Living in the deep palace

"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The boundary wall of the Ancient Realm of Ten Thousand Buddhas completely collapsed, and countless golden shards of glass, like a beautiful meteor shower, scattered across this blissful Pure Land that had been imbued with the power of incense and vows for countless eons.

"Kill!!! Eat meat!!!"

Above the Eternal Heaven, tens of thousands of demons, like hungry ghosts breaking free from the Avici Hell, led by the Demon Lord of Chaos and the Corpse Lord, surged madly into this magnificent Buddhist kingdom through the huge gap in the boundary wall, like a black tidal wave.

The bodhisattvas and vajras who were once high above and worshipped by all beings are now like lambs to the slaughter before this horde of ferocious demons. Golden blood of Buddha has stained the Eight Treasures Merit Pool, and tattered robes and broken vajras are scattered all over the ground.

However, just as the demon army was preparing to plunder and turn this Buddhist kingdom into a battlefield, the demons were about to begin their rampage.

"Amitabha--!!!"

A mighty Buddhist chant, as resounding as an ancient bell, suddenly echoed from the deepest part of the Buddhist kingdom—the Great Thunderclap Temple, which exuded the power to suppress all heavens and myriad realms!
This Buddhist chant was no ordinary Sanskrit sound, but contained the supreme power of the Vajra's Wrathful Gaze! Wherever the sound wave passed, the demon soldiers who were frantically killing felt their souls shake violently, and the raging demonic energy in their bodies was actually suppressed and stopped circulating.

"This fiend is rampant! How dare he destroy our boundary wall and slaughter our Buddhist disciples! Does he really think there is no one left in our Holy Ancient Realm?!"

Accompanied by a thunderous shout.

From the direction of the Great Thunderclap Temple, eighteen pure gold pillars, each a million feet thick, shot into the sky, piercing through heaven and earth!

Immediately afterwards, eighteen ancient divine figures, each as large as a star, their bodies bathed in an indestructible golden light, and with nine layers of merit wheels growing from the back of their heads, descended instantly in front of the army of the Eternal Heaven, standing on nine-grade golden lotuses, using an unparalleled divine power that could shrink the earth to an inch!
The Eighteen Arhats of Antiquity!
These are not ordinary Arhats from the lower realms, but eighteen fierce guardian deities who have served the Lord of Ten Thousand Buddhas since the beginning of this universe! Each of them has reached the despair-inducing peak of the Sixth Realm, just a hair's breadth away from attaining the Great Dao Venerable Position! Their auras are linked, faintly forming a perfectly natural and impervious array in the void: the Eighteen Vajra Subduing Demon Formation!
"They are ancient Arhats!! My lord, be careful! These eighteen old bald monks are infamous in the Great Void. They once joined forces to kill an ancient demon who was half a step into the seventh realm!" The Skeleton Lord hid in a corner of the Divine Court, the ghost fire in his eye sockets flickering violently, and warned in a hoarse voice.

"Has he ever slain an ancient demon?"

Standing at the forefront of the Purple Gold Divine Court, Su Chen looked at the eighteen golden Arhats stretching across the starry sky, a cruel and unrestrained sneer curling at the corner of his mouth.

His eyes, now a color of ethereal origin, showed not a trace of fear, but rather the satisfaction of a gourmet seeing a waiter serve a plate of exquisitely presented "cold dishes" in a restaurant.

"The foundation of this Holy Ancient Realm is barely passable."

"I thought this Buddhist kingdom was full of fat pigs who couldn't even kill a chicken. I didn't expect that it would also raise such vicious guard dogs with muscles all over their bodies."

Su Chen stuck out his tongue and licked his lips. The bone knife in his hand twirled in the air, emitting a hissing sound as it sliced ​​through the air.

"Arrogant fiend! He's about to die and he still doesn't realize it!"

Among the eighteen Arhats, the two leading Arhats stepped out from the formation.

The one on the left, with his bulging muscles as if cast from ancient bronze and iron, has a ten-thousand-foot-long golden dragon coiled around his arms, radiating the pure aura of an ancient ancestral dragon. This is the [Dragon-Subduing Arhat]!
The one on the right, draped in a striped tiger skin, rides a winged, menacing Nine Netherworld Demon Tiger, radiating the killing aura of a white tiger. This is the [Tiger-Taming Arhat]!
"You demons, you have brought ruin to countless lives, your crimes are beyond measure!"

The Arhat Subduing Dragon glared angrily, his Vajra Pestle pointing fiercely at Su Chen, his voice like rolling thunder.

"Today, we will vanquish this demon and use your demonic blood to wash away the shame of our Buddhist kingdom!!!"

"Dragon Subduer, Tiger Tamer, Go!!!"

Accompanied by the two Arhats' simultaneous roar!

"hold head high--------!!!!"

"roar--------!!!!"

The ancient golden dragon wrapped around the arm of the Arhat Subduing Dragon, and the Nine Netherworld Demon Tiger under the crotch of the Arhat Subduing Tiger, actually grew larger and larger in the wind after absorbing a massive amount of incense and prayer power!

In the blink of an eye, the dragon and the tiger transformed into ancient ferocious beasts comparable in size to those of the Middle Thousand Worlds! The golden dragon soared into the sky, tearing apart the illusion; the demonic tiger pounced, shattering yin and yang! The pure killing power carried by this dragon and tiger even shredded the surrounding Void Gale into powder, and they bit down hard on Su Chen's head from the left and right!

Such power is enough to tear a top-tier world in two in an instant!
However, faced with such a deadly situation...

Su Chen kept his hands behind his back, not even lifting his eyelids.

"Subduing dragons? Taming tigers?"

Su Chen's extremely cold voice clearly reached the ears of the eighteen Arhats amidst the roars of dragons and tigers.

"In my hometown, dragon liver and phoenix marrow are top-notch delicacies for banquets; and tiger bones are the finest medicinal ingredient for making a highly nourishing tiger bone soup!"

"You two old bald monks actually dared to offer me these kinds of wild game?"

In Su Chen's eyes, the red light of gluttony suddenly ignited!
Just as the gaping maws of the dragon and tiger, large enough to devour stars, were only three inches away from Su Chen's face!

"Give it to me—give it to me!!!"

Su Chen made a move!

He didn't draw his sword, nor did he manifest the towering Gluttony Demon God's form. He simply and brutally extended his two hands, covered in a chaotic, azure hue!
"boom!!!"

"boom!!!"

Two muffled thuds that shattered the heavens!
Under the horrified gazes of the two Arhats, Subduing Dragon and Tiger!
Su Chen's left hand was like an ancient divine clamp, firmly gripping the dragon horn of the ten-thousand-foot golden dragon's destiny; while his right hand was like a five-fingered divine mountain, directly strangling the throat of the Nine Nether Demon Tiger!

No matter how frantically the dragon and tiger struggled and roared, their claws, sharp enough to tear apart a true god, and their dragon breath bombarded Su Chen's green robe, they couldn't even lift a single corner of his garment!
In front of Su Chen, who had stepped into the Seventh Realm - the Supreme Position of the Great Dao, this beast that had absorbed the power of incense offerings was no different from a mudfish or a dog on a chopping board!

"Wild game fed with incense and the power of prayer may have lost some of its wildness, but the sandalwood aroma that comes through the marinating process is quite unique."

Su Chen grinned with an extremely cruel smile. His arms bulged with muscles like coiled dragons, and an overwhelming primal force erupted!
"Wild game should be eaten in the way that wild game is eaten!"

"Sever it from my grasp!!!"

"Snap!!!"

Accompanied by a chilling, soul-shattering sound of bones shattering!
Su Chen twisted his right hand sharply! The Nine Nether Demon Tiger, which was said to possess the bloodline of the Primordial White Tiger and was known for its ferocity, had its massive, mountain-like neck bone snapped by Su Chen as if it were a twisted rope! The tiger's head drooped limply, and golden tiger blood gushed out like a waterfall!

"My Subduing Tiger!!!" The Subduing Tiger Arhat let out a heart-wrenching scream, spitting out a mouthful of blood, his Dao heart trembling violently. And this was only the beginning!
"Sizzle—!!!"

Immediately following was an even more ear-piercing and brutal sound of flesh being torn apart!

Su Chen gripped the golden dragon's head tightly with his left hand, raised his right foot, and stomped directly on the dragon's massive body. Then, he yanked his left arm upwards with a fierce jerk!
That ancient golden dragon, which had been worshipped by Buddhist incense for countless eons, was actually torn in two by Su Chen, from head to tail!
Golden dragon blood and scales rained down from the sky like a magnificent golden downpour over this Buddhist kingdom.

Twist the demon tiger! Tear the golden dragon apart with your bare hands!
In a single exchange, the guardian beasts that the two ancient Arhats were so proud of were easily dismembered in the void by Su Chen, just like slaughtering two chickens and ducks!
"This kind of top-quality dragon and tiger blood is the most nourishing tonic, served as a snack before the main course!"

Su Chen tilted his head back, opened the abyss-like maw, and inhaled sharply!
"call----!!!"

The blood essence gushing from the torn dragon and tiger transformed into two golden torrents, which Su Chen swallowed whole. He didn't even spare the enormous dragon body and tiger corpse; with a flick of his sleeve, he threw them directly into the massive bronze cauldron, millions of feet in size, behind him.

"Hun Tian! Make this fire burn brighter!"

"This tonic soup of dragon and tiger fighting, slowly simmer it to extract the marrow from my bones!"

Su Chen swallowed the dragon-tiger essence blood in his mouth and let out a very comfortable burp. He slowly turned his head, his divine eyes, filled with endless appetite and arrogance, fixed on the eighteen ancient Arhats opposite him who were completely dumbfounded.

"We've finished the extra wild game."

Su Chen stuck out his tongue and licked the remaining golden blood from his lips, the curve of his mouth becoming increasingly sinister.

"Now……"

"It's your turn to cook these eighteen plates of 'golden crispy skin'!!!"

……

……

"A demon...a devil! He's a devil who crawled out of the Abyss of Creation!!!"

Watching their guardian beast, which had accompanied them for countless eons, being torn apart by Su Chen's bare hands and even thrown into a pot to make soup as a side dish, the Buddhist hearts of the two Arhats, Subduing Dragon and Tiger, completely collapsed at this moment.

They were once compassionate and dedicated themselves to eliminating demons and monsters, and they had seen many evil spirits and heretics trembling in fear under the Buddha's light.

But this man in the green robe before him was completely outside the realm of cause and effect! The look in his eyes as he gazed upon the gods and Buddhas held no reverence or hatred, only the purest, most primal desire—appetite!
"Fellow disciples! This fiend's physical body has already surpassed the limits of our understanding! We must never fight him one-on-one!"

The leader, the Long-Browed Arhat, suppressed his fear. His two long, snow-white eyebrows, which reached his waist, moved without wind, bursting forth with an extremely dazzling golden Buddhist light.

"Form the array! Form the [Great Sun Tathagata Vajra Indestructible Array]!!!"

"With our golden bodies, honed through countless years of arduous cultivation, and drawing upon the supreme Buddhist teachings of the Great Thunderclap Temple, we will utterly obliterate this fiend within this formation!!!"

"Amitabha!!!"

The remaining seventeen Arhats chanted Buddhist mantras in unison, squeezing out the last bit of incense power and the essence of the sixth realm's pinnacle.

"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Eighteen pure golden beams of light intertwined and merged in the void. In a mere fraction of a breath, these eighteen ancient Arhats abandoned their individual forms, completely fusing their physical bodies and divine souls into one, transforming in the void into a single, flawless [Eighteen-Faced Vajra Indestructible Buddha], hundreds of millions of miles tall and seemingly cast entirely in gold!
Once the grand formation was completed, the laws of this world were completely altered.

The void, spanning billions of miles, transformed into an enormous golden millstone. Within this millstone, there was an immense Buddhist light and destructive chanting powerful enough to grind even the physical body of a Seventh Realm Supreme Being to dust!
And Su Chen was right at the very center of this millstone!

"Annihilate the original body?"

Standing in the center of the great formation, feeling the golden millstone power pressing in from all directions, Su Chen not only did not release any protective divine light, but instead walked slowly through this deadly formation that was enough to kill a true god, with his hands behind his back.

"Creak...creak..."

The terrifying power of the Vajra millstone pressed down on Su Chen's skin, which shimmered with the color of the void origin. Not only did it fail to break through even the slightest bit of his defense, but it also produced a piercing friction sound like a dull knife cutting through a rolling stone, and burst forth with golden sparks of law!
"How is this possible?! The Vajra Grinding Wheel that we eighteen people risked our lives to set up couldn't even scratch his skin?!" From within the formation came the incredulous and desperate cry of the Long-Browed Arhat.

"Is that all the strength you've used? Are you trying to loosen my bones?"

Su Chen shook his head, his eyes filled with boredom. He stopped and looked up at the eighteen-faced Vajra Buddha that surrounded him at the center.

"You bunch of bald monks, you boast every day about your 'sixteen-foot golden body' and 'indestructible Vajra.' In my eyes, you are nothing but dead meat covered in incense mud and fried hard in oil!"

Su Chen slowly pulled out his right hand, which had been behind his back, and clenched his fist.

"Before these iron fists of mine, what is indestructible..."

"It's just crunchy... [cartilage]!!!"

"Smash to me!!!"

boom--------!!!!

Su Chen unleashed a punch!
This punch was devoid of any supernatural powers or dazzling effects; it possessed only the ultimate, pure physical destructive force of the seventh realm, the Great Dao Venerable, enough to shatter the multiverse!
The fist imprint carved out an absolute dark vacuum in the void, carrying an overbearing power that crushed all cause and effect, and slammed hard into the chest of the eighteen-faced Vajra Buddha!
"Thump—!!!!!!!!!!"

A terrifyingly loud bang that deafened the entire Ancient World of Ten Thousand Buddhas!
In the horrified perception of the eighteen Arhats, their supposedly indestructible golden bodies, capable of withstanding even the explosion of the entire world, were like the cheapest mortal porcelain in front of Su Chen's punch!
"Snap, snap, snap—!!!"

Deep, bottomless cracks spread wildly across the entire Vajra Buddha statue, centered on Su Chen's fist, like a spider web! The once indestructible golden shell began to peel away in large chunks!

"No!! My golden body!! My Dao fruit!!!"

As the formation collapsed, the Eighteen Vajra Buddhas let out a shrill scream and disintegrated! The eighteen ancient Arhats, like kites with broken strings, sprayed golden Buddha blood as they flew backward from the void and crashed heavily to the ground.

One punch shattered the golden body! One punch defeated the eighteen Arhats! (End of Chapter)