Longevity Strange Immortal-Chapter 584 - 18: Formal Retreat into the Coffin

The upheaval of heaven and earth lasted for just over eight hundred years, yet it left the mortal world in utter devastation.

The stars dimmed, the sun and moon vanished, and the world transformed into sentient deceitful entities, greedily devouring all living beings as the Heavenly Dao collapsed.

The calamity bestowed despair upon humanity, akin to the boundless and unfathomable Returning Ruins.

Looking up, in every place where humans once roamed, countless graves now dotted the landscape, along with heaps of corpses wrapped in straw mats.

Crows with human eyes landed brazenly, feasting on decayed flesh without restraint.

The heads of hyenas split in two, their barbed tongues piercing crows, mutating grotesquely as they chewed with sharp teeth.

Deceitful entities became the rulers of the mortal world, while humans were reduced to rats surviving by the slimmest means.

Ten rooms, nine empty?

No, aside from towns protected by the Word-to-law magic, there were no survivors at all.

The upheaval of heaven and earth was but a massacre upon the mortal world. Even mortals possessing supreme power would ultimately destroy themselves in madness.

Who knows how long it has been.

A glimmer of dawn finally broke the horizon. Since the sun was swallowed by the Heaven’s Mouth, this marked the first end to eternal night in the mortal world, yet no one knew what it heralded.

In the few remaining towns of the mortal world, the vacuous-eyed townsfolk stepped out of their homes.

Squinting against the piercing light of the dawn, none dared close their eyes, fearful that the sun was but a fleeting dream.

"Has it ended?"

"Can we... leave the town now?"

"What exactly happened? Are we still alive?"

......

Hope lit the faces of the people. At least under the sun’s rays, vegetation could regrow, sparing them from the agony of hunger and destitution.

Hehehe.

A sinister laugh resounded across the heavens.

The Heaven’s Mouth split open, its blood-soaked maw spanning the horizon, chilling the townsfolk to the core. Even its teeth held fragments of countless white bones wedged in the gaps.

A serpentine tongue slithered out, curling around the sun.

In the towns, cries of despair echoed uncontrollably.

Just then, corpse spots began dotting Heaven’s Mouth’s tongue, and its flesh decayed in an instant. Blood poured from the heavens into the world below.

The Earth’s Ear oozed pus, and the deceitful entities began tearing each other apart.

Bathe in sunlight they did, but every mortal’s heartbeat ceased, their blood no longer flowed, and the signs of corpse transformation intensified rapidly.

When mortals ceased to be mortals, the upheaval of heaven and earth quieted to a close.

Corpse after corpse opened their eyes, bewildered as they took in the scene, unable to believe they’d come back to life—even when their bodies were split in two.

Hell had emptied itself, the dead now roamed the mortal world.

Everyone required time to adjust, even the Land Immortals could not escape the norm.

After the Heaven’s Mouth and Earth’s Ear perished, fissures appeared across the mortal world, from which strange rustling sounds emanated.

Elder Yue emerged from the cracks with his human-headed, spider-bodied form, his cold gaze sweeping across creation.

Not even the Heavenly Dao could prevent it—a rampaging Daluo Golden Immortal. From then onward, no newborn infants bore the Three Souls and Seven Spirits.

Rumble, rumble, rumble.

The other fissures began to writhe, as if additional Daluo Golden Immortals wished to join Elder Yue in claiming the mortal world. Fortunately, the cracks sealed rapidly.

After weaving his web across the land, Elder Yue disgorged masses of maggots, sending swarms to lay their eggs in mortals’ Mud Pill Palaces, before retreating back to the Immortal Realm.

While the Heavenly Dao struggled to alter the fate of soulless mortals, attempts to reverse the calamity were still underway.

Under the influence of Word-to-law magic, certain aspects began falling back into place. A Heavenly Dao led by a mortal’s consciousness was desperately striving to restore balance before being completely extinguished.

Perhaps only the Great Sun Sword Tomb still remembered a sword cultivator named Chunyangzi.

He wandered alone between the Immortal and Mortal Realms, ultimately choosing to sacrifice himself to end the upheaval of heaven and earth. The peace he achieved lasted a mere eight or nine thousand years.

......

"Was it worth it?"

Li Mo’s figure flickered across the Nine Heavens.

After asking himself this question, he found it laughable. Of course, it wasn’t worth it—the forcibly patched-up mortal world was still shattered beyond repair.

But... someone had to do it.

"Even an Alzheimer’s-afflicted Heavenly Dao might occasionally achieve moments of clarity, no?"

"Watch closely."

Li Mo returned to the True Void Hometown, continuing his process of Transcending Mortality and ascending to immortality. But the breakthrough to his Three Dharma Bodies wasn’t something that could be achieved overnight.

The Spirit Cocoon in his dantian swelled in size, while his Externalized Dharma Body, akin to a pupating larva, dissolved into liquid form and began slowly reshaping itself.

Li Mo’s physical body fared no better. His flesh, blood, and bones compressed limitlessly.

He had a premonition that in another millennium or so, his body’s weight would grow disproportionately heavy—perhaps even beyond his ability to sustain its motion.

"I really must seal myself away. Ever since Chunyangzi merged with the Heavenly Dao, the True Void Hometown has ceased to exist independently of the Immortal and Mortal Realms."

Li Mo thought back to the coffin Da Hua Taoist retrieved from the Demon Cave, its contents unknown at the time. Now it seemed to hold another version of himself.

"Absolutely... absurd."

Li Mo’s expression was complex, as he murmured to himself, "If I were to let my past self meet my future self, what developments might occur?" 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

His Fake Soul Consciousness performed a cursory simulation, the outcome immediately dissuading him.

The Heavenly Dao Page linked past and present Li Mo in a perfect causality cycle, resembling a tail-biting Infinite Snake.

However, the causality cycle was exceptionally fragile.

Should Li Mo of future eras learn of his ancient counterpart, the cycle would easily collapse, causing his cultivation to crumble.

"No, wait."

"At a certain point in the future, I must be able to meet myself."

Deep in thought, Li Mo resumed crafting sealing Magic Treasures, emphasizing Concealing Breath and weight-lightening attributes.

Refining Artifacts naturally required Spiritual Power, which once again jolted the dormant White Life Period Death Disease.

By convention, Li Mo still had five hundred years of True Void before confronting the White Life Period Death Disease. But the problem lay in its collision with his immortality ascension.

"I must advance to the True Immortal Period before the disease erupts, or I risk an accelerating loop of catastrophe."

"The Tribulation Crossing Stage won’t withstand the White Life Period Death Disease. The disease will undermine my promotion, leaving me with the fate of bodily death and Dao disappearance."

Li Mo wasn’t entirely without confidence—the Substitute Dao Page of No-Life Mother served as his trump card.

Flipping open the Creation Book, Li Mo noted that the remnant of No-Life Mother had been entirely absorbed, with four Substitute Dao Pages now appearing at its end.

Including the five previously expended pages, Li Mo could directly take No-Life Mother’s place.

All of No-Life Mother’s Taoist inheritance, interpersonal ties, bloodline descendants, and famed deeds... would become Li Mo’s.

"Too bad, the timing isn’t right yet."

"After the second upheaval of heaven and earth occurs, I’ll ascend formally. Only then will I probe the Upper Realm Buddhism—after all, the Buddha Ancestor’s reincarnation identity is too sensitive."

Li Mo planned to reserve a single Substitute Dao Page, leveraging the remaining pages to Transcend Mortality and reach immortality, freeing his focus to deal with the disease.

Half a month later.

The Magic Treasure reached top-grade quality, yet Li Mo showed no intention of halting.

Discovering his Body and Soul had touched upon the True Immortal prototype, he sought to refine a Spiritual Treasure, continuing to carve increasingly intricate Spirit Patterns.

After spending two years, the Spirit Patterns inside and outside the coffin finally formed a unified whole.

The ripple of the Immortal Suppressing Coffin spread forth.

Yet Li Mo’s expression showed dissatisfaction—the Immortal Suppressing Coffin was undoubtedly a Spiritual Treasure, but repeated errors during refinement debased its quality.

The top-grade Heaven and Earth Spiritual Objects used as its primary material had been effectively wasted.

Spiritual Objects with similar quality existed only once in the Corpse Mountain Mini World. To harvest another batch likely required ascending to the level of Immortal Artifacts.

"If I weren’t so distracted, the Immortal Suppressing Coffin could have been perfected—perhaps even rivaled Leiyin Temple’s Doulu Tripod."

Li Mo didn’t rush to lay himself inside the Suppressing Coffin.

Instead, he approached a secluded corner of the True Void Hometown, where Zu Xiuyun lay sealed in slumber, her mutated state still restrained and her humanity intact.

"Go."

Cancer Cells flooded Zu Xiuyun’s body, gradually erasing the signs of mutation.

However, the Twelve Immortals’ mutations stemmed from No-Life Mother’s backlash. Without replacing their physical bodies, they could not be cured.

Li Mo awakened Zu Xiuyun, her eyes opening with a mournful daze.

"Immortal..."

Zu Xiuyun, clearly disoriented, murmured soft-spoken words, as the Twelve True Words had long degenerated into empty rhetoric.

"A Xiu, the upheaval of heaven and earth is over. The Immortal Ladder has been severed. Immortal and mortal alike are trapped in Longevity. Tell me... do you still desire Immortality?"

Without hesitation, Zu Xiuyun nodded in affirmation: "As long as the Immortal’s goal remains unchanged, my resolve to achieve Immortality will never waver."

"Good."

"Within no more than nine thousand years, the upheaval of heaven and earth will repeat itself. When chaos reemerges, it shall be our moment to ascend with radiance."

Zu Xiuyun’s gaze burned with mania.

The truth is, the eldest disciple was a ruthless opportunist. She wouldn’t hesitate to incite turmoil in the mortal world if it slightly increased their odds.

"Immortal, what should I do?"

"The Twelve Immortals are awakening one by one, but their mutations are severe. Only you can currently traverse the True Void Hometown."

Zu Xiuyun asked solemnly: "Should I inform my junior sisters of the Immortal’s presence?"

"Do not reveal it explicitly—identify yourselves as disciples of No-Life Mother only."

Li Mo detailed the specific Magic Technique for reshaping physical bodies to Zu Xiuyun. A necessary component was the half-magic half-deceitful Mountain Spider.

"A Xiu, you don’t need to deliberately search for the Mountain Spider’s Magic Artifact Catalog. One day, you’ll naturally acquire it. When you obtain the treasure, it shall be time for the Twelve Immortals to reshape their bodies."

Zu Xiuyun committed his words to memory without any sign of overstepping.

Li Mo spoke gravely: "What I’m about to tell you is of utmost importance—any negligence could jeopardize our immortality plan."

"Soon, I’ll enter into a closed state of cultivation. During this time, awaken me once..."

Li Mo passed his thoughts to Zu Xiuyun.

"Additionally, another version of me will visit the True Void Hometown someday. At that moment, accept him as a disciple of No-Life Mother."

Zu Xiuyun was visibly stunned.

"When the time is ripe, relay this single message to that alternate version of me."

"When a scholar knocks during the rain, make sure you open the door."

Li Mo repeated the words multiple times. While his meeting with Chunyangzi might seem insignificant, it would crucially affect Chunyangzi’s decisions.

Should Chunyangzi never learn of the Nearby Array, he would undoubtedly choose to remain in the Immortal Realm.

Though this might seem trivial for mere years, with Chunyangzi nearing the Heavenly Person’s Limit of his lifespan, he may not have time left to prepare for seizing the Heavenly Dao.

If causality cycles are like the butterfly effect, it isn’t Li Mo who constitutes the critical butterfly.

It is Chunyangzi.

Li Mo painstakingly clarified the details. After verifying accuracy, he entered the Immortal Suppressing Coffin.