The blood-red smoke formed from resentment gradually enveloped the eight Daoist Inspection Envoys.

  They screamed and roared as crimson karmic fire ignited on their bodies.

  Those Vajra Temple dared not kill—Asura killed.

  Beneath the karmic fire, Xia Li watched these eight people be burned alive into nothingness. The karmic fire had no temperature, didn't even have a fixed form, yet watching it filled Xia Li with deep fear.

  He had also created karma...

  If karmic fire were to burn him someday, he wouldn't fare well either.

  Afterward...

  The pitch-black hand withdrew back into the mountain, leaving only a dark pit.

  Only then did the monks of Vajra Temple come to the temple gates, regarding Xia Li with complicated expressions.

  "Patron, this old monk previously misjudged you. You do possess Buddha-nature... but it resembles that of an Asura."

  "It would be better if you never enter the Buddhist sect—better for you, and better for all sentient beings. The evil of sentient beings has its own karmic consequences. We common people must not touch such causes and effects at all."

  The old monk shook his head and sighed. The young monk who had previously received Xia Li also watched him with fearful eyes.

  This was Asura—a guardian deity of Buddhism.

  Yet even the Buddhist sect itself rejected its existence, wanting to seal it away.

  "I observe that Asura's arm is so massive, yet this mountain clearly cannot contain its entire body. Does Vajra Temple have a secret realm?"

  "It is not a secret realm. Our Vajra Temple only seals one of its arms."

  "What?"

  Xia Li furrowed his brow. This meant Asura had been dismembered? Beaten until its body was scattered and separated, sealed in different places.

  "What did it... what did that Asura do?"

  "During the great Buddhist persecution of that era, it descended carrying hatred and fury, unleashing a boundless sea of blood. This only strengthened the world's resolve to exterminate Buddhism. We only wish to cultivate in peace, able only to handle what lies within our power."

  "Thus, several of our Buddhist great powers sacrificed themselves to seal it, exchanging this for the world's understanding and forgiveness..."

  The old monk spoke thus. Xia Li wanted to say something upon hearing this, but didn't know how to begin.

  "Patron, Asura is not a benevolent creature. Nothing in this world is absolute—how many absolutely good people exist in this world? Kill to the end and surely none will remain alive."

  None would naturally mean no evil either—but goodness would also lose its meaning.

  When the old monk said this, Xia Li nodded outwardly, but held different views in his heart. After all, he had personally carried Asura's fury.

  That fury hadn't burned when facing those with little evil karma. If it truly walked the extreme path, then Asura would be a demon with no Buddha-nature whatsoever.

  Therefore, when it came down to it...

  "Master, you actually don't need to explain. I understand. The Buddhist sect is a Buddhist sect of humans, not of Buddha."

  "Sealing their guardian deity, cutting off their own retreat, preferring ten thousand insults without the slightest resistance—all to prove they are human."

  "But you are human. How many in this world under heaven are not human?"

  "If they require their approval..."

  Xia Li thought of Heaven Alliance, thought of Corporate Union, thought of countless injustices.

  "I would rather become Asura."

  With those words, Xia Li turned and left. This time he couldn't even step past Vajra Temple's threshold. This Dao-seeking journey could be called a complete failure.

  He could clearly have suppressed that nameless fire. He could clearly have expelled that nameless fire. His compliance could only mean his fundamental nature was like this.

  Those good do not deceive me; those evil come to my door. It is not that I am extreme—I merely help collect the debts of sentient beings.

  On the mountain path down.

  Chanting sounded from behind Xia Li. Though they were scriptures meant to calm the mind and focus the spirit, hearing them now only made him feel waves of agitation.

  Leaving the red desert where Vajra Temple was located, Xia Li walked across the sand sea. Since there was nothing to gain in the Desolate Continent, he should next go to the Savage Continent.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  But just as he was on the return journey.

  Terrifying tremors suddenly came from the calm sand sea. Xia Li felt something moving beneath his feet!

  It was a sand worm!!

  The sand worm was right beneath him!

  Xia Li cursed his luck. Horrifying suction pulled at him—it felt like a thousand tons of weight pressing down on him. Fortunately, Xia Li possessed telekinetic power comparable to a Nascent Soul cultivator, and by using telekinesis to hold himself up, he barely managed to float.

  Just as Xia Li prepared to escape.

  A palm seal flew from somewhere unknown.

  "Little thief, die!"

  Xia Li recognized that voice. It was the Soul Transformation elder he'd seen before. The opponent had fled but hadn't immediately returned to his sect—was he staking him out here?

  Or was it just this unlucky to coincidentally encounter him?

  The Soul Transformation strike was terrifyingly powerful. Even though Heaven Chip immediately deployed the force field shield and activated the protective treasure Qiao Yuan had previously used, that palm instantly shattered the force field shield and the protective treasure along with it.

  Xia Li could only use telekinesis to form a barrier, but even telekinesis couldn't block that terrifying strike. After three layers of weakening, when it struck Xia Li, it still nearly took half his life.

  Bones fractured, prosthetics damaged, organs injured with massive internal bleeding.

  Even his Spirit Core shook, its surface showing many cracks. That pseudo-Golden Core was covered in fractures, about to shatter.

  "Hm?"

  The Soul Transformation elder who attacked Xia Li hadn't expected that a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator could survive one strike under his hand.

  And he had even ambushed him!

  But it was just that one strike.

  He could see Xia Li's condition. The next strike would certainly take Xia Li's life.

  Soul Transformation cultivators could gather the momentum of heaven and earth, turning the mundane into the miraculous. Every move carried heaven's might. Only Nascent Soul cultivators who had crossed one life-level threshold could barely withstand a few strikes. That Xia Li, a Foundation Establishment cultivator, could take one strike was already world-shaking.

  That palm seal descended like the falling sky...

  Xia Li gritted his teeth. To survive now, he had only two choices.

  Either take out the Third Elder's Three-Orifice Stone Heart to gain Void Refinement power, or immediately use the mysterious ring to return to Earth.

  But Xia Li quickly realized he was wrong!

  With the sand worm below, that horrifying suction obstructed even divine thought. Originally faster than lightning by several times, his divine thought now moved slowly like lead and mercury, unable to reach either the Phase Ring or the mysterious ring.

  Was he going to die...

  Though he should be able to resurrect once, should he use up such a precious opportunity?

  Xia Li gritted his teeth...

  Being attacked once more meant certain death, but there was one place where he might find a desperate chance at survival.

  Xia Li stopped resisting the sand worm's suction. His entire body rapidly fell into the depths of the sand sea, entering the sand worm's mouth along with the flowing sand.

  The next moment...

  The palm seal crashed down and struck the sand worm. The sand worm was enraged, its massive body suddenly bursting from the sand sea. Seeing this, the Soul Transformation elder didn't linger either, once again taking out a Void-Breaking Talisman to flee.

  There was no need to fight to the death with such a terrifying creature as a sand worm. Besides, Xia Li had been swallowed by the sand worm and would certainly die without any chance of survival.

  So many came to train in the Desolate Continent, and tens of thousands of cultivators died in sand worm bellies every year, including many Nascent Soul and Soul Transformation cultivators among them.

  Xia Li, a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator who'd entered a sand worm's belly, would probably have even his bone marrow completely digested, becoming a pile of white sand excreted by the sand worm, forever remaining in this Desolate Continent, becoming part of the sand sea.