The people were extremely terrified, including some who supported the Heavenly Court.
Although the hanging prisoners had thus escaped their predicament, they had never expected that they could actually summon an immortal god, and one from the Heavenly Court's Plague Department that was rumored to govern pestilence at that.
The Plague-Bringing Immortal who spread death.
They could not help but feel frightened, but the oppressive presence of Lady White Bone left everyone present trembling, without even the strength to shout.
Blackwater Daoist barely maintained his reason. He knew one thing very well.
If the rules of the world really were all controlled by the Heavenly Court, then disasters were also a part of them, and the gods of the Plague Department should be the most terrifying of all.
"Hehehe..."
Lady White Bone absorbed the Merit Monk's memories, and her expression became increasingly cold.
She had never expected that she had almost ended up making wedding clothes for someone else. If the Dragon King of the Four Seas had not noticed it, it would have been impossible to discover the arrangements of the mastermind behind the scenes.
In a certain sense, the various forces really did owe Ren Qing a favor.
Besides...
Lady White Bone's expression was strange. Why could Ren Qing even share the Heavenly Court's inheritances? Shouldn't they be more secretive than the opportunity in Jingzhou?
Could it be that the Heaven Beyond Heaven that had once stood above the clouds really contained hundreds of immortal god inheritances, and perhaps having them participate was a way of drawing allies to their side?
Lady White Bone shook her head. It should be because the Heavenly Court was too ruined. In that ruin within the dreamscape, there was not even a single complete building.
"I really don't understand it. I truly don't understand it, the Heavenly Court..."
Lady White Bone looked around, took the Merit Monk's head, and left.
The headless body instinctively took several steps toward Lady White Bone before collapsing to its knees with a thump. Its remaining vitality soon disappeared completely.
Blackwater Daoist discovered that Lady White Bone had vanished and immediately raised his arm and shouted.
"The Buddhist Sect has brought disaster! Now that the Heavenly Court has descended, we will reshape the order!"
The people in the crowd had all sorts of expressions. Then the soldiers suddenly began fighting among themselves, with some crying and shouting as Linshan City descended into madness.
When the Heavenly Aberration realms successively arrived in the Inner World, they all assumed the identities of the various gods of the Heavenly Court and casually eliminated the clown-like Merit Monks.
What they did not know was that as long as they entered the Inner World, they would no longer be expelled back to the Surface World because of identity recognition.
Within Jingzhou, Linshan City could actually only be considered a remote small town.
The Buddha Attainment Ceremony in Sanxiang City had attracted nearly all the Merit Monks from the surrounding regions, with several hundred of them ascending to the Elysian World together.
To celebrate the feat, they had built a huge platform in the center of the town.
After the Merit Monks attained Buddhahood, before their flesh and bones collapsed, they could briefly control the thin Buddha Qi and use it to display the might of the Buddha.
But what difference did it make how many Merit Monks there were? In the face of beings in the Heavenly Aberration realm, they still had no ability to fight back.
Bang, bang, bang...
The earth shook and the mountains trembled, and the entire Sanxiang City had already been covered in insect silk.
The Blood Bat Matriarch, whose size was comparable to that of a town, stood lightly atop the city wall. Compared with Lady White Bone's appearance, the Insect Nest Art related to the Heavenly Dao's Laws gave her an otherworldly aura of her own.
In ancient times, there was Nuwa, who had a human body and a snake tail, so the Blood Bat Matriarch truly had the air of an immortal god, causing countless people to spontaneously bow and worship.
"I am... of the Heavenly Court's Plague Department."
"The Three-Calamity Insect Immortal."
The Plague Department governed pestilence and disasters. There were four kinds representing disasters: the "Famine," where bones were left along the roads; the "Drought," where thousands of miles became barren; the "Flood," where water could drown seven armies; and the "Insect Calamity," where not a blade of grass could grow.
"Monster! How dare you show disrespect to the Buddhist Sect?"
Streams of Buddhist light transformed into swastika shapes and struck the Blood Bat Matriarch's body.
The Merit Monks attempted to counterattack with Buddha Qi, but the Blood Bat Matriarch remained standing. She flicked her hand and spat out insect silk, leaving them hanging upside down in midair before directly extracting their spines from their bodies.
The Blood Bat Matriarch shook the blood from the surface of the spines. The Insect Nest could use the spines to directly clone Insect Humans that were almost identical to the originals.
After dealing with the Merit Monks, she nimbly crawled toward the mountains outside the city.
Ren Qing had been watching the situation in the Inner World from a distance.
His emotions were somewhat complicated. He had never expected that even after his main body came to the Inner World, he could still sense it. His body was still slowly growing in size.
Among the Heavenly Aberration realms, only Ren Qing had a Strange Object inside his body.
Even if the techniques of the other Heavenly Aberration realms could produce Strange Objects, they had already completely fused with their bodies and souls when they advanced to the Heavenly Aberration realm.
Even when cultivating multiple techniques, after a Heavenly Aberration realm cultivator determined their path, they would normally use various means to erase the traces of their secondary techniques.
Ren Qing pondered for a moment. He did not know whether the enlargement of the Strange Object would have any effect on what came later, but at least he could not see any effect for the time being.
What he needed to consider next was how to enter an even deeper level of Jingzhou.
Ren Qing waited for a moment. The Heavenly Aberration realms soon dealt with all the Merit Buddhas. As for the chaos involving ordinary people, they had no intention of interfering at all and all moved away from the towns.
If the Heavenly Aberration realms had not promised Ren Qing that they would not attack ordinary people, then the millions of people would actually have been nothing more than a snack.
Although there were no Merit Monks in the Inner World, this had little impact on the intricate network of forces. After all, they covered every occupation and industry.
Ren Qing used the Zhili Technique to notify Blackwater Daoist to continue spreading the prestige of the Heavenly Soldiers and Heavenly Generals.
Before even half a day had passed, the clouds surged, and beams of light shone down from the sky before transforming into armies numbering tens of thousands, arranged in formation.
The sounds of slaughter could vaguely be heard coming from within, making people's hearts tremble with fear.
One Insect Martial Artist after another materialized from the void.
They looked terrifying, but compared with the Heavenly Aberration realms, they could at least still be considered human. They then helped the Heavenly Court's forces suppress the resistance.
Facing the Insect Martial Artists, the Buddhist Sect's forces were completely crushed with overwhelming ease.
In only a few days, order in the Inner World had already been reestablished, and the government had undergone an almost complete replacement.
Ren Qing directly lifted the restrictions on the underground cavern dwelling, and countless Gu Insects surged out, soon spreading throughout the barren mountains and wilderness of the Inner World.
Within a few months, the unique ecology of the Gu Insects would spread across the entire region, with traces of dragon blood faintly mixed among them.
Ren Qing planned to use Jingzhou's rules to cultivate several hundred thousand Insect Martial Artists.
Although once Insect Martial Artists entered the Stomach World, their Gu Insects would transform into Strange Objects, causing their bodies and souls to undergo uncontrolled mutation, they could avoid this by mastering the corresponding Restraint Officer Art in advance.
If they could digest the millions of people in Jingzhou, the scale of the Stomach World would double.
Of course, not all the Insect Martial Artists had entered the Inner World.
As far as Ren Qing knew, the Blood Bat Matriarch had abandoned more than a hundred thousand Insect Humans on the Surface World, among whom quite a few were Insect Martial Artists.
They were now led by the Gu Immortal, attempting to take this opportunity to escape the control of the Insect Nest and develop a civilization system belonging exclusively to the Insect Humans.
Ren Qing happened to want to study the Gu Insects and figure out exactly what immortal position they belonged to. Perhaps he could find clues for continuing deeper.
In order to enter the deeper world, the various forces no longer remained at each other's throats and instead chose to enter secluded cultivation.
Who knew what plans the mastermind behind the scenes had? They did not want to become the other party's pawns for nothing, so the sooner they could solve it, the better.
But the difficulty of deciphering it could be imagined. After all, these were special rules formed from immortal positions.
The Heavenly Aberration realms could not influence immortal positions. If they wanted to find a flaw under the rules of the immortal positions, they would probably have to rely on luck like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Ren Qing felt somewhat troubled. It seemed different from the Jingzhou of the past. Back then, they only needed to gaze at the Blood Moon, but now there should be a strict ascension mechanism, and it was very likely connected to the Gu Insects.
He had told the other Heavenly Aberration realms about his speculation, receiving the approval of quite a few cultivators, and they planned to gradually dig deeper in the direction of the Gu Insects.
Ren Qing had no interest in the immortal positions themselves. Seeing that more than a dozen Heavenly Aberration realms were willing to help, he simply returned to the underground cavern dwelling while also preparing for the promotion of the Zhili Technique to the Heavenly Aberration realm.
After the Heavenly Court's descent, the Inner World once again became peaceful.
The Insect Martial Artists brought various Gu Insect inheritances into the Inner World and taught the Gu Refining Art without holding anything back, afraid that the immortal gods would blame them.
The various forces were also secretly perfecting the Gu Insect system. They even spared no expense in materials to have cultivators such as Li Yaoyang construct resource points.
When Li Yaoyang first began trading with the Heavenly Aberration realms, he was somewhat awkward and appeared submissive and timid, but he soon became completely unrestrained.
They took advantage of the opportunity to earn resources and refused no customers at all. After all, any material could be exchanged for Blood Crystals, as long as its value was assessed by the market.
Even if they had no use for them themselves, there were countless cultivators of all kinds in the Restraint Officers' Hall.
The various forces did not know about the existence of Dream City within the Restraint Officers' Hall. They thought that Li Yaoyang was accepting resources indiscriminately because of Ren Qing's reputation, so they gave him somewhat more in return.
As a result, the assets of some Ghost Envoy realm cultivators even surpassed those of veteran Yin Difference realm cultivators, allowing them to make an enormous fortune.
They also took some of the orders to Dream City for secondary commissions, earning Blood Crystals simply by passing them along. Jingzhou really was a land covered in gold.
Under such circumstances, Gu Insects began to cover every aspect of life.
Even though the people did not have a high level of acceptance, they still could not stop the progress of civilization. Every few days, the towns would undergo earth-shaking changes.
Cloth, timber, coal, ore, transportation... traces of Gu Insects could be seen everywhere.
Gu Insects were no longer simply divided into categories. Instead, they were collectively referred to as "First-Turn Gu Insects," "Second-Turn Gu Insects," and "Third-Turn Gu Insects."
First-Turn corresponded to the Martial Practitioner realm, Second-Turn to the Half-Corpse realm, and Third-Turn to the Ghost Envoy realm, and so on.
Ren Qing was still very interested in the Gu Insect system. Unfortunately, he could not bring them into the Stomach World, otherwise he could transfer Jingzhou along with them.
He hoped that in the deeper world, he could figure out how to construct the rules of immortal positions. If he mastered such power, what difference would there be between him and a True Immortal?
Ren Qing looked at his body, which was about to break through fifty meters in size, and vaguely grasped a way to enter the deeper world.
It had to be known that in his normal state, he was less than ten meters tall, but because the Gu Insect Strange Object had inexplicably grown enormously, his size had already increased several times over.
The Ghost Shadow and Wu Deceit were also expanding. After all, they were Strange Objects of Ancestral Lineage Derivation.
However, neither had a physical form. Even if they increased by several hundred times, they could still be compressed without limit. Even shrinking to the size of an arm would not be impossible.
Ren Qing then used Heavenly Demon Possession and left Jingzhou again, deliberately not bringing the Ghost Shadow with him.
Although he was in the Inner World, that did not mean he was trapped in Jingzhou. In fact, every layer of the world was connected to the outside world.
After Ren Qing arrived at the Dragon Blood Sea Region, his body finally began to gradually shrink.
He told Li Yaoyang to pay more attention and contact him immediately if anything happened. He warned him not to really treat those old and cunning Heavenly Aberration realms as fellow cultivators.
Ren Qing then focused on advancing the Zhili Technique and rebuilding the Lesser Heavenly Court, determined to draw all the various forces into the arrangement.