WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

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◈ The Martial Alliance Rulebook Archives ◈

Chapter 32: Heaven's Greatest Treasure (2)

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‘But.’

Could I really eat this?

Of course, my body could eat it without issue. The Eccentric Physician had confirmed that I had become somewhat like an Anomaly.

Still, my concern had nothing to do with whether my digestive organs could process peaches.

Below the clouds lay the Peach-Stealing Grounds.

Zengzhangtian had caught the peaches falling from the sky and handed them out to the spectators.

They were surely spirit fruits brimming with vitality, but they had been created by an Anomaly. Their origin had to lie in Demonic Qi.

I remembered the child at the market biting into one of the peaches Zengzhangtian had thrown. What if it became poisonous later?

‘But...’

The rulebook had never said not to eat them. The people gathered at the Peach-Stealing Grounds would be fine.

If there had been a reason not to eat food from the True Empty Homeland, the rulebook would have warned us.

Clinging to that faint clue, I prayed for the well-being of the people at the Peach-Stealing Grounds, then shook my head.

I was getting too caught up in useless thoughts. I had already gathered enough peaches to submit to the Life-and-Death Gambler as the result of our wager, so I should return at once.

Just as I was about to leave, a voice came from behind me.

"Sentient being."

I turned around.

"Where are you going?"

A dazzling golden being stood there.

It was as though a majestic Buddha statue, seated cross-legged in the main hall of some temple, had risen and approached me.

An impulse stirred within me. A whisper of comfort telling me to fall at those feet, kiss them, and seek true bliss.

Then a powerful stench brought me to my senses.

I had smelled something this foul only once before in my life.

It was the stench of decay from when, during my days as a wandering martial artist, I first encountered a rotting corpse and had to search through swarming maggots and sticky, putrid blood to learn who the dead person had been.

My eyes testified to the greatness of that radiant being.

My ears revered the spirituality contained in every word it spoke.

Only my nose denied it all.

I resisted the urge to reach out and stroke those golden robes.

Instinctively, I activated my eye technique. I had to tear away the veil it wore. I had to see more clearly if I wanted to live.

I could faintly make out the halo surrounding it.

The halo took the shape of a Dharma wheel. Like a cartwheel divided by spokes, it was separated into many sections, each engraved with the image of a Buddha.

Yet I could not see the true form of the thing bearing that halo, the thing bathed in light from head to toe.

Click.

The Dharma wheel turned.

A new image of a Buddha overlaid the shadow that had been faintly revealed. Where the previous one had been grand and golden, this one was carved from green jade, soft and warm like vegetation.

I drew a deep breath.

I circulated internal energy through every acupoint in my body, ready to flee at any moment.

"Why are you in such a hurry?"

Then I inhaled again. The smell of rotten, decaying flesh crushed my nostrils and jolted my mind awake.

At last, the dark radiance around the halo peeled away.

It was a Buddha statue.

Unformed thoughts rose endlessly in my mind. The one word shared by every chaotic idea was undoubtedly Buddha statue.

But it was no ordinary Buddha statue.

The thing wore old hemp clothing that looked plain in a way, yet it had no skin.

Between the folds of its clothes, I could see a body that had long since blackened and hardened into corpse wax. Following that skinless body upward, the face I found was so familiar that it frightened me even more.

There was a human skull.

A skull with a crimson smile, urging me to take refuge in it.

At last, my thoughts came together. I realized what that Buddha statue was called.

A Self-Mummified Buddha.

A Buddha statue made from the corpse of a monk in a Japanese esoteric Buddhist sect.

The skull in its robes smiled and spoke.

"Ah, there is no need to speak. My ears are broad enough to hear your voices."

No. That was not it.

It wore more than robes.

A shell rested over its skull. A metallic mask marked with long ears and distinctive snail curls.

A corpse was wearing the face of a Buddha like a mask.

I could no longer think. I began to run.

I could not look back. The moment I did, I would be caught.

I used my lightness technique. The technique I had learned was Flowing Cloud Technique, a common martial art approved for general use by the Martial Alliance. It was the sort of broadly useful martial art that major sects would not even spare a glance for.

But I had a model that had shown me the most ideal movements I could make when using Flowing Cloud Technique.

The red shadow of Soul-Severing Mountain Villa.

Imitating my own shadow, I ran.

"How regrettable. That is not the right thing to do."

A tongue-clicking sound came from right beside me. I fought down the urge to turn my head.

If that thing had wanted to kill me, it would have done so long ago. It could have killed me without even speaking the first word to call me over.

"Release your haste."

But it had spoken to me.

I recalled the True Empty Homeland section of the Peach-Stealing Grounds rulebook.

"Release your attachment."

The rulebook said that everyone who climbed into the True Empty Homeland had their own reason. One of those reasons was to save someone close to them who was trapped there.

"Release your heart."

To pull someone trapped in the True Empty Homeland back out.

If there were people being trapped, then naturally there had to be someone trapping them. At the very top of those who held people captive was Maitreya.

"True emptiness is close at hand."

There were many ways to deal with those who held people there. Pretend to be a White Lotus Sect believer, defeat them with one's own martial arts, break through with Stealth Art, and so on.

At the same time, every rule stated one condition. Do not listen to their words. Focus only on the one thing you truly desire.

Maitreya was the exception.

It looked into your thoughts, saw through your actions, and showed you the image of the salvation you desired.

The more desperately you wanted something, the more easily it could deceive you.

Only one method was written for opposing such a Maitreya.

The line that told you to exercise a martial artist's right.

The instruction to forget every reason you had entered the True Empty Homeland and reach samadhi through the struggle before you.

It came with a warning that if you could not burn your own life completely, you would be emptied.

So from this moment on, I intended to exercise a martial artist's right.

Not me.

"Mubeooon!"

That person.

* * *

The Life-and-Death Gambler turned her head. The Anomaly Records Office newcomer had called her name.

In truth, she had known even before hearing it. She had already sensed a fall approaching under the name of salvation.

What would that Records Officer desire? To be saved? To leave immediately?

Or did they intend to hand Maitreya over to her?

Any of those would have been reasonable requests. The only problem was that what the newcomer had to face was not reasonable.

They had already drawn Maitreya's gaze. Maitreya desired unstained purity, not lowly things with muddied desires like herself, so their futile struggle was meaningless.

If the Life-and-Death Gambler remained until the Records Officer had been completely emptied, Maitreya would eventually step forward to guide her. By then, though, she would already be gone.

The Life-and-Death Gambler mourned the emptiness the Records Officer would soon face. They might find a kind of happiness, but it would not be the happiness the Records Officer had originally desired.

Then, at last, the Records Officer shouted.

"I brought heaven's greatest treasure!"

The Life-and-Death Gambler laughed.

"Ha ha, hahahahahaha!"

Her laughter was so loud that the fragrance of the peach trees filling Peach Blossom Spring fled before it, as though it would shake the heavens.

Light flared in her red eyes.

"That's right! That's right! The most valuable thing here is Maitreya!"

If they came at her like this, she could not turn away either.

Maitreya was surely the most valuable thing in this True Empty Homeland. Even if she stole everything else within it, none of it could compare to Maitreya.

She had lost the wager.

Therefore, she had to pay the price.

The Life-and-Death Gambler drew up her internal energy.

Rumble!

The cloud-covered land, once filled with brilliant five-colored radiance, was stained by murky darkness. Evil Qi pouring from the Life-and-Death Gambler blackened the paradise.

The twisted clouds let out thunder in place of screams. At the sound of creation falling into chaos, Maitreya finally turned its head.

"A temptress has come."

"How rude. What an obscene thing to say to a young woman who does not even have a fiancé."

"How foolish. How pitiful. All one hundred and eight afflictions lie within you alone. Let them go. Only by emptying yourself can you finally gain."

The Life-and-Death Gambler paid no attention to Maitreya's words.

"You won the wager! Take this!"

She handed a secret martial manual she carried to that nameless Records Officer.

"Ah, that is the way. Let go like that."

Maitreya seemed pleased by the sight of someone paying a proper price, as though it had recalled something. The Life-and-Death Gambler shook her head.

"Only when you are full can you know fear."

She assumed an opening stance. She caught a glimpse of the Records Officer looking at her. They probably wore an expression of surprise.

"Gambling is fun because there is so much to lose. What joy is there in gambling when you have already lost everything? The fear that what you desperately gathered might vanish in a single moment, that is the root of the joy born from victory."

She traced a taiji.

It was not yin and yang. On one side was death, and on the other was life.

Live, or die.

That was the creation the Life-and-Death Gambler wrought. That was the world as she saw it.

"Come on, let's play!"

Author's Note

Maitreya was inspired by Chakravartin from Capcom's game Asura's Wrath.

Footnotes:

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