Ren Qing fixed his gaze on Chen Changsheng's face, only to notice that the latter did not seem muddle-headed at all.
But just as that thought arose, he discovered that inside Chen Changsheng's mouth was another head, layered one upon another.
The deeper the head, the crazier the expression became, like a progression from sanity into madness, sending chills down one's spine.
"Do!"
"Not!"
"Become!"
"Immortal!"
Boom...
Just before Chen Changsheng disappeared, he seemed to want to say something, causing slight disturbances within the Forbidden Realm at the center of Wuwei City.
The giant face ultimately sank into the sky above, and the glance it cast back was filled with greed.
Ren Qing could tell that Chen Changsheng's condition was extremely strange, but he was undoubtedly in the Heavenly Aberration realm, likely involving the immortal position of the Wind God Boqiang.
Back when Xiangxiang was destroyed, Chen Changsheng had not yet been this chaotic.
Li Tiangang recognized Chen Changsheng as well and could not help trembling.
He had worried before that Chen Changsheng's return to the Restraint Officers' Hall might have negative consequences, but he had never imagined the man would become like this.
While Li Tiangang was still stunned, he and the leaders of every branch simultaneously received a message from Ren Qing.
Their expressions turned solemn, and they immediately began making preparations. Supplies normally reserved for wartime were mobilized, and the sounds of artifact forging and pill refinement became endless.
Ren Qing arrived beside the Forbidden Realm. Chen Changsheng had left behind two messages after appearing, but their meanings were completely different and equally baffling.
When he first showed himself, Chen Changsheng had seemed to retain some awareness. What he muttered was "Do not become immortal," seemingly a warning to Ren Qing, who had already reached the Heavenly Aberration realm.
Yet the message he left within the Forbidden Realm was asking Ren Qing to help him become immortal.
However, the message ended abruptly. It was clear that Chen Changsheng was wandering on the edge of losing control. His intelligence was extremely chaotic, much like a Turbid Immortal.
Ren Qing had already guessed where Chen Changsheng was, but he was in no hurry to investigate. Instead, he quietly waited for the pseudo-dragonized Fungus People to complete their coverage.
Piles of flesh and broken bones continued to be dumped outside, and the Fungus People's rate of reproduction rose geometrically.
With the Restraint Officers' Hall's advanced livestock industry and the enormous stores of meat they had accumulated over the years, supplying the pseudo-dragonized Fungus People was effortless.
The pseudo-dragonized Fungus People swept across the land. Once they gained the upper hand, they crushed everything in their path.
Following the architectural style of Wuwei City's buildings, they constructed complex underground fortresses, resembling a vast and orderly ant colony system.
Ren Qing extracted some of the Fungus People and placed them within the Stomach World, specifically for ordinary resource gathering, saving a great deal of manpower.
The Fungus People were unique creatures formed by the Longevity Forbidden Zone and dependent on the Six Diseases Method. With his Zhili Technique, bringing them out of the forbidden zone posed no problem.
Of course, to prevent the pseudo-dragonized Fungus People from reproducing endlessly on a massive scale, he still limited their population within the Stomach World.
Ren Qing was not worried that the Fungus People would affect the number of resource-maintenance tasks.
The Restraint Officers' Hall was currently in a phase of explosive growth. As long as cultivators wanted to earn Blood Crystals, there was no shortage of tasks even if they could neither refine pills nor forge artifacts.
Compared to resources, whether cultivators could break through bottlenecks depended more on accumulation and luck. After all, there were far too many uncertainties in the Restraint Officer methods.
The cultivators who had converted into zombies during this period were basically all victims of bizarre object loss of control.
Huang Ziwan had spent a hundred years completing three eerie transformations because he feared losing control of his bizarre object. Many cultivators were the same.
The manpower the Restraint Officers' Hall assigned to resource sites gradually decreased, yet they were not being summoned to the Longevity Forbidden Zone. Instead, they were steadily withdrawing into the Stomach World.
Cultivators of every branch sensed that something was wrong. Ever since the giant face appeared, the atmosphere within the Restraint Officers' Hall had carried the feeling of an approaching storm.
Excitement appeared on their faces. As members of the Restraint Officers' Hall, who among them was not battle-hungry? They all secretly prepared themselves for action.
As time passed, Chen Changsheng's aura remained intermittently present.
It seemed that after the Fungus People tribes worshipping Boqiang were wiped out, Chen Changsheng had awakened from his slumber, his soul struggling between madness and reason.
The pseudo-dragonized Fungus People occupied the Sea of Clouds far faster than expected. In just over two months, they completed total coverage.
The surface of the Sea of Clouds remained calm, but countless Fungus People filled the depths beneath.
Under Ren Qing's deliberate control, the pseudo-dragonized Fungus People did not continue reproducing without restraint. After all, resources within the Longevity Forbidden Zone were exhausted, and the Restraint Officers' Hall could not supply endless quantities of flesh.
As a result, some pseudo-dragonized Fungus People transformed from living beings into mycelial forms, turning the golden cloud layer into a gray-black mass like storm clouds.
Through the eyes and ears of the Fungus People, Ren Qing also discovered that many corpses were buried within the Sea of Clouds, all undeveloped Longevity Species embryos.
He raised his head toward the sky, his eyes filled with confusion.
Ren Qing discovered traces of a Turbid Immortal upon Chen Changsheng. It was difficult to imagine what Chen Changsheng had experienced during his centuries within the Longevity Forbidden Zone.
Standing atop the city wall, he was surrounded at some point by numerous Yang God cultivators, while the leaders of every branch stood slightly farther away.
Even Li Yaoyang, who had been secluded refining Gu insects, had appeared, his expression grave and silent.
Under their watchful gazes, a glance flashed through the air above. It came from Chen Changsheng's spying eyes and made one's scalp tingle.
Daoist Taihan did not recognize Chen Changsheng at all, but wisely kept his mouth shut.
"No matter what happens, follow my commands when advancing or retreating."
Ren Qing spoke calmly. The branch leaders exchanged glances before immediately issuing orders.
The Restraint Officers' Hall was a somewhat dull blade. If it wanted to become sharp, it had to undergo repeated sharpening until it could split hairs.
The cultivators moved methodically to their assigned positions. All of them possessed Ghost Envoy realm cultivation and had undergone at least one eerie transformation.
Wuwei City opened its eyes and stretched its limbs before its mouthparts began spewing torrents of air.
The city slowly rose from the ground. Cultivators who practiced wind-attributed techniques acted one after another, reducing Wuwei City's weight and allowing it to ascend toward the heavens.
The sky of the Longevity Forbidden Zone appeared incomparably blue. Even without a sun, it still radiated faint warmth.
Every Yang God forbidden zone was essentially a small world.
Wuwei City rose faster and faster. Hurricanes struck the walls with crackling impacts. Even high-realm cultivators without protective artifacts would be injured by them.
Yet Wuwei City was a Yin Difference realm bizarre womb artifact famed for its sturdiness. It had even preserved itself in the hands of the gigantic Rabbit-Toad of the Heavenly Aberration realm.
The hurricanes had no effect on Wuwei City as it continued ascending steadily.
Once it reached a certain altitude, Wuwei City suddenly shuddered, and all the cultivators immediately felt as though they had been flipped upside down in midair.
Caught off guard, their feet left the ground before they hurriedly grabbed the walls.
A thought crossed Ren Qing's mind, and the Ghost Shadow supported Wuwei City before flipping it one hundred and eighty degrees. The Sea of Clouds instantly moved from beneath their feet to above their heads.
The land of the Longevity Forbidden Zone had never disappeared. It had merely exchanged places with the sky.
Wuwei City fell like a shooting star. The Sea of Clouds grew increasingly distant, and looking downward revealed a desolate wasteland stretching for thousands of miles.
Ren Qing stared at the ground and found cracks everywhere. There was not the slightest vegetation, except for a gigantic vine at the center.
The vine was composed entirely of necks wrapped around a thousand-meter stone pillar. Its branches and leaves were formed from countless human hands, and at the center of its blossom sat a ferocious face.
After so long apart, the madness emanating from Chen Changsheng had become even more obvious. Large numbers of amber-like fruits could also be seen writhing beside the flower core.
No wonder Muyi had been unable to find either Chen Changsheng or the source of the Longevity Species all those years ago. They had simply existed in different regions.
Ren Qing narrowed his eyes, and a crack immediately appeared on the surface of the turtle shell.
The reason there were fewer and fewer bizarre objects in the Longevity Forbidden Zone was because they had all ended up in Chen Changsheng's hands. He had even devoured most of them.
From this, it was clear that when Chen Changsheng brought the Restraint Officers' Hall into the Longevity Forbidden Zone, it was not simply to preserve their lives.
To a great extent, he had intended to use more bizarre objects to help himself become immortal.
Chen Changsheng treated himself as a Longevity Species, fused his body and soul into the bizarre object of the Six Diseases Method, and then nourished the bizarre object through the planting of trees.
Using the rules of the Longevity Forbidden Zone, he had indeed advanced into the Heavenly Aberration realm.
Unfortunately, a snake trying to swallow an elephant would only burst itself apart. After breaking through to the Heavenly Aberration realm, Chen Changsheng had likely realized the importance of immortal positions to Heavenly Aberration cultivators and refused to stop there.
Ren Qing looked at the mountain-like piles of bones. When the Longevity Species plundered populations from various towns, who knew how many lives had fallen into his mouth?
"How tragic, Patriarch..."
"How tragic, Chen Changsheng!"
Hearing Ren Qing's shout, tears began streaming from Chen Changsheng's eyes. Then he started retching violently, spewing out countless bones.
His mouth stretched to its limit, and another head emerged from his throat, bursting apart the previous one as blood splattered everywhere.
More and more Longevity Immortals were born. Their numbers quickly exceeded a hundred as they chanted Boqiang's name and charged toward Wuwei City with twisted expressions.
As the Longevity Immortals moved farther away from Chen Changsheng, their appearances became increasingly grotesque and horrifying.
The flesh on their lower bodies fell away and was replaced by root-like tentacles. Worm-like creatures continuously crawled from their eyes, noses, and mouths.
Ren Qing sensed that the bizarre objects composing the Longevity Immortals were extremely incomplete.
Every Longevity Immortal possessed Yin Difference realm cultivation, but their strength was far inferior to cultivators of the same realm, and their intelligence was close to collapse.
Their mouths opened slightly, and Chen Changsheng's voice emerged from within them.
"Ren Qing, kill me!"
"Or... complete me..."
"Make me immortal. As long as I become immortal, I can live again. As long as I become immortal..."
Li Tiangang and the others looked at Ren Qing in shock, but he merely shook his head and signaled for the cultivators to engage the Longevity Immortals.
The Wuwei Daoist Temple cultivators took the lead. They transformed into half-human, half-insect forms and rode flesh-and-blood flying swords resembling spines as they departed Wuwei City.
The demon-kind capable of flight carried their companions and followed closely behind.
The cultivators of every branch joined the battle one after another. Judging by appearances alone, the Restraint Officers' Hall looked entirely like a gathering of demons and monsters, though the Longevity Immortals were not much better.
Chen Changsheng retched again, and yet another head emerged from his throat. This time it was a half-bald bird head, and the unique aura of a Turbid Immortal spread outward.
Ren Qing stared fixedly at Chen Changsheng, using the Double Pupils to observe the true nature of the Turbid Immortal.