The drizzling rain fell, and the earth emitted seven-colored glass-like smoke and dust.
The incessant insect chirping across Rong Town abruptly ceased. The disciples of the Sub-Device Sect had already fled to the inner city wall, looking at Qingjingzi with astonished eyes.
They had just recovered from the shock of Tian Chenzi’s descent when they noticed sothing unusual about Qingjingzi’s state.
"Death... Death Disease..."
Han Cai’s pupils focused sharply.
As his attention had been focused on the Hundred Beasts Blood Body, he was one of the few cultivators present who hadn’t witnessed Tian Chenzi’s descent.
He sensed the atmosphere taking a strange turn and caught Qingjingzi in his peripheral vision. The latter was emanating an indescribable burst of seven-colored spirit light.
Though the symptoms of Death Disease for artifact cultivators and beast cultivators were not entirely the sa, Han Cai still recognized that Qingjingzi was nearing the outbreak stage of the Uncertainty Period Death Disease.
Disregarding his injuries, Han Cai strained his still sowhat lucid mind to organize the information on the Hundred Beasts Blood Body. Unconsciously, blood trickled from his mouth.
In his daze, it seed to him as though Shi Ji was calling out his na.
He forced himself to suppress the intrusive thoughts and regain clarity, only to realize that due to the spiritual power leaking from Qingjingzi, his own body had started to crystalize.
"Great Sun..."
Qingjingzi murmured to himself.
His flesh began proliferating uncontrollably, swelling to over ten ters in re monts, while eerie, rustling noises ca from within his body.
The Uncertainty Period Death Disease primarily targeted the bones, dissolving the entire skeletal structure.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
As the sound of bone collisions grew more intense, Qingjingzi’s flesh began to collapse.
Incredibly, everything converged around a slting furnace. In just a few breaths’ ti, his flesh and bones ford into a mass of at, complete with facial features.
The resulting tumor of flesh did not appear grotesque but rather resembled a small blood-and-at sun, radiating suffocating seven-colored light.
Qingjingzi’s limbs fell off.
Countless breath-worms erged from his body, clawing and writhing aggressively.
Under Han Cai’s incredulous gaze, Qingjingzi began shoveling the corpses of the Sub-Device Sect disciples into his mouth, his state seemingly stabilizing as he consud the bodies.
However, it was clear that Qingjingzi was highly wary of Tian Chenzi’s remains.
Even in his muddled consciousness, he dared not approach the stone platform. Instead, he circled around the inner city, scavenging remnants of corpses and flesh.
Han Cai couldn’t shake off the feeling that Qingjingzi was intentionally transforming into the flesh-tumor sun, as though such a state could better help him survive the Uncertainty Period Death Disease.
"Cough, cough, cough..."
Han Cai coughed violently, looking down at his injuries.
Under the flesh-tumor sun’s radiance, his skin and flesh were gradually transforming into tallic material, exuding the thick stench of rust from his mouth and nostrils.
"Damn it..."
He cursed under his breath, trying in vain to move away from the inner city, but his injuries were so severe that his body felt completely disconnected from his mind.
With a sigh, Han Cai glanced at Shi Ji lying on the verge of death not far away, let alone Tian Changwen, who was hiding inside Tian Chenzi’s remains.
After a brief panic, the Sub-Device Sect disciples seed to receive a transmission from their sect.
Their ranks reorganized into a semblance of order. So artifact cultivators headed out of Rong Town, hunting Beast Skin People in the desolate mountains and wilds nearby.
One corpse after another was thrown into the inner city, feeding Qingjingzi.
After consuming the flesh, Qingjingzi’s mutations visibly stabilized, his flesh and bones no longer growing uncontrollably, and his facial features becoming less distorted.
Fortunately, the residents of Rong Town had already evacuated. Otherwise, there would have been no need to search so far afield.
Han Cai could only watch helplessly as Qingjingzi gradually closed in on him, the corrosive spiritual power making it impossible for him to recover from his wounds.
Suddenly rembering sothing, he laboriously took out his spiritual tablet, intending to docunt the information on the Hundred Beasts Blood Body before his death for Li Mo.
Even though Han Cai knew it was nearly impossible for Li Mo to unravel the mysteries of the Hundred Beasts Blood Body on his own, he thought at least it might require generations of beast cultivators expending their entire lives to make progress.
Han Cai’s dying actions drew the attention of the Sub-Device Sect disciples, who turned their heads to look.
Everyone understood the terror of an out-of-control Core Formation Stage artifact cultivator. For dicinal n of the sa cultivation stage, facing Qingjingzi could only an becoming food.
Death was the only outco for the dicinal n.
The Sub-Device Sect disciples who remained in the inner city sneered. If any cultivator dared to rescue the dicinal n, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill them.
"Gua..."
The Sub-Device Sect disciples’ hearts leaped wildly as they simultaneously turned to look behind them.
They all felt an inexplicable sense of dread, as though so wild beast in the shadows was eyeing them hungrily.
"Gua... Gua..."
A deafening toad’s croak shattered the air as an enormous shadow erged from the depths of the clouds.
Under the stunned gazes of the Sub-Device Sect disciples, a colossal Three-legged Golden Toad, exceeding twenty ters in size, descended straight onto the western district of Rong Town.
With each inhalation of the toad, a blast of air would rise out of nowhere.
Even Qingjingzi, acting on base instincts alone, paused, clearly sensing an indescribable threat emanating from the Three-legged Golden Toad.
The most shocking thing to the Sub-Device Sect disciples was that the Three-legged Golden Toad was evidently transford from a cultivator who had not yet reached Core Formation. It must have been the result of so spell combined with a specific Taoist body to achieve such might.
Their understanding of reality was shaken.
After all, based on their interactions during this period, the so-called Heart Beast Sect seed utterly lacking in foundation. Even their Core Formation Techniques had inherent flaws.
Could it be that the Heart Beast Sect had such an unparalleled genius among them?
Only Han Cai knew the truth: the Three-legged Golden Toad was Li Mo’s doing. That terrifying aura of malevolent energy seed nearly tangible.
It was hard to imagine that the boy who arrived as an outsider two decades ago had now grown to a height even Han Cai could only look up to.
Whoosh!!
The sound of sothing cutting through the air rang out.
The Three-legged Golden Toad shot out its tongue, moving so fast it was imperceptible to the naked eye, smashing through a section of the inner city wall instantly.
What remained of Qingjingzi’s flesh-tumor sun was running purely on reflex.
He hadn’t the ti to react before the toad’s tongue swept up both Han Cai and another person, simultaneously smashing a crater dozens of ters wide into the ground.
anwhile, the Ghost Tiger erged as a shadow from within Tian Chenzi’s remains.
"Gua..."
The Three-legged Golden Toad let out a mocking croak before leaping powerfully away, vanishing in an instant.
The Sub-Device Sect disciples stared blankly for a long ti. It wasn’t until Qingjingzi’s mutations began to surge uncontrollably once more that they started bustling around the inner city in haste.
......
How long Han Cai remained unconscious, he could not tell. When he awoke, he found his body had been roughly bandaged.
Scanning his surroundings, he realized he was in the Qinghong Flower Tower of the Heart Beast Black Market. In the adjacent room, he could sense the presences of Shi Ji and Tian Changwen.
The two of them had had their injuries crudely treated and were now being attended to by Futu Hermit.
Li Mo’s figure was nowhere to be seen.
"The Black Market?"
Han Cai quickly understood that Li Mo was ticulous in his planning. The Heart Beast Black Market, established by various Immortal Sect forces, primarily served as a testing ground for loose cultivators, making it relatively safe.
Han Cai dared not delay. His body had already rotted so thoroughly that decay reached every inch of his skin.
If no asures were taken soon, his cultivation, which had already fallen to the Weak Crown Stage Perfection, would lose all hope of ever returning to the Fake Core Stage.
Closing his eyes, he began to ditate while Shi Ji and Tian Changwen had only just regained consciousness from their brushes with death.
As for Li Mo, after temporarily suppressing the aberrant signs of Life-gathering Beastification, he had imdiately set off back to Rong Town, blending in with the Sub-Device Sect disciples.
Fearing that the Sub-Device Sect might send soone to clean up the ss at any ti, he dared not linger too long at the Heart Beast Black Market, lest his anomaly be discovered.
Luckily, the Sub-Device Sect disciples paid him no mind.
After all, Li Mo’s revealed strength barely reached the Perfect Puberty Stage at most.
Returning to the inner city, Li Mo found that the disciples of the Sub-Device Sect had already repaired sections of the city wall and stacked piles of collected flesh and blood in one place.
The inner city had essentially beco a prison for confining Qingjingzi.
Only three Puberty Stage artifact cultivators remained, specifically assigned to move flesh and blood, which ant they had to remain in Rong Town indefinitely, with no access to the outside world.
Li Mo gladly seized the opportunity to stay hidden. Remaining within Rong Town ant no risk of exposure to the outside world.
In the anti, he carefully observed Qingjingzi’s condition during monts of interaction. He realized that Qingjingzi’s grotesque transformation into the aberrant flesh-tumor sun was not solely due to the Uncertainty Period Death Disease.
It seed more like a protective chanism of the slting furnace, which consolidated flesh and bones around it as Qingjingzi approached the verge of losing control.
What on earth was the Sub-Device Sect researching?
Regardless, it was sure that the Sub-Device Sect had profound knowledge of Death Disease and might even possess a complete record of cataclysmic events in the heavens and earth.
Li Mo still felt a lingering fear over Tian Chenzi’s descent.
Although his understanding of cultivation realms was limited to the Uncertainty Nascent Soul Stage, considering the correlation between mortal transformation and the Nine Tribulations of Death Disease, there seed to be nine levels of cultivation realms.
How did the Golden Feathered Phoenix Tail Sparrow, no matter how gifted, reach the Nascent Soul Stage within the few centuries following Tian Chenzi’s death and ascend through the Sacrificial Festival?
Why had ascension to the Immortal Realm beco so seemingly cheap?
A shiver involuntarily ran down Li Mo’s spine. From all appearances, Tian Chenzi didn’t resemble an immortal at all. Could the Immortal Realm be harboring so sort of catastrophe?
Whish...
The gale howled as Rong Town was enveloped in a massive shadow.
Li Mo instinctively looked up, only to see a towering shadow hundreds of ters tall standing amidst the clouds. Judging by the human pig-like body missing its limbs, it was clear that this was a Great Ability Cultivator of the Sub-Device Sect descending upon the Heart Beast Sect.
The Great Ability Cultivator scanned Rong Town with his gaze and spoke in a raspy tone: "One hundred days from now, the Heart Beast Secret Realm will close, and all disciples are to return to the Sub-Device Sect."
"Within these one hundred days, do not arbitrarily harvest from the Heart Beast Sect."
"Understood, disciple."
As he spoke, dense clouds filled the sky, blotting out the sun, while a choking stench of industrial fus spread across the mountain.
From the hollow sockets of the Great Ability Cultivator’s eyes erged an elongated arm, which effortlessly snatched up Qingjingzi as though picking an item from a pouch.
At minimum, he was at the Nascent Soul Stage.
Li Mo restrained his aura as much as possible, mimicking the behavior and deanor of the Sub-Device Sect disciples.
Were it not for the protection of his leakless body, his clothes would have been soaked through with sweat from the sheer terror of being discovered by the Great Ability Cultivator.
After all, despite possessing the Sub-Device Sect’s superior physique, Li Mo had yet to enter the Tao.
The Sub-Device Sect disciples dared not move a muscle, radiating fear from deep within, as though facing a deity seated atop a sacrificial altar.
Fortunately, the Great Ability Cultivator paid no heed to such ants. After a slight nod, the towering shadow vanished amidst the storm and rain.
The Sub-Device Sect disciples exchanged glances briefly before collectively heading toward Duozhi Mountain.
In their eyes, if the harvesting of at limbs was prohibited, the impoverished Heart Beast Sect held no value at all—its spells, spirit stones, and magic artifacts were nothing more than worthless scraps.
A mont later, Rong Town was empty.
Only Li Mo feigned traveling with them, secretly doubling back to Rong Town.
While Duozhi Mountain’s spiritual energy was indeed richer, it was also heavily populated. Li Mo still preferred to attempt a breakthrough to the Fake Core Stage while within the Heart Beast Sect.
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