荒墟牧神 - 第39章 赤日凌空煉陽魂 - 文瀾書苑

The white-browed monk's brows twitched, and at once he knew what flaw the man had meant. In his early years of training he had once slept too long and missed the Tathagata's lecture—and that lecture had been on none other than the Myriad-Armed Vajra. The Buddhist path sets great store by the word "fate," and the white-browed monk had missed that fate; he could not ask the Tathagata for the essence of the Myriad-Armed Vajra, and could only learn it from his fellow disciples. After all, it was not the Tathagata's true transmission. His Myriad-Armed Vajra did indeed conceal a flaw no one could perceive; the white-browed monk had found it himself, and wished to mend it—yet the more he mended, the more it leaked, the more holes he patched, the more holes appeared. To solve a problem, one must first find where the problem lies. This Myriad-Armed Vajra was exceedingly complex, demanding the cooperation of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind in every quarter; its variations were beyond counting, and no petty flaw could possibly spring from a single cause—most likely it arose from several, even a dozen, causes that seemed to have no connection at all. From his youth the white-browed monk had searched for the cause of that flaw, and to this day he had not found it. Since the flaw had appeared in his Myriad-Armed Vajra, then as his disciple, Chenghuai's Myriad-Armed Vajra would naturally show the same flaw. The flaw was too subtle; only when an attack came with incomparable speed could that thread of weakness be made to show itself. The flaw lay in this: when the arm rose and passed one inch below the throat, the vital essence grew slightly thin. Struck by a fast attack, the arm would rise a hair's breadth slower for that thinness of vital essence, and that single hair would open a fleeting gap at the throat. The white-browed monk's cultivation was too deep; few could ever force out that hair's-breadth flaw. But Chenghuai was different. In sheer abundance of cultivation, Shen Mu stood above Chenghuai, and Shen Mu used his hand as a blade, incredibly swift. In but a brief while he had already struck Chenghuai's throat a hundred times in succession! By the sixty-eighth strike, the Golden Radiance Body-Protecting Bell around Chenghuai had already shattered once; though Chenghuai gathered his vital essence again and the bell reappeared, Shen Mu's blade had already cut into his throat! Blood poured without cease from Chenghuai's throat, and soon dyed his pure white monk's robe crimson. The white-browed monk sighed and said, "Silly child, your Myriad-Armed Vajra cannot hold off his blade. Could you not change your move?" Chenghuai came to his senses: in his single-mindedness to receive Shen Mu's blade, he had forgotten that in guarding only, he would sink into a state of taking blows—while his Golden Radiance Body-Protecting Bell could hold off Shen Mu's blade for a short while and give him the chance to defeat his foe. It was Shen Mu's madness that had frightened him witless, so that he forgot his own strengths! He abruptly changed his move, his palm closing into a fist, and shook it in the air; the fist was like the golden light of the great sun, dazzling beyond compare! Sun-Shine Yang Spirit Tempered in the Void! In that moment, Buddhist sound came forth from his seal-form, the Buddhist tones far-ranging and lofty, accompanied by the thunder of his palm—a single peal of thunderclap loud enough to temper and slay souls! His Sun-Shine Yang Spirit Tempered in the Void differed in power from Shen Mu's use of the move; its might surpassed the one Shen Mu had cultivated several times over! Struck by this blow, Shen Mu was at once muddled and dazed, his three souls stirred together, his seven spirits all shaken. Tut! Tut! Tut! Shen Mu raised his fingers, and a dazzling succession of finger-movements struck his brow, his tailbone, his navel, his crown, his Adam's apple, the pit of his heart, his perineum, his lungs, locking down his three souls