Ren Qing directly exposed Wuming's identity, yet the latter showed not the slightest ripple, staring fixedly at Ren Qing with an indifferent gaze.
Before Ren Qing could say anything else, the corpses revealed smiles that were impossible to describe.
Wuming's expression changed several times in a short span before finally returning to indifference, as though several souls were running wild inside his mind.
Ren Qing grew wary. Wuming truly was an existence who had comprehended techniques three times. His mental state was probably already completely different from that of an ordinary person.
He had originally intended to use this opportunity to come into contact with Wuming and probe his intentions. Now, however, it seemed that it was difficult to understand the thoughts of a madman.
Fortunately, he had not cast the Heavenly Demon Tribulation. Otherwise, at such close range, Wuming might have seen through his true situation.
"Wuming. Wuming. Wuming."
Wuming's voice grew louder and louder, as though he were recalling something, but the surrounding darkness began to stir restlessly.
The black goats howled as they surged toward the corpses like a tide.
The black goats' malice was extremely pure. Their instinct was to devour any living creature in the world, ultimately assimilating all things into themselves.
It was difficult to imagine what kind of human tragedy would occur if the Buddhist World covered the entire world. There probably would not be any room for living beings to survive.
One moment Wuming was raving mad, and the next he had returned to his composure.
"So you reached the Heavenly Aberration realm through a Primordial Technique."
He spoke as though he had suddenly understood everything. His eyes were filled with indescribable emotions. There was some satisfaction, but even more joy.
Wuming's thoughts stirred. The several hundred corpses on the outskirts scattered and fled, merely to draw the black goats' attention and buy time.
Ren Qing could not help asking, "What is a Primordial Technique?"
"What should I call you?"
Ren Qing hesitated for a few moments before answering, "Dragon King of the Four Seas."
Wuming's eyes flickered. He muttered in a neurotic manner, "Back then, I stayed in Xiangxiang for two hundred years and placed my own Dao traditions in various places. Mirror Immortal."
"Mirror Immortal was in a place called Bazi Village."
His words came in fragments. Clearly, it had been a very long time since he had spoken continuously, making him seem like a child just learning to talk.
"Karma is truly wondrous."
Wuming's expression became venomous. "Sure enough, there is no escaping karma. There are still karmic ties of mine left in this world. There is no escaping it."
He revealed a stiff smile and slowly walked toward the southeast.
Ren Qing followed without hesitation. The hexagram on the surface of the tortoiseshell remained unchanged. The ominous sign with an auspicious aspect meant that Wuming, who had descended by borrowing a corpse, posed no threat to him whatsoever.
Wuming ignored everything around him. Wherever he passed, corpses drilled out of the soil one after another and tangled with the black goats rushing toward them.
He belatedly explained, "The Restraint Officer Method practiced in Xiangxiang is the Primordial Technique. It originated from the upheaval ten thousand years ago."
As he spoke, Wuming's face became hideously distorted. One corpse after another exploded in succession, showing just how unstable his emotions were.
"Senior Wuming, could you tell me in detail what happened ten thousand years ago?"
Ren Qing deliberately fell half a step behind and asked as casually as possible. At the same time, Fengdu Corpse Emperor was poised to strike, ready to guard against Wuming at any moment.
"It was the Heavenly Dao. The Heavenly Dao. The Heavenly Dao."
"The Heavenly Dao guided cultivators into comprehending Primordial Techniques."
Wuming let out a shrill laugh, his eyes locked firmly onto Ren Qing. Then he said with absolute certainty, "You also cultivate a Primordial Technique. Ren Qing, when you ascended the Ascension Ladder, you saw the Heavenly Dao, didn't you? Its breathtaking, otherworldly Dao resonance."
"He is the beginning of all things, the cornerstone that forms the Great World. All Immortals and Buddhas exist because they received his shelter."
"He is the embodiment of evil, the source of the collapse of order, causing billions of living beings to suffer."
When praising it, Wuming's tone was calm. When cursing it, his expression became hideous once again, as though different personalities were taking turns controlling him.
Ren Qing was merely an observer, listening to Wuming's description of the Heavenly Dao. From it, he could tell that the existence Wuming was referring to should be the Primordial Heavenly Venerable.
It was only after more than ten minutes that Wuming's emotions finally settled.
Ren Qing could sense that the soul aura Wuming had attached to the corpse was gradually weakening. Although Wuming was at the Heavenly Aberration realm and could even control True Immortals, he still could not manipulate them as easily as his own limbs.
Wuming continued babbling, his thoughts becoming utterly illogical.
Pus and blood trickled from the corpses' facial features. Their heads swelled several times beyond their normal size, and their foreheads were covered with bulging veins.
Pop.
Under the tremendous pressure inside the skulls, their eyeballs were directly forced from their sockets. Pus mixed with brain matter splattered everywhere, creating an extremely bizarre sight.
The corpses looked toward Ren Qing once again and staggered toward him, murmuring indistinctly, "I want to sever my karma. I want no one in this world to know me."
But before the corpses could approach, their strength had already been completely drained.
Once all the corpses collapsed, Wuming disappeared without a trace.
After the black goat herd tore the corpses into pieces, it ignored Ren Qing, who was wearing the pelt, and soon disappeared back into the darkness.
Ren Qing narrowed his eyes. Since Wuming had descended here, Black Crow Matriarch, who was controlled by Corpse Immortal, had probably built her nest nearby.
He wanted to see what Wuming was actually doing.
Using the black goat's semi-incorporeal state, Ren Qing traveled back and forth within a hundred li before finally arriving inside what appeared to be an ordinary mountain.
Other Heavenly Aberration realm cultivators might not have noticed anything strange about the mountain.
But Ren Qing was different. After all, he controlled Fengdu Corpse Emperor and was extremely sensitive to Yin Qi. Even though the mountain had completely isolated the Yin Qi inside itself, he could still sense it.
Black Crow Matriarch was clearly hiding inside the mountain, along with tens of thousands of Heavenly Dao insect people.
Although Wuming had completely lost his sanity, he had always held back when facing Ren Qing. This showed that his thoughts were still lucid.
When Ren Qing investigated the Heavenly Dao insect people under Black Crow Matriarch on the surface, he discovered that the dead ones were all low-realm cannon fodder who had undergone zombification.
He slipped through a crack in the mountain and discovered that the inside had already been hollowed out.
Ren Qing had barely stepped into the mountain when what appeared before his eyes was Black Crow Matriarch, more than a thousand meters tall. A foul stench of decay assaulted his nose.
[Black Crow Matriarch]
[Age: 2,745]
[Lifespan: None]
Techniques: Crossing the Black Crow, Dead Man's Sutra (Incomplete)]
[Crossing the Black Crow]
[Created by Black Crow Matriarch. Cultivation requires eating three thousand jin of carrion every day until the body undergoes an aberration, at which point the technique can be successfully cultivated.]
Ren Qing looked sympathetically at the inhuman Black Crow Matriarch. "As expected, it's the Dead Man's Sutra. Her fate was obvious from the beginning."
Unexpectedly, plants from the Buddhist World grew inside the cavern, but they were all fungi that survived by attaching themselves to corpses, their appearances bright and gorgeous.
Black Crow Matriarch had undergone complete zombification, and Yin Qi radiated from her entire body.
However, the dense Yin Qi was confined to the cavern and did not leak outside. Otherwise, it would certainly trigger an upheaval in the demonic aura.
Perhaps because of Wuming's modifications, Black Crow Matriarch's abdomen had taken on an egg-like shape.
Black Crow Matriarch's upper body had shrunk to several dozen meters and was covered in dense patches of corpse spots. She had originally been a woman of extraordinary beauty, but now she had become an old woman with wrinkled skin.
Her lower body, however, had swollen to more than a thousand meters. More than a hundred thousand Heavenly Dao insect people lived inside Black Crow Matriarch's abdomen, where they had established their nest.
The black crow Heavenly Dao insect people at the stronghold had already formed a flesh-and-blood factory. Even Ren Qing felt his scalp prickle at the sight.
Beneath the translucent skin, countless Heavenly Dao insect people were busy at work. Their bodies all possessed varying degrees of zombie characteristics.
Even if the zombification had not spread throughout their entire bodies, it still meant they had been reduced to slaves. Corpse Immortal possessed the ability to control life and death.
Of course, that was only because Ren Qing had yet to intervene.
Ren Qing's Fengdu Corpse Emperor had only just reached the "Dharma-Birth Path" of the Heavenly Aberration realm, but he had a premonition that he could seize control from Corpse Immortal.
He did not act rashly. Using the Hidden Eye formed from Yin Qi, he ventured deeper into the nest and soon discovered more of Wuming's strange arrangements.
At the center of the nest had originally been Black Crow Matriarch's palace chamber. Ren Qing could tell that the chamber had already lost its vitality, though this was not caused by Wuming.
After Black Crow Matriarch underwent zombification, Wuming also took control of the palace chamber and transformed it into the shape of a blood pool, from which blood constantly gushed.
Ren Qing brushed past the numb Heavenly Dao insect people and stood beside the blood pool, watching it.
An enormous amount of flesh and bones had accumulated inside the blood pool, though they were mostly severed limbs and fragments. Complete corpses were rarely seen.
Several hundred Heavenly Dao insect people stood beside the blood pool.
They used sharp implements to cut off the parts of their bodies that had already undergone zombification and casually threw them into the pool, causing the Yin Qi within to continuously accumulate.
After losing their zombified limbs, the Heavenly Dao insect people's connection to Corpse Immortal weakened, causing part of their consciousness to clearly return.
Their expressions became terrified, as though they had noticed something unbelievable and wanted to escape the nest that resembled a living hell.
But before they could take more than a few steps, as the Heavenly Dao insect people breathed, Yin Qi entered their bodies through their mouths and noses.
Under the nourishment of the Yin Qi, granulation began to sprout from their wounds, before growing into new zombie limbs.
The Heavenly Dao insect people became numb once again. Even though the nest had never been guarded, they were still unable to escape this invisible prison.
After observing for a while, Ren Qing discovered that the Heavenly Dao insect people would normally nourish their zombified limbs first.
Only when the Yin Qi contained within reached the Ghost Envoy realm would they cut them off again, ensuring that the blood pool could continuously accumulate Yin Qi.
Everything inside the nest repeated endlessly.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The ground trembled slightly. Black Crow Matriarch briefly regained consciousness. Looking at her own completely ruined body, she let out a mournful cry.
The disturbance attracted the black goat herd, but with the mountain protecting the nest, they could not drill into the interior. The Yin Qi also completely blocked their perception.
Ren Qing did not know why Wuming needed so much flesh and blood, but it was probably related to Corpse Immortal. Perhaps he intended to have Corpse Immortal descend upon Jingzhou.
A rational madman was always the most terrifying.
They often did things that made no sense on the surface, yet their plans were exceptionally clear.
Ren Qing did not hurry to destroy Wuming's flesh-and-blood factory.
The two of them might very well be heading toward the same destination by different paths. He might even have to help Wuming or use him as a chess piece.
Wuming would never realize that Ren Qing was inside Black Crow Matriarch's abdomen, using the Heavenly Demon Tribulation and Fengdu Corpse Emperor without leaving the slightest trace.
Ren Qing planned to remain in the nest temporarily. He intended to use the abilities of the Fengdu Corpse Emperor to plant some hidden measures within the flesh and blood, while waiting for the pelt to advance to the Yin Difference realm so that he could proceed toward the heart of the Buddhist World.
He glanced at the Stomach World. Since the Flesh Incense Immortal had proven viable, it was about time to pull in the net.
Ren Qing raised his head and looked west. His gaze seemed to lock onto someone. A hint of interest appeared on his face before he slowly closed his eyes.
Under the dim moonlight, a man dressed in black lay motionless in the grass, quietly concealed as he stared fixedly into the distance.
His Daoist title was "Angran Jushi." He had abundant body hair, typical of a native of Great Western Sichuan, and was a fairly famous wandering cultivator in the Futu Jie.
The so-called Futu Jie referred to a mountain range perpetually covered in wind and snow. It was said that Immortals and Buddhas had once stopped there and left behind their Dao traditions.
Wandering cultivators had established a black market on its outskirts, which was likewise called Futu Jie.
Angran Jushi's eyes were filled with wariness. In his right hand, he tightly gripped a string of eyeballs.
"If things hadn't come to this, who would willingly come to this damned place called Futu Jie? Damn it. Better to die with the birds looking toward the sky than live ten thousand years."
Although Angran Jushi looked no more than forty or fifty, he was actually already over five hundred years old, having reached the lifespan limit of the Nascent Soul Stage (Yin Difference realm).
For him, dying because his lifespan had run out was truly frustrating.
After all, Angran Jushi had already advanced to the Golden Core Stage (Ghost Envoy realm) in his fifties, and reached the Nascent Soul Stage in his early hundreds. Among wandering cultivators, his talent could be considered extraordinary.
In theory, as long as his inherited Dao tradition were complete, reaching the Spirit Division Stage would not be difficult. He might even have had a chance to break through to the Heavenly Aberration realm.
Unfortunately, the technique Angran Jushi cultivated was extremely incomplete. It should have originated from a Heavenly Dao Method, but the content concerning the Heavenly Dao Insects had been removed.
The technique's upper limit was no higher than the perfected Golden Core Stage, yet he had forcibly broken through one realm.
When Angran Jushi was young, he possessed an unyielding pride and disdained joining any faction.
Moreover, the major and minor factions all possessed unique techniques. Even if Angran Jushi joined one, he would have to rebuild the foundation of his cultivation.
With the slightest mistake, he could become someone else's cauldron. It simply was not worth the loss.
As a result, Angran Jushi bitterly cultivated for five hundred years, only to become firmly stuck at the bottleneck of the Nascent Soul Stage, exhausting every bit of his remaining lifespan.
Most of his ambition had been extinguished. Even if he wanted to rebuild his foundation, it was already too late.
Angran Jushi had originally planned to find a mortal town and eke out another dozen years or so. If fate favored him, he would leave behind his inheritance. If not, he would simply die and let his Dao dissipate.
But he had never expected his opportunity to arrive so quietly.
Angran Jushi stared blankly at the mountain forest, recalling the scene of traveling to the Heavenly Court in his dreams. Countless Immortal Wanderer prodigies had gathered there.
"The family's Eye-Digging Method is probably a fragment of the technique of the Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal of the Heavenly Court. It requires Heavenly Dao Insects to establish the foundation. I chose the wrong path from the very beginning."
Angran Jushi shook his head in frustration, blaming himself for his blind confidence.
"Now that the Eye-Digging Method has reached the Nascent Soul Stage, it is impossible to make up for its flaws. I can only seek opportunities for a breakthrough through indirect means."
At this thought, Angran Jushi's breathing involuntarily quickened.
Among the cultivators of the Heavenly Court, he had no presence whatsoever. On ordinary days, he did menial work such as transporting fragments of statues. Because his soul was relatively weak, his soul aura would be exhausted in less than half an hour.
But Angran Jushi had personally witnessed all the statues of the Heavenly Court gradually being found, as well as the strange and inexplicable appearance of the statues of the Three Dao Ancestors.
"Hehehehehe."
"Heaven has not abandoned me. Who could have imagined that the statues of the Immortals and Gods would actually awaken the consciousness of the Heavenly Court?"
When the consciousness of the Heavenly Court first manifested, it was merely a single eye, and its aura fluctuated around the Ghost Envoy realm. Yet it caused the hundreds of statues of Immortals and Gods present to emit a terrifying aura.
All Angran Jushi knew was that those Immortal Wanderers muttered to themselves, "There really is an Immortal Position in the Heavenly Court."
As for what an Immortal Position actually was, he had only heard rumors. It seemed to be the Immortal Root spiritual body that one absolutely needed to become an Immortal and attain the Dao.
Immediately afterward, the cultivators of the Heavenly Court went mad. They attempted to find Immortal Positions in the outside world.
According to the consciousness of the Heavenly Court, once an Immortal Position returned to the Heavenly Court, the turbid aura within it could be removed. Even refining it would not cause one to lose control.
The Immortal Positions would then be bestowed upon cultivators who had rendered meritorious service, replacing the deceased Immortals and Gods and taking their places among the ranks of the Immortal Court.
Cultivators such as Lady White Bone were skeptical of the Heavenly Court consciousness's claims. How could something simply promise from the outset that one could become an Immortal and attain the Dao?
The Immortal Position transcended the Heavenly Aberration realm. Even if they wanted to compete for one, they would certainly face a nine-in-ten chance of death. Who knew whether the consciousness of the Heavenly Court would actually keep its promise?
However, Lady White Bone had keenly noticed that a flicker of wild joy passed across the faces of some cultivators. After the consciousness of the Heavenly Court disappeared, they hurriedly left.
Lady White Bone realized that they possessed techniques capable of distinguishing truth from falsehood in speech.
Such techniques were very common among wandering cultivators. Mastering one could save them considerable trouble. Otherwise, they might unknowingly be cheated to death.
Upon hearing this, Lady White Bone immediately told the remaining cultivators what she thought.
She herself was trapped in the Netherworld, making her the most suitable person to take charge. After all, the interests of the outside world had nothing to do with Lady White Bone.
Lady White Bone was mainly considering the possibility of helping Xiangzhu become an Immortal.
At that time, she could use Xiangzhu to escape her predicament, and might even catch the tail end of the opportunity to become an Immortal and attain the Dao.
Of course, that depended on the Heavenly Court consciousness telling the truth. But Lady White Bone could not afford to miss the opportunity in front of her simply because she had too many concerns.
The current situation also revealed unusual signs everywhere.
The Heavenly Court had only recently appeared in the world, yet Immortals and Buddhas were appearing one after another. Even the Supreme Heavenly Demon and Dingguang Buddha had become frequent targets of investigation by various factions.
Could anyone really say that the upheaval in this world had nothing whatsoever to do with the Heavenly Court?
They secretly searched for clues concerning the Immortal Positions. A pool of stagnant water had suddenly begun to ripple, except that every faction had its own hidden agenda.
What they did not know was that the consciousness of the Heavenly Court was merely a bacterial soul disguised by Ren Qing. The Zhili Technique made the illusion difficult to see through, especially since they had already been thoroughly investigated by him.
The Immortal Position aura emitted by the statues of the Immortals and Gods was actually simulated by Ren Qing using incense aura.
He had not expected the Flesh Incense Immortals to truly possess the characteristics of Immortal Positions after merging with Immortal Offices.
If cultivators used the perfected Spirit-Entering Technique to draw in incense aura, their bodies and souls would gradually be assimilated into the appearance of the Flesh Incense Immortals.
Ren Qing was completely obtaining something for nothing.
He wanted to obtain Immortal Positions to establish forbidden zones without having to actually give away Immortal Positions, so he simply let the cultivators enjoy the "False Immortal Positions" of the Stomach World.
As for whether they could advance to the Earth Immortal realm, it actually did not matter.
Because once Ren Qing had collected enough Immortal Positions to launch the Sealing Immortal War, he would naturally summon them in his identity as the consciousness of the Heavenly Court.
"He's here."
Angran Jushi came back to his senses. The person he had been waiting for so long had finally arrived.
He suppressed his breathing as much as possible and stared without blinking at the mountain path. A massive figure was approaching his position.
The sound of jingling bells rang out.
Angran Jushi's heart tightened. He hurriedly drove steel needles into both ears, rendering himself deaf so that he would not be affected by the demon's bells.
It was a bizarre, indescribable giant beast. Its body resembled that of a fox, and it had nine tails in total, but its facial skin seemed to have been torn away, leaving its features exposed directly to the air.
A string of bells made from human heads hung from the fox's chest.
The dried brain cores rattled inside the skulls, producing a crisp sound.
Angran Jushi had lived in a village in Futu Jie since childhood and knew that there was a fox demon in the mountains that liked to lure passing men into mating with it.
He had once entered the mountains to search for the fox demon, but Futu Jie was simply too vast.
Later, fewer and fewer people remained in the village, and Angran Jushi basically settled in a town. He also abandoned the idea of killing the fox demon.
But Angran Jushi had never expected that the Heart Moon Fox Immortal among the Heavenly Court's Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions would possess physical characteristics similar to those of the fox demon. The most obvious feature was the nine long tails.
The Heart Moon Fox Immortal also possessed a bell-shaped artifact that hung from the waist of its statue.
Angran Jushi clenched his teeth. This was one of the few opportunities he had left. If he could not seize it, dying after his lifespan ran out would be his only choice.
He flicked a little sandalwood incense onto the empty ground, and a faint strange smell spread through the air.
Sandalwood incense had the effect of attracting wild beasts. He did not expect it to work on the fox demon. Even making it stop for a moment would be enough.
But the fox demon simply ignored the sandalwood incense and walked straight toward the end of the mountain path.
Angran Jushi's fingernails dug into the flesh of his palms. He could no longer suppress his urge to act. Otherwise, he might lose track of the fox demon.
He had spent more than half a month waiting patiently for his prey before finally getting this stroke of luck.
At that moment, a sika deer was attracted by the sandalwood incense. It licked the lingering scent from the ground without noticing that danger was approaching.
A sound tore through the air. Flesh tendrils extended from the fox demon's mouth and pierced directly through the sika deer's skull, sucking out all the brain matter inside.
The sika deer's entire body convulsed, but it was not from pain. Its senses had been stimulated.
Angran Jushi swallowed. He saw the sika deer's lower body swell as its head moved in response to the fox demon, making his scalp tingle.
He knew this was no time to hesitate, so he removed an eyeball from his bracelet.
Angran Jushi tore off his Daoist robe, revealing a sturdy, muscular body covered in tattoos of various strange beasts. On his shoulder was a lifelike Flood Dragon.
Only the Flood Dragon's tattooed eyes appeared somewhat hollow.
He pressed the eyeball into the Flood Dragon's eye socket, and the flesh and blood immediately converged toward his shoulder.
"Heavenly Dao Method One, Insect-Hearing Flood Dragon."
A several-meter-long Flood Dragon emerged from his flesh. Its form resembled both an insect and a dragon, but it possessed only one eye, and it lunged toward the fox demon.
The fox demon was caught off guard and injured by the Insect-Hearing Flood Dragon, staining the fur on its hind leg red.
"Hee hee hee."
A girl's clear, crisp laughter came from the fox demon's mouth, causing Angran Jushi's hair to stand on end. Without hesitation, he removed two more eyeballs.
"Heavenly Dao Method Four, Insect-Fang Elephant."
"Heavenly Dao Method Seven, Venomous Insect Bee."
Angran Jushi summoned two strange beasts from beneath his skin. His own body became skin and bones, with only a little flesh remaining on his legs.
He certainly did not intend to fight the fox demon to the death.
Angran Jushi maneuvered around, collecting the blood the fox demon had left on the branches and leaves. He then rapidly carved the tattoo onto his bare abdomen.
A moment later, the tattoo of a Nine-Tailed Fox Demon appeared on the surface of his skin.
Using an eyeball, he summoned a strange beast with an insect's head and a fox's body. Grabbing its tail, he vanished into the dense mountain forest in an instant.
The fox demon let out an enraged roar, but it remained firmly entangled.
The most mystical aspect of Angran Jushi's Eye-Digging Method was that the strange beasts he created could inherit the memories of their former bodies during the first half-day after their formation.
However, because he had lost too much flesh and blood, his consciousness had already become extremely hazy.
Angran Jushi unknowingly passed out. His movements were entirely guided by the instincts of the strange beast. When he woke again, two days had already passed.
The moment he opened his eyes, he broke down and wept bitterly.
Before Angran Jushi was the head of a fox, at least a thousand meters in size, half exposed among the mountains and forests of Futu Jie.
Beside Angran Jushi, a Ren Qing clone formed from light and shadow was examining the fox's head.