In the heart of this chaos, Piao suddenly let out a low growl of agony, her hands clutching her head tightly.
Her face shifted violently between human and insect, looking like a torn canvas.
A call from deep within her bloodline, carrying an irresistible attraction, drove her to respond, to devour.
Opening her mouth and following her instincts, she began to actively consume the copper poison permeating the surroundings.
The copper poison did not harm her as it entered her body; instead, it acted like a sweet dew, nourishing the dormant power within her.
Piao’s heterochromatic eyes grew increasingly eerie as the copper poison flowed into her.
As her strength grew, a kind figure in her mind became clearer.
It was the rough palm of the Ugly Hag stroking her forehead; it was the warmth of relying on each other under a simple roof; it was the repeated, tireless assurance that Piao was a good child.
"Mother..." Piao murmured unconsciously, then shook her head violently.
This was not the scent of her mother.
Losing the support of the resentful souls within the Soul-Refining Furnace and the continuous sacrifice of the natal malevolent ghost, the power of the Myriad Ghost Dragon-Suppressing Array rapidly declined.
One talisman after another dimmed until they finally disintegrated completely with a crisp crack.
"Boom!"
Amidst an earth-shattering roar, the Soul-Suppressing Tower could no longer withstand the impact of the resentful souls' power. It began to crack from the base, huge fissures spreading wildly until it finally collapsed before everyone's eyes.
Dust shot into the sky, and rubble rained down.
From beneath the ruins, a copper-colored torrent gushed forth.
Countless copper-colored plague locusts, fine as grains of sand, blanketed the sky and ground. They instantly spread in all directions, causing vegetation to wither and all life to be extinguished wherever they passed.
In the midst of that lethal copper hue, a figure slowly emerged.
It was a hunched peasant woman dressed in tattered burlap.
Her face was tightly covered by withered hands, and her head was bowed low as she let out bursts of sorrowful sobbing.
However, when a ray of light pierced through the dust and fell upon her hunched frame, the shadow cast upon the ground was that of a giant insect with multiple segments, waving sickle-like forelimbs.
That was the great fiend suppressed for five hundred years—the Locust Mother.
"My daughter... Piao..."
The Locust Mother’s call caused an uncontrollable desire for gluttony to sprout in the minds of everyone present.
It was like a soul-deep thirst, driving them to gnaw on everything they saw, never satisfied.
"Argh!"
The few remaining Corpse Soul Sect disciples were quickly overcome by bloodshot veins in their eyes. They began to bite their own arms like madmen.
Flesh was torn away, and white bone was faintly visible, yet they seemed oblivious, as if their own limbs were the most delicious delicacies in the world.
Others rushed toward the nearby knocking ghost, tearing at its remains with their bare hands, desperately stuffing the rotten meat into their mouths.
More disciples attacked each other, biting and rending the bodies of their former fellow disciples. The scene instantly transformed into a living purgatory.
However, amidst this chaos and madness, Jian Huaishuang’s sea of consciousness remained exceptionally clear.
It wasn't that the desire for gluttony had not struck him.
He simply felt a stir from the Bone Seed planted in his sea of consciousness by the Bone God himself, and a divine whisper seemed to echo in his ears.
'Steady your heart.'
A power like a clear spring instantly washed through Jian Huaishuang’s sea of consciousness, suppressing the restless desire for gluttony and returning his mind to a state of peace.
His gaze locked onto the center of the ruins, where the hunched peasant woman was slowly walking toward Piao.
"My daughter... you finally answered your mother’s call..." the Locust Mother’s voice was sorrowful.
"You are not her."
Piao clutched her head in pain, her body trembling violently. Her insect face was hideously distorted, and in her heterochromatic eyes, one half was a struggle for reason, while the other was primal hunger.
The Locust Mother’s voice burrowed into her brain, awakening the instincts buried deep within her bloodline.
But Piao gritted her teeth and repeated firmly, "You are not her!"
She remembered the Ugly Hag teaching her to smile when she was happy and cry when she was sad. She remembered the hands that held hers tightly even while in a coma before they left.
That warmth was fundamentally different from the call in her bloodline at this moment.
"Come, return to your mother’s embrace. Once we become one, we shall have eternal satiety..." The Locust Mother reached out a withered hand, stepping forward one pace at a time.
Wherever she passed, the earth was left with trails of mucus, which then turned to sand and became desolate.
The voices of bewitchment were incessant.
Piao’s struggle reached its peak.
She remembered the times she had secretly watched human mothers and daughters interact, learning their posture for hugging. She remembered awkwardly imitating a human smile just to make the Ugly Hag happy.
Those fragmented memories collided violently with the call in her bloodline, nearly tearing her apart.
"You are not... You are NOT!!"
Piao’s voice carried a sob—a human cry she had practiced countless times, but now it was stained with genuine agony.
However, the power of the bewitchment was too strong.
She felt her consciousness being devoured by primal hunger. Those human emotions she had worked so hard to learn were dissipating bit by bit.
"No!"
Piao let out a shrill shriek and snapped her head up. Her pupils were completely consumed by insect eyes.
The last of her reason snapped like a broken string, and predatory instinct took over everything.
Her body rapidly mutated; the insect face covered her entire countenance, and her mouthparts became sharp as blades.
That half-face of exquisite beauty vanished completely, replaced by a perfect insect form.
"Roar!"
She lunged at the Locust Mother like a predator, her sharp mouthparts tearing and biting savagely.
In this moment, she was no longer the monster learning human emotions, but had returned to being a primal existence.
The Locust Mother seemed completely unsurprised by this; in fact, it could be said that this was exactly what she had hoped for.
She offered no resistance as her tattered burlap clothes were shredded by Piao’s tearing.
The Locust Mother lowered the hands that had been concealing her face, revealing her true form.
It wasn't a face at all. Her entire facial area was a locust compound eye structured in the shape of a lotus pedestal, composed of countless hexagonal facets.
Within every single facet, a hungry and distorted human face was reflected. Those faces wailed silently, filled with torment.
The arms beneath the burlap were made of countless densely packed mouths lined with sharp teeth, each mouth opening and closing as they writhed.
The Locust Mother embraced Piao, the mouths on her arms tearing and biting greedily.
The two seemed to be engaged in a cruel act of mutual devouring, yet it also seemed like a fusion that would only end in death.
Not far away, Mo Yuan endured the intense pain, leaning against a ruined wall and gasping for breath.
Under the dual torment of the souls biting him and the external chaos, he forcibly clawed back a sliver of clarity.
Mo Yuan looked at the elders whose flesh had withered and whose life force was nearly spent. He looked at Piao, who was biting and being bitten by the Locust Mother, and at Jian Huaishuang, who was striving to help the remaining disciples regain their senses.
He then looked up at the sky, where dark clouds were churning and thunder was flickering, gathered there because of his karmic sins.
"The accumulation of karmic sin isn't enough... Heavenly might cannot be easily fooled... but... there's no more time..."
A look of resolve flashed in Mo Yuan's eyes. He had no choice but to use his final trump card.
He no longer cared about the pain of being devoured by the souls within him, nor did he continue to suppress the karma and sins he had accumulated over the years.
"Boom!"
A pillar of black sin, dark as ink and condensed from the wails of countless souls, was released from within Mo Yuan, shooting into the sky and piercing the clouds!
He could only use his sin-laden body as the final fuel to forcibly trigger the Punishing Lightning Tribulation.
Using this broken husk as a lure, he would annihilate the demon that brought chaos to the world along with his own sinful self.
Up in the heavens, sensing the soaring karmic sin, the dark clouds boiled and thunder roared!
The majestic heavenly might condensed, and an aura of destruction enveloped the world.
Mo Yuan took one last look at this land he had vowed to protect since the day he took over as Sect Master, yet was ultimately powerless to save.
There was no fear in his eyes, only relief.
"With this broken husk, I shall cleanse this evil..."
He laughed aloud, his laughter carrying a sense of liberation and lack of regret as he resolutely faced the destructive lightning that represented the punishment of heaven and earth!
"Everyone, Mo Yuan shall go on ahead!"
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