Chapter 1364: Golden Core Realm

Chapter 1363: Golden Core Realm

That near-perfect Golden Core of Superior-upper grade—circulating Great Five Elements qi and layered with True Dragon golden locks—quickly fell from the Superior-upper grade to Superior-middle grade.

And it was still continuing to drop…

Mo Hua was alarmed.

Yet the cold, overwhelming pressure of the Heavenly Dao loomed before him. For a moment, he had no idea what to do, no idea how he could resist the Heavenly Dao’s punishment and preserve his Golden Core.

He could only exhaust every method he possessed to interfere with the operation of the Heavenly Dao’s laws.

But any formation, Dao art, or even the Great Void Divine-Slaying Sword vanished like a mud ox entering the sea the moment it touched the terrifying Heavenly Dao seal.

Mo Hua then mobilized large amounts of True Dragon qi, forcing it to lock tightly around his Golden Core.

The golden dragon locks formed from True Dragon qi bound his Golden Core and, to some extent, restrained the punishment of the Great Dao laws.

But the authority of the Heavenly Dao stands above all power.

Whether gods or divine beasts, all are beings that approach the Heavenly Dao yet remain beneath it.

True Dragon qi could not hold his Golden Core for long.

The power of the Heavenly Dao forcibly pierced the dragon locks and automatically “corrected” his Golden Core, forcibly removing the spiritual power that had increased through the “cheating” of the Taotie Twelve-Meridian Spiritual-Skeleton Formation.

The spiritual power inside the Golden Core was continuously extracted.

Once spiritual power diminished, the Golden Core could no longer maintain its grade.

Thus, Mo Hua’s Golden Core dropped further.

In the blink of an eye, it fell from Superior-middle grade to Superior-lower grade…

After reaching Superior-lower grade, the punishment still did not stop.

Spiritual power continued to be erased, and the grade continued sliding. Soon it dropped below the “Superior grade” realm entirely, falling into Intermediate-upper grade.

Mo Hua felt a deep pain in his heart.

Yet even so, the spiritual power within his Golden Core continued to be stripped away, and the decline continued.

Amid the pain, it fell from Intermediate-upper grade to Intermediate-middle grade.

In another instant, it had already dropped back to Intermediate-lower grade.

Intermediate-lower grade was Mo Hua’s original spiritual root grade.

But even after falling to Intermediate-lower grade, the Heavenly Dao’s suppression did not stop. It continued deducting spiritual power from his Golden Core.

And his core grade continued to fall.

Eventually, it dropped straight through the entire Intermediate grade realm.

The radiance of Mo Hua’s Golden Core dimmed, the Five Elements power weakened, and its quality reached Inferior-upper grade.

This was now an Inferior-grade Golden Core.

Not an upgrade… an actual degradation.

His core had fallen below the lower limit of his spiritual roots.

At that point, the Heavenly Dao’s punishment finally seemed to cease. It no longer deducted spiritual power and tacitly accepted his current grade.

The Heavenly Dao would not allow a cultivator with Intermediate-lower grade spiritual roots to form a Superior-upper grade Golden Core, that would be too defiant of heaven.

But a cultivator with Intermediate-lower roots forming an Inferior-grade Golden Core was consistent with the rules of the Heavenly Dao.

And when Mo Hua broke through, he had already been at the final stage of core condensation.

The moment the Heavenly Dao stopped its punishment and the core grade aligned with the laws, the Golden Core stabilized internally. Almost instantly—before he even had time to react—Mo Hua completed the condensation.

Within the rotation of his qi sea, his spiritual power fully crystallized.

His Minor Five Elements Golden Core completely took shape.

Its grade stabilized at Inferior-upper grade.

“Inferior grade…”

Mo Hua’s face turned pale; his heart felt cold and desolate.

A cultivator can form a core only once in their lifetime.

Once formed, it can never be changed.

Not long ago, he had locked in a Superior-upper grade Great Five Elements perfect Golden Core.

Yet in the blink of an eye, everything was gone. The Superior-upper grade core had collapsed past the limit and fallen to Inferior grade.

From heaven to hell in an instant.

His heart turned icy, despair nearly overwhelming him as anger began to grow.

But he did not even know whom to vent his fury upon.

Just a bit more—only a trace more—and he could have formed a Superior-upper grade core, defied his spiritual roots, and rewritten his fate.

But everything was gone…

All his effort and designs—including the attempt at “Transforming the Mortals into Dragons”—had gone to waste, declared a failure.

Mo Hua’s eyes reddened.

Yet the objective reality had already occurred, unmoved by his will.

Thus, his Golden Core was formed.

From this day forward, he was a Golden Core cultivator.

A cultivator with an Inferior-grade Golden Core.

Once the core formed, the blood vitality and spiritual power within Mo Hua’s body began to change.

Breaking through a major realm brings qualitative transformation to the body and spiritual power.

But neither had been his strength. Though the enhancement was significant, it was far inferior to that of other prodigies.

His physique needed no mention, Mo Hua had been physically weak since birth and never excelled in vitality.

And he had formed an Inferior-grade core, even lower than his spiritual root grade. The transformation of his spiritual power would only be worse than others’.

This was a failed Golden Core.

But what followed was the strengthening of his divine sense.

According to the laws of cultivation, breaking through a major realm transforms body and spiritual power while divine sense multiplies.

Mo Hua’s divine sense had already been strong—twenty-four patterns in total. After breaking through, it doubled, increasing at an astonishing rate.

Twenty-four patterns.
Twenty-five patterns.
Twenty-six patterns…

Twenty-six patterns marked the upper limit of mid-stage Golden Core divine sense… a threshold.

But Mo Hua’s foundation was too profound. Soon, his divine sense surpassed the mid-stage threshold and reached twenty-seven patterns…

Twenty-seven patterns placed it in the late-stage Golden Core.

Early-stage Golden Core cultivation, yet late-stage Golden Core divine sense of twenty-seven patterns.

But soon, a familiar suppressive sensation returned.

He had experienced this once during Foundation Establishment.

He had even just experienced it again.

It was the Heavenly Dao’s punishment.

The Heavenly Dao had come again to punish this abnormal “monstrosity.”

Even after the previous Heavenly Dao law forcibly drained his spiritual power and devoured his core grade, it had not disappeared. Now it directly suppressed even his divine sense.

Pitch-black Heavenly Dao laws tore open the void and spread into Mo Hua’s Sea of Consciousness, beginning a new round of suppression.

Immense pressure enveloped his Sea of Consciousness.

The laws forcibly suppressed his divine sense and pressed down his realm.

His Sea of Consciousness endured immense pain.

His divine sense realm began to fall again.

Twenty-seven patterns dropped to twenty-six, then twenty-five…

Finally…

back to twenty-four.

Under extreme pressure, Mo Hua could no longer endure.

Boundless fury erupted like a prairie wildfire, instantly filling his heart.

Having his Golden Core grade devoured was one thing, fine, let it be Inferior grade.

But now even his divine sense… would be sealed again?

His anger transformed and completely devoured his reason.

Within his Sea of Consciousness, his eyes instantly turned crimson, then, in an instant, were replaced by pitch black.

His face twisted. Within his divine-sense body, golden divine blood began to boil.

Upon his forehead, an ancient Taotie pattern slowly emerged.

This ancient Taotie mark seemed like a progenitor, continuously incubating and evolving more Taotie patterns.

Pitch-black Taotie markings crawled over his body like curses, distorting his very state of existence, until they spread across his entire form.

At last, Mo Hua transformed into a ferocious being covered in black Taotie markings.

Like a newborn Taotie offspring.

(TN: Punch the Monkey?)

The Taotie-formed Mo Hua bared his teeth in a grin, indescribably savage.

As though a ferocious beast had descended upon the world, intent on devouring heaven and earth.

Space itself seemed to warp.

The flow of laws appeared to halt in that instant.

Even the seal of the Heavenly Dao seemed to freeze for a brief moment.

Then, with a flash of black light, Taotie Mo Hua vanished. When he reappeared, he was already crawling atop the Laws of the Heavenly Dao on all fours like a juvenile beast.

His Taotie-marked face split open in a grin as he opened his mouth.

In his Divine-Sense body, Mo Hua retained the form of a boy barely in his teens; his body was small, his mouth no large thing. Yet when he opened it, his mouth suddenly became a black abyss, within which Taotie patterns crawled ceaselessly.

“Ao—wu—!”

Enormous teeth clamped viciously onto the Laws of the Heavenly Dao.

Mo Hua bit and tore at those laws in fury, as though ripping apart the flesh and blood of a lifelong mortal enemy.

The Heavenly Dao laws responded with equal fury. The Great Dao trembled; an indescribably dark power of law began to repel him.

Yet the Heavenly Dao’s punishment targeted only the suppression of Mo Hua’s core grade and Divine-Sense, it did not contain true annihilating force.

And Mo Hua’s Taotie-mark-covered body seemed clad in an armor capable of distorting laws.

Or perhaps the Taotie patterns themselves embodied a formidable law.

This allowed Mo Hua to seize the Heavenly Dao’s seal with his bare hands, even to the extent of opening his massive jaws to tear apart the laws, devour them, and digest them.

Before this ancient Taotie presence, the sealing laws of the Heavenly Dao were utterly powerless, just as earlier, when the Heavenly Dao had forcibly suppressed his core grade and Divine Sense, it too had been equally helpless.

And now, Mo Hua truly seemed to have become a savage juvenile Taotie. Rage twisted his reason; he wished he could devour the Heavenly Dao itself.

So he did.

In an exceedingly brutal manner, he tore apart the law-force the Heavenly Dao used to suppress, seal, and restrain him… and swallowed it whole.

After swallowing it, Mo Hua arrogantly licked his lips.

Even his lips crawled with Taotie markings, making him appear savage, cruel, and filled with a tyrannical contempt for heaven and earth.

The world fell silent… then erupted in a heaven-shaking upheaval.

A terrifying will spread throughout the Dragon Pool.

Yet devouring the power of law conformed to the Heavenly Dao’s own rules. Thus, even though Mo Hua consumed its laws, the Heavenly Dao itself had no further grounds for punishment.

And so, the Heavenly Dao returned to stillness.

The Heavenly Dao’s seal had been eaten.

Before Taotie-formed Mo Hua, the Heavenly Dao fell silent.

Within the Sea of Consciousness, the “shackles” upon Mo Hua’s Divine-Sense truly vanished.

His Divine-Sense paused, as if stunned, then suddenly realized nothing remained to suppress it.

No laws remained to impose a framework upon it.

In that instant, Mo Hua’s Divine-Sense went berserk.

Like a wild horse freed of reins, it began to skyrocket.

Twenty-four patterns. Twenty-five. Twenty-six…

In almost a single instant, it pierced through the bottleneck and reached twenty-seven pattern, the late-stage Golden Core.

At twenty-seven patterns lay the threshold of late-stage Golden Core.

Beyond this point, each additional pattern required an immense sea of Divine-Sense to bridge the gap.

Yet Mo Hua’s Divine-Sense continued to surge.

His foundation was simply too deep, terrifyingly profound.

In the Qianxue Prefecture realm, he had devoured countless demons, fiends, and creations of evil gods.

In the Desolate Wilderness, he had also consumed numerous barbarian gods.

All of this accumulated together like an enormous tonic.

Previously, his realm had been too low; his Divine-Sense could not withstand such nourishment, and much of the “medicinal potency” had settled within his Sea of Consciousness.

Now, freed from the Heavenly Dao’s restrictions—and with the transformation of his Dao foundation during Core Formation—all that stored foundation erupted at once, providing transcendent nourishment for his Divine-Sense.

Thick accumulation, thin release.

Mo Hua’s accumulation was simply too vast; thus the speed of this eruption was inconceivable.

His Sea of Consciousness expanded visibly, like ten thousand rivers flowing into the ocean.

His Divine-Sense realm climbed rapidly.

Twenty-seven patterns…

Twenty-eight patterns…

Twenty-nine patterns!

Even at twenty-nine patterns, it did not stop, continuing to climb toward the peak of twenty-nine patterns, the ultimate limit of Divine-Sense attainable within the Golden Core realm… even infinitely approaching… Feathered Ascension.

…

At the same time, a heart-palpitating pressure spread throughout the Dragon Pool.

Outside the Dragon Pool, within the Dragon Hall, ordinary Golden Core cultivators of both righteous and demonic paths felt an indescribable pressure envelop them. Their chests tightened; breathing grew difficult, yet they could not identify the source.

Late-stage Golden Core cultivators, and several peak-stage Golden Core elders, possessed stronger Divine-Sense. They could distinctly feel that something incomparably ferocious seemed to be incubating within the Dragon Pool.

Yet when they extended their Divine-Sense to probe it, it felt as though they had touched an abyss, nothing could be perceived.

A chill rose uncontrollably in their hearts.

“What… is that thing…” the Silver Corpse Elder muttered.

Ghost-Child Wanderer frowned. “Isn’t this merely Foundation Establishment cultivators forming their cores? Why does it give me the feeling that…”

Someone sneered. “What nonsense are you spouting?”

A righteous elder said, “Perhaps too many prodigies are forming cores simultaneously. Their auras overlap, brewing an overwhelming momentum, that must be what gives rise to this frightening sensation.”

Others nodded slightly.

“That should be the case…”

Yet despite their words, a shadow lingered in everyone’s hearts—a nameless unease.

As if within the Dragon Pool, something terrifying was about to be born.

At that moment, the earth trembled.

An overwhelmingly powerful aura surged out from the Dragon Pool.

Everyone looked up. Beyond the Dragon Hall, above the Dragon Pool, Core Formation-qi swirled, light condensed, and amid a riot of iridescent colors, the outline of a woman appeared—beautiful in form, yet imbued with astonishing deathly stillness.

Several faces changed.

“A Supreme (Superior-Upper) grade Golden Core phenomenon.”

The Silver Corpse Elder of Yin Corpse Valley was overjoyed. “A Living Beauty Corpse!”

The “Living Beauty Corpse” phenomenon was one of Yin Corpse Valley’s rarest Golden Core manifestations—half alive, half dead, taking death itself as beauty.

And this was only the beginning.

Soon the heavens churned with wind and cloud, radiance surged skyward, and new phenomena continuously manifested, shaking heaven and earth.

A ferocious Azure-black evil dragon coiled upward into the sky.

A nine-colored lotus, brimming with seductive allure, bloomed layer by layer, as if to ensnare souls.

A demonic sword hung in the air, and at its hilt an eye slowly opened.

Where skulls gathered, the gates of a vast netherworld swung open.

Within a boundless sea of blood, a Bodhi tree grew forth, its blood-red fruit glistening vividly…

“Myriad Demon Mountains, Evil Dragon Ascends the Heavens…”

“Joyous-Union Sect, Nine Desires Lotus Bloom.”

“Demonic Sword Sect, Demonic Sword Opens the Heavenly Eye.”

“Skull Cave, Impermanence Netherworld.”

“Blood Refinement Sect, Blood Sea Bodhi…”

…

“These are all Supreme Golden Core phenomena, heaven-and-earth signs that appear only when extraordinary geniuses form their cores…”

At this moment, these exceedingly rare demonic Golden Core phenomena appeared simultaneously.

The demonic elders’ blood surged with excitement.

On the other side, righteous-path phenomena soon followed.

First, a golden figure appeared in midair, crowned and majestic like a sovereign of the mortal world.

“Xuanyuan Clan, Human Emperor Golden Core.”

Then a white crane soared into the sky with a clear cry.

“Yuwen Clan, White Crane Soaring Immortal.”

A stream of violet qi descended from the east, like primordial chaos first separating, auspiciousness arriving from the east.

“Jiang Clan, Innate Violet Qi.”

Clouds churned at the horizon; stars and moon trailed in pursuit.

“Carefree Gate, Nebula Chasing the Moon.”

A Vajra manifestation appeared between heaven and earth, glaring with wrathful eyes.

“Vajra Gate, Vajra’s Wrathful Gaze.”

A dragon’s shadow roamed the heavens, coiling within a great cauldron.

“Ao Clan, Dragon-Blood Cauldron.”

Brilliant sword radiance shot from beyond the firmament, blue-white light blanketing the sky.

“Xiao Clan,  Sword from Beyond the Heavens.”

In addition, a strand of Great Wilderness aura transformed through bloodline convergence—python and spirit turtle intertwining.

“Great Wilderness Qi, Black Tortoise Golden Core…”

…

Dragon qi refinement elevated the cores, causing transformations. Rare, peerless Golden Core phenomena—seen perhaps once in a century—unfolded like a kaleidoscope across heaven and earth.

In moments, the entire sky was filled with layered visions.

A spectacle unseen for millennia.

Vast phenomena hovered in the heavens.
Dazzling radiance illuminated the earth.

Every Golden Core cultivator present—righteous or demonic, high or low in status—stood stunned.

At that instant, they directly felt what it meant to live in an age of peerless prodigies… what it meant to witness an era of great contention.

And just as the heavens filled with competing splendors… as the supreme Golden Core phenomena interwove light and shadow, vying in brilliance…

Suddenly, a dragon’s roar shook heaven and earth.

A primordial dragon’s shadow, several times larger than any other phenomenon, slowly rose from beneath the ground. Its noble aura suppressed the myriad visions filling the sky.

That ancient dragon might caused every Golden Core cultivator present to blanch in shock.

“True Dragon…”