Jin Keng had just insulted Lu Xian.
Then, inside the Great Golden Mountain Temple, a huge, hulking monk — a brawny fellow who looked like he could uproot trees — snatched up a massive chan-staff and, all fury and wind, set out to kill Jin Keng to avenge his abbot’s “humiliation”… or perhaps, it was simply done on Lu Xian’s instruction.
That guess was reasonable enough.
But Lu Xian swore by heaven that he hadn’t arranged any of this.
If he actually wanted Jin Keng dead, would he have him killed right inside his own mountain gate?
Lu Xian rose into the air, pointed at the hulking monk who was about to strike, and bellowed, “Stop!”
Before his voice finished, a bodyguard by Jin Keng’s side — a disciple at the Golden Lotus Opening stage — was smashed by that big monk’s chan-staff.
The staff struck with bone-crushing force, shattering the man’s spine; the staff cleaved him in two like a split log.
The two halves of his body were blasted away for dozens of miles and one mass slammed into a small jade-green hill in the distance.
The protective Buddha array on the hill was triggered; golden light rolled up in waves, golden lotuses bloomed, and faint Buddha silhouettes flickered inside each blossom.