The Quest for Immortality - Chapter 1116 (Patreon)

Chapter 1116: Silencing

More than ten li away, at another mountain pass.

Seven or eight bandit cultivators who had been preying on travelers at the pass lay burned and killed.

Some had blackened chests, some had been roasted dry of blood, some had their bodies charred to cinders...

Mo Hua stood among the corpses, lowered his head to look at his pale, jade-like palm, and couldn’t help but frown and sigh.

“How did I... lose control of my hands like this?”

He had promised himself he would not break the killing precept. Yet not half an hour earlier, at this pass, after hearing those thieves spit vile words, his anger flared and he could not restrain himself. He used the Fireball Technique and killed them all.

His chest felt relieved.

But the murderous nature inside him grew heavier.

Mo Hua could even feel a strand of murderous aura spiral into his spirit sea, rooting itself in his soul.

That made him easily overrun by murderous thoughts.

Whenever he encountered someone deserving of death, he suddenly wanted them dead.

This was unlike his usual style.

Mo Hua had always considered himself cautious and low-key — if he could kill someone by unseen means he would, and he avoided open combat.

Besides, he thought himself kind-hearted; he preferred harmony in actions.

Killing was something to be avoided whenever possible.

Except in extremis, he would not usually break the precept.

But the current situation had slipped partly beyond his control...

Mo Hua’s expression hardened. He looked up the road and thought to himself, “From now on, don’t let me run into any more bandits. And don’t mock me to my face, or I really won’t be able to help myself...”

But fate did not oblige.

A few miles ahead, he encountered another group of bandits.

One of them, sharp-eyed, spotted Mo Hua from afar, called the others to surround him and said coldly, “Kid, hand over the spirit stones on you.”

Mo Hua shook his head, afraid they would grow greedy at the sight of money. “None left. I was already robbed.”

The bandits looked at one another, murmured, “There were several groups on the road earlier — he’s probably been picked clean. There shouldn’t be anything valuable on him...”

“This mountain’s always been more wolves than meat...”

“Damn unlucky.”

Then a tall bandit stared at Mo Hua’s face for a few heartbeats. His gaze changed, a look of greedy admiration crossing his features. He pointed at Mo Hua and said, “Doesn’t matter if he has no spirit stones. Catch him and sell him in the city — he’ll fetch a good price.”

Someone else protested, “Boss, he’s not a woman—”

“Doesn’t matter,” the tall brigand said with greed. “At this age and looking like this, male or female, who cares...”

Before the words had even finished, a brutal fireball slammed into his face, blowing his entire skull apart; the flesh on his neck burned to black ash.

The other bandits froze, horror on their faces. Turning to look, they saw the once fair, harmless-looking youth now wearing a face like still water, pupils pitch-black, the murderous aura in his eyes chilling to the bone.

“Boss! You killed my boss! I’ll kill you!”

A broad-shouldered bandit drew his blade and charged at Mo Hua.

Most of the other bandits were shrewd enough to turn and flee.

But whether they fought or fled, their fate would not differ.

Fireballs of death flew; in a few breaths the whole group of bandits had been burned to death without exception.

The murderous aura in Mo Hua’s eyes thickened by a shade.

The killing intent in his heart, like spring grass touched by a warm wind, had rooted into the soil of his soul and was beginning to break the surface.

Mo Hua sighed deeply and silently admonished himself, “This must not happen again...”

“Really... I mustn’t kill anymore...”

To thoroughly purge the murderous thoughts this time, he forced himself to travel using the Stealth Technique.

Earlier, during the first clashes, he could have simply concealed himself and bypassed those bandits — but he hadn’t.

First, he had believed the Stealth Technique was meant for evading formidable enemies.

A few small bandits were not worthy of his concealment.

There was another reason...

Now calm, Mo Hua analyzed himself and slowly understood: his subconscious had deliberately refused concealment. He had wanted to walk openly before the bandits, to let them rob him, to let them strike, so he would have an excuse to kill them all.

It was something he had done “on purpose.”

There was murderous nature hidden in his heart, and his subconscious had — by means of his deductive calculations — judged that this course of cause and effect would gratify him.

So he had unconsciously allowed himself to provoke conflicts, to manufacture killing deeds, to satisfy the hunger to slay.

Mo Hua’s expression grew grave.

This meant his desires, his mind, even his self were losing control...

He could not allow this internal loss of control to continue.

Mo Hua forced his heart to steady, cast the Stealth Technique, his figure gradually fading as he continued onward.

The desolate, rugged mountain road showed no living figures.

Hidden, Mo Hua moved lightly and calmly forward.

Ahead he encountered two more groups of bandits.

This time he cast the Stealth Technique openly and slipped past the mountain mouths without provoking conflict, sparing himself further killings.

After that he followed the mountain road for nearly twenty li.

He passed craggy passes, encountered a few gaunt wolf demons, a scattering of bandits here and there, and finally cut through a small waste wood. When Mo Hua looked up, he saw a mountain stronghold off to his left.

The stronghold sat atop a treacherous peak, half-hidden by trees and occupying high ground. It was large.

Around it stood rough wooden palisades, and crude arrays had been laid out upon them — easy to defend, hard to attack.

Guard towers rose up, with bandits posted on lookout.

From a distance the wooden stakes looked like long spears; blood-stained cloths hung from them, and human heads dangled, giving the place a terrifying aspect that made one hesitate to approach.

This was a long-established bandit stronghold.

The blood on the gate had crusted thickly; after long sun and rain it had darkened to near black.

Mo Hua glanced once; with the naked eye he could see a heavy, clinging aura of death.

Many had died here over the years.

He spread his divine sense slightly and sensed the stronghold harbored over a hundred living breaths.

Each person bore filthy, tainted killings on them; their souls streaked and soiled — they were bloodstained hands, notorious people.

This was a den of corrupt bandit cultivators.

Mo Hua’s mind immediately thought of the Black Stronghold.

The Black Stronghold in Immortal-Passage City hid deep within the Great Black Mountain; it was maintained by the Qian family ancestor and housed a host of sinful and evil cultivators who killed, plundered merchant caravans, practiced evil techniques and bore immense guilt.

This bandit-cultivator stronghold before him was smaller than the Black Stronghold in scale, but it was likewise grim and bloodstained — a pus-filled tumor.

A pain pierced Mo Hua’s meridians; his blood jumped, and an instinctive killing intent rose in his heart. He clenched his teeth and forcibly suppressed it.

On a normal day he would have annihilated this stronghold outright.

But now he carried the stain of killing, the murderous aura had entered his heart, and it was not suitable for him to open a massacre.

“Leave first. Reach the immortal city and report to the Dao Court; let them come and wipe out this stronghold. That way I don’t have to personally do it...” Mo Hua thought.

Yet the killing intent in his heart still prodded at his emotions.

The murderous aura continued to erode his spirit sea and made him irritable.

He drew a deep breath and forced himself not to dwell on the bandits or the stronghold; he emptied his thoughts and calmed his heart.

After a long while his mind eased somewhat, then he decisively turned and walked along the other direction away from the stronghold.

Out of sight, out of mind.

If he distanced himself from that den of corrupt cultivators, the murderous aura’s influence would dissipate, and the causal source that triggered the killing would vanish.

Thinking this, Mo Hua walked on without looking back, leaving more than two li behind him.

The stronghold sank behind mountain ridges and disappeared from his view.

His mood did improve; the killing intent in his chest slowly abated.

He continued to maintain a peaceful mindset as best he could and moved to the other side of the mountain.

The stronghold dwindled ever further behind.

After walking another li, he came beside a large tree.

A glance from the corner of his eye made his gaze tremble; he fell silent.

The tree was enormous, its trunk thick. Dozens of headless corpses hung from its branches.

Those corpses were gaunt and raggedly dressed, clearly poor wandering cultivators. Bloodthirsty flies swarmed over them.

Their heads had been chopped off and stacked on the ground, faces frozen in terror.

On the ground among the hanging bodies were some female corpses — brutally violated, limbs broken, wounds exposed to the bone.

There were even children whose necks had been twisted like puppets and tossed carelessly aside.

The whole scene was bloody, brutal, unbearable to behold.

This was a display the bandit cultivators had deliberately set at the road’s entrance to “demonstrate” their cruelty, to instill fear in others and command respect.

But these sights struck at Mo Hua, who had been suppressing himself.

Rage spread instantly through him.

The killing intent he had held back for so long burst forth like a flood breaking its bank.

Mo Hua closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again his irises were pitch-black, his expression like the coldest midwinter, utterly frigid.

“Fine. Those who deserve to die will die sooner or later...” he thought, and a measure of lightness entered his heart.

He turned and retraced his steps back along the road.

He walked straight to the stronghold and, concealed, sat on a large rock not far from its gate.

Inside the stronghold the crowd noise was loud; no one suspected that an unseen “ghost” sat at their threshold, coldly watching.

Until the sun sank, the light faded.

Bandit cultivators who had gone out “hunting” returned one after another.

Mo Hua counted with his fingers until he was satisfied all had come back; a sliver of cold steel showed in his gaze. Then he rose slowly, invisible and soundless, and walked step by step toward the stronghold.

Night had fallen.

Within the stronghold bonfires burned like fresh blood.

The bandits, tired after a day of work, were drinking and eating.

The wine was poor and acrid; the meat was bloody and of unknown origin.

They shouted and laughed, speaking of the loot they’d taken, the caravans they’d wiped out, the villages they’d burned, the heads they’d cut, the women they’d violated...

They used these tales to heighten their drunkenness and to boast of their prowess.

Sitting on the highest place was a scar-faced burly man — a Foundation-stage cultivator and the stronghold’s leader.

He raised his cup, watching his brothers revel in this godforsaken place like wolves feasting. He drained the cup of harsh liquor in one gulp.

Louder and louder they grew as the wine went around; after several rounds they began to drift into drunken stupor.

A gust of night wind brushed past; the Foundation-stage leader shivered as a chill rose inexplicably in his heart. He looked around and found the night beyond the stronghold thick and deep.

Something seemed to be drawing near through the dark, “encircling” them.

The leader’s face changed.

A lifetime spent between life and death, licking the blade’s edge, had given him a sharp intuition: something was wrong.

“Where’s Old Huang? I don’t see him,” he said.

Someone below answered, “Third Chief went out to raid the road; doesn’t look like he’s back yet.”

The leader frowned and shouted, “Guards! Don’t just keep drinking — the posts must be manned in case of an attack!”

“Boss, you joke. Who’d dare come...”

“Shut up,” the leader barked. “You, go check and see if anyone’s slacking!”

The bandit reluctantly put down his cup and walked outside.

He never returned.

A whole incense-stick’s time passed; the surroundings remained deathly silent.

The leader realized something was wrong.

The drunk who had been drunk now felt a chill; the wine sobered many.

“Where are they?”

The leader pointed at two more and ordered, “You two, go look outside.”

They were unwilling but dared not refuse. They drew their knives, legs weak, backs bent, sweat cold, and prodded forward into the black.

Outside the night was thick as ink; hands could not be seen.

Suddenly a crimson flare lit the dark.

Then everything returned to black.

The endless dark swallowed everything, including the two bandits’ lives. They didn’t even cry out before they were dead.

Pandemonium seized the hall.

The leader’s face changed.

“Who—?!” he shouted.

No one answered from the dark.

Nearly a hundred bandits remained in the hall; they drew blades and formed a line, eyes hard and set.

“Who the hell dares! You’ve got balls—” someone cursed.

In the next instant a fireball shot in and immolated him, flesh and bone melting away.

“Fireball!”

“Fireball Technique?!”

“Whose Fireball Technique is that? How can its power be so terrifying?!”

Another crimson fireball flew from the black.

This time the fireball pierced three men: it dried the first to nothing, passed through and scorched the second, then punched through the third’s chest before the flame dissipated.

The bandits were terrified.

They feared the Fireball Technique’s power.

More terrifying was that, to this point, they had no idea who was casting it.

More fireballs followed.

Fast, accurate, brutal — like volleys of flaming shells they burst in the crowd like molten rock, roasting bandit after bandit into nothing.

In the dark a figure of savage, hellish temperament flickered like a demon of the underworld, releasing terrifying karmic fire and reaping lives.

“Ghost... ghost!” someone howled.

“Run or die!”

One bandit, losing his mind with fear, howled and bolted. His flight caused pandemonium; the bandits’ morale crumbled and many scattered.

The leader grabbed one bandit and snapped his neck, roaring, “No escape! Cowards who flee die!”

His threats did nothing.

Compared with dying at the hands of the “hell-fire,” dying by the leader’s blade seemed preferable.

Nearly a hundred bandits fled like beasts. They sought any gap in the wooden hall to escape.

Suddenly five-colored lights flashed.

Patterned lines appeared on the ground and array marks manifested.

Some bandits were cleaved into minced flesh by golden light; some were burned to black ash by subterranean fire; some were trapped in water prisons and drowned alive; others were buried by flowing sand or strangled by vines...

“An array?!”

“The hall is sealed by an array!”

Fear rippled outward.

Bandits began trampling one another; some lost their senses and even turned on comrades.

The leader barked orders, but amid the chaos only madness reigned.

The arrays strangled and the fireballs burned.

Soon the hall of bandits was slaughtered to the last.

The leader watched all this, his face contorted with grief and rage.

These had been his brothers, the foundation of the stronghold he had painstakingly built over years — and in the span of a drinking session they were all dead.

Hatred devoured him.

But he had not lost his mind. As long as he remained, he could recruit new “brothers.” The stronghold could be rebuilt; he could rise again.

Blood flowed across the floor. Corpses lay scattered in the hall.

“Elder...”

The scar-faced leader stood among corpses and cupped his hands toward the dark. “Let’s talk reasonably...”

He knew this was not some specter but the work of a cultivator.

Moreover, it was a powerful senior.

“Junior admits he may have wronged you...”

Silence in the dark.

The leader swallowed, then spoke low, “Name your price — spirit stones? Treasures? Women? I’ll fetch them for you...”

“Whatever you ask, junior will do.”

“If you want this stronghold, I can hand it over...”

Still no reply. The leader spread his divine sense and strained to find the faintest trace, but there was none.

He gripped his sword-hilt and knelt, cashed three kowtows, then looked up, “Senior, say something. If you do not spare me, at least let me die understandingly. Let me know why I die...”

At that moment it dawned on him. “Could it be... you moved because you saw injustice...”

He kowtowed twice more, his expression pitiful. “I won’t hide that I have reasons...”

“This small, poor Xizhou border is barren and poor; resources for cultivation are scarce. With the path to cultivation blocked, I had no choice but to turn to banditry to survive by plundering cultivators.”

“This world has no justice. The damned clans extort without end; the Dao Court is corrupt and stupified; everywhere taxes squeeze the people and the populace starves...”

“We poor wandering cultivators struggle to cultivate — survival itself is a luxury. If we don’t do this, we’ll never get ahead; never reach Foundation-stage, maybe not even reach the ninth level of Qi Refining...”

Darkness seemed to stir at the words.

A clear, youthful voice then sounded — thin, hardly more than a boy.

The scar-faced leader’s trained ears located its source instantly: the center of the hall, empty space.

His divine sense could not detect it, and his eyes saw nothing — but his hearing told him the speaker was there.

The leader’s qi sea had already been readied. With a bloodthirsty surging force he poured his power into the blade. A red light streamed out as he lunged, aiming to strike the spot from which the voice had come.

Cultivators often die because they speak too much.

This trick had succeeded many times before.

But before his blade fell, a pale-blue water form condensed in the air like a chain and bound his joints, bringing the choking sensation of drowning.

“What sorcery is this?!”

The leader’s eyes widened. From the dark a figure stepped forth.

When he saw the figure, his heart sank with impossible disbelief.

So young!

So fair, delicate, hardly twenty.

And yet this one man had, singlehandedly, butchering a hundred of his brothers?!

And his cultivation level — could it be...

Late Foundation-stage?!

The leader felt as if he’d fallen into an ice cellar. He trembled and tried to speak, but the Water Prison Technique had sealed his mouth.

Mo Hua walked to his front, extended a pale finger and pressed it to the man’s forehead. His voice was cold.

“You say the clans extort and the Dao Court is corrupt, and that wandering cultivators suffer...”

“You are a wandering cultivator, yet the ones you kill are also wandering cultivators...”

The leader’s pupils contracted.

A flash of firelight sparked at Mo Hua’s fingertip.

With a thunderous boom, flame roared forth; the annihilating fire surged and blew the leader’s head into black ash.

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