The Demon with Holy Radiance

He was merely an observer here, unable to interfere with anything. The things in this place shouldn’t be able to harm him, either.

Time to go.

In the next instant, Yang An’s figure vanished, hurtling toward the Forbidden Sea.

Faced with the black shore and its suffocating unknown, he chose to forge ahead without hesitation.

The moment he crossed into the domain of the Forbidden Sea, heaven and earth began to tremble. The entire sea started to boil violently, and a terrifying sense of pressure washed over him instantly.

The sea and sky merged into one as the heavens and earth closed in, threatening to crush him to a pulp.

The Forbidden Sea seemed to roar, warning the trespasser. It wanted to swallow him whole, to devour him until not even a scrap of bone remained.

But Yang An paid it no mind. Facing this terrifying scene, he mustered all his strength and pushed forward, continuously activating his Light and Shadow Escape Technique.

In an instant, a colossal tidal wave came crashing down, threatening to submerge him completely.

A single drop of seawater landed on Yang An’s face. A piercing pain, at once ice-cold and searing hot, shot through him. His spirit jolted, and in that same instant, the world before him transformed.

Somehow, he had arrived in a place that felt vaguely familiar. He had unknowingly and inexplicably passed through the Forbidden Sea.

’Just as I thought!’

Yang An breathed a sigh of relief. It would be impossible to say his heart hadn’t wavered when facing that terrifying Forbidden Sea.

But, just as he’d suspected, this was ultimately just one of the Bow Lady’s memories. Everything stemmed from her past experiences and feelings, not his own. He wasn’t the one who had to endure it.

’So... where am I now?’

Yang An scanned his surroundings. He was certain he had been to this place in the real world, yet everything here looked so unfamiliar.

This surreal feeling made him land and pause, trying to get his bearings.

As if guided by an unseen force, Yang An soon discovered a temple on a barren mountain.

The temple sat atop a mountain peak. Even from a great distance, he could hear a faint, intermittent chanting that immediately caught his attention.

Yang An was all too familiar with the sound of that chanting.

It was the sound of sutras being chanted.

Hearing sutras chanted from within a temple was perfectly normal. What wasn’t normal was the temple itself.

’Great Virtue Temple!’

The Great Virtue Temple was the first thing that came to Yang An’s mind.

Back when the Central Continent was sealed, the five great powers of the Outer Continent had not yet emerged. At this point in time, the Great Virtue Temple should have been just getting its start.

’No wonder this place felt both familiar and strange. I can’t believe I ended up at the Great Virtue Temple without even realizing it.’

Now, Yang An was absolutely certain that the fragment of the Bow Lady’s soul was inside the Great Virtue Temple.

In his state as an observer, Yang An had no reason to hesitate. He flew brazenly into the temple.

He looked up at the gold plaque hanging high above. This wasn’t the future seat of "Great Virtue and Goodness" yet, just a somewhat dilapidated temple. But it was, without a doubt, called the Great Virtue Temple.

Inside, there was only a single main hall where dozens of monks were chanting scriptures. None of them noticed Yang An’s arrival.

The head monk was unfamiliar; it wasn’t Hai Shu Bodhisattva as Yang An had expected.

He didn’t know what had transpired at the Great Virtue Temple, but that wasn’t important. He was looking for the location of the Eternal Prison, where the Bow Lady was.

In the real Great Virtue Temple, the Eternal Prison was suppressed beneath the Ten Thousand Buddha Hall.

But after searching this version of the Great Virtue Temple, Yang An couldn’t find any trace of the Eternal Prison.

By late morning, the monks in the main hall had finished their chanting and departed, leaving only the middle-aged head monk behind. He continued to piously burn incense and chant.

But just as Yang An was about to search elsewhere, the monk’s physical body began to undergo a bizarre transformation.

A second head split forth from his torso and opened its mouth.

An aura of countless grievances and malevolence instantly poured out from the mouth, carrying a nauseating stench.

Yang An froze when he saw the head that had split off.

’Hai Shu!’

’So this is where he was!’

The head that had split off looked exactly like Hai Shu, but there was no sign of life in its features. It looked more like a mere husk.

Yang An immediately realized what was happening.

’If Hai Shu is here, then the Eternal Prison he’s been suppressing must be inside his mouth. That gaping mouth must be the entrance to the Eternal Prison!’

In the next instant, Yang An appeared behind the monk and plunged his hand into Hai Shu’s open mouth.

The monk had summoned Hai Shu and was surely about to say something, but Yang An had no time to eavesdrop on their conversation.

The moment his hand entered Hai Shu’s mouth, he felt an immense suction force. The world spun around him, and he was abruptly pulled into layers of black mist.

’It’s the Bow Lady’s aura!’

Yang An stabilized himself and immediately sensed the Bow Lady’s presence. He grew excited as he recognized the all-too-familiar aura.

’She really is here. Everything is just as I predicted.’

His journey across the Forbidden Sea to the Outer Continent had been fast-forwarded.

This meant that the Bow Lady’s soul fragment had also experienced all of this. After crossing the Forbidden Sea, she must have met with an accident that caused her to fall into the hands of the Great Virtue Temple.

Besides the Bow Lady, Yang An could also sense other auras here.