novelraw Chapter 75 : You Drill Corpse Puppets?
Chapter 75 : You Drill Corpse Puppets?
Chapter 75: You Drill Corpse Puppets?
The enormous Yin Corpse collided with the countless threads.
More accurately—
it did not collide.
The threads flickering with Thought-Flame were like nimble insects, burrowing into every crack and crevice across the Yin Corpse’s body.
Its massive body trembled in the midst of its charge.
The grotesque corpse body—with its four or five mismatched heads, uneven limbs, and exposed bone spikes—began to crack with glowing pink fissures.
It happened in only an instant.
The fissures spread and expanded, filling the entire body in the blink of an eye.
Then, in the next moment—
the body suddenly fell apart without warning.
Like dried clay smashed apart with a single punch, bone spikes, chunks of flesh, and fragments spun and tumbled through the air before scattering everywhere.
A gigantic phantom of the Black Tortoise Square Cauldron enveloped Fang Chang and Zhao Yuntong where they stood.
The corpse chunks splattered against the phantom like sprayed maggots. Some were deflected and sent flying to either side, where they scraped against the rough ground until flesh and blood became a mangled mess. Others landed with wet smacks against the phantom itself, releasing waves of corpse stench.
The smile on Zhong Ling’s face froze instantly.
She stood there blankly, staring at the scene before her.
“Wh...”
The crimson glow within Zhao Yuntong’s eyes intensified brilliantly, radiance flowing through them as her spirit soared.
She looked at her jade-like hands in surprise.
The lingering Spiritual Essence left within her meridians after Fang Chang guided the secret art still burned warmly.
This Spiritual Essence carried traces of the Great Sun True Fire.
She found it somewhat scorching—
yet liked even more the sensation of Fang Chang entering deep into her body.
“You’ve truly practiced this quite well.”
Fang Chang dispersed the Black Tortoise Square Cauldron.
He gave an approving glance toward the severed arm still connected to an ankle beside them.
The two parts had not broken down into separate corpse chunks.
“The Corpse Refinement methods of the Outer Regions... if spoken bluntly, there’s actually nothing wrong with them. Six words are enough to summarize everything: mixed yet pure, varied yet refined.”
Zhong Ling’s eyes trembled slightly as she looked up at him.
Those were the exact same words Cui Gao had once spoken to her.
Yet Cui Gao had told her that, back before he established himself in the Outer Regions, he had discovered those words repeatedly engraved throughout a secret chamber after killing her father. They had been the core principle within a collection of miscellaneous corpse refinement notes.
Her father had been a Sixth Realm practitioner of the Corpse Refinement Path.
He had intended to refine his own daughter—her—into a Corpse Puppet in order to break through into the Seventh Realm, just as he had done during his previous advancements.
Within the Corpse Refinement Path, there was a bottleneck no one dared mention, yet everyone knew existed.
Corpse Puppets refined from one’s blood relatives were more likely to reach the innate state where clear spiritual qi was born naturally from within.
That was the perfect state of a Corpse Puppet.
And for someone who had once been among the strongest Corpse Refinement Path cultivators in the Outer Regions—
to have engraved the phrase “mixed yet pure, varied yet refined” almost everywhere within his secret chamber—
proved just how important those words were.
But why—
could a Corpse Refinement practitioner from the Nine Provinces understand this principle...
Fang Chang crouched down, a tree branch appearing in his hand from somewhere unknown.
He poked at the connection point between the ankle and arm.
His admiration deepened further.
“The Outer Regions follow the concept of Guarding the One, much like the meaning behind the Third Realm. Their focus lies not in refining form, but in refining spirit.”
“‘What I guard is not the form, but the Dao. Forms may be mixed, but Dao cannot be mixed. Ten thousand forms return to a single Dao, and that Dao is my One.’”
“The meaning is that when selecting corpse materials, one should choose those whose ‘Dao’ is most alike, rather than choosing the strongest possible materials...”
“You truly are impressive, Zhong Ling. Among all the Corpse Refinement methods of the Outer Regions, I have only ever seen nine people who walked the correct path... and now, you are the tenth.”
The sectarian prejudices within the Nine Provinces were already severe.
As for the Outer Regions—with their treacherous terrain, harsh climate, and lack of resources—it was even worse.
As the saying went: the law is not passed beyond six ears.
Cultivation was not easy, yet neither was it as difficult as ascending to heaven.
Often, someone would spend half a lifetime comprehending a single truth, only for that one sentence to spare future generations twenty years of bitter cultivation.
That was also why the Twelve Orthodox Paths and great sects could continue enduring.
Fang Chang stood back up and shook his head.
“What a pity.”
His gaze swept across the scattered corpse chunks covering the ground.
It was obvious.
Zhong Ling knew the phrase “mixed yet pure, varied yet refined,” yet she had not continued following it all the way through.
Zhong Ling suddenly spat out a huge mouthful of blood.
Her aura rapidly withered away.
The Yin Corpse had been fused with her soul to strengthen her control over it. Once the corpse dispersed, the backlash naturally struck her heavily.
Suppressing the shock in her eyes, she smiled weakly.
“Daoist Fang Chang, you don’t understand the Outer Regions. That place would never allow me to proceed slowly. Grandpa Cui saved my life, so I had no choice but to help him in return.”
Fang Chang chuckled.
“If not for your inability to proceed slowly, my 【Following the Gaps, Nine Severings】wouldn’t have been able to cut through it either.”
This secret art had originally been a skill of the Obsession Path specifically designed to break defensive protections.
Its general principle was to burrow into the patterns of Spiritual Essence circulation and weave threads into the folds of those spiritual flows. Once enough threads gathered, they would tighten shut, causing the opponent’s defensive aura to peel apart layer by layer along its own patterns.
The Corpse Refinement branch Zhong Ling belonged to had never stopped refining and nurturing their corpses.
Because the corpse body was enormous, it had been stitched together using vast quantities of Spiritual Essence threads.
This technique had ended up perfectly countering it by sheer coincidence.
“If you lose, you accept defeat. Those are the rules—you said so yourself.”
Zhong Ling curled her lips slightly and glanced toward the sky.
Cui Gao’s situation was not looking good, and she no longer had any desire to continue living. She simply spread herself out flat upon the ground.
“Make it quick.”
Fang Chang said nothing.
The night wind roared around him, causing his robes to billow like dragons.
“Who is Zhong He to you?”
he suddenly asked.
Zhong Ling’s entire body trembled violently as she jerked upright.
“How do you know my second sister?!”
Fang Chang sighed.
So it matched up.
The source behind the later destruction of Canglan Mountain—when the Five Elements Dojo lost control and crashed downward, annihilating the entire mountain gate—had finally been uncovered.
No wonder the forums had discussed it for so long without discovering the truth.
The root cause had actually lain with Zhong Ling—
who had only appeared once by name in the original storyline...
Fang Chang thought for a moment.
Then the corners of his lips slowly curled upward.
“Daoist Zhong Ling, then I’ll have to trouble you to stay inside the little black box for a year or so. Once your second sister leaves secluded cultivation, we’ll meet again.”
“If you dare harm my second sister, I won’t let you go even in death!”
The expression of calm acceptance disappeared from Zhong Ling’s darkened face, replaced by vicious hatred.
Fang Chang found it rather amusing.
That threat was far too powerless.
The Blood Golden Core churned.
Threads pierced directly through her heart aperture.
Zhong Ling’s body went limp.
Right before death, she suddenly struggled to raise her head.
“Do... you drill Corpse Puppets?”
Fang Chang picked at his ears.
Do all of you people speak this crudely?
It’s because of all of you that my thoughts have become so dirty.
“......”
Zhong Ling seemed to realize something and revealed a yearning expression.
“Could you use that... ‘system’ of yours to refine me into a Corpse Puppet with the innate state where clear spiritual qi is born naturally from within? I’ll let you drill me.”
Zhao Yuntong snorted coldly.
Fang Chang shook his head.
“You’re not worthy.”
Zhong Ling looked dissatisfied, her voice growing weaker and weaker.
“How... am I... not worthy...?”
No answer came.
The light in her eyes dimmed completely as her body collapsed limply onto the ground.
Fang Chang showed little expression.
Suddenly sensing something, he looked into the distance.
——Cheng Hua had been gravely injured.
“Slash—”
Elsewhere—
the battle between Cui Wenxi and Perfected Yue Su had reached its conclusion.
Cui Wenxi severed Perfected Yue Su’s head and hurled it into the air. Under the moonlight, the expression upon the severed head was twisted with vicious hatred.
A sword flash swept past.
The head split cleanly into two.
The Spiritual Essence around Cui Wenxi surged explosively upward by another level, and at that same moment, she turned back to look toward Fang Chang.
Beneath the rain of blood,
her eyes curved gently as she revealed a radiant smile as warm and smooth as jade.