The Buddha-demon halo explosively shattered, like a giant stone thrown into a calm lake, instantly breaking the fragile balance maintained in the main hall for ages! Vast, pure Buddhist power and sharp, resentful demonic energy lost their mutual constraint, becoming two runaway torrents, frantically clashing and annihilating, erupting destructive energy storms sweeping in all directions!
Bearing the brunt were Xiao Qi and Zhao Tiezhu who were closest!
"Careful!"
Xiao Qi reacted extremely fast. At the same moment that shattering sound rang out, he had already fully channeled the just-introduced "Indestructible Diamond Body" technique. Pale golden qi and blood precious light penetrated his body, forming a solid protection. Simultaneously he yanked Zhao Tiezhu behind him. The "Wandering Dragon Nine Turns" movement technique was pushed to the limit as he rapidly retreated!
"Boom—!!!"
The energy storm fiercely struck the protection Xiao Qi had propped up, issuing an ear-splitting boom! The pale golden precious light violently flickered and dimmed. Xiao Qi only felt an irresistible giant force transmit through him. His throat tasted sweet as he nearly spat blood. His form was thrown backward like a kite with a broken string, heavily crashing into a broken golden sand pillar in the main hall before barely stopping. Zhao Tiezhu, protected behind him, also had his qi and blood surging, his face pale.
The rabbit spirit was even more scared into a "squeak" as it burrowed deep into Xiao Qi's clothes, trembling all over.
After the storm passed, the main hall was in chaos. The already ruined buildings were even worse off. Countless golden sand shakily fell. At the jade platform originally shrouded by the halo, the scene had completely changed!
That Buddha-demon intertwined halo had thoroughly disappeared, revealing the platform's true appearance. On the platform—completely empty! That glass-like golden heart wrapped in black threads and that dark skull had both vanished without a trace!
Only at the platform's center remained a fist-sized, bottomless hole. Strands of pure Buddhist power and even denser demonic energy continuously escaped from the hole, as if below it connected to some source.
"The core... is gone?" Zhao Tiezhu covered his chest, looking at the empty platform with a blank face.
Xiao Qi wiped a trace of blood from the corner of his mouth, his gaze sharply scanning all around. His divine consciousness caught two extremely weak yet completely different nature auras, rushing toward different directions behind the main hall at astonishing speed! One aura had pure Buddhist power yet carried a strange heartbeat fluctuation (the glass-like golden heart); the other aura was thick with demonic energy yet also contained some ancient Buddhist Zen meaning (the dark skull).
They had separated! Was it because the balance was broken, causing the seal to fail, and these two core objects had fled on their own?
They had to find them! Especially that suspected Buddha head skull—it was very likely the key to thoroughly purifying this place's demonic energy, and perhaps even completing the "Indestructible Diamond Body" transmission!
Xiao Qi forcefully suppressed his body's qi and blood turbulence, saying to Zhao Tiezhu: "Chase! They ran in different directions. I'll chase that demonic energy skull, you chase that Buddhist power golden heart! Be careful—they still have spirituality left, definitely something strange about them!" His intuition told him that demonic energy skull was more dangerous, so he decided to handle it personally.
"Alright!" Zhao Tiezhu didn't hesitate. Determining the direction the Buddhist power golden heart had fled (seemingly toward a side hall), he immediately chased after it.
Xiao Qi's form flickered, rapidly chasing toward the direction the demonic energy skull had fled (behind the main hall). The rabbit spirit poked its head from his clothes, its small nose sniffing, small paw firmly pointing behind—obviously its perception of the demonic energy skull's whereabouts was even clearer.
Behind the main hall was an even more ruined and collapsed courtyard ruin. Broken walls and debris were everywhere, many places buried under thick golden sand. The demonic energy skull's aura here became somewhat erratic, seemingly deliberately circling around, or... searching for something.
Xiao Qi closely followed, relying on the rabbit spirit's guidance and his keen perception of demonic energy fluctuations to quickly move through the ruins. Finally, that aura stopped beside a dried-up ancient well half-buried by several huge broken stones, then... disappeared?
Xiao Qi came to the ancient well's edge. This was an old water well built from golden sand. The well opening wasn't large, bottomlessly deep. Only dense demonic energy continuously surged from within, mixed with a familiar Buddhist Zen meaning.
"Down there?" Xiao Qi's gaze concentrated. He didn't rashly descend but carefully extended his divine consciousness into the well.
The well wasn't too deep—about a dozen zhang to the bottom. The well bottom was piled with thick sand and dead branches. And on that sand, quietly lay an object—precisely that missing head from the main Buddha statue, its color dark and heavy!
This Buddha head's face was barely visible with compassionate and dignified features, but the entire skull presented an ominous dark gold color, as if stained by demonic energy for countless years. And most striking were its eye positions!
There, not hollow, but embedded with two pigeon-egg-sized, pure milky-white, soft-light-flowing beads on their surfaces! These two beads emitted pure to the extreme, vast Buddhist power. It was precisely them continuously releasing Buddhist light to resist the dense demonic energy eroding the Buddha head, firmly suppressing the demonic energy in this ancient well and even larger area right here!
"Relics! And extremely high-grade Buddhist relics!" Xiao Qi's heart shook. So this was it! This main Buddha statue's head hadn't been cut off by the demonic path and casually discarded. Rather, it had been actively placed here by ancient Buddhist great powers using their own relics formed after passing, containing their lifetime of cultivation and Buddhist essence, as an array eye to suppress the ancient city's demonic energy core source!
This ancient well was likely the core of that year's demonic energy eruption, or connected to some demonic cave! The Buddha head together with the relics in its eyes jointly formed a powerful seal!
Only through ages of passing, the seal's power declined, and demonic energy constantly eroded, causing the Buddha head to be polluted. Perhaps even giving birth within it to that strange, Buddha-demon intertwined glass-like golden heart? And the relics' power was mostly used to maintain the seal, unable to thoroughly purify the Buddha head.
Earlier when the main hall's seal was broken, this Buddha head had automatically returned to its suppressing position!
Finding the Buddha head and relics meant finding the key to resolving this place's demonic trouble! But how to use the relics' power to thoroughly purify the Buddha head that had been eroded by demonic energy for ages, and reinforce or even repair this ancient well seal, was a huge problem.
Xiao Qi stood by the well, looking down at that dark gold Buddha head floating in the demonic energy, guarded by the relics' Buddhist light, his brow tightly locked. Forcibly descending would mean directly facing the densest demonic energy impact. And collecting the relics? Not to mention whether he could succeed—once the relics were removed, the seal would immediately collapse, and the demonic energy source suppressed for ages would completely erupt. The consequences would be unimaginable!
Just as he was considering countermeasures, below the ancient well, another change occurred!
That dark gold Buddha head, its tightly closed eyes (where the relics were), actually... slowly opened a crack!