25: And zombies?

At the back mountain of the All Heavens Star Palace, Lin Xuan squatted by the Myriad Realms Spirit Spring Eye, staring at the "Netherworld specialty" wrapped in a white cocoon. His finger tapped the water surface idly. His Law-Breaking Sword Eyes were almost crossed, but he still couldn't tell when this girl would wake up.

"System, can you really not scan for the Immortal Realm coordinates?" Lin Xuan asked again, unwilling to give up.

Space coordinates are distorted and encrypted by unknown high-level power!

Forcibly cracking requires consuming Sect Luck: 1,000,000 points!

Host's current Luck: 35,201 points.

Suggestion: Pay to win, or... go steal?

Lin Xuan looked at the dazzling string of zeros on the panel and silently closed the system. Pay to win? Steal? He did want to go steal from the Asura Clan's lair, but the problem was he didn't even know which way the door opened!

"Emperor Qinglan!" Lin Xuan roared in annoyance.

Buzz! The space rippled, and the bruised Emperor Qinglan was once again pulled out by chaotic currents like a little chick, his imperial crown askew.

"Temple Master Lin..." Emperor Qinglan forced a smile, cursing inwardly.

"Your broken coordinates are a trap!" Lin Xuan pointed at his nose. "This Venerable spent three days rummaging in the void and didn't find a single hair! I almost got swept into a black hole by space turbulence for a sauna! Where's the Immortal Realm? Did you eat it?"

Emperor Qinglan cried, "Temple Master, please understand! The coordinates are absolutely correct! They were really there ten thousand years ago! Unless... unless the Asura Clan packed up the entire Immortal Realm like a cake and took it away? Or... moved it?"

Moved it? Lin Xuan laughed in anger. An Immortal Realm larger than the Milky Way moved? Are the Asura Clan snails?

"Scram, scram, scram! Just seeing you annoys me!" Lin Xuan waved his hand, stuffing him back into the spatial rift. He couldn't rely on this old fellow; he had to find another way.

He brought up the system panel and looked at the screen-filling battle reports of his disciples killing insects:

Yun Qingyao, Feng Qiqi, on Blazing Star, with Nirvana True Flame plus Lunar Ice Seal, gave the insect meat a double dose of ice and fire! Successfully rescued three thousand miners! Gained ten thousand fire-attribute insect crystal cores! Feng Qiqi awakened her talent: True Flame Purification, doubling damage against insectoids!

Leng Yuechan, in the Demon Realm's Shadow Plane, activated her human-shaped meat grinder mode! Sword qi navigation specifically pierced the insects' anuses! Killed three Nascent Soul Insect Kings! Gained five thousand tons of high-quality refining materials from shadow insect armor! Outer Sect Disciples commented: Following Senior Sister Yue Chan, the insects died with great rhythm!

Chu Xinghe, in the Buddhist Realm's Lotus Minor Realm, with the All Heavens Star Plate, youth version at full power! Used insects as billiard balls! Laid down a star marble formation, blasting through three insect nests with one shot! Gained one complete insect nest structure specimen, already submitted to the Sect Research Institute! Outer Sect Disciples commented, Senior Brother Chu, you're almost playing the insects to death!

Linglong and Su Yuan plus Kong Ming, at the Xuanhuang World rift, with the Myriad Transformations Demonic Banner's ear-piercing demonic sound version plus the Heavenly Divination Compass, weakness marking plus physical silencing prayer beads, creating a massive insect rave! The scene was extremely chaotic and appetizing! Gained eight thousand mentally polluted insect mutant crystal cores! Received N complaint letters from Xuanhuang World cultivators suffering from nervous breakdowns due to the demonic sounds! Kong Ming, having crushed three prayer beads, couldn't hold back his urge to complain about the insects' unsightly eating habits and was happily given nine joss sticks of silence!

Lin Xuan's mouth twitched as he read. Very good, very powerful, very... mentally polluting. Especially Linglong's group, they were causing mental damage while killing insects.

"System! New function! 'One-click recycling' of insect corpse materials! Don't let those kids waste them!" Lin Xuan's head throbbed as he looked at Chu Xinghe's reported "five thousand tons of insect armor." How pungent would that smell if piled up in the Sect square?

Ding! Automatic loot recycling function activated!

Scope: All marked insect disaster battlefields!

Mode: Intelligent sorting! Materials inventoried! Garbage incinerated!

Consumption: Negligible, offset by the energy contained within the insects themselves!

Buzz! Buzz!

Above each battlefield, an invisible spatial fluctuation swept through. Mountains of insect corpses, scattered insect armor and teeth, and sparkling insect crystal cores vanished instantly as if sucked away by a vacuum cleaner! Only charred earth and stunned disciples remained.

"Holy crap! Where's my insect leg?!" An Outer Sect Disciple, bent over digging for insect teeth, stared dumbfounded at the empty ground.

"Master is awesome! Even automatic pick-up is out!" Chu Xinghe looked at the instantly clean battlefield and gave a thumbs-up to the sky.

Linglong, however, pouted: "Hmph, I wanted to save some insect meat to try..." Kong Ming, who had just been released from silence, gave her a furious look: You'd actually eat that stuff?

After sending Emperor Qinglan away and arranging his disciples, Lin Xuan looked at the still clueless void, a surge of irritation rising within him.

"Sky-Rending!"

"Roar! Master! Where are we going this time? Did you find the entrance to the Immortal Realm?"

"Find my butt! Just fly blindly!" Lin Xuan snapped as he stepped onto the tiger's back. "Drill into the most chaotic spatial fluctuations! I refuse to believe it! Among all the Myriad Realms, there isn't a single path to the Immortal Realm?!"

Sky-Rending: "Roar... Alright, it's time to test my tiger's luck again..." Resigned, it tore open space with a paw, carrying Lin Xuan, and plunged into the most chaotic spatial turbulence zone!

This time's traversal was even more thrilling than the one to the Netherworld. The spatial turbulence was like a fit, sometimes compressing, sometimes stretching, with various colored spatial storms exploding around them like fireworks. Sky-Rending used all its might, its crimson-gold divine flame shield flickering precariously.

"Roar—! Master! I can't hold on! There's a spatial bubble ahead! Let's hide there first!" Sky-Rending saw a dull, lifeless spatial bubble ahead, like a lifeline, and without caring what was inside, it controlled the battered spatial passage and crashed into it!

Rip—!

The spatial passage, like an out-of-control truck, violently shattered the fragile boundary of that spatial bubble!

A nauseatingly thick... stench of corpses! Mixed with the smell of decay, coldness, and deathly silence, it instantly engulfed the man and tiger like a tangible tide!

"Ugh—!" Lin Xuan and Sky-Rending simultaneously retched. This smell was a hundred times worse than the World-Devouring Insects' barbecue stand!

Lin Xuan suppressed his nausea, his Law-Breaking Sword Eyes scanning his surroundings.

The sky was a hazy gray, without sun, moon, or stars, only an eternal leaden gray. The earth was dark brown, as if soaked in foul blood, emitting a decaying odor. Dead, twisted grotesque trees resembled clawing ghost shadows. The air was filled with a faint, grayish-green corpse miasma.

The most terrifying were the "things" on the ground.

They wore tattered, mud- and blood-stained ancient clothing, their skin was greenish-black, covered in corpse spots, their limbs stiff, their movements sluggish. Some wandered aimlessly, guttural growls emanating from their throats; some squatted on the ground, gnawing on something unidentifiable, rotten, and black; and some... were fighting? Two zombies in tattered green robes were scratching each other, their movements as slow as slow-motion playback, scratching for a long time without even tearing each other's official robes.

"Roar... Master... it seems we... stumbled into a zombie nest?" Sky-Rending's tiger fur bristled like a porcupine as it looked at the scene, which was even more sanity-draining than the Burial God Abyss.

Lin Xuan's mouth twitched uncontrollably. Zombie Realm? The Myriad Realms really had all sorts of bizarre planes!

Just then!

"What demon! How dare you trespass into the territory of my Black Fiend Corpse Kingdom!" A hoarse, dry roar, like a broken gong, came from afar!

Rumble!

The ground shook! A troop of "cavalry" wearing tattered iron armor and riding equally rotten, stinking zombie bone horses, led by a remarkably tall and burly zombie general in tattered black armor, with only half a rotten face and eerie green soul fire flickering in his eye sockets, slowly but menacingly charged over! Their speed... Lin Xuan felt he could outrun them by eight blocks just by walking a little faster.

The zombie general charged closer, its one remaining rotten eye fixed on Lin Xuan and Sky-Rending, especially Sky-Rending's burning crimson-gold divine flame, which made it instinctively feel disgust and a hint of... fear?

"Li... living beings?!" The zombie general let out a hoarse, strange laugh from its throat. "And... a divine beast?! Good! Very good! Capture them! Offer them to His Majesty, the Black Fiend Corpse King! His Majesty will surely reward us handsomely! Hahaha!"

The zombie cavalry behind him also stiffly and excitedly brandished their rusty spears, emitting meaningless guttural sounds.

Lin Xuan looked at this zombie army, whose highest cultivation was only at the early Golden Core stage (the zombie general), whose movements were slow enough to drive anyone crazy, and then at the zombie horses beneath them, whose ribs were almost falling apart, and then smelled the strong corpse stench in the air... He silently pulled out the system panel, found the [Automatic Loot Recycling] function, and tentatively selected the zombie category.

Ding! Discoverable recyclable materials: Fifty low-level white zombies, ten mid-level black zombies, one high-level iron-armored corpse general.

Material value assessment: Extremely low.

Contained energy: Weak corpse qi.

Suggestion: Incinerate for disposal, can be converted into a small amount of Yin-attribute spirit qi, usable for planting Netherworld Grass in the Sect's spiritual fields.

Proceed with recycling?

Lin Xuan looked at the four words "incinerate for disposal," then at the zombie army slowly encircling him, and a very cunning smile appeared on his lips.

"Recycle."

Buzz—!

An invisible spatial fluctuation instantly swept through!

The zombie general and its cavalry, who were slowly charging, along with the zombie horses beneath them, suddenly froze! The next second, like paper figures thrown into an incinerator, they instantly turned into ashes! Not even a speck remained! Only dozens of faint grayish-green wisps of corpse qi were left, which were swept away by the spatial fluctuation and vanished!

Recycling successful!

Gained: A minute amount of Yin-attribute spirit qi!

Automatically imported into the Sect's medicinal garden, Netherworld Grass planting area!

The whole world... became quiet. The smell of corpses had faded considerably.

Lin Xuan nodded in satisfaction. Even a mosquito's leg is meat! This function is a trash-picking artifact!

"Roar... Master... isn't this... a bit too eco-friendly?" Sky-Rending looked at the instantly empty plain, its tiger face a little bewildered.

"Eco-friendly? This is called resource reuse!" Lin Xuan said seriously. "Come on, let's go meet that Black Fiend Corpse King. Let's see... how much Yin-attribute spirit qi it's worth." His eyes gleamed with the light of a "King of Trash Picking."

Sky-Rending: "..." Three seconds of silent mourning for His Majesty, the Corpse King.