The Quest for Immortality - Chapter 1132 (Patreon)

Chapter 1132: A World in Chaos

In Lizhou, along a desolate mountain road.

Once, Elder Ji—the power-wielding real authority beneath but one person within Gray Wolf City—now looked like a common carter, cracking the reins over a horse.

Mo Hua sat inside the carriage, eyes closed in meditation, comprehending the arts of Heavenly Mechanism and Causality.

South of Gray Wolf City, the road had been smooth enough.

Because of the upheaval in Gray Wolf City—the former sect master and Mr. Wu were slain—the seeds of rebellion had been snuffed out in the cradle.

Thus most of Gray Wolf Province had not been swept by war.

Along the way, in every prefecture and every immortal city, there was little turmoil.

Overall order had not yet collapsed.

At times like this, Elder Ji’s usefulness showed.

Within Gray Wolf City, he had been in charge of receiving and seeing off, backroom deals and greasy strings—eating, drinking, whoring, gambling, every vice—so his connections were broad. In the surrounding immortal cities, he had cronies everywhere.

Add to that his identity as a third-grade elder of Gray Wolf City; with such a resounding status, he was respected wherever he went.

Whether entering a city, scouting a route, asking for news, or handling matters, he barely needed to lift a finger.

From there on, Elder Ji took point.

Mo Hua played the idle young master; wherever they went, he ate and drank well and slept in comfort, without needing to worry about a thing.

But once they left the borders of Gray Wolf Province and traveled another thousand li south, the situation changed completely.

Along the route, the traces of war were obvious.

The air carried the stink of scorched things, rot, and blood.

For hundreds of li, the land lay red and bare, a wilderness.

Elder Ji drove the carriage another two hundred li or so. Dusk was falling; they needed to lodge. From a distance they saw an immortal city, its gate collapsed, black smoke billowing.

Even the city’s name had been smeared over.

Entering the city, they found shattered houses and a landscape of scars.

By the corners of the walls lay bodies everywhere.

There were also living people—ragged, faces twisted—struggling and clawing over some scrap.

In the tussle, several cultivators had their necks snapped bare-handed. Eyes rolled up, they toppled to the ground and never woke again.

Others, gaunt and sallow, squatted by the walls, gnawing at gods-knew-what meat.

Mo Hua lifted the carriage curtain. Taking in these scenes, his gaze grew solemn; a premonition stirred.

An age of chaos among cultivators might really be coming…

On the bleak, ruined street, the Gray Wolf City carriage crept along, strikingly conspicuous.

Soon, desperate cultivators lunged to seize it.

Elder Ji slapped several men flying. Spiritual power rippled as he released the pressure of a late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator, sending the snarling, greedy crowd scattering in panic.

“Blind beasts!”

Having been beast and drudge all the way, Elder Ji finally vented a breath, cursing in his heart: I can’t afford to offend that freak surnamed Mo, but I can’t handle you mongrels?

He moved to kill a few to set an example, but felt a cold gaze settle on the nape of his neck.

A chill ran down his back. He hurriedly drew back his hand and turned, smiling. “Young Master Mo, hope I didn’t startle you.”

Mo Hua’s expression was indifferent.

Elder Ji dared not show anger, muttering inwardly: Damn it. He’s late-stage Foundation Establishment; I’m late-stage Foundation Establishment. Why do I feel that in front of him, my late-stage counts for less than a dog? Bloody unlucky!

Don’t they all say a cultivator’s foundation is his realm? No one ever told me that among the same realm, the gulf in means and strength could be this blasted huge…

Even Sect Master Duan at the Golden Core realm didn’t give off pressure this eerie.

Elder Ji stole a glance at Mo Hua: This boy—could he be some ancient old monster reborn? Truly wicked.

He grumbled in his heart but kept a polite smile.

“Young Master Mo, shall we… find a place to stay?”

Mo Hua gave him a light look, gaze clear as glass, and Elder Ji’s heart fluttered.

At last Mo Hua only nodded. “Mm.”

Elder Ji exhaled for no reason he could name, then guided the carriage in a slow circuit of the streets, finally stopping before an inn.

The signboard had been burned away. The gates were shut, but the breath of people lingered within.

Elder Ji knocked. No response.

Impatient, he cursed, “Where are you? All dead?”

When still no one answered, he roused his spiritual power and slapped the gate. It creaked, cracks splintering across it.

Only then did a timid voice sound from within:

“Great master, great master, we’re closed. We’re not doing business.”

Elder Ji said coldly, “I’ll count to three. If you don’t open up, I’ll let you taste the might of a late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator.”

The cultivator inside the inn nearly lost his soul at the words “late-stage Foundation Establishment.”

In a small place like this, even an early-stage Foundation Establishment was rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns, let alone late-stage.

An old man hurried to open the door and led the carriage in.

“Didn’t know a senior graced us—my apologies for failing to welcome you from afar.” The old man smiled obsequiously.

Elder Ji enjoyed it a little and ordered, “Prepare two of your best rooms.”

“Right away, right away. Please wait.”

The old man dared not delay and went to make arrangements.

When all was ready, Mo Hua and Elder Ji each chose a room.

Mo Hua felt a little tired, so he stayed in, leafing through books on arrays, and ordered Elder Ji to scout the city for news.

Elder Ji didn’t want to, but had no choice.

As evening deepened, he wandered the nameless small immortal city, found some survivors, and pieced together the situation. After about two hours, he had the gist and turned back toward the inn to report to Mo Hua.

But as he was about to return, his steps halted.

He couldn’t help asking himself: Am I sick in the head? Go back?

That brat surnamed Mo has already let me out. Why go back? If I simply run, won’t I be free of this sea of suffering? So long as I don’t return to Gray Wolf City—so long as I avoid that “Little King of Hell”—isn’t the world vast and open?

There are still so many luxuries I haven’t enjoyed.

So many beauties waiting to serve me.

Desire rose; he saw sultry women beckoning. His heart wavered, and he braced himself: “I’m gone!”

“To hell with that Mo brat—I’m done serving him.”

“Someday, when I’ve cultivated enough, I’ll make him—”

He recalled Mo Hua’s all manner of eerie methods, and that iron board torture device that gnawed to the marrow. His unrealistic ambition guttered out.

“Forget it. Better to stay far away. Can’t afford to provoke him… can’t afford to provoke him…”

Like a thief, he slipped toward the city gate.

He’d gone about a li when the dead face of the Gray Wolf City sect master suddenly surfaced in his mind—bloody, mouth gaping, whispering who-knew-what—horribly unsettling.

Elder Ji shuddered and shook his head, forcing himself to forget it.

He walked on.

Half a li farther, the face of Mr. Wu—whom the sect master had respected greatly—floated up in his mind as well.

Then, without a word, the man started digging out his own heart, dripping gore.

Cold sweat drenched Elder Ji. “Damn it—haunted…”

He blinked, then clenched his teeth and pushed on.

But this time, after just a few steps, the dead-pale face of Sect Master Duan surfaced again.

In the blink of an eye, that dead face turned into Elder Ji’s own.

He slipped in fright and fell. His hand seemed to grab something. He looked—and found he was clutching a bloody, beating heart. Looking down, his own chest gaped red, as if someone had torn his heart out…

Terror burst from his soul; a chill surged upward until he shook all over.

A moment later, the cold ebbed.

His scattered senses cleared. He glanced down. There was a scar on his chest, but no blood; his heart thudded safely inside.

And the “heart” in his hand was only a clump of sludge.

Elder Ji jolted awake from the nightmare. He let out a long breath, wiped cold sweat from his brow, accepted his fate, turned around, and trudged back to the inn like a good boy.

Mo Hua’s candle was still lit.

Elder Ji knocked lightly. From within came Mo Hua’s clear voice: “Enter.”

Elder Ji tiptoed in. By the candle’s glow, Mo Hua’s face was as usual, a handsome scion unsullied by dust, with not a hint of gloom or eeriness.

Elder Ji cursed this wickedness in his heart—and sank deeper into despair.

“Speak,” Mo Hua said.

Elder Ji sighed and relayed what he had learned, every word:

“This place is called Half-Mountain City, a second-grade small immortal city. The Dao Court Office holds the strongest power here. The chief supervisor is greedy and vicious.”

“There are two or three sizable clans. To curry favor with the Dao Court Office, the local clans squeezed the loose cultivators hard.”

“Loose cultivators are poor and struggle to live, but most managed to muddle on.”

“The strange thing is, some days ago, a riot suddenly broke out.”

“A hundred or so loose cultivators charged the Dao Court Office to kill the chief supervisor, but they were too few and got suppressed.”

“Suppressed?” Mo Hua was a little surprised.

Elder Ji nodded. “Normally that would have been the end… but to claim merit in his report to the Dao Court, the chief supervisor began slaughtering loose cultivators indiscriminately. Many innocent ones who hadn’t joined the revolt were beheaded as ‘rebels’ and added to his ‘achievements.’”

“That was like upending a pot of oil.”

“Rebels die; the obedient die too.”

“The loose cultivators went completely berserk. A mob of Qi Refining cultivators, eyes red, staked their lives to bury that Foundation Establishment chief supervisor under a pile of corpses. They twisted off his head, tossed it into an oil cauldron, cooked his flesh, and divided it up to eat…”

“The clans that aided tyranny didn’t fare well either.”

“The men were killed. The women were ravaged by the enraged cultivators—and then killed as well…”

Mo Hua sighed inwardly, then frowned. “By the strength of the locals, they couldn’t have gone that far.”

Elder Ji nodded. “Young Master sees clearly.”

“There are traces of the Demonic Path in this.”

“Someone secretly passed around a ‘bloodthirsty’ demonic technique among the loose cultivators. Driven into a corner, they went completely mad and lost their wits, their strength surging. That’s how they toppled the Dao Court Office, killed the chief supervisor, and wiped out the local clans.”

“But the price is this: once they circulate that demonic technique, they either fall into blood-madness or get devoured by the fiendish backlash and explode.”

“So Half-Mountain City lost more than half its people. It’s basically an empty city. Those who survived either cling to life or are no longer human…”

Mo Hua’s gaze held pity.

In the end, there were no winners.

All would die.

The poor would die; the rich too—no difference at all.

“I understand,” Mo Hua said, nodding. “You’ve worked hard. Go rest.”

Elder Ji was relieved and cupped his hands. “Then I won’t disturb Young Master.”

After Elder Ji left, Mo Hua kept reading by candlelight, thinking.

Near midnight, weary at last, he set the book down and sank his consciousness into his sea of awareness, practicing on the Dao Stele the Four Symbols array-line deduction method of the Myriad Demons Transform-Into-Dragon Technique, and continuing his Demon-Bone Divination.

Night deepened. The whole immortal city lay gray and dead.

Suddenly, the faint chime of little bells sounded—chilling in the dark.

At the same time, a rotten stench spread.

Mo Hua slowly opened his eyes; his gaze tightened.

He thought a moment, then left his room and went to Elder Ji’s door. Elder Ji was sleeping soundly, mumbling, lost in some lovely dream.

Dark light flashed in Mo Hua’s eyes—he tugged the strings of causality.

In moments, Elder Ji shrieked and tumbled from the bed, drenched in cold sweat.

Just now he’d been in a sweet dream, arms around a naked, peerless beauty, ready to indulge. His hand had just pressed to her chest—soft at first, then sticky, then suddenly bloody. He looked down: he’d dug out the beauty’s heart.

The tender dream flipped to a bloody nightmare.

He jolted awake—then sensed Mo Hua standing outside.

He truly… wished he could cut Mo Hua into a thousand pieces.

Of course, he had no such ability.

Elder Ji dressed and stepped out.

Mo Hua glanced at him without a word and walked out. Elder Ji opened his mouth, then shut it and followed.

Shrouded in night, they left the inn, crossed the street, and rose silently onto the beam of a tall pavilion, looking down.

At the four corners of a nearby wall stood a dozen gray silhouettes.

They reeked of death, bodies swallowed by the night, shaking bronze bells and muttering strange incantations.

With the tolling of the bells—

The corpses on the ground began to tremble, and then, like puppets on strings, twisted and stood up.

Eelder Ji glanced at Mo Hua and paled. “Corpse cultivators!”

In the dead of night, they were refining corpses!

Chaos in the city—Demonic cultivators fanning the flames from the shadows, passing demonic arts, setting the loose cultivators, the Dao Court Office, and the clans to kill each other, leaving countless dead.

Then these corpse cultivators came at midnight with their bells to refine the dead into zombies…

Elder Ji shook his head.

The Demonic Path—truly venomous…

Best not to provoke them if one could avoid it.

Just then Mo Hua said, “Go kill the corpse cultivators.”

Elder Ji blinked, scalp prickling. “Wait—Young Master Mo…”

“Can’t you kill them?”

“It’s not a question of whether I can—it’s…” Elder Ji advised gently, “Young Master, away from home, fewer troubles are better than more.”

“Do you think I’m asking your opinion?”

Bitter resignation washed over Elder Ji.

If you’ve got the ability, do it yourself. Always ordering others around—what kind of skill is that?

But he only dared say such things in his heart. Burdened with this tyrannical ‘ancestor,’ what could he do?

Among the corpse cultivators were three at Foundation Establishment and eight at Qi Refining.

Elder Ji flashed from the wallhead without a sound, came up behind one Foundation Establishment corpse cultivator as he focused on the bell, and launched a sneak attack—wolf-claw piercing the chest—ending one life.

But a sneak attack like that only worked once.

The others started and shouted, “Who goes there?”

Elder Ji didn’t dare answer. He snapped, “Your grandpa!”

A Foundation Establishment corpse cultivator roared, shaking his bronze bell to summon an iron corpse to guard him. He snarled:

“How dare you disrupt Yin Corpse Valley’s work—courting death!”

Elder Ji’s heart lurched. “Damn it. Yin Corpse Valley!” But since things had come this far, he had no way out. He gritted his teeth. “I’m killing Yin Corpse Valley beasts!”

“Insolent!”

“Die!”

The corpse cultivators unleashed walking corpses and iron corpses, swarming Elder Ji.

He held the advantage in realm, but years lost to wine and women had left his foundations hollow—poisonous by nature, lacking in hard power.

And Yin Corpse Valley excelled at raising zombies and besieging the few with the many.

After he cut down several Qi Refining enemies and gravely wounded a mid-stage Foundation Establishment corpse cultivator, he could go no further. Another mid-stage Foundation Establishment corpse cultivator and a savage iron corpse that shrugged off blade and spear pressed him hard.

Entangled for a long while, Mo Hua’s patience snapped. He pointed a finger; fire blossomed. A fireball streaked out, blowing half the corpse cultivator’s body to char.

The corpse cultivator reeled in horror.

Elder Ji was also stunned.

This was the first time he had seen Mo Hua personally “make a move,” using a spell.

And this Fireball Technique—its heat was searing, yet it carried a bone-deep chill that made the heart quail. Truly eerie.

No wonder people say: as the name, so the man; and as the man, so the art.

The Foundation Establishment corpse cultivator howled under the blast.

Elder Ji dared not delay. He lifted his blade and lopped the man’s head. Then he cut down the remaining Qi Refining corpse cultivators one by one.

The group lay dead.

Elder Ji looked at the bodies and asked, “Young Master, why insist on killing them?”

Mo Hua ignored him, letting his gaze sweep the surrounding corpses.

In many, corpse poison had already festered. Some bodies trembled and slowly pushed to their feet. Left alone, this immortal city would soon become a “city of the dead.”

“Burn them all,” Mo Hua said, calm.

Elder Ji tested the waters. “Shall I…?”

Mo Hua nodded. “You can.”

Elder Ji wanted to slap his own mouth.

But he knew he wouldn’t escape such dirty, tiring work.

He gathered the bodies. As he was about to set them alight, he noticed a fire-red array already drawn on the ground at some point.

A Corpse Burning Array.

Back during the Corpse King chaos in Nanyue City, Mo Hua had learned from the Dao Court the array for cremating the dead.

When the array was complete, flames leapt up, cremating the corpse cultivators of Yin Corpse Valley together with the corpse-turned loose cultivators and even the innocent dead.

When it was done, Mo Hua sighed softly.

Loose cultivators resist; the Dao Court Office suppresses; local clans squeeze; the demonic sects stir in the shadows, itching to move.

The situation was truly rotting.

And this was only the beginning…

If it kept spreading, who knew what the cultivation world would become…

And within these gruesome events, a faint thread of baleful “karmic sin” seemed to breed…

Mo Hua’s gaze sharpened. He breathed out and said, “Let’s go. We should leave this place early.”

Elder Ji nodded quickly. He had just slain corpse cultivators of Yin Corpse Valley, a major demonic sect.

Even under the “coercion” of that Mo fellow, Yin Corpse Valley would hold the grudge.

Best to leave sooner.

In Half-Mountain City, corpses, walking corpses, and more than a dozen corpse cultivators of Yin Corpse Valley burned to ash.

corpse qi was cleansed by flame and drifted away into the night.

Mo Hua and Elder Ji took the carriage and slipped out of the small immortal city under cover of darkness, continuing on into a world growing ever more chaotic…

Thanks for reading—this arc’s getting darker fast. If you’re enjoying the ride, my humble Patreon keeps the lamps burning; even a small pledge helps me a ton. And if you have a moment, a quick rating or review on NovelUpdates means the world—your feedback keeps me sharp and motivated!

Next Chapter >