Chapter 635: Above the Purple Moon

At this moment, Xu Qing was not in a good state. He did not know if his current body was some kind of illusory state of his physical form, or if his soul had left his body.

The three previous deaths had made him feel as if he had experienced countless cycles of reincarnation.

His thoughts were currently somewhat obstructed, and many memories had become blurred; only the pavilion and the ritual beneath the Primordial Ghost-Departing Pillar from back then remained exceptionally clear.

Vaguely, the sound of that chanting seemed to echo in his ears.

"The past life does not return, the afterlife is constant, cutting off lovesickness to paint the dust..."

Xu Qing raised his head and looked at the stone tablet in front of him. He suddenly understood the name of this ritual that the Senior Brother had spoken of.

Afterlife God-Concealment.

This was a ritual to become a god, but it was not the only one.

This was the choice of the Red Mother, and also the choice of the woman in the Ghost Cave, and the latter... had clearly been performing this ritual for a very long time.

"The god sleeping in the Ghost Cave is her target for plunder; she wishes to use it to achieve her own divine status."

Outside, there were hundreds of thousands of cultivators, and there were also Xiang Linger Treasuries, but at this moment, they were all dumbfounded, their hearts filled with immense waves.

This grave had no tombstone, yet it had words.

That mirror expanded rapidly across the sky, magnificent and astonishing, emitting an ancient and vicissitudinous aura. The mirror surface reflected a low and small mountain, and on the mountain, one could see one hundred thousand temples, with a divine statue stored inside each one.

Xu Qing heard this and raised his head, staring at the stone tablet in front of him, staring at the missing final stroke. Instinctively, he raised his left hand and suddenly waved it, completing the name.

"Divine decree from above, transcend your human souls, all mortal transformations rise in defiance, ghosts and demons alike, all seven lives receive grace."

And after Xu Qing finished speaking, he waved his hand, and suddenly the illusory secret treasury behind him manifested. As it rumbled and rotated, the Purple Moon within it shone, and an infinite sea of blood and purple moonlight spread, turning into a vortex.

"Return!"

And what shocked the cultivators even more was that behind Xu Qing in mid-air, at the moment the small door opened, a blur appeared, and a huge mirror was rapidly manifesting.

Inside that mirror surface, a figure appeared at this moment. This figure was an old man, the artifact spirit of the Reverse Moon Hall.

The golden light of the God Tablet suddenly spread, enveloping the entire Purple Moon. Around the God Tablet, Xu Qing's five mortal transformations manifested, coordinating with the fluctuations of the Purple Moon, bathing in that light; the five elements and five punishments were each eerie.

Xu Qing shuddered. His blurred memories became clear in that instant, all his confusion dissipated in the blink of an eye, and everything, absolutely everything, surfaced in an instant. His momentum was heaven-shaking!

The Captain shouted in a low voice.

"All images... return to their positions!"

The two characters "Xu Qing" were thoroughly branded onto the stone tablet.

"Then what comes next for me is earth and fire." In an instant, Xu Qing's five mortal transformations opened their eyes in unison; even the burial soil collapsed, revealing the eyes of the buried bodies.

The Captain roared, and yin winds suddenly rose all around, extremely cold. If they fell on a living person, they would instinctively tremble; it was as if the Yellow Springs had been opened between heaven and earth, emitting countless sounds of ghosts crying and wolves howling.

Unable to land, a sea of fire suddenly appeared on his body. Amidst the violent burning, Xu Qing's body turned pitch black, slowly collapsed, and became a corpse.

Just as the thoughts of the crowd were churning, outside the golden stone tablet in mid-air, the burial soil shook, and a hand suddenly reached out from within, slowly crawling out.

The secret treasury also rapidly solidified from its illusory state, and in the blink of an eye... it truly formed.

"The drowned are transcended, the corpse-exhumers ascend, the hanged are released, the buried are liberated, the burned are brought to life."

This was the Five Elements Corpse Burial!

If this were placed in the outside world and seen by cultivators, they would surely be filled with horror and incomparable heart-palpitations, just as Xu Qing was when he first saw the Red Moon statue, because that was the structure of a god.

"Treat her as an ancient god and leave your mark. Although you cannot control this mortal transformation for now, perhaps there will be a day in the future when you can."

Xu Qing's five mortal transformations also had their bodies trembling; vaguely, it seemed that a strange power was reviving within their corpses.

Seeing this, the cultivators within the Red Mother's mortal transformation were all staring intently, their hearts rising and falling with waves, for this scene, to everyone,

was a surging, heaven-shaking event.

With this bow and these words, countless pieces of information regarding the Reverse Moon Hall flooded into the minds of Xu Qing and the Captain. The two of them looked at each other and spoke simultaneously.

But now, all of this was within Xu Qing's secret treasury.

"Greetings, Master."

Madness appeared in the Captain's eyes.

And the Xu Qing who crawled out also had an illusory and blurred body, as if he could dissipate at any moment. He walked step by step to the front of the stone tablet, his expression dazed.

Immediately after, the five mortal transformations each stood up, rapidly approaching one another. After touching, they actually overlapped with each other.

Until the five corpses fused, and amidst the constant wriggling, they formed Xu Qing's true body with eyes closed.

"Decree to save all beings, quickly transcend, escape the sea of suffering, and return in the next life."

That countless number of deaths within his consciousness made Xu Qing exhausted to the extreme; his memories were blurred, and his life was dim.

Xu Qing raised his head and looked into the distance at the sky transformed by the Red Mother's mortal transformation. A madness even greater than the Captain's appeared in his eyes, and he shook his head.

"I am undergoing the God Tribulation!"

At this moment, he seemed different from before, but it was hard to describe. After his eyes suddenly opened, he took a deep breath, his heart filled with endless waves.

At this moment, before writing the two strokes, Xu Qing's body collapsed with a boom. A large amount of burial soil appeared out of thin air all around, submerging his body. He could not resist, nor could he dodge. On the stone tablet, for the two characters "Xu Qing", one stroke remained.

The person who crawled out was indeed Xu Qing, but the eerie thing was that as Xu Qing crawled out, the burial soil did not move at all, as if Xu Qing and that burial soil were not in the same space.

This kind of ritual exceeded their understanding. Only the Hall Master and a limited few of his subordinates knew about it, but they did not know much.

Until the Senior Brother's chanting echoed in his ears, he followed the guidance of that chanting, moving from death toward life, and walked back, but his thoughts were still chaotic at this moment.

The moment those five sentences were finished, the Captain's body paused behind Xu Qing's mortal transformation. Looking from afar, the Captain turned into five bodies. At this moment, all five figures held their scepters high and suddenly brought them down toward Xu Qing's mortal transformation.

Therefore, he did not need it.

At this moment, the stone tablet shook, and golden light shone, gathering on Xu Qing's name, causing its color to change from red to gold.

The Dao-Nurturing Realm—for others, this was a realm that required a certain amount of time to slowly pass through, but because Xu Qing had long possessed the Heavenly Dao, his secret treasury had already transformed into rules and laws.

In truth, Xu Qing's secret treasury was unprecedented and heaven-shaking.

"Now we skip the divine fire and take this stone tablet that left your name..."

Xu Qing's cultivation base also completely broke through, stepping into the first stage of the Xiang Linger Treasury!

As soon as Xu Qing's words came out, the Captain's eyes shone with strange light; even he felt the madness of Xu Qing's idea at this moment.

"Send it into the Red Mother's mortal transformation!"

In the five directions all around, there was one mortal transformation each, with different ways of dying, revealing an eerie quality, motionless.

"God Tribulation!" The Hall Master took a deep breath, but he did not understand why such a legendary ritual would appear at the source of all this.

Xu Qing's expression was resolute; he raised his hand and continued to write his name on the stone tablet in front of him.

That vortex erupted from the secret treasury, forming a suction force that enveloped the golden God Tablet in front of Xu Qing.

During that time at the medicine shop, You Jing also had different feelings for the little girl, Linger.

The next instant, the secret treasury erupted and began to operate, and the sundial even transformed into a huge furnace, burning violently.

Seeing Xu Qing wake up, the Captain felt relieved in his heart and hurriedly spoke.

At this moment, it was as if life and death had been reversed. Even the sky of the Red Mother's mortal transformation roared. For a time, wind, rain, thunder, lightning, the sun, the moon, and the stars were all affected, and there were even murmurs being stirred up; those four directions were like a god roaring.

Ning Yan and the others were even more so. Linger couldn't help but want to step forward several times, but was stopped by You Jing.

He had just felt the sinking of death, feeling as if he were in a pitch-black world, lost to himself, and had become one of the countless dead souls.

"Junior Brother, you don't have divine fire, so this

is not a true God Tribulation, so the simulation of this ritual cannot be fully completed, but it doesn't matter. This God Tablet possesses the foundation for becoming a god and can plunder divine power. It is incomparably precious. This object is your greatest fortune this time!"

At this moment, his cultivation base was surging, crossing directly from the Nascent Soul Great Perfection to the Dao-Nurturing Realm. His aura was astonishing, and his combat power had also increased by a large margin.

The sound of rumbling was heaven-shaking.

"Junior Brother, go and draw your final stroke!"

And as the God Tablet descended, and as the Purple Moon structure formed, Xu Qing's tribulation... was finally overcome!

At this moment, it seemed only instinct remained. He raised his hand in front of the stone tablet and slowly wrote until only the final stroke remained.

"Red Moon authority, there shall be no second master!"

The Captain's speed also became faster and faster. By the end, his figure was almost invisible; only afterimages circled the stone tablet and Xu Qing's mortal transformation, walking in circles, finally turning into a low shout, like a thunderclap exploding.

As the chanting echoed, the Captain walked toward the stone tablet, walking around Xu Qing's five mortal transformations. The faster he walked, the more impassioned his voice became, causing the heaven and earth in that area to change color and the wind and clouds to surge.

This was the Five Elements Corpse Burning!

The "Xu" character had been written, and the "Qing" character remained.

Until the next instant, the Captain's eyes revealed a dark glow. As he raised his hands, a scepter appeared in his hand. He pointed it toward the five mortal transformations under the stone tablet, and chanting came from his mouth.

In the mirror surface, he stared at Xu Qing and the Captain, finally lowered his head, and bowed with cupped hands.

"Junior Brother, this opportunity is once in a thousand years!"

In an instant, Xu Qing's figure disappeared, replaced by an isolated grave.

He had already felt that the name and strokes on the stone tablet were related; even the simplest stroke had to undergo this punishment of the five elements.

Under one inhalation, the hundred-foot God Tablet was instantly pulled in, appearing directly within Xu Qing's secret treasury's Purple Moon. With a boom, it stood tall upon it.

Looking from afar, Xu Qing's long hair danced, he was handsome and extraordinary, the secret treasury behind him contained a world, the furnace erupted with scorching fire, and his momentum was like a rainbow, shaking all directions.

"Since our target this time is the Red Mother, I want to leave this God Tablet behind first and find an opportunity

... to send it into the Red Moon star, so as to plunder the Red Moon that the Red Mother wants to fuse with!"

The sound of rumbling suddenly erupted.

"Senior Brother, sending this God Tablet into the Red Mother's mortal transformation is a bit of a waste; a mortal transformation is, after all, just a mortal transformation."

"The five elements in that Afterlife God-Concealment ritual are: metal for exhuming, wood for hanging, water for drowning, fire for burning, and earth for burying."