The sealed skull emitted a metallic luster; in reality it had already been occupied by the Hard-Bone Disease Seed, causing the brain to be like a prisoner confined within it.
Ren Qing then took out a bacterial soul from the disease tree.
The bacterial soul was named "Cerebral Infarction," among the diseases contained in the disease tree, one of the few that could directly cause brain death, showing that collecting disease types was also quite troublesome.
He attached his consciousness to the Cerebral Infarction bacterial soul, and had the ghost shadow carry it as it drilled into the skull.
The giant corpse Buddha's skull was excessively hard; even the ghost shadow capable of switching between solidity and intangibility found it extremely difficult, taking more than half a day.
When the aura of a living person entered the skull, it immediately triggered abnormal movement in the brain.
The surrounding blood vessels inexplicably transformed into pythons, attempting to search for Ren Qing's presence, but how could the effects of the Disaster-Eliminating Method be broken by Strange Beasts.
Ren Qing's consciousness looked through the Cerebral Infarction bacterial soul, and immediately raised his brows.
The brain that entered his vision was not of an ordinary appearance, but instead resembled a bizarre and indescribable thing.
The giant corpse Buddha's brain had a dark gray coloration, covered densely with veins, completely lacking uneven folds.
At the central position of the brain, there actually grew a huge single eye.
Dense Buddhist qi emanated from within the brain, the aura forming identical human faces, their twisted expressions seeming to endure something.
Ren Qing took a deep breath, then controlled the ghost shadow to split off a portion to make contact with the brain.
The information flow showed up.
[Lifespan: 768 years]
[Technique: Maitreya Sutra (Complete)]
[The Maitreya Sutra was created by Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva; cultivation requires obtaining recognition from Buddhist qi. After mastering it, Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva can temporarily gain the wisdom of ten lifetimes of a Buddha Child, and the Buddha Child can reincarnate for ten lifetimes.]
Buddhist qi stirred restlessly toward the ghost shadow; fortunately Ren Qing did not act rashly, letting the ghost shadow return to the shadows beside the Cerebral Infarction bacterial soul.
Ren Qing stared at the giant corpse Buddha's brain.
When Buddhist qi constructed the giant corpse Buddha, it used the soul of a certain cultivator from past generations as the foundation; it seemed that this person was "Yuanzhi."
After Yuanzhi mastered the Maitreya Sutra back then, he was also an existence at the Earth Immortal level; unfortunately once he reached completion, he was swallowed by Buddhist qi.
Buzz...
The brain trembled violently, the single eye becoming extremely unwilling, trying to break free from the restraints of Buddhist qi and escape the fate of cultivators of past generations.
But after a moment, it returned to calm.
Under the suppression of Buddhist qi, most of Yuanzhi's soul was in a chaotic state, only occasionally becoming clear-headed.
In a certain sense, after Ren Qing metallicized the skull, Yuanzhi could no longer influence the blood vessels, equivalent to completely cutting off vitality.
Ren Qing narrowed his eyes and pondered for a long time.
His goal was to control the giant corpse Buddha, not to rescue Yuanzhi.
Helping this soul escape control brought no benefit to Ren Qing at all, and might even cause the giant corpse Buddha to collapse.
Ren Qing realized that Yuanzhi's soul was the core of the giant corpse Buddha.
If Buddhist qi were to leave the giant corpse Buddha in the future, it would definitely take Yuanzhi's soul with it, so he had to find a replacement soul to avoid possible risks.
Ren Qing attempted to let the Cerebral Infarction disease type move toward the brain.
Buddhist qi did not stop the disease type; instead it caused the Cerebral Infarction disease type to rapidly reproduce, spreading across the entire brain in an instant.
Ren Qing did not act rashly; the Cerebral Infarction bacterial soul immediately withdrew from the skull.
He knew that modifying the brain had to be meticulous, so he did not plan to complete it in a short time.
Ren Qing sat cross-legged outside the skull, placing all his energy on the mutation of the brain, during which fluctuations of Buddhist qi would arise from time to time.
He discovered that mutating the brain was not troublesome; the difficulty actually lay in controlling Yuanzhi's soul.
Ren Qing was already sufficiently cautious, but any action targeting the soul would attract interference from Buddhist qi before it could even be carried out.
If he could not influence the soul, it would be impossible to change the giant corpse Buddha's behavior.
Having no other choice, he could only settle for second best, focusing on indirectly controlling the brain; the Restraint Officer method he ultimately chose was "Person in a Bottle."
Inscribed on an unnamed ancient jar; cultivation requires being born with two heads, placing both heads into porcelain bottles, maintaining life with special medicinal primers, one placed in a place of the three religions and nine trades, one placed in a private school academy, hung for three years before completion.
He originally did not intend to mutate toward Person in a Bottle, because this kind of technique only has strange objects of the Martial Practitioner realm and Half-Corpse realm.
But under the current circumstances, Person in a Bottle was indeed suitable; if it did not work, he could change to another Restraint Officer method later.
Ren Qing extracted the Cerebral Infarction disease type from the brain, then replaced it with "Soul-Splitting Disease Type."
Soul-Splitting Disease Type refers to dissociative identity disorder, which perfectly matched the Restraint Officer method Person in a Bottle, able to nurture a second soul.
He was extremely familiar with dissociative identity disorder; back then, the destruction of Heaven Above Heaven was caused by him using this to generate evil thoughts.
The Soul-Splitting Disease Type gradually covered the brain; Ren Qing could feel that the consciousness of Yuanzhi's soul became somewhat unstable.
He glanced at the outside; at most half a day remained before reaching the island.
Ren Qing had no intention of stopping, continuing to use the Soul-Splitting Disease Type to stimulate the brain, while quietly completing the refinement of the artifact transformation.
The three mutation paths of the Restraint Officer method Person in a Bottle were all very strange.
"Twin Birth" was the mutation path of the heads in the jar, the two heads becoming independent existences yet closely connected.
"Dual-Headed" required stitching the two heads together; after regrowing a body, it would be one body with two souls.
"Headless" simply had the souls within the two heads devour each other, leaving the final soul to be placed back into a headless body.
Ren Qing naturally chose Twin Birth, but whether it would succeed, he had no confidence.
Bang!!!
The giant corpse Buddha shook violently; clearly it had already stepped onto the lake-center island, standing at the edge of the island and looking toward the center.
Ren Qing knew time was running out, and immediately began completing the brain's artifact transformation.
At this moment, within the Restraint Officers' Hall, nearly all cultivators gathered in the stomach, discussing the scene displayed on the stomach wall.
They saw that the island was actually formed from piled white bones, with nothing else present.
But when the giant corpse Buddha stepped onto the island, beneath the bone sand emerged severed limbs, at a glance at least tens of thousands of hands and feet.
Li Tiangang now began to believe that the island might truly be related to a forbidden zone.
Because only near a forbidden zone would such extraordinary scenes appear, yet it did not resemble a purely Yang God realm forbidden zone.
Li Tiangang had all cultivators remain on high alert.
And to prevent being unable to enter or exit the stomach world, he instructed cultivators to transport large amounts of food into the temporary camp within the intestines and stomach.
The giant corpse Buddha strode toward the depths of the island, but its body seemed to encounter quicksand, gradually sinking underground.
It did not resist, allowing its body to sink into the ground.
When the giant corpse Buddha's feet sank into the ground, the cultivators within the intestines and stomach suddenly felt their heartbeats stall, involuntarily clutching their chests.
Only the cocoon people were slightly better; everyone else turned pale and collapsed to their knees.
Ren Qing noticed the anomaly through the ghost shadow left in the intestines and stomach, but the mutation of the brain was at its most critical moment and could not tolerate failure.
He did not know whether completing the Person in a Bottle artifact transformation of the giant corpse Buddha would form a second soul, and could only try his best to steer it toward dissociation.
When the brain emitted the technique aura of Twin Birth, a sudden change occurred in the giant corpse Buddha.
All the abnormal disease types in the giant corpse Buddha's body surged toward the neck, including the Cancer Disease Tree disease type.
A massive bulge grew beside the neck, and facial features soon appeared upon it.
Seeing this, Ren Qing forcibly abandoned Twin Birth, instead choosing the more suitable Dual-Headed, even though it only possessed a strange object of the Martial Practitioner realm.
After the brain completely finished mutating, the second head had already formed.
From appearance alone, the two heads showed no difference, but their expressions slightly differed: the original head's expression was twisted and unwilling, while the newly formed head carried a calm Zen intent.
Ren Qing could sense that the new head was about to give birth to a soul.
The secondary soul also belonged to the giant corpse Buddha, but due to the ability of Person in a Bottle, it was forcibly nurtured as a pseudo-soul.
He did not stop this process, but quickly rushed to the other head; the brain inside it was relatively normal.
But as the brain connected with the giant corpse Buddha's blood vessels and nerves, Buddhist qi immediately poured into the brain, causing veins to bulge, and the brain's pale red color gradually shifted toward gray-black.
Seeing that the single eye was about to grow and the secondary soul would be sealed by Buddhist qi,
Ren Qing placed dream flowers onto the brain, using the Double Pupils formed by the dream flowers to replace the single eye, thereby exerting influence over the giant corpse Buddha's secondary soul.
The main soul could not be affected, after all it involved Buddhist qi, but Buddhist qi placed far fewer restrictions on the newly born secondary soul.
After refining the new head, Ren Qing felt his control over the secondary soul, and without hesitation erased its consciousness.
In his view, the secondary soul did not need intelligence and could simply serve as a normal artifact spirit.
Relying on the secondary soul, although Ren Qing could not completely control the giant corpse Buddha, he could already exert influence indirectly.
This alone was sufficient, at least allowing preparation in advance for when Buddhist qi left the body.
Just as Ren Qing integrated the Martial Practitioner realm strange object of Person in a Bottle into the secondary soul's brain, suddenly the frequency of his heartbeat greatly slowed.
At the same time, the giant corpse Buddha completely sank into the island's bone sand.
Not only Ren Qing, but all cultivators experienced the same condition, likely originating from the different rules between Dead Man's Forbidden Zone and the outside world.
It took a long time before Ren Qing adapted.
He quickly checked the situation within the intestines and stomach, discovering that the cultivators were gradually regaining consciousness.
But their skin and flesh had shriveled, their appearance resembling fresh corpses, and they all found it extremely unbelievable.
The intestines and stomach became extremely noisy; fortunately most cultivators were already accustomed to abnormalities, so the corpse transformation did not cause chaos.
Ren Qing looked uncertainly at his own arms; his skin was covered in corpse spots and appeared bluish-purple.
He used Rebirth Technique; after doubling his vitality, the corpse spots disappeared.
Ren Qing hurried toward the intestines and stomach, while trying to understand Dead Man's Forbidden Zone through the insect eyes, only to find the giant corpse Buddha still within the sand.
The giant corpse Buddha could not move, as if it had truly become a corpse.
And around it were buried various enormous creatures, likewise sinking underground.
Clearly, only corpses could enter the so-called Dead Man's Forbidden Zone.