The Quest for Immortality - Chapter 1154 (Patreon)

Chapter 1154: Saving the Tiger

On Windwave Ridge, the mountains loomed like specters. The night wind cut to the bone, thick with the stench of blood.

Dao Court Dao soldiers and Great Wilderness Sect cultivators fought to the death, trampling one another in chaos. Steel clashed on steel; Daoist techniques collided with barbaric sorceries. Waves of spiritual power and boiling blood qi tangled into a single maelstrom.

Ascension True Persons battled in midair, their spiritual power crashing like a mountainside breaking loose.

With almost every heartbeat, someone died.

Blood soaked the desert. Killing intent streamed toward the heavens.

Amid the chaos, Mo Hua turned into a streak of waterlight, weaving through the melee and fleeing into the distance.

Three Great Wilderness Golden Core cultivators gave relentless chase behind him.

Golden Cores were faster by nature, but on a battlefield where people were everywhere and slaughter raged in every direction, there was no room to unleash pure speed.

By contrast, Mo Hua’s Flowing Water Step flickered and folded, exquisite to the very fine point. He threaded the battlefield with growing ease.

After chasing for a while, the three Great Wilderness Golden Cores realized something was wrong.

“Dammit, we still can’t catch him? Where did this brat learn that body technique?”

“He’s luring us away on purpose so he can go save the Yang clan’s Dao soldiers!”

“If we’d known, we should’ve butchered the Yang men first, then come for him—two birds with one stone.”

“Easy to say. Who would’ve thought the three of us personally taking the field would still fail to bag a Foundation punk after all this time?”

“The battlefield is too chaotic—too many obstacles. We’re taking a huge loss on footwork.”

“What now? Turn back first and kill the Yang clan Dao soldiers?”

They argued as they ran, their pace unconsciously slowing.

Mo Hua sensed it and slowed a fraction as well. He looked back and taunted the three:

“Three pieces of trash. Cowards. Curs. Bastards. Were your Golden Cores refined from goat droppings?”

“Three Golden Cores can’t catch one Foundation?”

“Since they’re useless anyway, why not crush your cores along with your eggs, go back, and live as ball-less eunuchs…”

He had learned these choice curses from the “quotations” Elder Yu gave him.

And at last, they had their day.

Elder Yu’s invective packed a punch like no other.

The moment Mo Hua finished, the three Great Wilderness Golden Cores felt a surge of wicked fire blast up their spines. Veins stood out on their foreheads.

They were Golden Core elders— and not just any elders.

Among the Great Wilderness tribes, they were royal guards, honored and respected.

Within the Great Wilderness Sect, they were esteemed guest elders, treated with courtesy.

When had the three of them ever been mauled like this, face-first? And the insults—so vulgar yet so artful—were like having a carefully blended bucket of dog filth thrown straight into their faces.

Worse, the one cursing them was a damned Foundation nobody.

The leader, who wielded a ghost-head saber, went livid.

“This one must die!”

“I’ll flay his skin alive and slice his flesh inch by inch!”

“Kill!”

The three, stoked to fury, held nothing back. Their speed exploded as they lunged for Mo Hua.

Mo Hua’s heart tightened. He didn’t dare get careless now. His divine sense sharpened to a razor’s edge as he pushed the Flowing Water Step to its limit. In a battlefield of crisscrossing blades, flying spells, and piling corpses, he flickered left and right, slipping past the Golden Cores’ killing blows.

So it went—chase and escape—for more than half an hour.

Mo Hua judged he had gotten far enough from Commander Yang and the others, and decided it was time to disengage.

On a battlefield this chaotic and lethal, there was no way he’d risk using Divine Thought Sword Transformation to decapitate Golden Cores.

And Golden Core killing moves were no joke.

With the toughness of his body, if a Golden Core’s artifact so much as clipped him, it would be death or crippling.

Dragging it out only raised the risk. Not wise.

Besides, these Great Wilderness Golden Cores weren’t like Elder Xu of Yin Corpse Valley—unlikely to keep a Dizang corpse to peer past surface auras and karma to track him down.

A few exchanges later, Mo Hua’s figure suddenly blurred, dissolving into misty spray. He “vanished into ash” right in front of the three Great Wilderness Golden Cores.

The three froze where they stood, divine sense sweeping every which way, but Mo Hua was nowhere to be found.

On this battlefield, blood qi and morale roiled together, a muddled storm that crippled divine sense perception.

Once Mo Hua hid and fled, it was a stone sinking into the sea—no trace left.

And they truly lacked Elder Xu’s freakish corpse-tracking means.

“Gone? He escaped?”

“And we got cursed for nothing?”

Rage shot through them, but there was nothing they could do.

They couldn’t even glimpse Mo Hua’s shadow. They could only blast the ground with artifacts and howl their impotence to the sky.

They swore that the next time they met Mo Hua, they’d tear him to pieces.

…

Ten li away, having shaken off the Great Wilderness Golden Cores, Mo Hua quietly surfaced.

This sector was packed with Dao soldiers. Safer, relatively speaking.

He drew a long breath and was about to retrace his path to find Yang Jishan and the rest.

His current status was just a small Dao soldier from the Dao Soldiers Bureau—no power, no rank. If he wanted to fish in muddy waters, rack up military merit, carve out a foothold, and someday form a Golden Core, he naturally had to stick with the familiar and lean on the Yang clan’s influence in the Division.

Build a career and pursue core formation—two birds, one stone.

But one look at the turmoil around him, blades flashing and sand blasting, made him worry about the big tiger again.

In such a melee, if the big tiger was dragged in, it would likely die.

“Should I save the big tiger first, then link up with Commander Yang?”

So he asked himself.

The Great Wilderness Sect’s mutiny was vicious—but it also meant the board had been flipped.

Both sides’ Ascension and Golden Core experts were locked in battle.

Perhaps this was his one chance to rescue the big tiger.

Mo Hua nodded to himself, settling on the decision.

He spread his divine sense, fixed his bearings, and his figure thinned away, vanishing from the Dao soldiers’ encampment.

Hidden once more, Mo Hua went against the current, slipping toward the Great Wilderness camp.

Going against the flow was far more dangerous.

Blades had no eyes. Spells raged blindly.

Mixed among the killing strokes of ordinary cultivators were blasts of Golden Core and Ascension spiritual power.

A normal cultivator, touched in passing, would be wounded; brushed in earnest, would die. This is what made cultivation warfare the most brutal and merciless of all.

Even Mo Hua crept forward with his heart in his throat.

Fortunately, his divine sense was strong, his perception sharp—and he had grasped a sliver of the Way of Causality.

What he could sense with divine sense, he avoided in advance.

What lay beyond his sensory horizon—those sudden “ghosting” ambushes—he intuited from karmic currents, feeling the killing omen a hairsbreadth early and dodging as if guided by unseen hands.

Without that, a normal cultivator would die a dozen times over along this road to stray blades and hidden spells.

Thus Mo Hua threaded the main battlefield, crossed the splintered pockets of fighting, slipped past the Great Wilderness main force, and reversed into their encampment.

The camps were only temporary waystations.

With mutiny and full-scale war breaking out, most Great Wilderness camps lay hollow.

Few cultivators remained, scattered thinly.

The big tiger’s pen sat among them.

It was edged in steel and bound with iron chains. Outside stood several peak-Foundation Great Wilderness brutes on guard.

Time was tight. Mo Hua didn’t stand on ceremony.

He waited until the guards’ patrol paths crossed and separated, then, one by one, sealed their mouths and noses with the Drowning Technique, bound their bodies with the Water Prison Technique, and finished by using the Fireball Technique to shatter the meridian nodes of their limbs and scorch their throats.

It looked complex on paper.

In Mo Hua’s hands it was clean and neat, fast and precise. In less than a dozen breaths, the gate guards were down.

He approached the tent, traced a finger, and a line of ink flashed. He deftly opened a corner of the tent.

Inside, the big tiger still lay listless where it had been.

Mo Hua, still hidden, slipped into the tent.

The big tiger twitched a furry ear. Its massive head lifted at once, copper-bell eyes staring, full of doubt and surprise.

Mo Hua moved closer, step by quiet step.

The tiger’s bright eyes fixed on where he was. In the pitch black, it could see nothing—but instinct told it a faint and familiar aura was drawing near. A low “awoo” rumbled out of its throat before it could help itself.

Mo Hua drew closer and—just as he was about to reach the tiger—

The ground shuddered. A blinding glow of array-light flared.

Powder drifted from above, dusting Mo Hua’s body.

Blue array-lines on the ground liquefied into streams of spiritual power that coiled around him, tearing away his concealment.

At the same time, golden light rose into cage after cage, locking Mo Hua and the big tiger together inside.

Revealing Dust. Concealment-Breaking Array. And the Great Wilderness Golden Prison Array.

A trap.

A cold laugh sounded.

Shadows flickered on all sides. Great Wilderness cultivators in armor and halberds formed ranks, sealing Mo Hua in completely.

From the crowd, a tall, handsome young lord strode forward.

Young Master Tuoba.

Two Great Wilderness Golden Cores followed at his back.

Tuoba looked over the dust-smeared Mo Hua—forced out of hiding by the array and imprisoned by golden bars—and smirked.

“I guessed right. It was you.”

Mo Hua’s face was calm. “What was me?”

Tuoba sneered. “Still playing stupid? Don’t think I didn’t notice. The servant in the beast-fighting arena—that was you in disguise.”

He stared at Mo Hua again. “You serve under Yang Jishan. You infiltrated the arena on the Yang clan’s orders?”

Mo Hua kept silent.

If it had been some other family, he’d have tossed the blame their way without a qualm.

But he did, after all, owe the Yangs a little. He couldn’t make them carry this pot.

Tuoba’s lip curled when Mo Hua refused to answer. His tone cooled to a cutting sneer.

“I thought you were someone of substance. Turns out you’re just a hired grunt. No wonder you stooped to play a menial.”

Mo Hua shook his head. “Faces and titles are for others to look at. Low or not isn’t set by status.”

“Some with powerful faces are lower than anyone.”

Tuoba’s eyes flashed. “Sharp tongue. You do have a pretty mouth.”

Just then, the big tiger bound beside Mo Hua strained against the golden prison. It couldn’t break free, but it still gave Mo Hua a low, intimate “woo,” a sound that felt all too familiar.

Something stabbed under Tuoba’s ribs. His face went instantly ugly.

“What are you to my king beast?” he demanded.

“It’s mine,” Mo Hua said blandly. “This big tiger is mine.”

Tuoba ground his teeth, fury blazing. After a moment’s thought, he rasped a laugh.

“Still preening, when you can’t even save yourself?”

He pointed at the majestic tiger. “That’s a tiger demon—king among beasts and an outlier even among kings. Its gift is extraordinary. Without Great Wilderness royal blood, you can’t suppress its ferocity, much less win its submission.”

“You—your blood qi is thin. No trace of bloodline power. Obvious low birth. The blood in your veins is poor and base. How dare you compare to my royal clan?”

Mo Hua looked speechless. “Whether a person is base isn’t written in their blood.”

“And besides—your ‘royal clan’ is mongrel to begin with, no? By the count, that’s fairly base.”

Faces around them changed color.

Tuoba blanched. His lips trembled.

One Golden Core guard shuddered and spoke quickly:

“Young Master, this cur is unworthy of your words. We’ll seize him at once, gouge out his eyes and rip his tongue, and present him for your pleasure.”

Fearing Mo Hua would say more “unworthy words” and sour their young master’s mood, the two Golden Core elders moved with several Foundation cultivators, reaching to take Mo Hua down first.

They hadn’t taken him seriously.

Just a Foundation, skilled at hiding, skulking in the dark—now trapped by arrays. With everyone striking at once, how could they fail?

None of them noticed the slight curve at Mo Hua’s lips.

The Great Wilderness men attacked in unison. The two Golden Cores led the charge.

The instant their boots crossed the golden prison’s boundary, the array’s light changed.

The array core at the base began to reverse. Array lines twisted, then unraveled one by one.

Inky annihilation replaced golden bars.

A chill of oblivion rippled out. Even sound vanished for a blink.

The two Golden Core elders’ pupils shrank. Instinct jerked them backward—but they were one hair too slow.

Black Disintegration Force splashed their legs.

One elder’s right foot unraveled in an instant.

The other’s knee was severed by the same force, thigh and calf splitting into two dangling halves.

The Foundation cultivators were likewise carved by Mo Hua’s precisely guided array-collapse, losing arms and legs in clean, awful cuts.

When the array finished coming apart and the annihilating force faded, sound rushed back in.

Screams tore the camp apart.

All this took place in the space of a few blinks.

The Concealment-Breaking Array, the Golden Prison, and the rest were all unraveled, and the Golden Cores maimed.

Tuoba’s pupils pinched. Rage warred with fear.

He had no idea why the Great Wilderness arrays meant to trap Mo Hua had not only failed, but turned into Mo Hua’s tools to butcher them.

The other two Golden Core elders were no better—faces white, foreheads beaded with cold sweat.

Mo Hua only looked at Tuoba, gaze flat, as one might look at a pig or sheep ready for slaughter.

Tuoba’s fear boiled away into fury.

No one had ever dared look at him like that.

He crushed a jade slip and glared at Mo Hua, eyes cold.

“You die here today.”

Before his words finished, the jade slip shattered, tugging on a string of Great Wilderness command tokens. More and more Great Wilderness cultivators felt the disturbance and converged.

Auras streaked toward the camp. Three more Golden Cores at least.

Two or three dozen Foundation cultivators.

And from afar, more divine senses swept over this place.

Mo Hua could faintly feel a far greater, far more savage, irresistible presence locking onto him.

An Ascension expert.

Bad.

Mo Hua’s heart clenched.

If he didn’t get the big tiger out now, it was over.

But it was already late. More Great Wilderness cultivators jammed into the tent by the breath.

Dozens had rushed in, shielding Young Master Tuoba and pointing their blades at Mo Hua.

Tuoba stepped back, standing tall amid the crowd. He looked down at Mo Hua with naked contempt, a cold smile itching at his lips.

He was the sect master’s legitimate son, with Great Wilderness royal blood in his veins.

The sect’s cultivators bent to his word.

He had a place reserved among future Great Wilderness princes and marquises.

How could he endure humiliation from one born so base?

The situation was tight. Mo Hua frowned, eyes narrowing.

Just then, the big tiger at his side gave him a low growl.

Mo Hua glanced over, puzzled.

The tiger looked back, hesitating for a beat.

Then that fierce, untamable beast lowered the head marked with the king’s “王,” and before the eyes of all, pressed its massive body down at Mo Hua’s feet.

Mo Hua froze.

Around them, Great Wilderness cultivators blanched to a man.

Tuoba’s eyes went blood-red. It felt like a thousand knives were carving his heart, blood running down the blades until he could hardly breathe.

Mo Hua understood. He patted the big tiger’s head, then bent his knees and sprang up, landing astride the symbol of Great Wilderness royal majesty—the fierce tiger demon itself.

For a heartbeat, all the Great Wilderness cultivators erupted in horrified uproar.

Tuoba felt his heart split open. His features twisted as he shrieked:

“Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!!”

“Everyone—kill him for me!!!”

The hysterical bellow stunned his men for a beat, then Great Wilderness cultivators obeyed, launching attacks in waves. Blades, spears, and arrows filled the air—including shots aimed at the big tiger.

Mo Hua’s gaze sank.

The big tiger lifted its head. The gentleness in its eyes bled into a sanguine edge.

The “王” on its brow flared with soul-shaking dominance.

Terrifying demon power surged through its body.

Its black-and-white coat rippled under that power, even shining with a strange luster. The black turned blacker, fierce as a baleful god; the white turned whiter, holy and pure.

Black and white braided together—mysterious beyond words.

The tiger threw back its head and roared. Demon power detonated. Black-and-white demon qi flooded the entire tent.

In the seething miasma, the tiger’s massive body melted into the tide.

Veteran Golden Core elders of the Great Wilderness went pale, blurting:

“Black-and-white demon qi…”

“That’s not a tiger demon’s innate gift—what is it? Where did that abomination go?!”

Right then, one of the Golden Core elders jerked and shouted:

“Young Master—careful!”

Tuoba, still dazed, saw a flash of white—then pain ripped his chest before he could see a thing. Blood fountained.

He looked down. His heart-guard mirror lay in shards.

A savage claw-mark gaped across his chest.

“Protect the Young Master!”

“Kill that abomination!”

“Where is it?!”

“The demon qi is too thick—we can’t see a thing!”

Amid the din, ink traced across the ground and knitted into an array. An explosion answered it, and earthfire surged, blowing out a good half of the tent.

Before anyone could react, a streak of blinding white shot through the breach.

The night outside was deep and heavy.

The instant the white streak touched the dark, black and white flipped. The white glow on its body folded into ink-dark radiance. Its shape merged with the night, and like a rushing desert wind it sprinted into the distance. In a few blinks, it was gone.

It left behind only a single roar in the dark—the wrathful, imperious bellow of the king of beasts.

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