Chapter 274: Bigmouth Flower
Inside the cave-heaven space, Gu Mo found a patch of land and planted the seed of a new plant. Soon, the seed sprouted and grew. In just a few breaths, a purple plant with a huge mouth appeared before him.
Name: Bigmouth Flower (chomper)
Grade: 1st-tier, low-grade.
Effect: Devouring.
Planting conditions: None.
The new plant Gu Mo prepared to deal with the Corpse Immortal's head was this Bigmouth Flower. With its devouring ability, it could directly swallow the Corpse Immortal's head, removing the threat once and for all.
Of course, the Bigmouth Flower could only devour targets at its own tier or below. Anything beyond that was impossible. That was precisely why Gu Mo had not cultivated it before.
After all, for Gu Mo, his combat strength was already invincible among his peers. Instead of relying on the Bigmouth Flower to devour enemies, it was faster for him to strike them down himself.
But the Corpse Immortal's head could not be dealt with by ordinary means. If the spirit could suppress its power to the 5th-tier Nascent Soul level, then as long as Gu Mo raised the Bigmouth Flower to the 5th-tier, it could swallow the head outright.
Even better, the Bigmouth Flower did not require spiritual farmland to grow. It could sustain itself by devouring prey, making farmland unnecessary.
This was great news for Gu Mo, who had only a single small patch of 5th-tier farmland. Otherwise, if the Bigmouth Flower occupied his only 5th-tier field, he would no longer be able to obtain 5th-tier solar essence in the future.
After examining it for a while, Gu Mo transplanted the Bigmouth Flower into a cultivation pot. Next, he had to raise it to the 5th-tier.
And the pace had to be quick, because Gu Mo worried that if too much time passed, the spirit would no longer be able to keep the Corpse Immortal's head suppressed.
Once the head broke free, the first to suffer would certainly be the Qinghe Cultivation World.
Fed on high-tier solar essence, the Bigmouth Flower's growth advanced rapidly. When it reached the 4th-tier, it even developed intelligence.
To this, Gu Mo gave the Bigmouth Flower a name—Xiao Zi, since its color was predominantly purple.
One month later.
After Xiao Flower, Gu Mo's second 5th-tier plant was born. In order to quickly raise Xiao Zi's level, during this time Gu Mo had fed it all the 5th-tier solar essence condensed by Xiao Flower, as well as a large amount of 4th-tier essence.
Upon reaching the 5th-tier, Xiao Zi, like Xiao Flower, also manifested the phantom of a Nascent Soul dharma form. This meant Xiao Zi could devour not just physical entities, but also intangible souls.
After Xiao Zi's successful advancement, Gu Mo immediately rushed toward the ruins and once again met with the spirit.
"You've found a way to deal with the Corpse Immortal's head?" The spirit looked at Gu Mo in astonishment. Even her master had been unable to destroy the head, and had only been able to seal it.
Yet this young man, still at Nascent Soul stage, now claimed to have a method. It was truly hard to believe.
"I have, but I'll need you, senior, to suppress the Corpse Immortal's head to the Nascent Soul level first," Gu Mo nodded. At this moment, he too felt some unease. In theory, this could work, but it had yet to be tested.
If the head's seal could have lasted much longer, Gu Mo would never have taken such a risk. But with the spirit barely able to keep it suppressed, waiting would only mean death—it was better to strike first.
"So be it!"
The spirit clearly shared his thoughts. Whatever the method, as long as there was a method, it was worth trying. Better than waiting for doom.
With the spirit's agreement, Gu Mo took out the tombstone moss, Xiao Hei, and tore open the crack in the seal. Then he stepped inside.
Sensing someone's presence, the Corpse Immortal's head stirred. But the spirit suppressed it again, her power pressing harder and harder, forcing the head's strength lower and lower.
The head did not resist. After all, this suppression would not last long. To resist would only waste energy. The more the spirit exhausted her power, the sooner the head would be free.
"Xiao Zi!"
As soon as the head's power fell to the Nascent Soul tier, Gu Mo quickly connected to his cave-heaven. In the next moment, a huge purple maw covered in spikes tore through the void and clamped down, swallowing the Corpse Immortal's head whole.
In an instant, the head's aura within the altar vanished. Meanwhile, inside Gu Mo's cave-heaven, Xiao Zi puffed out its cheeks, chewing with great difficulty. Yet the head could not escape its jaws.
As Xiao Zi chewed, vast streams of spiritual energy surged through its roots into the underground leyline.
"This is…"
Gu Mo was overjoyed. Clearly, Xiao Zi had abilities he hadn't known about. The Bigmouth Flower devoured targets and converted them into nourishment. If the power within the target was too great, it expelled the excess energy.
And the power contained in a Corpse Immortal's head was beyond measure. If Xiao Zi expelled even a fraction of it, the cave-heaven's spiritual energy level would rise by several grades. By then, not only 5th-tier farmland but perhaps even 6th-tier fields would appear.
Of course, joy aside, Gu Mo had to face reality. With Xiao Zi's current digestive ability, completely consuming the head would take hundreds, even thousands of years.
Fortunately, that was just a bonus. The real gain was eliminating this dire threat once and for all.
"T-This…"
The spirit was equally shaken. That head, which even her master could not resolve, had truly been dealt with.
"Senior, may I ask what your plans are now?" Gu Mo turned his gaze toward her. This was a true immortal artifact. Though its power had been greatly diminished after countless years of suppressing the head, the knowledge stored within the spirit's mind alone was priceless.
"Since my master is no more, I wish to stay by her bloodline's side and help her walk the immortal path," the spirit said after some thought.
"Of course, if you have need of me, I will also do my utmost to assist you." She had not forgotten that Gu Mo was the one who had freed her from her predicament.
If not for Ruan Ruan, her master's descendant, she might have followed Gu Mo. But since Ruan ruan was here, her first loyalty would be to her.
This promise alone already satisfied Gu Mo. After all, the spirit's true form was a woman's hairpin, hardly fitting for a man like him to carry.
Overseas, on a deserted island.
The island bore heavy scars of thunder and lightning's rampage. At its center lay a charred "corpse." Yet the rise and fall of its chest proved it was no corpse, but a living person.
"Rumble…"
Suddenly, the "corpse" sat up. At the same time, large chunks of scorched flesh peeled away, revealing fresh new skin beneath.
"This was your method? I almost got killed because of you!" Yao Shifeng said with lingering fear.
Although he had long known that his demonic core would attract a special heavenly tribulation upon breakthrough, he had never expected to draw down the most terrifying of them all—the Purple Heaven Divine Lightning.
Still, that remnant soul's means were indeed extraordinary; it had helped Yao Shifeng block the first few strikes of Purple Heaven Lightning. But at the very last bolt, the remnant soul suddenly lost focus—nearly costing Yao Shifeng his life.
Fortunately, Yao Shifeng had never fully trusted the remnant soul. He had prepared several contingencies, and only barely managed to survive.
"Shut up!"
Suddenly, the remnant soul's voice burst out harshly. Yet hidden beneath its fury was a trace of fear, for just moments ago, it realized it could no longer sense the presence of its severed head.
It wasn't that the head had been sealed again—no, it had vanished completely from perception. The remnant soul had originally planned that once Yao Shifeng completed his breakthrough, it would break the seal and retrieve the head. Then, by sending the head to the Tianyuan Cultivation Realm to merge with its true body, it could fully resurrect.
But now that the head was gone, resurrection was impossible. That head wasn't just flesh; sealed within were its primordial spirit and soul.
"No, there's still hope."
The remnant soul forced itself to remain calm. Even if this wisp of soul had escaped, as long as the primordial spirit hadn't been completely annihilated, there was still a chance.
"Go to the Tianyuan Cultivation Realm."
After a long silence, the remnant soul finally spoke. Originally, once Yao Shifeng broke through, they were going to return to the Qinghe Cultivation Realm.
But now, the remnant soul dared not go back. If it ran into the existence that had erased its head, it feared it would end up utterly destroyed.
"Alright!"
Although puzzled by the decision, Yao Shifeng knew that even as a newly advanced Nascent Soul True Lord, he still could not defy the remnant soul. Without hesitation, he rose and turned into a streak of black light, vanishing into the horizon.
Qinglu Sect.
"Senior, are you saying there's an even greater cultivation world outside?" Gu Mo, Chu Feifei, Yuan Niya, and Ruanruan were listening as the Immortal Spirit spoke about realms beyond their own.
"That's right. The Three Thousand Great Worlds—this place is but one of them, a small world within the Yunmeng Great World. There are countless such small worlds. Still, this realm once birthed a figure like my master, an immortal. Within the small worlds, that is considered quite renowned." The Immortal Spirit nodded, her words filled with reverence for her master.
"Then, Senior, how should this world's zombie catastrophe be resolved?" Gu Mo pressed on. "Could you suppress the power of that headless corpse down to the Soul Transformation level?"
Though the corpse immortal's head had been eliminated by Gu Mo, its headless body continued spawning hordes of zombies, leaving the Tianyuan Cultivation Realm in dire straits.
"The corpse immortal's true power lies in its body. The head only housed the primordial spirit and soul. With my current strength, I cannot subdue its body." The Immortal Spirit shook her head, then frowned. "Yet my master must have left behind more safeguards. He sealed that body back then, so why has the seal failed?"
At this, Gu Mo explained what he knew about the Devil Sect's Soul Transformation cultivator secretly eroding the seal over countless years.
"Brought this upon themselves!"
The Immortal Spirit fell silent in exasperation. The Devil Sect cultivator had spent who knew how many years wearing down the seal—no matter how strong, any seal would fail under such treatment.
This so-called zombie calamity, more than a natural disaster, was truly a man-made one. Yet the catastrophe caused by the Devil Sect was now something all cultivators had to bear together.
"My master's measures should not have ended there. Once I recover my strength, I can activate the contingencies he left behind. The corpse immortal's head is gone; now its body is nothing but a shell of raw power. Resealing it should not be difficult." The Immortal Spirit mused aloud.
What she had feared most was the corpse immortal's head. With it destroyed by Gu Mo, the threat posed by the body alone was far less.
After all, no matter how strong raw power was, without a will to direct it, it was nothing but scattered sand.
"Thank you, Senior!"
Hearing her willingness to act, Gu Mo was overjoyed. At that time, he planned to accompany her and conveniently dig out the Devil Sect's fifth-tier spiritual vein. Using the Big-Mouth Flower to digest the head's released spiritual energy was far too slow; directly harvesting a fifth-tier vein would be much faster.
Later, once Gu Mo grew stronger and advanced the Big-Mouth Flower's rank further, its digestion speed would surely increase.
"Senior, would this help you restore your strength?" Gu Mo produced a portion of fifth-tier Sun Essence. The Tianyuan Cultivation Realm's situation was critical, and he hoped the Immortal Spirit could act sooner. Yet if she had no strength, it would be pointless.
Thus, once she had recognized Ruanruan as her master, Gu Mo presented the fifth-tier Sun Essence.
Though Ruanruan had her own independent will, in essence she was still a clone refined by Gu Mo. By acknowledging Ruanruan, the Immortal Spirit had, in a way, also acknowledged Gu Mo.
She had already realized this at the time, but she said nothing, for she also understood Ruanruan's origin.
Were it not for Gu Mo, her master's sole surviving bloodline would never have existed. In truth, she owed Gu Mo her gratitude.
"This will do."
The Immortal Spirit examined the Sun Essence, her eyes glinting with surprise. She had seen even higher-grade Sun Crystals before, yet this Sun Essence was the purest she had ever encountered. Such purity made it a rare treasure in itself.
With Gu Mo's Sun Essence aiding her, three months later, the Immortal Spirit's strength had recovered enough to activate her master's contingencies. Without hesitation, Gu Mo set off with her toward the Tianyuan Cultivation Realm.
In just three months, the situation there had worsened drastically. Soul Transformation-level zombies appeared frequently, driving the Cultivators' Alliance into retreat after retreat.
Now, the alliance could only withdraw into the three top-tier sects, relying on their protective mountain arrays to hold out.
Nine Nether Domain.
The sealing ground of the headless corpse, and the place where deathly qi was most concentrated. Here, one powerful zombie after another emerged from the suffocating miasma and wandered about. This land had long since become a forbidden zone for the living.
But on this day, a living being descended into the domain. The scent of life instantly agitated the zombies, and they surged toward the intruder.
"Hmph!"
A cold snort echoed suddenly, and the zombies dropped to their knees as if beholding their king.
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