The giant corpse Buddha sank back into the depths of the earth, steadily making its way out of Dead Man's Forbidden Zone.
But only a few days later, Li Tiangang discovered that the forbidden zone, which had originally consisted entirely of bone fragments, was beginning to show traces of soil and rock.
The soil contained faint Yin qi, which gradually seeped into the giant corpse Buddha without anyone noticing.
The erosion of Yin qi could trigger corpse transformation in flesh and blood. The area most heavily affected was the jungle within the intestines, where the vegetation began to wither in unison.
After seeing this, the Restraint Officers' Hall inscribed an enormous Yin Gathering Formation inside the stomach, drawing all the Yin qi throughout the giant corpse Buddha's body into a single location.
Zhenxuzi arrived at the digestive region and looked at the busy cultivators working everywhere, feeling somewhat out of place.
He could clearly sense that within the forces of Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal, the dominant position was not held by Heavenly Dao insect people, but by human cultivators.
Zhenxuzi could not make sense of the situation and had no idea how to integrate himself into the Restraint Officers' Hall.
The Restraint Officers' Hall cultivators were occupied with all manner of tasks and paid no attention to the insect people, only restricting their movements to the digestive region.
While wandering about in confusion, Zhenxuzi unexpectedly discovered Daoist Taihan transporting goods.
"Master..."
Daoist Taihan wore an awkward expression.
Back at the Insect Nest Daoist Temple, he had at least been the temple master. All the insect people cultivators had effectively been his disciples.
Yet now he was doing manual labor for the Restraint Officers' Hall.
"You..."
Daoist Taihan wanted to ask why Zhenxuzi had come here, but when he recalled that he himself had abandoned the temple, he realized he was hardly in a position to judge.
"Master, when did you begin following Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal?"
Daoist Taihan panted heavily before asking, "You... you've seen Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal's true form?"
Zhenxuzi nodded and recounted everything that had happened over the past period.
Cold sweat immediately broke out across Daoist Taihan's forehead.
Although he had never witnessed Ren Qing transform into Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal himself, he did not believe all those Yang Spirit Realm cultivators from the various factions had mistaken what they saw.
Daoist Taihan was now more than half convinced of Ren Qing's identity.
He hesitated, unsure whether he should say anything.
In the end, he left behind only four words.
"The unity of knowledge and action."
Then he pushed his insect body along with the cargo and departed.
"The unity of knowledge and action... the unity of knowledge and action..."
Zhenxuzi repeated the phrase several times, and a plan gradually formed in his heart.
Not long afterward, Li Tiangang noticed that the insect people cultivators who had come from outside were voluntarily joining the work of inscribing the Yin Gathering Formation.
He had not expected them to be so willing to take on menial labor.
The moment the Yin Gathering Formation was completed, dense Yin qi surged toward the stomach region, transforming into white mist that caused the buildings within the camp to hiss and crackle.
Immediately afterward, the magical artifacts designed to contain Yin qi were activated, gradually drawing the Yin qi into themselves.
Most of these artifacts had been personally refined by the cultivators.
Some had even been commissioned from artifact-refining shops in Dream City and rushed to completion.
The main reason was a new mission issued by Li Tiangang.
Collected Yin qi could be exchanged for Blood Crystals or Spirit Crystals.
Aside from the damage Yin qi caused to magical artifacts, it was practically pure profit.
Of course, when it came to profiting from Yin qi, ordinary cultivators could not compare to zombies.
Groups of zombies gathered at the center of the Yin Gathering Formation and allowed the Yin qi to wash over their bodies, dramatically accelerating the speed at which they recultivated their techniques.
The Corpse Ghost would likely recover its Yang Spirit Realm strength before long.
At the same time, the process nourished the Crabmen magical artifacts.
These unique parasitic artifacts shared the same cultivation level as their zombie hosts. It was truly killing multiple birds with one stone.
Meanwhile, the Restraint Officers' Hall continued monitoring developments inside Dead Man's Forbidden Zone.
Jiang Feng secretly arranged a large number of eyeballs throughout the area.
With his cultivation at the level of three strange transformations, he could barely observe the town on the surface.
At present, everything within the town appeared peaceful.
The various factions had acquired enough Revival Pills, resources, food, and fine wine to last more than a century.
As for the price they had paid, it amounted to little more than some largely useless resources.
The Yang Spirit Realm cultivators had lost face because of Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal's appearance.
After the giant corpse Buddha departed, they began openly mocking and ridiculing the event.
However, they quickly realized that something was wrong.
No more zombies emerged from the Immortal Gate.
Yet the continuous acid rain became increasingly frequent, falling once every five days.
The reason they had become so aware of time was that a sun and a moon had suddenly appeared above Dead Man Land.
Sun and moon coexisted in the sky, though one always shone brighter depending on whether it was day or night.
Meanwhile, fungi began spreading across the White Bone Mountain hills.
Dead Man's Forbidden Zone, once silent and lifeless, was gradually becoming full of vitality.
Whenever something is abnormal, there is usually something sinister behind it.
After thirteen days had passed.
An eye covered in blood vessels grew at the center of the sun.
Its nearly imperceptible pupil constantly swept across the landscape.
Anything it looked upon burst into eerie green flames.
The moon, meanwhile, resembled a woman's womb.
Screeches could be heard coming from within, and its faint wriggling suggested that something was being nurtured inside.
After twenty-one days had passed.
Cultivators could no longer look directly at the sun or moon.
If they did, their bodies would mutate uncontrollably, and within a few breaths they would transform into purple-red corpse brains.
The Yang Spirit Realm cultivators deeply regretted not following Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal when the opportunity had presented itself.
No longer caring about their duty to guard the Immortal Gate, they relied on Revival Pills to suppress corpse transformation while desperately searching for a way out of Dead Man's Forbidden Zone.
Unfortunately, ever since the ground had become Yin qi-infused soil, even Yang Spirit Realm cultivators could no longer force their way out.
After thirty-six days had passed.
The Yang Spirit Realm cultivators began descending into madness.
Some swallowed hundreds of Revival Pills at once, only to have their bodies burst apart from excessive vitality, leaving behind piles of rotten flesh.
The acid rain no longer stopped.
It became a relentless deluge that blanketed the entire forbidden zone.
After fifty-seven days had passed.
The rainwater had become an ocean.
More than half of Dead Man's Forbidden Zone was submerged, while dense Yin qi blanketed everything within ten meters of the water's surface.
Only the higher elevations of certain White Bone Mountain hills remained habitable.
Corpse water flooded into the entrance of Corpse Mirror.
A giant whirlpool formed on the surface, gradually corroding the immortal's corpse that towered into the heavens.
The dramatic transformation of Dead Man's Forbidden Zone seemed to herald the beginning of something far greater.
Unfortunately, the Restraint Officers' Hall could no longer observe what happened afterward.
Jiang Feng's eyeballs lasted only ten days before the rain corroded them away.
Ren Qing's bacterial souls and Ghost Shadows survived somewhat longer.
But after the sun and moon became animated, he discovered that both the bacterial souls and Ghost Shadows were mutating simultaneously and gradually slipping beyond his control.
He immediately destroyed them.
Ren Qing's hexagram had already shifted from "Misfortune with Fortune" to simply "Misfortune."
The cracks in the tortoise shell, however, remained unchanged.
This indicated that danger still existed, but as the giant corpse Buddha moved farther away from the forbidden zone, conditions were improving.
At the very least, there were no signs of Great Misfortune.
Ren Qing silently celebrated his decision to cultivate Longevous Tortoise.
The feeling that "every disaster is always one step behind me" was exceptionally reassuring.
In the eyes of Li Tiangang and the others, Ren Qing's fortune far surpassed that of ordinary people.
Of course, viewed from another perspective, wherever Ren Qing went, unimaginable disasters followed close behind.
It was practically a case of perpetual bad luck.
After confirming that the giant corpse Buddha had stabilized, Ren Qing finally began advancing his dream-path technique.
[Advance to Ascension Ladder? This will consume five thousand years of lifespan.]
Stepping into Ascension Ladder was equivalent to placing one foot into the Heavenly Aberration Realm.
Half the path toward immortality had already been crossed.
Ren Qing could not help feeling his heart tremble.
This time, however, he made no effort to suppress it.
Five thousand years of lifespan vanished instantly.
A thunderous explosion suddenly sounded beside his ears.
His vision turned completely white, while a ringing filled his hearing.
Ren Qing saw an elderly monk reading the Śūraṅgama Sūtra.
Blood streamed uncontrollably from the monk's eyes.
Then eyeballs began sprouting from every inch of his skin.
After an unknown amount of time, the old monk finally completed the Eyeless Method.
He immediately collapsed to the ground.
The scene shifted again.
Now it showed Great Dream Realman as a child.
Within an unchanging lower-layer dreamscape, he continuously attempted to escape.
His body and soul gradually mutated out of control, transforming into distorted light and shadow.
Yet through that light-transformed soul, Great Dream Realman discovered a cultivation technique hidden deep within the dream realm.
Its name was Butterfly Dream Method.
The scene changed once more.
A scholar named Li Yiyang had suffered from severe insomnia since childhood.
At its worst, he had gone three entire days without closing his eyes.
His parents eventually sought help from a Daoist priest.
The priest gave him a Nightmare Demon Diagram.
According to the priest, visualizing the diagram would cure his insomnia.
Li Yiyang stared at the Nightmare Demon Diagram for several days and believed himself fully recovered.
But in the eyes of his parents, he never slept again.
His temperament became increasingly twisted and insane.
After ten days without sleep, Li Yiyang scratched the complete text of Nightmare Art into a wall with his fingernails.
Then he died suddenly.
Next came the Scripture of Tai Sui.
A Daoist spent more than ten years searching for immortal opportunities without finding anything.
Yet just as old age and death approached, he unexpectedly obtained an immortal technique.
According to the technique, only those in the prime of life could survive its initiation.
The Daoist desperately sought to restore his body to youth.
He exhausted every method imaginable, even injecting the blood of infants into himself.
His actions naturally enraged the public.
While fleeing for his life, he accidentally lost the immortal technique.
The Daoist finally went completely insane.
At night, he visited deserted mass graves and extracted corpse blood from dead infants, forcibly injecting it into his own body.
The next day, he died.
Yet brightly colored fungi covered his corpse.
When he opened his eyes again, he had become Lord Tai Sui, controlled entirely by the fungi.
The final scene belonged to the Six Diseases Method.
A plague-ravaged village appeared.
Anyone infected would transform into a towering banyan tree within a short period.
The trunks resembled human skin.
The branches looked like deformed arms and legs.
Everyone in the village died from the plague.
Only an unborn infant survived by chance, trapped within one of the banyan trees.
Curled up inside the tree, the infant gradually grew into adulthood.
A hundred years later, a merchant caravan passed through the village.
Only then did they discover signs that a plague had once struck the place.
All that remained were flourishing banyan trees.
On one of the trees, a merchant discovered a human-shaped hollow.
The cavity was empty.
However, strange characters had been carved into the bark.
Though the merchant could not understand them, their meaning entered his mind directly.
They seemed to record a cultivation technique capable of attaining immortality.
The merchant copied the characters onto paper using ink.
Then he burned the entire village to the ground.
The technique changed hands several times before finally ending up in the possession of an elderly Daoist nearing death.
Ren Qing opened his eyes during the interval of the technique's advancement.
His entire body was drenched in sweat.
A puddle had even formed beneath his feet.
The five Restraint Officer techniques appeared to have been created by different individuals.
Yet every creator had been on the verge of losing control, teetering at the edge of madness when enlightenment finally struck.
At last, Ren Qing understood why the Heavenly Dao Insect bore the title of "Heavenly Dao."
The Heavenly Dao Insect could influence its hosts and cause them to comprehend cultivation techniques.
The Heavenly Dao techniques of Wuwei Daoist Temple had come into existence in exactly this manner.
Lord Tai Sui and the others had gazed directly upon the "Heavenly Dao" that formed the foundation of the world and likewise attained enlightenment through it.
Which meant only one thing..
The Heavenly Dao had gone mad.