The appearance of the mud sculpture grew unfamiliar, transforming from an ordinary devotee into a cultivator.
All the strange phenona in the temple stemd from Penglai Old Taoist. This was likely his reminiscence of the Sub-Device Sect, overflowing with reverence for the Human Pig.
Li Mo stood at the center of the arena, with Penglai Old Taoist’s muddled chanting echoing in his ears, seemingly praising the Sub-Device Sect.
The sculpture hung mid-air, terror etched on its face, like livestock awaiting slaughter.
Li Mo remained calm and composed; if worst ca to worst, he could leave the secret realm anyti. However, he couldn’t help but harbor so wariness toward the actions of Penglai Old Taoist.
He suspected that this Gold-eating Worm’s grotesque and unrecognizable state was due to being possessed by Penglai Old Taoist.
The red ropes rubbed against each other, and a sculpture descended slowly toward the ground.
Li Mo cursed softly, realizing this was forcing them to treat the arena as an initiation trial. Clearly, Penglai Old Taoist had gone utterly mad after possessing the Gold-eating Worm.
The sculpture emitted a miserable scream, its body undergoing inexplicable transformation.
Crack, crack, crack...
Its spine protruded outward, ribs spread open, and countless bloody flesh tendrils sprouted from the gaps in its limbs, forming arms and legs.
By the ti the red ropes lowered the sculpture to the arena, it was no longer humanoid.
The sculpture clumsily climbed up and muttered to itself, "Immortal fate, immortal fate has co. I shall enter the Taoist path and beco immortal..."
Under Penglai Old Taoist’s influence, the illusion woven by the insect swarm seed to beco reality, manifesting as the Sub-Device Sect’s Iron Cauldron Trial, held once every fifty years.
Li Mo took a deep breath.
He glanced around, everything appearing to be part of Penglai Old Taoist’s dream—a dreamscape composed of countless Gold-eating Worms.
Other than Li Mo, the sculptures were entirely consud in the act.
Their ntal states beca increasingly unstable, smashing their heads together while chanting alongside Penglai Old Taoist to praise the Sub-Device Sect.
Li Mo glimpsed the Creation Book, deciding to stall for ti no matter what.
"Since you’re so fixated on the initiation trial of the Sub-Device Sect, I’ll play along. Let’s see what cos of it."
The sculpture charged toward Li Mo, its bloody tendrils reaching straight for his neck.
Though the tendrils appeared weak, their speed exploded unexpectedly, closing the distance to within ten ters of Li Mo in an instant. Its mouth tore open to the corners of its eyes, revealing a maw brimming with sharp teeth.
"Kill him, kill, kill, kill..."
Faced with the enormous sculpture, Li Mo seed powerless to resist.
The stench of blood assaulted his face.
Li Mo sidestepped and tilted his head, narrowly dodging the attack. He maneuvered nimbly under the sculpture’s onslaught, effortlessly evading thanks to a physical constitution far superior to others of his level.
Penglai Old Taoist’s insect body gradually tore through the human skin.
The sculpture grew nurous tendrils of flesh, which, when converged, resembled a skinned living being.
Li Mo refrained from using magic, opting instead to exploit his physical prowess.
But Penglai Old Taoist gave him no chance to buy ti, repeating his chants once again while several sculptures fell from above.
Li Mo cursed under his breath, his narrowed eyes opening wide. A wild, bestial ferocity erupted from him, radiating an aura that froze the sculpture in terror.
"Go."
With a flick of his hand, the Mist Fog Silk Thread and Desert Map glimred alternately, and as Li Mo passed the sculpture, its waist was sliced with surgical precision.
"Attaining immortality..."
The sculpture collapsed to the ground, its hollow body revealing texts written within—spells and techniques it had mastered in life.
Li Mo quickly stored the sculpture in his storage bag, only to find two other sculptures had completed their transformations, flanking him from left and right.
"Die!"
Seeing Li Mo’s back turned, they opened their mouths and spat long, razor-edged tongues targeting the back of his head.
"Tiger."
Li Mo evaded swiftly, and from his shadow erged a fierce, glaring Ghost Tiger. Its body expanded to three ters in an instant.
His left arm surged with heat, summoning the Two-tailed Red Fox, which coiled around the sculptures. The intense heat it emitted warped the surrounding air.
After a brief clash, the Tattooed Beast, which was growing more adept against enemies, pinned one sculpture’s head down with brute force.
Were it not for Li Mo’s insistence on preserving the sculptures intact, the ferocity of the Red Fox and Ghost Tiger would have resolved the conflict within seconds.
Li Mo retreated to the edge of the arena, while the sculptures began mutating continuously.
Luckily, as a Beast Cultivator, he didn’t need to dive into the sculptures and face their assaults directly. Otherwise, even a morization ability amplified tenfold wouldn’t prevent eventual harm from the exhausting encounters.
Penglai Old Taoist’s upper body slowly peeled off his human skin, as more sculptures fell increasingly frequent, forming a significant scale on the arena floor.
"Not even a mont to breathe?"
The Creation Book’s tenth page was nearly complete, dark gold patterns erging on its surface, distinct from the other blank pages.
Li Mo forced himself to remain calm, using the Desert Map to collect the sculptures’ remains.
After all, the spells and techniques recorded within the sculptures were worth quite a few Spirit Stones.
Li Mo assessed the Tattooed Beast’s state, gradually increasing his use of Hui Qingyi. The Red Fox and Ghost Tiger swelled to six ters tall.
They resembled Primordial Strange Beasts, standing protectively before Li Mo with such harmony that their usual petty disputes were nowhere to be seen.
Li Mo’s fra appeared gaunt; the burden of Hui Qingyi was pushing him to his limit.
The subsequent sculptures’ cultivation levels were generally at the Perfect Puberty Stage. Even without their spells from life, they still pressured Li Mo greatly.
Penglai Old Taoist crawled forth, his insect body mottled with corpse spots. He emitted bizarre, mocking noises, his gaze filled with self-loathing.
Li Mo kept Penglai Old Taoist fixed in his peripheral vision.
The insect swarm churned anew, and Penglai Old Taoist leapt onto the arena, initiating indiscriminate slaughter.
Li Mo’s reflexes were razor-sharp, recalling the Ghost Tiger and Red Fox as he retreated from the arena, simultaneously calling forth the Kun Whale.
The Kun Whale’s resonant cry echoed throughout the Corpse Mountain.
Li Mo hooked the Desert Map onto the Kun Whale’s tail. The creature’s ten-ter-long wingspan propelled them narrowly to the top of the cavern.
Penglai Old Taoist ruthlessly butchered the sculptures, wielding spells to launch Golden Pills. The sculptures stood no chance against his attacks.
"Hiss..."
Li Mo felt the tallic poison in his brain intensify.
The tenth page was completing faster.
Looking at the arena, Li Mo saw illusions born of tallic poison twisting into reality. Cheers erupted around him, and the grotesque, non-human entities fighting each other transford into young cultivators.
The cultivators, with flawed bodies, were fiercely competing for the limited spots in the outer disciples of the Sub-Device Sect.
Li Mo imdiately realized that this was Penglai Old Taoist’s vision of the world—the strange occurrences within the Corpse Mountain were rely his self-deception.
Penglai Old Taoist, a dead man of the Sub-Device Sect, had seized the soul of a Gold-eating Worm, surviving miserably in the Iron Cauldron Secret Realm.
"What exactly did you do..."
Boom!
The mont the tenth page was completed, sothing within the Corpse Mountain shattered, and Penglai Old Taoist exploded into a spray of flesh and blood.
A streak of light pierced Li Mo’s brow, adding a knife-shaped jade piece to his mind, soon subdued by the Creation Book.
Li Mo’s expression darkened; without hesitation, he activated Tea Poison and retreated.
The knife-shaped jade was a token of the Sub-Device Sect’s outer disciples. The mories surging from the Creation Book helped him finally comprehend the entire sequence of events.
"Penglai Old Taoist, you’ve got so nerve."
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