Jingming fell silent for a long time. Beneath the bloodstains, her long eyelashes trembled slightly before she finally spoke. "You chose not to kill me. You must want something from me."

Her voice remained calm, yet it carried an almost imperceptible tension.

Xu Yunfan’s chin tilted up. "I’ve heard your Buddhist Sect has something called the Joyful Zen Method. I wonder if you’re familiar with it, monk?" 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Jingming froze, her body instantly going rigid.

She had been cultivating at Mituo Temple since childhood. When had she ever heard such blatant blasphemy?

To single out the words "Joyful Zen" from the Buddhist scriptures was like ripping open an abyss of carnal desire before a chaste cultivator.

The tip of the mace pressed against her throat, but the shock of his words struck her Heart and Spirit with far greater force.

Jingming was silent for a long time. Under Xu Yunfan’s intensely aggressive gaze, a broken fragment of a Buddha’s Name escaped her clenched teeth. At last, she said, "I don’t know it."

’This man is a complete lunatic!’ She finally understood.

’Or rather, a man who respects no boundaries.’

’And that’s the most terrifying kind of person there is.’

Xu Yunfan suddenly let out a low chuckle.

He reached out and tore open the tattered monk’s robe at her shoulder, a spot the Armor-Piercing Awl had just pierced through. The exposed collarbone beside the wound was nearly flawless, almost rivaling the perfection of an Extreme Dao Relic Shell.

"I hear the Buddhist scriptures say that being born with six fingers is the sign of a natural-born Buddha’s Son, correct?"

As he spoke, Xu Yunfan rubbed the pad of his finger over her skin. "And yet you, a supposed prodigy of the Buddhist Sect, were born with such slender, elegant hands. I have to say, I never expected you to be a woman."

Xu Yunfan’s eyes roamed over her tattered, blood-stained robes, which offered tantalizing glimpses of a pale, delicate form beneath. He mused that this sight, combined with Jingming’s inherent air of solemn dignity, would likely attract the attention of those with... particular tastes.

"You are attached to form."

Jingming suddenly looked up, a golden glint in her eyes as sharp as a drawn sword. "Six fingers are merely an external trapping. A true Buddha’s Son..."

Blood rose in her throat, yet her every word boomed like a great bell. "...must have an eight-petaled Treasure Lotus bloom from their Spirit Platform and be able to see the three thousand worlds as clearly as the lines on their own palm..."

Before she could finish her sentence, the Thunderfire Qilin Hammer smashed into the rock wall beside her head.

Amidst the spray of shattered rock, Xu Yunfan seized her by the neck and lifted her. "So, is there an eight-petaled Treasure Lotus hidden in that flesh-and-blood shell of yours?"

Jingming’s entire body trembled violently. She could no longer maintain her composure. She had never been subjected to such a humiliating posture.

Humiliation, shame, anger, terror.

A storm of emotions churned within her, too complex to put into words.

"What... do you... want?"

Seeing her like this, Xu Yunfan breathed an inward sigh of relief. ’Good. The three strikes from my Red Fire Dragon-Swallowing Mace must have shattered her tranquil state of mind. Otherwise, my words and actions wouldn’t have caused the slightest ripple in her composure.’

"I’ve heard that Mituo Temple’s Amitabha’s Golden Body Sutra is an unrivaled technique. It is said to have a move called the Wrathful Aspect of the Wisdom King Burning Heart Fire, which uses one’s Buddha Nature as a furnace and Karmic Fire as a hammer, forging an Indestructible Body through a thousand trials."

Jingming replied, "I cultivate the Mitu Skill, not the Martial Dao."

Xu Yunfan sneered, then suddenly stabbed the Armor-Piercing Awl on the end of his hammer’s handle into her shoulder blade. "You bald donkey, you’ve never even practiced a Horizontal Training Skill, yet you have the gall to call yourself a prodigy of the Buddhist Sect?"

Jingming couldn’t help but let out a pained grunt, but she forced herself not to scream.

He had deliberately spat out the two-word insult "bald donkey." As he’d expected, he saw Jingming’s pupils contract. ’Even though this nun cultivates the Enlightenment Technique, she still can’t completely eliminate her anger. With her state of mind already shattered, as long as I don’t give her time to recover and keep applying pressure, I can guide her to give me what I want.’

Gasping for breath, Jingming spat out a mouthful of dark blood. "You are attached to form... The Mitu Skill is about perceiving one’s true nature and clarifying the mind. Why would one need an externally forged Golden Body?"

She suddenly looked up, and from beneath her blood-matted lashes, two specks of golden light shone. Her eyes took on an air of profound pity. "A person like you, consumed by the three poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance... even if you were to obtain an Ultimate Skill, you would only fall into the depths of Abi Hell..."

The Thunderfire Qilin Hammer crashed down, shattering her unfinished sentence.

His expression frigid, Xu Yunfan pressed a hand to Jingming’s forehead, forcing her head up. The scales of his Dragon Scale Armor scraped against each other with a metallic ring. "The Yijing Marrow Cleansing Skill."

His fingertip traced the residue of Profound Nether True Water on his mace, and a blast of icy Evil Qi instantly flash-froze the blood on the nun’s wounds. "Miss a single character, and I’ll break one of your bones. Recite the entire scripture, and I might let you go. You might even live to go out and accumulate boundless Merit for your reincarnation."

Jingming suddenly let out a strange, low laugh.

As her blood-stained lips moved, she actually began to recite an abstruse scripture. "...as in the simile of the raft, even teachings must be abandoned, how much more so non-teachings..."

As the syllables spilled from her lips, fine golden sand began to seep from her pores. In the glow of the Earth Fire, it looked like a swirl of shimmering stars.

Xu Yunfan’s pupils constricted. This was clearly the "Golden Body Shedding" Anomaly, triggered by the Yijing Marrow Cleansing Skill!

"So I did underestimate you."

He thrust two fingers toward the Tiantu Acupoint at the base of her throat, but they struck a hard, glassy surface.

A network of Sanskrit characters materialized beneath the nun’s skin—it was Mituo Temple’s secret technique, the Throat Locking Golden Pass!

Seizing the chance, Jingming bit the tip of her tongue and spat a bloody mist into Xu Yunfan’s face. As the blood droplets touched his Dragon Scale Armor, they erupted into an eerie, blue Karmic Fire.

"You are my calamity! Since I cannot enlighten you, we shall enter the endless abyss together! What point is there in cultivating for the next life?"

As Jingming shrieked, the brocade sash at her waist tore apart, inch by inch.

Her hands formed the Demon-Subduing Seal as she slammed them into her own Dantian. In that instant, the disordered qi and blood within her body violently reversed course.

Xu Yunfan leaped back three steps, blocking with his Thunderfire Qilin Hammer held horizontally across his chest. Still, the self-destructive shockwave was so powerful that the webbing of his hand split open.

This bald-headed nun before him was reversing the Yijing Marrow Cleansing Skill, using her life’s worth of Cultivation to activate the Burning Scripture Spell!

Xu Yunfan suddenly broke into a wide grin.

"If you’d taken one more step and entered the Blood Exchange Realm, that attack might have actually wounded me badly. But..."

The Dragon Scale Armor on Xu Yunfan’s body shifted with a metallic clang.

’With this Tier Eight Divine Weapon Armor protecting me, what does it matter if Jingming had reached the next realm?’

’An attack like that has only pushed her own self into a dead end.’

He wiped the Karmic Fire burns from his face.

"What a coincidence."

He stomped, shattering the rock beneath his feet, and unleashed the Thousand-Pound Mountain-Shaking Hammer Technique’s "Earth Dragon Flipping Over," smashing it toward Jingming. "I just learned the Triple Jiao Sword Nurturing Technique, and I happen to need a test subject!"

Xu Yunfan’s spine rippled like a great dragon, and the Floating Threads Force within his Triple Jiao Meridians channeled through the hammer’s impact, plunging deep into the ground.

Jingming suddenly felt a sharp pain shoot up from the soles of her feet. Countless streams of Sword Force erupted from the cracks in the rock, riddling her legs with holes until they were like bloody sieves.

"How... how is this possible..."

She stumbled and collapsed, staring down in disbelief at her own mangled and blood-soaked legs.

"Pei Yan actually taught you the Triple Jiao Sword Nurturing Technique?!"

As if witnessing the most absurd joke in existence, a relieved smile spread across Jingming’s face.

Xu Yunfan planted a foot on her knee and leaned in, using the handle of his hammer to tilt her chin up. "Thank you for the demonstration on how to reverse a Cultivation Technique, Master. Now, it’s my turn."

"I’LL TALK!!"

The Heavy Hammer froze just three inches from Jingming’s skull. The powerful gust of wind it created made even the distant Earth Fire waver and dance.

Xu Yunfan slowly lowered the Heavy Hammer, a friendly smile spreading across his face as he feigned astonishment.

"Oh, my. If you’d just agreed from the start, we could have avoided all this. Look at you, Master... ending up in such a state. It’s truly heartbreaking."

As he spoke, Xu Yunfan gently helped Jingming into a sitting position.