When Ren Qing returned, he found that in just a few short hours, the scale of the camp had already undergone a considerable change.
The city wall had been raised again, and many sheets of paper had been pasted on the ground, said to be for reinforcement.
What surprised him most was that more than a dozen insect cocoons had been buried around the outer perimeter of the camp, the work of Li Yaoyang who had arrived later.
Ren Qing could not understand the layout of the Restraint Officers' Hall, why it gave him a feeling of drawing a circle to make a prison for oneself.
However, judging by appearances the Restraint Officers were already fully prepared for action, even Shui Hulu and Zun were on guard in the surroundings, ready at any time to summon souls.
Only the Great Dream True Person was still nowhere to be seen.
"No room for doubt, summon the soul."
Li Tiangang nodded to Song Zongwu, then stood beside the altar holding a book, gradually loosening the seal on the black goat.
In an instant, the black goat trembled continuously all over, its soul showing signs of imminent collapse, flesh gradually beginning to peel away.
"Meh..."
A strange bleating of a goat sounded.
But under the shroud of fungal mist, the demonic aura was not enough to affect the Restraint Officers, let alone that all present had the cultivation of the Ghost Envoy realm.
Ren Qing stood on the city wall staring at the black goat, and beside him Li Yaoyang's gaze showed slight surprise.
It was hard to imagine that the Corpse Burner had step by step achieved three aberrations, his realm unknowingly almost catching up to his own.
The black goat let out bleat after bleat.
A large lump bulged on its back, then slowly split open, and a monster shaped like a bat crawled out from within.
The bat represented the Devouring Thief Spirit, its function being sleep and recovery during the night.
The moment the Devouring Thief Spirit appeared it had already merged with Avici Hell, its body naturally swelling madly, in just a few breaths reaching more than ten meters.
Li Tiangang tried to take out a sealing paper, but before he could approach it,
The Devouring Thief Spirit flapped its wings and disappeared from where it was, in an instant turning day into night, the camp becoming so dark that one could not see one's hand in front of one's face.
Ren Qing barely maintained his vision, noticing that those in the Yin Runner realm had already moved into action.
"Ridiculous..."
Shui Hulu's voice sounded, and the Flesh-and-Blood Gourd on his back opened its mouth, a continuous drizzle falling down, directly covering a hundred meters.
By this he sensed the position of the Devouring Thief Spirit.
The other Restraint Officers did not act rashly, but the sealing barrier formed by spells had already surrounded the camp, at least ensuring that the false soul could not escape.
Ren Qing had originally thought to focus on self-preservation, but at the moment he noticed Shui Hulu, he suddenly felt a few drops of water head toward the ghost shadow under his feet.
Seeing this, he used the ghost shadow to cover his whole body, turning into a shadow and vanishing.
A stream of water brushed past where Ren Qing had originally been standing, then came the Devouring Thief Spirit's shrill scream.
Ren Qing's face darkened.
It was obvious that Shui Hulu was using the opportunity of dealing with the Devouring Thief Spirit to test the ghost shadow, still coveting the Hundred Ghosts Night Parade even at this point.
And he noticed that Shui Hulu had deliberately left inconspicuous drops of water on several Restraint Officers at the periphery, clearly with ulterior motives.
The drizzle turned into a torrential downpour, washing the ground strewn with chaos.
The Devouring Thief Spirit had no way to dodge, and after being severely injured, the darkness it had formed faded away, and it then tried to flee.
Through the body of the Devouring Thief Spirit, Ren Qing seemed to sense something unusual.
He blended part of the ghost shadow into the darkness, with the Heavenly Demon Dream Seed hidden within.
Ren Qing planned to use the concealment of the Dream Seed to guard against Shui Hulu, so that if the man stabbed him in the back he would know.
Of course it might be exposed, but since Shui Hulu had acted first, Ren Qing had every reason to take this risk.
The darkness vanished completely.
The Devouring Thief Spirit crashed heavily to the ground, its body covered in wounds of various sizes.
But the Yin Runner realm cultivators had not struck to kill , if the Devouring Thief Spirit accidentally died, reviving it again would waste much time.
Shui Hulu walked up to the Devouring Thief Spirit, interested, and had just intended to examine it.
Suddenly, the Devouring Thief Spirit became even more unstable.
Bang!
It instantly turned into hundreds and thousands of bats, scattering in all directions toward outside the camp.
And while Shui Hulu was momentarily dazed, the ghost shadow took the opportunity to slip into his shadow.
To guard against accidents, Ren Qing also had the ghost shadow dissipate on its own, leaving only the Heavenly Demon Dream Seed.
The Heavenly Demon Dream Seed could at any time sense when Shui Hulu relaxed, so that even if unused, it would be easy to retrieve.
The Restraint Officers then all acted, and quickly blocked the Devouring Thief Spirit.
After all, within the camp was gathered almost all of the Restraint Officers' Hall's active strength, and a mere false soul was nothing to speak of.
Once subdued, the Devouring Thief Spirit split into two, turning into a bat and a human-headed bird.
Li Tiangang murmured, "Sparrow Yin Spirit..."
The Sparrow Yin Spirit's function was reproduction, from this it could be seen that on the surface only the Devouring Thief Spirit had been summoned, but in fact the seven spirits had all appeared.
Looking again at the black goat, its whole body had already shriveled, like a corpse of skin and bones, its aura becoming weaker and weaker.
At this rate, let alone the three souls, in at most half a day it would die.
Li Tiangang was not at all flustered, clearly having expected this, and turned to Zun saying: "Zun, help fetch some flesh of eerie creatures."
Zun nodded in reply, then flapped his wings and left the camp.
Before long, a strong wind rose.
He was holding more than a dozen corpses of eerie creatures in his beak, and threw them onto the empty ground beside the black goat.
When Ren Qing advanced to Twin Nightmare Ghosts, he had been to Nether Feather, and knew that the flesh of eerie creatures had the effect of stabilizing souls.
Only it would indirectly cause aberration, so usually Half-Corpse realm Restraint Officers would separate body and soul, using the method of transforming into an eerie creature to absorb the soul aura of eerie creatures.
By this they could temporarily stabilize the soul, thus increasing the chance of advancement.
Li Tiangang picked up the eerie flesh and threw it to the black goat, which instinctively wolfed it down.
The skin-and-bones black goat recovered at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Li Tiangang explained: "The land gains power by devouring the three souls and seven spirits, it is very possible it will break the balance between the brain tree and the Taisui giant, we must speed up the progress."
The head in the jar glanced at Shui Hulu and said: "Yes, hurry."
Under Li Tiangang's assignment, the Restraint Officers immediately set out toward the Flesh Plain.
The Yin Runner realm cultivators each had their own duties.
Song Zongwu grabbed two false souls, then headed for the depths of the brain tree.
The battle between the brain tree and the Taisui giant was becoming fiercer, even the earthquakes caused by its aftermath could affect the temporary camp.
As soon as Song Zongwu approached, the roots of the fungal tree eagerly stretched out, directly wrapping up the false souls and pulling them into the ground.
The fungal tree began a new round of growth, and with seven spirits, its intelligence was fully improved, at least no longer acting purely on instinct.
Ren Qing wanted to tell Li Tiangang about Shui Hulu's abnormal actions, but with many people in the camp it was not convenient to speak.
He could only follow the Restraint Officers away from the edge of the fungal mist, leaving a wisp of ghost shadow to find a chance to convey the information.
After walking not far, a great number of eerie creatures appeared before Ren Qing.
They were in various shapes, and upon seeing living people, they pounced without hesitation, even if it meant dying without retreating.
Whoosh!
The Dragon-Snake Spine drilled out from his palm.
Ren Qing had dealt with eerie creatures before, so his attacks were extremely clean and efficient, in moments the Dragon-Snake Spine had skewered more than a dozen corpses.
As long as he threw the corpses aside, there would be Restraint Officers to carry them to the camp.
Ren Qing quickly attracted the attention of others.
Normally, Restraint Officers needed to work together to ensure quickly killing eerie creatures, but when they looked at Ren Qing, they saw that he had already gone on a killing frenzy.
The Dragon-Snake Spine turned into afterimages covering dozens of meters, any eerie creature approaching would instantly be torn apart, then carried away by the ghost shadow.
Ren Qing even stored some of the eerie corpses into the Flesh Furnace, refining from them a material called "Eerie Blood."
[Eerie Blood]
[Condensed from Avici Hell, taking it reduces lifespan, slightly increases the soul, and is accompanied by a certain degree of aberration.]
For Ren Qing, Eerie Blood was tasteless to consume, but a pity to discard.
If one wanted to consume lifespan to strengthen the soul, it would be better to find a similar spell and directly advance by relying on the information flow.
However, the black goat could not possibly use too much flesh, and eerie creatures were endless like leeks, so it was natural to store some.
Large amounts of eerie flesh were fed into the black goat's mouth, its state becoming stable, though still extremely weak.
Song Zongwu also joined the hunt, and with Yin Runner realm involvement, efficiency was even greater, corpses almost piling into mountains.
It was all to race against time.
Ren Qing took the opportunity to tell Song Zongwu about Shui Hulu, but the other merely nodded without concern.
Seeing this, he was relieved.
The Restraint Officers spent about an hour, and when the corpses were enough they prepared to start the next round of soul summoning.
But Zun had just used the Nether Crow to summon the Restraint Officers back, when something unexpected happened.
With the ground shaking and mountains swaying, the fungal tree pulled out all its roots, writhing like a living creature.
The fungal tree did not help the Taisui giant fight the brain tree, but instead chose to move away, showing that its intelligence now knew to avoid disaster.
The brain tree seemed to sense the false souls gradually moving away, and it kept waving its branches, gray-black brains oozing large amounts of blood.
The smell of blood spread.
The eerie creatures seemed to be stimulated, those that had originally stayed in specific areas now surged toward the brain tree like a tide.
From sky and ground alike they came.
The head in the jar froze for a few breaths, then shouted loudly:
"Fall back!!"
He cast spells to cover the crowd, trapping dozens or hundreds of eerie creatures in the jar, but still some Restraint Officers were surrounded and killed.
With Ren Qing's speed he naturally would not be left behind, but he deliberately slowed his pace, sweeping up dozens or hundreds into the Prison Within the Abdomen.
Looking back, the millions of eerie creatures were like moths to a flame, making one's scalp tingle.
The cry of birds sounded.
Zun swept through the air, claws grabbing Restraint Officers who had not had time to retreat.
The Restraint Officers defended around the city walls, using the height to release spells, and soon stabilized the situation.
But trouble came one after another.
The brain tree's roots absorbed the flesh of the eerie creatures, the aura it displayed becoming more and more terrifying, but it could do nothing to the retreating fungal tree.
It could only vent its fury on the Taisui giant, and the fungal mist began to show signs of dispersing.
Ren Qing suddenly felt the situation tricky , as things stood, once the fungal tree absorbed all three souls and seven spirits, it was very possible it would lose control.
The goal of the Restraint Officers' Hall was to have the fungal tree use the Rat Mother 's ability to produce new souls, and finally replace the brain tree to control Avici Hell.
What if the fungal tree did not follow the script, and left Avici Hell...