202: Chapter 202 Dual Cultivation of Buddhism and Taoism? The Azure Lotus Sword Transforms into a Deadly Ruler!

Li Bai was stunned for a moment.

He was a Sword Immortal.

His sword sought to take a person's head from a thousand miles away, seeking to be as fast as a meteor.

To ask him to abandon his sharp edge and pursue blunt destruction went against his way of the sword.

"There's only one chance." Newton glanced at the Black Mud Joan of Arc in the distance, who was currently charging energy. "Her next attack is a composite type; my gravitational field won't be able to stop it."

Li Bai fell silent.

He looked down at the green lotus sword in his hand.

The pale green blade had become somewhat dim under the erosion of the abyss.

"A heavy sword has no edge; great skill requires no carving..."

Li Bai gave a bitter laugh.

He unfastened the wine gourd from his waist that never left his side.

That was the source of his power and the symbol of the "Poet Immortal's" wild and unrestrained nature.

But in the next second, he let go.

The wine gourd fell and was instantly swallowed by the black mud.

Li Bai didn't give it another glance. He reined in all his wildness and sat cross-legged in mid-air.

At this moment, that sharp sword intent that could change the very sky and earth vanished.

In its place was an ancient, desolate silence that even carried a hint of compassion.

Green Lotus.

The world only knew of the Green Lotus Sword Song and only knew him as a Daoist Banished Immortal.

But they forgot that the words "Green Lotus," in Eastern culture, originally referred to an object before the Buddha.

"This humble Daoist... no, I have always loathed the ways of those bald donkeys most in my life."

Li Bai closed his eyes and formed an obscure hand seal in front of his chest.

"Talking about how the four elements are all empty, cultivating for blessings in the next life... one should enjoy life to the fullest while they can; why have so many rules and regulations?"

But the aura on his body changed.

The green immortal qi that originally swirled around him began to burn from within.

Golden flames erupted from his pores, illuminating his tattered green robes until they shone like cast gold.

"But if we are to discuss 'destruction' and 'nirvana'..."

Li Bai snapped his eyes open.

His pupils, which were originally clearly black and white, now turned into a solid color like molten gold.

"All that has form is illusory."

Buzz—!

The green lotus sword in his hand let out a mournful cry.

That was not a precursor to breaking, but the labor pains of transformation.

The originally light and slender blade rapidly expanded and widened within the golden light.

The elegant lotus patterns faded away, replaced by dense, even somewhat ferocious Sanskrit characters.

It was no longer a sword.

It was a ruler.

A discipline ruler to measure all the sins of the world and send all things back to nothingness.

"Wrathful Vajra." Li Bai's voice became grand and layered, as if countless monks were chanting in unison behind him.

In the distance.

On Black Mud Joan of Arc's expressionless face, a micro-expression called "confusion" appeared for the first time.

That was data that the logic of the abyss could not parse.

How could a Daoist Heroic Spirit erupt with such a pure Buddhist saint graph?

Threat.

An extreme threat.

Black Mud Joan of Arc raised the black command flag in her hand.

At this moment, she no longer held back.

"Roar—!!!"

The tens of thousands of black mud clones behind her roared simultaneously.

Half of the clones raised their swords and performed Li Bai's ultimate technique, [The Waters of the Yellow River Come from the Heavens].

Only, that water was black; it was the water of the River Styx, filled with corrosion and curses.

The other half of the clones raised their hands and created Newton's [Gravitational Singularity].

Hundreds of black singularities merged in the air, forming a super gravity collapse field with a diameter of over ten meters.

The black River Styx was sucked into the collapse field, accelerated by gravity, and turned into a high-energy jet capable of piercing the earth's crust, aimed straight at the cross-legged Li Bai.

This attack was enough to level a mountain range.

"Is it not ready yet?!"

Newton watched that world-destroying black torrent, his scalp tingling.

He turned to look at Li Bai, who was still gathering power.

The golden light behind the latter was condensing into a massive phantom of a Wrathful Vajra, but it clearly still needed a few seconds.

"Damned humanists, always so slow and inefficient!"

Newton cursed.

He did not retreat.

This scientist, who had discovered the Law of Universal Gravitation and built the edifice of classical mechanics, made a move that defied rationality.

He gripped the prism staff with both hands, held it high, and then slammed it heavily into the black mud beneath his feet.

Personal Skill—[Alchemy: B] activated.

This was not a simple transformation of matter.

This was a violent tampering with the "structure of matter."

"I hereby declare: mass is conserved, but the form—is defined by me!"

Newton's scholar's robes fluttered despite the lack of wind.

The black sludge within a hundred-meter radius beneath his feet stopped wriggling in this instant.

Gray light spread frantically along the ground.

The originally soft, viscous, and biologically active abyssal black mud had its internal structure instantly reorganized under the forced interference of the alchemical formula.

And it was transformed into a high-density substance that existed only in alchemical theory—[Philosopher's Stone: Solidified State].

Boom!!!

At the exact moment the black torrent struck, a ten-meter-thick crimson crystal wall rose from the ground.

This was a city wall built using the enemy's own body.

The sound of the impact was not as loud as imagined.

Because the sound was annihilated by the high-density energy collision at the moment of contact.

There was only light.

A blinding light of interwoven black and red.

Newton felt as if he had been hit head-on by a high-speed train.

That prism staff, which represented the core of his Mystic Code, was covered in cracks within the first second.

Pfft!

He opened his mouth and spat out a spray of blood, staining the crystal-clear wall in front of him red.

But he did not let go.

"Three seconds..."

Newton's seven orifices began to bleed, and his retinas were a sheet of blood-red due to congestion.

Under the scouring of the black torrent, the crystal wall was melting and crumbling at a speed visible to the naked eye.

One second.

The wall's thickness was reduced by half.

Two seconds.

The wall was left with only a layer as thin as window paper; Newton could even see Black Mud Joan of Arc's lifeless eyes.

"Move... for me!!!"

Newton let out a beast-like roar, desperately holding the line that was about to collapse.

At the moment the black torrent was about to swallow Newton.

A hand.

A hand wreathed in golden flames pressed down on Newton's shoulder.

"Good work, Sir."

That voice was no longer wild, but carried a heart-stopping majesty.

Li Bai had already stood up.

That hundred-zhang-tall phantom of the Wrathful Vajra completely overlapped with Li Bai's body.

The "Green Lotus Discipline Ruler" in Li Bai's hand, which had grown to the size of a door panel, was slowly raised above his head.

There were no fancy sword moves.

There was no complex chanting.

He simply struck down at the Fallen Saintess holding the black flag ahead.

This strike did not cut the flesh.

It only severed karma.

"Precept Breaker: Red Lotus Karmic Fire."

Boom—!!!

On the trajectory where the green lotus sword fell, space did not shatter.

Instead, a massive golden symbol appeared.

swastika

This symbol, which in Buddhism represents auspiciousness and infinity, as well as destruction and rebirth, carried the irresistible concept of "Nirvana" and imprinted itself onto that black holy flag.

Time seemed to freeze at this moment.

[Luminosité Eternelle] in Black Mud Joan of Arc's hand, that Noble Phantasm claimed to be the absolute defense which had once blocked countless attacks, froze the moment it touched that golden "swastika" symbol.

It wanted to absorb.

It wanted to transform.

But this time, what flooded in was not energy.

It was "Emptiness."

It was "Nothingness."

It was a domineering logic that forced everything to return to zero.

The devouring law of the abyss encountered the nirvana law of Buddhism.

It was a void even greedier than a black hole.

Crack.