Chapter 448: Fate vs Absolute Beginning ()
Wang Wei made a sword finger before making a slashing motion: [Fate Cutting]. A sword slash rushed toward Feng Heng. It was so fast that his ability to predict the future was almost useless.
Even his shield of Absolute Beginning was useless. That slash seemed to cut off the fate of the shield and annihilate it. However, Feng Heng took the small window of opportunity that the shield bought him to dodge in time.
However, the moment he appeared a few meters away from his previous location, Wang Wei also appeared, and in an instant, he touched all four of his limbs.
[Destiny of Death].
In an instant, all four of Feng Heng's limbs began to decay and turned old before disappearing. Moreover, even the origin essence inside his body was affected by the concept of death and disappeared.
Meanwhile, his soul seemed to have aged countless years, making it weak and slow to process information.
Feng Heng knew that if the opponent was not trying to capture him, he might have suffered severe damage in that attack. As he watched Wang Wei's hand reach out to grab him, Feng Heng did not fluster as the situation was not as bad as it appeared.
A dragon made of flame and one made of ice appeared to surround him, then, they instantly combined before exploding.
[Fire-Ice Unbalance]
The explosion created an area of hundreds of thousands of kilometers with an alternation of ice and fire. One moment, it was so cold that even space could freeze, then the next, it was so hot that space itself was melting.
Wang Wei was not hurt by the explosion, but he was still pushed away far away enough to buy his opponent enough time. Taking this opportunity, Feng Heng could help himself.
[Beginning of Self]
Using this technique, he returned his body to the beginning of the battle, before he was injured. With this technique, he should have returned to his prime state–including his origin essence and Primordial Spirit.
However, he discovered that something was hindering his healing and technique.
'The Duyi Realm? Damn it, how annoying.'
Then, a mysterious force came out of his body to remove that power that prevented him from healing.
"Interesting. You have also entered the Duyi Realm," gestured Wang Wei. "And yet, I have never heard of the Taiyi Profound Gate withstanding Divine Punishment Thunder. You are indeed hiding many secrets."
Feng Heng–who was back to his peak state–had a frown on his face.
'This battle has proven to be more difficult than I anticipated. The longer we fight, the more I'm forced to reveal my secrets, and in the long run, it is not worth it. So, should I run away?'
With his method capable of even hiding from Great Emperors, if he wanted to run away from this fight, no one can stop him. However, there will be repercussions afterward.
Feng Heng could tell that this Sacred Son was a determined person, and if he decided to use all his sect power to search and pester him, the Taiyi Profound Gate might become suspicious.
And currently, the identity of the Dao Child was very beneficial to his plans. As such, it was not worth losing it.
"Young master Wang Wei, if you only need a way to cultivate a Buddhist Scripture, I may have a method."
Wang Wei remained silent, waiting for him to continue. Feng Heng took out a piece of paper from his space ring and send it over. After looking at it, Wang Wei frowned.
This was a contract of the highest order stating that in exchange for his help, Wang Wei will not reveal some of the information he learned in this battle to other people.
After seeing this, Wang Wei began to contemplate whether it was better to just use force to capture his opponent instead. However, after mulling it over, he decided otherwise.
His intuition told him that he could defeat his opponent but he might not be able to prevent him from escaping. Since there was a less risky method, why not used it instead?
So, after checking for loopholes in the contract, he signed it. Without saying anything else, Feng Heng sent a space ring to him. And after checking inside, he found a small world with countless Buddhist scriptures.
There were so many of them that it could compare to his sect's Tibetan Scripture Hall. So, he gave a strange look at Feng Heng.
"Fortunate encounter," he replied softly, then bowed in salute before flying away.
'Although it would have been very beneficial to convert him into our sect, it is not worth it to reveal my secrets. Plus, he is a walking dead man anyway. Now that I have found a Luck Condensing Treasure for Tao Buddhism, I can begin the plan for the Buddha World.
'With my understanding of the Absolute Beginning Art] and that treasure, I should be able to neglect Lu Taishuang's magic in a specific area.'
(AN; Li Taishuang is the Absolute Beginning Emperor's real name.)
Meanwhile, Wang Wei watched Feng Heng fly away while also deep in thought.
'This person has too many secrets. Most likely, his main Dao is not the Absolute Beginning, but Yin and Yang. So, he might even have the power of Absolute End but he did not use it in this battle.
'On top of all that, his techniques were too powerful in effect and refine to be only in the level of Primordial Spirit. So, he is most likely in the Void Shattering Realm like Lin Fan if not higher.
'Yet, my eyes could not detect any power of Law. That could only mean two things: his control of the Law is so superb that he can hide even under my eyes, or he has a very excellent secret technique to hide their fluctuation. Or maybe a combination of the two.
'Plus, I want to know how he entered the Duyi Realm, hopefully, this will answer some of my questions.'
Wang Wei had an orb in his hand with a white mist inside. This orb contained Feng Heng's memories. Just like he did to Di Tian, he secretly took some of the latter's memories.
The process was more difficult than appeared since the Yin-Yang Eyes can not only see the future but even see the secrets of the world. Wang Wei had to be extremely cautious to secretly get that memory.
He did not read Feng Heng's Fate Line. Instead, when he was using the [Destiny of Death] on his soul, he used the moment he was distracted to go into his brain and used a technique to get the information.
The main reason he succeeded is because of cultivators' cognitive bias. Memories are stored both in the soul and the body (brain). However, because of how powerful they are, cultivators focused more on the soul and neglect the brain.
This is the reason that cultivators will instinctively defend themselves if someone tried to search their soul for information but would react relatively slow if the same method was applied to their brains. It is because of this bias that Li Jun was able to gather memories from someone as powerful as Di Tian.
Without hesitation, he read the memory, and he was shocked by what he saw.
'So, the real Feng Heng's body was taken over by some old monks that survived from the Incense Era? A lot of things began to make sense now.'
He finally understood why he received the [Future Buddha Scroll]. His theory is that some powerful being is investing in individuals in advance. That way, if they can prove the Dao one day, as long as they help Feng Heng spread Buddhism in the Lower Dimension, they can repay their Karma.
This is a plot to deal with the Absolute Beginning Emperor and ensure the revival of Buddhism in the Lower Dimension.
'Well, I don't mind helping if I can, but only after I get through this trial. However, this Feng Heng is not a simple character. Yin and Yang, Taoism and Buddhism…he is more of a threat than he appeared.'
During this fight, Wang Wei was never truly serious. He barely used his fleshly body and only used his fate-related technique. However, the same could also be said of his opponent–if his conjectures are correct.
He then looked at his surrounding, which was perfectly intact. The two of them were fighting close to the atmosphere to prevent a lot of damage. However, even the ones done to the space were healed up without much effort.
This is the difference between lower-level worlds and higher ones. With sufficient World Sources, they can usually heal the damage done by powerful cultivators when needed.
After looking around, Wang Wei returned home.
And once he was there, he almost encountered another problem. The Absolute Beginning Magic activated everything he tried to read one of these scriptures.
Even the formation that could hide from Heavenly Dao proved to be useless against that magic. In the end, he was prepared to go to the Western Pure Bliss Land once again to hide.
However, he discovered that the [Future Buddha Scroll] could release an aura that negated the spell. So, he was relieved–albeit not too long. It took him more than a month to use all his spirit particles to read and understand all these esoteric scriptures. As a result, he was now a very knowledgeable monk and could even have a serious debate with any Buddhist monk on the scriptures.
Additionally, these scriptures–which contained the truth and understanding of the laws of the universe–opened his eye and vision. His state of mind had a small sublimation, and he even learned a few small Buddhist techniques in the process.
More importantly, Buddhism has a great deal of knowledge and understanding of Karma, which greatly helped Wang Wei. However, he was not focused on these things for now.
Right after he was done reading, he could now read all the words in the scroll without any problem. However, he discovered an even bigger issue: he needed a Buddhist Dao Heart to cultivate this technique.
Technically, he could learn a little from this scripture even if he did not cultivate it. However, for his plan to work, he would need to understand and use this technique to its full capacity.
'Is someone trying to convert me to Buddhism?'
He shook his head since that would not happen--unless of his own volition. He already had an idea of how to deal with this situation. Over the years, he had encountered a few powerful cultivation techniques that required a specific Dao Heart.
His father's [Absolute Cut Sutra] required a Dao Heart dedicated to the sword, the Origin Pill Flame Scripture required one for the Pill Dao, and even the Gluttony Swallowing Scripture did not fit him perfectly since he was not a devil cultivator.
Now, he will use this opportunity to deal with this situation once in for all.