Chapter 355: The Game of Chess

The Lord of the Prison Gate looked at the Bone Priest. He existed very old, so he naturally knew about the entanglement between the Zhou family and the Nine Ancient Gods of Life and Death.

Originally, he didn't want to get involved in this kind of thing, but even when he heard about Zhou Tieyi's seventy-two transformations, he was shocked. How could such spiritual talents appear?

Is it really God's will that wants to exterminate their Shintoism?
"His spirit-growing talent should have other weaknesses, right?"

A god asked in a low voice.

The master of Dongzhen Kiln shook his head. "If he didn't lie about this, then his only weakness is that he is still very weak. With his aspirations, he would definitely not be willing to imitate those simple spells. With his talent as his own change, he would definitely aim for the top talent spells."

After hearing the analysis of the Dongzhen Kiln Master, the surrounding gods subconsciously nodded in agreement.

Finally, the owner of the Dongzhen Kiln added, "So now is the best time for us to get rid of him."

"In fact, there is another way to get rid of him. We don't have to do it."

A female deity with a soft voice spoke.

"Xiaguang Kiln Master, what do you think?"

The owner of the Xiaguang Kiln said softly, "It's not a brilliant idea, but I think that his talent is so terrifying that it is not an exaggeration to describe it as unprecedented. Can the Great Xia Emperor who wants to practice Taoism and live forever and compete for the position of a saint tolerate him?"

The eyes of many gods lit up.

Yes, if the Emperor of Daxia did not want to practice Taoism and only wanted to be a wise ruler, then he would not only tolerate Zhou Tieyi, but would probably also spend the entire country's strength to cultivate Zhou Tieyi.

But there are not so many good things in the world. Now that the Emperor of Daxia is practicing Taoism, even though Taoism has the least demand for luck, from the perspective of the suspicious Emperor of Daxia, he will definitely not allow others to have the opportunity to touch the position of a saint.

Whoever dares to touch them is someone who deserves to be killed even more than them, the Shinto!

The bone priest said, "This is a method. In fact, we in the Nine Ancient Gods have already discussed it."

Many gods looked at the Bone Priest. After the Battle of the Tomb of Soldiers, even if Baidi helped Zhou Tieyi cover up the key role he played, just awakening Baidi and suppressing the descending third-grade gods from a distance with the strength of a seventh-grade god was enough to make the gods want to kill him.

One of the methods of killing someone with a borrowed knife was naturally also brought up.

However, after analysis, Shinto believed that the Emperor of Daxia did prepare means to restrict and even kill Zhou Tieyi, but they would definitely not be used now.

"The idle moves that everyone had made back then have now formed a 'disaster'. This has given him a ray of life. There is nothing better than surviving death."

The Bone Priest said with some sigh.

What they, the lineage of the Emperor of Life and Death, believe most is that the purest life is born in absolute death, and that life and death transform into each other, and reincarnation goes back and forth, forming a perfect world.

The other gods present were thoughtful when they heard this.

"Ko" in Go refers to the situation where both sides surround each other's pieces. Under mutual restraint, they will repeat this process continuously, which will make the pieces in this area temporarily "alive". The player needs to arrange the game from a larger scope to eliminate this deadlock.

They believe that the Zhou family was left behind hundreds of years ago as a spare force.

Three hundred years ago, the founding emperor of Daxia used the Zhou family's power over life and death to create the emperor's corpse. On the one hand, it was an alternative way to seek immortality, and on the other hand, it was to strengthen Daxia's foundation.

Fifty years ago, the various schools of thought, and even Shintoism, chose the Zhou family as the 'pond' to trap the Taoist fish and dragons.

Twenty-five years ago, the current Emperor of Great Xia ascended the throne, laying the final stroke of the move, forming a dragon-trapping situation that trapped Zhou Yulong in Tianjing.

This year, the Emperor of Daxia summoned the Lord of Daming Palace to the palace to preach and began to practice Taoism. At the same time, he used Zhou Tieyi, the son of Taoism, to control the hundreds of schools of thought.

After one thing after another, this is a dragon trap and also a disaster, which is why it traps but does not kill.

If Zhou Tieyi is killed, the current disaster will change drastically, affecting the outcome of the entire chess game. The worst thing for the Emperor of Daxia is that the Taoist fish and dragon are likely to escape from the trap and bring about the power of changing the wind and clouds.

If Zhou Tieyi were killed at the same time as Zhou Yulong, the Taoists would certainly launch a fierce counterattack, and at that time, together with the Confucianists, the Military Strategists, and the Legalists, the Emperor of Daxia would not be able to withstand the attack even with the full support of the Buddhists. At least, there would be no hope of success in practicing Taoism to seek immortality.

Therefore, even if the Emperor of Daxia wanted to kill Zhou Tieyi and Zhou Yulong, he could only choose to do so when Zhou Tieyi was closest to the status of a saint and had the power to turn over the entire chessboard. Otherwise, everything he did would be to help others. The Emperor of Daxia certainly could not have been so easy to kill with a borrowed knife, not to mention that the Zhou family influenced not only the Taoists, but also the idle hands of other families. The calculations were so complicated that even chess players would find it difficult to make a decision. Therefore, letting Zhou Tieyi, the "chess piece", bump around everywhere gave the chess piece a chance to survive.

"If we can win him over, it might be the best option for us." A god whispered.

But after he finished speaking, he couldn't help but laugh at himself. As long as the Emperor of Daxia didn't really intend to kill Zhou Tieyi, as long as there was harmony between the monarch and his subjects, and even the story of bestowing imperial wine six thousand miles away, why would Zhou Tieyi defect to Shinto?
Isn’t this a reason for the Emperor of Daxia to kill nine clans?

The Bone Priest stretched out his hand and said thoughtfully, "This may be possible."

Many gods looked at the Bone Priest in surprise, but the Bone Priest did not continue this topic. Instead, he changed the subject and said with a smile, "He is ambitious. If he were not a thief from Daxia, I would have wanted to recruit him under my command. Even if it would expose his talent and increase the murderous intent of the Daxia Emperor, I still want to save those low-level miners."

Many gods suddenly realized that it was no wonder that Zhou Tieyi wanted to expose his talent. If he wanted to use his [Moon Transformation] talent to save the low-level miners, he had to display it in the form of the Moon Wheel. This was something that could not be hidden.

The owner of Dongzhen Kiln hesitated for a moment and asked, "Will he choose to transform himself into the moon like the Queen of Daxia? But I'm afraid that even if he has a terrifying talent, the possibility of recovery is very small, right?"

Although he did not experience the Battle of Hyozuka, he heard about the general process from information within Shinto.

The Queen of Daxia used the method of great aspiration and inherited the power of the Emperor of Daxia, and briefly burst out with power close to that of a saint. With the help of the arrows shot by the White Emperor, she was able to break through the Yujing Mountain in the dream from the Taixu Realm of Illusion, and based on this, she evolved the Moon Wheel, re-anchored her self-consciousness, and reversed and recovered from the process of merging with the Way of Heaven.

Even if Zhou Tieyi mastered the magical power of [Transformation into Moon], he could only save one or two miners. However, if he wanted to save the miners in the three states of Taihang Mountain for years, he could only fix one bright moon.

But the reason the Queen of Heaven was able to successfully transform into the moon and return was because she had a part of the Divine Court of the Great Illusion Realm as a foundation and the blessing of the Queen of Heaven's great Bodhisattva cultivation. Moreover, they all survived a narrow escape and had the determination to die. If Zhou Tieyi really imitated the Queen of Heaven, not to mention how he obtained the rest of the Divine Court of the Great Illusion Realm, his own strength would make him a hundred or a thousand times more dangerous than the Queen of Heaven in the process of returning to consciousness, which could be said to be a sure death.

Upon hearing this, the Bone Priest chuckled and said, "This is probably the result that the Great Xia Emperor wants to see the most."

The gods around nodded slightly, indeed.

If Zhou Tieyi died by turning into the moon with his own ambition, then Daxia would not only solve part of the problem of mining inkstone and greatly increase the national strength, but Zhou Yulong and the Taoists would not be able to blame the emperor of Daxia.

Many people even thought that the Emperor of Daxia might already be trying to make this happen through various plans.

On the contrary, it is they, the Shintoists, who must stop this.

The owner of the Dongzhen Kiln thought for a moment and said, "He shouldn't be that stupid. He should have made preparations before turning himself into the moon. Only when he was at his wit's end would he make the corresponding attempt. I heard that he wanted to work with the Mohists to develop a moon mechanism that could be fixed above the mine to replace the step of turning himself into the moon. He left Baizhi Mountain in Shantong Prefecture a day ago, so I called everyone here to discuss countermeasures."

"Mingyue Agency?"

The Bone Priest's voice became slightly higher-pitched, and he looked towards a god present.

This deity is a seated Bodhisattva, but this Bodhisattva does not look like a living person. His entire body appears to be made of wood, and the palms behind him have turned into perfect treasure wheels. The mechanical structure can be clearly seen at the joints of the Buddha's palms.

"Goodwood Bodhisattva."

When the bone priest called out his name, Bodhisattva Shanmu's eyes and expression did not change at all. He looked like a wooden sculpture. He said in a very declarative tone, "If it is a mechanism, then naturally anyone can operate it."

After hearing what Shanmu Bodhisattva said, the gods who had been worried just now breathed a sigh of relief, and many of them even smiled.

If they could obtain the Mingyue Mechanism and gain the authority to control it, there would be numerous benefits.

The bone priest said, "If you Western Paradise had communicated with us earlier, the last assassination would not have been in vain, and such a big loophole would not have been created, allowing him to obtain the 'emptiness'."

The Bone Priest was talking about the last time Huanxitian from the Western Paradise used the divine fetus to assassinate Zhou Tieyi.

Although the details of the whole process are unknown due to Huan Xitian's nirvana, judging from the subsequent results and the abilities displayed by Zhou Tieyi, one of the twenty-four levels of the Pure Land was transformed into a lotus petal of emptiness and was given to Zhou Tieyi by the Lord of Daming Palace, who then melted it into his [Five Finger Mountain].

After the last failure of the two parties, although the Western Paradise and the Nine Ancient Gods were on different paths, they also acknowledged that even if the Emperor of Daxia practiced Taoism, which put Daxia at its weakest period, it was still not something that one of the two parties could shake alone. That’s why they made this initial contact attempt and exchanged information with each other. Especially in the case of Zhou Tieyi, who had lost on both sides, more information was exchanged.

Bodhisattva Shanmu did not answer the Bone Priest's words, but continued to state calmly, "We still need a way to obtain the Mingyue Mechanism."

The bone priest said confidently, "Earthbound, I leave this matter to you."

After the Bone Priest finished speaking, there was no response for a long time.

The gods were still wondering when suddenly they felt the shadow on the ground move.

(End of this chapter)