After their brief encounter, the various factions once again fell silent. Six magical artifacts floated above the sea in total, with the ghost ship being the smallest among them.
Among the weaker factions, even the leading cultivators possessed Yang God Realm cultivation, yet they only dared remain on the outskirts, unwilling to approach.
The ghost ship likewise stayed at the edge, and Ren Qing simply remained inside the cabin all day.
Using Zhili Technique, he had already entered the dreams of quite a few Yang God Realm cultivators, repeatedly examining their recent memories.
The result was that none of the factions had the slightest purpose for coming here.
It was as if their minds had been manipulated. They were completely unaware of anything strange. The moment a thought appeared, their bodies simply carried it out.
Yet from Ren Qing's perspective as an observer, everything felt deeply unsettling. Perhaps because it involved an immortal position, everything seemed especially bizarre.
He made no attempt to break the silence and continued meditating on his techniques inside the cabin.
At the same time, Ren Qing split off more than a dozen severed Flood Serpents and quietly released them into the sea, scattering them throughout the surrounding waters.
Their primary purpose was to facilitate Walk Among Mortals, allowing him to prepare an escape route.
Only after ensuring every precaution had been taken did he stop and patiently wait.
The result was that the gathered factions remained there for several months without making any move.
During that time, no new factions arrived. The only excitement came from the occasional seabird becoming someone's meal.
Seeing this, Ren Qing began deducing the Ascension Method for Disaster-Dispelling Method, already making preparations for the final technique to advance to the Ascension Ladder.
Occasionally, he would also observe the Flesh Tathagata Buddha inside the Stomach World.
Even after devouring an enormous quantity of Buddhist qi, the Flesh Buddha still wasn't full. Its body had swollen to dozens of meters in size, becoming nothing more than an enormous mass of piled flesh.
There wasn't the slightest trace of a Buddha left. Instead, it had become increasingly grotesque and horrifying, especially the indistinct face of the Sitting-Deer Arhat exposed upon its surface, whose eyes had faintly begun to show intelligence.
The Flesh Buddha's strength was only comparable to the Ghost Envoy Realm.
Its absorption of Buddhist qi was indeed slow, painfully so.
Ren Qing didn't dare transfer Heavenly Dao Transformation into it recklessly, fearing that the Flesh Buddha wouldn't be able to withstand it.
With his current reserves of various kinds of Buddhist qi, it should be enough to raise it to the Yang God Realm.
Unfortunately, he hadn't collected much Great Compassion Buddhist Qi back then.
Ren Qing couldn't help but turn his attention toward Tianzong, the Joy Buddhist Son, secretly attaching Dreamflower to the monks inside his magical artifact.
If Tianzong knew just how many blasphemous things Ren Qing had done to Buddhism, he probably wouldn't think Ren Qing had any affinity with Buddhism.
Amid the inexplicable atmosphere, snowflakes began drifting down from the clouds as winter arrived.
The outside world had already become bitterly cold, yet nothing happened. Not only Ren Qing, but many cultivators also began growing increasingly restless.
Day and night alternated.
The full moon rose, its reflection upon the sea forming a pillar of moonlight.
Boom!!!
The sea within a radius of ten li suddenly collapsed downward.
Every magical artifact plunged toward the sea simultaneously before crashing heavily into the water, sending waves over a hundred meters high into the air.
The ghost ship's weight increased by dozens of times. The hull immediately groaned under the strain as cracks rapidly spread across its surface.
Fortunately, countless Fungus People clans were stationed throughout the ship and immediately began repairing the cracks.
The ghost ship emerged unscathed.
The magical artifact on the outermost edge, however, smashed directly into the shallow sea. Its already fragile construction instantly shattered into pieces.
Its interior clearly contained an independent space, and many cultivators inside were either killed or severely injured by the impact.
The Yang God Realm leader was an old man with white hair. Watching his disciples become corpses scattered across the ground, blood gushed from both his mouth and nose.
"What kind of damned place is this? Why did I come here?"
"Why? Why?!"
The old man muttered to himself as tears streamed uncontrollably down his face. He then fled frantically toward the Endless Forest.
Before he could get very far, however, he collapsed to the ground in agony.
His abdomen swelled like a woman ten months pregnant. Even after growing beyond half a meter in size, it showed no signs of stopping.
As a Yang God Realm cultivator, his vitality naturally far surpassed that of mortals.
Only after his stomach expanded to twenty or thirty meters across, with his skin stretched as thin as silkworm silk, did fine cracks begin appearing across its surface.
Ren Qing could clearly see that his stomach was packed full of infants, their number matching exactly the disciples who had just died.
Bang!!!
His flesh exploded, scattering minced meat across the shoreline.
Several yellow sand crabs crawled out and began stuffing the shredded flesh into their mouths.
Every faction froze in place.
Under the influence of fear, they suddenly realized just how horrifyingly wrong everything was.
Why had they come to the seashore?
What exactly had they been waiting for?
But it was already too late to leave.
The gravity acting upon their magical artifacts increased once more, and the Yang God Realm factions sank into the sea one after another.
Ren Qing remained completely unaffected as he looked around at the struggling cultivators.
He simply guided the ghost ship straight into the water, stopping at a depth of only ten meters while calmly observing how events unfolded.
"Amitabha. It seems this poor monk had become attached to appearances."
Tianzong murmured a few words.
An immense surge of Buddhist qi erupted from his body, crashing against the sea's surface and propelling him rapidly into the sky.
Before he could escape, however, movement suddenly came from within his abdomen, causing his expression to become even uglier.
Tianzong opened his mouth and vomited.
Several stillborn infants squeezed their way out through his throat before his body uncontrollably plummeted downward, as though countless invisible hands were dragging him beneath the sea.
"As expected of an eminent monk of Buddhism. His timing for attempting to escape was impeccable."
Daoist Mu Snake let out a strange laugh, glanced regretfully at the vanished ghost ship, and drove the skeletal magical artifact away from the water.
He believed that, possessing a body of white bone and Heavenly Aberration Realm cultivation...
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Between Daoist Mu Snake's ribs, bone rapidly proliferated, forming amber-like crystals that sealed countless infant corpses inside.
At the same time, he sensed his cultivation rapidly being stripped away.
His Heavenly Aberration Realm cultivation had already become unstable.
Daoist Mu Snake looked toward Tianzong.
Without the slightest hesitation, Tianzong returned to his magical artifact and immediately dived into the sea with decisive speed.
Although Tianzong had already attained perfect merit and possessed Heavenly Aberration Realm cultivation through his Arhat Fruit Position, he couldn't perform any action that might damage his Fruit Position.
The moment his Buddhist qi began inexplicably leaking away, his Fruit Position had already started stirring.
If Tianzong didn't save himself, he would immediately be devoured by Buddhist qi ahead of time.
Daoist Mu Snake wandered aimlessly above the sea like a headless fly for a long while.
Even his other three bodies had begun suffering excessive bone growth.
Only then did he realize he had no other choice.
His gaze turned cold.
His only chance of survival was likely aboard that ship-shaped magical artifact.
Daoist Mu Snake felt that only by refining Ren Qing into another of his bodies, sacrificing cultivation repeatedly in the process, could he escape this cursed place.
He tried recalling why he had come here in the first place, but his head immediately began aching faintly.
That only made Daoist Mu Snake even more wary, leaving him with an overwhelming sense of absurdity.
A group of Yang God Realm and Heavenly Aberration Realm cultivators had remained above the sea for half a year without possessing any objective whatsoever.
It was like children playing house.
He returned to the skeletal magical artifact and sat once more upon the White Bone Throne.
All four bodies acted simultaneously.
Only then did the aura he emitted become that of a true Heavenly Aberration Realm cultivator.
But that also meant he had become completely bound to the Throne of Skulls.
Seawater poured through every facial opening of the giant skull, quickly flooding its interior.
Daoist Mu Snake spoke in a deep voice.
"Seal every leak."
Upon hearing the command, the skeletal cultivators swarmed toward every opening in the magical artifact.
Their skeletons melted apart, forming walls of bone that sealed the entrances.
Arms then extended from beneath the skeletal magical artifact, paddling it through the sea.
Daoist Mu Snake impatiently searched for Ren Qing's whereabouts.
Visibility underwater was extremely poor.
Fortunately, he didn't rely on sight.
He could smell the unique scent of living bones.
For over a thousand years, Daoist Mu Snake had never failed in tracking anyone.
The only exception had been Ren Qing's Disaster-Dispelling Method.
He feared that Ren Qing would hide himself once again, causing his aura to become increasingly agitated.
Fortunately, Ren Qing had no intention of doing so.
Even through the seawater, Daoist Mu Snake could still clearly sense Ren Qing's location.
The skeletal magical artifact accelerated toward the ghost ship.
Before it could approach, however, the ghost ship effortlessly circled around it.
Its movements were so nimble that it resembled not a ship, but a swimming fish.
Flames flickered within Daoist Mu Snake's eye sockets as his soul left his body to observe more closely.
To his surprise, the ghost ship's surface was covered in dense scales.
Its sails and masts had retracted into the hull, while fins had grown from every side.
Even the bow had transformed into a gigantic mouth that continuously swallowed seawater before filtering the air from within it.
Daoist Mu Snake stood frozen for several breaths.
The malice in his eyes only intensified.
A sudden realization appeared in his mind, causing his ribs to tremble with excitement.
He suspected that the technique Ren Qing cultivated was inherently water-aspected and very likely related to flood dragons.
Otherwise, it wouldn't provoke such intense excitement within him.
If he could obtain Ren Qing's dragon bones, not only would his cultivation become incomparably purer, but his four bodies could also merge into one forever, eliminating all of their flaws.
With that thought, Daoist Mu Snake no longer hurried to approach the ghost ship.
Gravity still acted upon every magical artifact.
Escaping underwater was even more difficult.
Every faction had become prisoners locked inside the same cell.
There would certainly be opportunities.
Daoist Mu Snake believed that even if danger arose, he and Tianzong would be the last to perish.
He couldn't help glancing toward Tianzong's flesh-ball magical artifact.
It too had taken an interest in Ren Qing, intentionally or otherwise circling around the ghost ship.
Naturally, Tianzong was seeking a way to save himself.
In his eyes, Ren Qing possessed sufficient talent to inherit a Bodhisattva Fruit Position.
If refined into medicine, perhaps it could stimulate the Joy Fruit Position into taking action.
Every cultivator harbored different intentions.
One magical artifact, already heavily damaged and flooded with seawater after no one remained to maintain it, finally collapsed into fragments.
The six great factions had barely begun descending into the sea, yet two had already been destroyed.
As for Ren Qing, he felt no sense of crisis whatsoever.
He even used the ghost ship to catch some seafood, leisurely savoring the fresh sweetness of the ocean's bounty.
Gravity might affect the ghost ship to some extent.
But his own body had been strengthened by both the Fengdu Corpse Emperor and the Primordial Unity Ancestor Dragon, far surpassing ordinary Heavenly Aberration Realm cultivators.
Even if the gravity increased another hundredfold, Ren Qing could immediately escape.
Not to mention he still possessed severed Flood Serpents. By using Walk Among Mortals, he could instantly travel dozens of li.
Ren Qing had already examined the phenomenon causing pregnancy within the abdomen.
It seemed to originate from the immortal position beneath the sea, yet it affected only cultivators like Daoist Mu Snake and the others.
He was extremely curious about this immortal position.
What sort of deity possessed an immortal position capable of making others pregnant?
For some reason, it felt strangely appropriate.
If Ren Qing were to obtain this immortal position, wouldn't that mean gaining a decisive advantage?
He quickly dismissed the thought.
Since Great Dream True Person had arrived first, the immortal position naturally had to be reserved for someone from the Restraint Officers' Hall.
"Still, the auspicious sign in the divination has grown significantly stronger. Could my own opportunity really be down there?"