Longzang

Chapter 592 Immortal Scum
Putting aside the various mysteries, the advancement of the Ice Crystal Divine Tree brought tangible benefits to Wei Yuan. Now, when he casts offensive spells, he can imbue them with a wisp of the Ice Crystal Divine Tree's aura. This is a kind of cold energy that possesses its own vitality, and its rank is much higher than ordinary cold energy.

Before the Ice Crystal Divine Tree advanced to the next level, this chilling aura already affected cultivators at the Dharma Aspect realm, and its effects were even more pronounced on those at the Foundation Establishment realm. Now, it can also influence cultivators at the Ascension realm, with a powerful effect on those at the Dharma Aspect realm. As for those at the Foundation Establishment realm, under this chilling aura, almost a large number of them could be frozen to death with a mere wave of their hand.

To die from the life-giving chill of the Ice Crystal Divine Tree is an extremely terrifying thing.

The creatures eroded by this frigid air do not simply freeze to death; rather, under the influence of the extreme cold, their bodies transform into a special kind of flesh and blood with its own consciousness. Therefore, all creatures that die from the icy chill will eventually transform into an ice beast, surviving in the world in another peculiar way.

After testing, Wei Yuan was very satisfied with the effects of the Ice Glass Frost Qi. The only thing that made him slightly regretful was that the tree spirit had not appeared since the Ice Glass Divine Tree advanced.

Wei Yuan then went to find the girl Yin Yang and asked why the Moon Laurel Immortal Tree had not yet advanced, since the Moon Laurel Immortal Tree was the originator of stealing the gifts of heaven and earth.

The girl, Yin Yang, made no further movements, but simply shot two thin beams of light from her eyes. The beams intertwined in the air, transforming into a scene. The scene depicted the human world being attacked by the Ghostly Witch's Blood Curse, and the girl, Yin Yang, rising angrily, preparing to retaliate.

Immediately afterward, numerous celestial plants appeared in her field of vision. Seaweed surged and churned in the waves, exuding a strong murderous aura; the Red Lotus Bodhi remained serene, seemingly unwilling to be tainted by killing, and was focused on digesting Wei Yuan's karma; several celestial orchids were single-mindedly vying for territory in the Netherworld.

The Langya Sacred Tree and the Jian Tree were not yet fully mature and lacked spiritual energy, so they showed almost no reaction.

Then, a pale red moon slowly rose in the girl's Yin-Yang vision, surrounded by countless scarlet sword energies that danced wildly. Both in appearance and aura, it was top-tier, irresistible to all.

The young girl, Yin Yang, casually grabbed a crimson sword aura and attacked the enemy. In terms of destructive power, no other immortal plant can compare to the Laurel Immortal Tree. Perhaps the Langya Divine Tree might rival it in the future, but certainly not now.

However, Wei Yuan was slightly taken aback when he saw this scene, because he knew that the killing power of the Ice Glass Divine Tree was no weaker than that of the Laurel Immortal Tree... But where was the Ice Glass Divine Tree? Wei Yuan looked closely and found that there was no trace of the Ice Glass Divine Tree in this scene.

The girl, Yin Yang, rotated the image, and the Ice Crystal Divine Tree finally appeared in the picture. If Yin Yang were the center, its position would be exactly opposite the other immortal plants. If the girl, Yin Yang, didn't use her divine sense but only her naked eye, the Ice Crystal Divine Tree would be exactly in her blind spot.

The Ice Crystal Divine Tree in the image appeared extremely weak, carefully tending to dozens of believers afflicted by the Blood Curse, desperately trying to save their lives. Seeing this, Wei Yuan felt a pang of pity and couldn't bear to pluck it any further.

At this point, Wei Yuan finally understood why the Ice Crystal Divine Tree had advanced first. The Laurel Immortal Tree was usually too flamboyant; at such a crucial moment, it would be inexcusable not to use its sword energy.

The Ice Crystal Divine Tree never falls behind when enjoying the gifts of heaven and earth, but when it needs to exert its strength, it shrinks into a corner, only eating and not moving, naturally advancing at an extremely fast speed.

Wei Yuan sighed inwardly; these immortal plants seemed almost to be on the verge of becoming sentient. But then he thought of the Ice Glass Divine Tree's spirit—wasn't that already sentient?

In any case, with the arrival of autumn leaves, the advancement of the Ice Crystal Divine Tree has given Wei Yuan a powerful new tool, making him more confident in dealing with the impending crisis.

Wei Yuankong possessed Dao power as vast as the ocean, yet he always lacked a powerful means of killing.

The Immortal Path at Dusk cannot stray too far from Azure Nether. The Yin-Yang Twin Bullets are not only extremely costly but also one-time use. The Golden Light Water Blade Technique is unparalleled in its ability to dig, but it is too rigid. Now, with the Ice Glass Cold Qi, the destructive power of all his Daoist techniques has been significantly enhanced. Although it has not completely made up for the shortcomings, it has certainly amplified them considerably.

Wei Yuan took one last look at the Flame God Flower, planted on the edge of the southern coast. At this moment, the Flame God Flower had not yet sprouted, but it was clearly perceptible that it was constantly absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, while also drawing large amounts of the Jianmu's life-giving energy from Qingming. Furthermore, it had developed a faint resonance with the saplings of the Jianmu tree far overseas, further accelerating its growth.

Wei Yuan estimated that the seed might sprout in just over a month. However, in the outside world, due to unsuitable conditions, it might take hundreds of years for it to germinate.

Finally, Wei Yuan arrived at the Yin-Yang Furnace and took out more than a dozen feathers, handing them to the girl Yin-Yang. Each of these feathers was the size of a palm, jet black, and radiated a dense spiritual light that seemed almost tangible.

These are Thunder Eagle's natal Thunder Feathers. Before its death, the essence of Thunder Eagle's entire being gradually transferred into these feathers. If Thunder Eagle had died of natural causes, a Thunder God Feather would have appeared among these feathers, a precious material approaching the Perfected Realm of the Sovereign Realm. But at this moment, all the Thunder Feathers are just ordinary Sovereign Realm materials, because Thunder Eagle died a violent death, and most of its life essence remained in its Dharma Form, having been devoured by the three-eyed bird's head.

However, these lightning feathers were enough for Wei Yuan. So, the girl Yin Yang added Nether Crystals, as well as several top-tier magical artifacts used by the lightning eagle and blood witch that Wei Yuan had collected, and put them all into the Yin Yang Furnace. Then, Wei Yuan dripped a drop of his own blood into each of the Yin Yang Furnace's eyes.

As the furnace began to slowly rotate, a power akin to the very origin of the Great Dao crushed all the materials, then extracted their primordial power and fused them together with a near-divine process. At this moment, Wei Yuan sensed the furnace's need: sacrifice.

This time, Wei Yuan once again chose to sacrifice his lifespan, but unlike when he almost exhausted all his strength to refine the Yin-Yang Bullets, this time Wei Yuan was like a stingy nouveau riche, sacrificing only a little bit of his lifespan, totaling two years.

The refining process did not take long. After a short while, the Yin-Yang Furnace emitted a burst of light, releasing six Yang bullets and three Yin bullets.

Each Yang Bullet consumes two months of Wei Yuan's lifespan, which can reduce Yu Jing's opponent's lifespan by three years; each Yin Bullet consumes four months of Wei Yuan's lifespan, which can reduce the opponent's lifespan by ten years, but these ten years of lifespan must be gradually reduced over ten years.

The Yang bullets could be considered to have a tiny bit of use, while the Yin bullets were completely useless. However, after Wei Yuan sacrificed his lifespan, the life-shortening aura of these Yin and Yang bullets became unusually obvious. Moreover, because their power was not strong enough, their aura was actually stronger than the complete versions of the Yin and Yang bullets.

Having reached the pinnacle of Dao, the original Yin-Yang Bullets had nearly achieved the ultimate in Dharma-manifestation Dao techniques, thus their aura became subtle and obscure. These Yin-Yang Bullets in Wei Yuan's hands were like Xu Wenwu in his previous life—though his actual strength was mediocre, he insisted on making others believe he knew everything. With these Yin-Yang Bullets, Wei Yuan felt much more at ease. From then on, no one knew whether the Yin-Yang Bullets he pulled out would reduce lifespan by three thousand years or by three years.

The Yin-Yang Furnace can only refine celestial objects, thus allowing it to transform between the real and the illusory. This batch of newly refined pseudo-Yin-Yang bullets was forged using Wei Yuan's lifespan and contains the power of the Heavenly Dao. Although their quality is very poor, they are essentially celestial objects.

However, if the Yin-Yang Bullets are true divine artifacts, then these fake bullets can only be considered divine trash.

Wei Yuan realized that he seemed to be on a peculiar path of redefining immortals once again.

Having prepared the contingency plan of the Immortal Scum, Wei Yuan left the mortal world to continue preparing the grand gift to welcome Hongye.

Wei Yuan had just left the main peak when Sun Yu rushed over and said as soon as they met, "One of the children is a bit strange."

Wei Yuan then followed Sun Yu to the dungeon. The dungeon was bustling with activity; all the women were concentrated in one cell, while the children were held in another. Several disciples of the Heavenly Crafts Hall, along with a dozen or so cultivators, were urgently reinforcing the remaining cells.

As soon as Sun Yu and Wei Yuan entered the children's cell, the dark red-skinned child cried out in alarm, exclaiming, "The old devil is here again! What, what are you going to do to me?!"

Sun Yu pointed at the child and said, "His eyes possess a divine talent, seemingly able to see through both the Yin and Yang realms, which is extremely rare. If he is not the target you are looking for, then hand him over to me; I have another great use for these eyes."

The dark red-skinned child trembled with fear upon hearing this and hurriedly said, "No, no! I won't give my eyes to anyone!"

Wei Yuan was immediately alarmed. How could he have forgotten about this child again? He remembered that when they were capturing them, Wei Yuan had noticed something unusual about the child and had even backed up the relevant information in the Human World and set up a reminder.

When Wei Yuan went back to check, he found that all the data had mysteriously disappeared, and the reminders he had set were nowhere to be found.

Wei Yuan continued tracing the source and discovered that the reminders were set on nine different mortals. These nine people had different jobs and schedules, ensuring that three of them were working within the system at any given time, and one of their tasks was to periodically remind Wei Yuan.

However, in the memories of these nine mortals, and in the system of human affairs, all the tasks related to the reminders disappeared without leaving a trace.

If Wei Yuan hadn't been so confident in his memory, he would have almost thought he hadn't set any reminders at all.

Wei Yuan finally understood that this was a method used by immortals, making people intentionally or unintentionally forget everything about them by getting closer to the Great Dao.

Wei Yuan carefully observed the child's eyes, and deep within the pupils of those strange eyes was fear and panic.

Wei Yuan couldn't believe the child was human. He then studied the child's mother for a long time and finally concluded that she was a genuine member of the witch clan.

Sun Yu also sensed something was wrong and looked at Wei Yuan with a questioning gaze. Wei Yuan transmitted his voice using his Dao power, saying, "I'm almost certain that the mother and son are human. But I can't find any flaws in their disguise."

Sun Yu pondered for a moment and said, "I remember the teacher once talked about a kind of disguise used by immortals, called 'entering the microscopic.' This is the ultimate level of physical disguise. Whether it is a human body or a witch body, it is actually composed of countless extremely tiny living beings gathered together."

The subtlety of immortal techniques lies in this level of disguise, transforming every tiny creature into a tiny creature of another race, thus rendering most human detection methods ineffective.

"Can you examine these tiny creatures?" Wei Yuan asked.

Sun Yu replied, "I've already tried, and the results show that they are still the Witch Clan. If, as you say, they are truly human, then the one who cast the disguise magic is probably not an ordinary immortal. The true core of the human race is likely hidden deep within the core of a tiny creature. Unless I reach the Yujing Realm, I might not be able to break through this level of disguise."

Wei Yuan said, "I understand, so it can't be solved for the time being. Hmm, that's fine, let's try another method."

Wei Yuan then ordered his men to break down the three cells and separate them in the middle with Nether Iron bars. He then placed the woman and child into the left and right cells respectively, filled the middle cell with explosives, and assigned a Dao Foundation Warrior to guard it.

If Hongye tries to break into the prison to rescue the hostages, Wei Yuan will immediately detonate the explosives, killing all the hostages.

Wei Yuan didn't intend to distinguish which one was Hongye's woman and child. In any case, they were most likely among these witch clan members. If Hongye dared to try to take them, they would all be blown up.

(End of this chapter)