"D-diluted? Preposterous!"
Meng Po erupted in fury. "My tea is never diluted! A single cup makes even immortals dizzy, erasing their past and present lives. You've simply been drinking too much—you've developed a tolerance!"
Mid-rant, she caught herself. "Forgive me, Upper Official. But my soup is absolutely not diluted."
The figure accepted the Meng Po soup, held the blue paper umbrella, and drifted away, vanishing gradually into the mist.
* * *
Inside the temple world, Xu Ying suddenly leaped from the bell, landing on the immortal mountain below. The youth darted through the forest, evading the four stone dragons' search. The Great Bell followed closely, leading him to the nearest altar.
Beside the altar, though the stone statue had broken into several pieces, one could still discern its former vigor—it must have been tall and imposing, radiating authority without anger!
Strangely, dense incense energy still clung to the statue—even more robust than City God Xue Lingfu's!
"The deity is dead, but the incense energy hasn't dissipated. How strange." Xu Ying was puzzled.
When deities died, their incense energy was supposed to dissipate. This was common knowledge.
Xu Ying approached for a closer look. In his ears, faint murmurs could be heard—the lingering echoes of mortal prayers embedded within the incense energy.
Mortals prayed to deities for fair weather, for descendants' blessings, for lasting peace, for many children, bountiful harvests. These thoughts, similar to Cunxiang practiced by Qi-refiners and Nuo shamans, combined with incense energy, became divine power.
A deity's power was measured by two factors: first, the years of worship received—the longer, the stronger. Second, the number of worshippers—the more worshippers, the greater the power.
Xu Ying examined the statue's broken sections. The fractures were irregular—clearly from weathering and age. But the crown of the skull told a different story.
The statue's crown had been shattered from within, leaving the skull hollow. Judging by the pattern of destruction, it appeared to have been ruptured outward, the crown blown open from inside!
"Deities' skulls are hollow! But why?" Xu Ying was astonished.
Deities' heads served no practical purpose—they didn't need brains. They simply needed to project their souls into the statues!
Xu Ying leaned half his body into the statue's skull. On the inner walls, he discovered peculiar patterns—somewhat like text, but not quite. Too dark to see clearly, he withdrew and called to the Great Bell: "Old Bell, shrink yourself."
The Great Bell reduced to about two feet tall.
Xu Ying gripped the bell's nose, leaned into the skull, and shook the bell vigorously. The Great Bell understood, its surface glowing with strange, luminous patterns.
By that light, Xu Ying could make out the text and symbols inscribed within.
He found he couldn't read a single character.
The Great Bell could: "These are soul-summoning inscriptions, written in the script of primordial Qi-refiners! This type of ritual text is used to summon wandering spirits—but the inscriptions on these skull walls aren't orthodox. They resemble heterodox soul-summoning, using ghosts to refine magical artifacts or elixirs. Several characters are even written incorrectly—the author was no primordial Qi-refiner."
"Ancient heterodox arts?"
Xu Ying pulled back, confused: "If this is the Immortal Realm, why are there deities? And why are there soul-summoning inscriptions?"
Deities required mortal worship. Surely there was no one in the Immortal Realm to perform such rites?
And what purpose would soul-summoning serve in the Immortal Realm? Were there ghosts here too?
"Then—is the one preaching in the great temple truly an immortal?" Xu Ying looked up at the great temple surrounded by five immortal mountains.
Then he froze. He looked at the other mountains and suddenly exclaimed: "Old Bell, look at the arrangement of these five immortal mountains—doesn't it mirror the positions of the five viscera in the Domain of the Ineffable?"
The Great Bell laughed: "The Domain of the Ineffable? The five viscera? Impossible—this should be the Immortal Realm. Just now there were immortals preaching in the temple..."
It trailed off. Comparing the Immortal Realm to the Domain of the Ineffable, the latter was far more plausible. After all, even in its era, even its master had never witnessed the Immortal Realm—let alone an immortal.
Its bell tone resounded, using the mountains' echoes to survey the terrain. Only then did it realize Xu Ying was correct. This place did resemble the Domain of the Ineffable.
In the Domain of the Ineffable, the five viscera hung inverted like mountains—and here, five immortal mountains also hung with their bases skyward and peaks pointing down. They had been buried underground in this orientation, and though they now orbited the temple after ascending, their overall posture remained unchanged.
The five mountains were arranged in the order of heart, lungs, liver, spleen, and kidneys, their shapes roughly matching those organs.
More critically, the boulders that had fallen from these mountains contained fibrous, hair-like material within their gaps. True immortal mountains should never contain such things.
These five mountains appeared to be in a petrified state, invaded by external corruption and afflicted with mold and disease!
After the bell's survey, Xu Ying quickly slipped away with the Great Bell.
Shortly after they left, two stone dragons landed on their cloud-feet, found no trace of Xu Ying, and frowned.
"If only we'd brought a few Earth Gods," one lamented.
Xu Ying led the Great Bell toward the second statue when a cry rang out from above. He looked up to see Nether Court spirits clashing with the Governor's officials on the floating boulders, their supernatural powers colliding in a maelstrom of devastation.
Among them, an official who had inherited the Zhou family's arts was badly wounded. He immediately activated his Mud-Pellet Secret Storehouse, drawing upon its regenerative vitality to heal his injuries. But to his horror, the vitality suddenly surged out of control, sucked away by the boulder beneath his feet!
The hairy boulder, upon contact with his secret storehouse's vitality, sent its hair dancing wildly. With a hissing sound, countless filaments pierced into the official's body, writhing as they drank.
The official felt his vitality draining at a terrifying rate. He screamed—a shrill, piercing wail—and as he screamed, his body withered, quickly becoming a desiccated skeleton.
He had been a seven-foot-tall man. As a skeleton, he was emaciated, only two or three feet high—even the vitality within his bones had been drained completely.
After this official died, the boulder flushed a fleshy red, oozing blood. Countless hair-like tendrils danced in the air, seizing several officials and spirits unable to dodge, piercing into them with hissing sounds!
The spirits were relatively unaffected—incarnated through worship rather than flesh. But those officials and guards were human, Zhou family disciples or students who had opened their Mud-Pellet Secret Storehouses, possessing remarkable vitality.
Their vitality drained rapidly. In moments, four or five more had been sucked into husks!
The combatants froze in shock.
The boulder, having consumed these individuals' vitality, restored its hair's elasticity—but now they were blood vessels of varying thicknesses, extending from the fleshy mass.
These vessels, of different lengths, lashed outward and attached to another boulder, transferring a portion of the absorbed vitality.
That second boulder immediately sprouted hair of its own, seizing a fighting demon deity to "feed."
Xu Ying looked up. The sky had descended into chaos. Floating "boulders" roamed the air, their hair dancing, snatching people wherever they went—hugging them and draining them to husks.
Some were forced to leap toward the immortal mountains, but lacked the strength—screaming as they fell through the sky.
"This Immortal Realm is ominous!" Xu Ying watched, heart pounding.
The Great Bell worried: "Many have already entered the great temple to hear the immortal's teachings. Yuan Qi seems to have gone there too."
Xu Ying frowned slightly and approached the second altar, this one relatively intact. It stood at the junction of two mountain paths, perched on a protruding cliff platform of remarkable symmetry.
The statue stood beside the altar, four arms resting on its edges, head bowed toward the altar's center—as if something there had captured its attention.
This statue possessed four arms, wore a crown of flames, had a green face with fangs, wings on its back, and a blue dragon coiled around its body.
Its stone had turned golden, blazing with radiance—as if crafted entirely of gold!
"This deity cultivated a Golden Body—more powerful than a City God!"
Xu Ying was shaken. He had witnessed Lingling's City God Xue Lingfu battle Zhou Yihang, and when Xue had wielded his divine power, the floating shrine and chanting of ten thousand souls had shocked him with overwhelming pressure!
But this statue's oppressive aura was even stronger!
Its cultivation likely exceeded Xue Lingfu's, its Golden Body even more refined!
From a distance, one could hear the chanting of ten thousand souls emanating from it—sounds that seemed to drift between near and far!
Xu Ying drew closer to examine. Then a dragon's roar split the sky—a stone dragon over four zhang long descended on cerulean clouds, landing between Xu Ying and the altar!
The stone dragon touched down, incense energy swirling around it. Its body shifted—dragon transforming into man, becoming a dragon-headed human figure over a zhang tall, faint golden light shimmering across its skin.
From its body drifted faint sounds of scholarly recitation—the thoughts of the faithful, though far weaker than those of this golden statue.
"Xu Ying. I am Stone Dragon of the Wen Temple, dispatched by the City God to bring you back!"
The dragon deity Stone Dragon condensed incense energy into a flying sword, floating before him. He spoke with cold indifference: "You'd best not resist. The City God has authorized us to kill you and return with your soul."
Xu Ying was about to respond when two more dragon roars sounded. Two more stone dragons descended—one positioning behind Xu Ying to the left, the other to the right.
The three dragon deities raised swords of condensed energy, forming a three-way encirclement without a word.
Xu Ying looked up. A fourth stone dragon circled above on cerulean clouds, locking his escape route skyward.
He recognized these four stone dragons—they were carved onto the pillars of Ningyuan Wen Temple. The pillars rose several zhang high, with stone dragons coiled around them. Scholars offered incense there, praying for success in examinations, which was why scholarly recitation lingered in the dragons' incense energy.
Xu Ying had visited the Wen Temple too, but he was no scholar, so he'd never offered incense.
"I killed Zhou Yang and Zhou Hihang using swordsmanship."
Xu Ying gathered energy into a sword, sword qi swirling around him, and said calmly: "The four of you have done no wrong and enjoy a good reputation among scholars. Don't force my hand."
The four stone dragons were wary. Zhou Yang's strength had been comparable to theirs—Xu Ying's ability to kill Zhou Yang meant he could eliminate any one of them.
But Xu Ying had killed Zhou Yihang! That meant he was on the level of a City God!
City Gods cultivated Golden Bodies, enjoyed five hundred years of incense, and possessed extraordinary divine power!
Even four dragons combined might not prevail!
Xu Ying was anxious. His cultivation hadn't recovered—the Great Bell had been drawing on his primordial energy to fly, actually weakening him further.
If the four dragons attacked, he would likely be in trouble.
Then Stone Dragon suddenly dropped to his knees, wearing an eerie smile, and began kowtowing frantically before the four-armed statue, murmuring strange prayers.
The two dragons behind Xu Ying's expression changed. They roared in unison: "Xu Ying! What did you do to our fourth brother?"
Xu Ying quietly gathered energy and shook his head: "I didn't do anything!"
One dragon kept watch on Xu Ying while cautiously approaching Stone Dragon: "Fourth Brother, what's wrong? Who attacked you..."
He was about to help Stone Dragon up when his own face twisted into that same bizarre smile. He dropped to his knees and kowtowed wildly before the four-armed statue, reciting the same prayers.
"A-Ying, this statue and altar are strange!" the Great Bell whispered.
Xu Ying was alarmed too.
Deities drew power from faith and incense energy to gain supernatural abilities—that was what made them deities. Stone Dragon of the Wen Temple had enjoyed four hundred years of robust worship. His incense energy was formidable. How could he suddenly worship another deity and become a follower of this soulless statue?
The two dragons knelt there, their chanting growing faster, their smiles increasingly distorted. Then, with two muffled explosions, Stone Dragon and the other dragon's skulls burst open from within!
Xu Ying immediately activated his spirit sense mirror and opened the Celestial Eye. He saw two dragon souls fly from the shattered skulls, heading toward the altar cradled in the four-armed statue's arms!
The altar was tall, blocking his physical view, but through the Celestial Eye, everything was visible!
At the altar's center was a furnace structure, with a pearl floating in its core, rotating up and down.
The two dragon souls reached the altar's center, then shattered—souls dispersing—leaving only a tiny spark of immortal spirit that flew into the pearl!
"A-Ying, even if there are immortals in this Domain of the Ineffable, they're evil sword immortals!"
The Great Bell cried: "He's using the immortal spirit spark from people's souls to refine Ten Thousand Spirit Pills—repairing his Primordial Spirit!"