Chapter 1230

The god of the Shiguo Sect was a newly born demon god, a demon god forced into corruption, so dealing with it was not particularly difficult. In his mind sea, Mo Hua summoned the Dao Stele and erased the will of the Shiguo Demon God with crimson Annihilation Thunder.

Although his spiritual sense was now very strong and his Dao transformation profound, the Sword of Divine Severance he wielded was extremely sharp—capable of shattering the spiritual body of an ordinary demon god at full power—but still not enough to completely obliterate a demon god's will.

Using thunder to purge the poison was safer, more reassuring, and left no lingering concerns.

He need not fear that someone had planted some evil "seed" within his spiritual awareness.

After purging the poison, the angry and resentful will of the Shiguo Demon God vanished utterly.

What remained was pure spiritual essence, along with some pale silver divine marrow.

Mo Hua felt a hint of regret.

Silver was far inferior to gold.

This was not high-grade divine marrow—it fell far short of the Lord of Dahang's, even compared to some of his powerful divine relics.

But he supposed it was not surprising.

Before his corruption, the Shiguo Demon God was likely just an ordinary third-grade barbarian god, perhaps slightly stronger than others; to have actually condensed a divine core and possessed pale silver divine marrow was already an unexpected boon.

Divine marrow, regardless of grade, was always a good thing.

Mo Hua swallowed all the pale silver divine marrow into his abdomen, licked up every last trace, leaving not a single drop wasted.

After licking clean, Mo Hua smacked his lips, savoring the taste.

After all, it had been a long time since he last ate divine marrow.

Of course, pale silver divine marrow offered little real flavor to Mo Hua now—only a symbolic relief from craving.

After consuming the divine marrow, Mo Hua began his "main course."

After all, divine marrow, though good, was a "luxury."

Mo Hua was on the verge of forming his Jin Dan, his stomach was hungry, and what he truly lacked was "large quantities of clean spiritual energy."

In his spiritual state, Mo Hua opened his small mouth wide.

The Shiguo Demon God's spiritual energy poured into him like a river reversed, sweeping away all in its path, all swallowed into his mouth.

Mo Hua immediately sat still to refine it.

As the clean spiritual energy was slowly absorbed by Mo Hua, his spiritual sense began to strengthen incrementally.

His spiritual sense realm advanced from twenty-three marks at Jin Dan early stage toward the twenty-four marks of Jin Dan middle stage.

For Mo Hua now, growth in spiritual sense was extremely difficult.

Even daily practice of the Ultimate Array yielded negligible refinement.

But devouring the demon god's spiritual awareness, in mere moments, brought Mo Hua clear, noticeable growth.

This made Mo Hua sigh—no wonder demonic cultivators and devilish cultivators drank blood, absorbed spiritual energy, devoured flesh, and practiced sexual cultivation.

Anything cultivated step by step on one's own was painfully slow, but stealing from others was swift.

He himself, though not stealing from "people," was stealing from demon tickets and demon gods—yet fundamentally, he was still "borrowing external things," seizing external spiritual awareness.

Before, when Mo Hua relied on drawing arrays himself to refine his mind sea and strengthen his spiritual awareness, he felt grounded and secure.

But if he continued relying on devouring demon gods and demonic entities to boost his spiritual energy, he wondered whether his foundation might become unstable.

Would it leave behind some other unpredictable hidden danger? Mo Hua's gaze grew solemn, but under current circumstances, he had no choice.

If he wanted to grow stronger, if he wanted to enhance his spiritual sense, he had to eat—even if he didn't want to.

As the spiritual energy was refined, Mo Hua's spiritual awareness strengthened, and his spiritual sense realm climbed higher.

Ultimately, when his twenty-three marks neared late stage, the Shiguo Demon God's spiritual energy was fully digested.

Mo Hua's spiritual sense growth halted at the "middle-late" level of twenty-three marks.

Normally, spiritual sense realms had no such subdivisions.

Twenty-three marks were twenty-three marks; twenty-four marks were twenty-four marks—no early, middle, or late stages.

But Mo Hua was different—his spiritual sense realm far surpassed that of ordinary cultivators, and the difficulty of advancement was unimaginable.

Especially later on, each additional mark brought immense hardship, demanding tremendous effort.

Thus, he had no choice but to subdivide his own spiritual mark progression into finer levels—to measure his spiritual energy and anchor his spiritual sense strength.

Such as early, middle, late, and peak stages.

Early stage meant just entering that mark's spiritual sense realm.

Peak meant barely missing the threshold to break into the next mark.

Mo Hua's current self-assessment placed his spiritual sense realm roughly between middle and late stage of twenty-three marks.

Above middle, below late.

This progress exceeded his expectations.

A single third-grade demon god had propelled his spiritual sense directly from early twenty-three marks to middle-late.

This meant that, if fortune favored him, eating just a few more could allow him to break into the twenty-four marks realm in a short time.

Then he could truly begin shaping Mu Bai Jin Yu bones, refining his Life-Devouring Array, breaking through to Foundation Establishment, and becoming a Jin Dan cultivator.

After walking this path through so many dangers, this once distant goal now felt, for the first time, within Mo Hua's grasp.

But then Mo Hua sighed again.

A single demon god's spiritual energy had only lifted him from early twenty-three marks to middle-late—even failing to raise him a full mark.

The gap in his spiritual sense cultivation was truly absurd.

Granted, this demon god wasn't particularly strong, and after refinement and detoxification, the remaining spiritual energy was not abundant.

Yet Mo Hua still found it unbelievable.

He recalled his old question:

Could the Tian Yan Jue really be a cultivation method meant for "humans"?

He was still only at Foundation Establishment, and already had to rely on "devouring demon gods" to advance—what then, in the future?

What if one day I reach Jin Dan, or even Liu Yuhua—what would I eat then?

What if one day I reach Dong Xu?

Would I eat the sky itself?

Mo Hua sighed, feeling the Dao path was arduous and the future bleak; he shook his head and gave up thinking further, then directly withdrew from his consciousness sea.

After withdrawing from his consciousness sea, Mo Hua sat in meditation again, adapting to the coordination between his enhanced spiritual sense and his consciousness sea, as well as his control over his physical body.

Only then did Mo Hua slowly open his eyes.

He thought for a moment, then took out the divine array patterns he had copied from the spirit statue of the Shisgu Tribe, studying them closely.

These divine array patterns were obscure and far beyond the scope of array techniques any normal array master could master.

But Mo Hua recognized them as the legacy of the "Divine Lock Array."

Because he had once learned it himself.

In the Qianxue State border, he had personally learned the Divine Lock Array from the methods set by Mr. Tu.

Thus, now looking at these Divine Lock Array patterns, Mo Hua felt an inexplicable familiarity—too bad Mr. Tu, who had schemed so meticulously, was already dead; things remained, but people had changed.

Mo Hua felt a sudden pang of emotion.

If not Mr. Tu—who, exactly, possessed divine array techniques and used them to imprison the barbarian god of the Shisgu Tribe?

"Is this person connected to my Senior Brother?"

"But—my Senior Brother follows the Devious Dao of Bai Jisheng; could he truly have any 'living person' under him?"

"And which 'living person,' after meeting my Senior Brother, could still retain his sanity and wander about drawing arrays?"

Mo Hua found this hard to fathom.

And within this, there was an even more critical question:

"What exactly is my Senior Brother trying to do?"

In the past, Mo Hua dared not ponder this question deeply, lest he overstep and attract his Senior Brother's attention.

But now, his Senior Brother's footsteps were drawing ever closer, invisibly forcing Mo Hua to confront this question.

What does my Senior Brother want to do?

Mo Hua's first guess was:

Raising a Dao Nie.

This was precisely what his Senior Brother had been doing when Mo Hua first encountered him in Tongxian City:

Summoning calamity, raising Dao Nie.

Why does my Senior Brother raise Dao Nie?

Because he is evil?

A twisted sense of amusement?

Does he enjoy manipulating minds, watching people fall?

Is he cruel and terrifying, fond of disaster, desiring annihilation?

On the surface, all these seem correct.

But Mo Hua felt they were merely surface appearances; at his Senior Brother's level, he surely had no such mundane notions of good and evil.

What my Senior Brother seeks is most likely the "Dao"—otherwise, he would not have been titled "Dao Ren."

Dao Ren is one who seeks the Dao.

Is my Senior Brother raising Dao Nie to seek his own "Dao"?

Is it the same here in Da Huang?

Does my Senior Brother intend to raise Dao Nie in Da Huang?

Mo Hua frowned.

But the problem is, Da Huang has vast territory, and its state borders are divided differently—there are no large, continuous "state borders"; instead, there are countless small and large "mountain borders."

There are too many mountain borders—if he were to raise Dao Nie here, how many would he need to raise?

And could Dao Nie even be raised this way?

A single Dao Nie is already a great calamity of heaven and earth, let alone multiple Dao Nies.

Even if all the barbarians here perished, they could not produce that many—

Or does my Senior Brother have another method, aiming to raise a unique Dao Nie that can span mountain borders and spread calamity widely?

What would this Dao Nie be?

And after it is raised—what then?

Does my Senior Brother intend to use the Dao Nies of Da Huang to validate his "Dao"? As this thought crossed Mo Hua's mind, a chilling suspicion slowly surfaced:

My Senior Brother—intends to raise Nies in Da Huang to validate his Dao and break into Dong Xu?

"Dong Xu—"

Mo Hua's expression became solemn.

My Senior Brother, with his Liu Yuhua realm, was titled "Dao Ren" of the Mo Sect—a thing unheard of in the history of demonic Dao.

Now, after cultivating for many years at Liu Yuhua, is my Senior Brother finally preparing to break into Dong Xu?

If so, is the entire Da Huang merely a scheme my Senior Brother has laid out to enter Dong Xu?

Rebellion, war, famine—then using them as catalysts to raise Dao Nies, to peer through the boundary between illusion and reality, and break into Dong Xu, becoming a true Dao Ren, and a more terrifying, fully realized "Devious Daoist"?

A complete "Devious Daoist"—

Mo Hua felt icy cold all over.

His first instinctive reaction was:

Flee.

The current Great Wilderness is essentially the "dojo" where Martial Uncle nurtures his Dao and proves his Dao.

No one knows how long Martial Uncle has been laying out his plans. Though nothing shows on the surface, here, Martial Uncle actually holds the "home ground."

Under such circumstances, no one can play against Martial Uncle.

He himself is no exception.

He himself still hasn't formed his Jin Dan, yet the terrifying Martial Uncle is already about to break through into Dongxu, becoming even more terrifying—

Facing Martial Uncle, he has absolutely no power to fight back.

To put it bluntly, he doesn't even know what Martial Uncle's methods actually are, what kind of scheme he's laid out, how he laid it out, what goal he's trying to achieve, or how he'll achieve it — he is completely in the dark about all these specific machinations.

Let alone "clashing" head-on with Martial Uncle.

This is a death trap.

"Escape — but can one really escape?"

Under the current circumstances, where could one flee to?

Besides, once he flees, what about Seeing Dan Zhu and the others?

Elder Zhamu, Little Zhatu, and the forces he himself had cultivated, the children he had educated — in the coming great tribulation, in Martial Uncle's palm, how many of them could survive?

Was he supposed to watch them go to their deaths with his own eyes?

Mo Hua fell silent for a moment, then sighed deeply.

"Escape — that's not a solution either."

Facing Martial Uncle, neither fleeing nor staying put was an option.

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

Just as the ultimate outcome of a person's life is always "death."

The final state of all things, perhaps, is also "extinction."

No one can do anything about it, and nothing can be salvaged.

Mo Hua lay on the ground, his eyes staring blankly at the top of the tent, racking his brains over this, unable to sleep the entire night, and still not coming up with the slightest solution.

An opponent at the level of a "Daoist" was, for a mere little Foundation Establishment cultivator like him, undoubtedly "hell"-grade difficulty.

And a "hell"-grade Daoist of an entirely different tier.

Until the next day, when the sun rose as usual.

Only then did Mo Hua come back to his senses.

After a night of cultivation, although his divine sense had grown stronger, he wasn't particularly happy.

Because in front of Martial Uncle, this bit of "intensity" couldn't even count as a single strand of hair.

A shadow hung over his heart, and even the bright, dazzling sunlight looked grayish-white to him.

But there was no choice; life still had to go on.

Even if tomorrow were the end of the Great Wilderness, today one still had to try to live.

This gave Mo Hua an indescribable sense of being torn apart.

And living today was, in fact, not easy either.

Because the famine had spread, the Great Wilderness had suffered too many casualties, devastation was everywhere, and their six-thousand-strong barbarian troops would soon run out of supplies.

If the supply issue wasn't addressed, they might starve to death before Martial Uncle even made a move.

Lord Lugu, Seeing Dan Zhu, and the Jin Dan barbarian cultivators from the Bone-Shattering Tribe and the Danque Tribe held a meeting together to discuss the matter.

But the perilous external situation and the ever-changing circumstances were simply beyond human control.

And there was almost no good solution.

Even Mo Hua could only try his luck.

He used his divination arts, calculated for a long time, and finally found a path that seemed to have "human presence."

Ahead on the path, 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 wasteland.

The surroundings grew even more desolate, and the climate became hotter. Looking around, there was nothing but red and yellow sandstorms, not a trace of human habitation — it looked like a dead end.

For a moment, the people's hearts wavered. If Mo Hua hadn't had the prestige of "Lord Wuzhu" and used "divine oracle" to guide them, the barbarian troops, suffering from both hunger and thirst, would surely have mutinied.

After another two days of walking, amid the worsening hunger and thirst, the group finally spotted a tiny bit of green in the crimson wasteland.

It appeared to be an oasis in the wasteland.

Outside, a famine was raging, but within this oasis, quite a few barbarian cultivators had gathered, exuding a vitality that felt somewhat out of place.

With the situation ahead unclear, Mo Hua thought for a moment, then had the main barbarian army camp at a distance to rest temporarily.

He himself, along with Lord Lugu, Seeing Dan Zhu, and Chifeng, went ahead to the oasis to check things out.

Lord Lugu was tall and had the highest cultivation, so Mo Hua required him to wear a coarse set of barbarian clothes and cover his face with a bamboo hat, so as not to startle others and cause a commotion.

Seeing Dan Zhu and Chifeng also altered their appearances.

Mo Hua, with the lowest cultivation at only Foundation Establishment, disguised himself as Seeing Dan Zhu's attendant. Under the cover of night, the four of them slowly walked toward the only oasis in the wasteland.