Chapter 264: Corpse Mutation
Gu Mo wasn't surprised by Wu Jinfei's reaction. The gap between them was far too wide now. For a cultivator at the third level of Qi Refining to meet a Nascent Soul True Lord—that alone was only because of the bonds of their younger days.
"How have you been all these years?" Gu Mo asked.
Hearing Gu Mo bring up the past, Wu Jinfei's expression eased noticeably. To have shared a period of experience with a Nascent Soul True Lord—that was enough for him to boast about for a lifetime.
Gu Mo quietly listened to Wu Jinfei's story. Back when the Fenghua Sect took over Qinglu Sect's mountain gate, they hadn't slaughtered the menial disciples, since Fenghua Sect also needed such labor to handle countless chores. Of course, the exploitation of menial disciples was severe.
Menial disciples already had poor spiritual roots. With even heavier exploitation, they lost even their last scraps of time to breathe.
Many menial disciples stagnated for years without the slightest progress in cultivation. Wu Jinfei was the same. In the end, he chose to leave the sect and establish a cultivation family of his own.
This choice meant Wu Jinfei had completely given up on the immortal path. And as a subordinate cultivation family under Fenghua Sect, he still faced exploitation, though clearly less than when he was a menial disciple.
Over the years, Wu Jinfei married and had children—more than ten in total—and over half of them were born with spiritual roots. Such a rate was nothing short of astonishing.
One of them, in fact, possessed a high-grade spiritual root. A major reason Wu Jinfei had come to visit Gu Mo this time was to ask if that high-grade spiritual-root child could become Gu Mo's disciple.
"Bring the child here, let me have a look."
At the mention of a high-grade spiritual root, Gu Mo's interest was piqued.
"Yes!"
Wu Jinfei hurried to summon the boy waiting outside. When the youth entered and saw Gu Mo, he immediately bowed. "Nephew greets Uncle Gu!"
"Do not be rude."
Wu Jinfei shot his son a glare, his heart filled with unease. If Gu Mo was willing to acknowledge this relationship, his child would essentially be clinging to a mighty thigh.
"No matter."
Gu Mo waved it off. Though he and Wu Jinfei had never been particularly close, they had once been companions in weakness. For the boy to call him uncle was no impropriety.
"Since you've called me uncle, I'll grant you a stroke of fortune." Gu Mo drew out a jade bottle and handed it to the youth.
Inside the jade bottle was a supreme-grade Meridians-Expanding Pill, the best medicine for Qi Refining cultivators to strengthen their foundations. With his high-grade spiritual root, paired with this pill, the boy's path to higher realms would be firmly laid.
"Many thanks, True Lord!"
Learning the pill's effects, Wu Jinfei pulled his son down to offer thanks. Yet within his heart, a trace of disappointment flickered. Gu Mo had not chosen to take his child as a disciple.
Instead, with this stroke of fortune, Gu Mo had simply repaid the trivial karma between them from long ago.
"Alas!"
At that thought, Wu Jinfei sighed inwardly. Back then, all he had cared about was currying favor with the leader Yao Shifeng, never sparing a glance for Gu Mo.
Now, Yao Shifeng was missing, while the once-obscure Gu Mo had become a Nascent Soul True Lord. Even Chu Feifei, once close to Gu Mo, had gained a great opportunity.
After Wu Jinfei left, Gu Mo too was stirred by memories of the past. He rose and went to the marketplace near Qinglu Sect.
Though the sect had changed hands, the market still remained. But the tavern owner, Gou Youyu, was no longer there. Back in the day, Gu Mo had acquired from him a method called the Wine God Spirit-Tempering Technique. Though now utterly obsolete for a Nascent Soul cultivator, at the time it had been a great help.
Even so, the small tavern where they had once gathered was still there. And the private room they had used was said to have been permanently rented.
"Who could it be?"
Gu Mo was curious. Wu Jinfei hadn't mentioned it, and it couldn't have been Chu Feifei. That left only Yao Shifeng or Hu Hai.
But Yao Shifeng had signed a servant's pact with He Shaogang, and with He Shaogang slain by Gu Mo, Yao Shifeng had likely perished too. Which meant the one who had permanently rented the room was most likely Hu Hai.
Back then, Hu Hai had already been stationed at an outpost, away from the sect. When Qinglu Sect's gate was taken, he would have had time to escape.
And as a mere menial disciple, as long as he kept his head down, Fenghua Sect would hardly notice him. Learning that another old friend had survived warmed Gu Mo's heart. He sat a while in the seat that had once been his, then quietly left the tavern.
Not long after Gu Mo departed, a figure suddenly appeared in that same private room. That figure sat down in the seat that had once belonged to Yao Shifeng.
The figure looked across the four other seats. In recent days, each had been occupied—Gu Mo, Chu Feifei, Wu Jinfei, Hu Hai—all had, without planning, come here.
"How amusing. So young, yet all of them fond of nostalgia." A chuckle echoed.
"You're just some remnant soul who's lived who knows how long. Even if you wanted to be nostalgic, you've nothing left to be nostalgic about." Yao Shifeng's expression was cold.
The figure in the room was none other than Yao Shifeng—whom Gu Mo believed long dead. But Yao Shifeng had not only survived; he had obtained a great opportunity, the sort akin to an "old master within the soul."
Yet Yao Shifeng knew full well: calling it a great opportunity was just a polite word. In truth, it was a curse. The remnant soul now dwelling in his consciousness was something he had discovered in an ancient ruin.
The remnant soul had immediately tried to parasitize him, even attempting outright possession. But Yao Shifeng's case was unusual—his Golden Core was a pitch-black Demonic Core. That dark power had blocked the possession. Realizing it could not take over, the remnant soul settled for coexisting.
Yao Shifeng also knew that, given the chance, the remnant soul would seize him without hesitation. But so long as he resisted, he could reap many benefits—formidable techniques, secret arts, even divine abilities.
Of course, these weren't free. He also had to do things for the remnant soul.
"Enough reminiscing. With my aid, you'll stand on an entirely different plane from them. Even that Nascent Soul who just left—he too will one day have to look up to you." The remnant soul's voice echoed again. "Last time you were careless, and others discovered that ruin. Fortunately, all those who knew are now dead. This time, you must return and continue eroding the seal."
The ruin mentioned was clearly the one Fenghua Sect had found. Or rather, Yao Shifeng had been its true first discoverer.
The remnant soul had been uncovered there. Only because Yao Shifeng had left faint traces behind was it later found by Fenghua Sect's Nascent Soul.
"What is sealed there?" Yao Shifeng asked as he rose. The seal in the ruin was utterly beyond his comprehension—he only acted by the remnant soul's instructions.
He could guess, however, that what was sealed was something of immense importance to the remnant soul. And if that seal was broken, the first one to suffer might well be him.
Yao Shifeng simply had no ability to refuse. That remnant soul might not be able to seize his body now, but it had many ways to hinder him.
And the benefits it offered were something Yao Shifeng couldn't turn down.
"You don't need to know. But rest assured, once I retrieve what's inside the seal, I wouldn't even look twice at this wretched body of yours." The remnant soul spoke in a tone full of disdain.
If there had been any other choice, who would ever want to seize the body of someone with inferior spiritual roots? Still, this body's cultivation of a heretical art did suit its taste quite well—except that the technique itself was far too crude.
Moreover, it wasn't the only one eroding the seal. On another continent, someone else was doing the same—and much faster than this brat before it.
Qinglu Sect.
"This clue is completely cut off." After inspecting Tan Jingxing's storage bracelet, Gu Mo found a few relics from the ancient era inside, but all of them had completely lost their power. Only that fragment of an immortal artifact, by virtue of its extraordinary material, still retained terrifying lethality.
The rest were all useless scraps. And in Tan Jingxing's bracelet, Gu Mo found no sign of the relic's location. Understandable—who would ever record such important places? Keeping it in one's memory was the safest.
"Never mind!"
Since he was fated to have no connection with that relic, Gu Mo would not force it. Even without the relic's treasures, as long as he had Sunflowers, his steps toward strength would not falter.
Besides, this immortal artifact fragment, along with that bloodstained fingernail, were no small gains either. Especially the blood upon that nail—it stirred quite a few ideas in Gu Mo's mind.
For instance, using that blood as a base to forge a new avatar through his External Body Incarnation technique.
Before, Gu Mo had always used his own blood to craft avatars, which meant their talent matched his own inferior roots. But the blood upon this nail was clearly from no ordinary origin. If he could use it to create an avatar, just how extraordinary would its aptitude be?
The idea was sound, but his current External Body Incarnation technique was incomplete. Attempting to craft an avatar with such extraordinary blood would likely fail.
"Perhaps combining it with the Dao Seed Avatar method could work." With his External Body Incarnation incomplete, Gu Mo thought of the other avatar method he had devised—the Dao Seed Avatar.
If he could use the Dao Seed Avatar to supplement the External Body Incarnation, perhaps it might allow him to forge an avatar from that nail's blood.
With this thought, Gu Mo prepared to try. If he succeeded, an avatar with peerless talent would give his combat strength a tremendous boost.
But before that, two things had to be done. First, he needed to condense a Golden Core Dao Seed. That part was not difficult, only time-consuming. If he was willing to spend Sun Essence, the process could even be sped up.
The truly difficult part was the second task: separating the blood from the nail. The two were entangled, their auras balancing each other. To separate them, he would have to break that equilibrium.
It was like two top experts of equal power locked in a contest of strength, neither able to overpower the other. To split them apart required the intervention of yet another expert of equal strength.
With insufficient strength, forcing one's way in would only result in injury.
"Forget it, one step at a time."
Gu Mo knew that haste would ruin everything. With the Fenghua Sect already destroyed and that karma resolved, he was in no rush to return to Shennong Valley.
Speaking of which, his master Qi Chunde had said he would come help. But Gu Mo had already handled everything. "I'll just send him a message later so he doesn't make the trip for nothing."
Yet before Gu Mo could send his message, Qi Chunde's had already arrived. Accepting the encrypted jade slip delivered by Qi Chunde's men, Gu Mo sent his divine sense into it, and his expression instantly grew grim.
"What does Gu Mo want with me?"
Chu Feifei, who was guiding Yuan Niya's cultivation, came at once when she received Gu Mo's summons. With Chu Feifei's help these past days, Yuan Niya's foundation had been rapidly solidified, now fully on par with the prodigies of the Tianyuan Realm.
"The Tianyuan Realm is in trouble."
Gu Mo handed the jade slip to Chu Feifei.
Qi Chunde had sent the slip in hopes that Gu Mo would remain in the Qinghe cultivation world, for the Tianyuan Realm had now fallen into utter chaos.
And the root cause was the Demonic Sect—more precisely, the Nine Nether Domain.
Not long ago, the Nine Nether Domain erupted with a horrifying deathly aura, spreading almost instantly across the Demonic Sect's territory. Every disciple of the Demonic Sect, without exception, was consumed by it. Yet the righteous side found no cause for joy, for those disciples had all been transformed into even more terrifying zombies.
Nor was that all. After the deathly aura came an overwhelming tide of blood fiend energy. Mixed together, the two forces gave rise to a massive horde of zombies.
Facing the corpse tide, the righteous alliance struggled desperately to hold the line. In response, the three sects' Nascent Soul sovereigns joined forces and went into the Nine Nether Domain to investigate.
There, they encountered a zombified Demonic Sect Nascent Soul. But even after being turned, its consciousness still remained. From it, the righteous sovereigns learned the truth.
The Demonic Sect's Nascent Souls had been eroding the seal upon a headless corpse. Because the Demonic Sect had suffered heavy losses, this time they had tried to accelerate the erosion.
That was when disaster struck. When the seal was worn down to a certain limit, the headless corpse suddenly shuddered once—and all that was now happening in the Tianyuan Realm was caused by that single tremor.
"This is your own mess—clean it up yourselves!"
Learning the truth, even the righteous sovereigns were stunned. To think that such a terrifying existence lay hidden within the Tianyuan cultivation realm—a corpse of unknown antiquity, and a sealed corpse at that. Just a single tremor had unleashed calamity across the realm.
If that headless corpse were to be completely unsealed, then…
"We can't stop it."
The Myriad Blood Demon Sovereign spoke: "That headless corpse wields three forces—death aura, blood fiend energy, and vengeful souls. Two of them have already erupted. The third we barely managed to restrain. Even so, we are already entangled by wraiths. Very soon, our minds will be lost."
"Hiss~~"
Hearing the Myriad Blood Demon Sovereign's words, the righteous Nascent Souls all sucked in a breath of cold air. This meant they would soon face three Nascent Soul–level zombies.
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