Each Supreme Tower represented a Supreme Oracle, and each Supreme Oracle was powerful enough to fight a mighty Primordial Immortal.
With a total of sixty Supreme Towers appearing here, it meant that sixty Supreme Oracles had gathered in this place. And this was only the force on the surface. In fact, each Supreme Tower was not only a means of transportation and a place of living and cultivating for a Supreme Oracle, but also a place where he cultivated his disciples. It was equivalent to a battle fortress, and housed more than the Supreme Oracle himself.
For example, Yu Gu, whom Wu Qi knew personally, had several hundred disciples, nearly ten thousand servants and maids, and thirty thousand strong armored soldiers living in his Supreme Tower. The truth was that the space within a Supreme Tower could be compressed and expanded further as its master's cultivation base improved, so it was not a great deal for one to accommodate tens of thousands of people at once.
As such, the sixty Supreme Towers here represented not only sixty Supreme Oracles, but sixty armies that could be deployed at any time!
Except for the unfortunate ones like Gouchen Guang, who had secretly borrowed a Supreme Tower and sneaked out of Liangzhu to kill those Heaven Immortals and itinerant cultivators many generations below him without bringing any attendants, and was unexpectedly killed by the thunder tribulation Wu Qi had attracted, all the other Supreme Oracles—wherever they went—were always accompanied by countless disciples and guards.
After realizing that he was surrounded by so many people, Prabhutaratna Buddha's expression turned extremely unsightly. While looking at his face, which was twitching violently and seemed about to burst into tears, Wu Qi had a feeling that the other was a sexual predator who, driven by his burning lust, had sneaked out in the middle of the night to molest a little girl, but was raped by a group of ugly shrews.
Prabhutaratna Buddha felt like weeping but had no tears. He had only wanted to avenge his disciple by killing Wu Qi, an insignificant fellow, and use it to serve as a warning to Great Yu, so that he could have something to brag before the other Buddhas. He did not understand what had he done to deserve an ambush from sixty Supreme Oracles!
Didn't King Bai Shan say that all the Supreme Oracles had left Liangzhu to hunt down Gouchen Guang's murderer? Didn't he say that except for the Oracles dwelling deep in the Secret Palace, Baihuang Mu, the Grand Oracle of Directorate of Celestials, was the only one left to guard this place? King Bai Shan even promised that no one would interfere, and told him to focus on killing Wu Qi!
If what King Bai Shan said was true, then where the hell did these sixty Supreme Oracles come from?
With a Supreme Tower hovering over him, Yu Gu smiled and waved at Wu Qi, "Be quick and bring yourself out of there, Marquis of Dong Hai Province! Hehe, you are indeed a brave son of Great Yu, as even a mighty Buddha failed to kill you with three consecutive attacks. After today's battle, your name will surely be heard by many more people!"
Wu Qi laughed and stopped exercising the Dragon Kill; his body swayed briefly as he quickly transformed back to his human form. Then, he spat a glob of blood out of his mouth and retracted the Dark Yin Celestial Tower before leaping up into the air and landing next to Yu Gu. The Supreme Oracle handed him a bottle of potion with a slight smell of dirt, which he drank without hesitation. In the blink of an eye, he felt a stream of heat flowing through him, and at the same time, his external wounds began to heal. Before long, all of his wounds were gone.
After giving Wu Qi, who had left the battlefield, one last look, Prabhutaratna Buddha threw his head back and heaved a deep sigh. "Greetings, my fellow Daoists!" he called out unwillingly.
The same grim voice who spoke previously rang out once again, "No amount of courtesy can save your life now, bald donkey! You have to die here today! We have spent a year searching for my eldest brother's murderer, but to no avail. And now you, a bald donkey, came looking to die in You Xiong Plain! You have violated Great Yu's prohibition, which is a good thing actually, because we can kill you to honor my eldest brother!"
It came from a tall, elderly man who was standing atop a Supreme Tower with four strange statues of demons erected on four corners of its base. He had a grim face, and his hands were clasped behind his back as he spoke. Next to him floated a pale black cloud, on top of which sat cross-legged an ancient bronze statue of a naked Buddha.
Wu Qi gave this statue a deep look that was thirty-six feet tall, and apparently was the Golden Body of an ancient Buddha, just like the one he saw in the Dark Abyss under the Northern Ocean, which Patriarch Miao Ying used as the core of a fiend formation.
The colors of Golden Bodies cultivated by today's Buddhas in the Buddhist League were either gold, ivory, colored glaze, or crystal white; but only the Golden Bodies left behind by those ancient Buddhas who cultivated the most orthodox Great Dao of ancient Buddhist League would appear a mottled bronze color. In addition, they were much stronger, and anyone with a little experience could identify them through their auras.
A small hole was drilled on the top of this Golden Body's head, through which, a thin wick woven from unknown hairs stretched out, with a tiny bean-sized flame quietly burning on its tip. Wu Qi opened his Eye of the Thousand Ghosts and studied the wick closely for a moment, but could not see anything unusual. Not willing to give up, he stealthily exercised his Chaotic Divine Eyes and gave it another glance, and only then was he able to see an extremely faint wisp of smoke drifting out of the wick.
He looked at the wick, then turned to look at Prabhutaratna Buddha, who was wounded by Ao Buzun and the dragon python sisters. He had figured out the reason why Prabhutaratna Buddha was suddenly injured. The smoke he saw was not a good thing!
Prabhutaratna Buddha saw the Golden Body too. He shuddered while pointing a finger toward the grim-faced elderly man and growled, "How dare you desecrate the sacred bones of an ancient Buddha? This is a sacred object of the Buddhist League! Y-yo-you...Who gave you the audacity to do this!"
The elderly man looked down at Prabhutaratna Buddha and said in a flat tone, "I am Gouchen Li, and I need no audacity from anyone to do whatever I wish. I just can't understand why do you Buddhist League value it so much…It's just a dead thing! And all you do is place it in a shrine and worship it day and night. It shines better when in my hand, for I have refined it with a mystic art and transformed it into the Avichi incense that can destroy the Golden Body of Buddhist cultivators!"
Gouchen Li gave a strange laugh and said harshly, "I named it after the 'Avīci Naraka', which is the lowest level of hell. For any cultivators from the Buddhism League who inhale it, unless he or she has obtained the supreme Golden Body that is truly indestructible, his or her Golden Body will become no different from that of an ordinary mortal for a full quarter of an hour, including that of Buddhas such as you, bald donkey!"
Prabhutaratna Buddha stared at Gouchen Li in panic and cried out, "Do you really dare to kill me?"
"If someone dares to kill the clan master of Gouchen clan, who is also the imperial advisor of Great Yu, then why should I be afraid of killing you?" said Gouchen Li indifferently, "Besides, it was you who first violated the Human Emperor's prohibition by intruding into You Xiong Plain and attacking our Marquis of Province. Hehe…Even if we go and reason things out with your Lord Buddha, he would say that you deserve to die!"
Before Gouchen Li's words could fade away, Prabhutaratna Buddha let out a loud cry. A thunderous rumble echoed out of the golden bell hovering above him as countless dharma artifacts of the Buddhist League suddenly flew out of it and shot in all directions. In just a flash, at least millions of weapons were unleashed, all gleaming brilliantly while blotting the void about a hundred miles around them. Shrouded in a pale golden power of the Buddha, these extremely sharp weapons sliced the void to shreds as they flew randomly and messily all over the sky.
However, although they could slice the void to shreds, they could never cause any damage to the Supreme Towers presided by the Supreme Oracles. Together, all sixty Supreme Towers radiated great sheets of black light at the same time, which quickly interconnected into one massive black screen and blanketed the entire place. Countless shadows of ghosts could be seen prowling within while numerous runes were quickly streaming across its surface like waterfalls. As soon as it emerged, many pale golden weapons, which were so powerful that even Wu Qi had failed to defend against them in his dragonman form, were caught in mid-air. As the air rang with eerie and miserable howls of ghosts, they cracked and shattered into pieces.
Laughing coldly, Gouchen Li flung a black bone hammer made of unknown bones into the sky. Shrouded in a raging green flame, the bone hammer that was only about the size of a fist abruptly expanded while nine gigantic, skeletal celestial fiends emerged around it. Accompanied by a deafening rumble, the bone hammer, now about a thousand feet wide, plunged straight down from the sky together with nine celestial fiends and rammed into Prabhutaratna Buddha's golden bell, knocking it down to the dusty ground.
Without waiting for Prabhutaratna Buddha to claim back his precious treasure, Yu Gu burst into laughter and stamped his foot. Immediately, dozens of huge green-striped spiders dashed out of his Supreme Tower. Turning around, they lifted their butts and shot out spider silks that were as thick as chicken eggs and stank like sh*t. The silk slithered across the void and bound around the golden bell before pulling it over to Yu Gu.
Yu Gu quickly took thirteen spirit talismans made of demon leather from under his sleeve and attached them on the golden bell. With that, despite Prabhutaratna Buddha's furious howls and roars, his incantation gestures and spells, the bell just briefly swayed a few times and never flew back to him.
Fuming with rage, Prabhutaratna Buddha cursed at the top of his voice and waved his hands to shoot out hundreds of dharma artifacts at the same time. He had crafted these artifacts for himself with the best materials he had gathered over countless eons. Although he did give some to his Bodhisattvas and Arhats as rewards, he had kept most of them with him due to his reluctance to part with these precious weapons.
But, he was facing a critical situation today, one that would get him killed if he did not fight back with all his might. So, he could not care less about these precious artifacts as he just released them all at once. Fully surrounded by hundreds of powerful artifacts, he was ready to break out from the west.
Prabhutaratna Buddha was confident that he could leave Pangu Continent immediately as long as he was able to create just a small gap between the Supreme Towers. After all, for an almighty expert who was as strong as a Primordial Immortal, a step he took would bring him to the remotest corner of this world. So, it would only take him a few breaths of time to return to his own heavenly realm.
But, how could he escape from the trap that was jointly laid out by sixty Supreme Oracles?
Gouchen Li's bone hammer kept flying up and down the sky, knocking one artifact after another to the ground. Meanwhile, the other Supreme Oracles had jumped into action as well. In just less than two breaths of time, even the jade bell Prabhutaratna Buddha was holding in his hand was snatched by someone. Like a wealthy man encountering a group of fierce bandits in the depths of mountains, all his belongings were taken in almost no time at all, and he was left with not even one artifact save his monk robe.
He gave a furious roar as he clenched his jaws and decided to put on a desperate fight by releasing his natal relic. But, it was at this moment that the sixty Supreme Towers suddenly closed in from all directions. Working together, sixty Supreme Oracles whose cultivation bases were no weaker than Prabhutaratna Buddha crushed his body into a mess of blood and gore.
As the loud rumble lingered in the air as golden blood and gore fell from the sky. Ao Buzun and the dragon python sisters roared joyfully as they quickly opened their mouths and swallowed these delicious things into their stomachs.
Prabhutaratna Buddha had fallen outside the city of Liangzhu!
Wu Qi looked thoughtfully at where Prabhutaratna Buddha had been killed. 'How could a mighty Buddha be so unlucky as to be surrounded by sixty Supreme Oracles?'