The disturbance produced by the giant corpse Buddha was extremely terrifying. Cracks immediately spread across the ground, and the hills and forests along the path all showed signs of collapsing.
The oppressive feeling it brought was even several degrees stronger than the blood moon, somewhat similar to the black goat transformed by Heavenly Daozi that Ren Qing first encountered, that heart-palpitating aura of fear.
Fragments of flesh splattered everywhere, falling to the ground and being fought over by various beasts.
However, not long after the beasts devoured them, they suddenly died violently, causing corpses to litter the places the giant corpse Buddha passed through.
"Undying, undying, undying..."
The giant corpse Buddha released faint Buddhist qi all over her body, clearly looking as if she were about to collapse, yet her speed was becoming faster and faster.
Ren Qing knew that the giant corpse Buddha was merely a container of the Buddhist qi. No matter how weak the aura appeared, it would not affect the Buddhist qi itself, so he planned to rely on the giant corpse Buddha all the way to go to the forbidden zone.
Danger would inevitably be encountered along the road, but with the existence of the giant corpse Buddha, Ren Qing could drive away disasters and avoid misfortune in advance, thereby avoiding trouble.
However, only a few days after setting out, Ren Qing noticed things were not going smoothly.
At first he could follow the giant corpse Buddha from Bottomless Pit, but the direction of Bottomless Pit soon produced conflict, forcing Ren Qing to put away the ghost ship and follow the giant corpse Buddha on foot.
Bottomless Pit stretched for unknown thousands of li, winding and twisting, its end probably in the northwest.
Ren Qing gradually moved farther away from Heaven Above Heaven. Villages of all kinds entered his sight, but most of them showed the miserable scene of nine out of ten houses empty.
Even towns with relatively large scale looked extremely desolate.
There were no traces of demons running rampant anywhere, let alone demons themselves.
Ren Qing used the Buddhist Dream Flower to track the giant corpse Buddha, while he himself arrived at "Buddha Heart City" to examine the strange aspects beneath its devastated appearance.
His Heavy Pupils swept across. Buddha Heart City was not completely devoid of life. There were citizens who had luckily not died lingering on, but their minds had long gone insane.
Ren Qing felt somewhat puzzled. According to the frequency with which disasters erupted in Cishi every few years, how did it manage to maintain its population?
He could not help examining the condition of the citizens' bodies and souls. He discovered that their mental disorder had not appeared due to external stimulation but rather that their three souls and seven po were innately incomplete.
Ren Qing tightly furrowed his brows.
He suspected whether demons and ghosts truly existed. According to the statements of the Cishi people, disasters appeared out of thin air, as if without any omen.
It was very likely that from beginning to end there had never been any so-called demons and ghosts.
Ren Qing formed a conjecture in his heart: perhaps the Buddhist qi stimulated the souls of the citizens, causing them to produce hallucinations and slaughter each other, and finally they were driven toward Heaven Above Heaven.
The survivors all had defective souls, so they had not been affected by the Buddhist qi.
After confirming there was nothing unusual, Ren Qing casually collected the villagers into the stomach world.
Now within the Cishi village in the stomach world, more than one hundred thousand people had already gathered. To ensure self-sufficiency of grain, besides opening fertile fields in the valleys, they had even built layer upon layer of terraced fields among the mountains.
Ren Qing did not guide the Cishi village and allowed them to develop on their own.
However, for the moment it seemed that the Cishi people who believed in Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva were naturally kind. Every household did not even close doors at night and they were relatively easy to manage.
Of course the Cishi people also had shortcomings.
Compared to the Jingzhou people, who could be seen at a glance to be suitable for cultivating Restraint Officer methods, the Cishi people had bodies and souls eroded by Buddhist qi and therefore found it difficult to begin most Restraint Officer methods.
Ren Qing planned to see in his spare time whether he could find Restraint Officer methods suitable for them.
Fortunately he discovered that after being able to reverse-deduce Restraint Officer methods through the stomach world, just a few days ago he had successfully restored the "Immovable Method".
Immovable Method
Created by Daoist Immovable. One must keep the body motionless for thirty days until the blood coagulates and the heart stops, only then can it be cultivated to completion.
Ren Qing believed that the number of techniques in the Great Dream Technique Tower would soon multiply, and some incomplete techniques could also be repaired.
If it truly did not work, he would only be able to perfect new Restraint Officer methods on the basis of Great Compassion Maitreya Skin-Sutra and Great Compassion Maitreya White Bone Sutra.
Ren Qing continued traveling north and arrived at the hinterland of Cishi in calm weather.
Cishi did not have many mountains and forests. Most regions were endless plains, usually growing some glassified trees.
But what entered Ren Qing's eyes were half-meter-tall earthen towers.
The earthen towers resembled reliquary towers used in temples to store the ashes of monks after death, but at their base grew root-like tentacles inserted into the soil.
The giant corpse Buddha stopped in the center of the plain, then released dense Buddhist qi, like thick fog covering the surroundings.
Because the amount of Buddhist qi stored in her body had decreased, her body instead gradually healed, and the flesh no longer showed signs of collapse.
From the reliquary towers came the sound of wooden fish being struck, quickly linking together into one continuous sound.
Ren Qing stood at the edge of the plain, squinting at the giant corpse Buddha. The source of Cishi's long-lasting population maintenance came from here.
He could clearly sense that the large number of mortal souls contained within the Buddhist qi were gradually being stripped away and merged into the reliquary towers.
Ren Qing pushed his Heavy Pupils to the extreme. He noticed that the reliquary towers were not magical artifacts but a unique fleshly lifeform whose internal structure was very similar to a female womb.
Even though women were forbidden from Heaven Above Heaven, the methods of the Buddhist sect nevertheless contained wombs.
After swallowing the souls, the reliquary towers began gestating embryos. Presumably before long tens of thousands of people would be born.
Ren Qing did not know what to say.
In terms of manipulating souls, the methods of the Buddhist sect even surpassed many other Earth Immortals.
Buddhist qi could completely contain souls, then use the reliquary towers to gestate living people again, and after death reclaim and devour the souls, repeating this cycle.
Although the giant corpse Buddha killed tens of thousands of Cishi people, in reality not a single person truly died.
A different kind of immortality was achieved. It was simply outrageous.
Ren Qing now no longer had hope for whether the Cishi people could cultivate Restraint Officer methods. From beginning to end they had already been stamped with the mark of the Buddhist sect.
The Netherworld Heavenly Insect Method still had some possibility, but they would have to use black insects to help them begin.
The Buddhist qi reentered the body of the giant corpse Buddha. The Buddha skin that had just grown immediately peeled away for the most part, and the flesh was instantly corroded.
The giant corpse Buddha's face twisted. One could clearly see traces of unwillingness in her eyes, but soon the Buddhist qi completely suppressed her.
Bang bang bang...
She stepped forward and continued advancing north, repeatedly muttering the two words "undying".
Ren Qing quickly followed the giant Buddha corpse, ensuring that the distance would not widen while carefully observing the inside and outside of the reliquary towers.
He discovered that the structure of this type of lifeform was rather crude. The reason it could revive was mainly because of the Buddhist qi's ability to store souls.
However, apart from the reliquary towers, there were no other extraordinary things in Cishi, though the situation in other regions was hard to say.
The giant Buddha corpse spent more than ten days crossing the entire region before arriving at the border area of Cishi and once again sitting cross-legged on the ground.
Cishi's territory was extremely vast, equivalent to three times the size of Xiangxiang.
Along the way, although her injuries continuously recovered, her flesh had already collapsed almost completely, leaving only a golden-glowing skeleton.
The giant corpse Buddha recovered her injuries, and her momentum slightly restrained.
Ren Qing transformed the Dream Flower into Heavy Pupils and attached them to his forehead, then climbed a hill and looked into the distance, immediately noticing dark-colored clouds.
"Heavenly Demon aura?"
He sucked in a breath of cold air. Possibly because it was close to the beast enclosure, traces of the Supreme Heavenly Demon even appeared in regions neighboring Cishi.
However the Heavenly Demon aura was not dense. It looked like the period when Jingzhou had just been invaded, indicating that the Supreme Heavenly Demon had occupied it only recently.
For the giant corpse Buddha, passing through this region should not be difficult.
But Ren Qing felt his head ache faintly. He did not want to inexplicably become involved in the conflict between the Supreme Heavenly Demon and other factions.
Moreover, the location of Dead Man's Forbidden Zone was still uncertain. It was impossible to abandon following the giant corpse Buddha and instead choose the more difficult path of traveling alone.
The giant corpse Buddha looked miserable, but the Buddhist qi itself, as Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva, had devoured seven to eight hundred successive Buddha sons.
A Buddha of the Arhat fruition position corresponded to the Heavenly Aberration realm, while the Bodhisattva fruition position corresponded to an Earth Immortal.
Just as Ren Qing expected, Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva was an existence of the late Earth Immortal stage. Trying to find another thigh of similar level would certainly be unrealistic.
Ren Qing's expression fluctuated between light and dark. The dangerous thought in his heart continuously sprouted and finally he decided to risk trying it.
If successful, not only could he smoothly reach Dead Man's Forbidden Zone, but after obtaining Dead Man's Sutra it would also become much easier to leave the forbidden zone.
Compared with the risk, the benefits he could obtain were completely disproportionate.
Moreover, in Ren Qing's view, the Buddhist qi would only consider gains and losses of benefit and had no interest in existences that posed no threat.
He looked toward the stomach world, then used various materials related to Buddhist qi to erode a humanoid clone, attempting to create an Indestructible Golden Body.
The flesh of the clone gradually showed a bronze-metal texture. If one did not look at the rising and falling chest and abdomen, it would appear to be a bronze Buddha statue.
Ren Qing attached a Dream Flower that had not absorbed any heterogeneous aura onto the clone and then used it to control the clone to walk toward the giant corpse Buddha.
He felt uneasy, his eyes fixed on the stiff back of the clone.
If it could not succeed, he would have to abandon going to Dead Man's Forbidden Zone and wait until his cultivation reached the Heavenly Aberration realm before considering obtaining Dead Man's Sutra.
Bearing pressure that seemed almost tangible, the clone staggered within one hundred meters.
Because the clone had no soul and had deliberately mutated into an Indestructible Golden Body, anyone with clear eyes could see there were ulterior motives.
But the Buddhist qi was somewhat different.
With each breath of the giant corpse Buddha, violent winds rose, preventing the clone from stabilizing its body while causing thin Buddhist qi to be absorbed by the clone.
After becoming an Indestructible Golden Body, the clone could already be used as a battery for Buddhist qi, naturally attracting the attention of the giant corpse Buddha.
"Undying, undying, undying..."
The giant corpse Buddha opened her mouth and inhaled. The clone was immediately swallowed into the abdomen.
Ren Qing could sense that the connection between the Dream Seed and himself became faint, but at least the clone still survived intact.
When the vitality of the clone weakened, the Buddhist qi even actively maintained its aura.
The clone Ren Qing chose had a lifespan of only a few days. After patiently waiting, the clone soon died due to exhaustion of lifespan.
The Dream Seed sensed the giant corpse Buddha's rejection. The corpse was then treated as a foreign object inside the body and expelled through a hole in the abdomen.
Seeing this, Ren Qing made up his mind. After the giant corpse Buddha's injuries recovered for the most part, he once again mutated another clone into an Indestructible Golden Body.
After confirming through the giant corpse Buddha's soul that the target was indeed the Undying Forbidden Zone, he produced the bold idea of hiding inside the giant corpse Buddha.
Who knew how far the Undying Forbidden Zone was, what factions' territories lay in between, or even whether he might encounter Earth Immortals interested in him.
As long as Ren Qing did not actively show himself, he could remain in an undefeated position.
He could not directly parasitize the giant corpse Buddha itself, in case it lived too long and he lacked the ability to determine life and death.
When Ren Qing discovered that the clone could die smoothly inside the giant corpse Buddha's abdomen, he already cast aside his final concerns.
He immediately used the ability of Storyteller to parasitize inside the clone.
The process felt like putting on a heavy coat, but once the body and soul completely merged, it felt as though he were sealed inside a narrow box.
Even Ren Qing, who had seen great scenes, could not help revealing suppressed fear when he could not perceive the outside world.
It was difficult to imagine that if the host unexpectedly gained immortality, and he were imprisoned inside for thousands or tens of thousands of years, whether he would go insane.
Ren Qing forcibly calmed himself and vaguely sensed the ghost shadow outside, but there were very few things he could accomplish through it.
Because of the Parasitic Nurturing strange transformation, he could choose strange objects to parasitize the host, so he left the most concealed ghost shadow.
Parasitic Nurturing: When possessing a host, strange objects can temporarily parasitize the host, allowing it to possess part of the caster's cultivation.
Planting Demons: When possessing a host, the parasitic strange object can be controlled to strengthen the host's body, but it will additionally consume the host's lifespan.
The clone instinctively produced fear toward the giant corpse Buddha and subconsciously wanted to move away.
At this time the ghost shadow actively surged into the clone's heart. It was precisely Ren Qing using the Planting Demons strange transformation to indirectly strengthen the heart's endurance.
Thump... thump thump... thump thump thump... thump...
To deal with the difficulties he would encounter when using Storyteller in the future, Ren Qing had long prepared in advance and had also experimented several times.
Although after Daodao Dao advanced to the Spirit Division stage it did not produce the ability to attach rules to objects, transmitting teachings still had remarkable effects.
Through transmitting teachings, Ren Qing could influence the clone's muscle memory, achieving an effect similar to hypnosis and brainwashing.
In fact the delusional techniques of the Dao Ancestor statue were the same in principle, only more extreme.
If used on a normal mortal with sound mind, it would certainly consume a great amount of time; using it on cultivators would be even more troublesome.
But fortunately the clone did not even possess a soul.
As long as the heartbeat frequency exceeded a certain level, the clone would execute instructions, such as moving toward the east, south, west, or north, or finding a way to commit suicide, or fleeing from danger.
The clone slowly approached the giant corpse Buddha.
For Ren Qing, the first successful step was always the most difficult.
He could not sense what was happening outside, causing his mental state to be extremely tense, even showing signs of impending qi deviation.
Ren Qing believed that the system would never dig a pit for him to bury himself. Among the series of techniques, there must be one technique capable of compensating for the defect.
Once it could be completed, he could parasitize others without restraint.
The clone spent nearly half an hour before reaching the giant corpse Buddha. The latter swallowed it into her abdomen immediately upon seeing the Indestructible Golden Body.
The Buddhist qi did not care about logic, which perfectly suited Ren Qing's intention.
The giant corpse Buddha was a thousand meters tall. The clone rolled about inside the stomach passage, and soon its joints were dislocated while the spine also shifted.
Ren Qing could sense the clone being injured and could not help feeling greatly delighted.
He did not rush to consume the clone's remaining small lifespan and secretly considered how to obtain benefits inside the giant corpse Buddha.
Perhaps coexist with the Buddhist qi and benefit each other...