Deep within the Dead Man’s Forest, outside the City of the Wrongfully Dead.
The once silent and eerie forest had been completely upended.
Hundreds of Bone Ghost Servants, acting like tireless worker ants, used their razor-sharp claws to tear into the earth.
Dirt flew and ancient trees toppled as area after area was forcibly excavated, revealing the dark bedrock beneath.
Chen Zhou floated in mid-air, his wide white robes remaining perfectly still in the forest breeze as he looked down at the ploughed earth.
Xing Yue stood stiffly to the side, clutching an ancient compass in his hand.
It was his identification as a Blackwater Guard, but also the key artifact for tracking copper poison.
At this moment, the needle at the center of the compass emitted a faint bronze glow, pointing toward a specific area underground.
Xing Yue's face was pale. His body was completely out of his control under the influence of Chen Zhou's Bone Erosion; his arm was as steady as a rock, precisely guiding the skeleton army.
Xing Yue’s mind was a mess of conflicting emotions. He didn’t know if entrusting the resolution of the copper poison to an evil spirit would lead to an even greater disaster.
But he had no choice.
He felt like a prisoner sealed within his own shell, forced to watch his body act against his will, unable to muster even a single thought of resistance.
The skeletons were highly efficient. As they dug through the earth piece by piece, they soon discovered something abnormal.
In one of the deep pits, the bottom was not solid bedrock. Instead, it revealed a stone chamber clearly carved by hand.
The interior of the stone chamber followed an inverted spiral structure, with the top disappearing deeper into the ground, resembling a high tower buried upside down.
The stone itself was an ominous grayish-black, its surface covered in blurred talismans that bore some resemblance to those on the Soul-Suppressing Tower in Kushi County.
Wisps of bronze-colored gas were constantly leaking from the gaps in the stone chamber's spiral structure, carrying that familiar sweet and decaying scent.
It was the copper poison!
"As I thought."
Chen Zhou had sensed something was wrong before.
Although the copper poison in Qudao County was potent, its infectivity wasn't as aggressive as in Kushi County, nor had it caused large-scale water depletion or total desertification of the land.
The poisons shared a source, but their manifestations differed.
Chen Zhou had previously doubted the reliability of Xing Yue's information.
Otherwise, if Kushi County was already in a terminal state, how could Qudao County—where the Dead Man’s Forest, the supposed source of the poison, was located—be so peaceful?
It seemed now that the sources for the two were likely different.
This inverted stone tower beneath the Dead Man’s Forest served a similar purpose to the Soul-Suppressing Tower in Kushi County; it was likely used to 'suppress' something.
Artificial traces were everywhere... and this was no small undertaking.
Chen Zhou tried to project his sea of consciousness into the stone chamber, only to find that the grayish-black stone effectively blocked his investigation.
He then split off a thread of death qi, extending it inward like a tentacle.
When the death qi touched the copper poison on the stone chamber's surface, it let out a sizzling sound, easily purifying it.
However, before the death qi could penetrate even ten feet deep, it encountered a powerful repulsive force, as if it had slammed into an invisible wall, unable to advance further.
'There is a restriction, and it is not weak.'
Chen Zhou understood.
He had originally intended to use the power of his Ghost Domain to forcibly pull this entire area, along with the inverted stone tower, into his own territory and then dismantle it through brute force.
With his current strength as an Abnormal Grade evil spirit, combined with the home-field advantage of his Ghost Domain, no matter how sturdy the tower was, he was confident he could flip it upside down.
He could have purified all the copper poison with his death qi.
However, just moments before he acted, he saw a scene unfolding beneath the ruins of the Soul-Suppressing Tower in Kushi County through the soul link established by the Bone Seed in Jian Huaishuang.
Beneath the Soul-Suppressing Tower was the fiend Locust Mother, and inside the Locust Mother was the Smiling Face monk. It was like a set of nesting dolls.
The monk even seemed to be an old acquaintance of White Jade?
Chen Zhou's gaze fell back upon the inverted stone tower beneath his feet.
"A big fish has been hooked."
He had thought he was merely dealing with an anomaly in his territory, but following the trail had seemingly involved a much larger power.
Kushi County suppressed the Locust Mother, who hid a smiling monk inside her.
Then what was suppressed beneath this Dead Man’s Forest? Was there a similar monk hidden inside as well?
Was this part of what White Jade and Smiling Face referred to as the 'descent of the Golden Buddha'?
With a thought, he summoned the system panel that only he could see.
【Offering Cooldown: 00:12:47】
The cooldown required to sacrifice White Jade was almost over.
The original plan was to sacrifice this unstable element immediately after the cooldown ended in exchange for a rich reward, ending the problem once and for all.
But now, he had changed his mind.
If there really was an entity like the 'Locust Mother' suppressed beneath this inverted stone tower, and if there was a 'monk' inside it as well...
Then, would the harvest be even greater if he sacrificed a complete set?
Especially that Smiling Face—he looked far more nutritious than White Jade.
After weighing his options, Chen Zhou signaled Jian Huaishuang to stop resisting and let White Jade out.
...
Kushi County, ruins of the Soul-Suppressing Tower.
Facing the violent attack of countless slimy meat strips controlled by White Jade, the Smiling Face monk remained standing still, the perfect arc of his compassionate smile never wavering.
"An unrefined evil spirit. You have the form, but no spirit."
He shook his head slightly as if in pity.
Inside his head, which bloomed like a lotus, human faces were packed together densely. Every single face was smiling, their lips moving as they silently recited scriptures.
When White Jade's meat strips touched those smiling faces...
A series of grand, solemn, yet strangely joyful sounds of Brahma chanting erupted from all the smiling faces at once.
The sound didn't seem to travel through the air, but rather echoed directly within the soul.
A golden light burst forth!
However, it was not a peaceful Buddhist light, but a brilliant golden radiance tinged with something sinister.
The golden light felt physical, transforming into countless tiny golden Sanskrit characters that flowed back up the meat strips!
"What?!"
White Jade’s eerie smile instantly froze, replaced by a flash of horror.
He felt that wherever those golden Sanskrit characters passed, the meat strips he had painstakingly refined were rapidly dismantled and purified, as if they had met their natural nemesis.
Jian Huaishuang’s body was at the fifth-stage Essence Devouring stage. Such a high-level vessel naturally boosted the strength of White Jade as the parasite.
But the meat strips that were usually tough enough to strike artifacts head-on now dissolved like wax in a fire under the joyful Brahma chanting and golden Sanskrit characters.
"Argh—!"
The pain originating from the depths of his soul caused White Jade to let out a muffled groan of agony.
He tried to sever his connection with the meat strips, but found that the Brahma chanting followed him like a shadow, surging through the energy link to strike directly at his core consciousness.
"Heh... heh..." Within the split smiling face of the monk, his tone remained kind. "Little ghost, look..."
"An Arhat's body, if it cannot be modified to be compatible with oneself, is nothing more than a child swinging a heavy weapon they cannot handle. You have the form, but lack the spirit. How can you cultivate higher Buddhist arts and glimpse the realm of the True Buddha?"
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