Chapter 145: [Great-Grandfather, Nether Rakshasa] (Second update, begging for votes)

The zombie calamity began to show signs in the 888th year of the Divine Ability Era—which was seven years before Lu Runping's avatar returned to the Heaven Imperial Immortal Sect—and it persisted for thirteen years, lasting until the 901st year of the Divine Ability Era.

This year was not when the calamity was resolved, but rather the time of a true, massive outbreak.

For the past six years, Lu Runping had been traveling everywhere to eliminate zombies, but because the source could not be resolved, new zombies kept appearing. Fortunately, the frequency of their appearance was maintained at a relatively low level.

He did not deliberately investigate the root cause, but instead kept working hard to exterminate the zombies causing trouble in various places.

Although he did not bring back any useful information to the sect, his own reputation was extremely high. Even though his ranking on the Heavenly Pride Heaven Ranking was at the bottom, no one else on the list had as much fame as he did.

During this time, he was not just busy acting; he also took the opportunity to cultivate the Six-Winged Frost Centipede.

His own cultivation had already reached the Dao Harmonizing Realm. As a Beast Tamer, it was truly laughable that his spirit pet's level was only at the Nascent Soul Realm; if word got out, other Beast Taming Immortal Masters would surely laugh their heads off.

Lao Liu possessed the 【Swallow Heaven and Earth】 Dao Fruit he had bestowed upon it; no matter what it ate, it could digest it into energy for itself.

Zombies did not affect its appetite either.

Moreover, the flesh of zombies contained extremely rich energy; compared to cultivators of the same level, they were more nutritious to eat.

Lao Liu indicated that it liked eating them very much.

Several years of devouring had raised its growth progress to the mid-stage of the Deity Transformation Realm; it wouldn't be able to improve much faster after this.

This divine ability was limited after all, unless he first raised his comprehension of the divine ability itself.

And this was obviously impossible.

Lao Liu didn't even have a brain and acted entirely on instinct; expecting it to comprehend the Dao was truly a joke.

Of course, there were ways to speed it up, such as devouring spirit beasts of the same attribute, but that was not easy to manage. Although the West Sea Glacier Region had such beasts, he couldn't just kill them at will.

Let it be for now; he didn't need it anyway, and cultivating it was just a side task. It would be a waste to let the zombies turn into dust, so it was better to let it devour them.

Apart from himself, many famous heavenly prides had emerged since the zombie calamity appeared. One who left a bit of an impression on Lu Runping was a guy from the Divine Thunder Immortal Sect named Song Yushu.

With a top-grade Lightning Spirit Root, only three hundred and fifty years old, and at the mid-stage of the Deity Transformation Realm, his Five Elements Divine Thunder was extremely powerful. Rumor had it that even evil spirits at the Dao Harmonizing Realm had to take a detour when they saw him.

Lu Runping noticed him, naturally not because of his talent or strength, but because he discovered that this person should be one of his ancestors. Looking at the seniority table in the Treasure Mirror, Song Yushu's real name should be Lu Yishu.

【Ambition reaches far, clarity realizes a quiet heart, indifference achieves intent, reaching through to self-attainment, abundant and moist as jade, an orchid in an empty valley.】

This seniority was too high; he should be called Great-Grandfather.

No wonder his lightning techniques were so formidable; they must be from their own inherited divine ability, the 【Five Thunders Orthodox Method】. This branch of the Song family all inherited lightning techniques.

Lu Runping did not deliberately take care of his ancestor. The requirement he set for himself was not to touch family inheritance and to strive for personal cultivation; everything would be discussed after he achieved the Land Immortal Realm.

All Lu family disciples had inherited divine abilities, so most of them were doing well. Even if they hadn't obtained the position of Clan Leader, many were outstanding.

Precisely because of this, Lu Runping cherished his identity as Clan Leader even more. After all, in all honesty, compared to most of them, he himself was not the most outstanding one at the time.

But since the Treasure Mirror chose him, or perhaps the previous Clan Leader chose him, he had to shoulder this responsibility.

Now, he had also become the one with the highest cultivation among the Lu family bloodline, and he needed to forge ahead even more.

Precisely because of this, during the six years of dealing with the zombie chaos, he did not take the initiative to investigate or let himself fall into any danger.

Although this was only an avatar, it was an identity he had painstakingly cultivated and could not be easily lost.

In the 901st year of the Divine Ability Era, the zombie calamity in the Lianze Domain erupted massively. Black clouds shrouded the entire domain, and the trillions of mortals living on this land were filled with terror, thinking the end of the world had arrived.

Chaos, slaughter, the aura of death.

A large number of zombies broke through the soil, wreaking havoc on the human world.

Within the base of the Kongming Immortal Sect, there was a ten-thousand-foot abyss. In the past, this was a forbidden area named the 'Nether Abyss,' which contained extremely strong Nether Qi that could infect cultivators and pollute their cultivation.

But to the cultivators of the Kongming Immortal Sect, this was a sacred place for cultivation.

Thousands of years ago, the Kongming Ancestor emerged, stepped into the Great Vehicle Realm, and then established the Kongming Immortal Sect; the Nether Abyss thus became a place occupied by the Kongming Immortal Sect.

At this moment, beneath the ten-thousand-foot abyss, Elder Zhenyi of the Heaven Imperial Immortal Sect was controlled by a black airflow, unable to move, and the blood energy in his body was being extracted bit by bit.

Along with him were several other figures; they were all people sent by various immortal sects to investigate the zombie calamity here.

"Kongming Ancestor, you could already ascend to the Immortal World, why would you do this!?"

Elder Zhenyi shouted angrily.

Kongming Ancestor, the founding master of the Kongming Immortal Sect, at the Land Immortal Realm, a legend of a generation, was already over nine thousand years old and was about to reach the time of ascension.

They had thought of many possibilities and sensed that this matter might be related to the Kongming Immortal Sect, even inferring the most likely situation: that the North Wasteland Corpse King had colluded with a Tribulation Transcendence Heavenly Monarch of the Kongming Immortal Sect.

But they never expected that the mastermind behind everything was actually the founding master of the Kongming Immortal Sect, a dignified Land Immortal!

And this was precisely what they couldn't understand.

Having already become a Land Immortal, the strongest in this realm, why would he still do this?

In a few years, he would ascend to the Immortal World and become an Immortal; wasn't that good!?

To plunge the entire Lianze Domain into misery, and even affect the entire Donghua Zhenzhou—by doing such things, was he not afraid of being held accountable by the Immortal World after ascending?

Various doubts made Elder Zhenyi and the others very unwilling to accept this.

Kongming Ancestor did not speak, but was specifically cultivating. At this moment, he had no clothes on, his skin was entirely dark cyan, and instead of hair on his head, two blood-red sharp horns had grown out.

He was actually not human, but half-human, half-zombie!

The true Kongming Laozu, in order to survive the Third Heavenly Tribulation back then, adopted a special method to transform himself, resulting in his self-consciousness being erased and a new consciousness being born, which became the current Kongming Laozu.

Because he was half-human, half-zombie, he could not enter the Immortal World; once he ascended, he would enter the Netherworld.

He knew what the Netherworld was like; with his strength, entering the Netherworld would mean being at the very bottom. Therefore, before entering, he decided to improve his strength and foundation.

After searching for two thousand years, he finally obtained a cultivation method called 【Nether Rakshasa Body】. As long as he refined this physique, his cultivation could directly improve after entering the Netherworld.

Now, after nearly four thousand years, everything was ready, and the array had been activated.

The day the Nether Rakshasa Body was refined would be the time of his true ascension.

All the elders and disciples of the entire Kongming Immortal Sect, whether at the Qi Refining Realm or Tribulation Transcendence Heavenly Monarchs, were controlled by the array at this moment, and their blood energy was sucked into the array; they were all sacrifices.

Or rather, raw materials.

With such a huge commotion, the various immortal sects naturally sensed the problem immediately.

The first to arrive here was the Land Immortal Yangming Xianren of the Qingyang Immortal Sect.

A large amount of blood energy and death energy mixed with other negative energies gathered into the Nether Abyss. The Kongming Immortal Sect had recruited a large number of disciples, all of whom had now turned into nourishment.

In the abyss, the thick blood clouds made Yangming Xianren, who saw this scene, feel fear involuntarily.

Yangming Xianren had only stepped into the Land Immortal Realm for a little over a thousand years. He had already guessed that the one below causing this momentum was Kongming Ancestor.

And the latter was at the Great Vehicle Perfection level, about to ascend, only one step away from the True Immortal Realm.

Coupled with gathering so much blood energy, he didn't know what kind of trick he had pulled off, but it was certain that the opponent's strength had improved again, far from what he could deal with.

At least, he didn't have ten percent certainty.

A hundred years ago, when dealing with the Demon Venerable, two Land Immortals fell. Although the various sects helped each other, the Luoyun Immortal Sect and the Five Mountains Immortal Sect, which lost the suppression of their Land Immortals, still lost quite a lot of resources.

There even appeared a trend of internal division.

Yangming Xianren not only had to consider whether he could ascend to become a True Immortal, but also consider whether the inheritance of the Qingyang Immortal Sect would have problems if something happened to him.

After hesitating for a moment, he did not go deep inside.

Instead, he first sacrificed his Qingyang Lamp, which was a treasure of the sect inherited through generations of the Qingyang Immortal Sect, condensing the most powerful Qingyang Demon Fire.

Under his urging, the ink-green flames turned into a fire phoenix with a wingspan of a hundred feet, flying into the abyss.

A large amount of Nether Qi was burned into nothingness the moment it touched the Qingyang Demon Fire. This was an extremely domineering flame, but after the fire phoenix fell into the abyss, it gradually had no movement.

The expression on Yangming Xianren's face became even more solemn.

The power of this strike just now was absolutely extraordinary; ordinary Land Immortals would not dare to meet it head-on. Yet, it fell into the Nether Abyss and had no sound, and didn't even manage to break through this barrier, let alone hurt Kongming Ancestor at the very bottom.

He had no choice but to quickly ask for help from several Land Immortals he knew, asking them to come and assist him as soon as possible.

Yuntuan Immortal of the Heaven Imperial Immortal Sect, Mingtuo Immortal of the Wanhua Dao Sect, and Yuding Immortal of the Yuding Immortal Sect arrived one after another. After learning about the crisis, they sent messages to other Land Immortals they knew while using their own methods.

Yuntuan Immortal had achieved the Land Immortal Realm for a shorter time and had no powerful methods, so he only used the Heaven Imperial Immortal Sect's trump card spell, 'Imperial Heaven Immortal-Slaying Blade.' This method required coordination with the Heaven Imperial Immortal Sect's inherited treasure, the Imperial Heaven Blade.

With one slash, the Nether Abyss seemed to be torn apart once again.

But his cultivation was still shallow after all, and he couldn't exert the kind of power that Shenwang Immortal had when he killed the Ice Luan Demon Venerable with one slash back then.

The others also used their own methods, exerting force together. Seeing this, the figure of Kongming Ancestor was revealed beneath the abyss.

But just at this moment, a blood-colored lightning bolt ten feet thick suddenly condensed in the sky, striking into the abyss and landing on Kongming Ancestor. ===== CHAPTER 146 =====