The entire liver of the Meat and Wine Taoist had been excavated into hundreds of cave dwellings of various sizes, corresponding to the distribution of the body's acupoints.
If one came closer, one could see that within each cave dwelling, figures seemed to be moving about.
They acted just like ordinary Daoists, constantly performing rituals, maintaining halls, repairing, chanting scriptures, and conducting ceremonies, with a meticulous seriousness.
The Qi Sea Acupoint was located below the liver, and its cave dwelling was rather remote.
At the mouth of the cave sat an old man with white hair and a childlike face, legs crossed. In front of him, an incense burner supported by a skull of white bone was slowly letting out wisps of white smoke.
He kept muttering: "Dao births Dao, Wuwei Dao..."
At the same time, he posed his hands in ritual seals, breathing through his mouth at a peculiar rhythm, his aura appearing exceedingly mysterious.
When the old man finished his meditation, he let out a sigh and walked into the cave dwelling.
The interior of the cave dwelling was quite simple; pale blue curtains covered the walls, and there were three miniature stone statues of the Daoist Ancestors.
On the other side hung an ink painting.
The figure in the painting looked almost identical to the old man, though there was a slight difference in presence, the real one felt somehow hollow and unreal.
In the lower right corner of the painting were three bold and flowing characters:
"Heavenly Daozi."
The old man gazed at the ink painting for a long time before sitting back on the meditation mat.
A hoarse voice came from his mouth, as though he were speaking to someone: "Senior Six Maladies?"
"Senior Six Maladies..."
His tone sounded probing, filled with wariness, it was clearly not a plea for help.
"Cough, cough, cough... This old man isn't dead yet."
A reply came from the corner of the wall, followed by a fist-sized grotesque creature crawling out from a crack, slowly climbing beneath one of the Daoist Ancestor statues.
The strange thing looked like a skinned rabbit; its whole body was raw, bloody muscle, and inside its four-lipped mouth sprouted more than a dozen tentacles.
"Li Yaoyang, have you discovered anything these days?"
"Of course I have..."
"The cave dwellings are laid out according to the body's acupoints, and each contains a body of Heavenly Daozi, though they act only on instinct."
Old Daoist Six Maladies pondered aloud for a moment: "Then this must be the Qi Sea Acupoint. The exit should not be far."
After he spoke, he swallowed, his gaze toward Li Yaoyang strange and unreadable.
"Li Yaoyang, this old man's soul is about to scatter. Quickly, lend me your body."
"Senior Six Maladies, you were at least a Yin Runner stage cultivator in life. How could you die so easily?"
"When exactly is the full moon? I have a feeling it's soon..."
"We're in a pitch-dark cave dwelling, why worry about the full moon? Senior Six Maladies, you'd better look for some clue to get out instead."
Li Yaoyang smirked mockingly, then closed his eyes to rest, ignoring Six Maladies.
He had survived by hiding within the corpse of Huanghe Immortal, though unexpectedly, those Daoists had used that corpse's flesh and blood to brew liquor.
Li Yaoyang had been thrown into a clay vat, near the liver.
Fortunately, he had refined his three souls and seven spirits into a single strand, though the drawback was great, it prevented them from being easily erased, allowing him to reach this cave dwelling.
The Daoists used liquor to sustain the vitality of hundreds of Heavenly Daozi bodies, and Li Yaoyang forcibly seized one to recuperate within.
However, his situation was far from good. Though his Supernatural Remnant had followed him into this new body, it was badly damaged and could hardly be awakened.
If Li Yaoyang wanted to escape, he had to advance to the Yin Runner realm, but at the moment, he had no way to do so.
As for Old Daoist Six Maladies, he claimed to be a member of the Restraint Officers' Hall, but had mistakenly entered the Shuize Desert and been captured by Qingxu Temple.
What made Li Yaoyang wary was that this person's appearance didn't resemble someone who had seized a body, it was as if he had been born that grotesque and strange.
But by all reason, when the body undergoes such exaggerated aberration and loss of control, even if one suppresses it, the mind should be unstable.
Yet Six Maladies was lucid.
Li Yaoyang rubbed his temples, his body now required regular drinking of liquor to stay alive, and advancing to Yin Runner stage was a distant dream.
On top of that, Six Maladies was secretly watching him.
He might very well die here.
He sighed inwardly, pondering how he could use the Supernatural Remnant that would form after death, perhaps it could at least strike a heavy blow to Qingxu Temple.
Just then, faint black mist drifted past the cave dwelling's entrance.
Ren Qing examined the situation of the liver and couldn't help but feel astonished.
These hundreds of bodies were clearly prepared for Heavenly Daozi, meaning that the disciples behind Qingxu Temple also knew of the Supreme Heavenly Demon.
He wanted to use burning flesh to maintain Heavenly Daozi's sanity.
But Ren Qing knew it was unrealistic, with Heavenly Daozi's level of aberration, relying on physical bodies could never restore reason; it would only deepen the fall.
Eventually, they would inevitably become a part of the Supreme Heavenly Demon.
He followed Li Yaoyang's aura to the cave dwelling entrance and was about to go in when he suddenly sensed another aura inside.
This aura was very strange, though it practiced Restraint Officer arts, there wasn't the slightest trace of spellwork. It felt as if it was a Supernatural Remnant itself.
Ren Qing hesitated for a moment, then decided to observe.
He couldn't rescue Li Yaoyang anyway, he only needed to inform him of the situation so that he could prepare accordingly.
Ren Qing hid in a nearby shadow, using the Heavenly Dao Dream Seed to observe the cave dwelling.
For some reason, Old Daoist Six Maladies suddenly grew agitated. The tentacles in his mouth quivered as he muttered to himself, "The full moon..."
Ren Qing frowned when he heard that. His main body stepped out from the cabin onto the deck.
He looked toward the horizon. It was just the time of dusk in the Shuize region, when day and night exchanged; the temperature plummeted, and frost thickened on the dunes.
Whenever the moon was involved, Ren Qing couldn't help but recall that blood moon of Jingzhou.
...
At that same moment, in Yellow Sand City, the streets, which should have been bustling, were filled with residents who involuntarily looked north.
A massive blood-red moon was slowly rising; two moons now hung in the night sky together.
Li Tiangang and others had already taken control of a Daoist temple, intending to use it to recruit Restraint Officers.
Sensing the anomaly, they stepped into the courtyard.
The blood moon was gradually obscured by wind and sand, but Li Tiangang's face grew darker, and his breathing became uncharacteristically rapid.
Just as the blood moon was about to vanish, from its back extended a flayed arm, suggesting that some enormous, monstrous being hid behind it.
Within the corpse of the Meat and Wine Taoist, Old Daoist Six Maladies fell to his knees, raising both arms in worship, his twisted face filled with fanaticism.
"Under the Supreme Taiyin Star Lord..."
His body began to swell madly; the newly grown skin took on the texture of a toad, covered in pustules one after another.
"You're not Old Daoist Six Maladies?!!"
Li Yaoyang was instantly on guard. The flesh of his arm sloughed off, turning into black beetles that flew toward the monster, striking first.
But the creature's tentacled maw swallowed the beetles whole, crunching them audibly.
It spoke venomously: "What are the rabbit and the toad in the moon?"
"The moon is Yin; the toad is Yang. Together with the rabbit, it shows Yin bound to Yang."
"Last year during the full moon, I ate someone named Six Maladies Old Daoist. His flesh was awfully tough and foul with poison."
"But if I eat you today, I should finally be able to leave this damned place."
A dozen tentacles shot toward Li Yaoyang. He couldn't dodge; they pulled him straight toward the creature's gaping maw.
Li Yaoyang's eyes went wide. Normally, even the slightest noise would attract the Daoists, so why was there no movement now?
Could it really be because of the full moon?
Dozens of black beetles flew from his body, trying to escape, but they couldn't harm the foe and quickly began to falter.
As the monster's mouth came ever closer, Li Yaoyang thought he was doomed, but suddenly, the tentacles froze.
He looked up to see them sliced clean in half, falling to the ground.
Even so, they were still alive, wriggling like maggots, their color turning black-red.
The monster let out a shrill scream, its eyes filled with growing malice.
"Under the Supreme Taiyin Star Lord..."
"You came from Jingzhou, didn't you?"
Black mist surged into the cave, forming a spectral human shape before the monster.
The monster said nothing, staring at Ren Qing in terror as it backed away toward the Daoist Ancestor statue.
Li Yaoyang's heart trembled, he knew that voice. It was Ren Qing.
But how could Ren Qing be in Qingxu Temple? It made no sense, had he been brought here by the Ze People?
He looked closely and saw that Ren Qing's phantom had two heads, the secondary one beside his neck resembling Ze Person's features.
Li Yaoyang was struck dumb, unable to react.
Seeing that he could not get answers, Ren Qing wrapped the monster in Nightmare Fiend Qi, swiftly striking directly at its soul.
The monster tried to flee but stumbled, crashing into the walls.
Soon it went limp, collapsing like a heap of rotten flesh.
Ren Qing reverted to human form, frowning tightly. The monster's soul could not be consumed, it turned to ash the moment he touched it.
Still, he could confirm it was connected to Jingzhou's blood moon.
Perhaps Heavenly Daozi had brought it accidentally while fleeing.
But Ren Qing wasn't about to let it go. He forcefully severed the creature's head and, holding it, prepared to leave the Meat and Wine Taoist's corpse.
Seeing Li Yaoyang still motionless, he couldn't help but urge, "Leave now while it's night. By tomorrow, my soul fragment won't be able to protect you."
Li Yaoyang came to his senses.
Judging by Ren Qing's aura, his soul fragment had surely advanced to the Yin Runner realm.
A bitter smile spread across Li Yaoyang's face. He looked at the monster's corpse and, after a few breaths of hesitation, made up his mind.
"Brother Ren, go on ahead. This crippled body of mine doesn't even have the right to keep struggling, I might as well seize one last chance."
"All right. I hope we meet again."
Ren Qing nodded slightly. He understood that Li Yaoyang truly had no retreat left.
Carrying the monster's head, he left for the outside world, intending to use the Nether Crow to send it to his main body and view it through the Information Flow.
Unfortunately, a soul fragment lacked physical form, like a ghost shadow, it could only summon the Information Flow.
Still... what exactly was the force represented by the blood moon?
Ren Qing realized that all the Daoists had vanished, apparently terrified of the full moon.
It seemed the fall of Wuwei Monastery had not been solely the fault of the Heavenly Dao Worm, the blood moon's interference likely played a role.
After watching Ren Qing depart, Li Yaoyang approached the headless corpse, reached into its chest, and quickly found a dead Supernatural Remnant, the remains of Old Daoist Six Maladies.
He swallowed it whole, awakening the slumbering Supernatural Remnant within his body.