Chapter 134: Corpse-Suppressing Talismans

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After returning to Xing Bing’s residence, Qin Feng shut the door tightly.

It was a sizable cavern divided into four inner chambers, each distinct in purpose. The largest was a cultivation room. Of the three smaller ones, one was a storeroom, one a corpse-nurturing chamber, and one a herb-growing chamber.

The meticulous arrangement exceeded Qin Feng’s expectations.

Xing Bing had yet to advance to the Human Astral Realm. Before his death, he had been at the perfected Mortal Astral Realm, and having only just subdued a half-demon corpse, he could step into the Human Astral Realm at any moment.

Overall, Xing Bing had fared rather well among the lower-ranking disciples.

At the very least, this residence was the finest among those belonging to cultivators of the Mortal Astral Realm.

Qin Feng released his powerful spiritual sense and surveyed the surroundings of the cavern. Finding nothing unusual, he still did not let down his guard. At the entrance and around each chamber, he used his own blood and Blood-Burning Pure Flame to inscribe several strange patterns and symbols.

They were a relatively advanced form of flame-script technique recorded in the Nine Transformations of Heavenly Fire. Against ordinary flames, they served merely as warning marks, but with Blood-Burning Pure Flame, their nature was entirely different.

Once he had finished, Qin Feng felt considerably more at ease.

After all, this was an unfamiliar environment within the Earth Corpse Sect, where danger lurked everywhere. It was better to remain cautious.

He then inspected each chamber in turn.

There was little to say about the cultivation room. It contained only simple furnishings and was meant for meditation, cultivation, and rest. Xing Bing was clearly a dedicated ascetic, and Qin Feng was quite satisfied by that.

The storeroom, however, was filled with all sorts of miscellaneous objects. There was a large quantity of human-flesh corpse feed, along with several enormous, bizarre jars. Qin Feng swept them with his Purple Heaven Eye and saw that they were filled with infant corpses soaking in specially prepared bloodwater.

Clearly, such things were highly nourishing to corpse cultivators.

Xing Bing was still only at the Mortal Astral Realm, and medicinal pills remained a luxury beyond his means. He had no choice but to rely on these unorthodox tonics to increase his cultivation rapidly.

Qin Feng shook his head and tossed over a ball of flame, burning everything in the storeroom to ashes.

Beside the storeroom was the herb-growing chamber. The moment Qin Feng stepped inside, rage flared in his heart.

It was indeed a place for cultivating plants, but the flowers and grasses growing there were all sinister blossoms and demonic herbs. They writhed like black serpents spreading wildly across the ground, displaying a disturbing vitality. When Qin Feng entered, several of the flowers split open at their centers, revealing rows of revolting fangs as they clawed and snapped at him.

Most abhorrent of all, their nourishment consisted entirely of human corpses.

Some of the plants had been grown from human skulls, producing enormous, bone-white mushrooms that clung to the heads like grotesque tumors.

Other flowers had been planted in the lower bodies of female corpses. From those private places bloomed brilliant crimson blossoms, each flower bearing at its center the eerily beautiful face of a woman.

Worse still were the serpent grasses planted in the heads of male corpses. Their long, snake-like heads lay in wait above the ground, swallowing any mosquito that flew within reach.

There were countless monstrosities of that kind.

These demonic and sinister plants were of great use to practitioners of the unorthodox path.

But to Qin Feng, the longer he looked at them, the more sickened he became.

Once again, flames erupted throughout the chamber. Miserable, grotesque shrieks rang out as Qin Feng slammed the door shut. He had no desire ever to set foot inside again.

The final chamber was the corpse-nurturing room.

Four living corpses occupied the chamber. Before Qin Feng even entered, he heard their furious roars.

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All four living corpses were bound with chains. A strange ocher-yellow talisman had been affixed to each of their foreheads. Written upon the talismans in an ancient script were four words: Poor, Ferocious, Extreme, and Evil.

Qin Feng was faintly astonished.

It was not the four corpses themselves that seemed extraordinary. Rather, the four strange ancient talismans immediately drew his attention, and he activated his Purple Heaven Eye to examine them.

Gradually, the expression on Qin Feng’s face grew more solemn.

These four talismans were far from ordinary.

Together, they formed an extremely sinister phrase, clearly constituting a linked talisman set. The ancient talismans contained tremendously savage and evil energy. At the same time, they were constantly transforming the four corpses, steadily strengthening both their power and their aura.

These had originally been nothing more than ordinary corpses, yet under the influence of the four talismans, they had acquired formidable combat ability.

Xing Bing actually possessed something worthwhile.

Qin Feng had truly underestimated him.

But where had these four corpse-suppressing talismans come from?

Qin Feng searched through the fragments of Xing Bing’s memories for a long time before finally uncovering a vague recollection. It seemed that while working as a corpse miner, Xing Bing had accidentally entered a mysterious and unfathomable region deep within the corpse-mine district, where he discovered them by chance.

He had nearly lost his life that time. When he returned, a strange crescent-moon eye pattern had appeared on his back.

Fortunately, although the pattern was bizarre, Xing Bing had felt no discomfort, and thus paid it no attention.

He had recognized the extraordinary nature of the talismans and secretly claimed them for himself. He also concealed the existence of that mysterious place, intending to investigate it again once his strength had improved.

According to Xing Bing’s memories, this set of talismans consisted not of four pieces, but sixteen.

The talismans possessed no offensive power of their own. Yet once affixed to a corpse’s head, they could unleash tenfold, or even a hundredfold, of the corpse’s inherent strength.

What treasures.

But where were the other twelve?

Qin Feng felt a trace of regret, though what he had was already quite good.

The four corpses were ordinary in quality, but considering Xing Bing’s identity as merely a cultivator of the Mortal Astral Realm, gathering even these four had been no small feat. He had perhaps only recently acquired them, and their combat abilities had just begun to take shape. Before he had the chance to use them, they had fallen into Qin Feng’s hands instead.

In truth, the greatest technique of the Earth Corpse Sect was corpse control.

Aside from the innate corpse, which could provide its master with certain divine abilities, their most powerful method of attack was to raise corpses and send them into battle.

Yet these cultivated corpses were fundamentally different from an innate corpse.

A cultivator could possess only one innate corpse in their entire lifetime, and they had to sign an innate corpse contract. Thereafter, human and corpse became one: when the human died, the corpse perished as well. The human body could also acquire some of the innate corpse’s divine abilities.

At this point, the classification of innate corpses had to be mentioned. Though their varieties were numerous and diverse, they could broadly be divided into three categories: combat corpses, semi-support corpses, and full-support corpses.

Combat corpses were self-explanatory. They were corpses used as weapons of war, possessing exceptionally powerful combat ability. They were generally complete corpses of a strength-based or attack-oriented nature. Such corpses could charge ahead and fight alongside their masters on the front line. Their ferocity in battle had earned them the name combat corpses.

Full-support corpses were usually weak corpses or rare, mutilated oddities. Because they lacked certain limbs or organs, their own combat ability was extremely limited. Only through their masters could they display formidable fighting power.

Those who signed innate contracts with such corpses generally valued the strange and unusual abilities unique to them.

Xing Bing’s half-life demon corpse, for example, possessed the special ability of rapid regeneration and was a full-support corpse.

Between combat corpses and full-support corpses stood semi-support corpses. Their combat ability was not as formidable as that of combat corpses, and their auxiliary effects were not as extreme as those of full-support corpses. Their advantage lay in their balanced and powerful overall abilities.

For that reason, semi-support corpses were also the most numerous.

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Under ordinary circumstances, full-support oddity corpses were exceedingly rare. Moreover, after signing an innate corpse contract, some full-support corpses could parasitize their masters’ bodies, making it unnecessary for the masters to carry coffins wherever they went.

The other two types of corpses, meanwhile, were relatively common.

The greatest difference between raised corpses and innate corpses was that the master could not borrow the divine abilities of a raised corpse.

Furthermore, because raised corpses had not signed a corpse contract, they tended to be irritable and violent. If one made even the slightest mistake, they could easily turn on their master.

Thus, with raised corpses, quantity was not the goal. Quality was what mattered.

It was much like raising a dog. If trained well, it could fight on its master’s behalf. If raised poorly, it might turn around and bite the very person who fed it.

No matter how powerful a raised corpse was or how remarkable its abilities might be, it could only rely on itself to deal with the enemy before it. Its master could not make use of those abilities.

Therefore, to the people of the Earth Corpse Sect, an innate corpse was a second self, while a raised corpse was nothing more than a tool of war. Their natures were entirely different.

Within Xing Bing’s storage pouch, Qin Feng found a book titled The Earth Corpse Yin Scripture. Every official disciple of the Earth Corpse Sect possessed a copy. The very first page taught disciples how to sign an innate corpse contract.

Qin Feng glanced through it twice before setting the book aside.

He sat beside a stone table in the cultivation room and reflected in silence for a long while.

At last, Qin Feng sighed and instructed the Heavenly Demon, “Heavenly Demon, bring out Zhan Bai’s corpse.”

“Understood.”

The Heavenly Demon Blood Devouring Coffin appeared in the cultivation room. Its lid opened, revealing Zhan Bai’s corpse lying quietly inside.

Qin Feng looked into the coffin. Zhan Bai’s face had taken on a faintly bluish hue. There was no doubt that he was dead.

The first friend Qin Feng had ever known had died just like that, leaving behind Fang Xinyi, who was half-dead herself, and carrying endless regrets as he departed this world.

The sword scar on Zhan Bai’s face had already healed. It had been left behind when he had taken the Supreme Profound Eight-Directional Sword. Now only a shallow sword mark remained, lending Zhan Bai an added air of bleak severity.

But when Qin Feng’s gaze fell upon the empty socket of his right eye, his heart suddenly clenched with pain.

Rage once again burned through him.

“Li Xingjian, just you wait!”

Qin Feng’s fists tightened.

What surprised him, however, was the mark of a tiny sword at the center of Zhan Bai’s brow. Judging by its shape, it appeared to be the Supreme Profound Eight-Directional Sword.

At the sight of it, a cold glint flickered in Qin Feng’s eyes.

That Red Corpse had truly made a vicious plan.

It actually intended to seize another’s body and make it its own.

Hmph!

…

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