After Yellow Peril dove into the black coffin.
The altar began to rotate, spinning without pause.
Left, right, north, south — all sense of direction dissolved. Only the eight colossal bronze oil lamps remained, radiating their frigid glow.
It was as though so ancient power had been activated.
Every being present felt a profoundly eerie, absurd sensation flooding through them.
The black coffin contained an immortal corpse.
Now, with the Heaven and Earth Mutation in effect, spiritual qi had vanished and cultivators could only practice using human qi.
Nascent Soul was the ceiling.
Becoming an immortal was an impossibility.
And yet, an immortal corpse lay inside that black coffin — what unimaginable fortune.
But just as Chen Huangpi had said.
That fortune had been snatched by a weasel.
"An immortal! An immortal!"
Song Jiu, dangling from Mang Shan Jun's grip, murmured as if possessed. "This is a true immortal opportunity. A true immortal opportunity. 'Water need not be deep, for a dragon makes it divine. A mountain need not be tall, for an immortal gives it fa.' The Hundred Thousand Mountains truly hold an immortal."
For cultivators born after the Heaven and Earth Mutation.
Becoming an immortal was their deepest desire.
Becoming a god might seem to grant eternal life, but in truth it ant being hopelessly ensnared in the system of human qi cultivation.
Everyone knew that cultivating through human qi was essentially an unorthodox, demonic path.
Given the choice between immortality and godhood — who would choose godhood?
Even an ordinary cultivator like Song Jiu felt this way.
Let alone Calamity Eye and Mang Shan Jun.
The forr believed it was the only being in this God-Burying Mound capable of claiming the immortal corpse. It wanted it — who would dare contest?
Its sword light erupted, radiating dominance in all directions.
Yellow Peril was nothing but a clown.
The latter was even more furious.
Mang Shan Jun had co to the God-Burying Mound purely because Yellow Peril had lured it here, promising a great opportunity on the third level.
It had never ntioned that the opportunity was an immortal corpse.
In hindsight, after recruiting it, Yellow Peril must have used its na as leverage to draw in Calamity Eye as well.
The more Mang Shan Jun thought about it, the angrier it beca!
The more it thought, the more it feared!
A single weasel had played them all like fools.
And in the end, it had still gotten its hands on the immortal corpse.
Yellow Peril had always been extraordinarily difficult to kill.
Now, with this stroke of fortune, it would truly be able to call itself the Yellow Immortal.
When that happened, beings like them — so-called Calamities — would likely be devoured by a re thought from Yellow Peril.
As for fleeing?
It wasn't that they didn't want to run.
But the mont the altar began spinning, the path they'd co in through had vanished.
Beyond the altar's edge, which stretched farther than the eye could see, there was nothing but boundless darkness.
"It's so kind of formation!"
The Brass Oil Lamp let out a bitter laugh. "Chen Huangpi, do you see them? The bronze oil lamps on each of the eight corners are the formation's core, and the altar itself is the formation disk. Once activated, all eight directions beco muddled."
Hearing this.
Chen Huangpi looked toward the altar's eight corners.
His expression grew distant.
Because, within the Fox Mountain God's fragnted mories.
He had once glimpsed what lay behind that imnse golden wall that resembled a door — another altar, far larger, with only five positions instead of eight. But that altar was stacked layer upon layer, secured by enormous chains whose other ends were fastened around the necks of five golden dragons.
The altar layers stacked like a millstone.
Five golden dragons hauled the millstone, and a hundred thousand deities — their auras terrifying, ancient beyond asure — leaped into it and were ground to dust.
Now, seeing this vaguely similar altar.
Chen Huangpi felt as if lightning had flashed through his mind.
He sensed there might be so connection between the two, but he had too little information to articulate it.
And besides, it wouldn't solve their current predicant.
"Huang Er, your Escape Light can't work either?"
The Brass Oil Lamp replied, "With all eight directions muddled, not even light can escape. I can't guide you out."
"Unless we destroy this formation."
"Can it be destroyed?"
The Brass Oil Lamp opened its mouth but hesitated.
Seeing this, Chen Huangpi's heart sank.
Of course.
This place housed an immortal corpse.
Everything here was designed around an immortal's power.
How could it possibly be so easy to destroy?
And right at that mont, the black coffin at the altar's center suddenly shuddered.
Then, with a sharp crack.
A gap split open along the coffin's edge.
The instant it appeared, an endless tide of ink-black smoke — thick as a flood — began pouring out from within.
Unlike the black smoke on Chen Huangpi.
This smoke was heavy.
It spread across the ground like water.
"It's the source..."
The Shadow Evil Spirit — Yang Shu — spoke in a deeply ominous tone.
And Wang Mingdao, sheltered within its body, asked in confusion, "The source? The source of the pollution?"
"Exactly. The source!"
The Hundred Thousand Mountains teed with evil spirits.
Pollution sources were what evil spirits coveted most.
A single source could branch into countless tributaries, and at the end of each tributary lay a pollution node.
The world beyond the Hundred Thousand Mountains had evil spirits too, and naturally, it also had pollution sources.
But whether inside or outside the mountains.
No one had ever been able to find a source.
After the Heaven and Earth Mutation, powerful ancient cultivators — while their strength hadn't yet diminished too far — had attempted to locate and destroy the sources.
But no matter how far they traced the tributaries upstream.
Even if they dug all the way to the earth's core, the source remained unfound.
So cultivators theorized that the pollution sources existed in a dinsion separate from the mortal world.
Now it seed that theory was correct.
One of the Hundred Thousand Mountains' sources lay right here, inside this immortal corpse's black coffin in the God-Burying Mound.
The water-like black smoke continued pouring from the coffin without end.
No...
It wasn't just smoke.
There was also a hand.
A hand caked in sludge, reaching through the gap in the coffin lid from inside.
The hand erged and flipped upward, pressing down on the coffin lid.
But, to everyone's shock.
That hand wasn't trying to push the lid off — it was desperately trying to press it shut. Yet a split second later.
The coffin lid was flung wide open.
Imdiately, a humanoid form composed entirely of yellow sludge ca hurtling out of the coffin.
Boom.
The black coffin slamd shut again.
As though it had spat out a piece of garbage.
That garbage — or rather, Yellow Peril.
Yellow Peril's aura was now trendously powerful.
It had reached the level of a Calamity.
Not because it had consud the immortal corpse, but because the source within the black coffin had nourished it.
However, the coffin seed to possess a will of its own.
The mont it detected Yellow Peril, it had imdiately ejected it.
No amount of resistance had made any difference.
This turn of events was so sudden.
Every evil spirit stared at Yellow Peril with deeply uneasy eyes.
None of them knew how terrifying Yellow Peril would beco after absorbing an immortal corpse.
But...
Yellow Peril was staring solely at the Deity of Broad Sight.
It ground its teeth, its voice biting with cold fury. "Broad Sight, you lied to ! Where is the immortal corpse? Where is it?!"
The mont those words left its mouth.
Mang Shan Jun's face twisted in shock.
Even Calamity Eye's pupil contracted.
The immortal corpse wasn't inside the black coffin?
It hadn't been in there all along?
Yellow Peril snarled with bitter resentnt. "There was nothing inside that coffin besides the source! You told an immortal corpse was lying in there. You lied to !"
"You must have hidden it sowhere. Admit it!"
"Tell where the immortal corpse is!"
Yellow Peril had gone completely mad.
The chance to ascend to immortality in a single step had been dangled before it.
It had envisioned becoming the Yellow Immortal, and now all of it had collapsed into nothing.
The sheer magnitude of that disappointnt.
It was enough to shatter its sanity.
Chen Huangpi also turned to the Deity of Broad Sight and asked softly, "Did you really hide the immortal corpse?"
The Deity of Broad Sight shook its head. "If not for you, I would never have co to this place to begin with. How could I have hidden the immortal corpse?"
All it had wanted was to devour those consecrated deities.
The third level had never been its objective.
Hearing this.
Chen Huangpi couldn't help but ask, "Then where exactly is the immortal corpse?"
The Deity of Broad Sight replied in a strange tone, "Far away at the edge of the sky, yet right before your very eyes."
The instant those words fell.
Chen Huangpi felt countless gazes converge on him.
He looked at each of them in turn.
And realized that every single one — Mang Shan Jun, Calamity Eye, the now Calamity-class Yellow Peril, the other Disasters, the lesser evil spirits, even the Brass Oil Lamp — was staring at him with an intensely unsettling gaze.
"What are you all looking at for?"
Chen Huangpi frowned. "I'm not an immortal corpse."
"Fine, you're not an immortal corpse!"
Mang Shan Jun leered. "Then let take just one bite. Just one!"
Yellow Peril's voice dripped with greed. "The source is black smoke. You also have black smoke. You are the immortal corpse!"
"Absurd!"
Chen Huangpi found their desperation laughable.
He had been born from an egg.
He wasn't even human, let alone so immortal corpse.
As for the black smoke — that claim was even more ridiculous.
The source inside the coffin was indeed black smoke, but it was nowhere near as pure as his, and it lacked that all-consuming, demonic nature.
They looked similar on the surface.
But they were entirely different.
Chen Huangpi understood this.
But Mang Shan Jun and the others had no idea. To them, the Deity of Broad Sight's cryptic words couldn't be more obvious.
Far away at the edge of the sky, yet right before your very eyes.
Who looked more like an immortal corpse than Chen Huangpi?
"Attack together! Once we seize Chen Huangpi, we'll divide and devour him!"
Yellow Peril and Mang Shan Jun exchanged a glance and reached an instant pact.
But before they could act.
Calamity Eye's pupil contracted.
In the blink of an eye — blinding white radiance flooded the void!
The entire altar was engulfed in a world of white.
Sword light cascaded like a waterfall.
It sliced straight toward Chen Huangpi.
The Brass Oil Lamp strained its eyes wide, fighting through the searing pain of the blinding light, trying to activate its Escape Light and blink Chen Huangpi out of the way. But the sword light was simply too fast.
So fast that before it could even react, the strike had already landed on the crown of Chen Huangpi's head.
"Broad Sight!"
The Brass Oil Lamp didn't understand. Why hadn't the Deity of Broad Sight intervened?
It was supposed to protect Chen Huangpi.
Was it just going to watch Chen Huangpi die and then claim its own share?
And right at that mont.
A figure stepped in front of Chen Huangpi.
The sword light descended.
It plunged directly into the figure's body.
Then, an aura so terrifying it defied description — beyond the limits of language — erupted from that figure.
Deathly stillness...
Suffocating darkness...
And yet, woven through it all, an indescribable sense of ethereal transcendence.
"The immortal corpse!"
"It's the immortal corpse!"
"It was the immortal corpse all along!"
"The Slender Evil Spirit!"
Chen Huangpi stared in disbelief at the figure that had shielded him.
The Slender Evil Spirit turned its head and flashed Chen Huangpi a smile.
The smile was as unnerving as ever.
But all Chen Huangpi felt was a deep sense of comfort. He already knew who this Slender Evil Spirit truly was.
"Yi Qingzhou, is that you?"
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