Dan Yangzi

"Thunder?" The other five massive Buddhas, including Jiān Dùn, simultaneously looked up. Then they noticed that the crescent moon, which had just been visible, had vanished without a trace.

The entire sky was now shrouded in dark clouds, rolling ominously, and strange sounds echoed through the air. It sounded like thunder, but it was definitely not thunder.

"Cough, cough..." Li Huowang, feeling short of breath, coughed a few times before staggering to the ground.

As he lay on the ground and looked up at the sky, he once again saw his master within the black clouds. He was still as grotesque as before.

Dark feathers, stained with blood, covered his skin. The place where his head should have been split open, revealing three faces of different ages.

In addition to his original organs, his swollen body now had other, completely inhuman organs, as though they had been forcibly grafted onto him.

A nightmarish, pitch-black form with pus-like, vertically slit pupils, obscene and filthy internal organs that had been turned inside out, and twisted, eerie tentacles — all of these repulsive features were surrounded by a floating, ethereal white cloak, radiating a celestial aura.

These disturbing features were not static either; they kept shifting, changing into even more horrifying forms with every passing moment.

After staring for a while, Li Huowang's eyes began to bloodshot, his forehead swollen with blue veins, and his head began to swell like the head of an old immortal.

"I can't... I can't look anymore..." Weak to the extreme, Li Huowang hurriedly shifted his gaze away, feeling a bit better.

But even that didn't help much. The continuous bleeding could still take him.

He shakily reached into his waist and pulled out a few blood-stopping and nourishing pills, throwing them into his mouth.

The flow of blood inside his body began to slow, and the visible bleeding decreased.

But that still wasn't enough. Li Huowang took out some foundation-building and vitality-restoring pills he had refined in Qingfeng and swallowed them as well.

Suddenly, there was a tearing sound, like flesh being ripped apart, and Li Huowang's gaze shot upwards.

His master had started to move. At this moment, the grotesque Dan Yangzi, like a lizard, crouched on top of the massive Buddha head. He opened his three large mouths and easily tore off a plump ear.

With a roar, the hands, which were on the Buddha's back, rapidly curled into claws and reached for Dan Yangzi.

But unexpectedly, the various malformed organs on Dan Yangzi's body suddenly expanded, ripping off all the bloodied flesh and hands with a brutal force.

Then, Dan Yangzi tugged at the edges of the wounds with his three mouths, and a massive, gaping mouth began to form, gushing blood. The three heads stretched inside.

"Ah!!" The Buddha cried out in despair, his massive hands tearing at his own skin, trying to pull something out from within. But this was futile. His once corpulent body began to collapse inward, drying up.

In just a few moments, blood began pouring from all seven of his orifices, and he collapsed heavily. Then, his bloated belly exploded open like a flower.

When the blood-soaked Dan Yangzi appeared in front of the other Buddhas, Jiān Dùn, with a grave expression, wasted no time and immediately took out a Buddhist scripture made from human skin.

"Om~ Ma~ Ni~ Pad~ Me~ Hum~" As Jiān Dùn sat cross-legged, chanting the six-syllable mantra, the blood-red script on the Buddhist text disappeared rapidly, reappearing on Dan Yangzi's body.

The organs on Dan Yangzi, covered by the script, began to tremble involuntarily and started to multiply.

However, before long, the organs began to shrink rapidly, withering at an alarming pace until Dan Yangzi completely disappeared from the spot.

Jiān Dùn, drenched in cold sweat, let out a slight sigh of relief. Fortunately, he had prepared a backup plan. Otherwise, things could have gotten really troublesome.

He immediately began chanting the mantra again, and the human-skin scripture he was holding started to glow as the script reappeared.

Just as he was about to close the book, the entire thing suddenly exploded. The scriptures scattered everywhere, and the terrifying Dan Yangzi emerged from within.

No one had expected this. Taking advantage of Jiān Dùn's reflexive wide-open mouth, Dan Yangzi's three heads darted forward like drills, directly entering his throat.

A ripping sound echoed, and Jiān Dùn's neck instantly swelled to the size of his head. But this was only the beginning.

As excruciating pain set in, Jiān Dùn, filled with despair, heard a gnawing sound from within his body — something was eating him from the inside!

"No!!" With a final, unwilling scream, Dan Yangzi tore through his chest and emerged, pulling out his pumping heart, which was quickly consumed by the three mouths.

The remaining three Buddhas attempted to struggle, but it was futile. In no time, the sounds of bone snapping and flesh being torn apart replaced any remaining resistance.

After half an incense stick's worth of time, the seven Buddhas were gone, their remains now a heap of steaming blood and entrails.

As Li Huowang looked at the bloody Dan Yangzi, the creature turned to face him. Three faces from different ages wore a terrifying, knowing smile. "Child..."

With a soft "poof," Dan Yangzi's body dissipated like smoke.

As time slowly passed, the moonlight reappeared, covering everything in the forest with a silver veil, and everything settled into stillness.

Li Huowang, clutching his throat, painfully sat up and looked at the others, still trapped by the tree trunks. They were on the verge of being paralyzed with fear, huddled together like frozen statues.

Li Huowang seemed to sense their thoughts and weakly explained, "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid! Dan Yangzi is really dead. He won't use you as medicine anymore."

However, Li Huowang's words did nothing to diminish their fear. The Taoist disciples were already crying.

Finally, it was Bai Lingmiao, the closest to him, who spoke. Her face was even paler than before. "Li Shixiong, what... what is Dan Yangzi? We didn't see anything."

Li Huowang, with great difficulty, swallowed a lump in his throat. "Didn't you see Dan Yangzi, the one who killed those Buddhas? Is he invisible to you?"

At that moment, another voice interrupted from behind the large figure of Gouwa, trembling violently.

He refused to look at Li Huowang and could only shut his eyes, crying out, "Li Shixiong!! There's no Dan Yangzi! You did it! It was all you!"

"What?" Li Huowang, enduring the pain, reached his hand to his face, only to realize that his face, which should have been clean, was now completely covered in blood.

He continued to feel downward, and his fingers brushed against long gashes at the corners of his mouth, as though he had just opened his mouth widely.

But that wasn't the worst part. The most important thing was that he suddenly felt... full. Very full. Far too full.