Ren Qing decided to test out his new divine ability and immediately activated Walk Among Mortals.
As a divine ability born from five life-preserving cultivation methods, even in its embryonic state, Walk Among Mortals displayed extraordinary characteristics.
The instant the divine ability took effect on Ren Qing's body, both his body and soul abruptly vanished, as if they had merged into the air itself.
It was not that he had become difficult to see with the naked eye. Rather, his very sense of existence had been completely erased.
Ren Qing was like the one within the mirror world. Although he could vaguely detect the other's presence through the Disaster Elimination Method, he could not perceive any concrete existence.
Walk Among Mortals could only last four or five breaths at most, but to Ren Qing, time seemed frozen while his thoughts continued racing at full speed.
The sensation felt somewhat unfamiliar. It was as if his body and soul had been erased by the divine ability itself. It was hard to imagine remaining in such a state at all times.
Then his five senses returned, and his nose caught the scent of countless living beings within a hundred meters.
There were cultivators inside the various mutated organs, zombies transporting resources, and even the temporary camp outside lay within the range covered by Walk Among Mortals.
This was with the Disguise Technique only at the Ghost Envoy Realm. If it advanced to the Yin Difference Realm, the divine ability's area of influence would expand hundreds of times over.
Ren Qing observed everything in meticulous detail. With a mere thought, he could replace any cultivator.
However, he did not do so. Instead, he repeatedly activated the divine ability, allowing his body and soul to enter that state of complete nonexistence while experiencing its mysteries.
Meanwhile, the hundreds of cultivators within the temporary camp remained completely unaware of anything unusual and continued trading Revival Pills as normal.
Small-scale transactions were generally handled by Ghost Envoy Realm or Yin Difference Realm cultivators from the various factions, while larger trades required Yang God Realm cultivators to visit the temporary camp personally.
Because the Restraint Officers' Hall was pushing matters too aggressively, the temporary camp had become somewhat chaotic.
Even though Jade Splendor repeatedly emphasized that they did not require resources refined from flesh and blood, the various factions still secretly refined treasures from mindless embryos.
The only difference was that they now sold them to certain Restraint Officers' Hall cultivators who had no qualms about such things.
As long as Ren Qing had not explicitly forbidden it, they could not care less where resources came from. Pursuing profit had always been the guiding principle of the Restraint Officers' Hall.
If things continued long-term, and if they were not trapped inside the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone, the temporary camp would undoubtedly develop into a thriving black market.
Suppressing the urge to erase others, Ren Qing finally deactivated Walk Among Mortals.
He had already gained a rough understanding of how the divine ability functioned. Once the Disaster Elimination Method advanced to the Yang God Realm, Walk Among Mortals would become even more bizarre and unfathomable.
A smile could not help appearing on Ren Qing's face. Combined with the Stomach World, Walk Among Mortals should allow the Restraint Officers' Hall to leave the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone safely...
Crack, crack, crack...
The sound of the turtle shell fracturing rang out once more, and his expression immediately darkened.
Ren Qing pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and discovered several additional cracks had appeared on the shell's surface, though some of the earlier cracks had already healed.
Having only recently acquired Longevous Tortoise, he could not yet intuitively interpret all the information conveyed by Cracked Shell.
Ren Qing guessed that each crack represented a hidden calamity, one that was changing in entirely different ways as events continued to develop.
Then he noticed that the hexagram had changed from "Fortune Mixed with Misfortune" to "Misfortune Mixed with Fortune," indicating that the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone was indeed deteriorating toward complete loss of control.
The image displayed by the Hexagram Mark had also changed. Originally, it had shown a monk's corpse. Now it depicted rows of hanging corpses suspended upside down.
It seemed the source of the future great calamity lay within the mirror world.
Ren Qing slowly exhaled and established contact with the disease seeds inside the mirror world.
He noticed that Elder Monk Zongqing had long since lost all signs of life. At the same time, the degree of corpse transformation throughout his body had worsened dramatically, his flesh constantly collapsing and rebuilding itself.
Ren Qing narrowed his eyes. Evidently, after successfully separating the Dead Man's Sutra, the being had already begun preparing to cultivate the Dead Man's Sutra anew.
He could only hope the process succeeded. Otherwise, the consequences would be unimaginable.
After a brief hesitation, Ren Qing had the disease seeds reproduce inside Elder Monk Zongqing's body, intending to construct an organ through which he could influence the corpse.
There were two types of disease seeds attached to Elder Monk Zongqing: the Malformation Disease Seed and the Cancer Disease Tree Disease Seed. Both were highly suited for creating mutated organs.
Elder Monk Zongqing suddenly began trembling. A bulge appeared in the center of his forehead, and before long an incomparably chaotic eyeball grew from the swelling.
The eye opened, allowing Ren Qing to observe the mirror world through it.
He saw countless upside-down bodies undergoing frenzied corpse transformation. Various patterns could be seen drawn across the surfaces of the corpses, allowing them to absorb yin energy.
However, the transformation seemed limited to the bodies forcibly bound within the mirror world, namely the true bodies whose external substitutes had already died.
What surprised Ren Qing was just how many such bodies there were.
Elder Monk Zongqing's ribs pierced through his flesh. Even within the mirror world, he was already progressing toward a Purple Zombie, causing the eye on his forehead to explode. Clearly, the organ could not withstand the erosion of the yin energy.
Instead of becoming alarmed, Ren Qing relaxed slightly.
At the very least, the being appeared to have retained its rationality and had not completely descended into madness because of the Dead Man's Sutra.
The other party was obviously using the corpses to experiment with the separated cultivation methods derived from the Dead Man's Sutra.
If that was the case, there should still be at least half a year before it officially began cultivating the Dead Man's Sutra anew.
After all, unlike Ren Qing, it did not possess the Information Stream. Cultivating techniques under normal circumstances was an extremely demanding process.
Ren Qing suspected that the ominous signs detected by Longevous Tortoise likely originated from the hanging zombies.
If the being failed to achieve its goal, or if the cultivation method spiraled out of control, the Corpse Mirror might even begin collapsing.
Should the zombies within the mirror world break free, even the Restraint Officers' Hall would have difficulty resisting them.
Suppressing the fear in his heart, Ren Qing instructed Little Third and the artifact refiners to create magical artifacts capable of resisting yin energy before returning to secluded cultivation.
He still needed another 2,200 years to reach 5,000 years of lifespan. At the current rate, it would take no more than a month.
This was also the perfect opportunity to finish up the Giant Corpse Buddha's preparations before departure.
To be safe, Ren Qing left part of Ghost Shadow near the Corpse Realm, allowing him to inspect the Corpse Mirror's information through the Information Stream whenever necessary.
Time passed, and his lifespan continued rising.
To stimulate trade, the Restraint Officers' Hall began selling not only Revival Pills but also various cultivation-assisting pills and all kinds of magical artifacts.
Even Ren Qing had to admit that when it came to harvesting leeks, the Restraint Officers' Hall could not hold a candle to these people.
Because the Restraint Officer Method required cultivators to support the bizarre entities inside their bodies, their lifespan at the same realm was indeed much lower than that of ordinary cultivators.
Of course, the Restraint Officer Method's advantage lay in combat power.
The three bizarre transformations of the Ghost Envoy Realm, the embryonic divine ability of the Yin Difference Realm, and the Ascension Method of the Yang God Realm were all far beyond what ordinary cultivation methods could offer.
Nowadays, some cultivators of the Restraint Officers' Hall also cultivated external techniques and used them as secondary linked techniques after reaching the Yin Difference Realm.
This was one of the reasons why the number of Ghost Envoy Realm cultivators in the Restraint Officers' Hall had exploded recently.
Ren Qing's lifespan had already reached 4,700 years. The rate of growth had slowed somewhat, but the remaining two hundred or so years would take only a few more days.
An uneasy feeling gradually emerged in his heart, likely originating from Longevous Tortoise's warnings.
Fortunately, the hexagram remained unchanged at "Misfortune Mixed with Fortune." In fact, several cracks on the turtle shell's surface had quietly disappeared.
While continuing to harvest lifespan, Ren Qing instructed the cultivators of the Restraint Officers' Hall to begin withdrawing.
The temporary camp steadily shrank in scale. Outside, only the Daoist temple disciples remained, while everyone else had gradually returned to the Giant Corpse Buddha.
They spread throughout the various mutated organs and attempted to stimulate those organs through cultivation methods with compatible auras, all according to Ren Qing's instructions.
Everything was being prepared for departure.
Although the various factions did not know that hidden calamities lurked within the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone, they could vaguely sense that a storm was approaching.
They attempted to gather information from the Daoist temple disciples, but the disciples themselves knew nothing.
The Yang God Realm cultivators had also considered leaving Dead Man Land alongside Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal.
Unfortunately, their responsibility was to monitor abnormalities surrounding the immortal gate.
Following a True Immortal of unknown origins could easily lead to an even worse fate.
As a result, trade within the temporary camp increased further. Some Yang God Realm cultivators even began selling the core cultivation methods of their sects.
After Daoist Yuhua returned to the Giant Corpse Buddha with the insectfolk, authority over the temporary camp passed to Han Li.
However, Han Li spent most of his time studying the Dead Man's Sutra engraved on the surface of the Corpse Mirror.
He had little interest in profit and instead circled the Corpse Mirror while comparing it against his copied version of the Dead Man's Sutra.
Then suddenly...
Drip.
Han Li's pupils contracted.
A drop of corrosive rainwater landed on his forehead.
He quickly looked up.
The dark clouds that had shrouded the skies above the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone for countless years were now releasing a fine drizzle.
The acid rain lasted only half an hour, yet it left every cultivator from the various factions utterly bewildered.
Over the past two hundred years, the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone had never seen rain.
Not even mountain winds had blown through it.
It had remained as silent as the underworld itself.
The sudden rainfall filled them with deep apprehension.
Han Li and the other Daoist temple disciples, however, all fell silent at the same time.
The various factions could not help suspecting that it might somehow be related to Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal.
As for the truth, the cultivators of the Restraint Officers' Hall could more or less guess the answer.
They had all encountered forbidden zones before and naturally understood their unique characteristic.
After devouring bizarre entities, a forbidden zone would evolve on its own.
The more bizarre entities a forbidden zone consumed, the more terrifying it became.
Wasn't the Longevity Forbidden Zone in the marshlands practically indistinguishable from the real world?
Li Tiangang specifically investigated recent casualties and discovered that only a few cultivators had died inside the Stomach World after losing control of their bizarre entities while breaking through.
No cultivators from the outside world had vanished.
Ren Qing immediately realized what had happened.
Among the numerous bodies within the mirror world, several had likely failed to endure the erosion of corpse transformation.
Among those bodies were undoubtedly cultivators who practiced the Restraint Officer Method.
As bizarre entities merged into the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone, causing it to resemble the real world more and more closely, countless new variables emerged.
Looking at the less than one hundred years of lifespan still required, Ren Qing established contact with the Giant Corpse Buddha.
A faint tremor came from the intestinal region.
The Giant Corpse Buddha began sinking at a visible pace, while the Daoist temple disciples also started withdrawing one after another.
The various factions could do nothing about it.
The lingering might of the True Immortal remained vivid in their memories.
Moreover, the Giant Corpse Buddha itself was a Heavenly Aberration Realm puppet.
Daoist Yuhua had secretly informed the selected insectfolk cultivators that if they wished to follow Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal, they only needed to silently recite the True Immortal's name in an isolated location.
The Giant Corpse Buddha's left arm could transform into various beasts, including pythons.
One python after another emerged from beneath the earth, swallowed the insectfolk cultivators whole, and quickly carried them into the Giant Corpse Buddha's intestinal region.
By the time the Yang God Realm cultivators realized what was happening, several hundred insectfolk cultivators had already disappeared from the town.
As for the remaining cultivators, they remained wary of the Restraint Officers' Hall.
Even after learning that there was a way to reach the Giant Corpse Buddha, they chose to ignore it.
The Giant Corpse Buddha's departure from the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone proceeded rather slowly.
After all, it had to resist the binding force of the forbidden zone itself.
Still, the process should not take too long.
Meanwhile, Ren Qing monitored the progress while preparing to advance his Dream Technique to the Ascension Ladder.