire time and absorbed the spiritual qi from the Rock of Slaughter to cultivate, turning into a daemon. It became the guardian beast of the Rock of Slaughter.
The surface of the lake settled down, but the murderousness became even more intense. A dark-red rock rose up from the water, rapidly growing larger in size as it approached the shore.
“T- that’s the daemon star!” the Suffering Subduing monk said.
Despite all these years of suppression and dilution, it could still make their blood boil as a desire to kill rose up in them slightly. Fortunately, they were all innate experts, so they possessed some resistance. Only Hu Ling’er moaned, “Sister, I feel horrible!”
“Ling’er, go away from here. Stay away!”
Splash! Water trickled down the boulder. Li Qingshan shouldered the Rock of Slaughter as he made his way over step by step along the bottom of the lake.
“My king!”
Li Qingshan arrived by the shore and slowly set down the Rock of Slaughter, but it still produced a thump, which only demonstrated how heavy it was.
“It really is a huge piece of spiritual stone. Unfortunately, far too much spiritual qi has leaked away.”
Even carefully-forged steel could not compare to the Rock of Slaughter’s toughness. It seemed to have been forged and refined somehow, but it did not seem like an arcane treasure.
Speaking of which, the Asura realm had so many asura armaments, so who would use a great big boulder as a weapon?
He shook his head and stopped thinking about it. With this Rock of Slaughter, his Ape Demon Transformation could definitely progress even further. However, he still had not digested the spiritual qi he had just absorbed, so there was no rush.
“It’s mine.” A young voice rang out, surprising everyone. Rāhu Xiaoming made his way over and patted the huge Rock of Slaughter.
“What did you say?”
“I said it’s mine.” Rāhu Xiaoming showed a sense of attachment.
“You’re just trying to take advantage of my work. I was clearly the one who carried it out of the lake.”
“If you don’t believe me, flip over the rock and take a look.”
Li Qingshan flipped over the Rock of Slaughter doubtfully. Sure enough, there was the symbol of a dark sun and moon underneath, the insignia of the Rāhu clan. Suddenly, he recalled that the exact thing Rāhu Xiaoming had shot from his slingshot to devastate Battle Demon Hun back then was a stone.
Just like that, everything made sense. It was impossible for a rock to leave the Asura realm by itself, and it was impossible for it to give off such intense murderousness, much less produce a daemon like Strongboulder that was ushered along by a great power.
After a moment of thought, he waved his hand and dismissed everyone. Only the two of them remained on the shore. Li Qingshan asked, “What exactly is this about?”
“What else can it be about? I just shot them for fun.” Rāhu Xiaoming inadvertently touched the slingshot called “Li’l Y” on his waist. “The six realms of sa?sāra and the many worlds are connected anyway. It’s very easy to hit them.”
Li Qingshan was speechless. Even without the obstructions of space, those were shots that crossed through worlds. Just how vicious had this asura child of a god been in the past!?
As it turned out, the legend that the world would fall into chaos with the arrival of the daemon star was merely a child’s game! And that Daemon General Strongboulder that had massacred dozens of cities and killed countless people.
“Don’t tell me the Rock of Slaughter in the nine provinces was from you as well?”
“Who else apart from me would be bored enough to do something like that?” Rāhu Xiaoming’s head tilted forwards as he squinted his eyes as if he had become sleepy again.
“So you’re also aware of how dull you are!” Li Qingshan thought of something. “Hold on. I’ve only been to two worlds, but they all have rocks from you. This shouldn’t be a coincidence, right?”
The trichiliocosm was a term that referred to the great thousand worlds, medium thousand worlds, and small thousand worlds together. As for the exact amount, probably only the gods and buddhas in the nine heavens knew. He had picked out two worlds and both had Rocks of Slaughter.
This was either a great coincidence, having run into something of an extremely low probability, or he had once shot out a large number of Rocks of Slaughter. Clearly, the latter was much more likely.
Even without the spirit turtle’s calculations, he could guess how great that number was. Even if half the worlds across the trichiliocosm had a rock of slaughter, then the chances of coming across two consecutively was only a quarter.
He immediately felt like Rāhu Xiaoming’s story was incomplete. No matter how bored a child was, they would only shoot at birds, not every single leaf on a tree. Not to mention that the workload required was almost equivalent to shooting every single leaf in a forest once. Even to gods, that was anything but easy. It would take an immeasurable amount of time and effort. Was it truly for fun only?
Rāhu Xiaoming laid out his hands. “Do you understand just how bored I was now?”
“But why’s it so big?”
“When it lands in a small world like this, of course, it’ll seem large…”
Rāhu Xiaoming’s voice became more and more feeble. His eyes were half-closed. He added, “Whatever, I’ll give this rock to you then. Stop asking me so many questions.” With that, his head drooped, and he fell asleep.
