Chapter 530 44: Buddha Ghost, Octopus, and Wife

The alms bowl Magical Artifact descended from the heights of the firmament. After passing through a layer of astral gales, it came to a halt above a sea of clouds.

The three of them exited the alms bowl, feeling the dense and surging Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi of Extreme Jade Heaven.

Above the sea of clouds, the sky was clear and vast, adorned with beautiful crimson clouds.

Below the sea of clouds, however, was a vast, misty expanse of water with raging, rolling waves.

Fang Cheng swept the area with his Divine Sense and discovered a boundless ocean below.

Monk Haideng took out two jade slips, handing one to Fang Cheng and the other to Yang Yi. He said to them, "Extreme Jade Heaven is said to have Four Seas and Three Continents. We should now be in one of the Four Seas, but to confirm our exact location, we'll need to find a native Cultivator and consult the Kunyu Diagram in these jade slips."

Fang Cheng sent a wisp of his Spiritual Sense into the jade slip. Inside, he found an incredibly detailed World Heaven and Earth Diagram.

The jade slip also contained a profoundly mystical mass of Spiritual Sense suffused with Buddha Light.

Monk Haideng said, "This world is vast. The three of us should split up to search for the Demon-Suppressing Immortal Cicada. If anything happens, we can leave messages for each other in the jade slips."

Of course, Fang Cheng and Yang Yi had no objections.

Both of them had their own agendas and didn't want to be restrained by Monk Haideng.

Without another word, Monk Haideng chanted the Buddha's name, bid the two farewell, and transformed into a streak of Buddha Light, vanishing into the distance in a flash.

Yang Yi and Fang Cheng exchanged a glance. After a moment of thought, Yang Yi said, "Fellow Daoist Fang, let's have a friendly match when we return to the Red Profound Realm. For now, farewell."

With that, he and Lei Yan of the Ancient Evil Race flew off in a different direction.

Now alone, Fang Cheng casually picked a direction, summoned his Ruyi Celestial Escape Shuttle, and transformed into a silver streak of light. He pierced through the sea of clouds and sped onward.

Beneath the cloud layer, the sky was dim. A violent storm raged across the sea, sending mountainous waves surging and crashing.

The Ruyi Celestial Escape Shuttle traversed the storm, leaving a thin, straight trail of silver light in its wake.

After traveling for half a day, Fang Cheng finally emerged from the storm. To his dismay, the vast, boundless sea still stretched out before him, with no sign of land.

He spotted a few islands, but they were all deserted, populated only by numerous non-sentient Demon Beasts.

「One day.」

Fang Cheng was meditating inside the Ruyi Celestial Escape Shuttle when he suddenly sensed a strange fluctuation in the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi. His eyes snapped open.

At some point, the sky outside had grown dim.

He looked up to see that the great sun in the sky seemed to be shrouded by a thick layer of shadow, transforming it into a "black sun."

Unbeknownst to him, massive waterspouts had begun to churn on the surface of the sea.

The force of these tempests was immense. Flashes of Thunder Light flickered within as they sucked immeasurable volumes of seawater into the sky, forming colossal pillars of water that seemed to prop up the heavens.

In the distance, a second, a third, and then a fourth massive waterspout appeared in quick succession.

Fang Cheng recalled his Celestial Escape Shuttle and materialized between the sea and sky. He scanned his surroundings. The wind howled like thunder from all directions, and he counted no fewer than a hundred waterspouts.

'What an astonishing phenomenon!'

He frowned as he sensed the turbulent power contained within the waterspouts.

At the same time, strange apparitions began to materialize across the sea—glowing, mountain-sized jellyfish, colossal whales, bizarre fish, coral, seaweed, boulders, and lustrous pearls. They floated on the surface, seeming both real and illusory.

Fang Cheng activated his Escape Light and shot straight toward the heavens, intending to rise above the strange phenomenon.

To his surprise, the sky above him was completely filled with the seawater that had been swept up by the waterspouts. It was a vast, boundless ocean in the sky, stretching for thousands of miles.

Demonic Light surged around him. Like a sharp sword, he instantly pierced through the watery expanse in the sky.

But in the next moment, a chill shot through Fang Cheng's heart.

He was met with the same dim sky, the same terrifying waterspouts, and the same churning sea.

It was as if he had just burst out from the seabed, only to return to his original spot!

'A worldly anomaly? Has space itself been inverted?'

With his current Cultivation and keen eye, Fang Cheng quickly discerned the strange transformation that had occurred between the sea and sky.

A bizarre aura began to spread across the ocean.

In that instant, all the apparitions on the sea seemed to gain sentience and become real.

This was especially true for the strange fish, jellyfish, giant whales, and members of the Sea Race. In a flash, they began to exhibit the fluctuations of living beings, a Spiritual Mechanism surged within their bodies, and many of them instantly became Tier Four Spirit Beasts.

Fang Cheng spotted a hundred-zhang-long fish monster with a Spirit Tree growing from its head. The tree was laden with fruit that overflowed with a divine light.

As the fish monster swam slowly past him, a thought crossed Fang Cheng's mind. He flicked a finger, sending out a beam of sword light that sliced off the Spirit Tree. With a beckoning gesture, the tree flew to him.

He carefully examined the fruit on the tree for a moment, a flicker of surprise in his eyes.

'Drunken Dragon Fruit…'

It was an incredibly rare Spirit Fruit used for brewing wine. Its potency was immense, strong enough to intoxicate the very soul of a Cultivator.

Moreover, this fruit was the primary ingredient for the Spiritual Liquid needed to cultivate several powerful Pupil Techniques. In the Red Profound Realm, it was considered one of the Exotic Fruits.

'To think there's a whole tree of them here, with at least a hundred fruits.'

The fish monster, writhing in pain, turned and snapped at Fang Cheng. With a wave of his large sleeve, Fang Cheng sent out a flash of sword light that instantly sliced the creature in two.

He casually stored the Drunken Dragon Fruit Tree in his storage bag. Then, with a flicker, his body transformed into a wisp of Demonic Qi, and he began to roam the sky, searching for other treasures that had materialized from the oceanic apparitions.

As the apparitions on the sea transitioned from illusion to reality, they burst forth with brilliant, multicolored spiritual light and flickering Spiritual Mechanisms. Relying on the sharp eye he had cultivated over the years, Fang Cheng managed to collect a good number of Spiritual Medicines, rare herbs, Spirit Beads, and various fish from the Aquatic Race.

Most of these items were at the third tier, but a small portion were comparable to Tier Four Treasures.

This filled him with anticipation. 'I wonder if there are any Tier Five Treasures to be found among these strange apparitions?'

Just then, a massive black shadow rose to the surface of the distant sea. It was followed by a gigantic Buddha head, covered in fleshy topknots, that emerged from the water.

Then came a majestic, mountain-like body.

Fang Cheng halted a good distance away as an incomparably cold and sinister ghostly aura washed over him.

'Tribulation Realm!'

He discreetly activated his Void God Gu, and the Void Divine Sand enveloped his body, concealing his presence.

'To think there's a Tribulation Realm being here…'

Filled with surprise, he began to observe it discreetly.

The giant Buddha's skin was an indigo blue, and two orbs of ghostly fire flickered in its eyes. Its once solemn and perfect face was twisted into a bizarre, treacherous smile.

Its mouth slowly stretched open, revealing rows of fine, sharp teeth. The smile widened until it reached the base of its ears.

This gaping, bloody maw utterly ruined the tranquil air of its Buddha head.

He watched as it reached out, snatched a green shark dozens of zhang long, and brought it to its mouth to feast upon with great relish.

After quickly finishing the fish, the giant Buddha, still unsatisfied, began to stride forward. Its bare feet trod upon the sea, leaving a ring of blue-green ghostly fire with each step.

Soon, it seized a glowing jellyfish the size of a small hill and swallowed it in a few bites. After looking around once more, it reached for a giant turtle in the distance.

The giant turtle pulled its head and limbs into its shell and shot off into the distance as a streak of light.

Enraged, the giant Buddha sprinted across the surface of the sea in pursuit.

In the blink of an eye, the giant Buddha caught up with the shell, opened its massive mouth, and bit down hard.

CRUNCH!

A waterfall of blood streamed from the giant Buddha's mouth. Its incredibly sharp teeth quickly shattered the shell, and it ravenously devoured the giant turtle.

After finishing its meal, it locked onto a distant whale. Just as it was about to pounce, a blue-black tentacle suddenly shot out from the sea and wrapped violently around its neck.

The tentacle was covered with countless circular suckers. The moment it coiled around the giant Buddha, it began to frantically devour the Buddha's vital essence.

The giant Buddha roared and bit down on the tentacle, but this time, it failed to sever it.

More and more blue-black tentacles emerged from the sea, coiling around the giant Buddha's body. Gradually, their owner surfaced—it was a truly colossal octopus.

The aura fluctuating from this monstrous beast was no weaker than the giant Buddha's. In fact, it was every bit as powerful as the Tier Five Early Stage Celestial Demons that Fang Cheng had encountered in the Outer Void.

SQUELCH!

The giant Buddha finally tore off a piece of tentacle and began to chew and swallow it greedily. A satisfied look crossed its face. It then looked down at the other tentacles coiled around its body and, without hesitation, opened its mouth to bite into another.

But the tentacles were incredibly tough; it often had to bite dozens of times just to rip off a chunk of flesh.

Meanwhile, the blue-black octopus clung to the giant Buddha's back, wreathed in a bloody glow, as it frantically devoured the Buddha's vital essence. As it did, strange patterns began to shimmer across its body.

Soon, the tentacles the giant Buddha had bitten off grew back, cinching ever tighter around it.

Fang Cheng watched for a moment. Seeing that the two beasts were fighting purely on instinct and not using any Divine Techniques, he immediately summoned his "Celestial Venerable of Universal Transformation."

This Tier Five Feather Divine Soldier didn't need a Sword Array. With a single, incomparably domineering beam of sword light, it forcefully extinguished the life force of both the giant Buddha and the octopus.

Pu Hua then released its Taishi Demon Qi, enveloping the giant Buddha and the octopus. The Taishi Demon Qi drew out an even denser, more turbulent, dark-red Demonic Qi from the corpses, which then flowed back into the Thunder Pool in Pu Hua's chest.

As he watched the corpses of the giant Buddha and the octopus "dissolve" and dissipate, a gleam of treasure light suddenly revealed itself within the dark red Demonic Qi.

A beam of sword light shot out and, with a gentle flick, sent a Golden Treasure Bead flying out from the giant Buddha's abdomen.

The Treasure Bead shimmered with a divine light and was suffused with Dao-rhythm. Fang Cheng knew with a single glance that this was no ordinary object.

What was even stranger was that he could faintly make out two figures inside the Treasure Bead—a man and a woman, both unconscious.

The woman was holding a bundle of swaddling clothes, which contained a baby.

A glint flashed in Fang Cheng's eyes as he collected the Treasure Bead.

He waited for Pu Hua to finish devouring the giant Buddha and the octopus monster before quietly departing.

「On a patch of open sea.」

Fang Cheng held the Golden Treasure Bead and gave it a gentle shake. The man and woman from inside appeared before him out of thin air.

The man was quite handsome, but his face was pale, and his body was covered in black, malevolent Curse Seals. The moment he left the Treasure Bead, his body began to crack and shatter like porcelain.

Fang Cheng pointed a finger, and a brilliant light enveloped the man's crumbling body, holding it together.

The woman slowly awoke. As she took in her surroundings, a complex mixture of emotions—surprise, joy, sorrow, and the relief of survival—flashed through her clear, beautiful eyes.

They were eyes that told a story.

What surprised Fang Cheng even more was the faint, unusual fragrance emanating from the woman. It stirred an indescribable feeling of pleasure deep within him, making him want to draw closer for another breath.

For a moment, even with his level of Cultivation and mental discipline, he found himself somewhat lost in a daze.

'What is this strange phenomenon?'

"Thank you for saving me, Benefactor."

The woman's voice broke him out of his thoughts.

Cradling the swaddled infant, she gave Fang Cheng a graceful bow. Her voice was soft and sweet, a beautiful sound to hear.

...