The Japanese-fear sorcerer who started by taking in Tomie

[Defeat the Eight-Foot Elder's clone and gain 300 experience points]

Xin Hengyuan's smile froze.

No, a clone?

Upon hearing the voice in his mind, Xin Hengyuan abruptly looked down at the corpse on the ground. The headless corpse and its head were spewing out black gas and shrinking at a visible speed, eventually turning into a long hair that had been cut in two.

With a gust of wind, it vanished without a trace.

At the same time, the previously clear sky suddenly darkened. Dark clouds surged in from all directions, enveloping the entire mountain forest.

In the distance, thunder rumbled faintly, and flashes of lightning occasionally illuminated the depths of the clouds, as if something was slowly opening its eyes behind the clouds.

"Oh no, it looks like we're doomed."

Tomie looked up at the dark, heavy clouds and said in a calm tone.

"Bang!" Xin Hengyuan slammed a knife into her head.

"Don't talk such discouraging things. As the saying goes, things will work themselves out. Let's go and see what tricks they're up to."

Xin Hengyuan had been wondering how the Eight-Foot Master, who was supposed to be a false god, could be so weak. Now it seemed that he had underestimated the heroes of the world.

Xin Hengyuan raised his head and looked at the old temple shrouded in dark clouds on the mountaintop. His expression gradually became excited. This is more interesting!

"Qingyue, are you alright?" Shin Hengyuan asked Qingyue, who was standing to the side.

Qingyue shook her head to indicate that she was fine.

She was just suppressed by the weight of the eight feet, but she was not physically harmed.

"That's good. Kiyotsuki, Tomie, come here..."

Inside the ancient temple, the eight-foot-tall creature, leaning against the shadows, slowly opened its eyes, looked down the mountain, and licked its lips. "What a lovely child."

Eight feet tall, he wrapped his arms around himself, his fingertips tracing his delicate collarbone, his eyes glazed over, gleaming with an almost greedy green light.

"You naughty child, I'm growing to love you more and more. I want to hold you in my arms, put you inside my body, and bring you back to life—that way, you'll always be my child!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Ba Chi suddenly covered his head, his brows furrowed, and the fanaticism in his eyes quickly faded, restoring some clarity.

She blinked, looking at her arms crossed with some confusion, as if she had just woken up from a brief sleepwalking session.

"What's going on...?" Hachiko muttered to himself, then chuckled softly, "But it feels pretty good. Hmm~"

She placed her fingertips to her lips and blew gently.

A wisp of black smoke was exhaled from its mouth, transforming into a jet-black butterfly that flew down the mountain.

"Let's go see what my little ones are doing!"

Eight feet, resting his chin on his hand, lazily gazed in the direction where the butterfly had disappeared, his smile deepening.

"I can't wait!"

The three of them quickly arrived at the temple entrance, and the closer they got, the more the wooden Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva carving in Xinhengyuan's pocket shone.

If the eight-foot-tall man was sealed by Ksitigarbha, then this temple is probably dedicated to Ksitigarbha. The wooden sculpture's strong reaction is most likely due to contact with a power of the same origin.

"Benefactor...benefactor..."

What was that sound?

Xin Hengyuan covered his ears when a white light suddenly appeared in front of him. The light grew stronger and stronger until it almost completely swallowed his vision.

When he could see things clearly again, Kiyotsuki, Tomie... everything around him had disappeared.

Xin Hengyuan suddenly stood in the center of the main hall of an ancient temple, where the air was filled with the rich aroma of sandalwood and burning lamp oil.

Then he heard a series of deep chanting sounds, as if thousands of people were chanting the same passage around him, but there was no one around.

Xin Hengyuan instinctively reached for his sword, but the moment his hand touched the hilt, all the chanting in the hall stopped at the same instant.

On the altar directly in front of him, a golden statue of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, even taller than him, sat serenely on a lotus throne, his eyes lowered, his face filled with compassion.

"Amitabha Buddha... Good morning, benefactor."

?

Xin Hengyuan slowly typed out a question mark. This tone, this manner, is this Bodhisattva being serious?

If you didn't know better, you'd think that flashy Nissan from the kindergarten next door had wandered onto the wrong movie set.

Xinhengyuan complained.

"It's not morning now."

"Oh? Is that so? So it really wasn't morning. Old people have bad memories, hahaha, please don't be so formal, benefactor."

To Xin Hengyuan's astonishment, the golden statue of the Bodhisattva scratched its bald head, forcing an embarrassed expression onto its kind face.

Xinhengyuan: ...

Are you really a righteous Bodhisattva?

"Are you really the legendary Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva?"

The golden statue slowly clasped its hands together, and its voice calmed down: "It is and it is not."

"...Could you please stop being a riddle reader? I'm uneducated, I don't understand."

"Simply put, I am Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, but I am not Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva. I am a sculpture left behind by the Bodhisattva in the mortal world, receiving the incense offerings and vows of sentient beings for hundreds of years. I am the Bodhisattva, but the Bodhisattva is not me."

Xin Hengyuan's lips twitched twice, and he decided to stop dwelling on the philosophical stance of this golden Bodhisattva statue.

"Why did the Bodhisattva summon me?"

"Benefactor, I have invited you into the hall because I have a favor to ask of you." The golden statue slowly clasped its hands together.

"Is it about Lord Hachisaku?"

"Yes."

The golden statue of the Bodhisattva lowered its eyelids, and all the butter lamps in the hall went out for a moment at the same time.

"This story goes back hundreds of years... This is a sin I committed back then."

"Could you please get to the point?"

Xin Hengyuan raised his hand and asked.

"No, you mustn't, benefactor!"

"Tsk..."

"She is a deity born from this land. In the beginning, people worshipped her only to pray for a bountiful harvest and for women to have smooth childbirth. The village was small and the incense was not very strong, but she never looked down on us."

Every autumn harvest, the villagers would pile the newly harvested rice in front of her small shrine. She loved to squat by the rice pile when no one was around and count the grains one by one.

"Hmm, I know. Later, it must have been because he stole the divine authority of Inari God, got beaten up by Inari God, and then became a demon, right?" Shin Hengyuan interjected.

"No, that's not true. Inari God isn't that petty." The golden statue gently shook its head.

"It was because of war. During the Warring States period, human life was worth less than rice in the fields. War broke out again and again, and people from the village were taken away in batches, some dead and some maimed."

"After being plundered once again, the survivors had no one left to resent, so they toppled her shrine, smashed her idols, and poured all their pain on her."

"She didn't understand why the village she had protected for hundreds of years would treat her like this in the end. From that day on, her faith was broken... Resentment filled in, filling the place that should have been a place of worship."

"She started attacking people. At that time, my true self happened to be traveling here. I couldn't bear to see her sink into depravity, so I used my eight-foot-long body to suppress her and made me chant scriptures for her day and night to erase her resentment."

"But unfortunately... I failed."

"So, is there anything you need me to do? Just tell me."

Xin Hengyuan asked, clicking his tongue. "Such great gossip, it's a pity there's no watermelon or melon seeds to eat."

"good."