657: The Law of Buddha

"Fake..." There was no monk before his eyes; everything was just an illusion. But... with strength approaching that of a Saint, why would he experience hallucinations?

Zack couldn't help but shake his head. "What am I doing? Why did I feel guilty just now? No, that's not right. Now it's fear. This is the emotion of fear..."

He whipped his head around and delivered a swift, clean punch directly into Shi Jingmo!

The body, made incredibly fragile by the freezing ice, was shattered to pieces by this punch, leaving not even a speck of residue behind.

Zack was filled with joy. Although he had only fought him for a few minutes, Zack had long since regarded Shi Jingmo as an evenly matched opponent, even if he didn't want to admit it.

Now that his great enemy was dead, he felt immensely gratified, but immediately after, a sorrow rising from the depths of his heart welled up...

"All living things are incredibly fragile... Unless one reaches the level of a Saint, there is no day of transcendence..."

Zack suddenly looked up at the sky and sighed helplessly. "However, even Saints are not eternal... Back in the Original Universe, we wiped out all the Saints in one fell swoop... Although we paid a heavy price, we still turned the entire Universe into a place without Saints... So... can't even Saints transcend?"

Sorrow—sorrow for himself, sorrow for all living beings.

"Then we risk our lives to Cultivate the Law... only for it all to end up being for nothing in the end... What is the point of our Cultivation then?"

Zack suddenly snapped to his senses.

"No, my emotions... are being controlled? The Buddhist chanting is still continuing, but the person is already dead? This... how is that possible!"

Zack suddenly thought of something and looked around, only to find that all objects seemed to be shrouded in a layer of golden light.

"What is going on?"

Zack couldn't help but feel a bit flustered. The waves of Buddhist chanting still swirled around him, involuntarily drilling into his mind. He was certain that this sound and the scene before him were not illusions, but...

"Why is everything so strange? Am I... am I not me, or am I still me? Hmm, yes, he is dead, but the Dao remains. Heh... I won't be afraid of you. You want to use the remaining Dao essence to deal with me? Watch me smash your chanting to pieces!"

Boom, boom, boom, boom...

Terrifying power followed his fists, alternating between extreme heat and extreme cold, flattening this vast stretch of forest and land. Only then did he realize that he was actually on an uninhabited island, and this island was isolated overseas, not connected to any continent at all.

"Heh, the power of a Saint can destroy the Earth; can a mere island trap me?"

Looking at the open path before him, Zack felt incredibly gratified. "I'll go to the Great Tang first and see what new tricks you ants have up your sleeves..."

His speed skyrocketed as he flew out toward the island, fully expecting to find a continent across the ocean, but...

A few minutes later, he discovered something was wrong, because no matter how he flew, he was always circling above this island and couldn't fly out at all.

"Impossible... I haven't detected the existence of any Formation here... and it's not an illusion either..."

The Buddhist chanting continued, and Zack was on the verge of a breakdown. He hadn't expected that by killing such an eerie person, he would end up trapped on this island.

"Let me out... You damned ghost, trash, ant... You're still alive, aren't you... If you have the guts, come out and fight me!"

Zack shouted frantically, incoherent.

"Do you really want to leave?"

Shi Jingmo's voice rang out almost right beside his ear, which caused Zack to turn around alertly, and sure enough, he saw the monk standing not far away, smiling at him.

But the voice just now had clearly been right at his ear...

Boom!

Zack's left and right hands, one cold and one hot, formed a violent reaction between his palms, turning the air into a weapon. Under extreme pressure, it launched like a supersonic missile. This was a long-range attack move he hadn't used in a long time. It was immensely powerful; any ordinary city that took this hit would basically be destroyed, with everyone inside killed.

However, his strike missed. Besides blasting a huge crater into the ground and letting the seawater nearby rush in, the attack had no other effect.

Zack was terrified. He suddenly felt that the space around him seemed a bit off. In a moment of realization, he abruptly shot his body upward and flew above the island.

"Impossible, this island... it wasn't this big just a moment ago!"

Zack couldn't help but stare in shock at the scene before him. This island had become several times larger than before, to the point where it was almost boundless at a glance.

In the blink of an eye... Zack's heart suddenly sank.

The island had grown larger again, and it had happened suddenly, without any warning. And this time, the island had become as large as an entire continent, and the distant ocean had also become incredibly vast, completely boundless.

"How... could it be like this?"

"You cannot leave, and you don't want to leave, do you?"

The great sound was silent; Zack only felt that the voice was ethereal, as if he had heard it, yet as if he hadn't. Everything seemed to be in Chaos, difficult to distinguish!

"I can't leave? I... don't want to leave? No... that's not right. I am Zack of the Seven Demon Generals. I... I must leave. I want to go... I want to go..."

Zack's eyes were filled with confusion. "What do I want to go do? Become a Saint? But becoming a Saint is useless. Even if one truly is a Saint, one will still die an untimely death... Then why should I go out?"

Snapping to his senses once more, Zack suddenly discovered that the ground beneath his feet had undergone some terrifying change; it had become soft and highly elastic. The surrounding sunlight changed from blazing to cold, and patches of light and shadow gradually shrouded him.

"No, this isn't a shadow. This is... this is..."

He looked up in a panic, only to find five huge pillars standing around him, vaguely surrounding him.

"Not pillars, these aren't pillars... These are... fingers..."

An emotion intertwined with fear and despair made Zack's pupils dilate wide.

He looked up and saw an incredibly huge shadow looming over him. He took a look—wasn't that the monk?

At this moment, the monk's single eyeball was larger than Zack's entire body. He was now clearly an ant that had fallen into the palm of a human!

In an instant, all his fighting spirit vanished!

Shi Jingmo had not grown larger, but Zack had truly and undeniably become smaller!

"The Buddha Dharma is vast; there is no one who cannot be converted! This is the Dao of the Buddha Dharma, this is... the Law of Buddha!" Shi Jingmo said, holding Zack, who was kneeling in his palm, with one hand. "You realized your own insignificance, so you became insignificant. This is my Law of Buddha, an ability that manifests emotions!"