No one could have imagined that, as they got closer and closer to Dead Man's Forbidden Zone, the surroundings would actually turn into a boundless corpse-water lake.
The lake water as a whole presented an ink-green color, within which were contained an unknown number of microorganisms. A large number of corpses floated and sank in the water, setting off this place like a human hell, and in midair there were also carrion birds circling and refusing to leave. Such an inexplicably bizarre ecology could probably only be formed by a forbidden zone.
Restraint Officers' Hall had dozens of people staring at the patterns on the stomach wall surface, fearing that some danger might suddenly appear, leaving them unable to respond in time. However, it was temporarily still considered safe; the giant corpse Buddha seemed to have become an inconspicuous corpse in the lake water, attracting several vultures to land.
The vultures should be animals relatively well adapted to corpse qi, actually able to forage in the corpse lake where even cultivators found it difficult to survive.
Unknowingly, the giant corpse Buddha had already stayed in the corpse lake for several months. Aside from the initial chaos, everything else appeared incomparably calm.
But when things are abnormal, there must be something strange.
After all, there were tens of thousands of corpses floating in the corpse lake; after observation by Li Tiangang, most had at least Yin Difference realm strength in life, and the level of strangeness here could be imagined.
While maintaining order, Restraint Officers' Hall also devoted a large amount of energy to investigation, and the progress of internal organ artifactization gradually accelerated. The spleen, lungs, and kidneys would not take long to complete initial artifactization.
It was only because Restraint Officers' Hall needed to harvest various resources that manpower appeared slightly insufficient; otherwise, artifactization would not be this slow.
Resources of human skin were concentrated outside, resembling the dead skin shed by the giant, all corroded completely by corpse water, making them impossible to collect.
And due to the liver burning corpse water, several hundred jin of corpse stones formed every day, and in the spinal region there was also a material called "Maitreya Bone."
Maitreya Bone resembled bead-like relics of bone, and one could sense the faint Buddha qi contained within. Maitreya Bone was condensed by Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva; consuming it could make the bones of the whole body increasingly sturdy, with the effect gradually decreasing.
On the contrary, the fusion of skin and spine with Martial Practitioner realm eerie embryos was relatively smooth; it would not be long before they could attempt Half-Corpse realm eerie embryos.
Ren Qing did not urge Li Tiangang to accelerate artifactization. According to his estimate, once the giant corpse Buddha left the corpse lake, it should be roughly close to Dead Man's Forbidden Zone; the longer this period, the better.
The more body parts of the giant corpse Buddha that were artifactized, the more it adapted to the environment, naturally causing its walking speed to continuously increase.
So Ren Qing simply let Xiao San'er lay the foundation for artifactization; when the time was ripe, the mutation could be completed in a short time.
Dream City was equally bustling; shops filled the streets and alleys, and streams of people flowed.
Longevity Forbidden Zone, with the assistance of various pills, had already popularized body martial arts, greatly increasing the number of Martial Practitioner realm cultivators. Even though their purchasing power was limited, the base was there.
The prosperity of Dream City could not even be matched by the former Wuwei City, showing that Restraint Officers' Hall had advanced by leaps and bounds in these days.
Li Yaoyang bought some bottles and jars for storing gu worms and had just returned from Dream City to the temporary camp when his gaze inadvertently swept across the stomach wall.
He vaguely realized something was wrong in his heart, but did not know why.
Li Yaoyang only thought it was an illusion; later, after several hours, distracting thoughts continued to ferment in his heart, even affecting his closed-door research on the Insect Nest method.
"Is the corpse lake a gu-refining field?"
His pupils dilated as he could not help examining the bottles and jars placed in the house, whose openings were tightly sealed.
One of the jars was filled with muddy water, raising a gu worm called "leech worm."
The leech worm was a special aquatic gu worm that required a water source to survive; the steps of refining gu were to add corresponding materials into the jar, stimulating the leech worms to multiply massively.
After the leech worms multiplied to a certain degree, they would kill each other to obtain nutrients, and after a hundred days, the one left would be the gu worm.
Li Yaoyang suddenly felt how similar the situation of the corpse lake was.
On one hand, corpse water caused colossal beings to turn into corpses; on the other hand, when corpses were in the corpse lake, some kind of transformation would likely occur.
Li Yaoyang then shook his head again; up to now, the giant corpse Buddha had not encountered any eerie objects in the corpse lake, so it might just be an illusion.
He forcibly suppressed the distracting thoughts in his heart and prepared to continue improving the contents of the Insect Nest method.
At this moment, the intestines and stomach suddenly shook like heaven and earth overturning.
An ordinary earthquake would end in only a moment, but this time it lasted for half an hour, and the magnitude even became increasingly intense.
The long river formed by Buddha Nether Yuan above the head was constantly emitting sizzling sounds.
This indicated that a massive amount of corpse water was pouring into the giant corpse Buddha's body, but was blocked by the Buddha Nether Yuan, with corpse stones piling up like a mountain in the liver.
From the image displayed by the insect eyes, it seemed that the giant corpse Buddha had sunk into the lake, causing corpse water to flow in through the mouth and nose.
Li Tiangang immediately mobilized the cultivators; the curtain-like magic artifact was redeployed to prevent corpse qi from leaking, causing casualties among the cultivators.
The cultivators scattered in the internal organ regions all returned to the intestines and stomach.
Li Yaoyang could not help but frown, his eyes fixed on the stomach wall without moving.
He tried his utmost to endure the instinct to blink, fearing he would miss useful clues, and as a result discovered a black shadow circling around the giant corpse Buddha.
The black shadow was clearly trying to drag the giant corpse Buddha into the depths of the corpse lake.
As the light dimmed, the patterns on the stomach wall surface became blurry, and one could only see that the size of the black shadow was not inferior to the giant corpse Buddha.
Li Tiangang did not think the giant corpse Buddha would be buried at the bottom of the water, but just in case, he still made response measures as much as possible.
According to Ren Qing, as long as he was not within the range of the intestines and stomach, when Restraint Officers' Hall encountered danger, they could withdraw to the stomach-contained world.
Martial Practitioner realm cultivators successively headed to the stomach-contained world, while the others stood ready.
Under the gaze of the insect eyes, more than ten black shadows were eyeing them like tigers watching prey.
Seeing this, the giant corpse Buddha used Bone Armor Technique; thick bone armor covered the entire body, but also made itself heavier.
Roar!!
Even through bone armor and flesh, the cultivators could hear the hissing from underwater, and the black shadows immediately swarmed toward the giant corpse Buddha.
They thus clearly saw the appearance of the black shadows and could not help but suck in a breath of cold air.
The black shadows should have been transformed from humanoid corpses, with elongated limbs swinging, and black long hair covering all parts of the body.
Only the position of the forehead exposed skin, branded with a talisman composed of complex patterns, like something left by certain Daoist lineages.
Before the cultivators could react, the water corpses frantically bit the giant corpse Buddha; their sharp teeth could easily leave marks on the bone armor.
Although they could not threaten the giant corpse Buddha, the flexible speed of the water corpses made it difficult for the giant corpse Buddha to counterattack.
The situation immediately fell into a stalemate.
The giant corpse Buddha seemed to have stirred a hornet's nest; the corpse lake, originally deathly still, now had hundreds and thousands of water corpses gathering.
It naturally could not withstand them and could only use Bone Armor Technique to ensure it remained undefeated.
Li Tiangang slightly shook his head.
At present, the only one who could influence the situation was Ren Qing; no matter how high the cultivation of the others, they could not intervene with the giant corpse Buddha.
Although he issued many conservative orders, there was not the slightest panic in his heart, after all Ren Qing was still sitting firmly like a fisherman watching.
At this moment, the giant corpse Buddha emitted a dense spell aura; it was not from any particular part, but from flesh and blood from inside to outside.
One could see its limbs curling, bone armor covering the entire body in all directions; from the outside, it looked like a giant white bone boulder.
Li Tiangang took a deep breath and could not help murmuring, "It's here."
In the depths of flesh and blood invisible to the naked eye, countless disease seeds were reproducing almost crazily, nearly spread throughout every part of the giant corpse Buddha.
Being able to mobilize so many disease seeds was absolutely not something a Yin Difference realm technique could achieve.
In fact, not long ago, Ren Qing had just consumed one thousand years of lifespan to raise the Taishui Scripture and Six Diseases Method to the Yang God realm.
The promotion of the Taishui Scripture almost caused the vitality of Rebirth Technique to be insufficient; fortunately, the disease seeds were stored in the disease tree rather than within Ren Qing's body.
He did not even have time to check his own information flow before noticing the external crisis.
Ren Qing bent down and walked out of the cabin, looking toward the blood vessels from the deck; the liquefied Buddha Nether Yuan stirred up stormy waves, constantly striking the ghost ship.
A faint sour stench spread; clearly corpse qi had already penetrated the skin.
"Where did the eerie object in the corpse lake come from? Could it be that we are already close to Dead Man's Forbidden Zone?"
His face carried doubt; Dead Man's Forbidden Zone was different from the forbidden zones encountered before and certainly could not be explained by common sense.
Thinking about it, it made sense; within Dead Man's Forbidden Zone, if nothing unexpected happened, there was at least one existence close to an Earth Immortal.
It was not some Yang God realm forbidden zone.
Seeing the number of water corpses increasing, Ren Qing immediately suppressed the distracting thoughts in his heart and then closed his eyes to use Six Diseases Method.
The malformed disease seeds instantly boiled, bringing along the Cancer Disease Tree disease seeds to become active.
The two types of disease seeds complemented each other, reproducing while wantonly transforming the giant corpse Buddha, causing abnormalities to grow in its limbs.
The sound of bones colliding rang out continuously; the giant corpse Buddha struggled like drowning.
Facing the sudden abnormality of the prey, the water corpses did not continue surrounding; they swam several meters apart from each other, eyeing in the dark.
The bone armor on the surface of the giant corpse Buddha gradually retracted at the joints, but the exposed skin was covered with large patches of fish scales.
Its arms stretched out, and a thin membrane actually appeared between its palms.
Immediately afterward, the same occurred on its feet, and even its eyes were separated by a membrane.
The giant corpse Buddha continuously swallowed corpse water; before the corpse water could fall into the intestines and stomach, it was expelled by gills at the neck.
Within just a few minutes, the characteristics of the giant corpse Buddha turned into half-human, half-fish.
In order to control the mutation of the disease seeds, Ren Qing almost pushed the technique to the extreme, barely completing the transformation of its flesh.
He planned that after controlling the giant corpse Buddha, he would mutate the flesh toward the direction of the Kunpeng Technique.
The characteristic of the Kunpeng Technique was that the body transformed between a Peng bird and a whale, very suitable for malformed disease seeds and Cancer Disease Tree disease seeds.
The giant corpse Buddha swam flexibly in the water; then its legs suddenly exerted force, and the right arm covered with bone armor directly pierced through a water corpse.
The water corpse, caught off guard, had its neck directly cut into two halves, dark red blood gushing out from the body, making the corpse lake even more turbid.
The remaining water corpses became flustered, some trying to sneak attack, others trying to flee.
The giant corpse Buddha had been aggrieved for a long time and naturally did not intend to let them go, turning into an afterimage as it continuously shuttled among the water corpses.
Broken limbs drifted with the current.
Suddenly, one tentacle after another came from the bottom of the lake, pulling the remaining few water corpses into the pitch-black abyss, disappearing without a trace.