Three Thousand Buddha Realms Reduced to Ashes, Yet My Tathagata Won’t Save Her

I was born with the bones of a Buddha, and the Tathagata himself led me to Spirit Mountain. Yet in the mortal world, I met a young woman gathering herbs.

She placed the last ten-thousand-year-old spirit herb in my mouth, only to be struck by heavenly lightning and reduced to ashes.

When I returned to Spirit Mountain, I knelt before the Tathagata and begged him: “Erase my Buddhist seal, seal away my dharma body, and let me follow her into reincarnation.”

In my second life, she was a princess, and I was a little novice monk in a ruined temple. On the day a prince forced her into marriage, blood still stained the Golden Hall when I slaughtered the entire imperial clan with Asura-like methods, then carried her broken soul and smashed through the barriers of the Underworld.

Beyond the Ninth Heaven, thunder flashed. A dark figure in the Tathagata's likeness shattered my Buddhist heart across three lifetimes with a single palm strike. “Reincarnation is a sea of suffering. Spirit Mountain is the shore.”

When I opened my eyes in my third life, she was crouched beside my bed, carefully wiping the blood from my face. “Little monk, you took quite a fall.”

Later, as she tried to recover my memories, the Tathagata struck her with a palm, scattering her soul. Only a broken bell remained, growing warm in my palm. “This time, let me avenge you.”

Atop Spirit Mountain, golden Buddha blood stained the three thousand realms. I raised one finger toward the master I had once revered most. “If your Spirit Mountain could not save her, then I will be the one to save you: Nirvana.”