Nightfall

A spark lit up the somber underground wilderness A plume of smoke cut off the surface of the wilderness and swiftly spread forward towards the huge mount.

At the forefront of the smoke, Jun Mo rode upon the wind and flew fast. The iron sword cracked the wind noiselessly, and moved forward at an unimaginable speed, just like a real sword.

The spark was a warning. As the alarm bell rang loudly in the huge mount, countless monks rushed out of the temples to the mountain pass, and were prepared to deploy the array with an incomparable Buddhist power, in order to repress the approaching enemy.

Jun Mo, after his transforming into the sword, was faster than the light beam from the spark. He had already arrived before the Buddhist Grand Array was even completed.

It was silent and quiescent in the autumn mountain. The green bamboos alongside the mountain pass swayed all of a sudden. The monks felt dazzled, and then saw Jun Mo and the iron sword in his hands at the field.

If the monks in Xuankong Temple were to attack, then Jun Mo would hit back. He was so fast that he had already broken in, before the Buddhist Array was able to form on the mountain pass amid the peaks.

The autumn wind suddenly blew up, roaring around the bamboo forest and the mountain pass. Blood stains fell on the green bamboo joints, which looked like scarlet tear stains.

Whether they were the blood of the monks or Jun Mo, the latter had already entered the mountain. He was swiftly sweeping his own way, the way to pursue a noble character of a gentleman.

Jun Mo, who upheld the Gentlemen’s Doctrine, would rather reason with his enemies first. If they were to disagree, the gentleman would sweep away. In the Wilderness down the hill, he had already reasoned with the Xuankong Temple. They clearly held up their beliefs, so he directly pressed down, instead of talking pedantically.

Qi Nian and the Third Elder of the Commandant Court were rushing back from the Wilderness. The most powerful ones in these temples did not have time to react. Jun Mo was rolling all the way up.

Although he was bleeding from every part of his body, he still held his iron sword, and attacked the cliff plateau.

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The edges of the Grand Sinkhole were surrounded by steep precipices, which tore very deep cracks in the Wilderness. These cracks stretched and converted at some point in the distance. It looked extremely astonishing.

With the absence of autumn wind in the wilderness, several lonely bodhi trees were standing not far away. Their green leaves were still thick. Looking over towards the precipices, smoke was coming out.

The so-called smoke was actually a combination of dusts and stones moving at an unimaginably fast speed giving them an appearance of an impalpable silk thread.

The smoke was as long as the precipice, stretching out for thousands of miles without a starting or end point. It surrounded the world down the cliff, and appeared out of nowhere just like a divine manifestation.

In the smoke, shadows of thousands of figures could be glimpsed. In fact, these shadows couldn’t be seen. As a result of the illusion caused by extremely fast movements beyond the range of eyesight, they could overlap one the other at countless points every second.

The shadows of the thousands of figures were actually made by only two people.

Two people had been chasing.

All of a sudden, a distant and loud bell tone came from the huge mountain far away.

Thousands of miles of smoke at the edge of the precipices was abruptly static, and then fell down slowly, returning to the Wilderness.

Two figures appeared at the point where the smoke fell.

The scholar in quilted jacket wore a cotton belt around his waist, with a common wooden stick in it. He looked gentle, dusty yet very clean. He was the First Brother of the Academy.

The middle-aged man of letters on the opposite had a flagon in the waist was the Drunkard.

Hundreds of white thread-lets, oozed from the quilted jacket on the First Brother, were dragged for thousands of meters, and blown up by the autumn wind. It looked very elegant, yet had a trace of unavoidable strangeness.

It was a chasing race in Distanceless State, which was all too fast.

The First Brother’s quilted jacket was not ordinary clothing because it didn’t fall apart during high-speed movements. On the contrary, the cotton in and between the interlayer was squeezed out of the fine meshes of the cloth, and became superfine cotton threads.

Hundreds of cotton threads were drifted away at the back. The image was hard to describe. Especially when it was gradually changing with the wind, the cotton threads fell on his face in a funny or cute appearance.

The Drunkard took off the flagon and drank an everlasting volume. Even after such a long time of chasing in the Distanceless State, he was still relaxed, besides his quivering hand that held the flagon.

The First Brother said nothing while looking at him drinking.

When the wine flowed through his system, his wine bowl was filled for this moment. The Drunkard put down the flagon, looked at the other one and said with complex sentiments, “Li Manman, you are getting faster, but still slower than me.”

The First Brother replied with a warm smile, “My senior, you haven’t caught up with me.”

The Drunkard asked after a silence, “Why?”

There were so many whys in the world, roughly speaking for at least ten thousands. His actual question was why the Academy had fought against Buddhism, in order to confirm whether they were on the side with Haotian.

“Actually sometimes I ask the same question to myself.” First Brother thought for a while and answered, “Later on, I figured it out. My Little Brother and Haotian were trapped in the chessboard. Due to their relationship, we must save Haotian if we want to take our Little Brother out. We have no intentions of becoming the enemy of Buddhism, or becoming allies with Haotian. We only want to save people. For the Academy, rescuing people is of the utmost importance. It doesn’t matter who we save, whether it is any human or our Little Brother. They are the same in this regard. The pros and cons should be the second thing to think about. Once we start to compromise the basic rule of loss and gain, the Academy wouldn’t be able to hold up our core value any more.”

The Drunkard slightly frowned and asked, “What is exactly the Academy up to?”

The First Brother replied with a smile, “The Headmaster has his own thoughts, while the students have our own plan. What the Academy is up to may be a little absurd in your opinion, but it must be interesting.”

The Drunkard said, “The Buddha has his own plan. He has been waiting for countless years, up until Haotian was weakened by the Academy. Now, she has become more like a mortal at the State of Knowing Destiny. For the Academy that has always acclaimed to act for the sake of humans, it should probably be the last and the only hope. How could you sabotage it?”

The First Brother said while shaking his head, “The Academy has never wanted to act on behalf of the human race. What we do is something beneficial to the human race from our perspective. The core is to take the lead in terms of action.”

The Drunkard said, “Why are you preventing the Buddha from killing Haotian?”

The First Brother said, “First of all, the reason is the same as I previously told you, my senior. We want to save people. Secondly, Haotian also exists in the Divine Kingdom, so it is impossible to kill Sangsang. Sangsang is Haotian, and Haotian is also Sangsang. The difference is that Sangsang is staying in the human world, while Haotian is in the Divine Kingdom. If we can’t erase their existence at the same time, Haotian cannot be killed forever. He continued. “On one hand, killing Sangsang can’t kill Haotian, and on the other hand, it will make her transform into regulations. After her return to the Divine Kingdom, Haotian wwill become more powerful.”

This excerpt sounded a little obscure, but for people like the Drunkard and the First Brother, it was quite easy to understand. That was why the Academy hadn’t understood why the Drunkard would do it like that.

The Drunkard fell in silence.

The First Brother understood and sighed, “Is this the opinion of the Abbey Dean?”

The Drunkard looked up to the grey sky and said, “Right.”

To leverage the Buddha’s attempt could result in Sangsang’s death or her wake-up, whichever result would help her return to Haotian’s Divine Kingdom. This was the Abbey Dean’s intention.

“The Abbey Dean…” The First Brother found that it was inappropriate to describe a person like the Abbey Dean in any language. He said, “It seems that the chessboard might possibly kill her.”

The Drunkard said, “She is definitely going to be killed.” This was the Abbey Dean’s judgment. Although he was disabled, his judgment was certainly precise.

The First Brother looked at the peaks far away, and then took out the wooden stick from the waist.

He didn’t fight in the past, so he never took a weapon. Then at the Cong Ridge, he was forced to learn fighting skills. He smashed the bailer that he always took along.

That year when he was chasing with the Abbey Dean, he picked up a wooden stick on the beach of a islet in the South Sea. From then on, the wooden stick became his weapon.

The wooden stick was left in the human world by the Headmaster of the Academy.

The First Brother took out the wooden stick, which showed that he was preparing for a fight. It can even be said that he was about to fight desperately.

The Abbey Dean said Sangsang would die in Buddha’s chessboard. That was to say Ning Que would definitely die as well due to their natal connection. With that, as Ning Que’s Brother, he would rather fight for him until his own death.

In the cultivators’ world, everyone knew that the students of the Academy were good at desperate-fighting. They were all fierce, once they fight desperately. For example, the famous Maniac Ke of the last generation was a fierce fighter. The same was true for this generation.

If Jun Mo were to risk his life, a huge army wouldn’t be able to set forth, and even the Yellow River would flow backwards. When risking her life, Yu Lian could shoot up directly to the blue sky, and even rainbow could be cut off. Speaking of real terror, it would be the First Brother.

His disposition was very gentle, and he seldom got angry, so he rarely desperately fought. On the contrary, the gentler one was, the more dreadful one would be, when the time was right. Then, even the Lord would fear.

The Abbey Dean, in his full strength, was regarded as the most powerful in the human world. Even as powerful as he was, in position of facing the hell-bent First Brother, it would be difficult to win. At the moment, the Drunkard would very much rather to not stand right in his way. The Drunkard leaned to one side to evade the wooden stick.

The First Brother pointed at the huge mount with his stick and said, “My Senior, aren’t you worried I will leave here right away?”

The Drunkard said calmly and peacefully, “I can catch up to you. You’re slower than me.”

The First Brother said, “You have been chasing me for three months, but you have never passed me.”

The Drunkard laughed and said, “As long as you don’t set foot on Xuankong Temple, why would I overtake you?”

The First Brother smiled and said, “My Senior, haven’t you noticed that we now stand facing each other?” That’s to say I was retrograding all this time. If I were to turn, do you think you could catch up?

The Drunkard was suddenly startled.

In the Wilderness beside the cliff, the autumn wind suddenly roared. A thundering sound blasted, and an airwave was scattered into far and wide, forming a infinite cavity.

Hundreds of white cotton threads fell apart gradually in the wind.

The First Brother was gone.

In the next moment, he was found at the point under the pear tree on the cliff plateau.

Almost at the same time, Jun Mo came to the cliff plateau as well, with blood all over his body.

Jun Mo nodded his head to greet his First Brother under the tree.

This pair of brother hadn’t seen each other for quite a while. The reunion was in such a crunch that they all looked toward the same place, instead of catching up.

A White Tower was reborn in the shabby temple on the cliff plateau.

In front of it, an old monk was sitting on his knees.

In front of him was a chessboard.

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