The Quest for Immortality - Chapter 1146 (Patreon)

Chapter 1146: The Dire Tiger

The so-called “Beast-Fighting Arena” was a place where upper-crust cultivators watched demonic beasts tear each other apart for sport—and gambled on the carnage.

Demonic beasts ate people; pitting them against each other was just as lethal.

So this sort of thing was banned in Li Zhou and even Qian Zhou.

It wasn’t stamped out by explicit decree, but it lived in a legal gray zone.

The Great Wilderness was different. Beasts ran rampant, customs were brutal, and bans were lax. Only there could an underground Beast-Fighting Arena find room to breathe.

That said, to raise and pen demonic beasts for bouts inside a fourth-grade great immortal city took more than a shady hustle.

There had to be a powerful backer propping it up.

By asking around openly and in secret—and with a bit of karmic divination—Mo Hua did grasp a faint, familiar thread of qi within the pit.

That wisp of qi carried a savage, baleful edge. It clearly belonged to a powerful demonic beast he knew.

Mo Hua decided to find a way in.

But the pit was run with extreme secrecy. The outer shell was a “Spirit Beast House,” which legitimately sold and boarded spirit beasts to throw off prying eyes.

Formations sealed the place tight. Divine sense couldn’t pierce them. Without knowing what was real and what was a blind, he couldn’t sneak in.

So Mo Hua waited outside, fingers pinching seals as he calculated in his heart, feeling for the currents within.

A few days later, the pit’s karmic aura turned turbulent.

Bloodlight flared for a heartbeat.

After that, a few strands of killing qi appeared—while several living auras vanished.

Mo Hua guessed a beast had rioted and killed some of the staff.

If men had died, they’d be shorthanded.

The next day, Mo Hua suppressed his presence, again donning the guise of a bronzed-skin, Qi Refining–stage, little body cultivator, and walked into the Spirit Beast House.

His fate was veiled in mist.

Since his divine sense had undergone Dao-transformation, it was deep and unfathomable; his ability to fold his aura was superb. Showing only a hint of cultivation, he was a blur to most mid-stage Golden Core—and even ordinary late-stage Golden Core—cultivators.

It would take at least someone in the Ascension realm to truly notice what was off about him.

No sooner had he stepped into the Spirit Beast House than a doorman blocked his way.

Asked his business, Mo Hua said, “I’m looking for work.”

The doorman looked him over with disgust and moved to shoo him away, then paused and said, “Come see the steward with me.”

He led Mo Hua in to meet the steward.

The steward was a slightly plump man in dark green brocade. Seated, sipping tea, he asked, “You want work?”

Mo Hua nodded.

“Why come here?”

“I’m hungry. Haven’t eaten for days. I walked in the first door I saw. Give me food and I’ll do anything.”

“Where are you from?”

“Li Zhou. Home was too poor. No food. I fled here.”

The steward glanced over Mo Hua’s thin body, the gaunt yet handsome face, and those clear eyes that didn’t look like they could lie. He gave a slight nod.

“Anything?”

Mo Hua nodded. “Mm.”

“There’s danger. You might die.”

“I haven’t eaten in days. I’m about to starve to death…”

Meaning: when you’re already dying of hunger, who cares about danger.

The steward nodded, called someone over, pointed at Mo Hua, and said, “Take him down and feed him.”

A page led Mo Hua away and brought him a simple meal.

Mo Hua tucked in and stuffed himself full.

He had been frail since birth, but he’d always had a good appetite.

As he ate, he could feel a pair of eyes watching him from the shadows—the steward, most likely.

When he’d finished, they brought him back to the steward.

“I’ll give you a post,” the steward said. “Food and lodging provided. But you must remember: obey. Do exactly what you’re told. Other than that, sew your mouth shut—don’t say one extra word. Otherwise I can’t save you.”

Mo Hua nodded solemnly.

The steward blindfolded him with a black cloth. “Come with me.”

The cloth dulled one’s senses.

It didn’t dull Mo Hua’s.

His divine sense still sketched the surroundings with clarity.

He played dumb and let himself be led deeper into the building.

Inside were proper stalls and pens for boarding all sorts of spirit beasts, people coming and going.

But behind the main hall was a hidden stairwell down into the earth.

Mo Hua followed the steward into the dark, down stone steps, walking who knew how long, until the steward finally said by his ear:

“All right. Take off the cloth.”

Mo Hua removed the blindfold, narrowed his eyes—and saw an enormous, grand underground coliseum.

At the center lay a blood-reeking killing ground for demonic beasts to tear each other apart.

Around it, tier on tier of stands wrapped the pit like the staves of a barrel.

Deeper still lay countless underground cells. From them seeped the feral auras of caged beasts; low growls rolled out of the dark.

Mo Hua timely put shock and fear on his face. “Th-this is…”

“Don’t worry about where you are,” the steward said with a glance. “You were starving, weren’t you? Do your work here and you’ll eat. Beyond that, play deaf and dumb. That’s how you live long. Understood?”

His eyes were hard as they fixed on Mo Hua.

Mo Hua swallowed and nodded timidly.

The steward called another servant and instructed, “Take him to get settled. Teach him the rules.”

“Two drudges died yesterday. Just in time to fill the gaps…”

If an official or above died and someone came applying at once, the steward might have grown suspicious.

But drudges and slaves at Qi Refining were lower than low. If they died, they died.

If someone came, you plugged the hole. Not worth a second thought.

Having given his orders, the steward left. He had a lot on his plate and plenty of “nobles” to wait on.

After he left, the other servant led Mo Hua deeper into the pit.

“Food and lodging are covered.”

“The food’s bad, but you won’t starve.”

“The lodging’s bad, but better than the street.”

“Beyond that, just do your job. I’ve nothing more to say.”

“If you keep your head down, I don’t need to warn you. If you don’t, you’ll die sooner or later—and warnings won’t help.”

“Drudges and slaves aren’t much different. Like stray dogs. Die and no one cares.”

“Anyway, now that you’re here—good luck.”

His voice was cold and numb. He brought Mo Hua to a cramped, shabby stone room. “This used to house two.”

“But both died, so it’s yours alone now.”

Mo Hua nodded. “All right.”

The servant left without expression.

Mo Hua tidied the place a bit and moved in. Thus began his life in the Beast-Fighting Arena as a “servant,” half a “slave,” really.

By day he worked to exhaustion—any dirty, heavy task: feeding beasts, cleaning cages, sweeping the arena, dragging the blood and flesh of fallen beasts off the sand…

Sleep was short. Some nights he had to stand guard to stop beasts from biting through their chains and causing trouble.

Stewards and overseers treated servants and slaves with no kindness—beatings and curses were common.

But the servants and slaves never resisted.

Mo Hua quickly noticed a stark difference between the Great Wilderness and the Nine Provinces under the Dao Court’s rule.

He hadn’t expected this.

In Qian Zhou and Li Zhou, even in the poorest, most desolate places, life was harsh—but people still retained a sense of being “people.”

Great Desert City was different.

Here, the servants and “slaves” toiled without complaint and took their beatings without anger. However they were treated, they showed little temper.

It was as if they considered themselves domesticated livestock—less than “human.”

Mo Hua didn’t know if this was the system and custom of the Great Wilderness.

And this was only the fringe—a city under the Dao Court and the Great Wilderness Gate that answered directly to it. Even here the air was like this.

What about deeper in?

Were there even more “cultivation slaves” who were not treated as people—and didn’t treat themselves as people?

Mo Hua’s expression grew heavy.

For now, he was a “slave” too, and there was nothing he could change.

Besides, he had more urgent business.

He had to find his “big tiger.”

If the big tiger had truly been captured and brought here, then it would be tossed into matches to kill or be killed for the nobles’ amusement—a tool for their wagers.

Those fights were vicious. A single mistake, and your guts were on the sand.

If it performed poorly and caused some “noble” to lose, that noble might even spend spirit stones to buy a “Beast-Execution Order” and have it killed out of spite.

Worried, Mo Hua searched whenever he could, wandering the banks of cells to look for the tiger.

But no matter how long he looked, he couldn’t find it.

There were a few tiger demons in the cages, but the bodies and coats were wrong.

Deeper in stood several secret cells.

Formations sealed them tight. As the new guy, Mo Hua didn’t dare poke at them and alert anyone.

If something stronger was imprisoned inside and went berserk, that would be just as bad.

He quietly used Demon-Bone Divination.

What he divined did point toward this pit, but nothing more concrete emerged.

It felt like many people and threads were entangled here, making the calculation difficult.

The pit was full of the messy obsessions of dead beasts and men, a stew of auras that muddied the karmic traces.

For the moment, he was stuck.

Mo Hua grew anxious, but could only wait for an opening.

It came three days later.

The steward gathered the servants and swept them with a hawk’s gaze. “A servant in the inner section broke a cup and got beaten to death by a noble. We need a replacement.”

All the drudges and slaves lowered their heads.

The pit had an inner and outer section.

The outer section did the grunt work—feeding, cleaning—dirty, exhausting, ill-fed.

The inner section served the nobles, pouring tea and fetching things. It looked glamorous, but it was just as dangerous.

The “nobles” were high-born and moody—sometimes crueler than beasts.

Beasts were at least kept in cages. Nobles were not.

One misstep, one slight to a noble, and you died ugly.

So most servants would rather stay outside with the feral beasts than go in to serve nobles.

At the steward’s words, they all lowered their heads.

Only Mo Hua’s head didn’t go down.

In other words, he was the only one “holding his head up,” which made him stand out.

The steward spotted him at once. He thought for a moment, then remembered: this was the fill-in he’d recruited days ago.

The boy was still alive—clearly obedient.

And…

Thinking it over, the steward realized the newcomer hadn’t been beaten or scolded even once. He was pliant and quick-witted.

“You. Come here,” the steward said.

Mo Hua stepped forward.

The steward looked him over. Too thin—but on closer inspection, the kid’s features were striking. Not fair, but clean-cut and handsome, with a simple, deep kind of beauty.

Nobles had different tempers and tastes, but a pleasing face was always safer.

“Are you willing to go to the inner section?” he asked.

“Will I get enough to eat?” Mo Hua asked. “The food outside doesn’t fill me.”

The steward blinked, then smiled. “You’ll not only eat your fill—you’ll eat well.”

“Okay. I’ll go,” Mo Hua said.

The steward nodded with satisfaction.

The other servants stole glances at Mo Hua, eyes full of pity.

So Mo Hua shifted from the “outer section” to the “inner section,” changed into clean clothes, and began pouring tea for the “nobles” who watched the beasts fight.

At last he saw the inner workings of the pit.

The inner and outer sections were isolated.

Outside, he dealt only with beasts.

Inside, he served “nobles” and watched the fights up close.

They were brutal.

Before the bouts, the beasts were fed Bloodthirst Pills to inflame their savagery. Once on the sand, they fought to the death—tearing, chewing—intestines and organs strewn everywhere.

The bloodier it got, the more excited the “nobles” became.

All of them wore silks and fine robes, faces arrogant, eyes defiant, entourages of pages and lackeys at their elbows—lording it over the place.

Yet their cultivation was not high: ninth layer of Qi Refining up to mid-late Foundation Establishment, give or take.

They looked to be from the various families and sects of Great Desert City.

As he poured, Mo Hua couldn’t help rolling his eyes inside.

So these were the mighty “nobles?” Just trash scions of trash clans…

The more useless one was, the more he liked torturing the weak for fun.

If he weren’t inconvenienced by the situation, he would have shattered the formations—high and low, one pulse—and blown this garbage into ash.

One thing did surprise him.

Among the “nobles” were not only silk-robed scions of the city’s families and sects, but also some towering, fur-clad brutes—obviously Great Wilderness cultivators—mingled among them.

The sight jarred against his expectations.

After a moment’s thought, he understood.

The Dao Court and the Great Wilderness hadn’t always been mortal enemies.

For a long time, the Great Wilderness had acknowledged the Dao Court.

Great Desert City sat at their borderland. It had both Dao-Court families and Great Wilderness tribes.

They mingled and traded. Nothing strange about that.

Only now had the Great Wilderness rebelled, and the situation sharpened.

Even so, the rebellion didn’t mean every clan in the Wilderness had risen up.

Nor could the Dao Court slaughter every Wilderness cultivator indiscriminately.

A province-wide massacre—this was the kind of atrocity even a demonic sect would hesitate at, never mind the Dao Court.

For now, it was just the shape of things.

As the war dragged on and the blood feuds deepened, who knew what it would become…

Mo Hua took in the inner section at a glance and went back to serving.

He kept his aura wrapped tight and his presence faint. He never provoked a noble, so he wasn’t beaten, much less killed.

If a few fools suddenly got the urge to torment him for fun, one look from Mo Hua filled their hearts with inexplicable terror—and they quietly thought better of it.

In short, he did the job well.

The only problem: even inside, he found no trace of the big tiger.

No sign of it anywhere in the pit.

Strange.

His intuition rarely failed him. His divination might not be infallible, but its general direction had never been wildly off.

Where was the big tiger…?

One day, still serving inside, tea tray in hand, he frowned and puzzled over it—when his heart suddenly thumped.

At that exact moment, a voice rang out:

“Young Master Tuoba is here. Kneel.”

A row of slaves dropped as one, foreheads to the floor, not daring a sound.

Mo Hua could not kneel.

Fortunately, several silk-robed scions and burly Great Wilderness cultivators stood before him to offer bows.

Mo Hua thought for a beat, lowered his head, and backed behind them with his tea tray, drawing in his presence. It didn’t look out of place.

Moments later, a squad of golden-armored guards opened the way.

A youth in gold, his war-armor patterned with beast marks, tall of figure, imposing of bearing, noble aura sharp as a spearhead, strode in.

His status seemed extremely high.

As he passed, those kneeling held their breath and didn’t twitch a muscle.

Those bowing bent deeper still, handsomely deferential.

Head down among the crowd, Mo Hua wondered who this “Young Master Tuoba” was, but held his curiosity in check and didn’t look up.

Then a tiger’s roar—arrogant and unrestrained—crashed in his ear.

It was unfamiliar, yet achingly familiar.

Mo Hua’s heart jolted. He looked up at once.

Behind Young Master Tuoba came eight hulking, muscle-corded brutes, each gripping a massive gold-iron chain. They were dragging a colossal black-and-white tiger forward, step by grueling step.

Sigils wrapped its brow, limbs, back, and tail. Gold-iron chains bound it; a suppression saddle smothered its aura. Even its razor fangs and claws were locked down.

And still, a chill, terrifying beast-qi poured off it in waves.

It took all eight Foundation Establishment peak body-cultivators straining together just to haul it along.

Mo Hua stared, frozen, at the savage dire tiger whose appearance had changed so much from his memory, yet whose aura felt so familiar.

The tiger, which loathed restraint, seemed to sense a familiar gaze—a long-lost breath. It shuddered, dug its four claws into the bricks, and stopped cold.

No amount of pulling could budge it.

Its eyes trembled—disbelieving.

The head under the kingly “王” mark lifted, sniffed the air, and then—startled—snapped up to stare straight toward Mo Hua.

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