The Road God Temple occupied a larger area than typical shops, and even though it was completely deserted, faint traces of burning incense lingered in the air.
The sound of wooden fish percussion was relentless.
If placed in the mortal realm, such a temple would seem scarce and ordinary.
However, considering its location within the Fire Spirit Hall, the Road God Temple exuded an undeniable sense of eeriness.
"Senior Brother Taiyi, what’s the origin of the Road God? What if the sword ghost inside turns out to be a Big Night Wanderer?"
Ye Zhuo Daoist gasped audibly, goosebumps rising across his skin.
Li Mo shook his head slightly and said, "Not too sure. The Road God is a rare immortal deity, originally protecting mortals from the fatigue of travel."
He paused for a few breaths before continuing, "A Big Night Wanderer wouldn’t transcend beyond the Divine Split stage. With the white candle present, self-preservation should be assured."
Logically, there should only be one Mountain River Big Night Wanderer by the Beili Riverbank.
But judging by the geography, the Road God Temple was the true center of Beili Riverbank—eight thousand years ago, it was the most bustling area in the town.
Li Mo narrowed his eyes.
Yet, if the Road God Temple isn’t resolved before it spirals out of control, it’s bound to sow chaos.
The two stepped into the temple, and the dampness in the air was immediately perceptible.
As always, Ye Zhuo Daoist began arranging an array around the main hall.
Li Mo opened the grand doors.
What came into view were dozens of kneeling dried corpses, clad in monk robes, their faces frozen in the devotion they held in life.
At the center stood the Road God—a divine statue donning a Daoist robe.
When viewed from a Buddhist perspective, it resembled monks achieving nirvana together, transcending into Buddha-hood.
Except, typically, dried corpses would either be cremated into ashes or reverently enshrined; scattering them about the main hall was entirely impossible.
"Buddhist monks kneeling before a Taoist immortal? What kind of absurdity is this?"
Li Mo observed that the dried corpses’ skin had been coated in a layer of gold lacquer; their bodies lacked internal organs, yet there were no traces of them being removed.
"Feathered transcendence to immortality?"
Li Mo’s expression grew grave as he scrutinized the angular fissure on the corpses’ backs.
However, unlike the immortal relics he had seen before, these fissures appeared deliberately carved, as if someone had tried to replicate the act of ascending to immortality.
As soon as Li Mo touched one of the corpses, its shoulder instantly crumbled into dust.
In the next moment, his spirit wavered; his ears were flooded with heart-wrenching wails, and his right hand was tightly seized by the corpse.
Half a breath later, Li Mo regained clarity.
The dried corpse ceased movement, and fresh flesh began writhing out from the shoulder’s broken area; it soon healed completely, before drying out again.
Li Mo withdrew his arm, his gaze lingering thoughtfully on the Road God.
Ye Zhuo Daoist carried dozens of scripture tomes into the main hall, only to be startled by Li Mo’s motionless state. Fortunately, the latter was unharmed.
Ye Zhuo scanned the rows of dried corpses, noting that similar circumstances had never occurred in any other establishment.
Li Mo shook his head slightly and picked up a tome to flip through its contents, only to find it filled with cryptic and ambiguous messages offering few clues.
He then used his Cave God’s Eye to probe the mystical artifacts, but the text within the scripture remained unchanged, only transforming into convoluted, unfamiliar Buddhist script.
Li Mo put down the scripture.
"I suspect that the temple isn’t actually dedicated to the Road God."
"Huh? Then what is it?"
"We’ll find out soon enough," Li Mo said as he snapped one of the corpse’s arms.
Following a sharp and grating scream, the two figures vanished from the main hall’s surface layer; only the dried corpse remained twisting in agony.
Li Mo and Ye Zhuo found themselves on the first layer of the Copper Mirror.
A faint sting prickled their backs.
Ye Zhuo Daoist wiped his back with his hand, revealing blood seeping from a wound etched along his spine.
Even Li Mo, with his resilient physicality, shared a similar fate.
This confirmed that the temple’s taboo directly affected flesh and blood—even a Void Refining stage cultivator wasn’t exempt within the Copper Mirror.
The main hall now appeared drastically different.
The Road God statue was bent into an awkward, hunched position, with bulges protruding from its back as if something was attempting to crawl out.
The kneeling corpses had multiplied, swelling to two or three hundred.
The fissures on their backs opened wide, revealing blood, bone, and tissue; the sight was nauseating, resembling the insides of unformed eggs.
Despite Ye Zhuo Daoist’s courage, this sight made him inhale sharply.
"Damn it, I’ve heard of feathered transcendence through immortality—it seems to be a sort of sinister magic. Heavenly Sword Sect has minimal records on it; I suspect some elders deliberately conceal the information."
"Try not to destroy anything. If my guess is correct, the sword ghost hidden in this temple won’t be so easily dealt with."
Li Mo noticed a peculiar movement within the Creation Book, as though it was about to trigger fragments of memory.
Unfortunately, the disturbance ceased moments later; evidently, the Road God Temple’s secrets lay deeper still.
Ye Zhuo Daoist picked up his gourd, his expression unsettled.
He understood Li Mo’s words weren’t baseless.
The hundreds of dried corpses were beyond doubt mystical artifacts, while the sword ghost’s true form rested in the deepest layers of the Copper Mirror; breaking the corpses might grant passage.
"Mystical artifacts represent the sword ghost. Could there really be more than one Big Night Wanderer sword ghost deeper within the Road God Temple? That’s impossible, right?"
As Ye Zhuo leaned closer to inspect, a sudden sensation of detachment surged over him.
The two were instantly ejected back to the surface layer.
The arm of the dried corpse that had been snapped off by Li Mo was now fully healed, driving them away from the Copper Mirror.
"Ye Zhuo, wait here for a moment."
Without waiting for Ye Zhuo Daoist’s response, Li Mo, armed with the white candle, reentered the Copper Mirror. The latter hesitated before sealing off the temple.
In the Road God Temple’s grave taboo, the corpses served as keys to traversing the Copper Mirror.
After thorough confirmation, Li Mo headed directly to the second layer of the Copper Mirror.
The dampness intensified within this level, alongside the thick scent of blood permeating the air. The kneeling corpses within the main hall now numbered over a thousand.
Li Mo drew the Illusion Fish Sword, sensing a vague threat looming in the second layer.
It was akin to standing in a dense forest, with pairs of beastly eyes watching from concealed underbrush.
Presumably, the Road God Temple was a pathway leading deeper into the Copper Mirror.
The Creation Book stirred again, embedding a scripture titled "Duobao Heavenly King Feather Transformation Scripture" into his mind, wherein Duobao Heavenly King was effusively praised.
Simultaneously, a unique page began forming at the end of the Creation Book.
Li Mo recognized that the special page was unlike any he’d encountered before.
However, its completion was excruciatingly slow; residing on the second layer might require four to five hundred years and would likely provoke the attention of a Night Patrol Deity.
To err on the side of caution, Li Mo shut the Creation Book to halt the page from developing further.
When he looked up, the Road God statue was bowed at a ninety-degree angle, while a statue of the Duobao Heavenly King emerged from the fissure on its back.
"Duobao Heavenly King, one of Buddhism’s Four Heavenly Kings."
"During the ancient calamity, the Heavenly Sword Sect closed its mountain gate for safety. Buddhism likely didn’t retreat to isolation fast enough."
"Did Buddhism ultimately face extinction?"
Li Mo surveyed his surroundings, focusing on the freshly added dried corpses; their internal tissue now resembled human forms but had yet to achieve full feathered transcendence.
"It seems Buddhism was conducting research into feathered transcendence here?"
"During the calamity, the losses Buddhism sustained seem far less severe compared to Taoism’s."
Li Mo placed his palm atop a corpse’s skull, intensifying his Cave God’s Eye to peer into the third layer of the Copper Mirror.
The floor was awash with blood.
The corpses had surpassed ten thousand, piled within the main hall amidst clouds of flies, and all showed signs of feathered transcendence.
The Road God statue was entirely replaced by the Duobao Heavenly King, whose own back had swelled grotesquely, initiating an unspeakable cycle.
Li Mo realized that the Copper Mirror was the truest representation of the ancient calamity.
The scenes he witnessed were undoubtedly events that had transpired in the temple’s past—it was a madness that engulfed the entire town.
"Just imagining it gives me chills."
Li Mo exhaled, activating the Great Wilderness Immortal Body to augment his Cave God’s Eye in hopes of glimpsing the fourth layer. Blood began streaming from his three eyes.
Crack, crack, crack...
The Cave God’s Eye emitted the sound of fracturing, its limits strained like overheated glass.
As the eye approached collapse, Li Mo caught fleeting glimpses of the fourth layer’s main hall: corpses filling every inch of space, while a fractured ladder of white bone extended from Duobao Heavenly King’s back.
"An immortal ladder..."
Li Mo’s pupils contracted.
The immortal ladder of the fourth layer existed only as a ruined structure, but its significance was profound—eight thousand years ago, countless monks may have achieved feathered transcendence.
Tian Chenzi and Chen Tiangang’s ascension to the Immortal Realm was already extraordinary, yet they possessed Nascent Soul-level cultivation. The temple’s immortals were mere mortals!
"Something’s amiss. Perhaps mortals are the key to feathered transcendence."
The Heart Beast Sect had countless mortals participating in sacrificial rituals; the Sub-Device Sect employed Taoist Bodies for cultivation, many of which were ordinary mortals lacking Spirit Root potential.
Li Mo still didn’t understand the role mortals played in the ancient calamity.
Boom. Thɪs chapter is updated by novel_fіre.net
Outside the fourth layer’s windows, a horrifyingly distorted giant face appeared.
The face bore a four-to-five-point resemblance to Daoist Bai Shuo and strained to force its way into the main hall after noticing Li Mo’s gaze.
Li Mo felt his scalp tingle.
His consciousness activated Da Ai Mi Tian, with cancer cells repairing the corpses.
He watched as the spectral creature breached the main hall, its gaping mouth incessantly shrieking, "Senior Brother, it’s me, hahahaha, save me, save me!!"
Li Mo extended his finger, releasing radiant sunlight to fend off the creature, returning himself to the surface layer.
His complexion was grim as he grabbed Ye Zhuo Daoist and fled the temple in haste. Only upon reaching the street did his mind recover to tranquility.
"Senior Brother, did you encounter a sword ghost?"
"Yeah. Don’t bother with the Road God Temple anymore; we can’t handle it for now."
Li Mo glanced at the black coffin—Daoist Bai Shuo’s body remained untouched, leaving uncertainty as to whether the spectral creature carried his consciousness.
Li Mo suspected the Road God Temple was a gateway to the Copper Mirror’s depths, and the Big Night Wanderer sword ghost formerly sealed away had vanished without a trace.
For now, it seemed relatively stable.
Li Mo placed hidden traps around the temple before heading back to the inn in haste.
"Do what you can, leave the rest to fate."
With over thirty days remaining until the Tomb-Sweeping Festival, his Taoist Body’s transformation should suffice.
The Road God Temple showcased the harrowing extent of Night Patrol Deity taboos. Li Mo understood the grave dangers of closed training in the Fire Spirit Hall, but with limited opportunities, he had no other choice.