Chapter 4100: The Obsession of Buddha Kasyapa
"What is the concealment formation concealing?"
Zhang Ruochen wanted to use the methods of the Way of Truth to peer into it, but there were no Truth Rules he could mobilize here, so he had to give up.
He observed the starry sky around him once more.
Gradually, a strange expression appeared on Zhang Ruochen's face. He murmured to himself, "This is... this is the *River Chart*! No, it should be said that the fifty-five black and white dots on the *River Chart* are a summary and conclusion of the starry sky scene here."
When Zhang Ruochen first saw the *River Chart* in the Destiny Temple, he had been completely immersed in it, as if entering another universe. The starry sky in the chart was boundless, with every star moving according to specific laws, containing endless changes.
The starry sky he saw now was not exactly the same as the one he had entered through the artistic conception of the *River Chart* back then.
The starry sky here had thick, colorful star mist, a thousand or ten thousand times more complex than the artistic conception of the *River Chart*, and also more real.
If one observed carefully, every star seemed to have a tail, connected to the nebula by one or several faint lines. Zhang Ruochen could only see this because his consciousness and thoughts were powerful.
In the past, it would have been impossible to detect.
Zhang Ruochen's face was bitter, and he laughed mockingly: "*River Chart*, *River Chart*, no wonder it's called the *River Chart*. So this is the fundamental operating rule—every star is connected to a river. Isn't this the Santu River? If the Santu River was created by the Nether Ancestor, then isn't the *River Chart* the Nether Ancestor's Dao?"
The changes in Zhang Ruochen's Wuji Divine Dao, after the Five Elements, were derived by referencing the *River Chart* and the *Luo Book*.
The *Luo Book* was created by Empress Wa, and its greatness goes without saying.
Since the *River Chart* originated from the Nether Ancestor, how could Zhang Ruochen sever his connection to Him?
Zhang Ruochen followed the dotted lines in the starry sky toward the direction where they converged, wanting to find the end of the "river."
Along the way, he saw a corner of the star chart that was identical to the "Undying Curse Method" engraved in the Heavenly Venerable Hall beneath the ground of Xinghuantian.
So, the method of immortality that Xinghuantian Heavenly Venerable had sought, and what Jiusi Yitianhuang and the Great Demon God had cultivated back then, were merely a corner of the *River Chart*.
The *River Chart* was too simplified, making it difficult for anyone to comprehend the Dao method.
The "Undying Curse Method" was too incomplete.
Fortunately, the "Undying Curse Method" was detailed enough that Jiusi Yitianhuang and the Great Demon God had used it to live nine lives and comprehend many divine abilities and techniques.
Even Xinghuantian Heavenly Venerable, upon obtaining the "Undying Curse Method," had created the peerless divine ability of the Thousand Star String of Pearls.
Zhang Ruochen didn't know how much time had passed before he finally saw the end of all the "rivers" in the starry sky.
There, as Ji Fanxin had said back then, were the Heaven and Earth Rules from the Primordial Era.
The ancient and unique Heaven and Earth Rules merged with the pitch-black Nether Mist, forming both the end of all "rivers" and the edge of space.
Standing before the oppressive Nether Mist, even without a physical body, Zhang Ruochen felt a chill. He pondered inwardly whether to continue forward.
The Nether Mist was definitely dangerous, most likely left behind by the Nether Ancestor, possibly containing the power of curses. His consciousness body certainly couldn't withstand it.
"The Nether Ancestor must have stayed here for a long time. This is just residual Qi. Perhaps, after that battle back then, He hid here to heal his wounds."
"Many questions already have answers. There's no need to continue taking risks."
Zhang Ruochen took a step back, about to leave.
"Hum!"
A Sanskrit sound came from the depths of the Nether Mist, like a great bell or a massive drum.
"Hum" was one of the Six True Words of Buddhism.
Zhang Ruochen turned his head to look.
He saw the oppressive Nether Mist disperse, revealing the space ahead.
The starry sky ahead was actually missing a piece.
The gap was irregular, as if someone had knocked it out.
Although the darkness behind the gap was absolute, revealing nothing, the painting Zhang Ruochen had been searching for all along appeared before his eyes.
This painting emitted a faint golden light, merging with the nebula in the starry sky, containing an ancient and distant Buddhist essence.
Part of the painting was in the starry sky, and part floated at the gap.
It was like a piece of paper patching the hole.
"It's the aura of Buddha Kasyapa." If Zhang Ruochen had his physical body here, he would surely be in tears.
He had finally unraveled all the truths.
Without a doubt, this place was not another universe, nor an independent starry sky, but the interior of the Void Cauldron.
The stone door earlier was the cauldron's mouth.
His current location was the bottom of the cauldron.
The gap in the starry sky before him, if Zhang Ruochen wasn't mistaken, was the material of the God-Defying Stele that had been knocked off.
All the starry sky was the inner wall of the Void Cauldron.
The familiar aura Zhang Ruochen had sensed before entering the Strange Domain was probably the aura of the same origin as the God-Defying Stele.
The reason he hadn't discovered this when he came here last time was purely because the Nether Ancestor or Corpse Yan had used means to conceal the essence of the Void Cauldron.
Also, because his cultivation was too low back then.
Without a doubt, the concealment formation inscriptions here were meant to hide all of this.
If not for the Sanskrit sound and the retreat of the Nether Mist, even with the power of Zhang Ruochen's consciousness body, he still wouldn't have discovered the truth.
"I should have guessed it earlier. What else could hide in the Strange Domain without being destroyed, other than the Void Cauldron? Other materials, even an Ancestor, couldn't withstand it. The other Nine Cauldrons would have been blasted away by the energy from the Singularity Point's eruption, or shattered into pieces."
"So, I had already entered the Void Cauldron long ago! As long as the inscriptions are strong enough, even the Void Cauldron can't be worn away. The Nether Ancestor is truly terrifying."
Looking at the painting before him, Zhang Ruochen was filled with a mix of emotions.
This was the legendary *White Stone Enlightenment Painting*.
There were too many legends and allusions about this painting in Buddhism.
Some said that Buddha Kasyapa sat on a white stone, enlightening all beings; others said that Buddha Kasyapa enlightened a white stone, helping it attain the Dao.
In fact, Zhang Ruochen had long suspected that the Heavenly Demon, the Second Confucian Ancestor, and the Great Venerable might be searching for the *White Stone Enlightenment Painting*, which was why he had regarded Lady Shiji as the prime suspect.
Now he understood that all the rumors were wrong.
The so-called *White Stone Enlightenment Painting* was an image of the Buddha imprinted on the Void Cauldron. And the Void Cauldron was a white stone cauldron, not the legendary bronze cauldron.
In the painting.
Buddha Kasyapa sat by the bank of the final section of all the "rivers" in the starry sky, draped in a kasaya, hands clasped together, as if preaching. Zhang Ruochen couldn't tell if it was the legendary white-bone form; he could only see a mass of sacred light.
A lotus flower floated in the river.
He couldn't tell what kind of lotus it was, only its general shape, extremely blurry.
"On the third day, enlightenment; on the tenth day, attaining the Dao; on the sixteenth day, the moon wanes and the Nether arises. Waxing and waning are all fixed numbers. A single thought of good or evil is ultimately hard to cross."
"Thus, gathering the world's delusions as a void soul, using the mud of origin to cast its body, taking my own soul to paint, forging the Void Divine Cauldron to suppress the Three Paths. This humble monk, with the remaining years of his life, makes a great vow: my Buddha is imperishable, the Void Cauldron endures forever."
Lines of Buddha's Sanskrit text complemented the painting in the starry sky, eternal and indestructible.
The so-called "mud of origin" was the first batch of earth-attribute matter born after the opening of heaven and earth.
This batch of matter was born from the void, naturally containing the attribute of nothingness.
Only such matter could forge the Void Cauldron.
How could Zhang Ruochen not understand the cause and effect?
Back then, Buddha Kasyapa must have enlightened that lotus, allowing it to gain humanity and understand cultivation. But something happened later, and that lotus chose the latter between good and evil.
It was very likely related to the Santu River and immortality.
Buddha Kasyapa wanted to save Him but failed. He might even have wanted to eliminate Him, but He had grown to a point where even Buddha Kasyapa could do nothing.
Buddha Kasyapa gathered the six desires of the human world to refine the Mani Pearl, in order to suppress Him.
Finally, he chose to forge the Void Cauldron to suppress the Santu River.
And he used his own Ancestor's divine soul to paint, using all his remaining lifespan to make a great vow, clearly foreseeing the future, thus leaving clues for later cultivators.
This painting was both a warning to future generations and a self-reproach painting.
Because the source of everything, the fault of everything, was caused by him.
Zhang Ruochen even suspected that the Immovable Bright King Great Venerable had already known a fragment of the truth back then, which was why he had sent Xumi Saint Monk to Haishi Xingwu to find the Eternal Flower, to serve as the artifact spirit of the Mirror of Fate, hoping to use the power of destiny to peer into the past and future.
To find answers in the past and future.
Unfortunately, the Great Venerable probably didn't know much, and what Xumi Saint Monk found was only the Qishier Pin Lian representing "time" and the Chaos Lotus representing "space."
How could destiny peer into the Nether Ancestor?
Even the Destiny Ancestor couldn't do it.
The Great Venerable naturally failed as well.
"It seems the Nether Ancestor is not all-powerful. At least, He couldn't erase the painting left by Buddha Kasyapa, nor destroy the Void Cauldron."
The Nether Ancestor must have tried many times to erase the *White Stone Enlightenment Painting*, to completely sever His past.
That was why this painting was extremely blurry.
But this painting was formed by Buddha Kasyapa using his own divine soul, equivalent to sacrificing himself. After endless years, the Nether Ancestor still couldn't erase it.
This showed how powerful Buddha Kasyapa was in life, his divine soul will likely ranking among the top in the entire history of the universe.
"This piece of the God-Defying Stele must have fallen off long ago, shattered by the Nether Ancestor Himself, in an attempt to destroy the *White Stone Enlightenment Painting*. But He found that even knocking off a piece of the Void Cauldron, the painting remained indestructible."
"Setting up the concealment formation inscriptions, covering the cauldron's wall with His own Dao, was just to hide all of this."
"Perhaps, when I went to Taichu to cultivate the First-rank Divine Path, Buddha Kasyapa had already perceived my existence. So when I came here, the Sanskrit sound suddenly rang out, and the *White Stone Enlightenment Painting* automatically appeared."
"No, there's a big problem here!"
Suddenly thinking of something, Zhang Ruochen murmured to himself, "The Nether Ancestor is such a powerful existence. Just by transmitting a corner of His Dao method, He allowed the Great Demon God to cultivate to the Ancestor Realm. Why would He fear a painting? Why would He go to great lengths to erase it, hide it, and destroy it?"
In Zhang Ruochen's view, the Nether Ancestor should be fearless.
Perhaps only the great calamity of heaven and earth's destruction could move Him.
Unless this painting hid a secret that made Him afraid.
Zhang Ruochen looked again at the painting in the void and noticed a peculiarity.
Behind Buddha Kasyapa was a city pass.
A city pass in a painting was not strange in itself.
But if this painting was drawn by an Ancestor who sacrificed his divine soul and lifespan, then nothing on the painting could be useless.
"Biluo Pass! Why would it be Biluo Pass, so far away in the borderlands?"
Just now, the entire painting had flickered, and Zhang Ruochen had clearly seen the three characters on the city pass.
Then, the entire painting, as if exhausting all its energy, burned up, turning into specks of golden light rain that flew toward Zhang Ruochen's consciousness body.
With each speck of golden light rain falling, Zhang Ruochen's consciousness body became more solid.
Biluo Pass was an extremely distant place, known only to top-tier deities.
The saying "up to the azure sky above, down to the yellow springs below" pointed to the location of Biluo Pass.
The universe had no direction, no up or down.
The reason there were terms like "Eastern Universe," "Southern Universe," "Northern Universe," and "Western Universe," but no "Upper Universe" or "Lower Universe," was because the entire Heavenly Court Universe was a flat structure.
It had thickness, extremely thick, measured in light-years, difficult for deities to cross.
But compared to the north-south and east-west spans of the Heavenly Court Universe, the thickness was only two or three-tenths.
As for the Hell Realm Universe's Yellow Spring Star River, it was like a long river, with countless stars and great worlds within it, like grains of sand.
Why, when mentioning Biluo Pass, was there an up and down distinction?
Because the vast majority of "suspended continent"-type great worlds in the universe all faced one direction. The upward direction was defined as "up."
Biluo Pass was like an isolated island overseas, located somewhere above the Hell Realm, already beyond the Yellow Spring Star River, extremely distant, truly a borderland.
Out of a hundred deities searching for Biluo Pass, perhaps only one or two could reach it.
Such a remote and unremarkable little place was known because of a legend from the Yama Clan.
The legend said that the Old Man of Life and Death forged the *Book of Life and Death* at Biluo Pass.
Zhang Ruochen knew of this extremely obscure place because, when he was researching Biluozi's information back then, he had looked into some strange things, one of which mentioned Biluo Pass.
It seemed that Biluozi had created the Biluo Dao there.
As for how he, with his insignificant cultivation at the time, had gone to Biluo Pass, it was unknown.
It wasn't until later, when Zhang Ruochen asked Ming Emperor about the origin of the "Creation Divine Iron," that he had a rough guess. Perhaps Biluozi had followed the Great Venerable to Biluo Pass back then.
The Great Venerable always acted unconventionally. No matter how low a cultivator's realm, he could befriend them, travel with them, and laugh and talk with them.
The Creation Divine Iron was given by the Great Venerable to Xumi Saint Monk, who then passed it to Ming Emperor in his own way.
The Creation Divine Iron had two attributes: life and death. The forged "Abyssal" was the life sword, capable of melting and refining all battle weapons in the world, to stop war.
The forged "Blood Drop" was the death sword, absorbing the blood of all living beings.
The grades of Abyssal and Blood Drop had been continuously increasing from humble beginnings, as if without limit.
Zhang Ruochen had always been quite interested in Biluo Pass. If it weren't too far, too time-consuming, and too difficult to find, he would have gone long ago.
Now, seeing the painting left by Buddha Kasyapa, his conviction to visit Biluo Pass was even stronger.
"Not good. The *White Stone Enlightenment Painting* has dissipated. Will the Nether Ancestor notice?"
Zhang Ruochen knew this was the Strange Domain, inside the Void Cauldron, completely isolated from the outside world, with no exchange of any Heaven and Earth Rules. No matter how powerful the Nether Ancestor was, He couldn't perceive the changes here.
Besides, he was just a consciousness body. Having been here, he would leave no trace.
But to be safe, Zhang Ruochen left immediately.
Next, he would go to retrieve the Earth Cauldron, which was also the most important part of this gamble of feigning death.
Gambling on people.
Gambling on two people.
One of them was the Dark Lord.
Because before Zhang Ruochen went to see Lady Shiji, he had already reached a deal with the Dark Lord. Otherwise, how could the Dark Lord have appeared so coincidentally at the Glazed Glass Divine Temple?