Chapter 1240 — The Dharma Protector Who Fights with Wrathful Eyes

Heavenly Lord Han rose to meet Li Youran, Emperor Shitian, and stark terror showed in his eyes. In Li Youran's hands those dreadful weapons blazed with a keenness and a ferocity he had never seen before, slicing into his body as easily as a sharp knife through bean curd. Like Cook Ding dismembering an ox, his formation arts -- his pride and joy -- met Li Youran's sabers, axes, and god-weapons and were effortlessly cut apart, pared away, quartered.

In a single clash he was stripped of every cube of his Fortress Wall Formation, and his true body stood bare before Li Youran. He raised a hand to ward it off, but a thousand god-weapons came down, and Heavenly Lord Han heard the sound of his own bones bursting, the sound of his own skull being split open.

He even heard the sound of the great Dao runes within his body being shattered.

Li Youran was like a crazed demon king grown a thousand arms, brandishing a thousand divine weapons, hammering at him in a frenzy -- flattening him, smashing him to pieces, treating him like a lump of stubborn iron, pounding that iron flat and round. The formation Dao runes inside Heavenly Lord Han burst apart with a crackling roar; he tried to restore his flesh, yet no matter how he restored it, it was smashed apart again.

Nor was that all -- the formation Dao runes he could still command grew fewer and fewer, for Emperor Shitian Li Youran had already battered them to a pulp.

Unutterable terror filled his heart. He wanted to beg for mercy, to save his life, but in that moment he could not make a single sound.

Shen Mu stood at a distance, quietly watching the scene. Li Youran had already smashed a great pit into the ground, and the bottom of that pit was a surface of incomparable smoothness -- the rudimentary skill of any blacksmith.

And Li Youran's fundamentals were the most solid of all. Heavenly Lord Han had been hammered into a sheet of thin paper, immeasurably thin, with almost no thickness at all -- yet still Li Youran raged, hammering down in frenzy.

In his fury there was no Buddha-mind, no Buddha-nature, only a boundless, shoreless wrath.

He was a Wrathful Wisdom King.

After a long while, the thunder of blows finally ceased. Amid the blazing wrath of the Wisdom King, Li Youran raised his head, gazing up at the sky, and two trails of fiery tears ran down his eyes.

As a Wisdom King, he could weep no longer.

Behind the flames, Shen Mu saw a Heavenly Palace emerge, likewise blazing with wrath -- the entire palace bathed in fire. Before Lingxiao Hall there was no one; now Emperor Shitian Li Youran's primal spirit sat upon the emperor's throne, his face wrathful, yet his gaze forlorn.

He had not become emperor through the Buddha Dharma; he had become emperor through wrath.

On this day, the world was one Buddha the poorer, and one Imperial Throne expert the richer.

Shen Mu walked forward. In the pit, Emperor Shitian Li Youran drifted slowly upward and came to rest upon the ground.

The Wisdom King's wrath upon his body dwindled; the flames no longer burned so fiercely, yet they never went out.

Nor had he regained his former handsome face -- his features looked somewhat savage now.

"Are you Emperor Shitian now, or Li Youran?

" Shen Mu asked.

"Or should I say -- are you the Battle Wisdom King?

" "I? " Li Youran dispelled his thousand arms and looked down at his own hands, ablaze with the Wisdom King's wrath.

They were no longer fair and delicate as once they had been, but rough and covered in calluses.

Then, calmly, he raised his head, his voice somewhat hoarse: "I am the Battle Wisdom King.

" Shen Mu sighed.

"The Old Buddha passed the Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas to you in the hope that you would accept the Buddha Dharma and become a Buddha, that you had a Buddha-mind and a Buddha-nature.

He did not wish you to turn that Buddha-mind and Buddha-nature into a body of wrathful fire. " "The Buddha Dharma cannot save sentient beings.

It cannot even save itself.

" Li Youran walked toward the Ark of the Other Shore. "As I am now, I am better.

" Shen Mu was taken aback for a moment, then strode to follow him.

He understood that the Li Youran of this moment was no longer the Heavenly Artisan Li Youran of old.

Li Youran had been dashing and elegant, handsome of face, a man of towering talent.

Nor was he the Emperor Shitian King Buddha any longer; the Emperor Shitian King Buddha had worn robes of white, refined and handsome, solemn in his precious aspect, his speech elegant and witty, hiding a sharp edge within. Now he was the Battle Wisdom King beneath Kaihuang's command!

He would pilot the Ark of the Other Shore, carrying his comrades-in-arms to the Great Void, to the Land of No Sorrow, to fight, to take revenge, to burn his Wisdom King's wrath to the fullest! In his heart there was no love or affection, only the desire for vengeance and battle!

"At the moment the Great Brahma Heavenly King Buddha passed the Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas to him, did he foresee this day?

" Shen Mu stood upon the Ark of the Other Shore, lost in thought. The vast warship gave a soft lurch; one after another, colossal alchemical furnaces flared with fire, driving the great vessel forward.

"Li Youran became Emperor Shitian through the workings of the Buddha Dharma; Emperor Shitian became the Battle Heavenly King through the workings of the Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas.

Just now, in his dream, Emperor Shitian Li Youran repaired the Ark of the Other Shore, his dream-self multiplying into thousands upon thousands; and the appearance of Heavenly Lord Han left those myriad selves in his dream with nothing but wrath and vengeance.

" Shen Mu looked at the god-man wreathed in flame who controlled the astrolabe and steered the Ark of the Other Shore, and thought: "One dream, one world; one world, one kalpa. In the dream he had nothing left but wrath and revenge, and when he woke, he was the Wrathful Wisdom King -- or rather, he never woke, and does not wish to wake.

" The Great Brahma Heavenly King Buddha's Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas was truly wondrous; it could influence a person's very state of mind, a person's very form. Each who cultivates the Sutra of Immeasurable Kalpas grasps it differently. Emperor Shitian Li Youran, in this entry into dream, had become the Battle Wisdom King, and had also cultivated his way to the Imperial Throne realm. The Great Brahma's cultivation of mind was unfathomable, and his wisdom was equally unfathomable.

It was truly possible that he had foreseen the future of the Emperor Shitian King Buddha. The Ark of the Other Shore gradually gathered speed. Suddenly, countless runes upon the surface of its hull lit up one by one -- though the runes on the hull were only a portion of the ship's total runes; in truth, within the hull there were yet countless runes of incomparable complexity.

This, too, was why the Heavenly Court, even after sealing the ship, could not restore the Ark of the Other Shore to completion.

Even Lady Yuanmu, Shi Qiluo, could not rebuild the Ark of the Other Shore. When every rune of the Ark had lit, the ship abruptly gave a slight dip and entered another space-time.

There lay Youdu. Even though Shen Mu had obtained all the blueprints of the Ark of the Other Shore, he could not help but marvel at the civilization of Kaihuang's era.

A ship so colossal, its construction so intricate -- a single error anywhere and it could never have been launched. Yet the Heavenly Artisans of that age had accomplished this seemingly impossible task, leaving nothing to chance -- truly rare and admirable! "My Jingping has many Heavenly Artisans, but their coordination as a whole still falls short of Kaihuang.

When Jingping can forge a colossus such as this, then it will have the strength to fight the Heavenly Court. " He thought for a moment, then thought: "A war with the Heavenly Court is impossible, but at least we'll have the strength to kick out our legs a little.