Although the insect martial artists now had a full ten years of lifespan, to most Heavenly Aberration realm cultivators, it was still no more than the length of a nap.
The other towns treated the insect martial artists as expendable materials, forcing them to slaughter one another, with only the strongest earning access to resources.
Even if the insect martial artists died because of it, it didn't matter. The Heavenly Aberration realm cultivators had plenty of methods to keep them alive.
Jingzhou was like a miniature version of the world itself. Every faction harbored its own schemes, and within ten years, a massive melee was bound to erupt.
The insect martial artists were merely chess pieces. Once they truly began fighting each other, it would immediately reveal the strength of the factions backing them. At that point, the reshuffling would take place at the Heavenly Aberration realm level, and no one knew how many would die.
The smaller factions desperately strengthened their insect martial artists in hopes of securing even the slightest chance of survival.
For example, one faction composed of bird creatures occupied a remote corner of Jingzhou. Its population was small, as it had originally been nothing more than a mountain village.
The Heavenly Aberration realm cultivator leading them was known as Daoist Nun Duozi. Using the unique properties of her technique, she laid several hundred bird eggs every dozen or so days.
By consuming the bird eggs, insect martial artists could strengthen their flesh.
However, for Daoist Nun Duozi herself, the drawbacks clearly outweighed the benefits. She was effectively using the foundation of her own cultivation as nourishment for the insect martial artists.
Naturally, she was gambling on obtaining the opportunity. It was far better than having her path forward completely severed.
Every faction was racing against time. Only Xiangxiang remained peaceful. Ren Qing had even restored trade between its towns.
With Ren Qing keeping the ancient cultivators under control, the people's enthusiasm for cultivation naturally declined.
The nearby factions couldn't help but find the situation strange. It felt as though the Heavenly Court had made a great show of thunder but produced only a drizzle.
Not only could Wuzhi not understand it, even Lady White Bone, who observed from the shadows, was equally puzzled.
Lady White Bone gazed at the hellish scene within Ghost City and chuckled softly.
"Heavenly Court... I'm becoming more and more curious. Perhaps I can use this skeleton to trick that foolish Elephant Lord into making a move?"
Little did they know that Ren Qing had simply handed everything concerning the insect martial artists over to Han Li, though naturally there was a clear plan behind it.
Ren Qing himself had already begun preparing for Heaven and Earth Genesis to advance into Dao Gives Birth to One.
The immortal body produced by every immortal position was different. Even with the Information Stream's protection, he still had to understand the principles involved.
Ren Qing spent every day inside Minghe Tea House as time gradually passed.
Blackwater Daoist had originally been fairly patient, but after several months, as he felt his body gradually weakening, distracting thoughts inevitably began to arise.
Liaoque once again began trying to convert the insect martial artists. Every day, he led several hundred believers in chanting sutras before a Gu-transformed Guanyin statue.
The secondary personalities could absorb negative emotions, but there was always a limit to how much they could handle.
These resurrected insect martial artists generated enough malice every day to easily overwhelm the state of mind of an ordinary person.
If Ren Qing did nothing, it wouldn't take long before the primary personalities were corrupted by malice, and chaotic Xiangxiang would once again appear.
The outside factions also began stirring, believing that something disastrous had occurred within the Heavenly Court.
They had clearly underestimated how the Restraint Officers' Hall had utilized resource sites over the years, capable of squeezing every last bit of value from anything.
The mist blanketing Xiangxiang dispersed, and the ecosystem underwent earth-shaking changes.
The various branches remained hidden around Xiangxiang's outskirts, allowing the insect martial artists to develop on their own.
The area surrounding Heshan Town was mostly flatland, yet the Daoist disciples had filled it with plants resembling dandelions. The flower buds, waiting to bloom, were pale red, each made up of countless tiny insects.
[Mosquito Dragon Gu]
[After consumption, it could neutralize all poisons. Swallowing it alive would cause the flesh to become parasitized by the Mosquito Dragon Gu.
The Mosquito Dragon Gu could not advance. Though it appeared to be an insect, it actually possessed no ability to move, making it an extremely useless Gu insect.]
However, Ren Qing's instructions for the Daoist disciples to cultivate Mosquito Dragon Gu were far from pointless. They were specifically intended to serve as food for the Earth Toad Gu.
[Earth Toad Gu]
[It could be placed inside the mouth to replace the tongue, causing the head to undergo mutation. It required one hundred mosquitoes or other insects every day as nourishment.
It could absorb dragon blood to nourish the Earth Toad Gu, advancing it into the Dragon Toad Gu.]
The Earth Toad Gu possessed a remarkably complete advancement path.
It could ultimately reach the Yang God realm. The troublesome part was that its food was extremely difficult to obtain.
After advancing into the Dragon Toad Gu, it required ten jin of mosquitoes and insects every day just to meet its needs, and the amount only became more exaggerated at higher levels.
The Mosquito Dragon Gu perfectly compensated for the Earth Toad Gu's shortcomings. The former also contained dragon blood, helping the Earth Toad Gu advance during its early stages.
Beside Annan Town, an enormous lake had formed, filled with countless dragon-blood Gu insects, whose food could consist of algae and aquatic plants.
Ren Qing projected his consciousness into the minds of the ancient cultivators.
"Blackwater Daoist, granted the Earth Toad Gu."
"Enlightened Old Monk, granted the Golden Toad Gu."
"Master Liaoque, granted the Blood Armor Gu."
Blackwater Daoist was overjoyed. He immediately digested the memories in his mind and discovered that the immortal had bestowed not only the Gu technique's advancement methods, but had even marked the exact locations of the required resources.
He quickly organized his disciples to depart while glancing toward the other ancient cultivators.
Blackwater Daoist had assumed a bloody conflict over resource allocation would be unavoidable, but to his surprise, every cultivator was heading toward different objectives.
The immortal had divided Jingzhou into more than a dozen regions, with each one dedicated to raising a different type of Gu insect.
At first, the other factions paid little attention to Ren Qing's approach of sharpening the axe before chopping wood, but it soon revealed its terrifying effectiveness.
Under Han Li's arrangements, the dragon blood ecosystem continuously produced resources, meaning the insect martial artists had completely become self-sufficient, no longer requiring Ren Qing to spend effort maintaining them.
The Daoist temples and Buddhist monasteries expanded outward frantically. Anyone wishing to cultivate had to join them, and within only a few months, every faction numbered over ten thousand members.
Once the Gu insects formed an industry, shops immediately began selling them.
Ordinary Gu insects found applications throughout daily life. Glow Gu provided lighting, Earthworm Gu tilled farmland, Fire-Spitting Gu handled forging...
Ren Qing even transferred part of the Gu insects into the Stomach World, using them to reverse-engineer techniques and increase the foundation of the Restraint Officers' Hall.
Xiangxiang could only be described as changing with each passing day. The Daoist temples and Buddhist monasteries steadily absorbed the towns. After only five years, not a single ordinary civilian could be seen on the streets.
By the time the outside factions realized how much Ren Qing had accumulated beneath the surface, it was already too late.
The number of Ghost Envoy realm insect martial artists surged dramatically. Although the growth had recently stabilized, the fact that they accounted for thirty percent of the total was still suffocating.
What puzzled everyone the most was how normal Xiangxiang's insect martial artists were.
The other factions couldn't determine Ren Qing's true depth. They only felt that the Heavenly Court behind him radiated an indescribable mystery everywhere.
Before anyone noticed, the most stable five years had passed.
The long-hidden Gu Immortal continued operating around the scattered Insect Nest villages.
Ren Qing had even gifted Gu Immortal a method specifically capable of countering Heavenly Dao Insects. He wanted to see whether Gu Immortal could fight his way out from overwhelming odds and forcibly rise above the countless powerhouses gathered throughout Jingzhou.
After the various factions realized the insect martial artists had reached a bottleneck in development, minor conflicts gradually began appearing. It was clearly the prelude to seizing each other's populations.
According to Feng Ye's observations, insect martial artists frequently approached Xiangxiang's borders, with the greatest number naturally coming from Wuzhi.
The Insect Nest wasn't far behind, but because the Blood Bat Matriarch occupied the central region and faced enemies on every side, she couldn't concentrate too much strength against Xiangxiang.
After a year of probing, Wuzhi finally sent insect martial artists into Xiangxiang's territory.
After being nurtured within the womb chambers, the insect martial artists still wore an outer layer of flesh. Their bodies stood over five meters tall, resembling small hills.
The giant monks could use the abilities of the Gu insects, while the insect martial artists inside them bore the cost. They could therefore fight for extended periods without growing tired.
Heshan Town was controlled by a gang known as the Slot Mouth Gang.
The ancient cultivators immediately chose to resist and informed the forces in the other towns.
Whether intentional or not, reinforcements always arrived just a little too late at Heshan Town, resulting in devastating casualties for the Slot Mouth Gang.
After more than ten days of fighting, Xiangxiang finally forced Wuzhi's forces to retreat. However, pulling one thread moved the whole web, and increasing numbers of insect martial artists poured into Xiangxiang.
The baptism of blood undoubtedly drove the insect martial artists even further into madness.
Even the secondary personalities could barely withstand the increasingly intense malice, and many insect martial artists descended into insanity amid the slaughter.
Although Xiangxiang wasn't being besieged, several factions truly intended to force Ren Qing into making a move so they could determine the Heavenly Court's true strength.
Ren Qing instructed Feng Ye and Han Li not to interfere. Even if the insect martial artists suffered casualties, they were to focus primarily on collecting corpses.
Bodies nourished by Gu insects were simply the finest materials imaginable for creating zombies.
Even if the souls had already been destroyed, zombies nurtured from those corpses still cultivated far faster than ordinary zombies.
For the insect martial artists, dying easily wasn't necessarily a bad thing. At the very least, it freed them from the immortal position's control, allowing them to convert to the Great Dao within Xiangxiang.
Even if they survived, when their lifespan was exhausted and the next selection arrived, insect martial artists who were only slightly weaker would certainly have their souls completely annihilated.
Even if they were resurrected again, the best possible outcome would merely be coming into contact with the Heavenly Dao.
Could that truly allow them to transcend?
Ren Qing didn't think so. After all, the hidden mastermind still hadn't shown himself.
However, if the Restraint Officers' Hall could absorb the hundreds of thousands of people in Jingzhou, the scale of the Corpse Vein would become unimaginable, far surpassing every other branch.
Jingzhou resembled a small-scale war between civilizations, with all living things serving as chess pieces.
Ren Qing only occasionally paid attention to the development of the situation. As long as the Heavenly Aberration realm cultivators didn't personally intervene, everything remained little more than minor skirmishes.
He devoted his attention to Heaven and Earth Genesis. As he meditated again and again, a faint stinging sensation arose along his spine, as though countless ants were crawling over it.
The Heavenly Dao Crack recovered far faster than Ren Qing had expected.
This was mainly due to the mass production of zombies within the Stomach World, as well as Xiangxiang's dragon blood ecosystem stabilizing, constantly giving birth to new Water Snakes.
It proved that if Ren Qing were free to influence the world without restraint, becoming an immortal and attaining the Dao would truly be only a matter of time.
But true immortals and Buddhas were not beings he could afford to offend, not to mention those who existed beyond Earth Immortal.
Ren Qing felt that by advancing step by step, he could already see the immortal path ahead. There was no need to risk inviting disaster.
To prevent any accidents, Ren Qing used Heavenly Demon Possession to return directly to the dragon blood sea within the Endless Forest, where he sat cross-legged aboard the ghost ship.
[Advance Dao Gives Birth to One? This will consume 40,000 years of lifespan.]
While storms gathered over Jingzhou, he was preparing to break through the bottleneck of his technique. If the various Heavenly Aberration realm cultivators learned of it, they would probably unite to attack him.
Naturally, Ren Qing revealed no openings. Even separated by thousands of miles, he could still control his bacterial souls. Advancing his technique wouldn't interfere with him in the slightest.
Truly the weakest among the weak.