Within the Buddhist fold—
Four Bodhisattvas.
Several Ming Wang.
And, above all, the Tathagata Buddha.
As for Kṣitigarbha or the like—
Not a concern at this moment.
The chief aim is to purge the earthly forces first.
To rid the world of Guanyin now is tantamount to severing Buddhism's right arm.
The instant Guanyin left the mortal realm,
every statue of the Bodhisattva of Compassion
grew desolate and dim.
Temples that had stood beside the Bodhisattva's resplendent golden bodies collapsed one after another.
In places, the statues shattered outright.
Worse still, there were places where one could clearly feel that Bodhisattva Guanyin had vanished.
This is the arcane of the Dharma.
On Lingshan—
the sacred mountain was already awash in blood-red.
Samantabhadra and Manjusri
were sealed within their respective monasteries, unable to move so much as an inch.
Lesser Buddhist adepts had all melted into drops of blood, swallowed by the Tathagata Demon-Buddha.
Sensing Guanyin's disappearance,
both assumed that the Tathagata had devoured her, and their anxiety mounted.
"This is ill," Manjusri thought. "If this Demon-Buddha has even swallowed Guanyin, am I to die as well? I must find a way to escape!"
He stared at the blood-colored Buddha that barred his doorway,
gritted his teeth,
and rushed out.
His golden body burst forth to ward off the blood-taint,
but for some unfathomable reason the gore seeped along that very golden body and invaded his primordial spirit in a grotesque way.
"No… Why…"
Manjusri cried out and turned to retreat.
A vast, blood-soaked hand flew from the pool of gore in the heavens and seized him outright.
Like a fledgling chick,
Manjusri was carried off without managing even a token resistance.
Filth was everywhere.
Countless strands of will invaded Manjusri's spiritual platform,
trying to remake him in their image.
"Cease resisting, Manjusri… In the beginning, all are one."
"Resistance is futile. We are the Tathagata, and the Tathagata is us as well."
"Become one. Become one… 9-7-7…"
Black flesh and blood ceaselessly befouled the golden body.
No matter how Manjusri struggled,
he could not dispel any of it.
His golden body dulled by degrees,
and Manjusri became the second fallen Bodhisattva.
Within the blood-pool,
an egg was being formed—
a fetus slumbering inside.
This was the Tathagata's method.
Since the golden body had been shattered, he simply smashed the jar entirely and turned all of his accumulation into an egg.
Break, then stand anew.
It harmed the Way itself,
and yet this defilement of Heaven's order had actually succeeded.
Moreover, the world took Lingshan for a holy place,
but few realized how much scheming the Tathagata had invested to grow Buddhism.
First, Lingshan:
in truth, it was a vent sealing down the filth of the world.
The face it showed to the front was yang;
its north face, yin.
Why did the Tathagata's power surpass the Three Realms so that he could dominate even the Jade Emperor?
He relied upon this natural yin–yang array.
Thus, to outsiders,
Buddhism seemed pure, flawless.
But beneath Lingshan lay a dark spring that suppressed immeasurable filth.
Because there was aid from "God,"
the Tathagata's cultivation advanced with half the effort.
His plan had been
to use the westward pilgrimage to accrue great merit,
in order to wipe out completely a prior error—namely, the filth sealed beneath Lingshan.
But Liu Che appeared—
and brought an outcome the Tathagata had never foreseen.
His golden body shattered,
the suppressive power over the dark spring naturally collapsed.
Even had the Tathagata not sacrificed those Buddhist followers, this grand yin–yang array would, in due time, have broken apart.
They would not have survived regardless.
How filthy Buddhism had become—
even the demons they had taken in had devoured many humans.
Compassion?
A hollow laugh. Without power, what meaning has compassion?
In the earth's veins,
a solitary rift had already opened.
From within, the power of unnumbered souls
kept dancing out.
They were the aimless rage of the wronged dead—but drawn by the blood-fetus, they all merged into it.
This was the Tathagata's stratagem.
Since holy Buddha-power could not defeat that terrifying God,
what about absorbing all the evils under Heaven?
Surely that would suffice!
With every passing second, dozens of souls flew up from the rift.
One could measure, by that alone, how many unjust souls Buddhism had slain across a thousand years.
The so-called "deliverance" (degree)—
it never meant purifying the evil in those wronged souls. If it were so simple, Daoism would never have despised it.
Buddhist "deliverance"
meant stripping away the dark side of the soul—
in other words, dividing the soul while one yet lived.
This art works upon the soul directly,
hence the impression that Buddhism's mercy is boundless.
In truth, the very ones "delivered" never even knew their souls had been split.
How tragic is that?
A monk who never angers, never rages—
is that truly perfection?
No—only an obedient tool.
Dong, dong.
Dong, dong.
After absorbing Manjusri's power, the fetus beat faster.
Each pulse
triggered a shift in the heavens.
The golden radiance of Lingshan slowly took on a faint blood-hue.
Those who cultivated along the Buddhist way—
their roots affected—began to turn into filth.
Light and darkness cohabited one body.
The Tathagata was a transfer station.
All who practiced Buddhism naturally began to show problems.
In temples here and there,
elder monks felt an unprecedented thought stir at the very depths of their souls.
"The four are empty"—
emptied into farce.
Desire.
Sin.
Resentment.
Envy.
Every negative emotion began to take root in their hearts and flourish.
The clearest instance was this:
the Monkey had struck down a demon by accident, and instead of rebuke, Tang Monk declared that it had deserved to die.
"Master, has your temper changed? Why are you so wrathful?" Sun the Monkey ran over with his staff and laid a palm on Tang Sanzang's brow,
but found no fever.
A faint blood-dark flashed through Tang Monk's eyes. He shook his head. "I cannot say why. When I saw that demon just now, rage welled up all at once."
"This…"
The Monkey could not make sense of it.
So he began to investigate the surroundings,
but in the end found no demon at all.
If it wasn't some demon's sorcery, then what evil impediment had the Master encountered?
The Monkey was baffled.
He could only return to Tang Monk's side and keep close guard.
…
Elsewhere—within the Eternal God's domain—
Bodhisattva Guanyin arrived at the Eternal Shrine borne on a beam of sky-transmitting light.
She took in the magnificence before her:
a place suffused with brightness and sanctity—and the hatred in her heart melted away in an instant.
So this is where the Eternal God dwells—so exalted,
so stirring to behold.
Buddhism may preach that the "four great elements are all empty,"
but that does not mean there is nothing to admire.
Yet her admiration lasted only a moment before the power of the laws that filled the sky left her breathless.
The complete Law of Time, long and unbroken.
The complete Law of Fire.
And the complete Law of Love.
The powers of those three laws converged and intertwined across the sky.
It took the breath away.
She lowered her head, considered, and realized that, by everything she had seen and heard in her life, she could not even comprehend such power.
This had already exceeded everything she knew of power.
While Guanyin stood dazed in the thoroughfare,
a woman of similarly dignified bearing appeared before her.
"My name is Dongfang Huaizhu. You are Guanyin from the lower realm. Come with me."
"I… do not know—where are you taking me?"
She wanted to ask "Where are you taking me?" plainly,
but the other's aura was several times nobler than her own.
It made a Guanyin long accustomed to being above others feel distinctly ill at ease—
even a touch awkward.
Huaizhu glanced her over and said, indifferent, "Naturally, the God wishes to see you. Without that, the mistakes you have made would merit millennial punishment."
Mistakes?
Abetting evil?
Guanyin's heart filled with misery; she could not even decide what to say.
She had been resolved to die.
But once she arrived here, that resolve slipped out of her heart.
Perhaps this was the turning of a mind.
Yet when she heard that the God wished to see her,
she could not say why—but her heart tensed.
What if the God wishes to condemn me?
If the other asks, "Why did you not surrender earlier?"—how am I to answer?
A Bodhisattva famed for calm and intelligence—
and yet, for the moment, she lost her composure entirely.
She became, instead, like an ordinary woman, letting her thoughts run in every direction.
The two walked one behind the other.
Halfway to the Ziwei Palace, a dragon's roar rang out.
Guanyin lifted her gaze and saw two giant dragons flying overhead.
The green-clad girl at her side explained, "The golden dragons are dragons condensed from the Law of Fate; the black dragons are true star-dragons. Don't be too startled… they are merely the God's pets."
Beings whose very aura inspired dread—
and they were only pets.
Ridiculous, then, that she had once imagined Buddhism could stand against God.
For a time, Guanyin's heart kept sinking, and even her face grew solemn.
Dongfang Huaizhu, striding before her, smiled inwardly.
"We'll see how long you can keep that lofty pose. This is tailor-made to correct you," she thought.
"You chose to resist the Great God—be grateful you are not punished like a maid."
In a little while, the two reached the Ziwei Palace.
As Guanyin crossed its threshold,
she saw God seated upon the throne,
gazing straight at her.
"Kneel and thank God for His grace."
At the word, Guanyin obediently dropped to her knees, forehead pressed to the floor.
This was her enlightenment,
and it was the first time she had ever knelt.
The palace was very quiet,
but she could feel several pairs of blazing eyes upon her.
Then a cool voice drifted from beside the throne.
"It seems your strength is quite meager. Why persist in your wishful resistance? You are less than those strange, nameless creatures."
"You don't know, Sister Huiye," another voice—Tiamat's—broke in, "women of the lower realm are ever so proud."
The two voices sang in counterpoint,
and Guanyin lifted her head a fraction—
then lowered it again.
"Raise your face and look at Me…"
The tone was gentle, simple—nothing like the shock she had expected.
Timidly, Guanyin raised her eyes.
Her northern-sea eyes trembled; she bit her lower lip tight and did not dare meet the gaze head-on.
But God had commanded her to look—
how could she refuse?
At last their eyes met.
Two clear tracks of tears slid down Guanyin's delicate cheeks.
Because in that instant,
she saw what had happened in her childhood, back when she was human—before "Guanyin,"
when she was still called Miaoshan.
Only after true enlightenment did that human heart slowly cool.
And now, as she looked,
she remembered it all.