At the Corpse Mirror that pierced straight into the sky, waves of zombie roars echoed endlessly. The pungent corpse qi drove scavenger insects toward the town.
Under the zombies' repeated harassment, the situation had become exceptionally chaotic.
The various factions built a seven-to-eight-meter-high wall around the Corpse Mirror. The bricks were made of white bones, allowing them to resist zombie assaults.
Before the Yang Spirit realm cultivators personally intervened, they could only rely on the city wall to reduce casualties among the cultivators.
Hermit Molting stood atop the city wall, staring at the zombie that had just emerged from the Corpse Mirror.
The moment they smelled the stench of corpses, dozens of cultivators rode artifacts toward the zombie, among them the most numerous being Heavenly Dao insect people.
The zombie stood blankly in place before instinctively absorbing yin qi. Its cultivation rose geometrically, and it quickly advanced into a White Zombie.
For them, progressing from White Zombie to Hairy Zombie was merely a matter of time.
To ensure safety, the various factions would dispatch subordinates to besiege any zombie the instant one appeared, continuing until the threat was eliminated.
The cultivators clashed with the zombie. At the first exchange, a Lion Buddha monk was severely wounded, yet the others did not dare retreat in the slightest.
Mist-like corpse qi landed on the city wall, immediately causing the bone bricks to hiss and corrode.
Hermit Molting revealed a helpless expression and could not help letting out a long sigh.
Although it was not especially obvious, through defending the city he could still tell that the frequency of zombie appearances was steadily increasing.
Thinking about having to endure another hundred years, Hermit Molting could not help but feel powerless.
"Maybe only someone like Daoist Taihan truly found release…"
Hermit Molting did not know what to say. If things truly developed according to the worst-case scenario, then after a hundred years, fewer than one in ten of the factions would remain.
He wanted to leave Dead Man Land immediately, but ever since his body underwent corpse transformation, he had become bound by an inexplicable force, trapped here permanently.
The Yang Spirit realm cultivators of the various factions had all pinned their hopes on outside support, so none dared stray too far from the immortal gate, fearing they would be abandoned by their sects.
While Hermit Molting was distracted, the zombie from the Corpse Mirror had already been slain through combined effort.
He watched the cultivators return to camp, among them several wounded cultivators.
As for those more seriously injured, they had already been dealt with on the spot. Blood and flesh contaminated by corpse stench could not even serve as food, so they had simply been buried.
"Hm?"
Hermit Molting suddenly felt puzzled.
Most cultivators defending the city wore numb expressions, their eyes devoid of hope. Even after being infected with corpse poison, they handled it carelessly.
Yet the cultivators led by the Heavenly Dao insect people were completely different.
Even after over half a month of slaughter, they remained full of vigor, constantly muttering crude and difficult-to-understand phrases.
Furthermore, the insect people's injuries were lighter than ordinary cultivators'.
Hermit Molting could not help pricking up his ears. He had known Daoist Taihan for several hundred years, so he could more or less understand some of the Insect Nest language.
"Fortune... Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal??"
His eyelids twitched wildly. A hundred years ago, because of rumors surrounding ascension and immortality, huge numbers of cultivators had entered the immortal gate, only to die in foreign lands.
The word "immortal" itself seemed to carry calamity.
Hermit Molting silently followed behind the insect people. Only after they treated their injuries and returned indoors to rest did he approach to investigate.
As a result, the sound of obscure scripture chanting drifted from inside the room, filled with fanaticism.
Hermit Molting's eyes lit up slightly. Through the wall, he saw a group of cultivators kneeling in worship before a statue at the center.
The statue depicted a long and enormous insect. Though carved from white bone, it emitted an indescribable pressure.
Hermit Molting covered his chest with his right hand. Influenced by the corpse ten thousand meters away, he felt as if he had touched upon an indescribable existence.
Subconsciously, he activated Molting Method. The soul within his Mud Pellet Palace immediately left his body and floated toward the vines growing from his forehead.
[Molting Method]
[Created by Ancestor 'Molting Birth'. To cultivate it, one must plant a bitterwood seed three inches into the center of the brain and heart, allowing the bitterwood to sprout and extract the internal organs. Only after the bitterwood roots replace the organs can the technique be cultivated successfully.]
The defining trait of Molting Method was that as cultivation increased, the sprouted bitterwood would gradually devour the cultivator's old body and nurture a new one.
It was said that cultivators of Molting Method who reached the Immortal Guest stage, the Heavenly Aberration realm, would have a complete old body growing atop the vines on their heads.
When Hermit Molting's soul touched the skeleton hanging from the vines, the old body transformed into a Daoist robe and draped itself over the faintly visible soul.
Using his soul's out-of-body state to look into the room from another perspective, his scalp instantly turned numb.
The statue of Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal became incomparably sinister and bizarre, radiating multicolored light that transformed into countless microscopic insects.
The insects were covered in scales and possessed limbs and facial features. They reproduced at a speed visible to the naked eye.
As the insect people prayed, the insects lightly drifted onto them and quickly burrowed into their wounds.
The wounds immediately writhed. Dreamlike fungi slowly grew out, causing flesh to knit back together, and their injuries healed completely.
Such a scene made Hermit Molting frown tightly. The aura those insects emitted filled him with unimaginable complexity.
"Could it be that there truly is an immortal within the immortal gate, and it's indirectly affecting the outside world?"
Hermit Molting never once considered the giant corpse Buddha, because ever since it arrived at the immortal gate, it had shown absolutely no abnormalities.
The giant corpse Buddha did not look like something connected to Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal.
What he did not know was that the insects were "Pseudo-Dragon Disease Seeds" released by Ren Qing.
Ren Qing mainly wanted to ensure that the insect people, his potentially valuable leeks, would not die inexplicably. As a result, the zombies controlled by bacterial souls intentionally avoided them.
Naturally, in the eyes of the insect people cultivators, everything was the protection of Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal.
Hermit Molting's soul stared fixedly at the insects and could not help drawing in a cold breath. His fear of Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal deepened further.
There were over a hundred thousand insects, and each one made his heart pound with fear.
"There's really an immortal inside the immortal gate?"
Under the amplification of Dragon Roar Within the Casket and The World Is Like a Dream, the Pseudo-Dragon Disease Seeds, while individually far weaker than ordinary Yin Difference realm cultivators, possessed auras that were genuinely at the Yang Spirit realm.
To Hermit Molting, merely the insects parasitizing Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal had already reached the Yang Spirit realm.
Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal was definitely a true immortal. The only question was whether it had surpassed the Earth Immortal level.
His soul returned to his body, and inwardly he could not help thinking, "Suddenly having a true immortal appear, who knows whether that's good or bad."
After hesitating repeatedly, Hermit Molting still did not dare expose the worship of Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal, fearing he might anger the terrifying existence suspected to be a true immortal.
Pretending nothing had happened, he left the camp and began making a show of patrolling around the Corpse Mirror.
Hermit Molting believed only he had accidentally learned about Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal, but in truth, all the various factions had already heard whispers of it.
Thanks to their rapid reproduction, Heavenly Dao insect people were the most numerous group in town.
Unless Ren Qing watched them every second, any secret information would eventually leak out, so most Yang Spirit realm cultivators had already learned of it.
Faced with Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal, they tacitly pretended ignorance while secretly planning escape routes.
The Yang Spirit realm cultivators intended to confirm the existence of the true immortal first, then immediately retreat away from the immortal gate, even if it meant sacrificing some less useful subordinates.
After all, once true immortals became involved, guarding the immortal gate completely lost its meaning. It would be better to preserve their lives and perhaps find a chance to escape.
Undercurrents surged among the various factions, while the mastermind behind it all leisurely cultivated in seclusion.
Ren Qing lazily opened his eyes. Seeing that his objective had mostly succeeded, he issued missions ordering the members of Restraint Officers' Hall to prepare themselves.
The higher a cultivator's cultivation, the more they cherished life. Yang Spirit realm cultivators with lifespans measured in thousands of years were especially so.
Ren Qing meticulously refined the details of his arrangements before continuing to heavily modify Attached Turtle Shell. He already had some ideas for the technique.
To create a satisfactory technique, he had even gone so far as to master Attached Turtle Shell personally, though after reaching the Ghost Envoy realm, he stripped it away and threw it into Stomach World.
Giant Turtle One
The Ghost Envoy realm was known as "Mountain-Shifting Blessed Land." The strange object's appearance resembled a mountain mound dozens of meters tall, except it possessed a head and limbs.
Ren Qing issued missions to investigate, and many rural regions indeed contained legends regarding Turtle Immortal.
In Storyteller tales, Turtle Immortal wandered year-round. The mountain on its back remained spring-like through all four seasons and never encountered any disasters.
If mortals managed to find Turtle Immortal, they could loudly call out its name, and it would stop on its own, allowing the mortals to ascend the mountain and cultivate there.
Mountain-Shifting Blessed Land likely worked on the same principle, referring to a turtle mountain that avoided calamities.
The other two mutation paths of Attached Turtle Shell were fairly mediocre, similar to beast transformation techniques that each leaned toward either turtle form or human form.
Ren Qing occasionally observed the patterns on the giant turtle's shell and felt they contained an inherent profundity similar to Moon Patterns, greatly benefiting technique creation.
As the number of jailers increased, Stomach World grew more and more like the Primordial Wilderness from the myths of his previous life, with all kinds of giant beasts roaming land and sea.
The only thing that dissatisfied him was how painfully slow the jailers' cultivation progressed.
Several years ago in Stomach World time, jailers such as Ghost Wolf had already reached Ghost Envoy realm perfection, yet even now they had not broken through to the Yin Difference realm.
Not to mention the various strange objects sealed on islands and used as expendable materials.
Ren Qing could only hope that once Stomach World advanced to No-Birth Immortal, further fusion of techniques would improve the jailers' cultivation efficiency.
Otherwise, who knew when the giant corpse Buddha would finally become a pseudo-complete form with all organs at the Yin Difference realm.
Ren Qing shook his head. With a thought, zombies within the Corpse Mirror began emerging in pairs, instantly plunging the outside world into chaos.
At the same time, he used dream techniques to signal Zhen Xuzi and the other insect people that they could begin attempting to recruit cultivators from other factions as believers of Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal.
Ren Qing wanted Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal to become an established fact before even revealing himself.
Even if outside factions discovered something strange about Dead Man's Forbidden Zone, they would only trace the source back to "Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal" far away in Jingzhou.
Naturally, he would have to disguise himself as a true immortal next, which would not be easy.
Ren Qing muttered to himself, "Ghost Envoy realm Disguise Technique should be enough as support. The key is still the dream techniques…"
After all, those Yang Spirit realm cultivators had probably never seen true immortals before. Meanwhile, he had once survived in the hands of an Earth Immortal and even stolen an Earth Immortal puppet.
He had no time to slowly boil frogs in warm water. Harvesting the leeks and leaving Dead Man's Forbidden Zone as soon as possible was the best strategy, so only a true immortal identity would be convincing enough.
Ren Qing pondered the details carefully. Once he felt sufficiently confident, he began issuing various commands.