"What is happening to the sky?"
"Ah, Great Buddha! What is that immense thing?"
"A massive demon! We are being attacked!"
On Mount Xumi, the tranquility of the morning was not just broken—it was violently incinerated. Countless pilgrims, moments ago filled with serene devotion, now trembled with a terror that transcended mere physical fear.
They looked up in horror, sensing the light of the benevolent sun being snuffed out as the sky above their sacred mountain abruptly blackened. The atmosphere, thick with the scent of pine and incense, was suddenly overlaid with a suffocating, ancient miasma of demonic power.
A series of powerful, resonant shouts, thick with spiritual energy and years of Buddhist cultivation, pierced the encroaching darkness. A brilliant, defiant Buddha's light erupted from the main temple, spreading outwards to briefly repel the monstrous shadow.
As the oppressive demonic haze was momentarily pushed back, the terrified believers and the rushing monks could finally make out the source of the dread: a gargantuan white fox, crowned with nine magnificent, furious tails, radiating an aura so ancient and chilling it felt like pure, unadiluted calamity.
"It is the Nine-tailed Heavenly Fox!" gasped one of the younger disciples, pointing a trembling finger.
"By the holy light! It was rumored that the Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox, long suppressed beneath the Xuanhuo Altar in Fenxiang Valley, had escaped just days ago. But why—why would it immediately make a direct assault upon our Tianyin Temple?"
The question hung heavy in the air, weighted by confusion and alarm. "Does our noble Buddhist sect harbor some unknown grudge against this fiend? Why attack us the moment it achieves freedom?"
The highest authorities of the temple—Abbot Puhong, his face a mask of solemn readiness, flanked by the equally formidable senior monks, Pukong and Pude—flew out to intercept the colossal creature. They assessed the charging Dabai, confusion warring with duty in their ancient eyes.
"Subduing such monstrous evil is the greatest of merits," Abbot Puhong declared, his voice deep and steady, intended to reassure the thousands of kneeling believers below. "Today, we must subdue this evildoer and restore the tranquility of the Way!"
"Brother Abbot, your words are righteous and true," Pukong and Pude affirmed, placing their palms together. A vast, terrifying surge of magical power erupted from all three masters.
The Buddha's light intensified, becoming a blinding, golden canopy that inspired the multitude of faithful on Mount Xumi to drop to their knees in renewed, fervent prayer.
BOOM!
The next moment, Dabai hit the protective boundary of Mount Xumi. The three peerless monks—Puhong, Pukong, and Pude—immediately formed a defensive triad, their combined magical power surging outwards with the intent to halt the fox.
However, though the monks were among the strongest figures in the entire world, Dabai's own cultivation, the result of over a thousand years of practice, was equally formidable.
Crucially, Dabai had no intention of engaging in a protracted, exhausting spiritual debate with the powerful monks. Her only mission, delivered by the tiny golden creature nestled in her fur, was one of surgical speed and distraction. She utilized her terrifying momentum and superior agility, aiming straight past them, toward the mountain's peak.
"Halt, fiend!" Puhong roared, pouring his life force into his defense. The three masters instantly condensed a massive, glittering mantra of the Buddha-word, a golden shield designed to crush and contain the demonic beast.
But the mantra was too slow. Dabai, relying on her speed, merely sidestepped the bulk of the formation, shattering the edges as she sped past. She was heading directly for the most sacred and secretive place in the whole temple: the Wordless Jade Wall on the back mountain.
This Jade Wall was a massive slab, over seven meters high, polished to an unnatural, mirror-like smoothness. Legend held that it was here, before this blank, jade canvas, that the founder of Tianyin Temple had achieved ultimate Buddhist realization, founding the entire sect upon the profound emptiness revealed there. It was the heart of the temple's spiritual lineage.
Dabai flew onward, following the precise, non-negotiable mental map given to her by Lord Pig. She knew the object of the raid was the Wordless Jade Wall.
Lord Pig had informed her that the Wall needed a very specific, overwhelming external trigger—namely, the power of Divine Thunder—to reveal the contents of the Fourth Volume of the Heavenly Book hidden within it.
The back mountain of Tianyin Temple was a vision of spiritual beauty: verdant peaks, bizarre and striking rock formations, and sheer cliffs where roaring waterfalls descended like silken white ribbons.
Dabai followed the hidden pathways and soared across the gorges, soon arriving at the base of the towering cliff face where the Wordless Jade Wall stood.
"Oh no! That fiendish creature is targeting the Wordless Jade Bi!"
Puhong and his companions were filled with mounting horror and anxiety. To allow a demon to destroy or desecrate the Wordless Jade Bi would be an unforgivable sin against the temple and their lineage. They accelerated, golden light radiating furiously from their bodies as they tried to condense their magical power into pure, righteous suppression, desperate to overtake the fox.
"Foul fox! Where do you think you are going?!"
Suddenly, the sky above the chasing monks was cleaved by a sound that made their thousand-year-old heads reel. It was a loud, impossibly arrogant shout, followed by a terrifying, sharp spiritual presence that surpassed even their own powerful auras. The newly condensed Buddha-word mantra they were shaping violently shook and dimmed, collapsing entirely under the sheer shockwave of the voice.
"Who… who dares interrupt the righteous pursuit of the holy Buddhist path?" Puhong stammered, his eyes wide as he looked up in alarm, as did Pukong and Pude.
They saw an impossible sight: a spiritual beast, resembling a tiny bear but radiating a terrifying golden divine light, hurtling toward them. It wielded a miniature, yet utterly devastating sword that made their spiritual senses scream in alarm. Behind it, two golden wings, humming with the destructive power of wind and thunder, beat the air into submission.
It was, of course, the grand architect of this chaos, Lord Pig.
"Out of the way! Allow Lord Pig to demonstrate the proper method for dispatching a fleeing scoundrel!"
Puhong and his companions, feeling the overwhelming aura and the devastating sharpness of the miniature sword—a sharpness that seemed to cut through the very essence of existence—instinctively retreated. Surprise and a sudden, terrible recognition dawned in their eyes.
"Could this possibly be… the Qingyun Sect's legendary Great-Grand-Uncle, Lord Pig?"
"And the sword he holds—is that truly the dreaded Zhuxian Sword of legend?"
The news of a powerful, mysterious, and highly unconventional Great-Grand-Uncle emerging from Qingyun Sect had indeed reached the ears of Tianyin Temple, given their close alliance. However, seeing the legendary savior of the righteous path in the form of a tiny, arrogant, golden pig, utilizing a magnificent, escaped nine-tailed fox as his bait, was a level of surrealism that even their enlightened minds struggled to process.
"Nine Heavens Mysterious Blade, transform into divine thunder!"
Lord Pig utterly ignored their internal crisis and their presence. He pointed the terrifying Zhu Xian Sword toward the heavens, his tiny mouth expertly chanting the complex, ancient mantra of the Divine Sword Controlling Thunder Technique.
In an instant, the skies above Mount Xumi twisted into a chaotic, terrifying maelstrom. The previously dark clouds began to spin into a gargantuan vortex, thunder rumbled with the sound of a thousand mountains collapsing, and lightning began to flash within the swirling blackness, as if the very cosmos had been provoked into divine, incandescent fury.
An overwhelming, suffocating blanket of darkness enveloped the entire sacred mountain. A violent, oppressive atmosphere, thick with the smell of ozone and impending doom, settled over the world.
"This is the Qingyun Sect's signature thunder technique! Everyone, retreat immediately!"
Abbot Puhong, a peerless master whose strength rivaled that of the legendary Daoxuan, felt his face drain of all color. He knew the technique intimately. The Divine Sword Controlling Thunder Technique, the ultimate protective spell of the leading righteous sect, was capable of truly devastating, world-shattering power.
The efficacy of the spell depended entirely on the strength of the caster. When channeled by an entity as potent and unconventional as Lord Pig, the resulting thunder would be majestic, catastrophic, and potentially the most powerful manifestation of the technique in history.
"With this level of thunder, the entire back mountain will be instantaneously flattened!" Puhong thought, his heart sinking with the weight of utter helplessness.
He retreated further, dragging his companions with him, putting as much distance between them and the pig as possible. He feared being caught in the blast, but more urgently, he feared the destruction of their sacred site.
"Lord Pig, please! I beg of you! Do not destroy this sacred ground!" Puhong cried out, his voice hoarse with genuine distress. He wanted to rush forward and try to stop the pig, but the sheer, agonizing spiritual pressure radiating from the nascent thunder vortex paralyzed him. He was utterly powerless to intervene.
"This secret art of controlling lightning with the Divine Sword is truly phenomenal!"
This was Lord Pig's first field-test of the technique. A shimmering golden shield—a perfect amalgamation of thunder magic and the inherent power of heaven and earth—formed around his body, sealing him off from external attack while he focused on the spell. He tested the shield mentally.
Its defense was absolutely impeccable, perhaps even stronger than the destructive power of the attack itself. Unless an opponent was catastrophically stronger than Lord Pig—an impossible scenario, in his estimation—the shield could not be broken.
The sky screamed. Lightning flashed relentlessly, and the thunder roared a continuous barrage. Countless believers and low-level monks on Mount Xumi fell to their knees, weeping and praying to Buddha, believing this to be the very manifestation of heavenly punishment.
RROOOOOMMMMM!
Deep within the churning, endless vortex of thunderclouds, a gigantic, terrifying bolt of lightning materialized. It twisted and coalesced into a purple thunder dragon, a column of pure, concentrated energy as thick as a barrel, roaring down from the zenith of the sky and plunging directly into the miniature Zhuxian Sword.
The sword instantly lit up with an incandescent, blinding light. It no longer looked like a sword but like a pure weapon of divine thunder, crackling with arcs of lightning that were unspeakably terrifying.
"Hiss… is this the power of the Qingyun sect-defining thunder technique? It's truly horrifying!"
Even Dabai, who was actively working with Lord Pig, felt a deep, instinctive terror. She knew, with soul-deep certainty, that a single strike from this force would erase her millennium of cultivation in an instant.
"Ahhh, that is delightfully crisp and numb! Marvelous!"
The primary charge of the divine thunder was channeled into the Zhuxian Sword, but a significant fraction of its power escaped, flowing directly into Lord Pig's incredibly powerful body. This was the inherent risk of the technique: if the caster's physical body wasn't strong enough, the backlash would atomize them before the spell could even be launched.
But Lord Pig's body was built for divine punishment. The lightning was not a weapon against him, but a glorious, tingling infusion of pure celestial energy.
"Lord Pig, I implore you! In the name of all that is sacred, please stop using your magical powers!"
Puhong's plea was desperate, bordering on a wail. His eyes were watering from the sheer force of the energy. If this thunderbolt struck anything, their revered Mount Xumi would likely be reduced to a pile of smoking rubble.
BOOM! CRACK!
Lord Pig ignored them entirely. All he saw was the swirling wind and the rolling clouds. As the massive energy peaked, a dazzling golden-red light erupted from the Wordless Jade Wall.
And then, it happened. On the impossibly smooth jade surface, a line of gigantic characters began to form from top to bottom, one by one, as if etched by a divine hand. Concurrently, countless smaller, ancient, and incomprehensible golden fonts danced wildly across the jade, flickering like boiling gold in the oppressive darkness.
But the main row of characters stood out, clear, distinct, and absolute:
"Heaven and earth are unkind and treat all things as straw dogs!"
A cool, electronic voice chimed into Lord Pig's consciousness, confirming his success:
"The Fourth Volume of the Heavenly Book has been discovered. It costs 1,000 Energy and Experience Points to collect it!"
Lord Pig smiled, immensely pleased with the dramatic success of his little library raid. He had his treasure, and the monks of Tianyin Temple had an excellent new story to tell about the day a flying pig nearly incinerated their temple to update his personal digital encyclopedia.