Chapter 356: Chapter 356

The silk cloth tore weakly.

As the red silk embroidered with a mantra was ripped away, the wall and the pattern it had hidden were revealed.

Mang-hon’s eyes became drowsy and heavy.

The expressions on the Dalai Lama and the Lama monks were anything but ordinary.

They were filled with solemn determination.

Those kinds of people were always dangerous. Years of accumulated experience made that clear.

“What kind of bullshit trick is this?”

Mang-hon was someone who knew most sorceries and spells, even ancient rituals.

He only recognized that it was extremely old and bizarre.

And then, an anomaly occurred.

It was a sound that resembled a massive mechanism activating.

The ceiling began to open.

Geu-geu-geu-geu-geung—

The sight of the enormous palace ceiling opening was nothing short of spectacular.

The bright blue sky appeared, and radiant sunlight poured in.

Meanwhile, the door Mang-hon and the Mad Wind Army soldiers had passed through shut with a metallic clang.

“Hoho, so they’ve set a trap, huh?”

The Mad Wind Army soldiers murmured in unease.

But Mang-hon was still smiling.

Even if this enclosed space were filled with boiling oil, Mang-hon would be fine.

The Mad Wind Army bandits might be in danger, but he didn’t care.

Mang-hon was still the one with the upper hand.

“Or is this your final desperate struggle?”

It was no different from foolish sheep luring a pack of wolves into their pen.

Soon, even the bandits relaxed and began to laugh.

The Mad Wind Society had once been the free-blowing desert wind of the Great Desert.

It was long ago that they fell to become one of the Demon Cult’s military units.

At the very least, they were now freely enacting a massacre.

Even when sadistic ridicule was hurled at him, the Dalai Lama did not despair.

He was an Absolute master.

Considering the majesty of an Absolute master, the Dalai Lama alone could handle half of the Mad Wind Army.

However, the reason he couldn’t take the lead despite his overwhelming strength was none other than the Cardinal, Mang-hon.

‘Cardinal… Truly a dangerous man.’

The Dalai Lama, being a reincarnator, knew well just how long the Evil Cult had been a threat.

Those who followed the Evil God had been baptized by it.

Among them, the three strongest Cardinals were on another level entirely.

The Dalai Lama recalled a past over a thousand years ago.

It must have been around 1,300 years ago.

It was when his master, the Zen master Daeryun, rescued a young boy who had been buried alive for human sacrifice.

“The Guanyin Bodhisattva has guided me to you…!”

Master Daeryun was a Lama who had fought against the cultists.

That cult was none other than the Evil Cult.

And eventually, an old priest of the Evil Cult appeared and executed Daeryun.

That priest was none other than Mang-hon, one of the Cardinals.

“Hurry up and show us something already. I’ve been waiting.”

Though his face seemed somewhat different, Mang-hon still wore that same white powder and jingling ornaments.

Even after 1,300 years, the memory of first seeing Mang-hon was vivid.

Yet Mang-hon seemed to have no memory of the Dalai Lama at all.

Back then, the Dalai Lama had been just a boy who couldn’t even speak properly.

‘This is the chance to take him down.’

In terms of recorded knowledge, Potala Palace was more versed in ancient lore than any other sect.

They knew well just how dangerous a Cardinal of the Evil Cult could be.

They were prepared for sacrifice, completely.

“I shall show you, monster.”

What the Dalai Lama and the Lama monks had resolved to do was ‘sacrifice.’

Nothing in this world comes without a price.

For a person to live, something else must die.

One must slit a sheep’s throat and drink its blood, slice its skin and eat its flesh.

One must kill plants, chew their roots, and swallow their fruits.

A lifetime is the very process of accumulating karma.

As reincarnators, the Dalai Lama and the Lama monks had already amassed an enormous amount of karma.

To gain power also requires a price.

They would offer up that karma in a sacred rite.

Though Potala Palace forbade human sacrifice, offering oneself was not inherently a sin.

Since ancient times, people have performed offering rituals—

To evil gods, to great yokai, to heavenly deities, and to the Buddha.

One offered something precious and gained power in return.

The intent was usually for the benefit of oneself or one’s group.

‘Grant us a bountiful harvest.’

‘Drive away the great tiger that has settled at the village mountain pass.’

‘Kill the soldiers of the neighboring country.’

And human sacrifice involved forcibly capturing and killing the person offered as the ritual offering.

The ones being offered were always the weak. Slaves raised like livestock, or those who opposed the interests of the group.

That was why the conscious and righteous banned human sacrifice.

Potala Palace also forbade human sacrifice from that time forward, but…

‘Now the time has come to return everything to the Buddha.’

In fact, among the ancient sutras, there was one that speaks of offering oneself.

The Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra (सद्धर्मपुण्डरीक सूत्र),

In the Central Plains, it was known as the Lotus Sutra of the Wonderful Dharma.

The Dalai Lama began reciting from that scripture.

“Though I manifested divine powers and made offerings to the Buddha, none were as great as offering my own body.”

The Lama monks standing beside the Dalai Lama all began chanting the sutra in unison.

“He anointed himself with fragrant oil and went before the Sun-Moon Pure Bright Virtue Buddha.”

The Mad Wind bandits flinched in alarm.

A strange energy emanated from the Lama monks.

Voices echoed from all directions.

The bandits looked up.

Even along the rim of the opened ceiling, Lama monks stood densely packed.

There had been those who did not step forward until now, even while defending Potala Palace.

As the chants echoed from all sides, even the air began to tremble peculiarly.

“Wearing the celestial treasure robe, anointing the body with fragrant oil, and vowing with divine power—”

What kind of vow? A bodhisattva’s vow.

A vow to save all sentient beings suffering in this world.

A vow to reach the other shore of enlightenment.

And the vow of these monks from Potala Palace was…

“We vow: here and now, we shall slay the priest of the evil god and bring salvation to suffering beings.”

Another unified chant.

Then they recited the sutra of Bhaiṣajyarāja, the Medicine King Bodhisattva, who burned his own body in offering to the Buddha.

“He set his body aflame, and that radiance illuminated eight billion worlds.”

And then: the Dalai Lama, Panchen Lama, Two Wise Lamas, Yudal Lama, Sam Lama, Jicheon Lama, Ryunchal Lama.

The noblest of the Lama monks, the reincarnators who had crossed hundreds of lifetimes, caught fire.

The flames upon their bodies were blue.

Unlike the self-immolation attempted by Divine Monk in the past, there was no heat to be felt.

Only then did Mang-hon realize the true nature of those flames.

For the first time, something like a sense of crisis appeared on his face.

“You insane monks! You’re performing the offering ritual from thousands of years ago!”

The blue flames were not burning flesh as an offering.

That was why they gave off no heat, and why their color was so unusual.

The Dalai Lama and the Lama monks knew well what was more precious than the flesh.

The honbaek (魂魄)—the soul and spirit.

Reincarnation, in truth, was not so different from immortality.

The absolute beings who once ruled the world all sought eternal life—yet these monks had broken that endless cycle of rebirth.

By offering their own honbaek to the Buddha…

Mang-hon could no longer sit back and observe.

He began to draw upon techniques he had not used until now.

The weapons of the bandits around him were drawn together as if pulled by a magnet.

Spears, sabers, and swords clumped into a single massive iron spear, and at its tip, pitch-black ganggi surged.

It shot toward the Dalai Lama, who was still engulfed in flames.

The Dalai Lama, who had been chanting with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them wide.

And Mang-hon’s iron spear, which could have shattered a mountain, struck an invisible wall and ricocheted away.

Mang-hon clenched his teeth.

Would the Buddhas truly receive such self-immolation from the Lama monks with joy?

The answer was clear in the records of the Buddhas when the Medicine King Bodhisattva performed self-immolation.

「At that time, the many Buddhas praised and said:」

「Excellent, most excellent. O virtuous one, this is true diligence and a true offering. Even if one offered all incense and jewels, it would not compare to this.」

The Buddha had accepted the offering.

The Dalai Lama and the Lama monks felt their honbaek burning.

The value of a soul was equivalent to the karma it had accumulated.

The karma gathered through many lifetimes of reincarnation—burned and offered to the Buddha.

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The Buddhas and Bodhisattvas dwelled in their own Pure Lands, separate even from the heavenly realms.

This complex space was constructed to offer accumulated karma to a Buddha of such a Pure Land.

The Lama monks seated above the open ceiling served as intermediaries for the ritual.

The karma burned in the circuit that had been hidden beneath the silk cloth began to gather.

The massive vajra stone embedded at the center gradually began to turn red.

Mang-hon, realizing what the ritual’s conduit was, hurled his massive iron spear once more toward the vajra stone.

But again, the iron spear struck an invisible wall and bounced off.

A few quick-witted bandits attempted to flee.

But the door was sealed shut, with not even a sliver of a gap.

All the walls here were blocked with steel plates a foot thick. There was no way to break out.

The bandits realized they were completely trapped.

The vajra stone grew steadily more crimson.

The fifteen Lama monks whose bodies were engulfed in blue flames began to show darkened expressions.

Among them, Ryunchal Lama, positioned at the edge, was the first to cough up blood and collapse.

The flame on his body extinguished.

He didn’t stir, as if his life had been extinguished.

Ryunchal Lama, who had offered his entire honbaek in flame, would never reincarnate again.

After him, Sam Lama died, followed by Yudal Lama, whose life also came to an end.

At last, even the Two Wise Lamas coughed up blood.

The vajra stone had turned completely red.

Then, all the Lama monks seated in meditation above the ceiling simultaneously lifted their heads.

The karma that had been collected within the vajra stone was vanishing—going somewhere.

The Buddha was receiving the offering.

And what the Dalai Lama had requested of the Buddha through this offering ritual was…

“…He is coming,” the Dalai Lama murmured.

Sensing danger, Mang-hon’s body began to be wrapped by swarms of insects that appeared from nowhere.

Because of the tens of thousands of insects attaching to his limbs, he began to grow in size.

Now several jang tall, Mang-hon roared furiously.

He had realized which Buddha had received the offering.

“You lunatics offered it to the Shakyamuni Buddha…!”

And then, a brilliantly multicolored light streamed down through the open ceiling.

Mang-hon’s voice was swept away by the radiant light carrying real force and vanished.

All sound within the hall came to a stop.

Clouds of a mystical hue began to flow down.

The clouds turned into rain that gently soaked the hall.

In an instant, water pooled across the floor, and lotus flowers began to bloom from it.

Amid the five-colored light, a massive shadow began to rise.

A powerful presence filled the entire hall.

The bandits, overwhelmed, dropped to their knees and prostrated.

They rubbed their hands together and begged for mercy, but no sound came from their mouths.

Within this otherworldly silence—

Mang-hon witnessed the Buddha emerging through the multicolored clouds.

The shape of his mouth twisted into crude, unspeakable curses.

Yet no voice came out.