Corpse Crab visibly perished at a speed discernible to the naked eye, its flesh soon turning into nourishment for the fungi, giving rise to grotesquely shaped fungus trees.
The fungus trees emitted dust-like spores, causing the air to become dreamlike and illusory.
Corpse Crab's consciousness was dragged into endless nightmares, quickly becoming nourishment for the demon demons, thereby strengthening the various bacterial souls.
However, even at this moment, Corpse Crab had still not died. Instinct made it struggle to rise, but its joints had already been clogged shut by fungi.
Its flesh and skin gradually dissolved, followed by bones, internal organs...
Seeing Corpse Crab perish, Corpse Lizard powerlessly collapsed to the ground. Its entire body was covered in wounds of all sizes, and it was also parasitized by thousands upon thousands of corpses.
Ren Qing spat out a cluster of kindling flame onto the location of Corpse Lizard's heart, whereupon its back slightly bulged, and zombies successively crawled out from within.
They stood upon the ruins of Corpse City where they had lived for hundreds or thousands of years, their expressions blank as they watched Ren Qing decompose Corpse Crab's flesh.
At that moment, the shock in their hearts was beyond words, giving rise to an impulse to worship immortal Buddhas.
Corpse Lizard was already on the verge of death. It had proactively exhausted the residual warmth of Melting Furnace. Even with Ren Qing replenishing it with kindling flame, there was still no improvement.
Corpse Crab let out a mournful cry, the little vitality it had left completely vanishing, ultimately becoming part of White Bone Mountain Hill.
However, its external shell still remained intact, as well as the kidney protected by the shell.
Ren Qing stored the shell into the stomach world. This kind of material was extremely suitable for refining defensive magical artifacts, and most importantly, the quantity was piled up like mountains.
Only Corpse Crab's kidney remained in place.
Ghost Shadow deftly removed the shell outside the kidney, revealing a translucent living organ that was still constantly wriggling.
Ren Qing could not help showing a puzzled expression.
Corpse Crab's other organs had no shell protection, so why was only the kidney relatively special, even retaining vitality after death?
At his indication, Ghost Shadow pierced the kidney's epidermis. With only a puffing sound heard, a large quantity of corpses surged out from within.
The corpses all had shriveled lower bodies, while their upper bodies were covered by carapaces, somewhat similar to insect people, yet possessing not the slightest intelligence.
Ghost Shadow touched the corpses, and the information flow revealed itself.
[Age: 241]
[Lifespan: None]
"Crabmen?"
Ren Qing immediately froze for a moment, the first thing he thought of being the parasitic barnacles he had known of in his previous life.
Barnacle parasites were a very special kind of parasite. Their method of survival was to parasitize the abdomen of crabs, causing the host to lose reproductive capability while proactively feeding the parasite.
Most likely, Corpse Crab's actions had long since been controlled by the countless crabmen within its body, which was why it had displayed such crazed indiscriminate feeding.
Its attack on Corpse City was probably merely because zombies were more nutritious.
Ren Qing suspected that when the corpse raisers fled back to Corpse City, they had unintentionally brought the crabmen together with them, ultimately causing the underground Corpse City to be exposed.
He did not even know what to say anymore.
Even if the crabmen possessed the slightest bit of intelligence, they should have noticed Melting Furnace and at least harbored some fear toward the residual Heavenly Aberration realm aura.
Weighing the pros and cons, Corpse Crab most likely would not have attacked Corpse City.
But helplessly, the crabmen retained only the instinct to feed, single-mindedly thinking only of replenishing nutrients, ultimately causing Corpse City to become ruins.
Ren Qing sensed that the disease types within ten li were showing signs of spreading out of control, and immediately closed his eyes and opened his mouth, as massive amounts of spores surged into the Mud Pellet Palace.
They were then absorbed by the disease tree.
After reaching No-Birth Immortal, under the fusion of five weird objects, the disease tree had undergone transformation.
The current disease tree had at least become more than ten times sturdier, and its appearance had become indescribably bizarre.
One could see the trunk resembling an old man's wrinkles, mixed with densely packed holes, while black mist-like demon demon aura flowed within.
The branches were covered with black-brown leaves that at first glance looked like human faces, while multicolored disease fruits were distributed throughout.
The small worlds within the disease fruits had completely vanished, replaced by honeycomb-like structures.
As for the disease types, they had actually manifested as all sorts of insects, flying around the disease tree.
The septicemia disease type resembled mosquitoes, few in population but extremely aggressive; Giantization Disease Type resembled centipedes, their body length continuously increasing; Fatty-Liver Disease Seed resembled fireflies, emitting faint light...
The disease types would even attack and slaughter each other, reproducing and surviving using the corpses of other disease types, thereby making the disease tree incomparably lively.
As for the Dream Butterfly magical artifact, it had transformed into a vine wrapped around the disease tree's trunk.
The vine was covered in tiny scales, and several constantly blinking double pupils had grown at the end, occasionally giving birth to brilliant dream flowers.
The current dream flowers possessed gorgeous and bizarre appearances. Aside from containing heterogeneous aura, they could also serve as temporary breeding beds for disease types.
The so-called No-Birth Immortal referred to the fusion between weird objects, so after he successfully advanced, the weird objects of the primary and secondary techniques merged into one.
However, the advancement process truly was extremely horrifying.
Ren Qing could clearly feel the five clusters of weird objects crawling between his flesh and bones, ultimately converging and drilling into the narrow Mud Pellet Palace.
At the time, he had thought his head would explode because of it.
Unexpectedly, not only was the Mud Pellet Palace not burst apart by the weird objects, it instead expanded by hundreds of times after the weird objects fused with the disease tree.
Ren Qing realized that the five techniques no longer distinguished between one another, and vaguely sensed that something seemed about to be conceived from within.
He knew this was a sign of touching the "Ascension Ladder".
As the final realm of Yang God realm, when cultivators broke through the "Ascension Ladder", the techniques themselves would mutually fuse, ultimately becoming an "Ascension Method" directly leading to Heavenly Aberration realm.
Therefore, every Restraint Officer method cultivator's means of advancing to Heavenly Aberration realm was different, mainly depending on the content revealed by the Ascension Method.
Ren Qing summoned his own information flow.
[Lifespan: 23 years]
[Techniques: No-Birth Immortal: Eyeless Method, Dream Butterfly Method, Nightmare Demon Art, Six Diseases Method, Tai Sui Scripture, Disaster Elimination Method (Storyteller, Immortal in the Mirror), Strange Belly Concealing Door (Lecturing Old Master, Strange Mirror Walker)..]
[Weird Object: Plague Dream Tree]
[Divine Ability: The World Is Like a Dream, Shadowless Ghost (Human Skin Book, Bone Armor Technique, Netherworld Method, Dragon Snake Spine), Yin Spirit (Primordial Fetal Membrane, Spiritual Marrow Bone Immortal, Netherworld Wasted Immortal, Coiling Dragon Shedding to Python), Dragon Roar Within the Casket, Taotie Method (Food-Consuming Immortal Technique, Wine God Technique, Dao Dao Dao, Rebirth Technique), Avici Hell (Great Inception Flame, Stomach Contains Wine Sea, Non-Action Daoist Temple, Reincarnation of Rebirth), Method of Modeling Heaven and Earth..]
[Weird Transformations: Hunger Resistance, Thirst Resistance, Kill Resistance, No-Thought, Parasitic Nurturing, Planting Demons, Glazed Glass, Phantom Body, Illusory Reality, Corpse Refinement Method (Corpse Fiend)]
Ren Qing dismissed the information flow, his aura gradually withdrawing. Aside from some zombie characteristics, his exterior showed not the slightest abnormality.
After a few flashes, he arrived atop Corpse Lizard's back, where over ten thousand zombies knelt upon the ground.
Quite a few zombies, like Tian Fang, recognized from Ren Qing's familiar appearance that the Corpse Immortal before them was precisely the mindless zombie from Melting Furnace.
Their faces turned deathly pale, their legs weakened in fright from the actions of having once ordered him around.
After hesitating for a moment, Tian Fang stepped out from the zombie crowd and respectfully said softly: "Lord Corpse Immortal, could you save..."
He stopped mid-sentence, not knowing how to address Corpse Lizard.
Ren Qing did not reply. Ghost Shadow beneath his feet sliced apart layer after layer of Corpse Lizard's flesh, revealing its utterly rotten internal organs.
The heart was the Melting Furnace, within which the kindling flame had already become extremely weak.
The Melting Furnace's blood vessels rooted themselves deep into the rotten flesh. Under Ghost Shadow's excavation, an emaciated corpse appeared before them.
The corpse's skin had adhered together with Corpse Lizard's flesh. If not for Ghost Shadow's meticulous precision, it would have been impossible to completely peel it off intact.
It had clearly already reached the end of its oil and lamp, with not the slightest flesh visible upon its body.
[Age: 3543]
[Lifespan: None]
[Technique: Corpse Refinement Method (Corpse Fiend), Food-Consuming Immortal Technique (Body Like Firewood)]
The Corpse Ghost cultivated the incomplete Corpse Refinement Method, with Corpse Fiend being equivalent to Yang God realm.
After seeing Corpse Ghost, for some unknown reason, the zombies felt a deep sorrow arise in their hearts, as though they had seen an elder guiding them forward.
A few traces of surprise appeared in Ren Qing's eyes.
Every race would produce several astonishing geniuses, and Corpse Ghost was undoubtedly one of them.
Not only had Corpse Ghost escaped the fate of Hairy Zombie flesh collapse, he had actually cultivated Food-Consuming Immortal Technique to the level of Ghost Envoy realm.
Ren Qing guessed that Corpse Ghost's Food-Consuming Immortal Technique had already advanced to Ghost Envoy realm a thousand years ago, after which he discovered the connection between the technique and Melting Furnace.
Corpse Ghost believed he could use Food-Consuming Immortal Technique to eliminate the flaws of Corpse Refinement Method, yet was sealed underground by zombies content with the status quo.
In the end, before death, he chose to merge himself together with Melting Furnace.
Ren Qing could not help feeling regret for Corpse Ghost. Had he not relied upon Melting Furnace for these thousand years, the latter most likely would already have advanced to Yin Difference realm.
Perhaps Corpse City would have developed in a different direction.
He spat out fierce kindling flame, causing the fire within Melting Furnace to burn even more vigorously, whereupon Corpse Ghost immediately began gasping for breath.
Corpse Ghost seemed like someone rescued from drowning, only calming his breathing after a long while.
"So there truly are immortals in this world..."
He could not help coughing several times, then wanted to cover his mouth with his palm, only to discover his body adhered to flesh, causing bitterness to appear on his face.
Corpse Ghost muttered to himself: "There is not much time left..."
"Lord Corpse Immortal, many offenses were committed, I hope for your forgiveness."
He impatiently activated Food-Consuming Immortal Technique, whereupon his abdomen turned fiery red, and the sound of his coughing became increasingly louder.
The zombies were attracted by the faint corpse aura coughed out by Corpse Ghost, their minds becoming incomparably clear, followed by unfamiliar memories abruptly appearing.
Their gazes all turned toward the north.
Corpse Ghost miserably smiled and said: "Even if you all forgot, I still remember the ancestral land. It should not have been forgotten, should not..."
He became part of Corpse Lizard, and was it not also because he wished to someday head toward the ancestral land.
However, Corpse Ghost had actually long since let go. More than anything, he wanted the zombies to know the meaning of their existence.
He became increasingly weaker, speaking nonsense words that others could not understand.
Within the complete silence, Ren Qing asked in a low voice: "Corpse Ghost, I plan to make a trip to the ancestral land. Are you willing to enter under my command?"
Since he possessed the Dead Man's Sutra, then the techniques were very likely near the ancestral land.
After learning that one could leave Dead Man's Forbidden Zone from underground, Ren Qing naturally did not mind continuing deeper. If necessary, he could use Disaster Elimination Method to flee.
The zombies did not need Ren Qing to threaten or entice them, immediately agreeing in unison.
Corpse Ghost widened his eyes in a final flash of vitality, but recalling that Corpse City had already become ruins, even if Ren Qing's magical power reached the heavens, it would still be impossible for him to exhaust effort protecting over ten thousand zombies.
Just as he was about to refuse, another burst of violent shaking suddenly came from the surroundings.