Li Mo noticed that the giant’s face from his memory bore seventy percent resemblance to Chen Tiangang and thirty percent to Jiang Tianche, its expression one of despair and madness. The doubts in his heart were suddenly resolved for the most part.
He realized that there were likely far more ascenders in the world than he’d imagined.
Seven thousand years ago.
"Immortal, immortal, only immortality..."
The agonized murmurs echoed in the cavern. A massive Ascension Platform was erected deep in the Outer Heaven Crater, with only a dozen candlelights to fend off the boundless abyssal darkness.
Fissures in the rock wall emitted thin, thread-like phosphorescence, making clear the platform’s location at the core of the Outer Heaven Crater.
An elderly man stepped toward the platform.
His back was hunched. His entire body was covered in festering, rotting flesh, while his organs had already undergone metallic transformation, exacerbating the decay.
"Immortal, only immortality..."
The elder lit the candles on the rock walls, revealing a grotesquely distorted face. His features were warped, and his uncontrolled, chaotic eye movements added to the horror.
It was hard to imagine him as the Daoist Immortal figure of Chen Tiangang.
From a distance, the horrifying screams of men and women emanated from the platform. Their consciousnesses were already blurring, endlessly repeating the same words.
"One man ascends, all rise to immortality—you will all ascend with me."
Chen Tiangang trembled as he moved, crawling slowly onto the platform.
He focused on the unspeakable mound of flesh and blood, his previously indifferent visage now transformed into one of fervent worship and euphoric relief.
The amalgamated flesh mound was formed of more than three thousand Taoist bodies. Its appearance was grotesque and bizarre, a chaotic blend of human limbs stitched together, glowing inside and out with indescribable dazzling phosphorescence.
"Master, I beg you to spare the junior brothers and sisters. I will serve you like a dog or horse."
Jiang Tianche pleaded desperately, but his cries elicited no response from Chen Tiangang.
Chen Tiangang set up the sacrificial tables and chairs at one end of the platform, placing over a dozen spiritual tablets belonging to past Sect Masters of the Child Device Sect.
"Honored ancestors, your junior Chen Tiangang has entrusted the Taoist inheritance to others. The Child Device Sect has now endured for a hundred generations. I humbly plead for your assistance in aiding my ascension to immortality."
He lit sandalwood incense and repeatedly murmured the ritual incantations.
Though Chen Tiangang seemed somewhat fearful, he couldn’t help but add, "It’s all the immortals’ blessing. If not for their bestowed Daytime Ascension Great Method, I wouldn’t have committed such atrocities, I..."
He kowtowed heavily, pounding his forehead against the platform until his blood dyed half a meter of the stone red.
It was clear that before the Ascension Conference, Chen Tiangang had carefully arranged matters for the Child Device Sect, leaving himself behind to attempt ascension alone.
Due to excessive blood loss, Chen Tiangang groaned faintly and collapsed into unconsciousness.
As heaven and earth shifted, the Death Disease eroded all living beings, and Chen Tiangang’s life force had weakened to its limit, almost reverting to the Core Formation Stage.
Half a day later, he awakened once more.
In the span of mere hours, Chen Tiangang’s condition had deteriorated further, repeatedly coughing up foul-smelling blood laced with metallic particles.
"I must ascend. Ascend to immortality."
He crawled to the mound of flesh and blood, seating himself cross-legged as he activated the Daytime Ascension Great Method.
Instead of healing his injuries, the method brought Chen Tiangang closer to death, his body approaching the brink of collapse as spiritual power leaked from his pores.
The Magic Artifact Chen Tiangang carried disintegrated visibly, its form eroded as if by millennia of wear.
Soon after, his abdomen split open, and a bronze-colored Nascent Soul emerged, its expression overtaken by sheer terror.
The Nascent Soul glanced back at Chen Tiangang before scrambling into the flesh conglomerate without hesitation.
The old body dissolved into a puddle of rotting mush within moments.
The three thousand Taoist bodies chosen by Chen Tiangang mostly belonged to cultivators in the Qi Cultivation Stage; some were merely mortals.
Even the eldest senior brother, Jiang Tianche, was only at the Core Formation Stage.
Once Chen Tiangang’s Nascent Soul was fully integrated into the flesh conglomerate, the entire mass began to squirm, gradually morphing into a humanoid shape.
Before long, an appallingly deformed giant stood upon the platform.
The giant’s head was Chen Tiangang’s, but its body was composed of three thousand Taoist forms covered with faces—each grotesque human visage bonded together by the glowing phosphorescence.
Chen Tiangang activated the Daytime Ascension Great Method. His back bulged violently as his body knelt on the platform in pursuit of ascension.
Yet as time passed, there were no signs of transcendence or immortality.
Crack, crack, crack...
The sound of colliding bones spread as the flesh conglomerate entered another round of mutation, evidently spiraling out of control into deviation.
Once seized by deviation, they would be consumed by the phosphorescence.
"Impossible, impossible! My path to immortality..."
Chen Tiangang doubted himself repeatedly with incredulity, unable to halt his fate of annihilation and Dao’s dissipation, his arms desperately clawing at his own flesh.
At that moment, Jiang Tianche’s mocking laughter echoed.
"Hahaha, you will never achieve immortality. That is no legitimate path; the heretical way is destined for the Underworld."
Among the three thousand Taoist bodies, Jiang Tianche, with his superior cultivation, retained his Spiritual Wisdom.
After merging with the flesh conglomerate, Jiang Tianche accessed Chen Tiangang’s memories, uncovering the details of the Daytime Ascension Great Method.
From a cultivator’s perspective, the method was preposterous—hardly imaginable as coming from the Immortal Realm, utterly flawed in essence.
Even if the Daytime Ascension bore some efficacy, the method mandated that the three thousand Taoist bodies willingly sacrifice their Body and Souls to act as stepping stones, enabling Chen Tiangang’s ascension to immortality.
Initially, Chen Tiangang hadn’t yet fallen to such extremes; despite his preoccupation with exploring the Outer Heaven Crater, his intent to nurture Jiang Tianche and the others remained evident.
"Chen Tiangang, you’ve truly lost your mind."
Jiang Tianche recalled that everything took a sinister turn once Chen Tiangang encountered the Nine Nether Immortal Energy.
By the end, Chen Tiangang had opted to utilize the amalgamating nature of the Nine Nether Immortal Energy to fulfill his ambition for ascension.
Jiang Tianche’s emotions grew increasingly strained as he interrogated Chen Tiangang with his thoughts.
Oddly, Chen Tiangang remained silent throughout, responding only with chilling laughter.
"So that’s it, that’s it..."
"If you’re unwilling to aid me, then what if it’s your senior brother instead?"
Hysterical laughter erupted from Chen Tiangang as his head burrowed into the body, transforming into the Middle Dantian in its chest, while Jiang Tianche’s head replaced the giant’s.
"No, no, I don’t want immortality."
Jiang Tianche’s face turned ashen as he realized the junior brothers and sisters had unanimously chosen self-sacrifice. Helpless to stop it, he could only protest.
His arms gave way, as did his back, which bulged into grotesque swellings.
Jiang Tianche felt his consciousness tethering to an unfathomable realm—perhaps the Immortal Realm itself as legend claimed.
"The Daytime Ascension Great Method can indeed lead to immortality..."
No matter how he attempted to discipline his thoughts, a hint of astonishment betrayed him, immediately seized upon by Chen Tiangang, who began to stir.
"Chen Tiangang, I am the master here. You will still fail to ascend to the Immortal Realm."
Jiang Tianche fought to restrain Chen Tiangang, discovering he had gained the upper hand—the giant’s entire body yielded fully to his control.
"Disciple, how could you forsake immortality?"
Chen Tiangang shouted frantically in denial, his spirit unhinged as he wailed, "I’ve spent thousands of years seeking an immortal mechanism! How can you refuse this path?"
Crack, crack, crack...
The giant’s flesh ballooned uncontrollably, the phosphorescence failing to stabilize the blood and bones.
Jiang Tianche yearned for death, unwilling to step upon the corpses of his companions to achieve Dao, yet overlooked the anomaly forming within Chen Tiangang’s Nascent Soul.
The soul within the Nascent Soul dissipated, unleashing infinite memories that surged into Jiang Tianche’s mind.
The giant clutched its head. Jiang Tianche’s scant centuries of experience were dwarfed by Chen Tiangang’s millennia.
Though weakened and unable to seize Jiang Tianche’s body, Chen Tiangang’s memories alone sufficed to overwhelm him.
The giant’s facial features shifted. Chen Tiangang’s memories dominated, leaving only faint traces of Jiang Tianche’s presence. The face now closely resembled Chen Tiangang in every detail.
The fissure on its spine expanded. Out crawled a being neither human nor insect nor immortal.
Ascending along a nebulous celestial ladder, its figure disappeared amidst the ethereal Immortal Energy that enveloped the sealed underground caves.
The Immortal Relic remained at the center of the Ascension Platform.
Logic dictated it should have turned inert like Tianchenzi’s Relic, yet Jiang Tianche’s Relic inexplicably exuded vitality once more.
"Save me, save us..." The countless human faces on its surface writhed incessantly.
The relic’s head healed, though its Spiritual Wisdom turned amnesic.
Then, murmuring voices—indistinguishably Jiang Tianche or Chen Tiangang—whispered: "I want the Child Device Sect’s Taoist inheritance eternal."
The relic’s flesh expanded, spreading through the rock walls as phosphorescence symbiotically thrived alongside it, increasing drastically.
On the surface, where the Child Device Sect’s mountain gate lay, recent Death Disease outbreaks had left decayed corpses strewn in its rear hills.
The remaining disciples tended to the mountain gate, their expressions blank with confusion.
The earth split apart as the phosphorescent flesh engulfed the sect in an instant, dragging the entire complex into the depths of the Outer Heaven Crater.
The Mother Furnace was born.
The disciples of the Child Device Sect were caught unprepared, their bodies rapidly turning bizarre.
Their Middle Dantians, particularly, mutated as they bore an increasing resemblance to Chen Tiangang’s head due to the flesh’s assimilation.
The relic murmured: "I want the disciples freed from their agony."
The Mother Furnace enveloped itself, forging a lifelike illusion realm replicating the Child Device Sect as it was decades ago.
"Heaven and Earth Profound Sect, Primordial Qi at its root, cultivating endless calamity, confirming Divine Skills."
"Within the Three Realms and beyond, the Dao reigns supreme, my body manifests Golden Light..."
Just as the relic was fully consumed by flesh, its face began fracturing.
Each fragment bore the resemblance of Chen Tiangang but with slight variances—a feminine countenance, one elderly, one kind and gentle...
In unison, the faces cried: "I want to ascend to immortality."
Jiang Tianche’s consciousness was entirely obliterated by Chen Tiangang’s. The chaotic overlapping memories fragmented into distinct personas.
Each persona had forgotten the ambition to ascend to the Immortal Realm, focusing only on safeguarding the Taoist inheritance, preserving the illusion realm, and pursuing immortality.
The Mother Furnace perpetuated the Ascension Conference, requiring a thousand years of preparation for each event.
Every millennia, another Jiang Tianche ascends to the Immortal Realm.