Chapter 266: The Cliff

After Elder Yu finished speaking, he slammed his fist on the table and roared, "Damn it!"

Over two hundred years, so many hunter-adepts have vanished from Great Heishan.

Some were surely killed by beast-beings, but how many were murdered by these evil men of Shenshan and dragged into Shenshan?

The key is that for all these years, no one noticed a thing.

Elder Yu suddenly realized: perhaps precisely because Great Heishan is so perilous, a cultivator's disappearance is only normal—so they used it as cover to kill without a trace.

A cold dread deepened in Elder Yu's heart.

These people have committed countless evils, planned for generations, and their scheming is truly profound!

Elder Yu took a deep breath and said to Mo Hua:

"I'll issue a warning—whether true or false, everyone must be on guard. Your body-movement is excellent, but still, be careful."

Mo Hua nodded and said, "Don't worry, Elder Yu. I'll be careful."

Elder Yu nodded with satisfaction.

If not for Mo Hua's keen attention and his discovery of this hidden truth, they might not have realized for another ten or even a hundred years that such danger lurked on Great Heishan.

A tiger sleeps beside the very bed!

Elder Yu sighed, his brows tightly furrowed.

Afterward, Elder Yu spread the news of Shenshan; the hunter-adepts who heard it were stunned.

Among the missing hunter-adepts over these years were their fathers, elders, brothers, or close friends.

Hunting beasts is inherently perilous; life and death are uncertain, and disappearances cannot be helped.

They could only bury their grief deep inside and keep struggling to survive.

But now they learned that within Shenshan lay this secret—that these hunter-adepts were not merely lost, but brutally murdered, their corpses never recovered.

Their hearts trembled with shock and rage.

In the days that followed, every hunter-adept entering the mountains became utterly vigilant, searching for even the faintest trace of the criminal cultivators and watching for any locations marked on the map.

Yet still, not a single clue emerged.

These evil men had hidden for two or three hundred years; finding them in a short time was truly difficult.

The hunter-adepts were filled with righteous fury, yet helpless.

Within Great Heishan's inner mountains.

Mo Hua sat cross-legged atop a large rock.

Before him lay Shenshan, shrouded in miasmic fog that blanketed the peaks.

His spiritual sense extended outward, sensing only blurred, chaotic, and muddled spiritual residue.

Like threads of colored spiritual energy, tangled and woven into thick clumps and sheets, obscuring everything within the inner mountains.

"Great Heishan's mist can veil even the deepest abyss…"

Mo Hua murmured this line, then opened the map and began cross-referencing point by point along the boundary between inner mountains and Shenshan.

Shenshan's fog is too thick; entering head-on without knowing direction means certain death.

The criminal cultivators can enter Shenshan—they must have a special path.

If Mo Hua's guess was right, this map held by the bald monk was, in fact, a guide to entering Shenshan.

Criminal cultivators, guilty of heinous crimes, condemned by Dao Ting Si, with no way out, could use this guide to find the entrance to Shenshan.

Otherwise, with such thick miasma in Shenshan, not even local hunter-adepts could find their way—let alone these outsiders.

Since it is a guide, it must point from the inner mountains toward Shenshan.

That means the map's route consists partly of the inner mountains and partly of Shenshan.

This is why Mo Hua felt both familiar and strange.

The inner mountains were familiar; Shenshan was alien.

If he could locate the positions marked on the map, he could pass through the mist and enter Shenshan, finding where these evil men hid.

But relying solely on this incomplete map to pinpoint exact locations was no easy task.

The map's handwriting was sloppy, clearly a hurried copy, and incomplete—it lacked the full mountain contours.

No one knew who drew it, where it was copied from, or how it ended up in the bald monk's hands.

The bald monk killed others to obtain this map, hoping to leave himself an escape route.

Being a criminal cultivator means killing others—and being killed in turn.

With this map, if he ever had no other choice, he could flee into Shenshan and find refuge.

But the map was incomplete; he could never find Shenshan's entrance.

Moreover, the body-movement technique he relied on could not outpace Mo Hua, so he was captured and thrown into Dao Prison before ever reaching Shenshan.

His earlier refusal to speak the truth likely stemmed from lingering hope.

His hidden loot in the valley had been seized; all his life's savings were gone. If he ever escaped, entering Shenshan would be his only option.

It was the only option for all these outlaws.

Fortunately, now he had a direction—and Mo Hua could begin his search.

After days of fruitless searching, Mo Hua finally found a place matching the map by six or seven tenths.

This spot lay at the boundary between inner mountains and Shenshan.

The mountain ridges on both sides subtly faced each other, rising and falling in mutual support.

Though located in the inner mountains, the fog here was thicker, carrying faint traces of Shenshan's aura drifting through the mist.

Mo Hua's spirits lifted; he studied the map as he walked.

As he walked, Mo Hua could go no further.

Before Mo Hua stretched a cliff.

The cliff was vast, its edges unknown.

Below the cliff lay an abyss of ten thousand zhang, shrouded in mist, instilling dread in all who gazed upon it.

Mo Hua felt a touch of disappointment.

After searching for many days, this was the place most similar to the map—but he had not expected to find only a dead end before him.

To give up now, Mo Hua could not bear it.

He scanned the surroundings again, pondering inwardly:

"Great Heishan's thick fog can conceal abysses and marshes… this abyss could mean the evil of cultivators of sin runs as deep as a marsh—or it could mean a ten-thousand-zhang abyss…"

If that is so, could they be hiding within the ten-thousand-zhang abyss beneath the cliff?

Mo Hua's eyes flickered with faint light.

It was not entirely impossible.

"But what should I do? Jump straight down?"

Mo Hua leaned over the cliff's edge and glanced downward—his hair instantly stood on end.

The cliff was too deep; if he fell, he would surely be crushed to dust.

"Perhaps the cliff below isn't so deep—just hidden by the thick fog?"

Mo Hua speculated again.

He found a large stone nearby, exerted great effort, and dragged it to the cliff's edge, then hurled it over.

The falling stone vanished into the mist below; a "creeeak" echoed, as if striking rock, then rolled down the cliff face—and silence followed, with no further sound.

"Truly unfathomably deep…"

Mo Hua released his spiritual sense and surveyed the surroundings.

In his pale, hazy spiritual vision, all manner of energies filled heaven and earth.

There were faint, nearly indistinguishable spiritual energies; turbid yellow miasma; pale white mist; and vague, hazy shadows of rocks, trees, and woods.

Yet still, there was no path.

Mo Hua sighed. Perhaps this was not the place.

After searching for several more days with no results, the matter was temporarily set aside.

Any hunter of demons entering the mountains would keep watch—many hands make light work; they might have some clue.

Mo Hua had another important task to complete.

He had already completed nine and a half of the Reverse Spirit Array's markings—he could now seek out Mr. Zhuang to learn the Concealment Array.

Once he learned the Concealment Array, even with flawed spiritual roots, he could cast the Concealment Technique.