Chapter 701: Squeezing

Mo Hua glanced again at the river god temple before him, his thoughts stirring slightly.

Several hundred years ago, that sword cultivator with long eyebrows came alone with his sword, slaughtering many of the temple's evil spirits before reaching the river god temple.

He even pierced the river god's chest with a single sword thrust.

The river god grew fearful, and thus dared not dwell again in any temple outside.

Instead, within dreams, he constructed a "void" river god temple to dwell in, preventing other cultivators who could manifest spiritual intent as swords from coming to slay him again.

This "dream" temple was nearly severed from the world.

Except for the river god's true believers, no one knew the entrance—or how to enter the temple.

"What's going on?"

One after another, cruel scenes surfaced from karma, flashing like a revolving lamp through Mo Hua's mind…

This dream temple was far grander than the one he had seen outside.

He now understood how the evil god cultivated his power through preaching.

Many of these people likely didn't even know what had happened to them.

One type was flesh demons; the other, evil spirit demons.

"Little ghost…"

Mo Hua clenched his small fist.

Mo Hua sucked in a sharp breath.

The lingering spiritual consciousness after death was fermented through blood alchemy to give birth to evil spirits.

But the state of existence of these fish cultivators puzzled Mo Hua.

In moments, demonic qi filled the sky.

This little ghost was the most troublesome of all the Dao Ting Si hounds.

Master She finally came to his senses, nodding frantically, "Yes! Yes!"

This stench of filth, Mo Hua faintly recognized as familiar.

These demons were on high alert—they were… terrified of something!

Terror?

Yet Mo Hua was smaller than the one he had seen before.

Mo Hua sighed.

"I am the river god's high priest; in this fishing village, I am protected by the divine lord—what do you have to fight me with?"

This pain and resentment would take shape as flesh demons, then reform into "evil spirit" demons.

Of course, Mo Hua wasn't afraid.

Mo Hua looked around.

"A pack of swine! Cattle and humans! You've humiliated me time and again—now you've fallen into my trap."

Their faith became the evil god's nourishment.

"Then will you leave your life here?" Mo Hua threatened with a naive expression.

Once all faith was drained and spiritual consciousness withered, the villagers became walking corpses; then he raised his blade, using the black-robed men as his claws, and slaughtered the entire fishing village.

Then he led the way ahead, while Mo Hua followed, passing through the square where fish cultivators paid homage, continuing toward the rear hall of the river god temple; after a while, they reached the rear hall's gate.

Master She said this dream realm was "without day or night…"

"I shall kill you all one by one in this dream—when your spiritual consciousness is extinguished, your bodies will rot away eventually…"

Mo Hua's eyes narrowed slightly, and he nodded, "I understand. Lead the way."

After faith was squeezed dry, the slaughtered, horrifically dead bodies were used to forge demons.

Before the river god temple, on a circular ground paved with stone tiles.

If spiritual consciousness dies, the person dies—he didn't want Gu An and the others left here to encounter danger.

Mo Hua was curious, "Have you seen the river god?"

They were all just ordinary cultivators, not on the path of spiritual intent cultivation, and could not possibly possess autonomous "spiritual intent" manifestations.

As if he had aged backward several years.

Master She's neck nearly snapped under Mo Hua's grip; he hurriedly cried, "Xiaozu! Spare my life! I'll lead the way!"

Mo Hua felt a pang of emotion.

Xiao Shui Zi and Xiao Shun Zi were gone too.

The blade cut open his palm; blood dripped to the ground, forming streaks of crimson patterns.

He couldn't help but clutch his stomach and slowly knelt before Mo Hua.

But as Gu An's forehead rune flashed, something seemed to shield his spiritual consciousness—this fish of his simply wouldn't fit inside.

Though slightly dangerous, his full arsenal should be more than enough to protect himself—even if he couldn't defeat a second-rank evil god.

Master She's figure gradually materialized.

A crimson fishing village, fish cultivators kneeling in worship, the fallen river god.

But these demons were evil spirits!

Master She's eyes darted, and he spoke solemnly:

"These ignorant peasants are lowborn, living in suffering, so they pray to the Great River God, begging for his mercy."

Master She's face paled slightly, his form growing fainter, yet he couldn't help smirking coldly:

"Little ghost, didn't expect this, did you? I'm actually a array master!"

Master She's eyes widened in horror, his legs buckled, and he collapsed to the ground, struggling but unable to rise.

In this dream, all cultivators could manifest their spiritual consciousness.

This nightmare was personally constructed by the River God—or rather, the Great Waste Evil God—as a "collective dream."

The door lock trembled, like a beast opening its eyes, sucking the blood from the blade.

For these fishing cultivators, peace was fleeting; suffering was their entire lives.

Fuck, I misjudged it.

This was truly the complete extraction—from flesh to spirit, from life to death—squeezed clean, not a single drop left.

Behind the door was gloomy.

Master She's facial skin twitched slightly.

Mo Hua said nothing.

He hadn't even moved yet, but he stopped again, frowning, "No, this is too lenient for you…"

The vermilion door swung wide open, revealing at last a glimpse of the River God Temple's interior.

Master She silently thought to himself.

Mo Hua glanced at Master She.

Master She's hand trembled; he dared not move.

The fishing cultivators of the small fishing village never stopped having this dream.

A chill ran through Master She's heart.

On the other side, Mo Hua was already growing impatient, "Hurry up and lead the way!"

Mo Hua's gaze sharpened; he understood roughly what was going on.

"Did I… forget something small?"

He used the sacrificial knife to slit his wrist; blood flowed out and solidified in midair into a grotesque, bloody, monstrous fish.

Master She hesitated, "Ahead… you'd better not go."

The two black-robed men were gone.

"You're looking for me?"

It had to flee this place quickly, before the demons finished eating Mo Hua.

Master She's hands shook as he fumbled open the lock.

The demons, sensing the blood, grew restless.

Mo Hua sneered.

Above the ground, intricate, arcane array patterns surged like rising tides, sprouting like vines in spring, spreading wildly in all directions.

Whether noble families or evil gods, they all viewed them as "tools," squeezing every last thing from them.

Master She, anxious, hurriedly urged, "Little… Little Ancestor, I don't know what legacy you carry, but at such a young age you already possess such powerful spiritual awareness—yet no matter how strong your spiritual awareness, you're still just one person. How dare you defy the dignity of a god?"

Master She's expression shifted, then his gaze darkened as he sneered coldly:

"Fine, brat, since you won't talk, don't blame me for being uncivil."

Then he bowed his head submissively, walked to the front of the River God Temple, and reached out to push open its great door.

He saw hundreds of demonic creatures, terrifying in aura, piled layer upon layer, surrounding the brat completely.

Outside, this brat had the lowest cultivation, the weakest power, and looked like a haughty, brainless noble scion.

Their figures were ethereal, knees on the ground, kneeling toward the depths of the River God Temple, while inside their skulls swam grotesque blood-fish.

Mo Hua stepped into the River God Temple; before him stretched a long path of white stone, with carved beams and painted rafters adorned with all manner of fish-demon patterns.

He always felt something was off.

This brat's mind was too sharp.

Had it not been for that, had his spiritual sea been more heavily polluted, he might have ended up like these fishermen—dragged one night into the "nightmare," trapped forever, never waking, becoming the evil god's fully domesticated livestock.

Mo Hua casually gripped the back of his neck and ordered:

"Old bastard, lead me to your master."

Inside the River God Temple, it was much more spacious.

No, it wasn't fear.

These demons were nearly identical to the flesh-and-blood demons outside.

This blood array was extremely cruel, causing immense pain and resentment.

Not just himself—Gu An, Gu Quan, and other Gu family cultivators, including Yu Dahe—had all been pulled into the dream and remained unconscious.

Mo Hua spread his arms; his strange spiritual awareness followed his motion, leaving behind multiple overlapping afterimages.

Mo Hua watched Master She silently.

The moment the door opened, a cold wind blew in, carrying a stench of filth.

"You'll be trapped here, torn apart alive by these demons, swallowed bit by bit…"

Mo Hua glanced at Gu An and the others, then asked Master She, "How do I get these people out?"

They had no power to resist.

Human traffickers were just lackeys.

He finally understood where the deformed, bizarre demons in Yu'er's nightmare had come from.

Only at night did the dream manifest.

Ordinary cultivators had no spiritual awareness incarnations.

Alive, they were meat; dead, they became claws and fangs.

Then he saw Mo Hua, surrounded by hundreds of ferocious demons, his gaze turning icy, his strange spiritual awareness swirling, instantly forming three layers of ink-black shadows like three layers of Dao robes draped over his body.

Mo Hua, intrigued, spoke in a clear voice:

Master She said, "Not yet."

Master She grabbed the strange fish and tried to shove it into Gu An's forehead.

At the same time, Master She suddenly stabbed the short blade into his own chest, a great spray of fresh blood bursting forth, surging toward Mo Hua, and the instant it drew near Mo Hua, it condensed into a blood-colored formation that bound Mo Hua in place, leaving him unable to move.

Mo Hua could not help but think of the nightmare he had suffered not long ago, after drinking the fish soup and having his divine sense polluted.

Stepping into the plaza, Mo Hua's pupils jolted.

Before Master She could react at all, he felt a heart-piercing, twisting pain in his abdomen, and both his eyes were punched nearly out of their sockets.

Yet despite this, the many ferocious demons and monsters only dared bare their fangs and snarl from beyond three chi, drooling stinking saliva, growling low.

Master She felt some fear, but still gritted his teeth and kept letting his blood flow, condensing more patterns.

Their gazes were greedy, yet they did not dare step forward, as though wary of something…

A crisp voice rang out behind him.

The River God Temple's great doors were tightly shut, but there was no lock on them.

Apart from the Divine Lord, these demons and monsters obey no one's orders.

Master She hesitated a moment, and did not keep walking forward.

Master She's heart skipped a beat, and he hurriedly explained:

"Truly, I cannot. Entering dreams is the River God, my lord's own ability. I merely set up an altar and borrowed a bit of the art—where would I find the power to send these people out of the nightmare…"

"If we truly anger the River God, my lord, when the time comes not only will you die…"

"We must find a way to get into the River God Temple and have a look…"

These kneeling, worshipping fisher-cultivators looked more like…

Master She suppressed the hatred in his heart, sighed, and said slowly, "Enough, come with me."

But he had not expected that, once within the nightmare, his divine sense would be so terrifying.

"Why?"

In the blink of an eye, his divine sense surged at frantic speed.

"Who on earth… are you?"

Mo Hua's body was like Lei Ting, charging forward and throwing a punch.

That punch was extremely fast, its force extremely heavy.

Mo Hua smiled without answering.

I'm afraid I'll be caught up in it too, buried alongside you…

Master She knit his brows, unable to make sense of it no matter how he tried.

Walking straight ahead for another stretch, passing through the great doors of the front hall, they arrived at the River God Temple's plaza.

Master She's heart seethed with hatred.

The true power of the evil god lay in the two terrifying kinds of demons and monsters under his command.

Master She's face twisted, and a storm of shock surged in his heart.

These patterns were like keys, flowing along the ground, flowing into iron cage after iron cage, opening the locks on the cages.

He looked over once more the several people who had entered the dream, and only then did his expression shift slightly. "Where is that detestable, cursed little brat?"

The plaza was packed full of kneeling "people"!

And these people looked very familiar—on closer inspection, they were the fisher-cultivators of every household in the little fishing village.

In the River God Temple's rear hall, dense rows of no fewer than several hundred iron cages had been built, and locked within were demons and monsters pieced together from fish heads, human bodies, and demonic claws.

In that instant, Mo Hua's mind was suddenly enlightened, and many things became clear to him.

Once he had steadied himself, Master She looked back and saw Mo Hua with a face full of mockery.

Their suffering became the source of faith.

"Wait." Mo Hua suddenly said.

Only now did Mo Hua come back to himself; looking at the demons and monsters in the scene, his expression was coldly indifferent.

Only then did Mo Hua let go.

Though that hand was small, the force of the divine sense behind it was tremendous.

Master She widened his eyes, trying with all his might to break free, only to find that no matter what he did, he could not break free.

This Master She was probably no ordinary believer.

A trace of unease rose in Master She's heart.

"You want to fight me?"

So the evil god wove a dream.

In only a few breaths' time, a vast and Jiang Haoran mountain-fire slaying formation had already been forged.

One real, one illusory.

What in the hell is going on?

"Kill!"

After waking from the dream, he had come to his senses and crushed the fish demon within his sea of consciousness.

Master She stole glances at the side, reading the room, scheming who knows what in his heart.

Master She immediately said: "I… went and paid respects to the River God, my lord. I lit incense on the altar, knocked my head three times respectfully, and could withdraw from the nightmare."

"The altar…"

Evil spirits and demons can invade a cultivator's sea of consciousness, and within the nightmare woven by the evil god, devour divine sense—invariably to their advantage.

Master She wore a mocking sneer, but before his words were finished, his expression suddenly changed. "No—that's not right. Who on earth are you? Why is your divine sense so condensed? Why, even after entering the dream, can you still keep your wits about you?"

Living faith, used to feed the evil god.

Through the nightmare, the evil god could, without anyone the wiser, maintain his believers and feed upon their faith, growing himself stronger.

Master She winced and stammered.

He glanced around, his gaze cold, his expression triumphant, and let out a cruel laugh.

Master She frowned.

On the other side, Master She saw Mo Hua standing still, seemingly lost in thought, and suddenly smirked darkly, secretly clutching the sacrificial short knife in his palm.

Otherwise, these ravenous demons might just eat him too.

Master She's eyelid twitched. "I don't want to go over…"

Mo Hua stood before the River God Temple, about to push open the door, when suddenly his expression froze, his gaze sharpened, and his form gradually vanished.

The back hall's door was locked with a massive padlock.

The blood fish swam in their minds like in water; each time they sucked in, the fishermen's figures grew fainter.

Master She gritted his teeth, pulled out the sacrificial short knife from his body, stabbed it into his arm, waited until the blade was saturated with blood, then plunged it into the lock.

Upon hearing this, Master She jumped in fright and trembled, "Don't say such things…"

"It's dangerous…"

"Yes, I planted blood fish in you, turning you into sacrifices to offer faith to my divine lord; once I've drained your spiritual awareness, I'll refine you into half-human, half-demon monsters…"

The demonic god devoured the fishermen's faith.

After falling into a nightmare, does one's spiritual awareness manifest within the dream?

But Mo Hua wasn't certain, so he asked Master She, "What exactly is going on with these fishermen?"

Spiritual energy surged, the array exploded—like a mighty flame hurricane sweeping in, instantly incinerating every demon within the array.

Master She's silhouette fled in panic, but after only a short distance, he sensed an odd presence behind him, turned around—and his pupils dilated in shock.

Because their spiritual awareness had already been sacrificed by Master She to open the door.

"They've been starving for a long time…"

Flesh demons can kill a cultivator's body and corrupt their meridians, spiritual power, and dantian.

Master She didn't know what Mo Hua had figured out, but he dared not ask; resigned, he pushed open the River God Temple's door.

"What is this?!"

Master She bit his lip, stabbed the sacrificial short knife into his arm, releasing a burst of blood mist that shattered the hand gripping his neck, barely freeing himself.

Master She pulled out a blood-colored sacrificial short knife, ready to slit the throats of Gu An and the others.

In the dream, he and his junior sister endured countless joys and sorrows, each ending in tragedy.

Even Old Yu's head was kneeling inside.

Mo Hua found it boring and said coolly, "Don't worry about it. Keep leading the way."

Master She took a long breath, stole a glance at Mo Hua from the corner of his eye, and felt ice flood his heart.

But these villagers are different…

Seeing Mo Hua was unsatisfied, Master She continued, "

"To make them grateful for his grace, the River God constructed this dream, so all of them may kneel and pray here, day and night."

"Fight? You overestimate yourself…" Master She sneered, "I, a Foundation Establishment late-stage cultivator with eighteen-layered spiritual awareness, will crush you, this mere Foundation Establishment early-stage brat, in the nightmare woven by my divine lord—easily. You…"

Mo Hua asked, "Can these villagers leave the dream?"

Mo Hua took a few steps, noticed Master She standing still, turned back, and frowned, "Why aren't you moving?"

Otherwise, the temple's true entrance and the 'entering the dream' array could never be under his control…

This brat… what the hell is going on?!

My spiritual awareness is Foundation Establishment late-stage! Why can't I even withstand his punch? Is there any Dao law left?!

Mo Hua increased his grip. "Do you have the right to ask me questions?"

Upon entering and seeing inside, Mo Hua froze, his expression one of disbelief.

These impoverished fishermen…

After speaking, Master She's sinister gaze gleamed with excitement.

Mo Hua thought for a moment and asked, "You entered the dream too—how did you get out?"

Master She paused, then grinned wickedly.

He looked around, lowered his voice, and whispered carefully,

"These villagers are the River God's foundation. If you lay hands on them, you'll anger the River God—beware, you'll die without a grave."

"Simply killing you, letting you die unaware, won't wash away my shame or quench my hatred."

And the kneeling fishermen all wore expressions of agony, as if enduring endless cycles of nightmares within the nightmare, offering their suffering as faith to the demonic god.

These two children's spiritual souls were probably already inside this River God Temple—though it's unknown whether the River God has 'eaten' them…

"Why can't the demonic corruption take root? Who placed protective divine arts on them?"

He finally understood why the demonic god had crafted so many flesh demons outside.

The dead villagers' bodies, mixed with demonic beast flesh, were refined through a demonic blood array into grotesque, horrifying flesh demons.

"Irrelevant. Take me there."

A tiger fallen to the plains is bullied by dogs!

You damned brat—I'll see how long you can keep acting so arrogant!

Fine. Since you want to die, I won't mind showing you the way.

Meaning this dream isn't just an ordinary dream—the kind you have at night…

At this thought, Mo Hua suddenly felt a sharp pain in his spiritual awareness.

He whispered weakly, "I…"

Mo Hua's eyes were pitch-black and pure as he murmured softly:

Fierce demons poured out, their eyes blood-red, fixing on Mo Hua.

Master She's face turned slightly pale. "I've seen… but not truly seen. I dared not look—I only knelt on the ground, head bowed, not daring to raise it……"

"This is the blood sacrifice array I spent my entire life studying, granted by the Divine Lord. Within the nightmare woven by the Divine Lord, this blood sacrifice array uses blood as ink and dreams as medium—unbreakable by any means."

"Along this path, I endured humiliation and hardship, waiting for this moment."

Mo Hua's gaze softened with pity.

After a while, the lock absorbed all the blood, and with a creak, it opened on its own.

Mo Hua's chest tightened; an endless surge of killing intent surged through his heart.

After speaking, Master She turned and walked away.

The medium for entering the dream—or rather, the medium "corrupted" by the demonic god—is the well water where the blood fish were raised.

Master She's expression panicked; he turned to look back, only to feel a small but iron-hard hand clamp down on the back of his neck.

The River God's temper has never been that good.

When he looked up again, he found Mo Hua standing before him, as if he had appeared out of nowhere.

"Make another move, and I'll crush you."

(End of Chapter)