Mo Lu stepped into the great hall, and the rest of his fellow disciples had all arrived.
Even Daoist Hechun was bound by purple chains and laid upon the floor, with a scrap of cloth stuffed in his mouth, looking for all the world like a scholar kidnapped by bandits. Nearby, Hongqing sat cross-legged, guarding him with great interest.
Seeing Mo Lu approach, Hongqing explained: "The Senior Brother might be mad, but he is a major fighting force. After Master's guidance, he agreed to take the vanguard. It is just that his mouth is too annoying, so I plugged it."
Daoist Hechun let out muffled, varied groans, but unfortunately, the cloth was stuffed in tight. Neither Hongqing nor Mo Lu could hear his sutras, and thus they missed their chance to be "enlightened" by Zhunti Dao.
Mo Lu nodded and made a mental note of this. Although he was unaffected, he remained deeply impressed by the Zhunti's Wisdom Sutra that could appear directly in his mind, and he had not expected the solution to be so simple and brutal: just stuff his mouth.
Taoist Zirui sat high up, cross-legged beneath the deity statue with his eyes closed. As time passed, his aura grew increasingly powerful, merging with the statue.
Mo Lu looked at the statue. It was a middle-aged Daoist carved from white stone with blurred features. At a glance, it seemed unremarkable, and Taoist Zirui was vague about it, only saying it was a symbol of the Dao. Now, as if a veil had been lifted, the statue radiated a faint purple light, the white stone took on the texture of flesh and blood, and it seemed as if fierce beasts were crouching on either side of it.
Mo Lu looked away. He was not surprised by the anomaly of the statue, and now was not the time to study it. Counting carefully, this was the first time since he stepped into the world of cultivation that he had participated in a melee with so many cultivators. Fear was naturally present, but there was more excitement. He longed to witness more profound or bizarre techniques, to understand more strange cultivators, and then to kill them one by one, looting their corpses.
He felt the hot blood surging in his heart, even riling up the Grievance Maggot, forcing him to repress it and barely steady his state of mind.
Mo Lu scanned his surroundings. Putting Zirui aside, the disciples were sitting and breathing in silence. Suddenly, Hongqing broke the silence with a snort, explaining: "I suddenly remembered that Heifeng Temple monk I encountered last time—what was his name? I smashed him to pieces, mixed him in, and spread him out like a wild chrysanthemum. Truly a ridiculous sight."
"Heh, heh." Tittering laughter broke out among the disciples. The atmosphere eased, but the bloodthirsty intent grew stronger.
It was not a funny joke, but Mo Lu still laughed. From these cruel fellow disciples, he tasted a long-lost sense of belonging.
After sitting for a while longer, a group of small figures wearing black robes and standing no taller than five feet entered the great hall. They bowed respectfully to Taoist Zirui in the Daoist fashion before finding a corner of the hall to sit cross-legged.
Taking this as a signal, all sorts of strange cultivators continuously poured into the hall. There were skeletons draped in Buddhist beads, pig-headed men with green faces and fangs holding pickaxes, giant snakes as thick as trees, and rats that walked on two legs.
There were more and more people, but no one dared to make a scene. They crowded along the sides of the hall, maintaining a distance of three feet from Mo Lu and his group.
When the last fat monk found a place to sit in the crowded hall, no one else arrived. This was every cultivation faction in the territory of Five Dao Temple.
The time of the Rat had arrived.
Taoist Zirui stood up, and the statue, several zhang high, transformed into a purple light and merged into his body. His aura, in turn, became calm, like a fierce tiger lurking in a deep forest.
"I, Taoist Zirui, shall strike at Heifeng Temple. Is there anyone here who does not wish to go?"
"We will strictly follow the True Man's decree."
In the great hall, all the cultivation factions spoke in unison.
Everyone walked out of the hall, and Taoist Zirui summoned a dense, auspicious cloud the size of an acre.
"Set off!"