Chapter 291: Shin Sūsenju x Maha's Mental Projection
The Guanyin of the Hundred Type?!
As hundreds of arms slowly rotated, some clenched into fists, some held vertically as palms, some pinched with fingers, some chopped downward, and some sliced horizontally... One hundred arms, one hundred palms, each in a completely different posture, rested behind the massive divine statue of Guanyin. Complemented by Guanyin's slightly pursed lips curving into a smile, she looked down from above...
Roy's expression tensed, and he instantly felt an exceptionally powerful wave of oppressive pressure. As Netero looked over at him leisurely, his breathing accelerated along with it...
"Biscuit told this old man that you possess quite a bit of innate wisdom. The last time at the Heavens Arena, a casual phrase of 'Thus have I heard, rejoicing and praising' kept her reflecting for a long while. Looking at it now, she wasn't wrong..."
Netero's form was magnificent and solemn. As the Guanyin bowed her head, it looked like the heavens collapsing, obscuring the hazy, boundless light of the mind. Staring intensely at Roy, he reached out his hand and pointed at the Guanyin behind him, saying, "Do you recognize her?"
The mental space left no room for lies to hide. Even if Roy intended to lie, the mental projection cast into this domain would instantly expose him.
The young boy extended his right hand to cover his eyes, looking up with emotion at the Guanyin as he sighed, "She truly is towering, and the divine form is highly accurate, but some places are different from what I imagined."
"Where?"
"There."
Roy similarly raised a finger and pointed at the Guanyin. However, the direction his finger extended was slightly higher than Netero's, cutting straight past the Guanyin's shoulder to halt upon those one hundred arms slowly rotating behind her back!
The boy spoke truthfully to Netero: "The one I know doesn't possess a hundred arms... rather,"
"A thousand arms!"
The Great Compassionate Thousand-Armed Guanyin, revered as one of the Three Sages of the West, holds the supreme position of virtue within the Guanyin department and serves as the left attendant to Amitabha Buddha.
The "thousand" in her spiritual fruit signifies boundlessness and perfection, usually manifesting through a "thousand hands" and a "thousand eyes." The "thousand hands" represent the boundless magnitude of great compassion, while the "thousand eyes" represent the flawless, unobstructed nature of wisdom... The Dharani Sutra states: The Thousand-Armed, Thousand-Eyed Avalokitesvara can benefit and bring peace to all living beings. According to the capacity of living beings, she responds with the five divisions and five methods, fulfilling all vows and requests.
It could be said that in terms of majesty, spiritual ranking, Buddhist philosophy, wisdom, and divine capacity, though the divine statue of Guanyin before them was massive, it remained incredibly far from the true Thousand-Armed Guanyin. Using "one in the heavens, one on the earth" to describe the gap was far from an exaggeration!
Rumble~ The Buddhist hall vibrated... tiles and debris rustled downward...
As Roy's words fell, Netero's fluctuating emotions projected directly onto the Buddhist hall, to the point where the Buddhist heart he had cultivated for nearly eighty years vibrated and wavered along with it.
This time, Netero was truly taken by surprise.
This "strongest human" thoroughly sized Roy up from top to bottom, as if getting to know him for the very first time. Staring at him intently for a good while, he finally spoke, "Biscuit was wrong. Your understanding of Buddhism is higher than she—and this old man—ever imagined..."
"Hohoho... Strange, truly strange... A family of cold-blooded assassins has unexpectedly sired a child of the Buddha with profound innate roots. Old man, to be honest, this old man truly envies you..."
"Humph~" A cold snort curved its way over leisurely, sounding part tsundere, part proud.
Maha let out a cold snort, an imperceptible trace of pride surfacing at the corner of his mouth. He autonomously accelerated the rocking speed of his chair.
Within the vast world formed by the intersection of Shinkiyoku: Kanchō and Shinkiyoku: Kenchō...
Roy sat quietly upon his wooden stool, facing the Buddhist hall sideways. He neither acknowledged nor refuted the words, nor did he display any pride or self-satisfaction. His speech remained straightforward, thoroughly calm and collected—and crucially, filled entirely with facts.
It should be noted that the Hunter world did not lack religion and faith. For instance, Netero's Guanyin of the Hundred Type represented Buddhism, Chrollo's crucifix symbolized Christianity, and the foundation of Hanzo's ninjutsu was the Way of the Ninja. From this, it could be seen that this world was far from an absolute illusion, but rather a specific type of projection derived from the reverse materialization of a real world.
As for Roy, his advantage lay in his crossing over, his rebirth, and possessing the experiences of two lifetimes that the native inhabitants of this world would never acquire in their entire lives. Saying he possessed some understanding of Buddhism, Christianity, or the Way of the Ninja was hardly a massive deal.
The rumbling sounds gradually weakened, and the Buddhist hall stopped vibrating. After his initial shock and emotional fluctuation, Netero rapidly stabilized his state of mind, stating truthfully, "In truth, this old man knows that Guanyin possesses a thousand arms. Revealing only a hundred arms right now is not Guanyin's fault, but my own deficiency."
"It is because this old man is too weak to sustain the Thousand-Armed Guanyin..."
With a flick of his hand, Netero caught another fish from the water, quickly tossing it back into the lake to release it. In this exact moment, the old man truly appeared as Roy had described—his blood and energy declining, unable to return to his peak. His entire being was enveloped in an unnoticeable shroud of twilight, helplessness, and dejection, leaving one feeling as though something were caught in their throat, momentarily at a loss for words...
A leisurely breeze arose, sweeping across the lake's surface and causing Netero's white eyebrows, beard, and hair to sway along with it. It was reflected within the mental lake, and as a green leaf fell, it stirred up ripples that dispersed the image, dispersing...
Amidst Roy's fluctuating emotions, several lines of text abruptly surfaced across the surface of the mental lake, filtering into the ears of Netero and Maha, who was watching from afar, unwilling to draw close:
"All men know that immortals are good..."
"Yet for fame and status, they cannot forget!"
"Where are the generals and ministers of past and present? A mound of wild graves covered in weeds."
"All men know that immortals are good, yet for gold and silver, they cannot forget!"
"All their lives they merely resent gathering too little, but by the time it is plenty, their eyes close."
"All men know that immortals are good, yet for their beautiful wives, they cannot forget!"
"While alive, they speak of affection every day; once dead, they follow others away."
"All men know that immortals are good, yet for their children and grandchildren, they cannot forget!"
"Infatuated parents have been plenty since ancient times, but who has ever seen filial children and grandchildren?"
"This..." Netero's eyebrows knitted in deep gravity as he abruptly looked toward Roy and asked, "Where did you read this haiku?"
Fame, gold, silver, wives, children, and grandchildren—a single brief verse encompassed all the pursuits of a human lifetime, exposing them nakedly before the world in a direct, blunt manner. Netero stared deeply at Roy, nearly certain within his mind that this was absolutely not something a boy of his age could compose.
However, if it wasn't the boy... could it be the "old thing"?
Netero split a sliver of his focus, looking far across the hazy light of the mind toward that dim, small room in the Zoldyck family ancient castle. Maha, who shared the Enhancement type with him, was characterized by "simple mind and developed limbs," and was clearly far from an avid reader...
"Maha, this verse is so sorrowful..." At ten o'clock in the morning, the clock in the corner struck the hour with a gong~. Inside that dim, small room on the first floor of the Zoldyck castle, the curtains were drawn shut. Subsequently... a mass of dense Nen aura drilled out from Maha's body, forming the silhouette of Betty Zoldyck. Sitting sideways within Maha's embrace, she cast a sorrowful, melancholy look through layers of walls and dense forest toward the butler villa halfway down the mountain. Her small hands were inadvertently gripped firmly by Maha beneath her.
The old man looked shriveled and on the verge of collapse, appearing significantly older than Netero.
Opening his cloudy, white-speckled eyes, he let out a chuckle and said, "Of course. The person who wrote this verse saw right through life and human nature. That's why they found it meaningless, devoid of joy, and why it hurts..."
Betty Zoldyck leaned down, nesting against Maha's small chest, and nodded in absolute agreement: "Where do you think the child Roy read it?"
"In a dream." Separated by half of Kukuroo Mountain, grandfather and grandson seemed to share a telepathic connection, speaking at the exact same moment.
Within Netero's old eyes, weathered by wind and time, a sharp glint abruptly flashed. He chuckled and spoke to Roy, "It seems your Nen ability is linked to 'dreams'."
Further associating it with Zzigg's Nen ability, The Game of the Deceased... the old man couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "They look so alike, truly alike. Both are of the Materialization type, and both are completely unconstrained in imagination. If your grandfather Zzigg were still alive today to see you, he would absolutely be exceptionally overjoyed."
In a single fraction of a second, Netero appeared to catch a shadow of Zzigg upon Roy's form.
Not only did his appearance inherit the excellent genetic traits of the Zoldycks, bearing a thirty-percent resemblance, but even his hair color—aside from the glazed golden light flowing at the tips of Roy's hair—left almost no room to discern any difference.
But Zzigg was Zzigg, and Roy was Roy... Regardless of what Netero thought, Roy adhered to his true self. Raising his hand, he caught a fish from the mental lake for the first time. Without even looking, he spoke to Netero: "Who said Grandfather Zzigg is dead? I crossed paths with him a while ago."
Hmm?!
Netero froze, his eyes snapping upward. With a massive boom, the Buddhist hall behind him collapsed directly due to his intense emotional fluctuation. Even that divine statue of Guanyin bearing two hundred arms and a slight smile across her full cheeks fractured with a crack, buried beneath the rubble in an instant!
"Brat, do you know what you are saying?!" Before Netero could abruptly kick over his stool and stand up,
A silhouette swifter, more agile, and more overbearing than him—carrying tens of thousands of purple-black bolts of lightning—flew over with a roar. In a single flash, it materialized right beside Roy, thoroughly sandwiching him between himself and Netero from left to right!
At this moment, to his left were tens of thousands of lightning bolts, and to his right were the collapsed ruins burying the Guanyin... Roy felt entirely like a small skiff that had recklessly charged into a vast ocean, liable to be overturned at any moment by a crashing wave.
Silence... With a flick of his hand, he tossed the fish he had just caught back into the mental lake.
Seeming to perceive that the atmosphere on the shore was somewhat abnormal, the fish stared with its two dead-fish eyes, flicked its tail, and rapidly sped away... Leaving Roy alone, holding his wooden rod as a fishing line. He quietly swallowed a mouthful of saliva and said, "There's no need to look at me like that. On the day I paid respects to Grandfather Zzigg, I merely caught a vague glimpse of his silhouette through the modified Demonic Eye he left behind. As for..."
"Whether it was truly him, it still awaits verification..."
"Verification my ass!" Maha's temper flared, and he blurted out a curse: "It must be him! Aside from him sharing a link with that giant eye, there is no one else!"
Amidst his fluctuating emotions, Maha's mental projection abruptly revealed a majestic corner. Within the state of Shinkiyoku: Kanchō intersected with Shinkiyoku: Kenchō, the mental essence of everyone could be illuminated. Relying on this as a foundation to materialize it through Nen aura would allow one to develop a Nen ability exclusive to themselves.
Maha stood right beside Roy. Under his intense agitation, a vast firmament slowly revealed itself behind his back!
Across that towering firmament, lightning raged violently. Dozens of purple-black electricity dragons faintly cruised through the terrifying, dark clouds—some revealing their majestic horns, some exposing their five-fingered sharp claws, and some trailing long dragon whiskers. Lifting their heads to unleash a dragon roar, it shook heaven and earth... causing Roy to feel a sharp pain in his eardrums. Taking another look, piercing deep into the lightning to inspect it...
He saw that beneath the dark clouds where the lightning dragons and electricity snakes wound and crouched... sat a grand, broken royal court.
The ruins of this royal court were far from being something Netero's materialized Buddhist hall could compare to. A single fallen stone pillar was as towering as the colossal trees Roy had witnessed on the Dark Continent. The young boy took a deep breath, driving his vision deeper inside. Across the courtyard plaza where the lush green grass was nearly high enough to submerge a person, mottled stone walls, blood-stained armor, and discarded weapons were scattered wantonly across the ground... paving a path that extended all the way to the main hall of the royal court, right before the massive stone steps spanning across the entrance.
Roy stared blankly, his mind and spirit unifying. Enhanced by Shinkiyoku: Kenchō, he maintained his state of mental detachment, floating lightly over those collapsed stone walls, scattered weapons, and blood-stained armor. Subsequently stepping onto the stone steps, he paced steadily upward. Until finally, his head poked past the final step.
Roy's eyes, burning with suns, abruptly widened. The exact instant his vision opened up, he witnessed a throne, alongside men and women lined up in rows beneath it...
Are these Great-Grandfather's former subordinates?
His silver hair, its tips flowing with glazed golden light, swayed slightly as the boy strode onto the stone steps.
Roy swept his gaze across them, quickly discovering individuals he had previously witnessed within Maha's unconscious domain via dreamscapes... such as Brook Cyr, Sibris, and his own great-grandmother...
A sudden realization faintly generated within the boy's mind, spontaneously recalling a specific quote:
A person will experience three deaths in their lifetime.
The first death is physical death—when the body's organs gradually lose their function, the heart stops beating, breathing ceases, and the brain stops operating, representing the end of life.
The second death is the erasure of social identity—when a person is no longer mentioned within society, and their name, stories, and influence are no longer remembered by people, their identity within society vanishes from then on, representing the conclusion of social relations.
The third death... is the forgetting of spirit or memory—when a person's spirit is forgotten by the world, and no one will ever remember that they once came to this world, this is death in its truest sense, representing the complete disappearance of individual existence.
And right now, clearly, some people had died, yet they stubbornly lived on within Great-Grandfather's heart...
Just as Roy could see them, they could see Roy as well.
Abruptly, countless gazes cast over, sounding like a vast ocean that submerged Roy completely...
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