Chapter 339: Law of Heaven
Mo Hua’s heart trembled, his brows slowly furrowing.
“If this ‘law’ truly holds,” he said, “then doesn’t it mean that within any given realm, cultivators can never defeat a Great Fiend?”
High-level cultivators could not intervene, and low-level cultivators lacked the power to fight back.
Against someone like Patriarch Qian—strong in cultivation—numbers and cooperation still worked; united cultivators could subdue him.
But against a Great Fiend like the Fengxi Boar, numbers meant nothing. It devoured blood essence and vitality, growing stronger each time it fed. The more people there were, the stronger it could become.
Zhang Lan let out a long sigh.
“‘Within one realm, a Great Fiend is invincible’—that’s practically a consensus among all cultivators. Otherwise, the Dao Court wouldn’t have advised us to migrate the city. It’s an act of pure helplessness.”
“But Great Fiends must die eventually, right?” asked Mo Hua.
Zhang Lan nodded. “Of course. Everything in the world lives and dies. No matter how strong a Great Fiend becomes, it’s still a beast, not an immortal—it must perish eventually.”
“How do Great Fiends usually die?” Mo Hua pressed.
Zhang Lan thought for a moment before answering,
“Some devour every cultivator in a realm and then starve. Some live for thousands of years and die of old age. Some recklessly attempt a breakthrough and are erased by the Heavenly Dao’s law. And a few… are slain when great clans and sects join forces.”
“Join forces to suppress them?” Mo Hua’s eyes lit up.
“Don’t even think about that,” Zhang Lan warned, seeing through Mo Hua’s thoughts.
“Those clans and sects that have slain Great Fiends have legacies spanning millennia. Their foundations are deep, their cultivators powerful, and their sect-protecting arrays mighty. Even then, they pay a terrible price, suffering devastating losses.
“If a Great Fiend doesn’t appear on their own territory, threatening their ancestral Dao line, they would never risk confronting one head-on.”
“Tōngxiān City doesn’t have any power with such foundations,” he added. “And even for those that do, such incidents are exceedingly rare—barely a few records exist in all sect archives.”
Mo Hua looked disappointed.
Of course, every solution he could think of, others had thought of first. Every path that might work, others had already walked.
The Dao Court had existed for over twenty thousand years, full of geniuses and prodigies. It wasn’t as if everyone else were fools who hadn’t considered these things.
But instead of easing his doubts, Mo Hua’s curiosity only grew.
“Then why does the Dao Court even grade the prefectures?” he asked. “If there were no grades, high-level cultivators could freely intervene and slay Great Fiends. Wouldn’t that solve everything?”
“How are these grades even decided? Why is our prefecture specifically a second-grade realm?”
“And when you say ‘the Heavenly Dao erases them,’ what exactly is this Heavenly Dao? What law? How does that erasure happen?”
…
Mo Hua fired off questions like a volley of arrows.
Zhang Lan’s scalp tingled.
Truly, intelligence was a double-edged sword. The smarter a person, the more questions they asked—and the worse the headache for their teacher.
The matters of the Dao Court’s governance, the division of the Nine Provinces, the balance of Heaven and Earth—those were beyond Zhang Lan’s understanding.
And to make wild guesses would risk misleading Mo Hua, distorting his cultivation understanding.
Besides, Mo Hua was no longer a novice—especially in formation arts, he already knew far more than Zhang Lan. Any nonsense could be easily exposed.
“To know what you know, and admit what you don’t—that too is wisdom,” Zhang Lan thought grimly.
So he sighed and admitted honestly, “These things… I don’t know.”
“Alright.” Mo Hua looked a little disappointed.
It was understandable—Zhang Lan was only at the Qi-Refining stage, after all.
Still, Mo Hua wasn’t ready to give up.
“So… there really is no way to deal with a Great Fiend?”
Zhang Lan patted his shoulder.
“In the face of the Heavenly Dao, cultivators are small indeed. We spend our lives seeking the Dao, yet the further we search, the more we realize its boundless, unfathomable depth. No mortal power can truly resist it.”
In other words—no, there was no way.
Mo Hua’s voice lowered. “So we really have to abandon the city?”
Zhang Lan sighed. “In a few days, the Dao Court Division will hold another discussion. If no solution is found, we’ll have to migrate south—to the Wildlands.”
But really, there wasn’t much left to discuss. No one wanted to make that final decision until they had no choice.
Once they left, they’d be uprooted, scattered, and uncertain of their future.
Mo Hua felt both unwilling and unsatisfied. He had to understand this.
The next day, he went to visit Mister Zhuang.
“Sir,” he asked, “why do Great Fiends exist? And why are prefectures ranked by grade?”
Mister Zhuang looked at him quietly. “You truly wish to know?”
Mo Hua nodded.
Zhuang was silent for a long time before finally saying,
“I can tell you the origins of these matters, but you must remember—never speak of them to others. To do so would invite disaster.”
Mo Hua’s expression turned solemn. He nodded.
Zhuang sighed lightly and began,
“All things under Heaven are born of the Dao.”
“The Dao gives birth to One; One gives birth to Two; Two gives birth to Three; Three gives birth to all things. Both Great Fiends and the ranking of prefectures are manifestations of that Dao.”
“To violate the Dao brings forth calamity—that calamity becomes the Great Fiends.”
“To balance the Dao, the Nine Provinces are divided and graded—that is the meaning of the prefecture system.”
Mo Hua frowned slightly, pondering deeply.
Seeing this, Zhuang explained further:
“What we call ‘Great Fiends’ are one form of Daoic Calamity. Cultivators walk a path that defies Heaven; when their actions or intentions stray too far from natural order, calamity arises.”
“All violations of the Heavenly Dao are collectively called Dao-Sin.”
“And Great Fiends are one manifestation of Dao-Sin.”
“The term ‘Dao-Sin’ is used only within the Dao Court’s Fate Pavilion. It’s never spoken of publicly—because the Dao Court claims to uphold the Dao of Heaven. If Dao-Sin appears, it means the Dao Court itself has sinned against Heaven.”
Zhuang’s gaze sharpened as he looked at Mo Hua.
“These words—leave my mouth, enter your ears, and go no further. Especially the phrase ‘Dao-Sin.’”
Mo Hua straightened, nodding solemnly.
After a pause, he asked quietly,
“So… that pig turned into a Great Fiend because of Patriarch Qian’s deeds—his cruelty, his endless slaughter, all against the Dao—and thus, Dao-Sin was born within the pig?”
After all, the man had killed for two centuries, refining human life into pills and elixirs of longevity. The sin alone could drown a city.
Zhuang nodded faintly. “In simple terms, yes. But there were also… other forces involved. Best you not know, for now.”
“A strange Daoist, perhaps?”
Zhuang froze, eyes narrowing sharply. “Who told you that?”
“Patriarch Qian, and a young alchemist from the Dan Guild. Both mentioned a certain Daoist. They said the secret art and the longevity pill formula came from him—but I don’t know if it’s the same person.”
Zhuang gripped Mo Hua’s shoulder, expression grave.
“Do not mention him. Do not even think of him. Forget that such a Daoist exists.”
Mo Hua wanted to ask why, but one look at Zhuang’s uncharacteristically tense expression made him swallow the question.
“…Understood, sir.”
Zhuang finally exhaled, slightly calmer.
Mo Hua had never seen anyone that could make Mister Zhuang afraid.
But since Zhuang forbade the topic, he let it go and instead asked,
“Then, sir—what about the ranking of the prefectures?”
“What do you wish to know?” Zhuang asked quietly.
Mo Hua gathered his thoughts.
“Why does the Dao Court assign grades at all?
“If there were no grades, there’d be no restriction on cultivation levels. The Dao Court could send stronger cultivators to slay Great Fiends, and countless lives would be spared.”
Zhuang countered with a question: “And what authority allows the Dao Court to assign those grades?”
Mo Hua thought a moment. “The erasure of the Heavenly Dao’s law?”
Because if not for that enforcement, there’d be no consequence for breaking the rule—and the grading system would mean nothing.
“And what, then,” Zhuang asked, “is the ‘Law of Heaven’?”
Mo Hua blinked. “How would I know that…” he muttered.
Zhuang slowly shook his head. “You do know.”
Mo Hua looked startled. “I know?”
When did that happen?
He frowned, thinking hard—and then his heart suddenly leapt.
“Could it be… formations?!”
Zhuang nodded. “Exactly.”
“But… where is this formation?”
Mo Hua had guessed, but still couldn’t quite believe it.
Zhuang raised his finger and pointed toward the sky.
Mo Hua followed his gaze—an endless expanse of blue, clouds rolling like tides, vast and unfathomable.
“This sky,” Zhuang said solemnly, “is a formation.”
Mo Hua’s entire being shook. “The sky… is a formation?”
“Indeed.” Zhuang nodded, his tone deep and resonant.
“And not just any formation—it is the greatest of all known formations under Heaven.”
“The greatest formation…” Mo Hua whispered, dazed. “Then it must be…”
Zhuang nodded again. “The Innate Grand Formation—the legendary Immortal-Grade Formation.”
Mo Hua stood there in stunned silence, unable to speak.
To think—three feet above every head, the boundless heavens themselves were a grand array.
The greatest formation in existence had always been there, hanging over all creation, covering every inch of the cultivation world, sheltering every cultivator beneath it.
What kind of being could weave such a cosmic design…?
Mo Hua lifted his gaze to the heavens, overwhelmed by awe—feeling both the insignificance of his own existence and the infinite mystery of the Dao of Formations.
(End of Chapter)