After a long, taut silence, Nash whispered, “Is it… dead?”

  Dante closed his eyes for a moment, feeling with his spiritual sense. “Its aura’s fading fast. It’s… almost gone.”

  Still, none of them dared to approach. They stayed where they were, popping more Restoring Spirit Pills and waiting.

  Finally, after what felt like forever, Dante opened his eyes. “It’s done. I can’t sense any life left.”

  Carefully, they moved closer, weapons at the ready.

  The giant lizard y motionless, its massive body smoking, reeking of burnt blood.

  Lauren took a slow breath. “We did it.”

  Then the monster’s eyes snapped open.

  “Shit!”

  The half-buried beast reared up, its two front cws sshing out with terrifying speed.

  The four of them barely had time to react, throwing themselves backward as sand and lightning exploded around them.

  Lauren and Dante reacted instantly, leaping backward just as the monster’s cws ripped through the sand where they’d been standing a heartbeat before.

  Nash and Westin weren’t as lucky.

  The giant lizard’s cws swept across the ground, snatching them both off their feet.

  Westin struggled wildly, managing to wriggle free through the gaping wound Dante had carved earlier. He dropped to the sand, rolling clear just in time.

  Nash, however, wasn’t so fortunate. The other cw clenched tight around him, bones creaking under the crushing force.

  “Use the Thousand-Mile Talisman!” Lauren shouted.

  Nash didn’t hesitate. He spped the talisman onto his chest, and a fsh of light swallowed him whole—vanishing into thin air.

  The lizard froze, staring down at its now-empty cw in confusion. Then its eyes glowed with fury.

  “You think you can run from me?!” it roared, surging toward the remaining three.

  As it charged, its enormous body visibly shrank, its torn flesh knitting together, scales reforming in jagged yers.

  Lauren’s eyes narrowed. “It’s using a demonic recovery art,” she said grimly. “Healing by lowering its cultivation level.”

  Even so, a sixth-rank beast was still far beyond what Core Formation cultivators like them could handle.

  They’d already thrown everything they had at it. They had no tricks left.

  The creature sneered, voice thick with venom. “Human cultivators… despicable, shameless vermin. You all deserve to die.”

  A wave of killing intent crushed down on them.

  Lauren summoned her golden barrier goggles, deflecting the first bst of spiritual pressure. “Use the Thousand-Mile Talismans now!” she yelled over the roar. “We regroup at the great beast!”

  Westin didn’t waste a second. He activated his talisman and blinked out of sight.

  Dante pulled his own talisman from his robes—but instead of using it, he turned toward her.

  Lauren froze. “What are you doing?”

  He met her eyes, steady and unyielding. “You go first. I’ll hold it off.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  She had a whole pn: she’d wait until the others escaped, bait the beast into chasing her, and when it got close, she’d use her senior brother’s spatial bead to vanish. Safe and clean.

  But Dante—this damn righteous fool—actually wanted to stay behind and cover her.

  Lauren clenched her teeth. “I have a treasure that can travel thirty thousand miles in one go. You go first!”

  But all Dante saw was the pin talisman in her hand. He frowned, stepped forward, and tried to help her activate it.

  “Ms. Lauren you can’t stay! Go first!” he insisted.

  Lauren was speechless. Did this man really think she was pnning to die for them?

  Please. She’d already died twice—she valued her life more than anyone else alive. If she could just survive another two years, she’d finally break that damn curse of dying before twenty. No way in hell was she dying here.

  So before Dante could react, she spped his talisman herself.

  Light fred—and he vanished.

  Lauren exhaled through gritted teeth. “Idiot.”

  Now she could only use her brother’s bead to escape.

  But before she could reach for it, her golden goggles shattered with a sharp crack! The impact sent her flying across the sand.

  A shadow loomed over her.

  “You—!” the lizard hissed, its voice dripping with rage. “You’re the little thief who stole my tree! I’ll tear you apart and rip my tree from your corpse!”

  Before it could strike again, a blinding golden light erupted from Lauren’s palm.

  A massive swastika symbol of pure spiritual light spun out from her hand, expanding across the night sky. The air trembled. The symbol bzed like a second sun, its brilliance flooding the desert with day-bright radiance.

  The bst struck the lizard square in the chest.

  “Ugh—AHHH!”

  The beast’s scream echoed for miles as it was flung backward, tumbling end over end through the air before crashing into the dunes with an earth-shaking boom.

  When the dust settled, a robed monk—towering and serene, his body radiating golden light—hovered above the battlefield.

  Hands pressed together, his voice rolled like thunder:

  “Amitabha.”

  The night fell silent.

  Lauren froze mid-step, the escape bead clutched tight in her hand.

  The figure standing before her—bathed in blinding golden light—made her breath catch in her throat.

  This wasn’t like the phantom projection Gerald had released earlier. That one had been nothing more than a spirit echo.But this… this was real.

  She could feel it—the crushing, sacred pressure radiating from him. The sheer weight of his presence made her knees weak.

  “... Light?” she whispered in disbelief.

  No way.

  Her mind reeled. She remembered that day she left Sky-Covering Valley—how everyone had given her farewell gifts, and Light had simply pressed a golden swastika onto her palm.

  At the time, it had vanished almost instantly. She’d checked ter and found nothing, shrugged it off, and forgotten about it.

  And now—at the moment between life and death—it had returned.

  Not just the mark… but him.

  Light didn’t respond to her voice. His gaze remained locked on the monstrous lizard writhing in the sand.

  “I see a thread of fate connecting you to the Buddha,” he said, his tone calm yet echoing with divine resonance. “Will you y down your butcher’s knife, become a Buddha… and serve as my mount?”

  The giant lizard spat out a mouthful of sand and gred at him, insulted beyond words.

  “Mount? I’ll sit you to death!” it roared, smming its cws into the ground and hurling itself straight at Light.

  Lauren gripped the bead tighter, ready to flee at the first sign of danger.

  The massive beast crashed down on the monk, completely engulfing him.

  The lizard twisted its neck and cackled obscenely. “Hey! Where’s your holy glow now, bald bastard? Mount? Pfft!” It even let out a crude, mocking fart.

  Lauren’s stomach twisted with anxiety. She might not have known Light well, but she did know he was terrifyingly powerful. Still—seeing him fttened by a giant demon beast wasn’t exactly reassuring.

  Then, without warning, a sinister red-bck fme erupted from beneath the dunes.