Longevity, starting from being a chicken raising servant Chapter 2322: 175: Audience
Previously on Longevity, starting from being a chicken raising servant...
In the southeastern region of the Huanyu Continent.
The Azure Dragon Mountain Range sprawls across the landscape.
These peaks soar up to heights of ten thousand fathoms, looking much like a giant Azure Dragon lying down, which is how it got its name.
Ethereal Qi drifts through the atmosphere here, turning it into one of the few ultimate blessed lands in the nearby territories.
The Wanxiang Sect, Longevity Sect, and Youxian Temple hold dominion over this area. A massive disaster razed it thousands of years back, yet the Cultivators from these Three Sects rebuilt it from the ruins.
Following ages of calm, the peace shattered once more on this fateful day.
Silhouettes radiating dense auras stepped through the void and hovered high above, their backs aglow with Buddha light that blazed like a grand sun, spotless and holy as a divine being.
From their vantage, they peered down upon the Sect's Cultivators and ordinary folk below.
Their faces bore looks of delight mixed with mercy:
“Supreme True Buddha… All beings suffer, my Buddha shows compassion.”
As words of mercy left his lips, the head monk wasted no time and slammed his palm downward, sending a colossal handprint crashing toward the range underneath. Right then, a dome-shaped barrier of light burst into existence across the mountain range, expanding swiftly from its core, and firing a ray that linked straight to the overhead Sky Dome and Realm Membrane!
The massive handprint smashed down with fury, slamming into the barrier and making the whole mountain chain quake fiercely!
The barrier quivered just a bit before channeling the impact straight to the Realm Membrane in a flash, and identical barrier arrays popped up right away in far-off spots!
Around the nearby terrain, dome-like light barriers rose into view.
Soon enough, the barrier at this location steadied itself without delay.
Right on its heels, urgent noises rang out from deep in the range, as forms shot up into the skies yet stayed inside the barrier's bounds, their visages filled with astonishment, anxiety, and grim resolve… A whirlwind of feelings played out, making it obvious they hadn't foreseen the foes arriving out of nowhere.
“Linking the Sect's arrays together into a single unit and even tying into the entire Domain… It looks like you've made thorough preparations.”
The monks suspended in the heavens witnessed this display and felt a touch of astonishment, though nothing more than that.
They'd already unleashed a total assault on the Cloud Sky Realm; even with its Domain bolstered, the onslaught from bodhisattvas and arhats tore open breaches in no time, leaving the Realm Membrane itself cracked and frail. These arrays might hook into it, but they couldn't last much longer.
“Advance and shatter the matching Realm Membrane section from the inside here!”
“Dispatch the rest to hit it simultaneously over there!”
In a single look, the foremost Bodhisattva grasped the setup's complexity and promptly ordered the other arhats. Following that, certain monks soared toward the Sky Dome, as the rest scattered fast to hammer the dome-shaped barriers down below.
That lone Bodhisattva went further by summoning a Dharma Aspect towering as high as Shanyue.
The dome barriers rattled hard, hurling back rays of light that the monks brushed aside with ease, those beams streaking off to hit remote barriers and igniting bursts of dazzling glow.
Hearing the command, the arhats too surged toward the Sky Dome.
Up there, they watched the Sky Dome bending inward nonstop, as if some force from beyond was pressing down.
Defenses within the Realm Membrane proved much feebler than those outside. Now, the arhats closed in and pounded the Realm Membrane with savage blows, spawning myriad subtle fissures that spread rapidly across the Sky Dome!
As those fissures spread, the ties between the lower dome barriers and the Realm Membrane snapped apart in a hurry; with the monks hammering away, the barriers encircling the range started wobbling and flashing wildly.
“If things keep up like this, the moment the array crumbles, we'll all end up captives of the Supreme True Buddha!”
Under the barrier's cover, every member of the Wanxiang Sect, Longevity Sect, and Youxian Temple who skipped the Cloud Sky Arena's festivity had surfaced, assembling right below the shield.
Golden lotuses bloomed in a rush and unfurled over the barrier, mirroring the deadly serious countenances of the Cultivators underneath.
The Cultivators huddled close to a young man clad in ochre robes and a gaunt elder, peering past the barrier to stare at the airborne monks and the arhats battering the Sky Dome, their looks utterly somber.
“One Bodhisattva, seven arhats, plus a bunch of other practitioners…”
“The Cloud Sky Sect laid down this array, so we lack full command over it, yet should the Realm Membrane up top shatter, it'll wreck this setup too…”
“We have to halt them!”
In a low, resonant tone, the youth in ochre robes declared.
The gaunt elder next to him knitted his brows at those words but held back from intervening; in this dire hour teetering on the edge of survival, nothing beat throwing caution to the wind, so he intoned gravely:
“Junior Brother, my wounds remain heavy, and right now you're the only one at Crossing Tribulation here, stay extra vigilant, just throw them off balance, avoid clashing head-on, I'll back you up from inside the array!”
“Don't worry, Senior Brother!”
The youth in ochre robes steadied his features in an instant; he and his Senior Brother had journeyed far together, weathering endless trials, so despite the grim peril at hand, fear barely stirred in him, his resolve firm. His form darted out from the barrier's edge in a blink, dodging the monks' strikes.
The second he burst free, an arhat smirked icily and lunged to seize him!
This arhat's limbs stretched unnaturally far, extending as though without limit.
Qitian Patriarch kept his face steady, letting his Primordial Spirit rise over his crown, as the Dao Domain unfolded once more.
Inside, a massive tree loomed vaguely, bearing a strong likeness to the Undying Divine Tree in the Longevity Sect of Little Cang World, but far denser and grander in stature.
This marked the authentic Undying Divine Tree, Qitian Patriarch's core Lifebound Spirit Plant; what grew in the Longevity Sect was merely an offshoot from this original.
Drawing power from the Undying Divine Tree, the Dao Domain anchored deep into the ground; with a faint quiver, it flung away the far-stretching giant palms.