Chapter 424: Chapter 49 The Hanged Core Formation Cultivator
Ye Zhuo Daoist deeply realized the benefits of following Li Mo; even the meager tokens gifted by the latter brought immeasurable gains to him.
Li Mo tossed the rattle into the shadow, where it was guarded by the Ghost Tiger illusion.
Upon closer thought, it seemed that the Copper Mirror was even colder and damper than the mortal world—perhaps the rainwater from other regions had all converged in the deeper levels of the Copper Mirror.
Ye Zhuo Daoist toyed with the Sealing Demon Gourd, unable to resist speaking. "The infant Sword Ghost’s true body likely isn’t on the second layer of the Copper Mirror. I drew it out through the fetal Meat Stone."
"The stronger the Sword Ghost, the deeper its true body lies within the Copper Mirror."
Li Mo nodded slightly. "Indeed troublesome. We should avoid proactively entering the Copper Mirror; trying to escape later might be tremendously difficult."
Ye Zhuo Daoist shivered.
The Night Patrol Deity that nearly caused the Great Sun Sword Tomb’s total collapse was likely at the Copper Mirror’s deepest level, while the surface layers of the Fire Spirit Hall appeared comparatively safer.
If a Night Patrol Deity in the Void Refining Stage loses control, even a Sword Cultivator of the same realm would struggle to contend.
The only consolation was that Daoist Bai Shuo seemed to have stabilized, and his expression no longer carried the despair it once held.
Li Mo suspected that the consciousness of Daoist Bai Shuo, trapped within the Copper Mirror, had already sensed its body—it was just a matter of whether he could hold out until the calamity was resolved.
"Let’s go. I wonder what’s happening by the Beili Riverbank."
"Sigh..."
The two cautiously walked along the dry riverbed, one behind the other.
Li Mo vaguely remembered that during the brief moments he spent on the second layer of the Copper Mirror, he seemed to hear the faint sound of something clattering beyond the store. The deeper regions of the Beili Riverbank must surely be overflowing with water.
The Fire Spirit Hall remained deathly still; over two hundred Sword Cultivators had not stirred in the faintest.
The journey, however, proved to be uneventful.
As facts would have it, Sword Ghosts capable of affecting the mortal world from the Copper Mirror were exceedingly rare.
"Is this... the Beili Riverbank?"
Ye Zhuo Daoist glanced at two severed heads and noticed that their eyes were fixed intensely in the same direction, towards an incongruous tavern by the riverbank.
The tavern had four floors, its door wide open, and lanterns hung beneath its eaves, casting faint glows.
The signboard bore the inscription [Beili Restaurant] and beneath it were golden carvings of a pair of couplets.
"A tavern of ten painting scrolls, flaring torches at midnight—flowers with laughter, willows with merriment."
"A hundred platters of jade fish meat, golden relish of one dish—moonlit scents waft far."
The bottom right corner of the couplets contained a small inscription.
[Left by the Luan Chuan Immortal]
The Creation Scholar stirred; Li Mo was processing memories that had suddenly surfaced.
In these memories, there was a shoulder-length-haired man wielding a precious sword.
Luan Chuan Immortal, whose original name was Li Rui, was once a disciple of the ancient Heavenly Sword Sect. Born into a bureaucratic family, he earned the rank of scholar at just twenty.
Later, as his family fell into decline, he sought to climb the mountains and ask the Dao for enlightenment.
Unexpectedly possessed of Dual Spirit Roots, he easily joined the Heavenly Sword Sect. According to the memories, after barely achieving Core Formation, Luan Chuan stopped striving for cultivation.
He delighted in mingling within mortal society, and the couplets of the tavern were likely composed on a whim during such indulgences.
"Luan Chuan..."
The memories were fragmented, but through glimpsing this iceberg’s tip, Li Mo discerned that Luan Chuan had already neared a calamity signaling the upheaval of heaven and earth.
The Three-Life Skull grinned and said, "Taiyi and Ye Zhuo are waiting by the Beili Riverbank. If nothing happens, stay long. If... something sinister arises?"
"Seal it!!"
The hoarse voice from the Three-Life Skull sounded like fingernails scraping harshly against a wall.
Ye Zhuo Daoist’s face twisted into an ugly expression akin to one who had just lost their parents.
He realized his experience wandering the Great Sun Sword Tomb meant nothing in the Fire Spirit Hall—everywhere there was an air of extraordinary peculiarity.
"Always so jumpy."
Ye Zhuo Daoist wiped the sweat from his forehead, only to see Li Mo stride into the tavern without hesitation, releasing seven Tattooed Beast illusions.
"Ye Zhuo, why stand there dazed?"
"Search the tavern thoroughly and see if there’s anything that records information."
"Coming, coming."
Thin mist gently permeated the surroundings.
Li Mo commanded the Illusion Fish Sword to arrange an array—not sufficient to fend off Sword Ghosts, but at least capable of guarding against Sword Cultivators sneaking near.
Everything within the tavern seemed no different from that of the mundane.
Li Mo even noticed wear marks along the edges of chairs, tables, and stools, as though guests had visited not too long ago.
A while later.
The two piled the miscellaneous items in the main hall—most of them were jewelry and ornaments scavenged from locked drawers in the guest rooms.
Ye Zhuo Daoist couldn’t grasp what Li Mo was intent on uncovering and busied himself setting up defenses in the vicinity.
"Got it, the ledger [Post-holiday Surplus Book]."
Li Mo scanned through it at a glance, finding no useful clues within, though it did indeed date back eight thousand years.
What puzzled him was, the ledger’s final three pages bore only the crudely scrawled inscription "Yihai Year," after which there were no further records.
"Yihai Year, or the Year of the Pig—the upheaval of heaven and earth happened during the Year of the Pig?"
Li Mo hesitated for a moment before placing the rattle against his forehead, activating the Cave God’s Eye to its limit while wrapping himself in the Ghost Tiger illusion.
As his Great Wilderness Immortal Body connected to his Five Consciousnesses, the Cave God’s Eye grew increasingly mystical.
In the Buddhist Sect, it is said that the Five Consciousnesses are governed by the five sensory organs—eyes’ Sight, ears’ Hearing, nose’s Smell, tongue’s Taste, body’s Touch.
But through arduous cultivation, individuals may awaken the "Sixth Sense" of Insight at the brow chakra.
"The six senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and awareness—all originate from the five roots."
Li Mo noticed that as time passed, the Cave God’s Eye grew sharper in perceiving external surroundings, seeming to rival Divine Sense.
Thus, he considered using the rattle as a medium to allow the Cave God’s Eye to indirectly contact the Copper Mirror.
"Without the body entering the Copper Mirror, there shouldn’t be any harm from the Sword Ghosts, right?"
Li Mo immersed himself in the inter-linking process, and the items within the tavern began to transform subtly.
As if aged by time’s abrasion, the furniture became spotted with mold, black-brown mushrooms sprouted from wall cracks, and incessant flowing water echoed in his ears.
When he raised his head.
Dozens of long ropes hung from the beams, seemingly used for hangings—the rope ends stained with blood, giving the scene an unspeakably eerie touch.
The ledger in Li Mo’s hand suddenly weighed down, its pages filled with tangled strands of hair, the tips faintly writhing.
He inspected the ledger again.
The hair slid to the floor, sizzling as it melted like hot butter under a knife.
Within moments, the strands were entirely dissolved, releasing a pungent smell akin to burning plastic—Li Mo resisted the urge to vomit as he flipped to the final three pages.
The pages were inked with blood, revealing an ineffable dread.
[They’ve all gone mad—everyone has gone mad.]
[Mortals must never learn ** —why has this happened?]
[Calamity—a calamity unprecedented in history.]
[Luan Chuan’s final words.]
"Learn what?"
Luan Chuan mentioned something but erased it before his death, a thought that invoked Li Mo’s recollection of Luo Yang’s words: spreading the truth might revive the terror of the upheaval of heaven and earth.
Bang... Bang... Bang...
The tavern as it existed in the mortal world was still, yet within the Copper Mirror, its counterpart shook violently.
Li Mo squinted his eyes; Three-Life’s instructions for them to hold the Beili Riverbank indicated that deep within the Copper Mirror, Sword Ghosts might soon cross over to the physical world.
Of course, Sword Ghosts might remain trapped in the Copper Mirror for decades—too many variables were uncertain.
Li Mo unhurriedly walked out of the tavern.
Keeping the Cave God’s Eye active, he saw that minced meat had coated Luan Chuan’s couplets, the inscription "Left by the Luan Chuan Immortal" destroyed by a sharp blade.
Snap.
The rattle emitted a crisp sound.
Li Mo instinctively focused completely, as the sounds of flowing water swelled into roaring torrents—signifying that the Cave God’s Eye had successfully linked to the Copper Mirror’s second layer.
Standing at the threshold, Li Mo gazed inside the tavern to see countless corpses piled across the main hall.
The corpses’ deaths mirrored that of pregnant women who were hanged alive within the tavern—their heads swollen and bruised, their protruding eyes tinted with cyan and purple.
"Hiss..."
Li Mo drew in a sharp breath amid the grisly spectacle—the hanging dead included many attired in Daoist robes and monk garments, suggesting they had been itinerant Loose Cultivators in life.
At the center lay the body of Luan Chuan.
Luan Chuan’s bones were emaciated, his upper body scored with whip marks, while his lower half was missing, likely minced into sludge to smear the couplets.
"If the upheaval of heaven and earth truly stemmed from mortals, were they killed by mortals?"
Li Mo’s memories didn’t show Luan Chuan harboring ill will toward mortals—otherwise, the common folk wouldn’t have respectfully titled him ’Immortal.’
But his gruesome fate suggested a grudge deeper than ordinary hatred.
Li Mo scrutinized the remains more closely.
The wounds varied, yet each corpse bore a heavy blow to the back of the head.
"Mud Pill Palace? Were they inspecting the bodies for Spirit Roots?"
Earlier, the pregnant woman who had been hanged likely became a target after her unborn child was discovered to possess Spirit Roots—ultimately dying in front of her own husband.
"Utter madness—the upheaval of heaven and earth was sheer madness."
Li Mo knew that during the upheaval, Cultivators hadn’t lost their ability to wield magic—how could they possibly be at the mercy of mortals?
Thud, thud, thud.
The second floor of the tavern echoed with dull knocks.
Li Mo immediately took on a vigilant stance; soon, an overpowering sense of suffocation surged forth.
"Little Night Wander? No, Big Night Wander."
Big Night Wander corresponded to the Five Qi Period or even the Heavenly Palace Stage; bolstered by the Copper Mirror, a Big Night Wander would undoubtedly be a far deadlier foe.
Bang, bang, bang.
A giant face over four meters in size emerged, its nose and mouth bristling with long hair, bearing a resemblance to Luan Chuan—three to four tenths similar. Its turbid eyes brimmed with venomous hatred.
"Three-Life truly thinks highly of me—damn him."
Li Mo couldn’t help but curse and decisively deactivated the Cave God’s Eye.
The tavern returned to normal, the piercing cold vanished entirely.
The rattle in Li Mo’s hand gained another slender crack, and he estimated it could only be used three or four more times before breaking down completely.
The rattle had been crafted from a Night Patrol Deity’s taboo.
With Li Mo’s level of expertise in Artifact Refining, he might have been able to attempt recreating it, but unfortunately, that required a medium closely tied to the Night Patrol Deity.
"Forget it—if the Night Patrol Deity becomes aware of me, even several lives wouldn’t be enough to save myself."
"However, why did the Sword Ghost formed from Luan Chuan suddenly undergo strange changes?"
Li Mo’s expression turned peculiar.
He slipped to the third floor of the tavern, where Ye Zhuo Daoist was smearing some substance—its primary component was a palm-sized ounce of grease.
Upon questioning, Li Mo learned that Ye Zhuo Daoist was using a material known as [Rust Grease]—a type of Low Grade Spirit Material capable of corroding Lifebound Flying Swords.
"Rust Grease cannot counter a Sword Ghost but can provoke their aversion—it might hold unexpected effects."
Li Mo patted Ye Zhuo Daoist’s shoulder. "Unexpected indeed—haha, it might drive the tavern’s residing sword ghost down to the Copper Mirror’s second layer."
"Huh?" Ye Zhuo Daoist trembled as though struck by lightning.
Instead of anger, Li Mo seemed intrigued. He murmured with great interest, "The previous Sword Ghost traversed the Copper Mirror via the rattle; the current Sword Ghost might be leveraging the tavern..."
"The tavern’s four floors possibly correspond to its capacity to delve as far as the Copper Mirror’s fourth layer."
"We’ll do the opposite of what’s expected."
"Coat the first, second, and third floors in Rust Grease, forcing the Sword Ghost to retreat to the relatively safer fourth layer."