100-Type Guanyin?!
As hundreds of arms slowly rotated, some clenched into fists, some held their palms flat, some pinched their fingers, some chopped downward, and some slashed horizontally... A hundred arms, a hundred palms, each in a different posture, rested behind the massive Guanyin statue. Following the Guanyin's pursed-lip smile, they gazed down from above...
Roy's expression tightened, instantly feeling an intense, overwhelming pressure. As Netero looked at him faintly, his breathing quickened...
"Biscuit told me that you have quite the innate wisdom. Last time at Heavens Arena, your casual remark, 'Thus have I heard, rejoicing in praise,' left her pondering for a long time. Now, it seems she wasn't wrong..." Netero looked solemn and dignified. As the Guanyin bowed its head, it felt like the sky was collapsing, obscuring the hazy, boundless light of the mind. He stared intently at Roy, pointing at the Guanyin behind him. "Do you recognize it?"
There was no room for lies in the mental space.
Even if Roy wanted to lie, his mental projection cast into this world would instantly expose him...
The young man raised his right hand to shield his eyes, looking up at the Guanyin with a sigh. "It is indeed very tall, and the precious statue looks very similar, but there are some places that are different from what I imagined."
"Where?"
"There."
Roy also pointed at the Guanyin.
However,
The direction his finger extended was slightly higher than Netero's, passing straight over the Guanyin's shoulder and stopping at the one hundred arms slowly rotating behind its back!
The young man spoke truthfully to Netero, "The one I know doesn't have a hundred arms... but,"
"A thousand arms!"
The Great Merciful and Great Compassionate Thousand-Armed Guanyin, honored as one of the [Three Sages of the West], presided over the virtues of the Guanyin division and served as the left attendant to Amitabha Buddha.
The "thousand" in its status symbolized boundlessness and perfection, usually appearing with "a thousand arms and a thousand eyes." The "thousand arms" represented the boundless vastness of great compassion, while the "thousand eyes" represented the perfect and unobstructed wisdom... The *Dharani Sutra* stated: The Thousand-Armed, Thousand-Eyed Avalokitesvara can benefit and bring peace to all sentient beings, corresponding to the five divisions and five methods according to the nature of sentient beings, satisfying all desires.
It could be said that in terms of "might," "status," "Buddhist doctrine," "wisdom," and "divine power," although the Guanyin statue before him was massive, it was still a far cry from the true "Thousand-Armed Guanyin"... To describe the difference as one being in "heaven" and the other on "earth" would not be an exaggeration at all!
*Rumble...* The Buddhist hall trembled... Rubble fell rustling down...
As Roy finished speaking, Netero's fluctuating emotions were directly projected onto the Buddhist hall, so much so that his Buddhist heart, cultivated for nearly eighty years, trembled and wavered along with it...
This time, Netero was truly somewhat surprised.
The "Strongest Human" looked Roy up and down, as if meeting him for the first time. He stared at him carefully for a long while before speaking, "Biscuit was wrong. Your understanding of Buddhism is even higher than she, and I, imagined..."
"Ho ho ho... Strange, truly strange... An entire family of cold-blooded assassins actually managed to produce a Buddhist disciple with quite the innate roots. Old man, to be honest, I truly envy you..."
*Hmph...* A cold snort drifted over from around the corner, sounding both haughty and proud...
Maha let out a cold snort, an imperceptible hint of smugness appearing at the corner of his mouth as he quickened the rocking of his chair.
Within the vast world formed by [Heart Drop · Fist Listen] X [Heart Drop · Sword Listen]...
Roy sat quietly on the campstool, facing the Buddhist hall sideways. He neither admitted nor denied it, nor did he show any pride or smugness. His words were straightforward, entirely calm and breezy, and equally... entirely factual.
It should be noted that in the Hunter World, there was no shortage of religion and faith. For example, Netero's 100-Type Guanyin represented [Buddha], Chrollo's cross symbolized [Christ], and behind Hanzo's ninjutsu was the [Ninja Way]... From this, it could be seen that this world was not an illusion, but a certain projection after the reverse conjuration of the real world...
And Roy's advantage lay in his transmigration, his rebirth, and his possession of two lifetimes of experience that the natives of this world would never have. Having some understanding of [Buddha], [Christ], and the [Ninja Way] was nothing extraordinary.
The rumbling gradually weakened... The Buddhist hall stopped trembling... After his initial shock and fluctuating emotions, Netero quickly steadied his mind and spoke truthfully, "Actually, I know that Guanyin has a thousand arms. The fact that it only reveals a hundred arms now is not Guanyin's fault, but my own shortcoming..."
"It is because I am too weak to support the Thousand-Armed Guanyin..."
With a flick of his wrist, Netero caught another swimming fish, only to quickly toss it back into the lake to release it. At this moment... the old man truly seemed as Roy had described: his vitality was declining, unable to return to his peak. A subtle aura of twilight, helplessness, and dejection lingered around him, making one feel a lump in their throat, momentarily unsure of what to say...
A gentle breeze blew across the lake, causing Netero's white eyebrows, beard, and hair to sway. His reflection in the lake of the mind was shattered and dispersed by the ripples of a falling green leaf...
As Roy's emotions fluctuated, a few lines of text blinked into existence on the surface of the mental lake, sinking into the ears of Netero and Maha, who was watching from the sidelines, unwilling to approach...
"All men know that gods are good..."
"Yet fame and wealth they can't forget!"
"Where are the generals and ministers of old? A mound of grass is all that's left."
"All men know that gods are good, yet silver and gold they can't forget!"
"Every morning they fret about not having enough, until the day their eyes are shut."
"All men know that gods are good, yet their lovely wives they can't forget!"
"While alive, they speak of love every day; when dead, she goes off with another man."
"All men know that gods are good, yet their children and grandchildren they can't forget!"
"Foolish parents have always been many, but who has ever seen filial descendants?"
"This..." Netero's brow furrowed heavily as he suddenly looked at Roy. "Where did you read this haiku?"
{Note: Haiku, as a form of short poetry, is not uncommon in the Hunter World. A famous example is Basho, who once teamed up with Kurapika and Melody to protect Neon during the Yorknew City arc. His Nen ability is [Wandering Great Haiku Poet]: As long as he writes a haiku on a piece of paper, the contents will become reality.
But because the [Mechanics] are too heaven-defying, this ability has extremely strict usage limitations: First, it is restricted by his own aura capacity, and the strength of the effect is linked to the literary quality of the haiku. If the sentence is not beautiful enough, the effect will be greatly reduced.
Second, a single sentence can only realize one function, and the paper will burn up after use. For example, he once wrote the haiku "Anything that is struck will burst into flames," which ultimately only caused a chair to catch fire, showing the limitations of his ability.}
"Fame," "lovely wives," "children and grandchildren"... A short haiku encompassed all the pursuits of human life, laying them bare before the world in a direct and crude manner... Netero stared deeply at Roy, almost certain... this was not something a boy his age could write...
However, if not the boy... could it be the "old thing"?
Netero split a fraction of his attention, gazing from afar through the hazy light of the mind toward that dim little room in the Zoldyck family's ancient castle. Maha, who was also an [Enhancement] user like him, "simple-minded" and well-developed in limbs, was clearly not someone who loved to read...
"Maha, this haiku is so sorrowful..."
At ten o'clock in the morning, the grandfather clock in the corner struck with a *dong*...
Inside that dim little room on the first floor of the Zoldyck family's ancient castle, the curtains were drawn. Soon after... a dense aura emerged from Maha's body, taking the form of Betty Zoldyck. She sat askew in Maha's embrace, looking mournfully and melancholically through the thick walls and lush jungle toward the butler's villa halfway up the mountain... Unknowingly, her small hands were firmly grasped by Maha beneath her...
The old man looked withered and close to death, appearing much older than Netero.
He opened his half-clouded old eyes and chuckled. "Of course. The person who wrote this haiku saw through life and human nature completely. That's why they felt it was meaningless, why they felt it was dull, and why they suffered..."
Betty Zoldyck leaned down, nestling against Maha's modest chest, and nodded in deep agreement. "Where do you think this child, Roy, read it?"
"In a dream." Separated by half of Kukuroo Mountain, the grandfather and great-grandson seemed to share a telepathic connection, speaking at the exact same time.
A sharp glint suddenly flashed through Netero's weather-beaten old eyes. He chuckled at Roy, "It seems your Nen ability is related to 'dreams'..."
Recalling Zigg's Nen ability [The Game of the Dead]... the old man sighed with emotion. "Alike, truly alike. Both are Conjuration, both are unconstrained by convention. If your grandfather Zigg were still alive to see you now, he would definitely be very happy."
For a moment, Netero seemed to see Zigg's shadow in Roy.
Not only did he inherit the excellent genes of the Zoldycks, bearing a thirty-percent resemblance in appearance, but even his hair color—aside from the glazed golden light flowing at the tips of Roy's hair—was almost indistinguishable.
But Zigg was Zigg, and Roy was Roy... No matter what Netero thought, Roy stayed true to himself. Raising his hand, he pulled a swimming fish from the mental lake for the first time. Without even looking at it, he said to Netero, "Who said Grandpa Zigg is dead? I saw him just a while ago."
Hmm?!
Netero froze, abruptly looking up... With a loud *rumble*, the [Buddhist Hall] behind him collapsed directly due to his massive emotional fluctuation. Even the plump-faced Guanyin statue carrying two hundred arms and a smile on its lips shattered with a *crack*, instantly buried under the rubble!
"You brat, do you know what you're saying?!" Before Netero could abruptly kick away his campstool and stand up!
A figure—faster, more agile, and more domineering than him, carrying thousands of purplish-black lightning bolts—flew over with a boom. In a mere flash, he arrived by Roy's side, sandwiching Roy tightly between himself and Netero!
At this moment, with thousands of lightning bolts on his left and the Guanyin buried in ruins on his right... Roy felt like a small boat recklessly intruding into the ocean, liable to be overturned by a crashing wave at any moment. Remaining silent... he simply flicked his wrist, tossing the fish he had just caught back into the mental lake...
Seeming to sense that the atmosphere on the shore was amiss, the fish widened its dead eyes, flicked its tail, and swiftly swam away... leaving Roy alone, holding a wooden stick as a fishing rod. He quietly swallowed and said, "You don't need to look at me like that. On the day I paid my respects to Grandpa Zigg, I only vaguely saw his silhouette through the Demon Eye he modified. As for..."
"Whether it was him or not, that remains to be verified..."
"Verified my ass," Maha's temper flared, directly cursing. "It has to be him! No one else has a connection to that big eye but him!"
Amidst his fluctuating emotions, Maha's mental projection suddenly revealed a formidable corner... In the state of [Heart Drop · Fist Listen] X [Heart Drop · Sword Listen], one could illuminate everyone's [Mental Essence]. By relying on this and conjuring it through "Nen," one could develop their own unique "Nen ability."
Maha stood right next to Roy. Under his intense agitation, a canopy of sky slowly unfurled behind him!
High in that canopy, thunder roared. Dozens of purplish-black lightning dragons could be seen swimming faintly within the terrifyingly dark clouds. Some revealed their majestic horns, some bared their five-fingered claws, and some dragged long dragon whiskers. Raising their heads, they let out dragon roars that shook the heavens and the earth... Just as Roy felt his eardrums aching, he took another look deep into the lightning...
He saw that beneath the dark clouds where the lightning dragons and electric snakes coiled, a shattered royal court sat in majestic ruin...
The broken walls and ruins of the royal court were far beyond what the Buddhist hall conjured by Netero's mind could compare to. A single toppled stone pillar was as massive as the towering giant trees Roy had seen on the Dark Continent... The young man took a deep breath and looked deeper inside... In the royal court plaza, where the overgrown grass almost drowned a person, mottled stone walls, bloodstained armor, and discarded weapons were scattered haphazardly across the ground... paving the way and extending all the way to the massive stone steps lying across the front of the main hall...
Roy stared blankly, his mind and spirit merging. Under the enhancement of [Heart Drop · Sword Listen], he maintained his out-of-body mental state, floating lightly over the collapsed stone walls, scattered weapons, and bloodstained armor. Then, he stepped onto the stone steps, slowly ascending until his head abruptly poked out from the final step...
Roy's eyes, burning with "suns," suddenly widened... The moment his field of vision opened up, he saw the throne, and the men and women lined up on both sides below it...
'Are these Great-grandfather's former subordinates?'
His silver hair, flowing with glazed golden light at the tips, swayed slightly as the young man strolled up the stone steps...
Sweeping his gaze across them, Roy quickly spotted those he had once seen in his great-grandfather's unconscious domain through his dreams... such as Brook Searle, Cyblus, and... his own great-grandmother...
A vague sense of enlightenment arose within the young man, immediately bringing a saying to mind...
A person experiences three deaths in their lifetime.
The first death is physiological death, where the body's organs gradually lose their function, the heart stops beating, breathing ceases, and the brain stops working, representing the end of life.
The second death is the fading of social identity. When a person is no longer mentioned in society, and their name, story, and influence are no longer remembered by people, their identity in society disappears from then on, representing the end of social relationships.
The third death... is the forgetting of spirit or memory. When a person's spirit is forgotten by the world, and no one remembers that they ever came to this world, this is death in the truest sense, representing the complete disappearance of the individual's existence.
And right now, it was clear that some people had died, yet they still lived tenaciously in his great-grandfather's heart...
Just as Roy could see them,
They could also see Roy.
Suddenly, countless gazes shot over, almost like an ocean, drowning Roy...