Chapter 566 – The Dauntless Guardian King (1/2)

The many disciples outside the hall were all shocked and dumbfounded. Even the head monks were completely taken aback, at a loss over why the abbot had become so wrathful.

The Dauntless Monk launched a powerful strike like a god splitting open a mountain. No one could stop him.

Has he been secretly observing the entire time and seen through Xiao An’s Path of White Bone and Great Beauty, which is why he’s suddenly trying to kill her?

Li Qingshan rushed into the grand hall, but it was already too late.

Boom! A wave of air gushed through the hall, producing a hollow whistle as it sent Li Qingshan flying out!

“Xiao An!”

Li Qingshan was utterly furious. The Dauntless Monk’s strike was so powerful that he could even crush a mountain. Xiao An’s Path of White Bone and Great Beauty was powerful, but her cultivation was still low after all, so how could she withstand that?

Overcome with rage, he no longer cared about anything. He was about to revert to his original form and throw his life at the Dauntless Monk.

“Don’t!”

Suddenly, a voice rang out in his head. It came from Xiao An. Li Qingshan calmed down immediately.

Even if the Dauntless Monk noticed something, he would not launch a surprise attack like this as a man of his bearing. He could easily denounce her publicly before taking action and subduing her. They were in the Chan Monastery of Deva-Nāga. Even if there were ten Xiao Ans and a Li Qingshan, it would be useless.

Earlier, Li Qingshan had only been mentally perturbed due to his concern. Once he calmed down, he immediately realised how strange it was.

The violent winds settled down. The colossal, pillar-like vajra stopped above Xiao An’s head, and the surging hostility vanished completely, like going from a storm to clear skies in a single instant.

It felt very abrupt, but that only demonstrated that the Dauntless Monk’s control over his power had already reached a highly intricate level, and it also showed he had not used his full strength.

Xiao An sat on the cushion, her expression as blank as ever. Her seaweed like hair drifted with the wind, and she did not even lean back. She stared ahead with a hollow gaze, completely ignoring the huge vajra. She had basically reached the epitome of being unfazed by no matter what happened before her.

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll kill you?” The three-hundred-meter-tall guardian king gazed at the tiny Xiao An. The wrath on his face vanished as he opened his lips and spoke with a booming voice, echoing through the entire grand hall.

“If you want to kill me, I can’t stop you, so fear is useless. If you don’t want to kill me, then why would I fear?” Xiao An said calmly.

The Dauntless Monk asked. However, the true objective behind his strike earlier was not to test whether Xiao An possessed great courage and whether she was suitable for learning the Dauntless Scripture of the Guardian King.

The talent and ability to comprehend that Xiao An had demonstrated was unbelievably high. Even in his youth, he was nowhere close to her. As a matter of fact, it was even possible for her to be the most outstanding disciple of the monastery throughout history. However, there was something he could not make out within her hollow gaze, which caused him hints of fear and alarm.

Her entire being was like a cluster of nothingness. He was unable to tell what she desired, let alone reach her disposition. If someone like that devoted themselves to buddhism, then they would definitely become an eminent monk of buddhism, but if they possessed demonic thoughts, then no one could stop the misfortunes they could cause. As a result, he took action to test her.

Apart from purging daemons and demons, the demon-subduing vajra that the Dauntless Monk had swung possessed the power to subdue demonic thoughts. This move was called “A Blow and a Shout,” a secret technique within chan buddhism. If her demonic thoughts were weak, then they would directly collapse from the blow. If they were too powerful, then they would be triggered and revealed, allowing him to see what her disposition was like.

TL: A blow and a shout is an actual thing in Chinese buddhism. It’s basically the master of a monk using a staff to smack his disciple over the head while shouting out, serving as a sudden warning or a reminder for disciples of buddhism. The origin of this story is basically a monk called Lin Ji, who was studying under chan master Huangbo. Lin Ji asked the chan master what buddhism was about, only to be met with a blow over the head from the chan master. Lin Ji put up with the pain and asked again, only for the same thing to happen again. This happened three times before Lin Ji shut up and went to study the buddhist texts himself, becoming enlightened as a result. Of course, the meaning of the phrase has deviated from its origins, so I wouldn’t say to think too much about it.

However, the end result left the Dauntless Monk rather disappointed. He did not sense any demonic thoughts at all, as if he had just struck air. Was her heart truly without even the slightest hint of wickedness or malice? But that was completely impossible. Only recently-born infants who were not even self-conscious yet could achieve that. Once they grew a little older, greed and a combative drive would arise naturally.

Or perhaps the cultivation of her mind had reached that stage?

Even the abbot of the Chan Monastery of Deva-Nāga, the Dauntless Monk, was unable to imagine what overwhelming effect the Path of White Bone and Great Beauty had on her mentally. Even Li Qingshan still possessed influence over her only because of the impressions left behind in the past, which made her behave a little more “human”.

Other times, she was a skeleton with no appearance or sense of self, neither dead nor alive. She did not fall into the concept of good or evil, wrong or right, so what demonic thoughts were there to subdue?

Since his test had resulted in nothing, the Dauntless Monk could only accept the fact that a genius like her existed in the world. He guessed that she might have been the reincarnation of some eminent monk, only behaving in such a peculiar way due to the influence of her past life. This was without a doubt the most logical explanation. Whenever the world was thrown into chaos, prodigies would always emerge en masse. Even if there was something wrong with her, he only needed to give her some proper guidance, and he was confident she could return to the correct path.