Chapter 272

Mo Hua stared in shock.

"Great Heishan Shanzhai!"

Deep within Great Heishan was a Shanzhai!

The Shanzhai's gate was ancient, likely existing for over a hundred years.

Bloodstains covered the gate—evidence of executions and severed heads tossed against it, blood splattered and dried over decades, renewing and decaying, emitting a nauseating stench of blood.

It looked both sinister and eerie.

"At midnight, third watch, present your name to seek passage."

Mo Hua silently recited it in his mind.

Present your name to seek passage—so that's what it meant: kill and sever heads, using them as tokens of allegiance, and the Great Heishan Shanzhai's gate would appear.

When the gate appeared, it meant the criminal cultivators inside had accepted you.

Indeed, after a moment, accompanied by a creaking, grating "squeak," the Great Heishan Shanzhai's gate slowly opened.

The fat cultivator's face twisted into a mad grin; he straightened his dao robe, then stepped forward one deliberate step at a time into the Shanzhai.

After he entered, the "squeak" sounded again—the gate slowly closed, then gradually vanished.

The fat cultivator disappeared completely.

Mo Hua's eyelid twitched slightly.

So this was how one entered Great Heishan Shanzhai…

Hidden so deeply, no wonder no one had found it all these years.

And from this, it was clear that only those drenched in blood could enter Great Heishan Shanzhai.

At least this fat man was no good.

He had six lives on his hands; he struck suddenly against a man he called brother, swift and brutal—a single sword thrust through the chest, impossible to anticipate.

He befriended the thin cultivator merely to carry a living "token of allegiance," planning to cut off his head later to present it and gain entry to Great Heishan Shanzhai.

He likely didn't care at all about the thin cultivator's severed head.

The Dao is perilous; human hearts are unfathomable.

Mo Hua witnessed this again, and vowed deep caution within himself.

Be wary of cultivators you don't know—especially those you barely know; you can't know a man's heart by his face.

At the same time, Mo Hua learned something.

When you strike, you must be like this fat cultivator—utterly unexpected.

"What now?" Mo Hua frowned in thought.

Should he sneak in and take a look?

This Great Heishan Shanzhai was strange; not seeing what lay inside left him uneasy.

At least he should get a rough sense of how many criminal cultivators were inside.

Just a quiet peek—without alerting anyone…

Mo Hua thought silently to himself.

But how could he sneak in?

Mo Hua was troubled.

The Shanzhai's gate likely bore a concealment array, denser than the path along the cliff.

Without careful mental inspection, you'd never notice it.

Now the gate was closed—and concealed, vanished.

Unless someone else "presented their name to seek passage," it wouldn't open again. He couldn't just throw a severed head inside to knock…

And even if Mo Hua could conceal himself, entering from the front might still draw attention.

If discovered, it would be dangerous.

"What should I do?" Mo Hua pondered.

Though the Shanzhai's gate had vanished, its outline still floated in Mo Hua's mind.

Mo Hua probed the Great Heishan Shanzhai with his mental sense, his thoughts racing—gradually, a plan formed.

All Daoist arts rely on arrays; Daoist architecture especially so.

Though the Great Heishan Shanzhai was sinister and eerie, it wasn't conjured from nothing—it was built by cultivators, its concealment, defense, and warning functions all achieved through arrays.

Moreover, the Shanzhai likely housed a skilled array master; if so, the entire Shanzhai might be constructed entirely through array techniques.

Since it relied on arrays, there was a way to solve this.

Mo Hua's greatest strength was arrays.

He remained concealed, circling the Shanzhai's gate, forming a rough hypothesis in his mind.

The Great Heishan Shanzhai was built against the mountain, flanked on both sides by terrain, with the gate constructed at the gap—there must be high walls on both flanks.

Mo Hua climbed up the two mountain peaks on either side—and indeed, he saw towering stone walls.

The gate was concealed by the concealment array, but the two walls were not.

Probably because concealment arrays were hard to learn and draw, so they could only mask the gate's face—not cover every inch of the flanking walls.

Mo Hua exhaled in relief; the array master's skill, though high, wasn't beyond reach.

Probably just slightly better than his own…

Besides the concealment array on the gate, the arrays on both walls were primarily for defense and warning.

The defensive arrays included earth-stone arrays, earth-wood arrays, and some earth-stabilizing arrays—mostly compound arrays mixed with a few single arrays.

There were other arrays on the walls Mo Hua had never seen, but their patterns resembled the South-Pointer Mother-Child Array, and they too were metal-element compound arrays.

So Mo Hua deduced these must be warning arrays.

Conceal the front to avoid detection, fortify both sides with defense and early-warning measures to guard against surprise attacks by cultivators.

Mo Hua nodded; this formation's design was quite reasonable.

It should be sufficient to deter ordinary cultivators—even a typical formation master would likely spot no flaws.

Yet Mo Hua himself had designed and personally overseen all the formation arrays in the largest forging and pill shops of Xiancheng, and he understood the formation techniques used in Grade-One buildings inside and out.

The formations on Great Heishan, though cleverly designed, were limited by narrow vision and petty ambition; the mountain fortress was still built as this sneaky, shabby outpost, and many formation structures were plainly crude.

In Mo Hua's eyes, the flaws were numerous.

Moreover, the formations on the mountain fortress were likely drawn by a single formation master.

He had drawn them over a long period, layering new arrays atop old ones, some even conflicting, merely patched together with great difficulty.

Ordinary formation masters draw arrays slowly.

Formation masters like Mo Hua—who draw arrays daily, know them intimately, and due to studying the Great Expansion Sword Art, possess sharp spiritual sense and draw with extreme speed—are exceedingly rare.

If one man drew them, this level of execution was normal.

But this meant the entire formation system had even more flaws.

Mo Hua was reassured; this formation master still fell short of him in some areas.

Mo Hua circled twice more, grasped the general layout of the formations, then found a weak spot, sat cross-legged, and pulled out brush and ink from his storage bag.

The best way to counter a formation is to unravel it.

Breaking it would create too much disturbance, and with his current cultivation level, Mo Hua could not break this mountain fortress's formations.

Moreover, unraveling a formation best reveals a master's skill.

This was what Mr. Zhuang had told him; Mo Hua remembered clearly.

Then Mo Hua began unraveling the formations.

He first unraveled the early-warning array to prevent detection by the cultivators inside, then used opposing formation patterns to dismantle the adjacent Earth-Stone and Earth-Wood arrays.

This small section of formation was independent, not integrated into the surrounding complex arrays, so its deactivation would go unnoticed.

After unraveling, the formation patterns flickered faintly, then turned gray, losing all efficacy.

The corner of the wall, serving as the formation's medium, also withered and crumbled as the patterns failed, becoming soft and loose.

Mo Hua sensed the surroundings with his spiritual sense, confirmed no one was near, then quietly pulled out a small dagger and began slowly digging at the corner.

Master Chen had forged the Thousand-Tael Club for Mo Hua, then, unsatisfied, had specially crafted for him a small dagger meant for peeling fruit.

This small dagger was now perfect for digging at the wall.

Mo Hua dug for a while, rested a while, extended his spiritual sense to confirm no one was watching, then resumed digging.

After digging for an unknown length of time, he finally pierced through the corner, carving out a small hole.

Mo Hua was covered in dust and dirt, his two eyes the only things gleaming brightly.

"Success!"

He could slip inside and take a look!

Mo Hua was young and small in stature; the hole was just right, and unlikely to be noticed.

Mo Hua rested again, waited for his strength and spiritual energy to recover, then activated his concealment technique and the concealment array, confirmed all preparations were complete, and carefully crawled through the hole.

Beneath the pitch-black night, in the eerie Shenshan.

The tiny Mo Hua slipped into Great Heishan without a soul knowing.

Great Heishan, built two or three hundred years ago, now welcomed its first young cultivator who did not enter through the main gate.