"Ruin your cultivation, ruin your merit?"
Qin Mu laughed coldly and slashed at the remaining chains. "You are nothing but a bronze-bodied statue — where does your merit come from? Your great merit is to pin Wu Nu here while she devours people right in front of you, and you do nothing. If you had any merit, you would have squandered it all long ago!"
The great Buddha's body shuddered. Blood-veined patterns on its bronze surface blazed with light, reflected by the gold leaf outside into a resplendent golden radiance. Its voice rumbled from deep within: "Do you know that if you release it, how many people it will devour, how many lives it will destroy?"
"I only know that countless bones lie hidden behind you, and it has used you as a cover to do evil. I have seen nothing you have ever done." Qin Mu severed the second chain and sneered, "Beyond this temple the ice tide rages — it erupts several times a year. What have you ever done about it? That is merit — not sitting in a temple while caging one demon. And you even let the demon feed on people. Shatter the ice, save the common folk downstream — then you would have true merit!"
The golden Buddha blazed brighter. Its hands moved, as though it might rise to life. Wu Nu shrieked in terror: "This old bald donkey is an evil Buddha! It's going to refine me to death — hurry!"
Qin Mu's feet were a blur. He flashed out of the temple and drove the Shao Bao Sword toward the chains outside.
"The evil of all beings must be cleansed by a great flood, so that wickedness is washed away. This is the fruit of the karma they created."
Boom.
A violent tremor shook the earth as the bronze Buddha stood, its head smashing through the ancient roof. Its voice cracked the sky: "You, heretic — dare destroy the Buddha's dharma? Irredeemable wretch!"
The chains binding both the bronze Buddha and Wu Nu suddenly seemed to come alive, whistling through the air as they lashed toward Qin Mu.
"All your Buddhist dharma saves people only to save yourselves — not because saving lives is its own end. Hypocrite."
Qin Mu vaulted aside to dodge a chain's coiling reach and drove the Shao Bao Sword at the final chain. "Back when you imprisoned Wu Nu, if you had killed it, that could have counted as merit. But you chose to cage it and let it feed on people. The people it devoured are its sin, but their blood should be on your head — not its merit, but yours!"
Clink—
The Shao Bao Sword struck the chain. A colossal force rebounded through the blade, sending the sword spinning away.
Qin Mu grunted and stumbled back to avoid two black, serpent-like chains. He sneered: "You sit inside your temple while floods rage outside, and rather than saving anyone, you block me from doing so — and you still dream of merit? Let me tell you: the old folk of my village go out every year to fight the ice tide, to save the lives of commoners, beasts, and birds downstream. If merit alone could make a Buddha, every one of them would already be a golden-bodied Buddha — not a clay idol in bronze plating!"
"Blasphemy!"
The bronze Buddha towered enormous. It lifted a foot and the ground shook as it strode out of the ruined temple. Palms together, its voice clanged like iron on iron — a flood of golden light erupted, blasting Qin Mu backward!
Every bone in Qin Mu's body rang. Before he landed, chains were already closing around him.
His feet danced from chain to chain, running along their length as he drove the Shao Bao Sword by qi, flicking it at the final chain that bound Wu Nu.
The chains snaked like titans, crisscrossing the air, striking at Qin Mu in a dizzying barrage. The bronze Buddha, though forged of yellow brass, moved with inhuman swiftness — a thing that defied all reason.
Earlier it could not tell Qin Mu apart from Wu Nu: a single word of demonic language would trigger its Buddhist true-words to refine the demon. Now, with Qin Mu trying to free Wu Nu, the Buddha fought him with deadly intent.
Massive chains wove through the sky. Qin Mu rode one, dodging the strikes of the rest. The force the Buddha transmitted through the chains grew stronger by the moment; the friction set them vibrating until his legs went numb and his control of the Shao Bao Sword wavered.
The bronze Buddha's power was rising — as though some boundless force within it was awakening by degrees.
Grandma Si and the Cripple had both spoken of this bronze Buddha, saying there was something uncanny about it. Grandma Si had once tried to kill Wu Nu, only to be stopped by the Buddha. She had failed.
Grandma Si was extraordinarily powerful. If even she could not destroy Wu Nu, then once the Buddha's power fully awakened, it must be truly terrifying.
And now that power was stirring.
Even a fraction of it was beyond Qin Mu's ability to resist.
At that moment a sound like mountains collapsing split the air. The ice tide, rolling down from upstream, had finally arrived. Towering icebergs, pushed by the surging current, rose dozens of zhang high and appeared before the oasis — behind Qin Mu.
Qin Mu was swallowed in shadow. He glanced back: countless ice blocks, squeezed and tumbled, surged up the face of the iceberg, then cascaded down the other side to be crushed beneath the water, while fresh ice took their place.
This ice tide ground forward relentlessly. The corpses it had carried were crushed beyond recognition, leaving only churning mountains of ice that would smash everything before them.
"Begone—"
The bronze Buddha seemed to sense the danger approaching. Ignoring Qin Mu, it spread its arms and shoved against the oncoming ice.
Gong—
A great golden bell of light materialized around the oasis, shielding it.
The first wave of ice struck the bell with a deafening clang, shattering on impact. Each block that hit sent ripples of golden light radiating outward — a spectacle both magnificent and terrible.
Then the full tide hit. The roar was like a thousand thunderbolts splitting the sky, the golden bell's chimes blending into the din. Heaven's force collided with the Buddha's divine arts, the earth trembling, the oasis rocking as though it might sink at any moment.
The ice tide, dammed by the oasis and its golden bell, piled higher. On either side the ice flowed past the island, but directly ahead it stacked ever higher, threatening to overtop it.
Clang.
Chains lashed out at Qin Mu. The bronze Buddha still had strength to spare — chains flew like serpents, chasing him without mercy. At the same time the Buddha moved, its body producing a grinding metallic clamor as its palms struck the inner walls of the golden bell, reinforcing it.
The chains wrapped around Wu Nu were attached to the Buddha. As it moved they whipped through the air toward Qin Mu, dragging Wu Nu — in her guise as the little girl Xian Qing'er — stumbling behind. She tripped and fell, her face scraped and bruised, looking pitiful.
Qin Mu stood on a chain and at once felt the Buddha's strength diminish. Seizing the chance, he slashed with the Shao Bao Sword. Clang — the final chain shattered.
Wu Nu stared, stunned, then lifted her arms. Golden rings still encircled her wrists, broken chains dangling beneath them. Her face lit with equal parts shock and joy.
Golden rings also bound her ankles, attached to severed chain lengths.
"Don't gape — move!" Qin Mu roared, lunging toward her.
Wu Nu threw back her head and laughed — a shrill, piercing sound. Her body swelled violently, the skin of Xian Qing'er tearing away in strips to reveal her true form beneath: a hundred-legged demon armored in bone. She cried, "Boy, jump on! I'll get us out!"
Qin Mu landed on her back. The great demon charged forward, bone armor gleaming, dragging golden rings and broken chains as she hurtled toward the rear of the oasis. Her legs pistoned beneath her, then she launched into the air, her long body undulating, a hundred legs pumping as she tore toward the wall of the golden bell.
"Wretched thing — you are my merit. You think you can flee?"
The bronze Buddha turned. Its massive brass hand clawed at the air behind them. Golden rings and chains rattled and streamed backward. The chains on the Buddha's own body rose, reaching to reconnect with the broken links.
Wu Nu's hair stood on end as the pull yanked her backward. The force from her ankle chains was enormous, dragging her relentlessly back.
Wu Nu dug in all hundred legs, clawing forward, but still slid back inch by inch.
Qin Mu was about to drive the sword by qi to cut the rings from her limbs when a thread-thin flash of light pierced the golden bell and lanced between the bronze Buddha's eyes.
The Buddha roared and clawed at its own face. Wu Nu felt the chains go slack and bolted. A few great strides launched her clear of the bell's confines. She hit the water's surface and fled.
Behind them the bronze Buddha's roars went on and on. The golden bell collapsed. A mountainous wall of ice surged in, engulfing the oasis, the Buddha, and the ancient temple in an instant — flattening the island entirely.
"You and I have no quarrel..."
The bronze Buddha's furious shout was cut short as the ice tide drove it and the island together into the river, crushing them beneath the surface.