Chapter 1212: Array

Mo Hua immediately closed his eyes, gathered his divine sense, sent it outward, and perceived the aura of the Famine Calamity between heaven and earth, calculating the underlying array principles.

A moment later, Mo Hua opened his eyes and frowned.

"I can't calculate it—"

If the Heavenly Mystery Calculation couldn't work anything out, it meant that within this aura of the Famine Calamity, there was very likely none of the basic elements of an array.

Such as the construction of array patterns, the circulation of array hubs, the energy supply of array eyes, and so on.

The aura of the Famine Calamity was simply a kind of "qi mechanism" that brought disaster.

Mo Hua had indeed not seen any trace of an array in the outward appearance of the spreading Famine Calamity aura—no array patterns, no array hubs, no array eyes.

But really—was it so?

Mo Hua's expression grew somewhat solemn.

Was it because this spreading Famine Calamity was not a disaster brought on by an array, which was why the Heavenly Mystery Calculation couldn't work it out?

Or was it simply because his own skill in the Heavenly Mystery Calculation was insufficient to calculate the inner mysteries?

Or perhaps—

Mo Hua's gaze sharpened slightly.

Was this spreading "Famine Calamity" a completely different kind of array, one beyond the scope of his knowledge, and therefore impossible to calculate?

This possibility was also very likely.

Mo Hua looked at the scene before him—Famine Calamity spread across the land, grass and trees withered—and sighed.

The arrays of heaven and earth were vast and profound.

The more he saw, the more he learned, the more he felt how little he knew, and the more he lamented that between heaven and earth there still remained infinite mysteries and countless ancient, unfathomable arrays.

Even in the distant past, many bizarre arrays had very likely been just like this—taking on a "natural" form, pervading heaven and earth invisibly, without form or trace, with no "framework" to follow, and undiscovered by anyone.

And in time, they would either be lost, vanishing from the world.

Or else, imperceptibly, they would bring about great calamities upon heaven and earth.

Yet the people of the world, "having eyes but no pearls," could not pierce through the mysteries of arrays, and thus had no idea of the true nature of these disasters.

Mo Hua's pupils deepened, and in a flash he attained a deeper enlightenment.

The "formalized" framework of arrays, unified and standardized by the Dao Court, began to gradually "dissolve" in his heart.

Arrays were a person's comprehension of the natural laws, not the "patterns of laws" sorted out, summarized, and codified by human hands.

But natural laws did not all present themselves in the forms prescribed by people.

Some "arrays" took on natural forms, and even did not look like "arrays" at all.

But often these natural-form arrays were in fact the more powerful ones.

What a true array master should learn also ought not to be the formalized "arrays"—not the "arrays" in books or in dogma.

These were all human-defined "arrays," not the natural "laws."

What an array master should learn were the natural laws between heaven and earth.

One should personally observe all things in the world, comprehend the laws of heaven and earth, and not be bound by form, not be shackled by "knowledge," but experience the true essence of arrays.

For instance, the Gluttonous Omen he had seen when he had his previous epiphany.

The Gluttonous patterns were densely packed, appearing to be generated by array patterns, but in truth they were ferocious beasts hatched by the laws themselves.

And another example—the Famine Calamity spreading before him, which had no array form, but very likely possessed the "law" core of an array.

It was just that this method was too ingenious.

Mo Hua could only roughly "sense" a little of it, but lacking concrete knowledge and the transmission of methods, he was unable to put it into "actual practice."

"Array and law—the array is the medium, the law is the core—"

Mo Hua took out a jade slip and carefully recorded every word of these insights of his, neatly and properly, so that he could review them later and gain new understandings.

A good memory is no match for a worn pen.

Mo Hua was actually quite confident in his own memory.

But he had been afflicted by the Life Bane, a fierce ghost lodged within his fate, devouring his divine sense, carrying the risk of "amnesia"—who knew which day these precious "insights" would all be forgotten.

Thus it was still better to develop the habit of "taking notes."

Having recorded all his insights in a small notebook, Mo Hua held the jade slip in his hand, and as his thoughts drifted slightly, another doubt occurred to him:

The Gluttonous Beast was related to the Famine Calamity, related to eating—

But what about that twenty-three-pattern Gluttonous Absolute Array from the Shugu Division? What Gluttonous law did it contain? And what exactly was its function?

Going further, what about that twenty-four-pattern Twelve Meridian Gluttonous Spirit Remains Array?

Did the array patterns of the Gluttonous Spirit Remains Array also contain laws related to "Famine Calamity" and "eating"?

But was this really correct?

These seemed to be questions that could not be gathered together.

The aura of the Famine Calamity, the twenty-three-pattern Gluttonous Array, the Twelve Meridian Gluttonous Spirit Remains Array.

The causal logic and law-relationships within were too complex.

Mo Hua thought hard for a long time, feeling only that his head was a tangled mess; the word "Gluttonous" was like a complex "monster," devouring his divine sense, making it impossible for him to find any thread of thought.

"I can't just think in the abstract—I still need something concrete and tangible to study—"

The abstract takes the concrete as its medium.

The law takes the array as its medium.

Even the Great Dao has its vehicle.

The law of the Gluttonous Beast was the same.

And at present, what clearly contained the "power of the Gluttonous Beast" was the "Famine Calamity" that was continuously spreading before him.

And at present, what clearly contained the "power of the Gluttonous Beast" was the "Famine Calamity" that was continuously spreading before him.

Mo Hua settled his mind again and continued to remain at the "frontline" of the famine, observing its current state and analyzing its underlying causes and principles.

But the results were minimal.

Can Tie was a ferocious beast; the famine was a great calamity; principles of this nature were even more profound and unfathomable.

Now, the famine's aura had escaped the boundaries of old arrays, transcending Mo Hua's understanding of array theory.

It was not something he could simply analyze just by trying.

Even with effort, there might be no return.

Mo Hua frowned deeply; after wasting half a month, he was still at a loss.

But to give up now was unacceptable to him.

After all, the power of Can Tie had spread right to his doorstep—he could not possibly avoid studying it thoroughly.

"If this approach won't work, then maybe I should try a different line of thought?"

"What kind of thought?"

Mo Hua sat atop a large boulder on the cliffside, propping his chin in his right hand, staring at the withered land before him, reviewing in his mind all he had ever learned and every cultivation experience he'd had—like a spinning lantern—until suddenly, the image of the collapse of the Huang Tian Blood Sacrifice Array flashed into his thoughts.

"Collapse?"

"No, not quite…"

Mo Hua recalled the Huang Tian Blood Sacrifice Array.

This was not the first time he had "broken" an array, but the Huang Tian Blood Sacrifice Array was different—it was not mere "collapse."

A second-grade Reverse Spirit Array could not destroy a quasi-third-grade great array.

The Huang Tian Blood Sacrifice Array was not destroyed solely by the force of collapse; there were also more complex transformations involved.

It was the collapse of the Reverse Spirit Array that caused spiritual energy and demonic energy to collide head-on, opposing yet transforming each other, triggering a deeper "dissolution."

Mo Hua had "calculated" this transformation at the time, but even he himself had not fully understood it.

He had merely, during his calculation, felt an inexplicable intuition—that activating the Reverse Spirit energy to trigger an array explosion would produce greater power,

generating deeper contradictions and chaos—so he acted on instinct.

The result was, of course, formidable.

Liu Yuhua had been driven to death.

Jin Dan had turned to ash in an instant.

The scene at that time was deeply etched in Mo Hua's memory.

Heaven and earth lost their colors; black and white intertwined, blue spiritual energy and red demonic energy stood in equal opposition, their light surging toward the sky.

During this process, spiritual energy continuously transformed into demonic energy, while demonic energy was simultaneously reversed under the influence of spiritual energy, its inner corruption and filth being shattered and eliminated.

In the opposition of positive and negative, they transformed each other, dissolving all things.

In short, it was a very complex, subtle, and profound transformation.

It was somewhat like the "Taiji formed by the yin-yang fish"?

Mo Hua's heart tightened—he could not clearly articulate the principle, nor was he certain if his guess was correct.

But the "framework" of opposing forces generated during the collapse of the Huang Tian Blood Sacrifice Array could serve as a reference.

"Apply to one force another force, utterly opposite in nature, to provoke opposition and transformation, thereby observing the changes in its fundamental principles?"

Mo Hua murmured to himself.

Though he did not know if it would work, he could try.

Mo Hua continued his deduction:

"From the perspective of internal principles, the famine's aura stimulates 'vitality,' causing humans, demonic beasts, plants, and all living things to become overactive, generating excessive hunger, thereby draining their life force and falling into a state of 'death.'"

"The famine turns life into death."

"Then all I need to do is use an array to turn death into life, sustaining the life force."

Mo Hua had already tried this before.

The Yi Mu Hui Chun Array was viable.

But it only worked for "humans"—it had little suppressive effect on the famine itself.

Mo Hua could not observe the true nature of the famine's aura from it.

"Besides the Yi Mu Hui Chun Array, what other arrays could I try?"

Mo Hua gazed at the famine-stricken land before him, a sudden insight striking him—he remembered an array:

Hou Tu Array!

The famine spread across the earth, turning the land barren, withering plants, and killing all life.

To suppress the famine, one could naturally begin with the earth itself.

And the array that embodied the earth's vital energy was precisely the ultimate array:

Hou Tu Array.

He had originally found this earth sect's ultimate array while traveling with his master in a remote mountain village.

He did not know whether it had been coincidence or if his master had foreseen it—this array would one day prove immensely useful. Mo Hua felt a quiet pang of reflection, then immediately stopped hesitating, quieted his mind, communed with the earth's Dao essence, and personally drew several Hou Tu Arrays along the edge of the spreading famine aura to observe their effects.

On the Hou Tu Arrays, the earth's profound virtue flowed, brimming with vitality.

When the famine aura reached the Hou Tu Arrays, it was indeed blocked—like oil meeting heat, it hissed, emitting white smoke, undergoing a strange dissolution.

Mo Hua's heart leapt with joy.

But this process lasted barely any time at all.

The Hou Tu Arrays were "swallowed" by the famine.

Just as water can extinguish fire, but a small amount of water cannot put out a massive blaze.

Life can suppress death, but a small amount of life force cannot restrain vast quantities of "death."

Moreover, Mo Hua's Earth Array is only a Rank One, utterly incapable of resisting the "Famine Disaster" produced by at least some Rank Two Tan Ti–type array.

But the problem is, Absolute Arrays are rare and unpredictable.

Moreover, it must be a specific type of Absolute Array.

With Famine Disasters ravaging the Great Wasteland now, where could he possibly find a Rank Two Absolute Earth Array to study?

Mo Hua let out a long sigh.

He tried other Earth-elemental Five Phases arrays and Bagua Gen–related arrays as well, but though their ranks were sufficient, their effects were abysmal.

At the level of "Principle," ordinary arrays simply cannot compare to Absolute Arrays.

The situation had stalled again. Mo Hua lay on the ground, beneath him dense shrubbery; a few zhang away lay barren land where vegetation had withered under the spreading Famine Disaster.

This was the boundary between "Life and Decay."

Now, this boundary of "Decay" was slowly, imperceptibly, creeping toward Mo Hua.

In a few days, or perhaps a month, the Famine Disaster would reach his current position.

The grasses and shrubs beneath him would all wither, dry up, and meet their final "death."

Mo Hua felt a subtle sensation in his heart.

As if he himself lay upon the boundary between "Life and Death."

"Death" was drawing near.

And what he must do was awaken "Life," to oppose "Decay."

This was an array, a Principle—and yet it also resembled something else: "Cause and Effect."

Mo Hua's pupils contracted slightly; his heart trembled, and his determination deepened.

"Specifically—how?"

Mo Hua frowned, thinking in silence.

After a moment of thought, he took out his "little notebook" jade slip, reviewed his recent insights, and pondered again.

Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck him.

"The array is the medium; the Principle is the core."

Arrays themselves have generation and inhibition—like the Five Elements, like the Eight Trigrams.

So too does Principle.

Or rather, it is not the arrays that generate and inhibit each other, but "Principle."

It is the underlying Principle that generates and inhibits, interacts and acts—thus creating the surface appearance of arrays generating and inhibiting one another.

Therefore, suppressing the "Famine Disaster" is, at its essence, using the "Life" Principle to suppress "Death."

To strengthen the "Life" Principle, one must use arrays as a medium.

But arrays are merely "tools," vessels.

Even Absolute Arrays are no exception.

Absolute Arrays contain stronger, deeper Principle-energy, sharply distinct from ordinary arrays—but fundamentally, they are all manifestations of "Principle." If one comprehends the transformations of Principle, theoretically, one could combine an Absolute Array with other arrays to form a "Compound Array."

Such a Compound Array links together multiple arrays through a shared "Principle" as its central pivot, acting in unison.

And what he must do is take the "Absolute Earth Array" as the core, use the "Life" Principle as the pivot, and connect other Rank Two high-grade Earth-elemental and Bagua Gen arrays—which also contain minute traces of the "Life" Principle—into a new kind of "Compound Array."

In this way, this type of Compound Array would contain two layers of structure:

One layer is the obvious, surface-level foundation array structure, including the array's focal point, pivot, individual arrays, and array patterns.

On the surface, yes, that is correct.

But beneath lies another, deeper layer—the profound structure ordinary array masters cannot perceive.

Use the "Absolute Array" as the array's focal point for Principle.

Use "Principle" as the Compound Array's pivot.

Link the individual arrays through identical Principle to form the Compound Array.

This is equivalent to deconstructing the Dao Court's standardized array framework, then reconstructing a new Compound Array structure using one's own comprehended "Principle" as the guiding thread.

The moment this array logic took shape in Mo Hua's mind, even he himself was "shocked."

Learn arrays, comprehend Principle.

Use the comprehended Principle to reverse-deconstruct arrays.

And rebuild a new array framework using one's own "Principle" as the backbone.

Win without form—unbound by fixed structures, able to deconstruct at will and reconstruct arrays according to one's own Principle.

His "array" is merely the vessel of his comprehended "Principle!"

Is this… what an array truly is?!

Mo Hua drew in a sharp breath; even he found his own idea terrifying.

It was something he himself had comprehended, yet it left him incredulous.

He even began to wonder—had he misunderstood something? Had he comprehended some heretical doctrine?

Is this what an array really means?

Is this what an array master truly is?

Didn't his master say, "Follow your own array stream"—was this what he meant?

Am I creating a new "array stream"?

Or am I forging a new "array system"?

Mo Hua was utterly confused.

He felt only a vast, impenetrable fog surrounding his path to the Dao.

Without his master's guidance, without Laoxiansheng's instruction, without anyone to consult—he had no idea where he had reached.

He didn't know which path he had ended up on, walking forward step by step.

But he had no choice. Since he had already come this far, he could only steel himself and keep going.

"Most people cannot become immortals, which proves that the path they walk is not, in the first place, the path to immortality."

"Most array masters cannot comprehend the great Dao of arrays, which proves that their path must have problems as well."

"The strong are destined to grope in the darkness. Their path is destined to be lonely, to lack recognition, to be without light…"

Mo Hua could only comfort himself like this.

Afterwards, he set aside all his misgivings, firmed up his conviction, and, following his own ideas, attempted to use the Law of "Life" as the pivot and the "Absolute Array" as the core to construct, on his own, a composite array that gathered the "Power of Vitality."

After trying, Mo Hua realized it was nowhere near as simple as he had imagined.

Many ideas were grand and stirring, but when actually carried out, they turned out to be painfully "skeletal" — dull and agonizing.

The Thick Earth Array is a first-grade Absolute Array.

The various other Five-Element Earth Arrays and the Eight Trigrams Gen Array are second-grade.

Between them — how to frame them, how to make them compatible, how to distinguish primary from secondary, how to sort out the flow of array power.

Though these arrays all contain a certain amount of the Law of "Vitality," they are utterly different from one another.

Some are the nurturing of grass and trees, some the breeding of water and earth, some the generation of wood and earth, some the decay of burial in earth.

These Laws vary in strength and scale, and the quantities of each also fluctuate; how to "fuse" them became a major problem in itself.

After fusing them, how to use the array as a medium to stimulate "vitality," so that the great earth teems with life without end, in order to suppress the "Famine Calamity" — that too was an extremely difficult matter.

This required consuming vast amounts of divine sense to perform Heavenly Mechanism derivations, constantly deducing, constantly trying to match, before any glimmer of a clue could appear.

Mo Hua groped along with great difficulty, calculated with extreme hardship; his divine sense was exhausted, and his Sea of Consciousness throbbed with pain.

But his heart, on the contrary, had grown calm.

Because it was "hard," it meant he might be doing it right.

Moreover, the more he tried, the more he researched, the more he failed, the more setbacks he suffered, the deeper his comprehension of the "Laws" became, and the clearer the various transformations of the "Laws" grew in his mind.

Using the "Array" as the bridge and medium of the "Law," to draw forth the "Law."

The "Law" as the master, the "Array" as the servant; the "Law" as the inner, the "Array" as the outer; the "Law" as the void, the "Array" as the substance.

With master and servant aiding each other, inner and outer employed together, void and substance merged as one, array and Law fused — only then could it be called a true "Array Dao."

Finally, after a full two months of sleepless, mind-racking, painstaking research—

Mo Hua had, at long last, initially attempted to construct a set — with the Thick Earth Absolute Array as the Law's core, ordinary Eight Trigrams Five-Element arrays as the Law's array-medium, and "Life" as the Law's array-pivot — the Thick Earth Composite Absolute Array.

This was also Mo Hua's first crude attempt at comprehending the "Law" through the "Array," and then using the "Law" to construct the "Array."