Chapter 43: [buddha Tomato! Buddha Tomato!!!]
Lu Rang behind Yuan Zhu was terrified by this scene.
He gripped the rifle tightly with both hands, his fingers trembling from tension, constantly clicking the trigger. If not for the safety being on beforehand, he would have already been surrounded and beaten to death by the increasingly eerie believers for actively attacking and disrupting the ceremony.
Now, not only were the monks in the plaza center’s heads growing large, round, and red with evil, tearing off their necks and floating high, but they were also tethered by their spines.
The peripheral believers, upon seeing this, showed no fear; instead, due to their mental frequencies being hijacked by the Magic Net, they chanted even more fanatically, delivering wave after wave of mental power to the ‘Tomato Heads’ forming the Magic Net nodes, clashing against the continuously falling starlight.
With so many audience members on site, all chanting fanatically in unusual unison, and the squad’s position being close to the plaza for convenient viewing.
In this situation, actively leaving would be too conspicuous and easily targeted for attack by the frenzied crowd. So Yuan Zhu advised Lu Rang to calm down: “Watch quietly and see what happens. Who knows if this change is good or bad?”
Meng Xi beside him analyzed: “I think this is all still within the Abbot’s plan; otherwise, he wouldn’t be so calm.”
Though the scene was bizarre and eerie, the local residents of Na Ye City acted as if it were nothing unusual. Perhaps this was the proper way to experience a Buddhist Ceremony?
They, following local customs, could only choose to offer blessings, hoping the subsequent style would be a bit more normal.
While they whispered with heads down, more and more fake human heads swelled violently into balls, tore off their necks, floated in the air, and burst with blood light, wanting to return to the starry sky.
Yuan Zhu could see that the spinal bones connecting the heads to the bodies had no trace of muscle or blood vessels. But between the fractured wounds and the bones, there was another kind of deep green flesh-turned-vein-like filament sticking them together, firmly connecting and binding the bone sections, restraining the heads from flying away.
“Look at the green veins on those bones—doesn’t it look like the flesh tissue of Filthy Bone mad beasts polluted?”
“Huh? It does look a little like it.”
At this moment, a spherical blood-colored head inflated to its limit finally couldn’t bear the continuous influx of starlight. It opened its mouth, emitting an extremely pained scream, and ‘boom!’ exploded in the air, splattering bright red viscous tomato juice in all directions, spraying everywhere.
In an instant, a rich scent—indescribable as fruit fragrance or flesh freshness—spread across the plaza.
Following closely, one giant head after another, rapidly fattened by starlight energy, exploded in succession, splattering blood-red jam all over the ground. This scene was too restricted-level, more stimulating than him blasting beast heads with random gunfire!
“Gulp…”、”Slurp…”、”Gurgle…”
The civilians around Yuan Zhu struggled to chant, but their throats all emitted swallowing sounds, and their stomachs growled with hunger.
This smell was too enticing, overflowing with fruit fragrance and sweetly fishy allure. Even without tasting it, detailed tasting illusions automatically generated in the brain.
Instructing the game sprite to increase shielding against external illusion erosion, Yuan Zhu stared fixedly at the plaza, seeing red starlight still releasing from the positions where heads had originally exploded.
The originally swelling, rounded tomato heads had self-detonated, but the Buddha Cocoons nurtured inside the heads hadn’t disappeared; instead, after absorbing high-concentration starlight, they became a product with dual traits of ‘Buddhist Dharma’ and ‘starlight’.
Its size remained unchanged, pigeon-egg sized, but the color turned vermilion red, shaped like a compassionate, eyes-closed Buddha Head with full features, yet at the Buddha Head’s neck, green calyx petals grew inverted.
If viewed upside down, it was clearly a little tomato with leaf petals!
The tomato Buddha Cocoon floated in the air, emitting beams of blood-colored starlight, with Buddhist scripture BGM sounding around it, and the original sandalwood aura replaced by tomato juice fruit scent.
“What exactly is this thing? Buddha Cocoon? Sarira? Buddha Head Tomato? Or Buddha Fruit?”
Smack! Boom! Bang!
One floating head after another exploded in despairing wails, plasma-like tomato juice splattering and erupting, blown by the wind into blood mist, covering the entire field like rain.
Even Yuan Zhu couldn’t dodge the tomato juice blood rain baptism; warm, sweetly fragrant juice dripped onto his cheek, releasing enticing aroma. He couldn’t help licking a drop—sour-sweet with a bit of saltiness? Quite tasty.
The plaza center’s floor was submerged in massive amounts of tomato juice. The stone slab ground quickly absorbed the surface juice and meat sauce, the stones sizzling, softening, bulging, growing vascular veins, taking on Buddha Head outlines, with a touch of green sprout drilling from the mouth, beginning to swayingly grow.
Rustle rustle… The originally blood-red ground was rapidly absorbed dry, sprouting one Buddha Face after another, spitting out thorny eggplant seedlings one after another, bathing in starlight for rapid growth. The stone-surface Buddha Faces below the plants also murmured unclearly: “Tomato tomato tomato! Buddha buddha buddha!”
Lu Rang pointed at the sprouting green seedlings excitedly: “Ah! I recognize it. It’s those plants from the villages used to bind and seal ghostly creatures! Our wooden spear is also made from this plant?!”
Yuan Zhu calmly said: “After these Tomato Heads explode, the sprayed tomato juice plasma is red. But those mad beasts’ blood is green. There must be some connection between the two!”
Zhou Chu: “Could it be that after maturity, the blood is tomato-colored, and before maturity, it’s plant leaf-stem colored?”
Meng Xiyue: “That casual?”
…
One monk after another exploded their heads under starlight, the surging tomato juice nourishing all beings, leaving only a mature Buddha Cocoon Sarira gleaming with blood light; more civilians raised their heads, greedily sucking the falling tomato juice blood rain, replenishing stamina to continue contributing mental power to the Magic Net.
At this time, the group of special ‘tomato head fake humans’ surrounding the Abbot also had pained expressions, but no head swelling or neck-tearing occurred. Instead, their features alternated between ferocious with green-glowing eyes and pained as they continued struggling to chant.
The distance was too far for Yuan Zhu to hear clearly. But it was certain these monsters weren’t shouting ‘Tomato! Tomato! Tomato!’, instead like those mad beasts, their blood-red cheeks cracked open, green eyeballs emerging, hoarsely saying: “Kill kill kill, blood blood blood, flesh flesh flesh…”
Abbot Duowen stepped forward half a step, thundering angrily: “Evil creature! Repent and take refuge in the Buddha at once!”
The group of tomato head monsters immediately knelt, kowtowing fiercely, struggling to say: “Master save me!”、”Buddha Lord ferry me!”、”I wish to take refuge!”…
Abbot Duowen raised his palm, fingers forming claws, viciously gripping one person’s head ahead, the other hand raised before him, rapidly chanting. The invisible Magic Net covering the field, with suspended Buddha Cocoon Sariras as nodes, fiercely extracted the crowd’s mental power, drawing starlight toward itself.
Yuan Zhu finally understood: this ceremony seemed to borrow the tomato monsters’ racial talent, using tomato head monks as human flesh filters to absorb starlight, explode heads for refinement, blood sacrificing dual-natured ‘Buddhist Dharma/starlight’ Buddha Cocoon Sariras.
The Abbot blood sacrificed countless monks to refine this ‘physical Magic Net’, simultaneously harnessing crowd mental power and starlight energy to in turn purge the Filthy Bone mad blood from the tomato head monsters’ bodies.
He got it, he finally got it!
The tomato head monster kneeling before the Abbot emitted pained shrieks from its mouth, its expression one of pain and happiness; streams of inky green viscous mad blood surged out and rose from the hole gouged in its head by the Abbot, drilling into the Abbot’s arm, suppressed by the Magic Net’s power.
Fingers released the first tomato monster; the Abbot continued stepping forward to the second monster, again using Buddha-top-stroking dragon claw hand, five fingers piercing the tomato crown of the head, extracting viscous green mad blood, leaving a five-hole bowling ball, then moving to the third monster, repeating sequentially.
As accumulated mad blood built up more inside, the Abbot’s mental state worsened. His eyes crawled with inky green bloodshot veins, expression alternating between compassionate and maniacal…
The ‘mental Magic Net’ with Buddha Cocoon Sariras as nodes continuously extracted civilians’ mental power; their flesh and blood bodies visibly withered rapidly, chanting voices weakening, emanating weakness.
At this moment, the blood-light Buddha Cocoons fiercely absorbed another wave of starlight, projecting blood lights toward the peripheral crowd to nourish their bodies. The originally shriveled shells slowly plumped up again, spirits invigorated like after drinking Red Bull, continuing to chant.
Too tragic, too tragic! Just like a bunch of playthings, a bunch of meat batteries, arbitrarily toyed with, tormented, and exploited by the Abbot.
But even doing so could not alleviate his increasingly dire mental state.
After continuously piercing the heads of ten Tomato Monsters, the risk within the Abbot’s body also reached a dangerous level. His aged and frail body visibly swelled and got stronger, increasingly resembling the precursor to a Mad Blood outbreak.
“Zha ah!”
Abbot Duowen roared angrily, raised his hand again, his five fingers piercing through the head of the eleventh Tomato Monster, viciously extracting the Mad Blood, and at the same time solemnly swearing to this world:
“Disciple Duowen. Kamo Ye hereby makes a great vow, willing to bear with my body all the Price of this world, to ferry all sentient beings, to pacify the Yellow Springs ghost disaster, to rebuild the Na Ye Buddhist Kingdom. Until all beings in the world are ferried, I swear not to become a Buddha!”
Accompanying the vow’s fulfillment, the Buddhist Magic Power within his body suddenly erupted in a wave, his entire body radiating brilliant golden Buddha Light, beginning to erode and devour the blood-colored Starlight, the two sides joining forces to suppress the green Demonic Blood within his body.
The twelfth, the thirteenth…… one after another Tomato Monster had their heads pierced by the Abbot, Mad Blood dug out, and his own Buddha Cocoon Seeds left behind……
When the Abbot, face full of pain, arduously stepped toward the last Tomato Monster, his five fingers gripping the other’s face, clawing hard to tear the entire face apart, each finger piercing into the head, extracting the Demonic Blood.
At the same time, the Abbot’s muscles extremely bulged, and tearing sounds of flesh came from his neck area.
One by one strips similar to tongues, or like corolla petals, green flesh leaves covered on both sides with sharp barbs, radially burst out from the neck as the stem, front, back, left, right, forming a circle.
They resembled a collar, or petals, or huge barbed tongues, clustering the Abbot’s head in the center, forming a green bald-topped sun. Then the leaf petals curled back, licked the bald head, ultimately wrapping his head, forming the prototype of a green flower bud.
The Abbot Duowen, who had lost his head and now had a green flower bud atop his neck, suddenly pressed his hands together, sat cross-legged. The green bud on his head rapidly swelled, turning into a sphere.
This time, his head did not explode and burst like those eggplant-headed monks; instead, it very peacefully automatically split open. After the flower bud opened, the original head was completely decomposed, leaving only layers of red thick flesh petals, with semi-transparent capillary textures growing on the petals.
The flesh petals bloomed layer by layer, ultimately transforming into a giant flower nourished by a human body. At the base of the flower, the flower disk position was the old face of Abbot Duowen, now smiling compassionately.
The human-head flower adjusted its position like a sunflower, turned direction, and looked toward the Plaza. Its eye sockets and mouth all opened, growing dense clusters of red silk stamens, like writhing clusters of blood vessels.
“My Buddha is merciful! This old monk wishes to ferry all sentient beings of the Na Ye Country. All my Buddhist Disciples, quickly help me become a Buddha!”
In the sky, those [Buddha Cocoon Sarira] tempered by Buddhist Magic Power and Starlight together, all fell toward the flesh flower’s human-face flower disk like swallows returning to the nest.
And the stamens in the Abbot’s eyes and mouth also grew longer and longer under the nourishment of Starlight, floating toward the sky, connecting with the necks of those incoming ‘Buddha Cocoons’.
At this moment, it was as if fruits had found their stems; Abbot Duowen used his human head (human-face flower disk) to bear dozens or hundreds of Buddha Cocoon Fruits—was it human? Or plant (Tomato)?
Like a humanoid Starlight Tomato plant that grew hundreds of fruits, exceptionally harmonious, brimming with Buddha Rhyme.
“Buddha Buddha Buddha…… Tomato Tomato Tomato…… Buddha Buddha Buddha…… Tomato Tomato Tomato……”
After connecting with the Abbot, these ‘Buddha Cocoons’ seemed injected with souls, one by one opening their mouths, some shouting ‘Buddha’, some calling ‘Tomato’.
After receiving the blessing of numerous [Buddha Cocoon Sarira], the Abbot’s Magic Power greatly increased, and suddenly dozens of green vines burst from under his Kesa, piercing the nearby Tomato Monsters, fusing them with himself into one body.
The monsters did not struggle; instead, their faces were full of satisfaction and happiness, as if being ferried to Buddhahood, welcoming the wonderful transformation.
Meng Xiyue complained: “This couldn’t be the ‘bearing all Price with one’s body, not ferrying all of Na Ye, swearing not to become Buddha,’ right? As long as everyone is connected, turned into one whole, then all are ferried, and he can become Buddha?”
Yuan Zhu clapped his hands: “That makes sense!”
At this time, the art style had become extremely grotesque; Abbot Duowen, fused as one with human and nature (plant), suddenly turned his flesh flower disk, aimed at the civilian group where Yuan Zhu and others were, and spoke Dharma through Mental Resonance: “If there were no Price in this world, how would sentient beings know my Buddhist Dharma is boundless, mercifully ferrying the world?! Zha ah!”
It roared violently, and the countless ‘Buddha Cocoons’ connected to the human-face flower disk wailed loudly one after another, eyes weeping blood, noisily shouting: “Kill kill kill…… Blood blood blood…… Flesh flesh flesh……”
Above the Abbot, those Starlights gradually twisted and turned blood-colored, wrapping streams of green mist, shining toward the watching crowd. It expelled the unrefined ‘Filthy Bone Mad Blood’ from its body again, turning it into rising blood mist that mixed with the blood light, illuminating the entire field.
“Holy shit!!! We got tricked!”
The mouse in Yuan Zhu’s pocket let out a piercing scream, the uniform on its body trembling uneasily, forming double defense to resist the blood light’s distortion.
But the civilians around them were not so lucky; their spirits were still trapped in the ‘Magic Net’, utterly unable to resist the blood-colored Starlight.
Blood light poured back into their bodies, bringing the power of evolution. People’s muscles began to swell, flesh overgrew, skin unable to bear it, emitting ripping sounds.
Then, one by one familiar green eyeballs drilled out from the wounds, vividly rotating…… all displaying the characteristics of green version Filthy Bone Demonic Creatures.
But unlike those mad beasts, this group of Na Ye Buddhist Kingdom citizens polluted by ‘Duowen.Starlight Tomato.Abbot’, while Filthy Bone demonizing, on cheeks, torsos, limbs…… and other different parts, rapidly swelled with pigeon-egg-sized Flesh Tumors, growing outlines of green Skeleton Buddha Heads.
Yuan Zhu boldly guessed that the ‘Tomato Abbot’ planned to first refine the mortals into Buddha-ized version Filthy Bone Demonic Creatures, then use his body of Magic Power to successively ferry them back to Buddhism.
This way, he would truly fulfill the great vow: ‘All sentient beings fall to demonhood, ferry the entire world. Reestablish the Buddhist Kingdom, then become Buddha.’
“Holy shit, what a ruthless monk!”
Seeing the surrounding civilians successively Filthy Bone demonizing, Yuan Zhu and others no longer hesitated, raised their guns and fired wildly, trying to kill a bloody path.
The Tomato Abbot on the other side was also not faring well; that powerful Starlight was not a power his Buddhism could touch, and by indirectly mastering it through ferrying and assimilating Tomato Monsters, he naturally had to pay the corresponding price.
Only to see him overusing the blood-colored Starlight, his own state also showing mental dissociation, madly and crazily shouting: “Tomato Tomato Tomato! No no no, I am Duowen.Kamo Ye Tomato…… I am the Na Ye Buddha! I am Tomato Tomato…… I am Duowen…… I I I…… Tomato! Buddha! …… Aaaaaaah……”
The flesh flower trembled violently, and the Buddha Cocoons connected by the human-face flower disk’s stamens also wailed and cried one after another, mouths chaotically calling Buddha and Tomato, collectively going mad and biting each other.
“Aaaaaaah…… Aaaaah…… Ah, I get it! I am—[Buddha Tomato]! I am—[Duowen! Buddha! Tomato!!]” (Buddha. Wood Style.Top Transformed Buddha)
The giant human-face flower disk roared toward the sky, countless ‘Buddha Head Cocoons’ connected by flesh flower stamens also raised their heads to gaze at the Starry Sky, loudly calling: “Buddha Tomato! Buddha Tomato!! Buddha Tomato!!!”
The twisted yet powerful Starlight descended to the Human World once more, blood-colored Starlight infecting everything.
At this moment, human and plant perfectly coexisted, Buddha and Tomato became one body.
Bubble World Present World Buddha: [Abbot Duowen Buddha Tomato] is born!
Considering reading experience, won’t split it up. This one chapter really squeezed me dry.
Also, to clarify, this book is not that kind of horror-atmosphere weird flow, nor do I plan to write in a thrilling horror direction.
At most the art style is a bit grotesque, but the essence is still relaxed. For example, this [Buddha Tomato] can be imagined as Tomato Buddha, obviously very cartoonish and cute.
Finally, please show your support. During the new book phase, everyone please try to keep following up with reading and give some support.
