Chapter 378: The Secret of the Brahma Nation!

In that instant, Shasheng's eyes nearly bulged out of his head.

It was not just because of Wang Ping's words. In truth, while not many people knew the secrets of the Brahma Nation and that Living Buddha, the number was not exactly small either.

But those people only knew the surface of it.

They used it as casual conversation fodder, idly gossiping or mocking the fact that the Brahma Nation had once splintered off from the Immortal Gate. That was the extent of it.

Without knowing the deeper reasons, the secret itself was useless.

Yet at this moment, the instant Wang Ping spoke of this secret, he actually shook Shasheng's golden body out of thin air. This was what truly shocked the monk.

What did this mean?

'This Dao secret is the very foundation of our Brahma Dharma. For him to speak it and use it to shake my golden body... it means he doesn't just know the facts, he understands the profound truth behind them!'

That was simply inconceivable!

Even a Dao Child of the immortal realms, a direct disciple of a True Monarch, shouldn't be able to comprehend such a thing—even if a True Monarch guided them by the hand and explained it word for word.

A Dao secret grasped in that manner, without being personally enlightened, would ultimately lack the light of one's own innate wisdom. Even if they voiced it, even if they hit the nail on the head and knew both the surface and the core, it would merely be someone else speaking through them. The effect would be vastly diminished, rendering it entirely meaningless.

But that wasn't the case for Wang Ping.

To shake a golden body with a single sentence proved that even if a True Monarch had revealed the profound mysteries to him, they definitely hadn't explained it in detail. He had comprehended it all on his own.

"Such terrifying comprehension!"

While Shasheng was reeling in inexplicable shock, Wang Ping was caught up in two separate memories. The first was from when he killed Baohu; he had noticed that the atmospheric phenomena following her death were remarkably similar to those of a water qi cultivator.

The second was a casual chat he'd had with Kunyun back in the Soul Formation Realm.

For instance, the Brahma Nation used to be a part of the Immortal Gate. They were on the verge of becoming the Fourth Court, bathing in infinite glory, yet they still left to establish their own faction. If the Brahma Nation did it, the Martial Dao might be next. Those were Kunyun's exact words, and they were the key that unlocked Wang Ping's doubts.

"The Brahma Nation started out as immortal cultivators."

"Establishing an independent faction isn't something done easily. It would require the cultivation of at least a True Monarch, wouldn't it? Perhaps even a legendary immortal."

Wang Ping's tone was deep and distant.

With every word he spoke, another crack appeared on Shasheng's manifested golden body... Without a sliver of hesitation, the monk thrust his Buddha palm straight at Wang Ping.

He had to interrupt him!

He couldn't let him keep talking!

Yet Wang Ping didn't care in the slightest. Although he couldn't transform into a Kunpeng, he unleashed his Free and Unfettered Roaming art, easily evading Shasheng's Buddha palm.

This wasn't because his own strength had increased, but because Shasheng's power had sharply plummeted. It was all the result of Wang Ping shaking his Brahma Cultivator Dao foundation.

"But an immortal doesn't just appear out of nowhere," Wang Ping continued. "Before that legendary Living Buddha became an immortal, he absolutely must have gone through the stages of Tribulation Transcending, Qi Refining, and true cultivation. He broke through step by step to finally become an immortal. And during that process, he surely refined a specific path of qi and cultivated a specific trigram."

"So, which path of qi was it?"

"Theoretically speaking, human yang fire makes the most sense. After all, the Civilization-Manifesting Ultimate-Founding Qi naturally favors entirely new Dao lineages, and the Brahma Dharma is exactly that."

"But we can't just look at it that way. That evidence isn't enough."

Indeed, it wasn't enough. Many cultivators had made similar guesses in the past, considering the innate characteristics of the Civilization-Manifesting Ultimate-Founding Qi.

The methods of the Brahma Cultivators were so novel; it was impossible for them not to be favored by it.

However, relying on that alone to draw a connection and form a Dao theory profound enough to shake the foundations of the Brahma Nation was far from sufficient. There was no objective proof.

Shasheng's heart grew increasingly heavy. He vaguely sensed that something was terribly wrong.

'This isn't right. He shouldn't be in possession of such a Dao secret unless the True Monarch behind him intervened... If that's the case, have I been swept into a True Monarch's scheme?'

Meanwhile, Wang Ping continued to speak.

"I don't know much about the other Bodhisattvas, so I'll only speak of the Master of Secret Traces. The Brahma Dharma was born from immortal arts; the two share the same origin, so naturally, a connection exists."

"Cultivators under the Master of Secret Traces undergo a water qi transformation after death. This shows that the Master of Secret Traces himself likely has a connection to water qi and the Kan Trigram."

"But what's strange is how the Master of Secret Traces differs from water qi. Although water qi has aspects of concealment and evasion, its ultimate purpose is to manifest brilliantly for the world to see. It is like the yin water of the earth being carried by dragons, or the shifting of clouds and rain in the sky. Yet the Master of Secret Traces lacks this world-manifesting transformation of water qi."

"In other words."

"Within the profound mysteries of the Master of Secret Traces, there is only the atmospheric phenomenon of yin water, completely lacking that of yang water. And without the perfection of both yin and yang, it is impossible to form the Kan Trigram."

"Yet the Master of Secret Traces absolutely has a connection to the water qi Kan Trigram."

"This proves that even though there is no yang water within the phenomena of the Master of Secret Traces, something else compensated for it, perfecting the trigram in its stead."

"That something must also be a form of yang."

Crack! Crack! Crack!

This time, the cracks webbed completely across Shasheng's manifested golden body. Massive shards of Buddha light fractured off the statue and plummeted into the Cosmos.

"Incredible..."

Shasheng pressed his hands together in prayer and quietly sighed for his sins.

Immediately after, Wang Ping finally struck the core issue: "The Master of Secret Traces is the Dharma protector of the Living Buddha and guards his secrets. That is the true crux of that missing yang!"

"The Kan Trigram represents the two yin of heaven and earth sandwiching the one yang of man... The phenomena of the Master of Secret Traces retaining only yin water symbolizes the two yin of heaven and earth. Guarding the secrets of the Living Buddha as his Dharma protector symbolizes that the Living Buddha's secret is the human yang within the Kan Trigram. He borrowed the Living Buddha's phenomena to perfect his own Kan Trigram!"

These were all details Wang Ping had grasped beforehand.

And now, after the True Monarch had revealed the profound mysteries of the Kan Trigram to him, and following Kunyun's intentional or unintentional idle chatter, these details finally unveiled the truth.

At the same time, his cultivation as a Corpse Dissolution Immortal gave him the qualifications to engage in a Dao debate with Shasheng.

Everything had naturally fallen into place.

"As for the underlying meaning of the Kan Trigram—initial concealment followed by worldly manifestation—that is also reflected in the Living Buddha. Is the modern Brahma Dharma not manifesting brilliantly for all the world to see?"

As he reached the end, the corners of Wang Ping's lips curled up.

"As for that missing yang residing in the position of man, among metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, only fire qi would work. It acts as both water and fire, as well as yin and yang, allowing them to perfectly complement each other."

"Therefore, the Living Buddha once cultivated human yang fire!"

Rumble!

As the final Dao argument fell, Shasheng's golden body could no longer be sustained. It exploded violently, triggering waves of echoing Buddhist chants and Zen choruses throughout the Cosmic Deep Space.

Billions of rays of Buddha light illuminated the great universe.

Within that Buddha light, Shasheng's figure reappeared. Golden cracks still marred his face, but his previous peaceful and unhurried demeanor had entirely vanished.

'He actually figured it out, and he dared to say it out loud.'

'How dare he!'

Terrifying radiance shuddered through the Cosmos. The deep space seemed to transform into a bottomless ocean, with the light acting as roaring waves within the waters.

Buddha light. Water qi.

Wang Ping stood deep within it, completely at ease. The sheer euphoria of unraveling every last doubt made him want to throw his head back and howl, but he suppressed the urge.

There was one more sentence he hadn't spoken.

'The Master of Secret Traces... this Bodhisattva absolutely has a massive blood feud with water qi. It's even possible that he himself was a True Person of water qi who borrowed the Brahma Dharma to achieve his Dao!'

Because he was a True Person of water qi, he thoroughly understood the Kan Trigram. Yet he severed his own Immortal Dao foundation, using the Living Buddha's Brahma Dharma to replace the singular extreme yang of the Kan Trigram. That was absolutely a devastating blow to the trigram itself. And the eight Bodhisattvas of the Brahma Nation... corresponding to the eight trigrams, I'm afraid every single one of them possesses a similarly terrifying trump card.

Of course, the most ruthless of all was that Living Buddha.

'When he created the Brahma Dharma, he absolutely didn't just casually set up an independent sect. He roped in a massive number of immortal gate cultivators, among whom there was no shortage of True Persons.'

'Using them, he fractured the authority of the eight trigrams!'

Just thinking about it filled Wang Ping with a wave of terror and awe.

'The Master of Secret Traces is the prime example.'

'In order to lay the foundation for the Brahma Dharma, he forcefully usurped the authority of the eight trigrams using similar methods. No wonder the Immortal Gate and the Brahma Nation are blood enemies, still endlessly entangled to this day.'

Was this what the True Monarch wanted to tell me?

If I figured it out, my path of survival would naturally present itself. If I couldn't, I would have no choice but to give up my status as a Dao Child. If I looked at it from this angle...

'The True Monarch accepted me as a Dao Child precisely to have me make a move in this area... In that case, could it be that he plans to reclaim this portion of the Kan Trigram's authority that the Brahma Nation splintered away? Does he want to make a move against the Master of Secret Traces? And I'm just his chess piece, a pawn sent out to test the Brahma Nation's waters?'

Countless stray thoughts surged through Wang Ping's mind.

But a second later, he regained his composure. No matter what, he was absolutely certain of one thing: he had definitively passed this trial of the Xuanyi Dao Child.

However, right at that moment.

"My Buddha is merciful."

In the distance, Shasheng pressed his hands together. His tone was no longer unhurried; instead, it brimmed with chilling malice. "Benefactor, your Dao wisdom surpasses all others. Our Brahma Nation is currently lacking talents just like you."

Only then did Wang Ping realize that when he had shattered Shasheng's golden body with his Dao theory, Shasheng hadn't just stood there in a daze doing nothing.

At this moment, the surrounding starry sky was visibly covered in a dense, suffocating network of formation runes.

Suddenly, the formation activated!

In an instant, a spatial distortion similar to his Free and Unfettered Roaming surged in his mind. Wang Ping immediately understood: 'He's trying to teleport me straight into the Brahma Nation!'

This formation was likely originally prepared for Dashun Taizu.

But now, it had fallen upon Wang Ping. The scenery before his eyes shifted at the speed of light. In a daze, the radiant, golden splendor of a Zen monastery began to reflect in his vision.

It was precisely the landscape of the Brahma Nation!

'The Northern Crimson Silk Golden Pure Land...'

Wang Ping was naturally no stranger to this. But compared to the pure land Baohu had constructed, the one slowly manifesting before his eyes was the true residence of a Bodhisattva.

With that thought, he immediately moved to activate Free and Unfettered Roaming to escape the formation.

But in the very next second, towering golden bodies—just like Shasheng's—suddenly rose from within the pure land. They blotted out the sky, encompassing the Cosmos as they reached out to grab him!

"Amitabha."

"Is it not a joy to have an immortal visit from afar?"

"Benefactor, you are bound by destiny to our pure land."

With a single glance, Wang Ping saw over a dozen golden bodies striking at once. The sheer peril they brought down instantly pushed his Free and Unfettered Roaming to its absolute limit.

"..."

In that instant, Wang Ping knew he couldn't escape. Driven by the formation, he was plummeting at breakneck speed toward the true core of the Brahma Nation.

With over a dozen Ascetic Monks serving beneath the Bodhisattvas making a move, it wasn't something he could defend against or flee from.

Yet he didn't panic. Instead, a sliver of anticipation welled up inside him: 'I have already passed this trial. How could the True Monarch sit idly by and watch me get abducted by the Brahma Nation like this?'

Who would come to save me?

Vaguely, Wang Ping already had a guess.

A second later, his guess became reality. Right as he was being dragged by the formation and falling into the Brahma Nation, a sudden anomaly severed everything.

"Boom!"

Looking over, it was merely a slender, pale hand. It appeared tiny, yet it sliced in like lightning, instantly arresting Wang Ping's descent into the Brahma Nation.

Immediately, waves of shocked and furious Buddhist chants echoed from within the Brahma Nation's pure land:

"Lian Ruzhao! How dare you!?"

The response to them was a calm, unhurried chuckle:

"What a joke."

"What wouldn't I dare to do?"