Ren Qing felt his entire body trembling.
Undergoing such a violent transformation in a short time was something no one could truly endure.
Even though the information flow exempted the cost, the pain was by no means diminished.
Fortunately, the eyeballs he had swallowed earlier were now rapidly digesting. Otherwise, the hunger alone would have destroyed his sanity.
This so-called transformation referred to the body moving closer to the Supernatural Remnant within, some of it passive, some active. Most cultivators did their best to avoid large-scale transformation of the body.
But Ren Qing's Divine Leg Sutra had already become completely indistinguishable from the Supernatural Remnant, showing just how terrifying the degree of transformation had become.
By now, Ren Qing's body had reached a height of just over six meters.
And this was only the beginning.
Compared to the Ghost Envoy Realm of the Taotie Method and the Blindless Method, the Divine Leg Sutra was a beast-type technique and showed far more dramatic physical enhancements.
First was the skeleton, which expanded and was then compressed to the extreme. Its strength had reached that of metal.
Heat poured out of every pore, forming white mist that shrouded Ren Qing's entire body, preventing others from seeing what was happening inside.
At the sacrificial altar.
Facing the Immortal Lord, Zeng Lin's mouth had already transformed into something like a bird's beak. As it opened, sonic waves burst forth.
The Immortal Lord's flesh exploded outward, it might buy a moment's delay, but couldn't harm the core.
Zeng Lin was getting a headache. With her being only at the initial Ghost Envoy Realm, she truly couldn't hold up.
All she could do was stall as long as possible, awaiting reinforcements from the Restraint Officers' Hall.
The Immortal Lord's wounds regenerated at frightening speed, and his body continued to mutate, radiating a terrifying aura.
Most civilians had already been evacuated to safety, including the heavily injured preachers.
But many mountain folk, under Liu Bao's lead, knelt and prayed aloud, begging the mountain god to calm his wrath.
Clearly, they were worshiping the Immortal Lord as the real mountain god.
Zeng Lin clapped her hands together, and sound waves caused the ground to sink, trapping the Immortal Lord momentarily.
The only small mercy was that he had lost all intelligence and was now acting purely on instinct, hence his attacks were massive and unwieldy.
Just then, Zeng Lin instinctively turned to look at the distant forested mountain.
There, an aura was soaring explosively. It felt similar to the Immortal Lord's, but probably not yet at the Yin Runner Realm.
Could it be reinforcements from the Restraint Officers' Hall?
Zeng Lin shook her head and signaled the reserves to deal with that hill of flesh.
The flesh-mound was made of Seekers of the Dao. Their bodies tangled together, making them hard to separate. They could only be moved as a whole away from the altar.
ROAR!!!!!!
The Immortal Lord's body transformed into a massive tentacle and smashed toward Zeng Lin. A howling noise split the air, and a gust swept up from the ground.
Zeng Lin rolled away to dodge, holes opening in her back, through which sonic waves fired, instantly turning the tip of the tentacle into a pulp of meat.
However, she was still grazed by the attack, gaining a deep wound on her arm that exposed bone, which weakened her further.
"This was only one mutation... yet with such extreme transformation, he gained such terrifying power. It's truly unbelievable..."
Zeng Lin couldn't help but feel retreat was wise.
In Heshan Town, torchlight could already be seen, the citizens seemed to be gathering at the foot of the mountain. The situation was spiraling out of control.
Suddenly, the mountain split open, and a brawny man walked out.
His name was Lei Bin, two meters tall, with a pair of leathery bat-like wings on his back that flapped from time to time.
Lei Bin was also a Restraint Officer stationed at Heshan, but had remained inside the Restraint Officers' Hall. He had rushed over as soon as he received word.
"Zeng Lin, a Yin Runner Realm from Restraint Officers' Hall has already set out, they'll be here soon."
As he spoke, his wings folded together and turned into a fleshy shield, blocking the Immortal Lord's attack.
The Immortal Lord flew into a rage. Hundreds and thousands of human-like faces opened their mouths across his body, and countless flesh puppets crawled out.
The puppets looked like skeletons draped in human skin, forming a tide as they surged toward the Restraint Officers.
Zeng Lin quickly released sound waves, instantly reducing several puppets to minced flesh.
But before she could breathe a sigh of relief, the dead puppets fused together, growing larger and regenerating endlessly.
Zeng Lin and Lei Bin were soon surrounded by puppets.
One attacked while the other defended, they coordinated very well. Aside from fending off puppets, they could even find moments to strike at the Immortal Lord.
Unfortunately, his mass of flesh was simply too thick. Without sharp weapons, he was hard to harm.
The Immortal Lord ignored them. Sensing something, he dragged his bloated body toward the mound of flesh, muttering to himself:
"I'm human... I'm human..."
This seemed like a final attempt to cling to some shred of self-awareness but transformation didn't just affect the body, it affected the soul as well.
The Immortal Lord had long ceased to be human.
Don't be fooled by how many cultivators are half-human, half-beast, Supernatural Remnant transformation doesn't usually affect the soul, let alone the whole body.
The Immortal Lord reached the flesh mound and used tentacles to scoop up all the Seekers, then split open and swallowed them.
After ingesting such a large amount of blood flesh, his aura grew even more unstable.
But he forced himself back into a vaguely humanoid shape.
He became an over-eight-meter-tall deformed giant made of flesh.
The Immortal Lord looked toward Zeng Lin and Lei Bin, who were still battling puppets, and reached out.
But his arm froze.
An earth-shaking wolf howl echoed, and the surrounding forests responded in chorus, drowning out the Immortal Lord entirely.
The crescent moon hanging in the dark sky was shrouded in heavy clouds.
All around them fell into boundless darkness. Only the dim glow of the altar's fire pit lit about a hundred meters.
A gust of wind blew.
The clouds slowly parted, revealing a blood-red moon.
Blood moon. Ghost wolf.
The Immortal Lord's outstretched hand remained suspended in the air, while a massive figure charged on all fours.
Its original wolf form was now unrecognizable.
Ren Qing looked as though he was clad in bone armor, his skull covered in a bony mask. The sound of his heartbeat echoed from his chest and abdomen.
He desperately wanted to end the Immortal Lord quickly, because the information flow constantly warned him:
Once the Divine Leg Sutra's Supernatural Remnant took over, to exempt its effects on the body, lifespan would be slowly consumed.
His remaining eight months or so of lifespan could probably only support an hour and the transformation was still affecting his soul.
Ren Qing threw a punch directly at the Immortal Lord.
BOOM!!!
The shockwave blasted outward, and a sea of puppets turned to dust, scattering with the wind.
Zeng Lin's eyes widened in disbelief.
This ghost wolf was clearly also a transformed cultivator.
Its level of transformation rivaled the Immortal Lord, completely inhuman.
She froze, unable to make sense of it, and was wounded in the abdomen by a puppet.
Lei Bin quickly shielded her vital points and took the chance to move her to a safer spot.
The puppets turned on the greater threat: Ren Qing. The two officers finally caught a break.
Zeng Lin couldn't help but mutter, "So this is how terrifying a loss of control after transformation can be. It's almost not Ghost Envoy Realm anymore..."
"It's still far from Yin Runner Realm, but it's close... Yin Runner Realm is really about controlling the effects of transformed techniques..."
For cultivators, becoming stronger is the eternal truth, and countless have died for it.
Lei Bin stopped short. He had only heard whispers about the Yin Runner Realm.
Ren Qing strained to maintain rationality. He slashed at the Immortal Lord with his wolf claws from top to bottom.
He sent his soul fragment into the Wuwei Daoist Altar, hoping to avoid total loss of control, but the effect was faint.
Blood splattered, and wherever it landed, puppets sprang into being. They clung to Ren Qing's body and gnawed.
But by all appearances, Ren Qing was still dominating the Immortal Lord.
He attacked with increasing frenzy. Between lifespan consumption and creeping madness, he wanted nothing more than to tear the enemy apart.
The Immortal Lord turned into a tidal wave of flesh and slammed Ren Qing back, sending him crashing into a mountain wall.
Ren Qing narrowed his eyes.
After calming down, he wasn't sure if it was just an illusion but the mass of blood and flesh seemed to be hiding something deep inside, so far in that it was invisible to the naked eye.
Ren Qing drew his Dragon-Snake Spine.
It transformed into a bone blade over ten meters long. He placed it at his waist in a drawing posture.
Double Pupils locked on to the target. Every flaw was laid bare.
The Marching Calamity Wolf enhanced the body, but focused primarily on the heart.
His heart beat furiously, even blood mist seeped from his pores. The surrounding air warped from the heat.
Zeng Lin's pupils shook.
If it had been thirty seconds earlier, she might have stood a chance. Now, it was terrifying beyond reason.
But she didn't know, he was just burning through lifespan.
Ren Qing powered up with his legs, vanishing into a blur. The bone blade dragged along the ground with a piercing screech.
SLASH!!!
Most of the Immortal Lord was cut open. Inside, a brain covered in limbs writhe, it was grotesque beyond words.
Ren Qing's momentum carried him dozens of meters, leveling the altar in the process.
He instinctively clutched his chest, sensing his heart might come alive, proof of how terrifying full transformation was.
Ren Qing knew he had to finish this fast. He leapt into the air to dodge the Immortal Lord's attack, charging up.
His leg muscles bulged, and heat sprayed from them.
To him, time seemed frozen.
In his eyes, only the recovering Immortal Lord and the brain inside his body remained.
The Dragon-Snake Spine rang out, its bone blades vibrating.
The wind had arrived.
Ren Qing bent down and gripped Dragon-Snake Spine, its edge pointed toward the deformed lump of meat ahead.
He launched.
The spine stabbed from an unexpected angle, so fast no one could react.
The Immortal Lord roared. Flesh formed walls to block Ren Qing.
But in a blink, he vanished. He reappeared behind the Immortal Lord, a shadow left behind in his place.
Claws sprouted from his palms, tipped with Canine Plague toxin.
Ren Qing tore through the Immortal Lord's flesh, the brain was right there. Calmly, he drove the Dragon-Snake Spine straight in.
It pierced the brain in an instant.
Brain matter splattered.