News from the eastern section of the Great Southern Mountain range shocked Ye Han, her daughter, and the Elders of the Golden City Stronghold, leaving them astonished and filled with uncertainty.

In response, the Golden City Stronghold immediately dispatched personnel to investigate.

Out of caution, Ye Han and her daughter did not take immediate action. Instead, they directed their information network to diligently gather further intelligence to confirm the whereabouts of Lei Jun and his master.

In reality, Lei Jun and his master, Yuan Mobai, had not split up. They traveled together, one in the open and one in secret. However, they did not head towards Lonely City Ridge in the western section of the Great Southern Mountain but moved eastward along the continuous mountain ranges.

"Master, your disciple has found a suitable person to deliver the message," Lei Jun conveyed to Yuan Mobai using the Thousand-Mile Sound Transmission Talisman, while his gaze lingered on the mountainside ahead.

Below the rocky mountains, two cultivators were clearly engaged in a fierce battle. At first glance, neither party seemed to have much to do with Lei Jun. One was a middle-aged man dressed in traditional Southern Wilderness attire. The other was a middle-aged monk, appearing to be in his forties, clad in monk's robes.

The monk was not particularly tall but was strong and muscular. He was unlike the ascetic types from Xuantian Temple, such as Yongxiang and Dexiang. His every move exuded the immense power of dragons and elephants, marking him as a true practitioner of the Zen Martial Lineage of the Buddhist Sect.

After the downfall of Bodhi Temple, most disciples perished, with only a few spared because they were wandering outside at the time. Because the Tang Imperial Court oversaw the situation, the blame for the demon chaos in the Northern Lands did not fall upon the surviving disciples of Bodhi Temple. These survivors were able to regroup and operate openly.

But after fierce battles and the destruction wrought by the Great Void Temple, the ancestral court of the ancient Bodhi Temple was ruined. The Spiritual Energy was no more. The disrupted earth veins had turned the area into cursed land, and restoration would require many years. Therefore, the survivors of Bodhi Temple had no choice but to find a new location to temporarily settle, re-establish their sect, and seek revival. Compared to the original ancestral court, the place where they reopened their mountain gate was further south, so outsiders began calling it Southern Bodhi.

With the care and support of the Tang Imperial Court, Southern Bodhi had gradually stabilized over the past three years. However, it was still far from the former glory of the sacred land of the Zen Martial Lineage. The disciples either dedicated themselves to arduous cultivation or actively worked to restore the former brilliance of Bodhi Temple as quickly as possible.

The middle-aged monk before them seemed to be a disciple of Southern Bodhi, though it was unclear why he had ventured to the Southern Wilderness.

Lei Jun's gaze moved from the monk to his opponent: a middle-aged man dressed in the traditional attire of the Southern Wilderness. Surrounding the man's body, something resembling a mist of Witchcraft Worms whirled through the air, identifying him unmistakably as a Worm Master.

Lei Jun felt the man looked familiar; he might have seen his portrait before. Portraits of Southern Wilderness Worm Masters that managed to circulate as far as the Central Earth Great Tang in the north invariably depicted individuals of great renown in the Southern Wilderness. Essentially, every one of them was an inheritor from Yintuo Mountain, the sacred land of the Witchcraft Worm lineage.

Lei Jun remembered the man's name to be Zhao Sen. As luck would have it, he was indeed a direct disciple of Tian Linlong, an Elder of Yintuo Mountain.

Lei Jun nodded repeatedly; this made it all the more natural for him to make an appearance and intervene later.

At this moment, the intense battle between the Southern Bodhi monk and the Worm Master Zhao Sen had reached its peak. The monk wielded a Vajra Pestle. As he attacked, golden Buddhist light enveloped him, and his movements were grand and sweeping, his power immense. Wherever the Vajra Pestle swung, clusters of Worms burst asunder.

"Mercy is the way of Buddha!"

The monk exerted his full power with his feet, causing the rocky earth beneath him to shatter and collapse, sending dust flying. He then leaped diagonally, shooting straight towards the Worm Master Zhao Sen on the mountainside.

As a true inheritor of the Zen Martial Lineage, the monk's physical strength was formidable. It was comparable to Martial Arts Experts of the same realm and, in some respects, even superior. However, his speed was an apparent weakness. Nevertheless, with this all-out leap, he shot forward directly and quickly, reaching Zhao Sen in the blink of an eye.

For a Worm Master of the Witchcraft Sect, who usually focused on cultivating the Spiritual Soul while neglecting the body, being suddenly approached by the monk was highly disadvantageous. Yet, Zhao Sen appeared unperturbed, even revealing a sinister smile.

Suddenly, an unusual Worm emerged from Zhao Sen's headscarf, emanating a flash of golden light. The approaching monk swung his Vajra Pestle, but the golden light blocked his strike. The monk's face took on an expression of fierce rage, his anger flaring.

From afar, Lei Jun could tell that the unusual golden Worm released by Zhao Sen was not one of the defensive measures of the Witchcraft Worm lineage, such as the Gold Armor Worm. The golden light indeed shared similarities with the artistic conception of the middle-aged monk's Buddhist Law.

As the golden light surged and condensed, it seemed as if the spectral image of a half-Buddha appeared. With palms pressed together in a defensive posture, it enveloped Zhao Sen, blocking the middle-aged monk's attack.

Upon closer inspection, Lei Jun realized that this unusual Worm, which had suddenly emerged from Zhao Sen's headscarf, resembled both a human bone joint and proper Buddhist prayer beads. The solemn majesty of Buddhist Law's treasures and the strange unpredictability of Witchcraft Gu Techniques had merged into one.

Could it be a Buddhist Shariputra?

Refined into a mystical Spirit Gu by the Worm Master Zhao Sen... Lei Jun had an epiphany.

With the destruction of Bodhi Temple, numerous scriptures and Buddha Treasures had scattered. Rumor had it that these included many Shariputras of eminent Buddhist monks. It now appeared that Zhao Sen had somehow acquired a Shariputra and, with striking originality, refined it into a Relic Worm for his own protection.

Setting aside questions of right and wrong, such ingenious talent made him worthy of his reputation as a rising star from Yintuo Mountain in recent years. Many in and outside the Southern Wilderness held high hopes for him, believing he would eventually attain Upper Three Heavens Cultivation.

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