Chapter 628 — The Divine Eye Between the Brows Opens

His gaze flickered, and he said in a low voice, "I have an idea that will put both places in our hands! " Sakra, the Heavenly Buddha King, clapped his hands and laughed. "I know! You mean to take advantage of the Buddhas' deliberation and charge in at one stroke, is that it?

" Shen Mu looked at him, sensed that something was wrong, and at once set his feet in motion, charging with a howl toward the ruined temple — but it was already too late. Sakra, the Heavenly Buddha King, was a step ahead of him.

His body became a streak of flowing light, and before Shen Mu he hurled himself through the temple gate. With a bang he sealed the door, shutting Shen Mu outside, and laughed.

"Young friend Shen, I thank you for the reminder.

I am in! " The bhikshu sitting beside the temple gate said lazily, "Only one place remains. " The many Buddha-sons and Buddhas were roused by Shen Mu and Sakra, the Heavenly Buddha King, and turned to look.

When they heard that only one place remained, they could sit still no longer. "Who went in? " Dharma King Molun's face changed greatly, and he asked at once. The other Buddhas were blank-faced as well, not knowing who had been so cunning as to charge into the temple while they deliberated over the method of contest, and seize a place.

The monk Chenghuai stood where he was.

Before he had come back to himself he saw Shen Mu and Sakra, the Heavenly Buddha King, rush forward; only when the two reached the temple gate did he recover his wits, and by then the outcome was decided — Sakra, the Heavenly Buddha King, had shut Shen Mu outside. "So that was the method Brother Shen meant!

" He came to the realization. "What a good idea! But why did the Buddha King shut Brother Shen outside? Would it not be better for everyone to go in together?

" Shen Mu stood before the temple gate and called out loudly, "Sakra, you may go in, but give me back my golden willow leaf!

Without the golden willow leaf I cannot control my power, and great disaster will come of it! If disaster comes, can you bear it?

" "I can bear it. " Inside the temple, Sakra, the Heavenly Buddha King's voice receded. "Rest easy and dump the chamber pot on my bald head.

. . " Shen Mu was furious and was about to speak when the monk Chenghuai, his face the color of earth, said, quavering, "Brother Shen, do you truly not wish to learn the several ways of writing the character for death? " Shen Mu drew a long breath and turned around. The anger on his face vanished, replaced by a pure and guileless smile, and he looked at the many Buddha-sons of the Buddhist realm, whose faces were somewhat grim, and said with a smile, "Brothers, I have here a fine large sharira.

Would you care to have a look?

" He took out the sword pellet. It floated in the air and spun swiftly.

Shen Mu said in a ringing voice, "I ask you, brothers, to grant me this small courtesy and yield the last place to me. Shen would be endlessly grateful. " So he said, but in his heart Shen Mu still hesitated. He had never tried to stir the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art with the third eye open. Grandmother Zhu and the Blind Elder had told him that only with the third eye sealed could he stir his arts without scruple; if the third eye were opened, what the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art would bring about, he had not the least notion. "No matter. Grandpa Huo has been the best and sternest to me; he looks at me as though I were his own son.

I understand that he raised me as his son, and poured into me all his fatherly love! " Shen Mu gritted his teeth. The Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art stirred slowly, and his sleeves and strands of hair began to drift upward, one after another. "Whatever Grandpa Huo wants, I will get it for him, no matter what!

God or demon, whoever blocks my way — if a god blocks me, I kill the god; if a Buddha blocks me, I kill the Buddha! " At the center of his brows, the Mystic Body Three Elixirs Art reached the third eye. This eye was exceedingly strange and sinister; its lids slowly parted to either side, and the array patterns and structures within the eye began slowly to turn. Shen Mu looked out.

Every person — even the Buddhas — under the gaze of that eye had their spirit-treasury laid bare, clear beyond clear, every hair and thread revealed. He was like a dark deity who held life and death in his hand, watching his prey; it seemed even the air was filled with blood and the aura of slaughter. A proud, unruly ardor rose suddenly in his heart, and he said, unhurried, "Withdraw, all of you.

If you come forward, I will not answer for your lives or deaths! "