The gigantic corpse Buddha stood within the Corrupted Blood Plain. From time to time the spine emitted sounds of bone collision, accompanied by faint spurts of flame.
As a corpse, its intelligence was vague and intermittent, thus causing adaptation to mutated organs to be somewhat slow.
Just as the gigantic corpse Buddha stood motionless, a distant hill slightly bulged.
Immediately afterward, an inconspicuous crack formed on the surface, and a pale swollen arm stretched out from within, followed by a robust man crawling out.
The man wore clothes made of moss. His appearance had an abnormal swelling, like a corpse that had soaked in water for several days.
At the position of his chest and abdomen was a wound where flesh was indistinct and blurred.
The moment the man touched the corrupted blood outside, countless tiny long worms crawled over his skin, immediately producing sizzling sounds.
But what was strange was that although the worms were gnawing the flesh, his expression was extremely relieved.
Soon afterward several dozen humans with similar appearances crawled out from the underground. They all had injuries to varying degrees and picked up corrupted blood to smear over their bodies.
After the worms gnawed their skin until it became pitted and uneven, what was revealed was not flesh and blood but new skin.
The man tore off the skin, then led the others toward the gigantic corpse Buddha.
Their speed was extremely fast, completely unlike people who had been severely injured earlier, except that their skin was being devoured layer after layer by the worms.
By the time the man reached beneath the feet of the gigantic corpse Buddha, his body had forcibly shrunk by one circle.
Fortunately because of the Heart-Burning Method nearby, within several hundred meters there was no corrupted blood, nor even a single long worm.
To the gigantic corpse Buddha, mortals were merely ants, no different from the worms contained within the corrupted blood, so it did not pay attention.
"Sen Sheng, are we really going to..."
The man called Sen Sheng glanced at the companion who spoke, his expression extremely complicated, mixed with longing and fear.
"Is there any retreat left?"
Sen Sheng muttered blankly: "Either find the door of the ancestral land, or die..."
Before finishing speaking, he took a sharp small knife from his waist and fiercely stabbed it into his glabella. Immediately blood splattered everywhere.
The others could not bear to watch, and some could not help trembling.
Sen Sheng's knife slid across his head, then both hands grabbed the torn opening of the skin and pulled, forcibly shedding more than a dozen sheets of bloody skin.
After shedding the skin, his originally robust body became only slightly over one meter tall, with skin wrapping bones, appearing extremely thin.
"You're just watching?"
Sen Sheng's breath was weak, but holding the knife he carried a frightening ferocity.
Soon someone took the knife and used the same method to peel their own skin. Large amounts of human skin piled on the ground, and a fishy stench spread.
Under Sen Sheng's coercion, everyone completed the skin shedding.
"Let's go. The time left for us is not much."
Sen Sheng tiredly pinched the bridge of his nose, then used the body hair of the gigantic corpse Buddha as support, struggling to climb upward.
The others immediately followed closely, forming a long line like ants marching in formation.
Their target seemed to be the navel of the gigantic corpse Buddha, clearly intending to drill into its body, but casualties soon appeared.
Because Ren Qing was refining the spine, the gigantic corpse Buddha would occasionally tremble.
As a result several people failed to hold on and fell.
Even though those who fell to the ground did not die, Sen Sheng still had no intention of rescuing them, merely staring at the navel while continuing to climb.
By the time they finally reached the navel of the gigantic corpse Buddha, out of dozens of people fully one-third had died, and the remainder were all close to exhaustion.
The navel of the gigantic corpse Buddha was not large. Fortunately Sen Sheng and the others had peeled off their human skin beforehand, otherwise it would have been impossible to drill into it.
Sen Sheng did not rest at all, because they had not yet reached inside the body.
Following the navel they reached the end. Although in front of them was a sealed wall of flesh, as long as they dug through it they could reach the relatively safe intestines.
Sen Sheng and the others took out tools and began frantically digging into the flesh wall.
Although their strength seemed ordinary, the raw materials used to make the tools were not simple, easily leaving pits in the flesh.
At the same time they sprinkled a blackish-brown powder to prevent the wound from healing.
The digging lasted more than ten days.
During that time several more people died from overexertion. The faces of the rest all carried lingering fear, afraid they would follow the same fate.
Bang...
The numbness in Sen Sheng's eyes condensed. The sound transmitted by the tool told him that the flesh wall had finally been dug through.
"Quick! Quick! Quick!"
Their spirits rose as they waved the tools, the hole in the flesh wall becoming larger and larger.
Once it was barely enough for a person to pass, Sen Sheng impatiently crawled inside.
After passing through a narrow passage, he arrived at the intestines and stomach of the gigantic corpse Buddha. What entered his nose was a faint fragrance of plants.
Sen Sheng raised his head to look into the intestines, his heart filled with disbelief.
At his current location the surrounding flesh was rotten and blackened, but not far away large quantities of crops were planted.
Moreover the flesh was covered with pale golden patterns, revealing vibrant vitality.
Sen Sheng could also see cultivators of various shapes cultivating farmland, each looking like demons and ghosts, completely unlike mortals.
"Who goes there?!"
After Jiang Feng noticed the extremely miserable Sen Sheng, he immediately spoke to warn others.
More than a dozen demon-kind transformed into beast forms. With crossing limbs they arrived before Sen Sheng and the others in the blink of an eye, then subdued them.
Jiang Feng's brows were tightly furrowed.
Judging from appearance, Sen Sheng was nothing more than an ordinary refugee, but this was inside the gigantic corpse Buddha—how could mortals have space to survive here.
Jiang Feng looked toward the pit that was beginning to heal. These people should have come from the outside world.
"Bring them to Senior Li Tiangang..."
"Wait, feed them."
A cultivator brought water and food. Sen Sheng and the others wolfed it down, stuffing it into their mouths while speaking words that could not be understood.
Li Tiangang hurried to the stomach and intestines after hearing about it, but likewise could not figure out the situation.
However to prevent more people from entering the intestines through the navel, he had Little San organize the artifact refiners to accelerate the artifactization progress of the intestines.
As long as the region connected to the navel was refined so that the flesh wall formed an integrated whole, even the Yang Spirit realm would find it difficult to break.
Finally Sen Sheng was brought by Li Tiangang to the spine region.
Ren Qing had just finished the fifth strange transformation fusion. Since language was not mutually understood, he threw Sen Sheng into the Stomach-Within World and used spells to obtain his memories.
At first he did not care, but soon noticed the peculiarity of Sen Sheng's physique.
"Truly interesting..."
[Age: thirty-eight]
[Lifespan: three hundred seventy-six years]
From Sen Sheng's memories Ren Qing learned that they called themselves "Cocoon People".
Every year a Cocoon Person lived, they would grow an additional thick layer of human skin. When suffering injuries, the human skin was equivalent to an extra life.
Their skin shedding could heal injuries. If they could live to the heavenly human lifespan limit of more than three hundred years, they would transform into a gigantic insect cocoon.
It was said that if the Cocoon Person's body within the cocoon remained undamaged for a thousand years, they could break the cocoon and ascend to immortality.
However Ren Qing inspected Sen Sheng's body and soul and did not find any clue of breaking the cocoon to become immortal. It was likely only the fantasy of predecessors.
He brought Sen Sheng outside. Because of long sleep the latter's consciousness could not distinguish reality from illusion and kept screaming wildly.
Ren Qing's finger pressed onto Sen Sheng's glabella, forcibly injecting the language of Xiangxiang into the soul.
Sen Sheng opened his mouth wide, only recovering after a long while, looking at Ren Qing with fear and trembling. He heard the latter slowly say:
"Sen Sheng, why do you want to go to Dead Man's Forbidden Zone?"
Sen Sheng did not understand why. Although what he heard was a strange language, he knew its meaning and could even speak in reply.
"Imm... Immortal... this humble one... does not understand... what Dead Man's Forbidden Zone is."
"Then I will say it another way. Why do you want to go to the so-called ancestral land?"
Sen Sheng shook his head, suppressing the madness in his heart as he answered: "From birth... Cocoon People must go to... the ancestral land... to find a... door."
Ren Qing asked several more questions, using the Dream Flower to remove the defenses of Sen Sheng's soul, and soon understood the origins of the Cocoon People.
The Cocoon People had a unique language but no written characters to record it.
They lived in underground caves of the Corrupted Blood Plain, knowing only that they must go to Dead Man's Forbidden Zone, though the reason was unknown.
Relying on themselves alone, the Cocoon People could not possibly reach Dead Man's Forbidden Zone.
Fortunately every so often gigantic creatures passed through the Corrupted Blood Plain. Usually Cocoon People drilled into their bodies in an attempt to reach the ancestral land.
As for whether any Cocoon People had succeeded, since it was a road of no return, no one knew.
Ren Qing silently pondered the information Sen Sheng revealed. The ancestral land should be Dead Man's Forbidden Zone. Could it be that at the center there truly was a door?
And what did the door symbolize?
The first thing he thought of was the Disaster-Elimination Method. After advancing to the Yin Difference realm "Strange Belly Concealing Door", one indeed could open a sealed great door.
Perhaps Dead Man's Forbidden Zone had some connection with it?
Ren Qing had far too many questions. Only after stepping into Dead Man's Forbidden Zone might some be answered; of course it was also possible the truth would remain unreachable.
"Sen Sheng, are you willing to cultivate with me?"
"Replying to Immortal, this humble one is willing, this humble one is willing."
Sen Sheng knocked his head repeatedly in agreement, then was infused with the content of the Human-Skin Book by Ren Qing.
The other Cocoon People were also simply and crudely taught the Xiangxiang language.
It must be said that after Ren Qing learned the Cocoon People's physique, he realized the Human-Skin Book was extremely suitable for them, even tailor-made.
Ren Qing was very interested in the Cocoon People. Through the Dream Flower he could also perceive that the Cocoon People had no-difference hearts, but for the short term it was not good to release them outside.
Just as the farmland in the Stomach-Within World required manpower, he handed them to the Jailers to manage.
Aside from the Cocoon People, that Heavenly Dao Insect from the Insect Nest was also sent to farm. Simply suppressing it underground was somewhat wasteful.
Ren Qing continued strange transformation fusion.
The spine had already been refined more than halfway. The Restraint Officer Method he chose was the Bone Armor Bearer of the Bone Armor Technique.
Bone Armor Bearer can summon externally attached bone armor, and the bones will transform into a material neither bone nor iron.
As long as the spinal bones of the gigantic corpse Buddha were not damaged, iron bones could continuously generate. Although there would be the disadvantage of heaviness, it could later be compensated through other techniques.
The Yin Difference realm of Bone Armor Bearer is called "Leakless Steel Body", which can actively flesh-transform into steel and merge with the bones.
The self-protection ability of the gigantic corpse Buddha would greatly increase, gradually transforming into a steel fortress.
Of course the most important matter for Ren Qing right now was still strange transformation fusion. Otherwise once the stable period passed, there would no longer be such an environment for cultivation.