Chen Zhou examined the two inheritances. Faith Conferment was a powerful martial art, while Cloud Sea Resplendence was the foundation for his safety and survival.
The woman was right; in this world where gods and Buddhas were all fiends and the Heavenly Dao was turbid, he first needed to hide himself well.
Chen Zhou rose from the Nine-Skull Throne, his bone ring flashing with a faint light.
It was time for this city, along with himself, to temporarily vanish from the chessboard of this world.
His divine path authority activated, and in an instant, Chen Zhou’s own destiny and heavenly secrets became chaotic and blurred.
At the same time, above the City of the Wrongfully Dead, the sky grew dim.
The spiritual rhythm and auspicious aura that had gathered because of the Gathering Fortune Pavilion were forced down. A cold wind rose from nowhere, sweeping through every corner of the city.
The sky turned a dismal gray, and the cries of ghosts echoed one after another within the city walls.
This sudden Heaven and Earth Phenomenon threw the city into an immediate frenzy.
Countless citizens rushed out of their houses, their faces flushed with excitement as they knelt on the ground, kowtowing frantically toward the Bone Altar.
"The Bone God has manifested!"
"I knew it! We are the holy City of the Wrongfully Dead, and our lord is the supreme existence who governs death! This sight is the blessing bestowed upon us by the Bone God!"
The Gathering Fortune Pavilion, the center of the city's fortune, felt the most intense impact. The leaves of the unaging pine shook with excitement, and the Wanshou Tortoise poked its head out from the bottom of the pool, curiously breathing in the cold air.
"Carp... the carp!"
Jiu'er's shout caught the attention of the two old geezers.
In the Pool of Fortune and Longevity, those few Heaven-Blessed Dragon Carp actually began to spew thick black mist. The mist was as dark as ink, rapidly staining the pool water black.
The great elder of the Corpse Soul Sect, leaning on his cane, hobbled out with a skip in his step. He rushed to the edge of the pool, watching the dragon carp swimming through the black mist, and wept tears of joy.
"Hahaha! The Heavenly Dao is heartless; it treats all things like straw dogs! Our cultivation has always been an act of defying heaven!"
"Golden light? That is merely a shackle imposed by a decaying heaven!"
"The Bone God’s power is boundless! He has forcibly severed the karmic ties between these dragon carp and this world, allowing them to shed their disguises and return to their true nature!"
"Black mist—this is the true auspicious color belonging to my lord!"
"From this day forward, we believe only in the Bone God and respect not the heavens!"
The great elder's wild words brought realization to several family heads who had come for the pilgrimage.
"May the Bone God live forever!!"
"This is a sign of great fortune! Our City of the Wrongfully Dead shall be shrouded in dust for eternity and never enter reincarnation!"
Panic? It didn't exist.
To a crowd of fanatical evil god believers, the more eerie and closer to death something was, the more auspicious it felt.
Chen Zhou clearly felt the web of fortune above the City of the Wrongfully Dead vanish completely. From this moment on, no one in this world could calculate even a shred of heavenly secrets regarding the city, himself, or any of his believers.
He glanced down at his panel.
【One of your Shallow Believers has experienced a faith sublimation, becoming a Devout Believer.】
【Evil God Points +100】
【One of your General Believers has experienced a faith sublimation, becoming a True Believer.】
【Evil God Points +20】
...
Chen Zhou: "..."
Even this works?
He withdrew his gaze, no longer bothering to understand the logic of these believers.
"The heavenly secrets are hidden."
"In that case, it’s time to see my other capable general."
His gaze shifted to the deepest part of the City of the Wrongfully Dead, toward the meditation room prepared for Piao.
The meditation room was underground. There was no light, and every trace of aura was isolated. In the center of the room, a chrysalis made of copper-colored insect armor floated quietly.
The massive amount of copper poison, the origin of the Locust Mother, the broken divinity of gluttony... all the violent energies were now entirely internalized.
Crack.
A soft sound echoed as a fissure opened on the shell of the chrysalis. Then, more cracks spread like a spiderweb. Soon, the shell shattered, and a swarm of copper-colored locusts poured out, landing on the ground and gradually forming a human shape.
It was a woman, tall and slender, with skin as white as snow and copper-yellow hair that fell to her ankles. Her features were no longer a strange human-insect hybrid; she had fully transformed into a human form with an extreme, eerie beauty. One of her eyes was as black as ink, while the other was a flickering, hungry dark-gold vertical pupil.
She was Piao.
A new existence born from the fusion of the Locust Mother's origin, the resentment of starving ghosts, endless copper poison, and the divinity of gluttony.
Everything she had consumed was now fully digested. Her humanity had suppressed all violent desires, becoming the dominant force. The first transformation of eerification was complete.
Piao slowly opened her eyes. As she had digested the Locust Mother, the memories that had been suppressed for thousands of years were imprinted into her sea of consciousness.
She saw it. She saw a giant insect born from the origin of famine in the world. It had no concept of good or evil, only following the cycle of natural disasters—wherever it went, all things withered, only to welcome new life amidst the silence.
Until that day, a group of monks wearing golden cassocks found her.
"Amitabha."
Those monks looked merciful and solemn. They called her a "karmic sin," yet claimed she possessed great destiny and should become a guardian of the Buddhist Sect. They did not kill her on the spot because they needed a vessel, a pill furnace that could carry their ambitions.
"In this world’s cultivation, the sixth-stage Three Transformations of Eerification is an insurmountable chasm. Each transformation causes the mind to sink and the body to deform; since ancient times, no one has crossed it."
"Only our Aspect of All Beings secret dharma—imitating the ancient Buddha who cut his flesh to feed the eagle—using all living beings as firewood, can refine our Golden-Bodied Arhat!"
In the memory, the leading old monk spoke with a gentle voice, personally capturing the Locust Mother and suppressing her beneath the ground of Kushi County. That towering Soul-Suppressing Tower was not meant to suppress a great demon at all, but to gather pills.
They began to toss medicinal ingredients into this cauldron. The first ingredient was the endless resentment of those who had starved to death. For countless years around Kushi County, those who died of hunger or injustice because of the Locust Mother were forcibly gathered and poured into the Locust Mother’s origin.
"Not enough, it’s still not enough!"
"The power of famine is too overbearing; resentment alone cannot neutralize it. The golden body is not pure."
Thus, they brought in the second medicinal ingredient: copper poison.
Human flesh and blood served as the nursery for the copper poison. The founding master of the Corpse Soul Sect, Mo Tianji, was originally a righteous cultivator. To protect his land, he was forced into a corner. The monks of the Aspect of All Beings promised him that as long as he cooperated with the pill refining, they would ensure the safety of Kushi County.
Mo Tianji did not know the truth. He thought he was using a necessary sacrifice to trade for long-term peace. He began to collect human flesh and blood to maintain the operation of the Soul-Suppressing Tower.
Famine, resentment, copper poison. The three forces churned violently beneath the Soul-Suppressing Tower. Meanwhile, the monks chanted sutras atop the tower, attempting to use Buddhist dharma to forcibly transform this pot of filthy stew into the Golden-Bodied Arhat they desired.
The Locust Mother eventually became a key source of poison in the Aspect of All Beings' cultivation system, but unfortunately, she did not align with the old monk’s compatibility.
"Since she cannot be used by me, let her become nourishment to aid my disciples' cultivation."
In the memory, the old monk finally struck personally, sealing Smiling Face into the Locust Mother’s body. Then, he set up poison fields across the various provinces, using Soul-Suppressing Towers as array eyes. Kushi County, Thousand Isles County, and even those bronze dead cities Chen Zhou had encountered in the secret realms... were all his handiwork.
The purpose of the Soul-Suppressing Towers was to continuously process the original power of various demons into copper poison and distribute it to the disciples of the Aspect of All Beings. These disciples would then use the copper poison to contaminate and parasitize other powerful demons, forging their own Arhat bodies. And in the end, all disciples would become his blood-food, allowing him to achieve an even higher realm.
The entire world had become the old monk's jar for raising venomous insects.
And what about Piao herself? She was the very first ingredient tossed into the cauldron: the resentment of the starved. But in that twisted fusion, she had miraculously clung to a sliver of the Locust Mother's most primitive origin. Just before the copper poison had fully formed, she had been expelled.
She was like a drop of waste residue discarded by an alchemist. Her coincidental birth was merely the most insignificant scrap of a meticulously planned conspiracy.
As the memories were digested, the aura around Piao completely stabilized. She raised her hands, looking at her flawless skin and feeling the surge of power. In the next moment, she turned into a swarm of locusts and vanished.
Outside the Hall of Talent Cultivation, the sunlight was pleasant. After the earlier auspicious sign, the cold winds in the city had dispersed, and everything had returned to order—becoming even more stable than before.
Ugly Hag sat on the threshold, holding a new scroll and reading quietly. A large group of children from the city were in the nearby clearing, following the methods Lu Cheng had taught them to build bone blocks.
Piao appeared before Ugly Hag.
Ugly Hag slowly raised her head, looking at her daughter, who had become somewhat unfamiliar. "Mother," Piao’s voice was very soft.
Ugly Hag put down the scroll and revealed a gentle smile. "You’re back. It seems you’ve finished digesting everything. You’ve even become beautiful. That’s good."
Piao nodded. She sat down silently beside Ugly Hag, leaning against the doorframe. After a long silence, she spoke. "Mother, I remember now."
"I want to kill them."
Ugly Hag wasn't surprised. She simply reached out her paper hand and gently stroked Piao’s long hair. "And then?"
"Kill them to avenge those who died from the copper poison. To avenge Father and Brother." A flame of hatred burned in Piao’s dark-gold vertical pupil.
"I am gratified that you have this heart, but hatred is like a wildfire. No matter how brightly it burns, it will eventually go out. I don't want you to lose yourself in it."
Ugly Hag handed her the scroll. "Silly girl, look."
"The sounds of reading echo in the Hall of Talent Cultivation. The sound of axes ringing comes from the lumberyard. The green sprouts grow in the fields."
"In this city, everyone is in their place, performing their duties and living in peace. This is called order."
Ugly Hag looked at her calmly. "Your true hatred stems from the lack of order in this world. It is the lack of order that allowed things like the copper poison to spread disaster at will without anyone to stop them."
"I won't preach grand principles to you. I only want to tell you that in Huangshawo, we had no order, so we could only wait for death."
"But here, we have the Bone God."
Ugly Hag looked toward the Bone Altar with a steadfast gaze. "Go and help him. He is the god who can bring order to this world."
Piao only half-understood. But she didn't need to understand everything. She only needed to know that her mother was right. Her mother wanted her to do this.
"I understand, Mother."
Piao stood up and bowed deeply to Ugly Hag. She was no longer that monster child. She was now the protector of the City of the Wrongfully Dead.
"I will be the blade of order in my lord's hand."
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