# 582
Chapter 583 – His Game Against the Gods
Sensing the pressure radiating from Zuo Qing, Guan Zai and Lu Wuwei’s eyes flashed with surprise.
Zuo Qing was now at the pinnacle of the Klein realm—only half a step from the Human Apex. They hadn’t expected this unremarkable youth who had always stood beside Ye Fan to be a candidate for the ceiling.
Guan Zai was startled, but only mildly.
The gap between Klein and Human Apex was still enormous. Though Zuo Qing stood on the threshold, that half-step was enough for him to lose without the slightest suspense.
“You can’t beat me,” Guan Zai shook his head. “I don’t want to fight you; I only want to find Ye Fan and confront him face-to-face.”
“You can’t go past,” Zuo Qing said firmly.
“Why?” Guan Zai’s voice rose in anger.
Zuo Qing turned toward the tightly-shut doors of the Buddha hall within the temple and spoke slowly:
“Because he’s trading his life for your brother’s!”
……
Inside the Buddha hall.
Ye Fan, bathed in golden flames, burned with brilliant eyes. Though his body bore no wounds, his soul was being consumed at a terrifying speed.
Exhaustion surfaced in his gaze. He slowly knelt, sat cross-legged before the black coffin, and lowered his eyelids.
He lifted his palms, pinching a few broken prayer-bead shards, pressed them together, and sat upright within the fire.
The golden blaze roared higher. His clothes were almost gone; the flames began to lick his flesh like ravenous beasts hungering for blood and meat. Each tongue of fire seared great patches of skin to charcoal that cracked and fell away.
The fire burned his robes, his body, his soul—the price of changing fate.
Though his flesh charred, no pain showed on Ye Fan’s face. When the blackened skin sloughed off, another layer—bronze-colored, faintly gold—was revealed beneath.
It was the Buddhist body he had cultivated.
Hair and garments turned to black ash drifting through the empty hall. The Buddhist Ye Fan sat palms-together before the coffin, lips parting as solemn Sanskrit filled the temple:
“My body as guide, my life as guide, my soul as guide;
Forging flesh with sword, bearing soul with heart, carrying his Dao—reverse Heaven and change fate!”
The moment the chant ended, a tide of Buddha-light surged from his body and wrapped the black coffin. The Dragon-Elephant Sword was swallowed by the radiance; the remaining prayer-bead shards on the floor whirled up and ringed the blade.
Clang—!
The Dragon-Elephant Sword quivered, a clear dragon-cry ringing out.
Strands of sword law descended from the void, drawn by the bead fragments, weaving beside the blade into a faint silhouette…
To dissolve into Dao was the self-collapse brought on when a mortal body failed to bear the power of laws. To summon Zhou Ping’s soul and trade lives, first he needed a new body capable of carrying the Great Dao.
And Ye Fan had waited long for this day.
His eyes sharpened. Several black chests stacked in the corner burst open at once; countless materials and fragments of forbidden artifacts were swept into the surging Buddha-light, whirling to the sword and merging into the phantom figure.
The best vessel for laws is law itself. Using the Dragon-Elephant Sword as the core, he drew upon the sword laws Zhou Ping had left behind to forge a body of sword.
But a perfect form could not be made of sword alone, so Ye Fan had prepared a wealth of law-bearing materials to build the finest container for consciousness and soul.
As these ingredients poured in, the illusory body grew solid, slowly shaping into Zhou Ping’s original appearance; the sword laws carried the memory of his visage and naturally re-formed it.
Eyes closed, he lay quietly within the Buddha-light—no different from before.
This body was the fusion of science and mystery, the crystallization of human wisdom!
When it was complete, the heroic spirit Huo Qubing beside him stirred.
He raised his broken spear and slammed it into the temple floor. At once, vast streams of yellow fate-energy seeped up from the earth and flooded into the newly-forged body like seawater!
A baptism of national destiny!
The other heroic spirits turned in surprise; seeing the resolve in Huo Qubing’s eyes, they understood. Each raised their divine weapon and struck the ground!
Rolling tides of fate surged upward, submerging the body, scouring it for three full minutes before slowly receding. A dark-gold luster now shimmered across its surface, as though it were celestial metal—profound and wondrous.
The body’s reshaping was finished.
Seated within the flames, the Buddhist Ye Fan’s consciousness began to scatter; his soul was nearly drained, teetering on collapse.
Yet he bit through his tongue, forcing clarity, and fused the last prayer-bead shards into his palms!
“Return, O soul!” he cried.
The body was ready; now he had to reclaim the last quarter of Zhou Ping’s soul from the world’s laws.
Buddha-light erupted, cloaking the summit of Mount Jiuhua; the fragments of the Life-Shift Beads trembled violently.
In a trance he saw a black-robed, sword-carrying figure walking slowly out of the light.
Zhou Ping’s soul.
A smile tugged at Ye Fan’s lips.
He had succeeded.
Zhou Ping’s soul had not fully vanished.
As that figure approached, Ye Fan—his own soul now fully burned—closed his eyes within the boundless radiance.
In the instant his soul and the Life-Shift Beads disappeared, his closing eyes were tinged with the breath of fate…
In that moment he saw the future: blinding stars rising from the earth, each shining with its own light—new stars Great Xia would birth, the nation’s future.
All of them seeds he had planted.
His smile deepened.
“From this day, Great Xia need never fear… This match is still mine to win, Ye Fan.”
He murmured, and shut his eyes.
His breathing ceased.
The flames died; black ash drifted down like snow. The golden Buddhist body sat palms-together in the center of the hall—a true statue of Buddha.
Before him lay the black coffin; beyond it, the great doors of the hall stood open to the world.
Facing the vast earth beyond, he smiled—like noon sunlight slipping through a crack, warm and bright.
……
Ye Fan, fifth-generation commander of the Night Watch,
on the summit of Mount Jiuhua,
passed away with a smile.