Ren Qing had almost completely covered the sea around the five-thousand-meter depth. Dragon blood had spread through every fish and shrimp, while all the coral had been replaced by Dragon Blood Coral.
However, to be cautious, he chose not to expand outward immediately.
At the very least, he had to wait until he was far away from these waters. Otherwise, if the dragons provoked some unknown existence, wouldn't he be walking straight into the line of fire?
After finishing the spread of dragon blood, Ren Qing continued descending toward the seabed.
Daoist Evergreen had already become numb to everything. He allowed the ghost ship to drag the thorny magical artifact ever deeper without harboring even the slightest thought of resistance.
During this time, Ren Qing examined the memories of the two Heavenly Aberration Realm cultivators.
As expected, Tianzong was the Buddhist Son of the Joyous Temple. The temple was located in the southwest, and it was said that the inheritances of multiple Arhats were gathered there.
It was somewhat like huddling together for warmth, though perhaps it was also more convenient for enslaving mortals.
Daoist Mu Snake was much older, yet his memories only stretched back five hundred years. That was because he truly was the White Bone Immortal born after the death of the Bone Armor Technique, bearing no relation whatsoever to the Daoist Mu Snake who had created the Snake Shedding Method.
He had been an independent cultivator, though several centuries ago he had obtained the inheritance of Daoist Dragon-Serpent.
From Daoist Mu Snake's memories, Ren Qing discovered the existence of a group of "living dead" searching for the traces of the Soul-Hooking Ghost Immortal and the Soul-Seizing Ghost Immortal.
Clearly, their objective was the immortal positions of Black and White Impermanence.
Ren Qing silently memorized the method the living dead used to contact one another. It was similar to using death qi to communicate with lingering souls in order to transmit information.
He suspected that among the living dead was Lady White Bone, the creator of the Bone Teeth Technique.
That meant the living dead, though loosely organized, were all fairly powerful, scattered throughout tombs and mass graves across this world.
With his ability to summon Corpse Immortals, along with the protection of the Fengdu Corpse Emperor's immortal position, the living dead posed no threat whatsoever.
In Ren Qing's eyes, they were excellent chess pieces. When the War of Enfeoffing Immortals arrived in the future, drawing them into the larger game shouldn't be difficult.
The most important thing was the location where that grand game would take place...
Ren Qing narrowed his eyes.
That place had to exist independently from this world and possess its own set of rules to prevent Turbid Immortals from interfering.
Only a forbidden zone possessed such an ability. No, immortal positions should be capable of it as well...
If he could figure out how immortal positions affected the outside world, then use the immortal positions he already possessed to establish a forbidden zone and pull every faction into it...
Ren Qing's plans continued to grow more ambitious, but they weren't baseless. Every indication suggested that immortal positions shared the same properties as forbidden zones.
As he pondered, the ghost ship descended once more to the ten-thousand-meter depths.
The cries of gigantic deep-sea creatures echoed through the darkness, and every so often monstrous beings hundreds of meters long drifted slowly past the magical artifacts.
Ren Qing hadn't allowed the dragons to spread farther downward because these deep-sea giants were simply too enormous. Corrupting them with dragon blood would require an immense number of Oblivion Shrimp.
Hum...
A glowing Kun Whale swept past in the distance.
Through its translucent abdomen, countless human figures could be seen, as though men, women, young, and old had all been packed inside.
Ren Qing pushed the Disaster-Dispelling Method to its limits to prevent the magical artifacts from being exposed.
If he wasn't mistaken, the Kun Whale had once been a cultivator whose mutation had spiraled out of control. It fed by absorbing the fear of the imprisoned living beings inside its body.
These waters were far deeper than he had imagined.
Even Yang God Realm cultivators truly could do little more than preserve their own lives here.
Ren Qing became even more vigilant. Using the Zhili Technique, he sensed the locations of deep-sea giants in advance and directed the ghost ship around them.
Daoist Evergreen remained trapped in constant fear, and his mental state steadily deteriorated into madness.
Even Ren Qing couldn't help feeling tense.
The endless darkness and the sensation of continually sinking reminded him of when he had come into contact with the Three Dao Ancestors.
The silent darkness he had experienced while his soul was dragged underground truly resembled this seabed.
To keep himself from dwelling on such thoughts, Ren Qing simply allowed his bacterial souls to steer the ship while he forcibly closed his eyes and entered meditation, focusing all of his attention on the Disaster-Dispelling Method.
Before he knew it, he had become completely immersed in deducing the Disaster-Dispelling Method.
However, once the ghost ship reached a depth of twenty thousand meters, its artifact spirit refused to descend any farther.
The cries of the deep-sea giants had also vanished.
Aside from the occasional upward current, it was as though they had entered a motionless world.
Ren Qing opened his eyes.
He felt an unprecedented agitation filling his mind.
Even the primary and secondary strange objects of the Disaster-Dispelling Method showed signs of losing control.
He looked toward Daoist Evergreen.
Inside the magical artifact, the latter had transformed into an enormous tree.
His consciousness had nearly been crushed beneath the terror emanating from the deep sea.
Ren Qing drew in a sharp breath.
Even with Great Dream True Person's astonishing luck, there was no way he could have reached the Heavenly Aberration Realm within a hundred years.
A mere Yang God Realm Great Dream True Person simply couldn't have descended twenty thousand meters beneath the sea.
Had he misunderstood something?
Ren Qing examined Daoist Evergreen.
He discovered that the latter had transferred his soul into a tree seed, choosing to reincarnate and cultivate anew through an unconventional method.
He transported Daoist Evergreen's body into the ship's cabin while handing the tree seed over to Muyi inside the Stomach World.
After realizing something was wrong, Ren Qing no longer continued descending.
Although the divination showed no worsening omen, his inexplicable sense of dread remained.
He sent multiple bacterial souls into Daoist Evergreen's Mud Pellet Palace.
Carrying the last remaining Ghost Immortal Office with them, they returned him to the thorny magical artifact.
Watching as the thorny magical artifact slowly disappeared into the darkness after the ghost shadow released its restraints, Ren Qing turned the ghost ship upward.
The ghost ship behaved like a runaway horse.
If Ren Qing hadn't forced it, it wouldn't have wanted to remain here for even a moment.
It didn't take him long to return to the sunlit surface.
Meanwhile, the thorny magical artifact had already reached a depth of twenty-five thousand meters.
Not even deep-sea giants remained there.
Even plankton had disappeared completely.
The thorny magical artifact had begun to suffer damage.
The immense water pressure compressed its internal space to only a fraction of its original size, while seawater completely flooded the interior.
Cracks also spread across Daoist Evergreen's body, covering the tree trunk.
The intelligence of the bacterial souls gradually became affected.
Whenever Ren Qing projected his consciousness into them, he could hear them murmuring incomprehensible words.
Standing upon the deck beneath the blazing sunlight, Ren Qing nevertheless felt as though he had fallen into an icy abyss.
Soon, the thorny magical artifact reached thirty thousand meters.
At last, faint sounds echoed nearby.
It was as though fish were constantly swimming around them.
Bang...
The thorny magical artifact touched the bottom with a muffled impact before everything quickly fell silent once more.
Ren Qing controlled the bacterial souls to emerge from Daoist Evergreen's body.
They cautiously left the thorny magical artifact.
The sight before them instantly left him stunned.
The waters above the bacterial souls' heads were illuminated by a faint glow.
Countless fish swam through the water.
They themselves were the source of the light.
These fish radiated the aura of an immortal position, though the aura itself was rather diffuse.
This scene was astonishingly similar to the vision Ren Qing had once witnessed through Great Dream True Person.
The countless glowing points resembled a river of stars.
Inside every fish's abdomen existed an independent underwater world.
Several fish swam within that world, and inside those fish were even smaller underwater worlds.
The other bacterial souls made different discoveries.
The seabed was littered with countless magical artifacts, clearly originating from many different factions.
Ren Qing sent a bacterial soul into the world inside one fish's abdomen.
Compared to the outside, there was absolutely no difference.
Everything remained a pitch-black ocean.
The bacterial soul continued descending layer after layer into the fish's belly while Ren Qing carefully observed its condition.
The animated internal organs remained connected to the original body by blood vessels.
From the innermost layer to the outermost, they resembled one long crimson thread, creating an indescribably unsettling sight.
The bacterial soul passed through an unknown number of layers before finally reaching the end of the crimson thread.
Suddenly, unfamiliar images flooded Ren Qing's mind.
A young married couple was walking side by side through a bustling street.
The crimson thread seemed to connect directly to another person's soul.
Ren Qing's pupils contracted.
He immediately sent bacterial souls into the bellies of other fish.
The results were all the same.
Each fish's abdomen contained its own world, yet at its core was a connection to an unrelated man and woman.
Some were young, some old.
Some were ordinary mortals.
Others were Yin Difference Realm or Yang God Realm cultivators.
Quite a few even already had children and grandchildren.
Only then did Ren Qing realize something.
A bacterial soul inspected the outermost fish's back.
Sure enough, a blood vessel resembling a crimson thread grew from the base of the fish's tail, with its other end disappearing into the darkness.
"So I'm inside a fish's belly as well..."
Clearly, during the thorny magical artifact's descent, it had fallen into the mouth of a monster several thousand meters in size.
The star-like fish were nothing more than the animated internal organs of a True Immortal.
That was why they emitted the unique aura of an immortal position.
Instead of panicking, Ren Qing calmed down.
The True Immortal had certainly fallen dormant.
Otherwise, the divination wouldn't have shown danger accompanied by fortune.
It would have been pure calamity.
Staring at the crimson blood vessels linking the fish's interior and exterior, Ren Qing couldn't help muttering,
"Red threads... the Old Man Under the Moon?!"
Using a bacterial soul, Ren Qing invoked the Information Stream toward the darkness.
The result was exactly as he had suspected.
[Lifespan: None]
[Technique: Harmony Sutra (Perfected)]
[Immortal Body: Thread-Guiding Fiend Immortal]
[Divine Ability: Marriage Red Thread]
[Immortal Position: Old Man Under the Moon]
[Harmony Sutra]
[Created by the Daode Heavenly Venerable.
Cultivation requires extracting one's own blood vessels and transplanting them into twelve married couples. Three pairs must separate, three pairs must die, three pairs must live, and three pairs must harbor resentment before the technique can be successfully cultivated.]
The upper limit of the Harmony Sutra is Earth Immortal, and it cannot be cultivated alongside other techniques.
[Immortal Position: Old Man Under the Moon]
Among the methods Ren Qing knew for creating an Earth Immortal Ascension Method, one involved forcibly devouring an immortal position before reverse-engineering the Ascension Method, while the other involved opening an entirely new immortal position as he had done.
But an Ascension Method created by the Daode Heavenly Venerable?
Was it an Ineffable Entity, or one of the former Dao Ancestors?
Ren Qing shifted his attention back to the Old Man Under the Moon.
The consciousnesses connected inside the fish bellies belonged to the men and women whose fates had been tied together by the Matchmaking Immortal.
Even their descendants would indirectly fall under the influence of the immortal position.
Judging by the number of fish, the Matchmaking Immortal controlled at least over a hundred thousand men and women.
That explained why Tianzong and the others looked so similar.
However, because they were scattered across different regions and their bodily mutations varied, the similarities weren't especially obvious.
Daoist Mu Snake had simply been incredibly unlucky.
He had refined a corpse connected to the Matchmaking Immortal, accidentally leading himself here by sheer coincidence.
Ren Qing's expression became strange.
The reason he hadn't been able to contact Great Dream True Person was the interference of the Matchmaking Immortal.
He had most likely already married and had children.
He had to admit that the Old Man Under the Moon's immortal position truly suited him.
Naturally, it was equally compatible with Ren Qing's Disaster-Dispelling Method.
That was why the auspicious signs in the divination had risen so dramatically.
The sleeping Matchmaking Immortal attracted cultivators above the Yang God Realm here, likely intending to restore its injuries by devouring their bodies and souls.
Unfortunately, it was merely a drop in the bucket.
If nothing unexpected had happened, the Matchmaking Immortal was likely one of the few remaining Weird Immortals, hiding in the deep sea and clinging to life, not even daring to show itself.
Ren Qing released the Ghost Immortal Office.
Instead of immediately merging it with the Matchmaking Immortal, he instructed a bacterial soul to locate the crimson thread connected to Great Dream True Person.
The scene he witnessed was a dilapidated house.
Inside, a gaunt man was caring for his sick wife.
Beside them stood a child of five or six years old.
Great Dream True Person seemed to have completely forgotten his memories.
Even his body had unconsciously transformed into that of an ordinary mortal.
Using the bacterial soul, Ren Qing established contact with Great Dream True Person and transmitted the contents of the Dream Butterfly Method into his mind.
The man shown in the vision froze in place.
Ren Qing did not immediately sever the crimson thread.
If Great Dream True Person could free himself through his own efforts, it would be of crucial importance to his future breakthrough into the Heavenly Aberration Realm.