Chapter 1224: Sinister Scheme

Chapter 1223: Sinister Scheme

The evil god of the Shi-Gu Tribe was a newly-born one, a god forced into corruption. Dealing with it was not too difficult.

Within his sea of consciousness, Mo Hua summoned the Dao Monument, and with the crimson Annihilation Tribulation Lightning, erased the will of the Shi-Gu evil god.

Though his divine sense was now strong, his Dao-transformation deep, and the God-Slaying Sword he wielded incomparably sharp—enough to shatter the divine bodies of ordinary evil gods—he had not yet reached the level where he could completely annihilate an evil god’s will.

Using tribulation lightning to purge the poison was far safer, leaving no lingering worries.

No need to fear that someone had planted some vile “seed” inside his divine sense.

Once the poison was cleansed, the Shi-Gu evil god’s furious and unwilling will completely dissipated.

What remained was pure divine sense and a little faint silvery divine marrow.

Mo Hua felt some regret.

Silver was far inferior to gold.

This wasn’t high-grade divine marrow. Compared with the Divine-Lord of the Great Wilderness, or even the remains of some of that Divine-Lord’s stronger divine bodies, it was much weaker.

But thinking about it, it wasn’t surprising.

Before its corruption, the Shi-Gu evil god had likely only been a third-grade barbarian god, at most a little stronger than others of its kind. The fact that it had managed to condense a divine core status and possess silvery divine marrow was already an unexpected gain.

Divine marrow, regardless of grade, was always a treasure.

Mo Hua absorbed every bit of the faint silvery divine marrow into his belly. Even the tiniest traces he licked clean, wasting not a drop.

After licking it all, he smacked his lips, savoring the taste.

It had been a long time since he last ate divine marrow.

Of course, to the current Mo Hua, silvery divine marrow carried little true flavor—merely a symbolic snack to satisfy his craving.

Once he finished the marrow, Mo Hua turned to his “main meal.”

For while divine marrow was fine, it was a “luxury.”

Right now, Mo Hua was on the verge of Core Formation. He was starving, and what he truly lacked was a large quantity of filling, pure thought power.

(TN: 念力 can be translate as: Thought power, Mental force, Will force, Psychic force)

In his divine-sense form, Mo Hua opened his small mouth wide.

The thought power of the Shi-Gu evil god poured in like surging rivers, like clouds swept away by storm winds, all flooding into his mouth.

Mo Hua sat down at once to refine it.

As the pure thought power was gradually absorbed, his divine sense steadily grew stronger.

His divine-sense realm, originally at the early stage of twenty-three runes, began inching toward the mid-stage twenty-fourth rune.

For Mo Hua now, the growth of divine sense was extremely difficult.

Even practicing Absolute Formations daily brought only the faintest tempering effect.

Yet by devouring an evil god’s divine sense, in mere moments, his own showed clear growth.

He couldn’t help but sigh. No wonder demonic cultivators and evil practitioners drank blood, absorbed essence, ate flesh, and harvested dual-cultivation.

Anything cultivated step by step by oneself was slow; but robbing others was fast.

Now, though he was not seizing from “people,” he was still seizing from evil spirits and evil gods. In the end, it was still “borrowing externals,” taking from outside divine sense.

Unlike before, when he relied on his own formation drawing to temper his sea of consciousness and strengthen his divine sense, which felt steady and secure.

If he continued relying on devouring evil gods to grow stronger, would it shake his foundation?

Would it leave behind unpredictable hidden dangers?

Mo Hua’s gaze grew heavy. Yet under the present circumstances, he had no choice.

If he wanted strength, wanted his divine sense to grow—he had to eat.

As the thought power refined, Mo Hua’s divine sense increased, and his divine-sense realm climbed higher.

By the time the Shi-Gu evil god’s thought power was fully consumed, his divine-sense growth had stopped at the mid-to-late stage of the twenty-third rune.

Normally, divine-sense realms had no such subdivisions.

Twenty-three runes were twenty-three runes. Twenty-four runes were twenty-four. There was no early, mid, or late stage.

But Mo Hua was different. His divine sense realm already exceeded ordinary cultivators by far, and advancing further was unimaginably difficult.

Especially later on, each single rune of advancement was fraught with obstacles, requiring vast effort.

Thus, he had no choice but to subdivide his own divine-sense progression into smaller levels, to measure his progress and anchor the strength of his divine sense.

For example: early stage, mid stage, late stage, peak.

Early stage—just upon entering that rune’s realm.

Peak—only a step away from breaking into the next rune.

By his self-sense, Mo Hua’s current divine-sense realm was between the mid and late stages of twenty-three runes.

Beyond mid, but not yet late.

This progress exceeded his expectations.

A mere third-grade evil god had lifted him from the early stage of twenty-three runes directly to mid-late stage.

Which meant that if fortune favored him, by devouring a few more, he could truly break into the twenty-fourth rune in short order.

Then he could finally start forging his Wood-White-Gold-Jade bones, refine the Taotie Life-Bound Formation, break through to Core Formation, and become a true Golden Core cultivator.

Step by step, through so many perils, this once-distant goal now finally felt “within reach.”

Yet Mo Hua sighed again.

One evil god’s thought power had only pushed him from early to mid-late twenty-three runes—still not even a full rune’s growth.

The gap in his divine-sense path to enlightenment was absurdly wide.

Granted, this evil god was not particularly strong, and much of its power had been lost in purification.

Still, it was staggering.

He recalled once more that lingering doubt:

Was the Celestial Evolution Art truly a method “meant for humans”?

He was only at Foundation Establishment, yet already forced to rely on devouring evil gods just to advance. What about later?

When he reached Golden Core, or Nascent Soul? What would he eat then?

If one day he reached Hollow Void?

Would he have to devour the heavens themselves?

Mo Hua sighed again. The Dao was arduous, the future dark. He shook his head, unwilling to think further, and withdrew from his sea of consciousness.

After exiting, he meditated briefly to adapt, harmonizing his strengthened divine sense with his sea of consciousness and refining his control over his body.

Only then did Mo Hua slowly open his eyes.

He took out the divine-script array patterns he had copied from the Shi-Gu Tribe’s idol and examined them closely.

These divine array runes were twisted and obscure, far beyond the scope of normal formation masters.

But Mo Hua recognized them. They were the legacy of the Divine-Lock Formation.

Because he himself had once learned it.

Back in the Qianxue Prefecture, he had personally studied the Divine-Lock Formation from the methods laid down by “Mister Tu.”

Thus, staring at these runes now, he felt an odd sense of familiarity. A pity that scheming Mister Tu was long dead, things and people no longer the same.

Mo Hua felt a strange melancholy.

If not for Mister Tu…

“Just who is it, that wields divine formations, using them to imprison the barbarian god of the Shi-Gu Tribe?”

“Could this person be connected to my Martial Uncle?”

“But… Martial Uncle walks the sinister path of parasitism. Under his hand, could there truly be a ‘living man’?”

“And what ‘living man’ could meet Martial Uncle, and still remain sane, still able to wander drawing divine formations?”

Mo Hua could not fathom it.

And within it lay an even deeper question:

“What is Martial Uncle truly trying to do?”

Before, Mo Hua never dared think deeply on this, lest he overstep and draw his uncle’s notice.

But now, his uncle’s steps were drawing closer and closer, forcing him to confront the question.

What did Martial Uncle want?

Mo Hua’s first guess was: To cultivate Dao-Sin.

That was what Martial Uncle had been doing back in Tōngxiān City, the very first time Mo Hua encountered him:

Summoning disaster, breeding Dao-Sin.

Why?

Because Martial Uncle’s heart was wicked?

A twisted hobby?

Because he enjoyed manipulating hearts, watching people fall into corruption?

A cruel desire for disaster, for destruction?

On the surface, all of that was true.

But Mo Hua felt that these were only appearances. At Martial Uncle’s level, he surely no longer clung to such worldly notions of good and evil.

What Martial Uncle sought, most likely, was the “Dao.” Otherwise, he would not have been conferred the title of “Daoist.”

A Daoist is one who seeks the Dao.

So was Martial Uncle nurturing Dao-Sin in pursuit of his own Dao?

And now, here in the Great Wilderness—was it the same?

Did Martial Uncle also intend to cultivate Dao-Sin here?

Mo Hua frowned.

The problem was, the Great Wilderness was vast, its territories divided not into great provinces, but into countless “mountain realms.”

There were simply too many of these mountain realms. If one were to cultivate Dao-Sin in each, how many would that require?

And could Dao-Sin really be cultivated like that?

Even a single Dao-Sin was already a calamity of heaven and earth—let alone multiple ones.

Even if all the barbarians in the wilderness died, it would still be impossible to produce so many Dao-Sin.

Unless… Martial Uncle had another method, one that could nurture a Dao-Sin unlike any other, one capable of spanning mountain realms and spreading calamity everywhere?

What kind of Dao-Sin would that be?

And after it was cultivated, then what?

Was Martial Uncle planning to use this Dao-Sin of the Great Wilderness to prove his Dao?

At that thought, Mo Hua’s heart trembled. A chilling conjecture slowly surfaced:

Was Martial Uncle planning to nurture Dao-Sin in the Great Wilderness in order to prove the Dao and step into the Hollow Void Realm?

“Hollow Void…”

Mo Hua’s expression grew grave.

Martial Uncle had already been ordained as a “Daoist” of the Demonic Sect while still in the Nascent Soul realm. In the history of the demonic path, this had never occurred before.

And now, after cultivating at the Nascent Soul level for many years, was Martial Uncle preparing at last to break through into the Hollow Void Realm?

If so, then the entire Great Wilderness was nothing more than a game-board Martial Uncle had laid down for his ascension to Hollow Void!

Rebellion, war, famine—all serving as the tinder to cultivate Dao-Sin, allowing him to pierce the veil between reality and illusion, break into Hollow Void, and truly become a Daoist in name and in truth.

A fully realized “Trickster Daoist”…

Mo Hua felt a bone-chilling cold spread through his body.

His first instinctive thought was:

Escape.

The current Great Wilderness was nothing less than Martial Uncle’s Dao-field for nurturing and proving his Dao.

Who knew how long Martial Uncle had been setting up his layout? Outwardly, nothing seemed strange, but here he was truly the one holding the “home field advantage.”

In such circumstances, no one could match Martial Uncle.

And Mo Hua was no exception.

He hadn’t even reached Golden Core yet, while Martial Uncle, terrifying as he already was, was about to break into Hollow Void and become even more terrifying…

Before Martial Uncle, he had absolutely no power to resist.

Exaggerating only slightly, he didn’t even know what Martial Uncle’s methods truly were, what schemes he had laid, how he had laid them, what goals he sought, or how he planned to reach them.

Much less could he imagine facing Martial Uncle directly in battle.

This was a dead-end situation.

“But even if I run… can I really escape?”

Where could he even run now?

And more importantly, if he ran, what would happen to Dan-Zhu and the others?

Elder Zhamu, Little Zha-Tu, and all the forces he had built up, the children he had taught—how many of them could survive the coming calamity, beneath Martial Uncle’s palm?

Could he really just watch them march to their deaths?

Mo Hua fell silent for a while, then let out a deep sigh.

“Escape… isn’t really a solution either.”

Before Martial Uncle, neither fleeing nor staying was a way out.

For the first time, Mo Hua realized deeply that not every problem in this world has a solution.

Just like how the ultimate fate of every life is “death.”

The final state of all things might likewise be “destruction.”

No one could do anything about it. Nothing could reverse it.

Mo Hua lay on the ground, eyes staring at the top of the tent, wracking his brain through a sleepless night, but finding not a single solution.

Against an opponent at the level of a “Daoist,” for a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator like him, this was no less than a “hell-difficulty” challenge.

And Martial Uncle was the kind of Daoist that utterly broke the scale of difficulty.

It wasn’t until the next day, when the sun rose as usual, that Mo Hua finally came back to himself.

After a night of cultivation, though his divine sense had grown stronger, he felt little joy.

Because in front of Martial Uncle, this tiny increase in “strength” was less than a hair’s breadth.

A shadow hung over his heart. Even the bright, dazzling sunlight looked gray and pale to him.

But there was nothing for it—life had to go on.

Even if tomorrow marked the end of the Great Wilderness, today he still had to struggle to live.

That gave Mo Hua a strange sense of dissonance.

And living through today was no easy thing either.

For the famine spread everywhere, the Great Wilderness was strewn with death, and their six thousand barbarian soldiers were quickly running out of supplies.

If they didn’t solve the problem of provisions soon, they might starve to death before Martial Uncle even made a move.

Lu-Gu, Dan-Zhu, and the other Golden Core barbarian cultivators of the Shugu Tribe and the Vermilion Sparrow Tribe gathered to discuss.

But the peril of the outer world, the relentless and unpredictable shifts of fate, were not something human effort could control.

There was almost no chance of finding a good solution.

Even Mo Hua could only rely on luck.

Using divination, he calculated for a long time, and finally found a path that seemed to show traces of “human presence.”

At the end of this road, there seemed to be a gathering of people.

Mo Hua led the group along this path for about five days, leaving the barren mountains and entering a desert.

The surroundings grew even more desolate, the climate hotter, red-yellow sands stretching endlessly with no trace of human life—a dead end by all appearances.

For a moment, the people’s hearts grew restless. If not for Mo Hua’s prestige as Shaman, and his guidance as “divine oracle,” the starving and thirsty barbarian soldiers would surely have rioted.

Thus, they marched another two days. Amid worsening hunger and thirst, they finally spotted a touch of green in the red desert.

It looked to be an oasis.

Though famine raged outside, this oasis seemed to shelter many barbarian cultivators, radiating a strange vitality that contrasted sharply with the desolation.

Not knowing the situation, Mo Hua thought for a while, then ordered the barbarian army to camp at a distance and rest.

He himself, together with Lu-Gu, Dan-Zhu, and Chi-Feng, went ahead into the oasis to investigate.

Lu-Gu, being tall and possessing the strongest cultivation, was asked by Mo Hua to wear rough barbarian clothing and cover his face with a bamboo hat, so as not to alarm others and provoke unrest.

Dan-Zhu and Chi-Feng also altered their appearances.

As Mo Hua’s cultivation was the weakest, only at Foundation Establishment, he disguised himself as Dan-Zhu’s attendant.

Under the cover of night, the four of them slowly made their way toward the lone oasis in the desert.

(End of this Chapter)