The little girl's face changed in an instant, twisting into something hideous and ferocious. Her body began to swell, and from her waist down came a tearing hiss as her dress burst apart. One by one, knobby-jointed legs thrust through the shredded skirt and drove into the ground with a ringing snap. She turned thick and long, like a giant centipede woven wholly of bone!
Behind her shoulders a carapace of bone rose high, hunching her frame, while a nest of skeletal arms unfolded, their finger-bones sharpened into cruel talons. At the back of her head sprouted a crown of curved bone-spurs like a stag's antlers, and from her mouth came a piercing sound, as though the desperate shrieks of a thousand women were crushed into a single voice. She shrieked, "You get in here!"
Qin Mu looked up at this bone-covered woman-centipede, surprise on his face. He shook his head. "I won't."
The monster snarled and roared in fury, its legs rippling as it scurried round and round the shrine. At last it lunged for the doorway—but then came a great clattering uproar, the islet shuddered, and a forest of thick chains swung and heaved.
Qin Mu hurriedly looked over. One end of each chain sank down by the river, coiling about the great golden Buddha within the temple; the other was clamped fast upon the monster itself, through the golden rings that hung from its body. The moment she tried to hurl herself through the temple gate, the chains dragged her back. Snarling, she could not cross a single step beyond the doorway.
Qin Mu settled calmly on the ground, breathing and refining his qi with the Overlord Body Three-Pill Art to restore his strength.
After a while the racket behind him quieted. Unable to wrench free of the chains, the monster wheeled about and charged the golden Buddha, shrieking, "Damn you, you bald thief! You had me sealed here! Do you mean to starve me to death? This brat hasn't burned a single stick of incense for you—why forbid me to eat him?"
The Buddha image met her charge unmoved, and the monster, in a fury, went round and round it, scattering heaps of white bones behind it. Qin Mu glanced back, horrified. Those bones were all human—who knew how many had died within this little broken temple!
Presently the monster calmed, hiding the bones once more behind the golden Buddha, then fixing her bloodshot eyes upon Qin Mu outside the gate.
"Bald thief, meat that walked in of its own accord…" She crept again to the doorway, staring at the back of Qin Mu's head, drool flowing like a stream.
Before long she had transformed once more into the little girl, Xian Qing'er, her clothes half-parted, giggling, "Young sir, come and be ashamed with me—"
Qin Mu's resolve was strong. He closed his ears to her and at last recovered his strength, his primal qi restored to its peak; after this day of hard cultivation his qi had improved not a little. A stir passed through his heart. Resolved, he surged his qi and silently recited the demonic sound, once more battering the barrier of the Spirit Womb.
"Qikeduo samoye, banruo banruo samoye, Qikeduo banruo samoye…"
His qi had barely surged toward the Spirit Womb Barrier when, from within the old temple, came rolling peals of thunder. The strange grain beneath the golden Buddha's gilding began to flicker with currents of blood-red light, and the gilding itself flared into brilliant gold!
BOOM—
In the violent tremor, the bronze-core, gold-gilt Buddha actually opened its eyes. A vast tide of might erupted, and into Qin Mu's ears rolled a majestic, thundering rebuke: "Evil heretics! How dare you make free in my presence, chanting the True Words of the Demon God, lawless and rebellious! By the true words of the Buddha I will subdue you!"
Inside the shrine, the monster's face went rigid with terror as she saw the golden Buddha raise a hand, seize the chains, and drag her, helpless, before the image. THUD. Overwhelmed by the Buddha's majesty, the monster crumpled to her knees squarely before the statue, unable to stir.
"Om mani padme hum! Om mani padme hum! Om mani padme hum…"
The golden Buddha parted its lips and gave forth Sanskrit voices, as though a true Buddha were chanting a true mantra. The moment the monster heard it, an invisible force crushed her very soul, and she shrieked and hissed in agony.
Outside the temple, Qin Mu, battered by the Buddhist true words, was thrown into a turmoil of mind. Yet even then his qi chanced to surge up to the Spirit Womb Barrier, and from beyond the Nine Heavens came the sound of divine voices, as though gods above the celestial sphere were chanting their scripture. The divine sound met the Buddhist sound within the shrine, swelled mightily, and wrestled against it—and the pressure upon his qi fell away.
"A good chance!"
Without a moment's hesitation, Qin Mu gave voice and chanted the demonic sound, crying aloud: "Qikeduo samoye, banruo banruo samoye, Qikeduo banruo samoye! Qikeduo samoye, banruo banruo samoye, Qikeduo banruo samoye!"
The Buddhist sound thundered from within the temple: "Om mani padme hum! Om mani padme hum!"
At the same moment, the divine sound from the Nine Heavens that came through his brow also soared: "Gaze, the brightness, the calm, the quiet, the thoughtless, the boundless river; heaven's time gives way, and the awesomely numinous spirit rages!"
The three sounds mingled, and the obstruction barring his brow's Spirit Womb Barrier vanished at once!
Qin Mu, gathering his strength, drove the Overlord Body Three-Pill Art, surging all his primal qi against the Spirit Womb Barrier!
AAAAH—
The Surging River's waters churned, great waves split the banks, and as the billows slapped the shore, his Spirit Womb Barrier gave off a single colossal whoosh and crumbled all at once, sending his primal qi pouring in a great torrent into the Spirit Womb Divine Treasury!
Then an even more violent tide gushed out of the Treasury, coursing in the blink of an eye through every limb and bone, even his skin and hair thrumming with qi, every strand on end!
The Spirit Womb Barrier—gone without a trace! The barrier had been broken!
Qin Mu was stunned. He ceased reciting the demonic sound, and the divine sound too abruptly vanished. Within the temple, the golden Buddha's holy sound, robbed of its opponent, fell silent. The image reverted to its still, motionless form, and beneath it lay the monster, refined into its death by the holy sound, sprawled limp and unmoving.
At his brow, the invisible wall that had blocked him from opening the Spirit Womb Divine Treasury at last dissolved, and the treasury was laid bare, no longer barred by anything!
"Did I really break through the barrier?"
Qin Mu could barely contain the wild joy in his chest, cheering before the temple.
He had drunk untold amounts of Four-Spirit Blood, and for the longest time his Overlord Body had not awakened. But now, by the combat of the three voices—deity, demon, and Buddha—he had burst through the barrier, and his small chest was filled to bursting.
Before long, Qin Mu grew calm. "Spirit Womb Barrier, Spirit Womb Divine Treasury—since it's a divine treasury, surely within it there are treasures left for me by a god…"
He closed his eyes and "saw" the radiant gold light at his brow. His consciousness cautiously "entered" this mysterious treasury, and found it a strange space filled everywhere with gleaming golden light, like some ancient and hallowed grotto-heaven. He dove deeper; the treasury was a sea of light, radiance stretching to every horizon, a realm of the immortals, nourishing his consciousness with comfort.
He flew through this sea of golden light for who knew how long, yet found nothing at all.
"Isn't this supposed to be the Spirit Womb Divine Treasury? Then why is there nothing inside? Did the god take away my treasure and leave?"
Qin Mu was mystified. All at once, he glimpsed, amid the light, a stone statue standing solitary and out of place.
"How could there be a stone statue here? Unless this is the treasury itself?"
Circling about the statue, Qin Mu's consciousness peered up and down, and only then noticed its strangeness. It was an illusion of his own; not carved of stone. This "stone statue" was like jade yet not jade, like stone yet not stone, crystal clear and translucent, yet it gave one a feeling of softness.
Most peculiar of all, its likeness bore a certain resemblance to himself—indeed, it looked more like Qin Mu as a babe, at the age of two or three!
"A statue of me in the treasury? Could it be that a god, knowing my appearance, carved my likeness and hid it within my Spirit Womb Divine Treasury?"
Qin Mu was baffled. His consciousness brushed gently against the statue, and suddenly, beyond his control, his consciousness streamed into it!