Chapter 306: Chapter 52: Never Seen Such Arrogance
According to Li Mo’s estimation, without the White Jade Lotus Throne nurturing monks, the population of the True Word Secret Realm would inevitably continue to decline.
Either the Five Hidden Sword increases their input and brings all the mortals from their affiliated towns into the Secret Realm, or they choose to abandon it, facing the sect’s annihilation.
"Indeed, you can’t underestimate any force. The White Bone Sect is truly cunning."
Although the purpose of the White Bone Sect remained unclear, the Five Hidden Sword had no retreat left.
As long as the Heavenly Sword Sect didn’t intervene, no matter what the White Bone Sect did, bypassing the Five Hidden Sword would still be quite simple, after all, their focus was solely on sword refinement.
To verify his theory, Li Mo painstakingly communicated with the No-Life God Statue.
Luo Kai, upon sensing Li Mo’s mental transmission, grew even more reverent and immediately activated his connections to investigate the movements of the Five Hidden Sword.
It was just as Li Mo expected.
The Five Hidden Sword had secretly begun relocating the populations of other towns, using the pretense of a flood, moving them within ten miles of Five Temples Town.
If there were no unforeseen factors, they would soon enter the Secret Realm.
The mortals would have their memories erased in the bottled space, then be cultivated as monks by the True Word Sect, implanted with Sword Spirits, and sent to the town within the Secret Realm.
However, this approach meant that even if the Five Hidden Sword successfully completed their sword refinement, their foundations would suffer severe damage.
It would take a millennium to recover their heritage, or worse, they might even be reduced to a small-scale Immortal Sect.
For a subsidiary Immortal Sect, it was a cruel reality; there was no room for choice in the face of life and death—either succeed or perish.
"They’re all a bunch of lunatics. Next, the Five Hidden Sword will definitely take major actions. I must find a way to regain control of the Three Nascent Souls."
As Li Mo pondered, his gaze fell on the rows of spiritual shrines along the roadside.
The Five Hidden Sword had sent three Nascent Soul Elders into the Secret Realm, and undoubtedly, they carried the cultivation techniques of the True Word Sect in their jade bottles.
Even if the Sword Cultivators at the Nascent Soul stage could wield Nascent Soul-level power, without Feihong beside them, their combat strength was limited.
Li Mo had confidence in snatching the True Word Sect cultivation techniques from them. If they were compatible with himself, it would guarantee his safety and success.
Determined, he signaled the Ghost Tiger to quietly emerge from the bottle’s opening.
The Ghost Tiger slipped along the shadows of the street toward the nearest spiritual shrine, while Li Mo worked tirelessly to harness Primordial Chaos to conceal his presence.
What happened next caught him off guard.
The moment the Ghost Tiger left the spiritual shrine, the townsfolk seemed to sense something amiss. Fear overtook their faces as they knelt and prayed to the Buddha for protection.
A radiant glow emanated from their brains, their brain tissues transforming into various spiritual materials.
The townspeople threw their brain tissues toward the spiritual shrine, and, under the jade bottle’s pull, the spiritual materials fell into the bottle. No wonder spiritual materials periodically appeared in the Mustard Space.
"Heavenly Demon!!"
"The Heavenly Demon has appeared! I can feel the Heavenly Demon nearby!!"
"It’s the Outer Heaven Demon that the Glazed Buddha spoke of!!!"
The scene descended into utter chaos as townspeople stumbled over each other in panic.
Due to their mutated bodies, they seemed unable to control their Life-bound Flying Swords, constantly spitting out resplendent Sword Qi from their mouths.
Their Life-bound Magical Artifacts began to backlash against them, eliciting agonized screams.
Li Mo cursed under his breath; although the Ghost Tiger hadn’t been fully exposed, a sudden and indescribable sense of danger welled up within him, as though a formidable opponent was drawing near.
The Ghost Tiger let out a low whimper, desperately speeding up toward the next spiritual shrine.
At that moment.
"In Amitabha Buddha’s realm, all things are naturally formed from the Seven Treasures—namely gold, silver..."
A profound murmur resonated, and a Buddha Qi equivalent to the Nascent Soul stage suddenly swept through the street. From afar came a monk with a massive head, standing over four meters tall.
The monk’s head was disproportionately larger than his body, with his exposed brain shaped like a lotus, radiating dazzling, seven-colored light.
"I am an Arhat under the Glazed Buddha."
"The Supporting Head Arhat!"
"Outer Heaven Demon? All must be eradicated!"
The Supporting Head Arhat did not have a Life-bound Flying Sword within his body, indicating that even the Five Hidden Sword was helpless against a True Word Sect Arhat at the Nascent Soul stage.
The Supporting Head Arhat referred to outsiders as Outer Heaven Demons, his tone imbued with chilling hostility.
Li Mo felt fortunate that the Heavenly Sword Sect had driven the Seven Treasures Buddha out of the True Word Secret Realm; otherwise, who could withstand the residual power of the Divine Separation stage?
He could tell that the Supporting Head Arhat lacked spiritual wisdom—in fact, the monks and townspeople within the True Word Secret Realm displayed a certain degree of stupidity.
The cultivation techniques of the True Word Sect likely had inherent flaws, given that they focused on cultivating the brain.
"Buddha nature is ever pure; where can dust linger?"
"Where there is no dust, there is the Pure Land."
"The Eight-direction Pure Land."
Ka-ka-ka.
Rustling and unsettling noises emanated from the Supporting Head Arhat’s brain. Before Li Mo’s astonished gaze, the brain crawled out using hands and feet.
The brain took on the form of an infant, surrounded by billowing Buddha Qi, and opened its mouth to exhale.
Phenomena erupted.
The street where Li Mo stood transformed into glass, while under the influence of Buddha Power, the townspeople turned into colorful, ornate Buddhas.
Nectar-like Jade Liquid rained from the sky, and spiritual herbs and grasses sprouted from cracks in the ground.
In an instant, a thousand-meter radius around the Supporting Head Arhat resembled the Western Heavenly Pure Land. The pain in the eyes of the townspeople disappeared entirely.
Together, they chanted scriptures, causing the Supporting Head Arhat’s aura to surge again.
Within a few breaths, the Supporting Head Arhat ascended from the Nascent Soul stage to the Nascent Soul Peak stage. He delivered a palm strike, and the Buddha Power rippled across a hundred meters, eliciting heart-wrenching cries from the Ghost Tiger.
Yet, apart from the Ghost Tiger, nothing within the street was damaged.
The Buddha Power seemed to deliberately protect its kind within its range. Anything touched by the Buddha Power remained unaffected by the Supporting Head Arhat’s attacks.
Li Mo inhaled sharply.
His Three Nascent Souls were bound, rendering him no match for the Supporting Head Arhat, especially since the Secret Realm clearly housed more than one Nascent Soul-level Arhat.
As the notion arose, the entire town trembled.
Another three Nascent Soul-level Arhats appeared, revealing just how on edge the Five Hidden Sword had become—a state of paranoia likened to seeing danger in every shadow.
Cancer Cells flooded into the Ghost Tiger, intensifying its Shadow Transformation, momentarily stabilizing its near-collapse.
The Ghost Tiger burrowed into the spiritual shrine as Li Mo halted his attempt to communicate with the True Void Hometown.
The Supporting Head Arhat ceased releasing Buddha Power, sitting cross-legged nearby, repeating his mantra about slaying the Outer Heaven Demon.
"If my luck were worse, I’d have no choice but to retreat."
Li Mo retreated into the Mustard Space inside the bottle, which also housed an abandoned temple.
A Core Formation Demon Cultivator was sorting through newly acquired spiritual materials, still chewing on fragments of monk flesh. Upon noticing Li Mo’s presence, he momentarily froze.
"Apologies, wrong room."
Mid-sentence, Li Mo delivered a punch, shattering the Core Formation Demon Cultivator’s skull. His headless corpse convulsed violently as the scent of blood permeated the air.
Li Mo swiftly disposed of the body, while the Tattooed Beast resumed dismantling structures.
The Ghost Tiger lay in the courtyard, licking its wounds in silence, while a Salamander nearby used its vitality to purge the Buddha Power’s corrosive effects.
If the Ghost Tiger had access to Spiritual Power, it wouldn’t have been so easily defeated.
As Li Mo gathered monk corpses, he couldn’t help but mutter, "Brain Nascent Soul transformation? The True Word Sect can no longer truly be considered Buddhist Practitioners."
According to the memories in the Creation Book, the Buddhist Sect adhered to the path of condensing relics.
The True Word Sect deviated from the Buddhist Sect; rather, it fit the category of Demon Cultivators more accurately, explaining why the Seven Treasures Buddha was labeled as an Evil Spirit by the Buddhist Sect.
"No, I must locate the Five Hidden Sword Elders. Staying in the Mustard Space makes me too passive, and my Three Nascent Souls cannot absorb Spiritual Energy for cultivation."
Following the plans of the Five Hidden Sword and the White Bone Sect would cost Li Mo considerable time, undermining his gains within the True Word Secret Realm.
After deliberating for a long time, he began using various methods to probe the Supporting Head Arhat.
Dividing a portion of the Micro Dust from the Blood Sea, it disintegrated instantly under the Buddha Power radiating through the Secret Realm town.
The Mountain Spider met the same fate, unable to withstand the destructive force of the Buddha Power.
Li Mo considered using True Word Sect Magic Artifacts, but due to a lack of purification with Buddha Power during their creation, they proved ineffective.
When both the Gu Worms and Corpse Wine failed, another Arhat approached the spiritual shrine.
"Damn."
Li Mo rubbed his temples in frustration. Unable to move the spiritual shrine meant being trapped in place, rendering his formidable capabilities useless.
He closed his eyes and rested against the bottle’s wall, only to hear a strange sound emanating from outside.
Frowning, Li Mo quickly determined the source through Divine Sense—it originated from the spiritual shrine itself, where a thin crack had begun to spread across its surface.
His initial assumption was that he had accidentally damaged the temple.
Yet he soon noticed that the crack resembled a mark left by a Flying Sword, and the True Word Sect Arhats within the town had also become agitated.
Li Mo’s expression darkened.
The damage to the spiritual shrine was likely caused by the Five Hidden Sword. After all, only the exposure of the cultivators within the bottle could create an opportunity to deal with the True Word Sect Arhats.
The spiritual shrine where Li Mo resided was guarded by two True Word Sect Arhats. Even if he regained control of the Three Nascent Souls later, he feared he would encounter overwhelming obstacles.
"No, I still have a chance to break this deadlock."
Li Mo’s expression took on a peculiar look as he directed nearly all Cancer Cells into the Mountain Spider, spawning numerous grotesque, mutated spiders.
The small spiders clung to the bottle, their fleshy bodies undergoing rapid cancer transformation.
Within moments, they enveloped the jade bottle in flesh, sprouting dense eyeballs on its surface. Within half a day, the growth extended to the spiritual shrine.
The shrine seemed to come alive, its eyeballs scanning the street.
The cancer transformation continued apace.
The shrine cracked open a massive mouth, sending the townspeople into a frenzy to flee, while the True Word Sect Arhats remained motionless before the grotesque shrine.
Ka-ka.
The shrine sprouted limbs, pulling itself free from the ground.
Through the Da Ai Mi Tian technique, Li Mo’s consciousness latched onto the shrine, vanishing unnoticed into the corners of the street like a spider.
Upon discovering the shrine’s anomaly, the True Word Sect Arhats unleashed terrifying Buddha Power.
The result was only superficial injuries, as the shrine regenerated within mere moments thanks to Da Ai Mi Tian’s accelerated cancer transformation.
The Supporting Head Arhat raised his arm but ultimately chose to let it go.
Having realized that the True Word Sect Arhats couldn’t directly attack the shrine, Li Mo let out a chilling, uncontrollable laugh, "Heh heh heh..."
The cancer-transformed shrine approached another spiritual shrine.
"Another Core Formation-stage opponent."
The shrine’s cancerous flesh morphed into numerous arms and plunged into the jade bottle.
The Core Formation Cultivator was utterly stunned before being flung away.
Li Mo had little interest in the Core Formation Cultivator’s magical inheritance, deciding against killing him, intending instead to use him to divert the Five Hidden Sword’s attention.
"Hand over all your resources or die. Choose one."
Seeing no response, Li Mo began consuming the bottle’s temple piece by piece, frightening the Core Formation Cultivator into quickly tossing his Storage Bag away.
"Heh heh heh."
The Core Formation Cultivator trembled violently, deeply regretting his decision to enter the True Word Secret Realm.
Li Mo hurried toward the next spiritual shrine, all the while relentlessly reinforcing the cancer transformation of the shrine, which had now grown to over two meters tall.
The cancer-transformed shrine rampaged through the streets, followed by two True Word Sect Arhats.