It had already been some time since Hu Wen and the other demonic beasts went to Bottomless Pit. Under the erosion of the Heavenly Demon aura, even the surface vegetation had been affected.
The trees became increasingly bizarre, their branches composed of vortex-shaped holes; at first glance they looked like twisted, deformed goat horns.
The demonic beasts inhabiting the surrounding area all developed strange mutations, beginning to resemble goats in form, with hollow expressions revealed in their eyes.
The thorn thicket at the cave entrance transformed into blood-vessel-like structures. Just as a demonic beast approached, it was immediately tightly entangled by the thorns and quickly turned into a skeleton.
Very clearly, the Heavenly Demon aura was able to form a unique ecological system, and the scope of its influence seemed to radiate outward continuously.
In the depths of Bottomless Pit.
The stone walls seeped black smoke-like Heavenly Demon aura, mixed together with severed limbs.
Black goats stood dazed in various parts of the cave, their pitch-black gazes seeming capable of stealing souls.
From time to time, chewing sounds rang out, pushing the horrific atmosphere to its extreme.
"We're still alive..."
A hoarse voice echoed within the limestone cave, causing many black goats to rotate their pupils and stare fixedly at the source of the sound.
After Hu Wen awoke, he only felt his mouth dry and tongue parched. The throbbing pain in his head made him support his forehead, and he immediately realized his body temperature was abnormally high.
"Cough cough cough cough..."
He began coughing violently, vomiting large amounts of black cotton-like matter from his stomach.
This was by no means a good sign, indicating that under the influence of the Heavenly Demon aura, his body was being gradually eroded and was on the verge of collapse.
"I wonder if I managed to go to Immortal's Dream just now..."
Thinking of the world-shaking divine abilities displayed by the demon immortal, a trace of hope involuntarily appeared in his eyes, but it soon dimmed again.
Demonic beasts regarded low-realm members of their own kind as ants, on what grounds would a demon immortal intervene?
Hu Wen groped about in the pitch-black darkness.
When he found the extinguished torch that had fallen not far away, he could not help but let out a long breath, his expression becoming one of relief.
He lit the torch with the flint he carried, and the light dispersed part of the darkness.
Looking up.
Before his eyes was endless Heavenly Demon aura. Although the fungal tree had protected his life, it clearly could not hold on much longer.
The surface of the fungal tree was pitted and uneven, with hundreds of twisted goat faces emerging.
Hu Wen looked at his exposed skin, which had already grown a layer of short black fur; he could even feel horn-like protrusions at his temples.
If nothing unexpected happened, he would soon degenerate into a black goat.
At this moment, Hu Wen inexplicably felt sorrow, why, under the influence of the Heavenly Demon aura, did demonic beasts not have even the slightest ability to resist?
The originally powerful Bottomless Pit had, without any warning, turned into a nest of black goats.
"Mm... save me..."
He heard a faint call from not far away and immediately struggled over, quickly finding Jin Mao in the same condition.
Hu Wen pulled Jin Mao to the side of the fungal tree, and the latter soon woke up.
After regaining consciousness, Jin Mao was filled with despair. He repeatedly smashed his head against the fungal tree, blood dripping down from his goat horns onto the ground.
Hu Wen viciously slapped Jin Mao several times, then ignored him, continuing to search for the other demonic beasts with the torch.
Under the illumination of the torch, they soon discovered the dying Zhang Yi, but all the pupils covering his body had turned completely black.
The fox demon was not so fortunate. He had been too far from the fungal tree, and could not endure the process of transforming into a black goat, leaving behind only a puddle of pus.
The three demonic beasts leaned against the fungal tree, molding a clay statue of the demon immortal and placing it before them, all having already accepted the reality of their impending deaths.
Jin Mao gasped for breath and asked, "Hu Wen, didn't I say matters involving immortals shouldn't be touched?"
Hu Wen replied calmly, "The opportunity was right in front of us. Dying because of it is simply bad luck, there's nothing to complain about."
"Indeed, bad luck."
"Do you think the demon immortal will come to Bottomless Pit..."
Hu Wen and the other demon looked toward Zhang Yi, who sensibly closed his mouth.
Thinking about it, there was not the slightest possibility.
The status of demonic beasts in Jingzhou was rather awkward. Although aberrant horrors were in a state of slumber, they still needed to devour large amounts of demonic beast flesh every day.
Ordinary demonic beasts without intelligence were completely unable to satisfy the appetites of the aberrant horrors.
Demonic beasts had no choice but to feed their own kind to the aberrant horrors, and over time this led to a distorted value system among demonic beasts regarding their own species.
"If I can survive, I never want to return to Qingqiu again. I want to find a place to explore the Great Dao and go into seclusion to cultivate immortal arts..."
Hu Wen stopped speaking halfway through, because bringing unrealistic hope would only make it harder to face death later.
Meanwhile, Jin Mao plunged his sharp claws into his brow and chose to commit suicide in despair.
Just as Zhang Yi was about to stuff the corpse beneath the fungal tree, he suddenly heard the sound of the corpse moving.
The stench of blood rushed straight into his nose.
Hu Wen's pupils shrank as he recalled the mountain of corpses he had seen earlier, as well as the strange patterns carved all around the stone walls.
He threw the torch into the darkness, and sure enough, he saw a flesh-formed altar.
The altar was clearly used to summon the descent of a demon immortal, but since it was composed of Heavenly Demon aura, what kind of indescribable thing would it call forth?
As Zhang Yi watched the light disappear with the torch, his mind descended into madness and he was about to rush into the darkness, but Hu Wen grabbed him tightly.
Hu Wen began muttering to himself, his mind clearly collapsing: "I want to go to Immortal's Dream, I want to go to Immortal's Dream..."
His words abruptly stopped, because at the moment the torch was about to go out, violent movement suddenly came from above their heads, or rather, from the ground surface.
At this moment, the black goats rioted, crazily charging toward the direction of the fungal tree.
Hu Wen and the other demon felt their skin grow itchy as uncontrollable black fur sprouted all over their bodies, and the sounds from their mouths turned into bleating.
There was nothing more terrifying than gradually becoming an unknown existence.
Even death was no more than that.
Yet it was as if they sensed something.
The expressions of the two demons calmed down. Ignoring the mutation of their bodies, they instead looked toward the distance with the gaze of pilgrims.
Flames ignited upon the corpses in the limestone cave.
Already desiccated flesh almost ignited the moment it met open fire, filling the cave with thick, choking smoke and dust.
A figure walked into the cave.
"Demon immortal above."
Ren Qing's appearance completely overturned their understanding of the law of the jungle.
The ghost shadow opened a mouth tens of meters wide, and the Heavenly Demon aura poured into it like a tidal wave. The loss of control from the two demons' mutations was also suppressed.
It was only a pity that Jin Mao had chosen to end his life at the final moment.
The severed limbs on the stone walls converged toward Ren Qing, attempting to completely erase him, only to be entirely digested by the ghost shadow.
However, the source of the Heavenly Demon aura still existed, causing the severed limbs to continuously regenerate, their aura growing ever stronger.
Within a short time, the severed limbs already showed signs of black-goat transformation, and ordinary sharp weapons were long unable to pierce their flesh.
Seeing this, a drop of blood the size of a soybean appeared at the tip of Ren Qing's index finger. He casually flicked it onto the stone wall, and piercing screams rang out.
The blood seemed to possess corrosive properties, rapidly spreading across the stone wall, dissolving the severed limbs and exposing ghastly white bones.
In the eyes of Hu Wen and the other demon, the demon immortal's blood was no less terrifying than the Heavenly Demon aura.
Ren Qing was somewhat satisfied. He had applied *Dragon Roar Within the Casket* to his blood; outwardly nothing seemed special, but in reality the blood was composed of countless pseudo-dragons.
However, the lifespan of blood pseudo-dragons was extremely short, and within a few breaths they completely perished.
His main purpose was to test the resistance of pseudo-dragons to the Heavenly Demon aura. The facts proved that pseudo-dragons possessed some of the characteristics of Heavenly Dao worms.
Back then, even Heavenly Daozi, who had completely transformed into a black goat, had not affected the mutation of the Heavenly Dao worms, showing that the latter indeed did not fear the Heavenly Demon aura.
Ren Qing no longer held back.
The moment his right foot stepped out, the ghost shadow covered several thousand meters, enveloping nearly half of Bottomless Pit.
Once again, it devoured the Heavenly Demon aura like a whale swallowing water.
Ren Qing used this opportunity to observe the ghost shadow, doing his best to maintain the stability of the underground cave so it would not collapse.
The ghost shadow still appeared in the form of a shadow, but due to the four secondary techniques, it had already formed unique flesh and bones.
Once he advanced to No-Birth Immortal, when all aberrant entities fully fused into one, it was hard to imagine what kind of monster would be born...
True dragon? Heavenly Dao worm? Shadow? White bones and flesh?
As the Heavenly Demon aura poured into Eternal Shackles, the demon market began to expand. The streets gradually widened, and the flesh-transformation became increasingly apparent.
If one looked toward the demon market from Wine Lake Island, the black smoke drifting in midair had already taken on the appearance of black goats, appearing incomparably ferocious.
Hu Wen and Zhang Yi could not help but kneel on the ground. Though their consciousness was blurred, they still struggled to kowtow toward the demon immortal.
Ren Qing glanced at Hu Wen and the other demon, who were on the verge of losing control to mutation, and casually drew them into the demon market of Eternal Shackles. As for whether their collapsing bodies could be suppressed, that would depend on their own fate.
To Ren Qing, demonic beasts were ultimately transformed from humans. As long as they could cultivate the Restraint Officer methods, that meant they were resources.
Moreover, the talent of demonic beasts was actually not low. It had not been long at all, yet they had already reached the Half-Corpse realm; in about five years they would certainly be able to advance to the Ghost Envoy realm.
Ren Qing could not help but form some ideas.
He planned to have Hu Wen, before the Restraint Officers' Hall withdrew from Jingzhou, persuade and defect a group of demonic beasts, in order to increase the foundation of the Restraint Officers' Hall.
However, demonic beasts were wild and hard to tame; they would probably need to be thrown into Eternal Shackles and raised there for a period of time first.
Just as Ren Qing was lost in thought, a spine-chilling roar came from the depths of Bottomless Pit. Clearly, the Heavenly-Demon-transformed aberrant horror had sensed the threat.
"Go."
Boom boom boom...
The stone walls were broken open.
Ren Qing signaled the ghost shadow to transform into the shape of a coiling dragon, carrying his main body as it burrowed through the underground. The severed limbs were simply unable to stop it.
Through this, he made another discovery.
The Heavenly Demon aura not only caused the rock to undergo flesh-transformation, but bones had also grown within it, there were even rudimentary forms of internal organs.
If eroded by the Heavenly Demon aura for a long time, even grass, trees, mountains, and stones would probably transform into black goats, truly hair-raising.
By judging the concentration of the Heavenly Demon aura, Ren Qing quickly located the source.
The Heavenly-Demon-transformed aberrant horror had originally been avian. Now, more than half of it had turned into a black goat, its body reaching over twenty meters in size.
Strangely, the body of the aberrant horror was embedded within the stone wall, and the Heavenly Demon aura it emitted was not particularly dense at all.
Ren Qing's expression turned solemn. With such a level of Heavenly Demon aura, it should have been impossible to cause the fall of Bottomless Pit, much less lead to even dead matter nearing animation.
He then noticed that infant crying sounds were echoing from within the aberrant horror's body.
Ren Qing narrowed his eyes. Could it be that the altar meant to summon the descent of the demon immortal had truly caused a Rabbit-Toad cultivator from the Lower Lunar Arc layer to descend early into the Residual Moon layer?
The sound of infant crying grew ever more intense.