Immortality Through Array Formations (The Quest for Immortality)

Chapter 674: Enlightenment of the Dao

Lord Huangshan faintly sensed that there was a faint glimmer of the "Great Dao" on this little brat Mo Hua—so much so that, for a fleeting moment, Mo Hua didn't even seem human. Instead, he felt like a young divine being, born embodying the Dao itself.

But in the blink of an eye, that impression vanished.

Mo Hua had just finished gnawing on a lamb leg and casually wiped his greasy hands on his robe.

He looked just like an ordinary, cheerful little cultivator.

Half divine nature above the Dao, half human nature beneath the Dao—intertwined and contradictory.

Lord Huangshan's expression grew dazed.

Mo Hua, however, had no clue what Lord Huangshan was thinking.

As he wiped his hands, he continued pondering the insights Huangshan had shared about divinity. He found them deeply enlightening, expanding both his understanding and vision of cultivation.

However, such knowledge was abstruse and complicated.

Many of the finer details were rather vague.

Mo Hua, listening like a squirrel gobbling nuts, couldn't digest it all immediately.

Still, he silently memorized the key information, mulled it over a bit, and asked a few scattered questions.

Though Lord Huangshan seemed somewhat distracted, he patiently answered each one.

And so, the day gradually slipped into evening. As the sky flared with brilliant hues, Mo Hua prepared to take his leave.

Before leaving, he handed over some fruits, spiritual meat, and wine to Lord Huangshan with a thoughtful tone:

"The mountains are desolate and lonely. There's no one around. Keep these offerings and enjoy them slowly. I'll come visit again when I have time…"

Lord Huangshan's expression grew complicated.

Mo Hua once again wiped his hands on his robe, then carefully packed the gnawed-clean bones into his storage ring. Rising, he hopped down from the offering table and started walking toward the exit—only to be stopped.

"Young friend…" came Lord Huangshan's gentle voice.

Mo Hua turned, looking at him in confusion.

Lord Huangshan, cloaked in white mist and drifting smoke, was still residing within the mountain god's clay statue. His features were hazy and indistinct.

"The lands of Ganshu are not a place to linger for long."

"When your cultivation in the sect reaches the late Foundation Establishment stage, leave. Even if it's delayed a few years, do not stay more than ten…"

"Within ten years… it should still be in time…"

His voice trailed off, becoming barely audible.

Mo Hua frowned. He wanted to ask why, but seeing Lord Huangshan's distant gaze and ever-shifting expression, he held back and simply nodded:

"Thank you, Lord Huangshan. I'll remember that!"

Lord Huangshan let out a subtle breath of relief, cupped his hands, and said:

"I won't see you off too far then. Safe travels, young friend."

Mo Hua stood at the crumbling temple entrance, returned the salute with a respectful bow, and turned to leave.

Within the old clay statue, Lord Huangshan watched the small figure disappear into the distance, his gaze calm and distant, as though bidding farewell to an old friend.

Old friend?

Lord Huangshan felt a pang of confusion.

How many years had it been since he'd experienced something like this?

Time slipped like a white steed through a crevice; the ages passed, lives came and went, divinity declined—what "old friends" did he still have?

With the fate of the world changing unpredictably, merely surviving would be fortunate enough…

He looked up at the sky. His long, narrow eyes grew heavier and darker.

"The heavens… grow darker still…"

"Pity… mortals can't see it…"

"This withered mountain shrine, these broken walls… I wonder how much longer they can even shelter from the wind and rain…"

A deep sigh echoed through the temple in the mountains.

After leaving Withered Mountain, Mo Hua stopped by the Gu Clan in Qingzhou City. He asked Aunt Wan some questions about refining array mediums, exchanged a few words with Uncle Gu, casually inquired about the progress of the Fire Buddha merit reward, mooched a meal—and finally returned to the sect.

Back at the sect, Mo Hua slumped over his desk, took out paper and brush, and began organizing the divine knowledge he had learned from Lord Huangshan.

Array formations are power. Spells are power. Divine sense is power.

Cultivation knowledge—is also a form of power.

With abundant knowledge, you can use cognitive advantage to "trap" others.

With lacking knowledge, you fall into a cognitive pit and end up the one being "trapped."

So, newly learned cultivation knowledge must be memorized well, pondered deeply, and summarized properly—only then can it be integrated and transformed into personal understanding on the path of cultivation.

The topic of deities is vast and chaotic.

Mo Hua began writing, sorting his thoughts, and gradually expanding his understanding of the Dao.

First up: the existence of divine consciousness.

Based on his conversation with the non-human mountain god—his "dear friend" Lord Huangshan—Mo Hua had reached a tentative conclusion:

"Divine consciousness" is a broad umbrella term.

All invisible will-like entities in the world can be referred to as "divine consciousness."

Human divine sense, demon thoughts, the will of deities, ghostly thoughts of spirits, and even malicious thoughts of malevolent entities—all these are essentially types of divine consciousness.

In Mo Hua's current understanding of cultivation, "divinity" and "substance" are inseparable.

A god cannot exist apart from a host object.

Even innate deities, born from Dao principles and possessing vast and pure divine power, require a "divine idol" or other vessel to inhabit.

When the flesh of a parasite-hosting evil god is destroyed, it must find a new vessel.

Mo Hua recalled—

That black-robed leader, whom he had obliterated with Meteorite Technique. After the man's body was annihilated, the evil god's eye on his forehead tried to detach and drill into Mo Hua's own forehead.

If even evil gods behave like this, then proper gods are surely the same.

God and object, one and the same—symbiotic and inseparable.

Thus, Mo Hua deduced: if a god's true idol is destroyed, it could lead to complete annihilation of its Dao and destruction of its divine source, or at the very least severe damage and loss of vitality.

In extreme cases, a god might be forced to possess a flesh body and fall into the realm of evil gods…

Though this was only Mo Hua's current speculation. Whether it's true or not, he'd need to verify it later.

Beyond deities, there are also spirits and ghosts that possess divine-like will.

Ghosts, however, differ from gods.

Mo Hua propped up his chin, recalling all the malicious spirits and ghosts he'd encountered so far.

First was the Green-Faced Imp in Black Mountain Stronghold—born from the "Mountain-Water Dao Child Painting."

That little ghost was made of ghostly thought, and its vessel was a landscape visualization scroll.

Ghosts have their own unique properties.

Fragments of memory still lingered in Mo Hua's mind—

Memories that surfaced after devouring the ghost's evil thoughts.

In a deep mountain, a young Dao child studied cultivation with a Daoist priest.

The Daoist read from a strange book, and the boy followed along. As they read, their expressions turned increasingly twisted… until both developed a craving for human flesh.

They conspired to lure traveling cultivators and began devouring them.

Eventually, they lost all human form.

The priest became a red-faced, fang-toothed demon. The boy turned into a green-faced imp.

Then came a white-clad sword cultivator, riding clouds. He struck down the red-faced demon with a single slash.

The green-faced imp, however, escaped into the painting and was sealed away in the Daoist temple…

...

Mo Hua, based on what Lord Huangshan had explained about gods and ghosts, roughly speculated that the book that Daoist and the Dao child were reading must have been a demonic ghost-cultivation technique.

After learning this technique, the two became ghost cultivators—turning themselves into malevolent spirits.

As for "eating" people—it likely referred to devouring their divine sense.

And according to Lord Huangshan, when a ghost eats a person, it must begin with someone closest to them…

Mo Hua pondered for a moment and considered another possibility:

That Dao child might actually have been the Daoist's son.

Fearing that his cultivation of ghostly arts would turn him into a vengeful ghost who would first prey upon his own child, the Daoist deliberately passed the demonic technique to the boy—

—so that father and son would both turn into ghosts together. A ghostly father-son duo, united in "eating" others.

The Daoist became the red-faced evil ghost, the father.

The Dao child became the green-faced little ghost, the son.

Same bloodline, same cultivation technique—their transformations into ghosts were part of the same lineage.

Later, when the sword cultivator came and struck them down, the red-faced ghost, obviously stronger, was slain… while the weaker green-faced ghost escaped unscathed. That outcome seemed… suspicious.

It must've been—

The red-faced ghost, once the Daoist, knew he was doomed. So he sacrificed himself, holding back the powerful enemy just long enough to let his son—the green-faced ghost—escape.

Even as a ghost… there was still a trace of human sentiment?

Mo Hua was momentarily stunned, unsure how to respond to that…

There was another thing that bothered him.

The white-robed sword cultivator who killed the ghosts—

To slay ghosts with sword qi… could it be that this cultivator also practiced sword techniques fused with divine sense?

What if… he was a senior from the Great Void Sect?

Mo Hua's jaw dropped in shock at the thought.

"Surely not that coincidental…"

He frowned deeply, then shook his head.

It was just speculation, after all.

The red-faced ghost was dead. The green-faced one had been "eaten" by Mo Hua himself. The white-robed sword cultivator's appearance was vague and indistinct. There was no way to verify it.

Still, it wasn't too important now.

Mo Hua mentally reviewed the entire sequence of events and nodded slightly.

With this newfound knowledge of gods and ghosts, his understanding of the Mountain-Water Dao Child Painting—and the green-faced fang-ghost it spawned—became much clearer.

Many of the murky, confusing experiences he'd had in the past were slowly starting to make sense, now that his cultivation experience had grown and his knowledge had deepened.

Mo Hua faintly felt a kind of spiritual resonance—an illuminating "click."

After the visualization painting came the second evil spirit: the Ancestor Portrait owned by corpse-cultivator Zhang Quan from Nanyue City.

Zhang Quan, who linked his entire ancestral line together—while alive was a "corpse," but strictly speaking, after death should be considered a ghost.

Though what manifested after death were all sorts of "zombies."

But that raised a question:

"If ghosts devour the closest kin first, then why didn't the corpse-ghosts in Zhang Quan's ancestral portrait eat him first?"

Mo Hua furrowed his brow.

Perhaps the real reason the Zhang family lineage had withered down to just one survivor—Zhang Quan—was because…

…his ancestors had secretly "eaten" the rest?

Leaving only Zhang Quan behind?

And if he got eaten, the Zhang family would go extinct.

So the Zhang family's ancestor ghost, being "forward-thinking," restrained the rest of the corpse-ghosts, preserving this final seedling to carry on the bloodline?

Or maybe… that "Ancestor Portrait" was just unique?

Perhaps that visualization painting naturally suited ghostly habitation?

Mo Hua was deeply curious. He really wanted to confirm it with Zhang Quan or the various corpse-ghost ancestors—but unfortunately, they'd all been "boiled in a pot"… and then promptly "swallowed whole."

When he devoured them, Mo Hua's divine sense had already become powerful.

And the ghostly thoughts of those corpse-cultivators were thoroughly destroyed. So he didn't absorb many residual memories.

A bit of a shame, really.

But the incident with Zhang's ancestral visualization painting did serve as a reminder—

Mo Hua remembered that after exterminating the Zhang family's corpse-ghosts, he still had the now-empty Ancestor Portrait tucked away in his Storage Ring.

Only now, it had a new tenant—

That eerie Five Elemental Source Mark from the Five Elements Sect… the one that looked like a sinister eye.

Mo Hua paused, then suddenly felt a chill deep in his soul.

That eerie eye…

It had its own evil will, could split itself apart, parasitize others, and contained Five Element laws…

Could this Five Element Source Mark be…

A Heretic God?!

Mo Hua sharply inhaled through his teeth.

"I've been carrying around a heretic god…?!"

He muttered, "No way…"

Ever since he gave up on cracking the nearly-impossible probabilities of drawing a second-grade Five Element Formation, the visualization scroll containing the Source Mark had just been dumped into the Storage Ring to "gather dust."

But thinking back now, the secrets hidden within that Source Mark were clearly anything but ordinary…

Mo Hua thought about taking the Five Element Flow Diagram back out to study it—but after a moment, dismissed the idea.

Ignorance is bliss.

Before, when he didn't know what it was, he didn't pay it much mind.

But now that he knew how strange—possibly dangerous—it was, perhaps even being a "Heretic God," he couldn't afford to treat it carelessly.

Best to wait a bit…

When his cultivation level was higher, his divine sense stronger, or after devouring more divine marrow and transforming his spirit further—then he could examine it properly.

As for "ghosts," that seemed to be the extent of what Mo Hua remembered.

What remained were the "monsters" in Yu'er's nightmares.

Mo Hua's brow tightened.

Those monsters were… peculiar.

Their forms were grotesque, with a mix of human and beastly traits—clearly not ordinary ghosts.

So were they… the evil spirits of heaven and earth?

Or perhaps puppets or slaves under the control of Heretic Gods?

Mo Hua wrote the characters "妖魔 (yaomo)"—monsters and demons—on the paper, and annotated it with "evil spirits" and "Heretic God puppets/slaves."

That was just a temporary hypothesis.

Once he encountered more of them and saw through their true nature, he'd revise accordingly.

At least now, he could mostly distinguish between ghost thoughts and evil spirits.

What remained—was divinity.

When it came to knowledge of divinity, Mo Hua realized that Lord Huangshan hadn't shared much. In fact, he had clearly held things back.

Like the mysteries of realms and divine ranks.

Beyond wandering spirits and mountain gods, what other kinds of deities were there?

River gods? Stream gods? Earth gods?

Celestial gods? Ancient gods?

If high-ranking gods had colossal divine bodies, how did they inhabit divine statues?

Where do they normally reside?

Surely they don't just float in the heavens, mountain-sized, watching humans every day?

And is it because mortals have weak divine sense that they simply can't see them?

As for divine marrow—what qualities correspond to which Dao attributes?

Those pure gold, jade-white, and glass-colored divine marrows… Where could those be found?

The more Mo Hua learned, the more he realized how much he didn't know.

This world… really is profound.

He shook his head with a sigh.

These things—Lord Huangshan hadn't spoken of them.

Maybe it was because he didn't know himself,

or maybe… he did know, and simply chose not to say.

Mo Hua couldn't force him either.

"Do not do unto others what you would not want done to yourself."

He had secrets too—things he didn't want to tell anyone.

And for now, what he'd learned about divinity was already enough.

With the "divine secrets" he now held, along with the rest of Huangshan-jun's teachings, Mo Hua began planning his next steps.

First goal: Divine Sense Sword Technique.

The Great Void's Divine Sense Sword Scripture!

In theory, this sword technique was likely hidden somewhere inside the Great Void Sect.

But Mo Hua had searched high and low without much luck. He'd have to keep his ears open and keep looking.

He couldn't help but imagine the future—

Someday, when he grew up—taller and stronger—

dressed in dazzling white daoist robes like the elders of the Great Void Sect,

riding a sword through the clouds,

and when he encountered evil spirits and ghosts…

He would channel divine sense into his sword— and strike them down in a single blow!

Just imagining it felt so suave and heroic…

The more he thought about it, the more Mo Hua felt he had to learn this Divine Sense Sword Art!

Next up: Divine Dao Formations.

Since it was a type of formation, Mo Hua naturally wanted to learn it.

Plus, now that he'd studied the Heavenly Derivation Scripture, he was basically on a "thief's ship."

He'd almost certainly end up offending Heretic Gods one day.

Formations capable of countering gods would be absolutely vital!

Unfortunately, Huangshan-jun was a mountain god, and didn't understand formations.

He had only heard of such divine formations, but didn't know what they truly were.

Were they extensions of the Yin-Yang, Three Talents, Four Symbols, Five Elements, or Eight Trigrams systems?

Or were they something entirely different— a wholly separate and mysterious lineage?

This, too, was something Mo Hua would have to discover and comprehend on his own in the future.

His heart itched with curiosity and anticipation.

But both the Divine Sense Sword Art and Divine Dao Formations would take time—no rushing them.

For now, the most urgent matter: cultivation.

He needed to find a way to obtain divine marrow— so that his divine sense could undergo a true qualitative transformation, and sweep aside the final obstacles to advancing through the Foundation Establishment realm.

Divine marrow was incredibly rare.

It only existed within gods.

But Mo Hua only knew one god personally—Huangshan-jun—and no matter what, he couldn't bring himself to lay hands on him.

Huangshan-jun was his friend!

And not just him—Mo Hua couldn't bear to harm any proper deity.

Which left him with only one remaining path— a path shrouded in taboo and bloodshed…

Hunting Heretic Gods!

Mo Hua let out a long sigh.

Heretic gods were far too powerful.

With his current level of divine sense, there was no way he could contend with one.

But—based on what he'd learned about gods—he had also discovered some loopholes.

As Huangshan-jun had explained:

"Heretic gods fragment themselves and spread their doctrine…"

"A major Heretic God will often divide its divine body into countless First-, Second-, or even Third-Grade 'Divine Remnants,' scattering them across the lower regions of the Nine Provinces—spreading its evil doctrines and feeding on the desires of the fallen to nourish itself…"

So the unified main body of a Heretic God?

Off-limits. Not even going to think about it.

But those scattered, fragmented Divine Remnants—used for evangelizing evil across the land— were mostly just First or Second Grade.

Third Grade was already too much. He couldn't beat that.

But First or Second Grade Divine Remnants? He could probably handle those.

Pick the softest persimmon. Choose the weakest Heretic God fragments to "eat."

Mo Hua nodded to himself.

That golden evil eye that had parasitized the black-clad leader that day?

It was likely one such Divine Remnant, split off from the Lord of the Great Wilderness, for the purpose of spreading doctrine.

As long as he was careful—fully prepared, no leaks, sneaky and low-key— If he could "nibble" one or two of those Divine Remnants… The Lord of the Great Wilderness probably wouldn't even notice.

After all, Mo Hua remembered what the Big Eyeball said: "The Great Wilderness is vast beyond measure… countless Divine Remnants…"

Whether "countless" was literal or just exaggerated— There were clearly a lot of them.

If he ate one or two…

Surely a mighty being like the Great Wilderness Lord wouldn't feel a thing—or be petty enough to care.

Still, best not let him find out…

There was one more problem.

Once a person devoured divine marrow, their divinity would grow stronger… but their humanity would begin to erode.

They could lose their original heart, their dao heart, and become increasingly cold and emotionless.

Mo Hua frowned.

He didn't want to become a cold, inhuman little Heretic God.

But this issue… had no clear solution.

He hadn't even asked Huangshan-jun— because Huangshan-jun was a god, not a human.

He didn't need to worry about "humanity."

Mo Hua lay across the desk, deep in thought.

He ran through everything he knew about divine cultivation, over and over, again and again.

Time passed.

And then—suddenly—he had a spark of insight.

He realized…

He had been overestimating the concept of "godhood"— and overrating "divinity" itself.

There was no need to treat gods as gods.

Gods, while born of the Dao and composed of divine sense, were still just one form of existence among the myriad beings of heaven and earth.

Even gods were subject to the Dao.

Humanity was Dao.

Divinity was also Dao.

Cultivators pursued the Heavenly Dao.

If that's the case, then humans and gods, both being part of the Dao, weren't fundamentally in conflict.

If both were "Dao"… then why not have both?

Preserve humanity. Temper divinity.

Let man and god become one— united in the Dao, forming an unshakable Dao Heart!

That— that was the path he should walk!

The moment he realized this, it was like a divine revelation— his heart and spirit became clear and bright.

In his eyes, a flicker of light sparked.

Heavenly mechanisms stirred—

black, white, and faint gold—

intertwining in brilliance.

Deep within his spiritual sea, the sound of a Dao Monument seemed to faintly resonate.

Mo Hua sensed that atop his divine sense, faint golden lines— traced the trajectory of the Heaven-Obscuring Formation,

flickering momentarily.

In that subtle moment…

His understanding of the Heavenly Dao had deepened once again.

And this insight— had been etched into his instinct, carved directly into his Dao Heart.

(End of this Chapter)