The Quest for Immortality

In the center of the altar, terrifying corpse Qi pervaded.

The original Lu Family Old Ancestor had now been refined into a ”Corpse King.”

Its eyes were pitch black, and within its pupils, a hint of blood red flared, and within that blood red, a streak of dark gold shone, making it look utterly different from the other zombies.

The Corpse King’s body was enwreathed with an almost tangible density of corpse Qi, resembling gray-black blood that twined around it.

It suddenly swelled in size; its originally withered corpse flesh, as the blood vessels coagulated, gradually became burly, towering over nine feet tall.

The Corpse King’s body surged with evil power, and its aura was cold and dreadful, with an underlying brutality and a fearsome majesty which made people quake in fear.

Zhang Quan looked on, eyes filled with obsession, muttering:

”Good! Good!”

”Worthy of being the Corpse King!”

”Worthy of commanding tens of thousands of zombies—the Corpse King has such an aura of corpse Qi, such an imposing presence, truly extraordinary!”

”I, Zhang Quan, have not let down the expectations of my ancestors, nor have I failed the bloodline of the Zhang family. I have finally refined the ultimate Corpse King of the Zhang Family’s Corpse Path!”

Zhang Quan fell to his knees with a thud and made several loud kowtows facing the empty ground on the other side.

”Ancestors above, your descendant Zhang Quan has brought glory to our lineage!”

After bowing his head, Zhang Quan stood up, took a deep breath, and then took out the pitch-black Corpse Controlling Bell that was neither stone nor wood, neither bronze nor iron and shook the bell to command the Corpse King.

At the sound of the bell, the Corpse King’s gaze shifted, as if it had ”come to life.”

Simultaneously, the iron coffins of the Formation of Ten Thousand Corpses began to stir.

The coffin lids were thrown open, and one after another, dark cyan hands reached out from the coffins. Iron Corpses, obeying the orders of the Corpse King, climbed out of the iron coffins, bowing before the Corpse King and then turning to kowtow toward Zhang Quan.

Zhang Quan was overjoyed!

He could feel that through commanding the Corpse King, he could control these more than twenty Iron Corpses simultaneously!

More than twenty Iron Corpses!

That meant more than twenty Foundation Building combat forces under his command.

And this was just the beginning, and there would be more in the future!

As long as he controlled the Iron Corpses to group attack and kill Foundation Building Cultivators, and then refined their dead bodies into Iron Corpses, and used the Iron Corpses to kill more Foundation Builders...

This cycle repeated itself, and he would have more and more Iron Corpses under his command.

Without the Corpse King, he could only control one or two Iron Corpses at most at the same time.

But with the Corpse King, even if there were hundreds of Iron Corpses, he could control them all at once.

In this way, he would have an army of demonic ”Corpse soldiers” under his sole command, comparable to Second Grade Taoist Soldiers!

In the Second-Grade Prefecture Border, this Corpse army could sweep away all before it, invincible!

For a moment, Zhang Quan’s heart blossomed with joy.

But just as Zhang Quan was lost in his fantasies, he was completely oblivious to the fact that an Iron Corpse behind him had its stiff eyes rotate, its gaze slightly turning green as it slowly turned its head towards him.

The Iron Corpse opened its mouth, displaying its dark cyan fangs.

It silently moved behind Zhang Quan, opening its gaping maw, its fangs sharp and foul-smelling, coated with a yin-green Corpse Poison as it viciously bit down on Zhang Quan’s neck!

Cold, dangerous winds blew in waves!

Zhang Quan jolted alert, feeling an icy chill on his back, as if something were standing behind him, its rotten breath spraying on the back of his neck, making his hairs stand on end.

In the corner of his eye, he saw an ugly dark cyan corpse face and a pair of venomous fangs!

Zhang Quan was horrified and quickly twisted his body to the side.

But the reaction time was too short, and although he managed to avoid a fatal attack, his right shoulder was still grazed by the fangs of the Iron Corpse, leaving two bloody marks, tearing his clothing and soaking it with blood.

The cold and strange Corpse Poison, following the wound, mixed into the bloodstream, spreading throughout his body.

Zhang Quan felt that a bloodthirsty, non-human consciousness was gradually taking over his own.

Iron Corpse Corpse Poison!

Zhang Quan’s heart trembled with fear, and he hastily retreated several yards, taking out a bottle of Pills and swallowing them to temporarily suppress the Corpse Poison in his body.

Having suppressed the Corpse Poison, Zhang Quan breathed a sigh of relief. His gaze then turned cold as he looked towards the Iron Corpse.

This Iron Corpse wanted to kill him?!

But to his surprise, after biting him once, the Iron Corpse no longer moved and stopped in its tracks.

Zhang Quan frowned, ”What’s happening?”

He remained cautious, inching closer to take a look.

He found that aside from his own blood on the fangs of this Iron Corpse, there was nothing else unusual about it.

Zhang Quan tried to control it.

This Iron Corpse’s movements and retreats were completely under his command, without a hint of loss of control.

Zhang Quan furrowed his brow.

Just as he was puzzled and unable to understand, without any warning, another Iron Corpse’s eyes moved, its pupils changed slightly, and it opened its ferocious fangs, lunging at Zhang Quan to attack.

This time Zhang Quan was somewhat prepared, and he quickly rolled back to dodge, barely avoiding it.

And this Iron Corpse, just like the other one, stopped after a single attack, its pupils turning dull and lifeless once again.

Zhang Quan’s face grew stern as his mind raced.

”What’s going on?”

Intermittent loss of control?

Was the Corpse King not well refined, or was there a problem with his Corpse control?

Could it be that because there were too many Iron Corpses, he couldn’t control them momentarily, leading to this feign-death situation?

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Zhang Quan was uncertain and apprehensive.

But before he could think further, more Iron Corpses suddenly attacked, lunging from behind.

This time it wasn’t just one, but two, each attacking once before stopping, and after a brief moment, the number of ambushing zombies gradually increased to three...

Zhang Quan was hard-pressed to defend himself, and the bite marks from the zombies on his body grew more numerous...

But he was still clueless, utterly unaware of what was happening.

Meanwhile, hidden in the shadows, Lu Chengyun who was controlling the Iron Corpses, smiled malevolently.

And Mo Hua, who had been watching everything, cursed Zhang Quan in his heart for being a fool.

”Lu Chengyun is playing you, How can your brain fail to figure out such a simple thing?”

When Zhang Quan was played by Lu Chengyun to the point of being covered in wounds, he finally realized it.

Someone was controlling these Iron Corpses!

The Iron Corpses were under the control of the Corpse King.

And in this corpse mine, who else could control the Corpse King?

Zhang Quan clenched his teeth and shouted, ”Lu Chengyun!”

”You motherfucker...”

”Hiding your head while showing your tail, come out to me!”

By now, Lu Chengyun no longer hid, but slowly came out from behind the altar.

Zhang Quan was taken aback, then said with hatred, ”It really is you!”

Lu Chengyun replied calmly, ”Brother Zhang, I’ve been sincere with you, yet I never thought you’d attempt to steal my Corpse King and ruin my grand plan behind my back?”

Zhang Quan looked surprised and confused, frowning as he asked, ”When exactly did you find out?”

Lu Chengyun smiled without giving an answer, instead said lightly, ”Does it even matter at this point?”

Zhang Quan’s eyes twitched.

Indeed, at this point, everything was out in the open, with both parties having torn their facades, engaged in a life-and-death struggle. Knowing these details was meaningless.

Zhang Quan sneered, ”Since when did the Corpse King become yours? It was refined using my Zhang Family’s bronze coffin and my Zhang Family’s methods of Corpse Refinement. It should belong to the Zhang Family!”

Lu Chengyun shook his head, ”Brother Zhang, you are mistaken. This Corpse King was made using the body of the Lu Family Old Ancestor.”

Zhang Quan scoffed, ”What do you mean ’your Lu Family’? You’re just a son-in-law who climbed up by clinging to a woman and opportunistically sycophanting. What does the Lu Family have to do with you?”

Those words seemed to strike a nerve in Lu Chengyun.

His eyelids twitched, and his smile became colder. After a moment of silence, he sighed, ”Brother Zhang, I’ve long known about your duplicity...”

”I’ve told you before, everyone has their own ambitions, I don’t blame you.”

”But you should never have meddled with the Corpse King.”

”The Corpse King is not something someone of your caliber can control!”

Zhang Quan burst into mocking laughter, ”You are fit to control it? You, who seek after fame and fortune, conduct yourself in sneaky ways, have a spine of jelly, and go around bribing people with Spirit Stones... What caliber do you speak of?”

Lu Chengyun’s face twisted as he drew a slender sword. With a flash of the blade, he went straight for Zhang Quan’s face.

Zhang Quan spat out a curse and swallowed a Corpse Blood Pill. He underwent Corpse Transformation suddenly, his flesh turned iron-blue and his eyes crimson, and he clashed with Lu Chengyun.

For a time, the sword light was overflowing and the Corpse Qi was rampant.

The surrounding coffins were also shattered into fine dust by the sword Qi and the punch winds.

Mo Hua looked into the distance and saw that the coffin of the little zombie under his control was far enough not to be affected by the battle. He breathed a sigh of relief and then continued to watch.

The two had harbored grudges against each other for a long time, but each had been biding their time. Now that the old resentment had erupted, they spared no effort.

However, Zhang Quan, who had taken pills, was clearly no match for Lu Chengyun, especially since he had previous wounds from being ambushed by Lu Chengyun with the controlled Iron Corpses. At the moment, he was barely holding on.

After fighting for a while, Zhang Quan repelled Lu Chengyun with a punch and thought about controlling the Corpse King to kill Lu Chengyun.

The Corpse King, under his control, constricted its pupils, and its blood color intensified.

But at the same time, Lu Chengyun also moved his Divine Thought, using the Spiritual Pivot Evil Formation to control the Corpse King.

Both were trying to control the Corpse King.

The Corpse King’s pupils flickered between brightness and darkness, its blood color deepened and lightened by turns, its killing intent waxing and waning. After a while, it became as motionless as wood or stone, silent and still.

Mo Hua’s thoughts stirred slightly.

It seemed that when the control from both sides clashed, and neither could overpower the other, the Corpse King would not help either side.

Unable to control the Corpse King, Lu Chengyun and Zhang Quan began trying to control the Iron Corpses through the Corpse King.

Zhang Quan rang a bell, and Lu Chengyun controlled the Formation.

After a standoff, they each controlled a portion of the Iron Corpses.

Zhang Quan managed to control eleven, while Lu Chengyun, being stronger than Zhang Quan, controlled thirteen Iron Corpses.

Zhang Quan and Lu Chengyun went back to fighting each other.

And the Iron Corpses they controlled started fighting to the death as well, making the scene even more chaotic.

Mo Hua climbed further up the altar to keep away from the fray.

From atop the altar, Mo Hua peered down to find the situation becoming increasingly clear.

Zhang Quan, already weaker than Lu Chengyun and with two fewer Iron Corpses under his control, naturally fell at a disadvantage.

After a fierce battle, Lu Chengyun’s clothes were torn, but his demeanor was collected, and his breath steady.

Meanwhile, Zhang Quan was in dire straits, covered in wounds, panting heavily.

Mo Hua shook his head, thinking that if this continued, Zhang Quan would be finished.

Once Zhang Quan was done for, Lu Chengyun would be unchallenged, making it less convenient for himself to fish in troubled waters.

Perhaps he should help Zhang Quan?

Mo Hua blinked, contemplating.

Sneakily, he made some small moves...

It was also a good opportunity to test whether the Spiritual Pivot Formation he had laid was effective.

Mo Hua’s eyes brightened, then he crossed his legs and sat down, holding his breath and concentrating, quietly sensing.

Thus, amidst Zhang Quan’s and Lu Chengyun’s tumultuous fight, no one noticed an obscure Divine Sense silently connecting with the formation on the Corpse King’s chest, stealthily controlling the Corpse King, and using it to control a portion of the Iron Corpses...