Even though Ren Qing did his utmost to suppress it, he still could not prevent the soul fragment from becoming Nightmare Fiend-ized.
Before long, as the Nightmare Fiend head moved to the center, the soul fragment's original Ze Person appearance underwent an earth-shaking transformation.
A faint black mist wrapped around his entire body, like a robe of the Dao.
The soul fragment became increasingly ethereal, with not a trace of otherworldly, immortal bearing left, under the contrast of the two heads, it looked like some unspeakable monster.
However, as long as Ren Qing willed it, the Nightmare Fiend head and the Ze Immortal head could switch again, and the physique of the soul fragment would transform anew.
Crack crack crack crack...
Under the erosion of Nightmare Fiend energy, the blood vessel cavern began to writhe.
Ren Qing's expression grew grave. With such great movement, it was clear that the Daoists had become aware; footsteps immediately sounded.
He could return to the surface Qingxu Temple, but the concealment ability of Nightmare Fiend-ization was extremely strong.
Ren Qing looked around and fixed his gaze upon the shadow in the corner.
As he stepped into the darkness, the traces of Nightmare Fiend-ization completely shrouded him, leaving behind only a pair of barely perceptible eyes.
At present, the soul fragment's strength was roughly equivalent to the Yin Runner stage, but the waters of Qingxu Palace ran too deep, he could only avoid clashing head-on for now, prioritizing exploration.
Not long after, a Daoist whose movements were stiff slowly approached.
The so-called Daoists must be closely connected to Wuwei Monastery, perhaps the Qingxu Temple was under the control of its remnant forces.
The blue-green robe he wore was somewhat tattered and emitted a faint stench of rot.
Ren Qing furrowed his brows tightly. This Daoist was completely different from the ones he had seen before, it felt like a near-dead corpse.
How should he describe it? It looked like an unfinished product, and there was a strange sense of familiarity.
What shocked him most was that from the back of the Daoist's head extended a long tendril, continuously pumping transparent liquid to sustain his life force.
It seemed like a crude method of forcibly prolonging life, its purpose unknown.
The Daoist came near the Heavenly Dao Worm larva, as if merely drawn by sound, yet his intellect was too dull to notice anything amiss.
When the Daoist's line of sight turned away, Ren Qing gradually emerged from the darkness, the Nightmare Fiend aura rendered the blood vessel cavern pitch black.
Only then did the Daoist realize something, and the moment he turned his head, he saw a pair of blood-red eyes right in front of him.
"You-"
Ren Qing intended to use the Heavenly Dao Dream Seed to control him, but the soul fragment suddenly turned into black mist, its body dispersing into the air.
He immediately understood, this was likely a new change brought about by Lord of Absolute Darkness becoming his core technique, interacting with the two secondary arts.
The Daoist stammered: "You... are not Ze Person... what are you, "
The black mist pounced onto him, drilling into his eyes, ears, and mouth.
Ren Qing's awareness plunged into the Niwan Palace.
This was the ability of the Nightmare True Person, to devour an opponent's soul through dream-eating.
If his main body had used it, the Nightmare Fiend aura would directly shred the soul and bring it back to the Niwan Palace for absorption.
Unexpectedly, when the soul fragment performed it, he turned into a Nightmare Fiend and entered the Daoist's Niwan Palace instead.
"Get... out! Don't stay... in my head, "
The Daoist suddenly grew lucid, his speech becoming more coherent: "I am Qingliu Zi, core disciple of Wuwei Monastery! How dare you attack me, have you tasted the might of the Grand Celestial Dao, "
His mind was clearly unstable, babbling madly, screaming hysterically as he clutched his head with both hands.
Ren Qing's brows lifted slightly at what he heard.
Qingliu Zi?
He remembered well, back at the Doushuai Palace main hall of the Wuwei Daoist Altar, one of the tombs bore the name Qingliu Zi.
That man was indeed a disciple of Wuwei Monastery.
But since Qingliu Zi had died, how could there be one still in Qingxu Temple?
Ren Qing forcibly pressed down his thoughts; right now, he had to silence Qingliu Zi quickly before others in the visceral altar noticed.
He entered the Niwan Palace with ease, but inside was utterly dilapidated, everything gray-black and speckled with corpse spots.
The Niwan Palace of a mortal was dim; that of a cultivator was bright. Only the dead would look like this.
Ren Qing did not see Qingliu Zi's soul; instead, he found a rupture, likely where the tendril connected to the back of the head.
He could follow the tendril to its source, but to be safe, he forced control over Qingliu Zi's body and sealed the rupture.
Qingliu Zi stood still. Soon, new footsteps approached.
A middle-aged Daoist came from the depths.
His appearance was comparatively normal, his skin had a healthy red hue, movements fluid, and no tendril at the back of his head.
Ren Qing could clearly sense the aura of a Yin Runner-stage cultivator emanating from him.
The middle-aged Daoist cast a stern glance at Qingliu Zi and said, "Junior Brother Qingliu Zi."
Qingliu Zi stood stiffly. Since the tendril was blocked, he had no intelligence at all, truly like a corpse.
The middle-aged Daoist shook his head and said, "Junior Brother, you have not yet completed your rebirth. You'd best not wander around."
As he spoke, a subtle aura radiated from his body, he seemed intent on probing Qingliu Zi's condition, but soon stopped.
Seeing this, Ren Qing mimicked Qingliu Zi's tone and replied, "Understood..."
He had already prepared to hide the soul fragment within the Heavenly Dao Dream Seed at any moment.
However, the middle-aged Daoist harbored no suspicion. After a glance, he turned away, apparently, Qingliu Zi's behavior was not strange enough to warrant concern.
When Ren Qing saw the Daoist move far enough that escape was possible, the Dream Seed transformed into Double Pupils upon his forehead.
After a few breaths, he retracted the Dream Seed, already having a clear idea in mind.
Though the middle-aged Daoist appeared alive, he was merely beautiful on the outside and rotten within, his Niwan Palace, too, lacked any resident soul.
No wonder he had strength but none of the sensitivity of a true Yin Runner cultivator.
Ren Qing attempted to move the body and followed the blood vessel tunnel deeper within.
He discovered that the source was not in the liver as before but seemed to lie in the kidneys of the Meat and Wine Taoist, a completely different direction.
Along the way, Ren Qing encountered many corpse-like Daoists.
Their auras were faint, their movements purely instinctive, and only occasionally would a trace of clarity flicker in their eyes.
As the light grew dimmer, Ren Qing abandoned Qingliu Zi's body entirely, transforming into a wisp of black smoke drifting through the blood vessel tunnels.
Not long after he left the body, Qingliu Zi's head began to swell. Putrid pus seeped slowly from the orifices of his face.
Bang!!
The head exploded, and the headless corpse fell to the ground, twitching violently.
A crack split open in its chest and abdomen; the flesh within seemed to be gestating something, but after a few wriggles, it fell still.
Suddenly, the corpse was yanked by a tendril and dragged toward the source.
Ren Qing quickly followed, twisting and turning through the passages until he neared the kidneys, where a chaotic sound echoed.
He restrained his aura as much as possible and silently slipped inside.
What he saw made his scalp go numb; he couldn't help but suck in a sharp breath, completely beyond his expectations.
He had thought it would be one of the Wuwei Daoist Altar's structures, but instead, the kidney had been completely hollowed out.
More precisely, because the lower body of the Meat and Wine Taoist had been torn apart, over ninety percent of the kidney was gone, only a tenth remained.
The surrounding area was like an abyss, connecting directly to the wound of the stomach.
Corpses piled like mountains along the kidney walls, and a deep pit had been dug among them.
The tendrils of the corpse-Daoists all stretched into the pit, seemingly absorbing some kind of nutrient.
Tens of thousands of corpses, all Daoists.
Ren Qing counted dozens of Qingliu Zi corpses, every one decayed to death.
In just the time for one cup of tea, a new Qingliu Zi crawled out of the pit, then stumbled blankly away through the blood tunnels.
Ren Qing immediately understood.
The corpses were connected by tendrils, fed by the Heavenly Dao Worm, was this not a Tombstone Furnace?
He crept to the edge of the pit and found that it was not filled with blood, but with crystal-clear liquor, an entire lake of it.
At the bottom of the lake was a cocoon containing a gigantic Heavenly Dao Worm larva.
The Heavenly Dao Worm absorbed the liquor, then used its tendrils to feed the Daoists.
Ren Qing couldn't help but exclaim inwardly, no matter how powerful one was, even at the Heavenly Abomination stage, without consciousness, such an ending was inevitable.
The Meat and Wine Taoist had wanted to use liquor to sustain his vitality, but the Daoists had hijacked it, like barnacles parasitizing a whale.
If the Daoists' method of "rebirth" mirrored the Tombstone Furnace, then this so-called "completion of form"...
Ren Qing quickly examined the corpses and found that a few indeed showed signs of gestating new life, meaning that only after absorbing vast amounts of liquor would the Tombstone Furnace birth true Daoists.
In simple terms, new Daoists emerged from within the corpse-Daoists that served as the Tombstone Furnace.
Thus, the Daoists were essentially fleshly magic tools, no wonder they had no souls and such strange bodies.
Ren Qing narrowed his eyes.
Daoists with such dull minds could never have refined large-scale Tombstone Furnaces on their own. There must still be a living human within Qingxu Temple.
That person had to be a disciple of Wuwei Monastery, one of the only survivors.
He had likely once served in the Fire Refining Palace; thus, he possessed the methods of crafting the Tombstone Furnace.
While Ren Qing was pondering, the corpse-Daoists around him suddenly stepped aside, silently retreating to the corners.
The middle-aged Daoist arrived at the wine pool.
He raised a hand and tapped the crown of his head, liquor immediately seeped out, turning into a torrential downpour that fell into the pool.
When the pool was filled to the brim, the middle-aged Daoist muttered to himself, "Not enough Ze People... it's almost time to notify the lower realm's Ascension..."
Then, the middle-aged Daoist vanished.
Ren Qing knew his guess was correct, the surviving disciple of Wuwei Monastery was obsessively trying to rebuild the sect.
He had gone so far as to refine the corpses of his fallen brothers into Daoists through the Tombstone Furnace.
The problem was, Wuwei Monastery had over two thousand disciples. To sustain them required vast quantities of liquor, liquor brewed only from Ze People.
Now that Ren Qing understood the situation within Qingxu Temple, he wasted no time.
He immediately used Sun Feather to notify Li Tiangang, instructing him to secretly begin operations to bring all of Yellow Sand City under the control of the Restraint Officers' Hall.
Heavenly Daozi had only about one year of lifespan left; Qingxu Palace likely had only around a hundred fully formed Daoists, far short of two thousand.
Thus, Qingxu Temple would inevitably grow more extreme, even draining the pond to catch the fish.
Ren Qing's soul fragment dove into the wine pool, swimming toward the bottom.
The cocoon was close by. After being forged as part of the Tombstone Furnace, it had long lost consciousness, now like a walking corpse.
Ren Qing released a trace of Nightmare Fiend aura, leaving it within the pool.
If something went wrong later, this hidden measure might prove useful.
He then prepared to check on Li Yaoyang and afterward rendezvous with the Nether Crow.