Chapter 1087: The Creepy Smile
Chapter 1087: The Creepy Smile
Not only Mr. Xun, but several other Void Ascendant Elders who had practiced the Heaven's Mechanism Art and possessed a sense of Karmic Retribution, as well as Grand Elder Situ Zhenren of the Mysterious Mechanism Valley, all sensed something amiss. They turned their gazes to the distance, their bodies turning cold, their pupils dilating in shock.
A vast, chilling premonition of death made their hearts tremble.
...
At the core of the Blood Sacrifice Formation.
Master Tu, who was reviewing the Blood Sacrifice Formation, felt a sudden jolt of fear.
He sensed an omen, a bone-chilling cold that seemed to emanate from the netherworld.
Master Tu was shaken, then frowned.
The blood sacrifice was complete, the Divine Sovereign had been resurrected, and the grand formation was still active.
Although there had been a minor mishap, the Divine Sovereign had been "lured away."
But as long as they could find the Divine Sovereign, everything would still proceed according to plan.
Master Tu's face darkened. "What exactly went wrong? What...?"
Suddenly, the sense of Karmic Retribution fluctuated, and the image of Mo Hua, with his seemingly obedient but cunning gaze, flashed through his mind.
Master Tu was taken aback, his expression changing drastically.
"Mo Hua?!"
Mo Hua was the only unknown variable in the entire affair. He was the vessel for the ferocious deity.
But with his low cultivation level, poor spirit root, and weak physical body, what could he possibly do?
Master Tu lowered his head, using his divine perception to scan the Blood Rite Core Array on the giant beast's skeleton, carefully reviewing it once more.
Especially the part of the array that Mo Hua had drawn, which Master Tu had repeatedly checked.
"There's nothing wrong..."
Master Tu let out a sigh of relief, but his frown deepened.
Mo Hua had indeed followed his instructions meticulously, drawing the Blood Rite Core Array on the skeleton of the Ancient Beast of the Great Wasteland without any mistakes.
He had checked these arrays before and found no errors.
Now, after checking again, he still found nothing wrong.
Master Tu's expression was grim.
His sense of unease grew stronger.
Logically, no one could tamper with the entire Blood Sacrifice Formation right under his nose.
If there was someone, it could only be Mo Hua.
Mo Hua's divine perception, talent, and insight, as well as the favor of the deity, made even Master Tu, the great shaman of the Jade Splendor Domain, feel envious.
But Mo Hua's cultivation was low, his spirit root poor, and his physical body weak. At the mere Zhu Ji realm, his abilities were negligible.
The only thing he excelled in was array formation.
If he had left any hidden means, affecting the grand plan of the dark path, it could only be through array formation.
But... what kind of array could Mo Hua leave?
What could he possibly do under the watchful eyes of a Yu Hua cultivator, a Fourth-Rank Array Master?
Master Tu was skeptical.
But if all other possibilities were ruled out, the remaining possibility, no matter how absurd, must be the truth.
Seeing Master Tu's terrifyingly dark expression, Shangguan Wang frowned. "Master Tu, what's wrong?"
Among these Yu Hua cultivators, Shangguan Wang had the strongest personal desires and the least sensitivity to Heaven's Mechanism.
The Yu Hua cultivators from the Valley of Yin Corpses and the Demon Sword Sect, though cruel and bloodthirsty, were often suspicious and wary, and they also sensed a chilling fear.
It seemed something terrible was about to happen.
"Master Tu", the Yu Hua from the Valley of Yin Corpses said coldly, "What's going on?"
Master Tu stared at the array drawn by Mo Hua, his gaze dark, and shook his head. "I... don't know."
This response made the three Demon Path Yu Hua cultivators' hearts skip a beat.
If someone had set up a trap that even the cunning and calculating Master Tu couldn't see through, it was truly alarming.
Everyone's expressions darkened, and Master Tu's was the worst.
He even felt as if he could hear a dripping sound, as if something was counting down.
Counting down?
Master Tu was stunned. The current situation gave him a strange feeling.
It was as if a "teacher" had given him an exam and set a time limit.
He had to answer the questions on the exam within the time limit.
Otherwise, the teacher would "tear up the exam", rendering all his achievements and grand plans null and void.
But the problem was... where was the exam?
This cunning and shameless teacher had hidden the exam?
How was he supposed to take the exam without seeing the questions?
Master Tu's scalp tingled.
Time continued to "drip" away, each tick like a drumbeat in Master Tu's heart, making him feel like a student who couldn't find the exam questions in the middle of an exam, his anxiety mounting.
The Yu Hua from the Valley of Yin Corpses frowned. "Master Tu, did you... get tricked?"
"No..." Master Tu shook his head.
Words, actions, and expressions could deceive, but the intuition of Karmic Retribution often couldn't be fooled.
His premonition was unlikely to be wrong.
But... trickery?
The words triggered a thought in Master Tu's mind.
Trickery!
Mo Hua was using the array to "trick" him!
In other words, the array Mo Hua had drawn was a fake?
Master Tu immediately leaned down, closely examining the array Mo Hua had drawn, stroke by stroke, and finally realized something.
"Fake! All of it is fake!"
But... why was it fake?
Why?
Master Tu's mind raced, and he suddenly remembered what he had said to Mo Hua:
"A puzzle array is used to distinguish between the real and the fake..."
"The puzzle's surface is 'false,' the solution is 'true.' Only by seeing through the surface can one grasp the essence of the array."
At that moment, it was as if a bolt of lightning struck, and Master Tu's pupils constricted, his heart turning cold.
"This kid... used the array I taught him to trick me?!"
No... it was more than that...
Master Tu frowned and examined the array Mo Hua had left, realizing that what Mo Hua had done was far more complex than he had imagined.
A puzzle array has a false surface and a true solution.
But the line between true and false is hard to discern.
Mo Hua had retained the false surface but altered the true solution according to his own ideas, thus drawing a different array while maintaining the surface pattern.
By altering the puzzle, the surface remained unchanged, but the solution was vastly different.
Master Tu's face twitched, his heart filled with disbelief.
Mo Hua's ability to do this meant that his mastery of ancient puzzle arrays far exceeded that of a Fourth-Rank Array Master.
He could not only see through the false and discern the true but also alter the false and redefine the true.
This kid... he was playing the tiger!
From the beginning, he had been tricking him!
Master Tu's eyes turned red with anger, his heart aching.
But it wasn't over...
Now, they knew Mo Hua's trick with the puzzle array and where he had hidden the questions.
The next question was, what were the questions he had hidden?
Master Tu dipped his finger in blood, drew a blood pattern, and isolated one of Mo Hua's puzzle arrays. Then, using dark power, he activated the array's pattern.
Mysterious light shone, and the puzzle array's pattern changed, like a flower blooming, revealing the hidden array pattern beneath.
The array pattern was ancient and cryptic, exuding a sense of destruction.
Master Tu's heart skipped a beat at the sight.
Reverse Spirit!
Spirit Rebellion Annihilation Array!
At that moment, Master Tu wanted to tear Mo Hua, the "teacher" who had set the questions, to shreds.
A normal person, a normal array master, would never set up a Spirit Rebellion Annihilation Array, let alone at the core of a grand formation!
Master Tu's hands trembled.
At the same time, he realized a shocking fact:
The Spirit Rebellion Annihilation Array was a Second-Rank, twenty-pattern array!
Mo Hua's ability to set up this reverse spirit array meant that his divine perception had already reached twenty patterns.
At the Zhu Ji realm, achieving twenty patterns at the Jie Dan stage, breaking the taboo of the Great Dao, was a leap of an entire major realm.
Mo Hua's mind, his person, was truly a reverse spirit!
But Master Tu didn't have time to be shocked.
Time was running out, and Mo Hua, this reverse spirit teacher, had given him a reverse spirit question, and imprinted it at the core of the Heaven-Sundering Blood Rite Formation.
If he couldn't solve this problem, all his efforts would be in vain.
A thousand years of hard work, all for naught.
Master Tu suppressed his murderous intent and began to think about how to solve Mo Hua's challenge.
First, the reverse spirit array was intact, meaning it hadn't been triggered.
Mo Hua clearly didn't want to blow himself up, so all the reverse spirit arrays were hidden as the "solution" beneath the "surface."
As long as the reverse spirit array wasn't triggered, there wouldn't be a collapse.
But Master Tu knew that Mo Hua hadn't set up these reverse spirit arrays just for fun.
He must have left a means to "ignite" them, using the reverse spirit array to dismantle the Blood Sacrifice Formation.
A Second-Rank reverse spirit array, in theory, couldn't dismantle a quasi-Third-Rank Blood Sacrifice Formation.
But it was more than enough to destroy the core of the Blood Sacrifice Formation.
Once the core was destroyed and the array eye's power supply cut off, the entire Blood Sacrifice Formation would be temporarily disabled.
At that point, if the Qian study forces attacked, the Demon Path cultivators, without the protection of the Blood Sacrifice Formation, would be doomed.
This was likely Mo Hua's plan.
He wanted to "destroy the formation and silence the mouths."
The question was, what means had Mo Hua left to trigger the reverse spirit array?
Master Tu considered destroying the reverse spirit array directly but hesitated, afraid to act.
Doing so would be like "tearing up the exam."
If the reverse spirit array used a destructive method to ignite, it would immediately explode upon destruction, and it would be too late to regret it.
But leaving it alone?
As long as the Blood Sacrifice Formation continued to function, the reverse spirit array wouldn't activate, right?
Master Tu frowned, realizing how naive his thoughts had been.
This was the Spirit Rebellion Annihilation Array, inscribed at the core of the grand formation. How could he afford to neglect it?
Moreover, Mo Hua’s plans were far from simple.
There must be other conditions to this “exam”…
Master Tu suddenly recalled the “drip, drip, drip” sound he had sensed intuitively. He then released his divine perception, carefully analyzing Mo Hua’s “puzzle,” and eventually found a unique pattern among the array nodes, distinct from all the others.
Master Tu severed the pattern, breaking the puzzle, only to find a sundial-like formation with the twelve earthly branches inscribed on it.
Master Tu was taken aback.
“A Sundial Array!”
This was an extremely obscure type of timing formation, rarely studied by most array masters.
But Mo Hua was special. He was the Qianxue Zhen Dao Champion, a prodigy who had delved deep into the array arts of the Tai Xu Gate.
Master Tu wasn’t surprised by any array Mo Hua knew.
If Mo Hua could master a Second Rank, twenty-pattern Spirit Rebellion Annihilation Array, he could certainly learn an obscure Sundial Array used for timing.
At that moment, Master Tu finally understood the true nature of Mo Hua’s “lesson”:
The Sundial Array was counting down.
Once the countdown ended, the Spirit Rebellion Array would activate, causing the Blood Sacrifice Formation to collapse.
His thousand years of effort would be destroyed in an instant.
His task was to unravel Mo Hua’s intricate Spirit Rebellion Array and prevent it from destroying the core of the Blood Sacrifice Formation before the countdown ended.
This was the “gift” left by Mo Hua, who deserved a thousand deaths.
The Sundial Array continued to turn.
The pointer circled around, inching closer to the final “deadline.”
Once the sundial reached the end, the exam would be over, and the Spirit Rebellion Array would explode.
An unprecedented sense of urgency weighed heavily on Master Tu’s heart, as if a massive boulder were pressing down on his chest.
Master Tu took a deep breath.
At this moment, no one could help him. He had to do his utmost to solve Mo Hua’s “exam.”
“Spirit Rebellion Array…”
Master Tu’s brow was furrowed with a cold, grim expression.
Though a Fourth Rank array master and a favored servant of the evil deity, he truly didn’t know how to deal with a Second Rank Spirit Rebellion Array.
Such an array was not something that could be easily mastered; it required both insight and opportunity.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t be called a “deadly” array.
A deadly array was generally considered an “excellent” array, but it was also known as a “lost” array.
Because they were rare, difficult to learn, and even harder to master and pass on, most deadly arrays had become extinct.
Master Tu didn’t know how to handle the Spirit Rebellion Array, let alone how to deactivate it.
Rushing to deactivate it could result in more than just a loss of points.
What if he severed the connection between the Sundial Array and the Spirit Rebellion Array?
This would stop the countdown, at least temporarily, preventing the Spirit Rebellion Array from exploding.
It would be like stopping a clock during an exam, thus extending the “test.”
Master Tu tried it, but it didn’t work.
The Sundial Array was peculiar, surrounded by intricate puzzles with no discernible pattern.
Master Tu couldn’t figure out how it operated or how it was connected to the entire Spirit Rebellion Array in such a short time.
Clearly, the cunning Mo Hua wouldn’t allow such a “cheating” loophole.
Master Tu had to abandon this approach and focus on how to directly tackle the Spirit Rebellion Array.
His vast array knowledge flashed through his mind.
As a Fourth Rank array master, Master Tu quickly formed a plan:
Since he couldn’t deactivate it, he would have to dismantle it, isolating each part and severing the connection between the Spirit Rebellion Array and the core of the Blood Sacrifice Formation to prevent the core from being destroyed.
Master Tu used his sharp fingers to dip in human blood and inscribe blood patterns on the giant beast’s skeleton, using the Great Desolate Blood Formation to isolate Mo Hua’s puzzle arrays.
Shangguan Wang and the other two watched Master Tu’s serious expression as he drew the array, exchanging glances and frowning in silence.
With time running out, Master Tu had no time to explain anything to them.
The sundial continued to turn, and time slipped away.
Master Tu’s fingers moved swiftly, inscribing blood patterns to dismantle and isolate Mo Hua’s arrays.
However, the more he dismantled, the more Spirit Rebellion Arrays he found.
These arrays were tightly bound to the core of the Blood Sacrifice Formation.
Almost every pattern of the Spirit Rebellion Array corresponded to a node in the core of the grand formation, and if one exploded, it would quickly spread through the entire formation, maximizing the destructive power of the Spirit Rebellion Array.
Not only that, but all the Spirit Rebellion Arrays were interconnected, meticulously designed to work together like sharp “bone-scraping knives,” dissecting and analyzing the core of the Blood Sacrifice Formation from top to bottom, inside and out.
Master Tu’s fingers trembled, and he was shocked by another realization:
This level of mastery was beyond the capabilities of an ordinary array master.
Only a chief array master, who had built a grand formation and had a comprehensive understanding of its core structure, could possess such profound array knowledge and skill.
This meant…
Master Tu’s pupils dilated, his eyes filled with horror.
Could it be that Mo Hua, a sect disciple at the Zhu Ji realm, was a chief array master?
He had barely lived for over twenty years and had already built a grand formation on his own?!
Master Tu felt a profound sense of shock, as if his thousand years of life had been wasted.
Mo Hua was truly a prodigy of unparalleled genius.
Master Tu couldn’t believe it.
But the array wouldn’t lie. If Mo Hua knew it, he knew it; if he didn’t, he didn’t.
The array knowledge before him was undeniable.
Master Tu felt as if a massive mountain had been placed on his back, the weight of it almost crushing him.
He realized that his opponent was not just a talented array master, not just a high-ranking Second Rank array master, and not just a simple Qianxue Prefecture Zhen Dao Champion.
Mo Hua was a monstrous prodigy, a genius who could understand and master deadly arrays and ancient puzzles, a prodigy who could build grand formations at a young age.
Such talent could not be measured by the word “genius.”
Ordinary array geniuses couldn’t even touch the edge of this level of mastery.
For the first time in his life, Master Tu felt “fear” towards a Zhu Ji cultivator.
This monstrous talent filled Master Tu with an indescribable pressure, making him subconsciously think, “This child must not be left alive, or my life will be over.”
If such a monster were allowed to grow, to advance in cultivation and array skills, who in this world could match him?
Who would be worthy to compete with him?
Who could afford to compete with him?
Master Tu clenched his teeth, drenched in cold sweat.
Now, he faced a “test” left by such a monster.
But Master Tu had no choice.
He had to endure the immense pressure and the fear of Mo Hua’s terrifying talent, remain calm, and solve each of Mo Hua’s challenges one by one.
But time was running out.
Mo Hua, the devious “instructor,” had hidden his questions too deeply, and the time left for Master Tu to “answer” was insufficient.
The danger of the Spirit Rebellion Array.
The complexity of the puzzle formation.
The intricate structure of the grand formation.
Mo Hua, Zhen Dao Champion, a god-like Jie Dan array master, a prodigious array genius, and a chief array master… all these terrifying titles.
Especially the sundial, continuously ticking down, adding to the sense of urgency.
All of this made Master Tu feel as if he were drowning in the depths of the sea, suffocating under the mounting pressure.
His defenses were on the verge of breaking.
And soon, the countdown of the Sundial Array would end. The pointer, having circled and ticked away, was approaching the final deadline.
Time was almost up.
Yet there were still large sections of the Spirit Rebellion Array left to handle.
Master Tu had barely completed a third of the “exam.”
“Finished!”
Frustration and despair finally overwhelmed Master Tu, and he lost his composure.
Seeing the sundial about to reach the end, he punched the Sundial Array, shattering it.
The Sundial Array stopped.
But nothing happened.
Master Tu hesitated for a moment, his mind gradually calming, then he frowned.
“Nothing happened?”
Was this Sundial Array a fake?
But the next moment, something strange occurred.
The broken Sundial Array began to change, its lines shifting to form a small, bizarre smiley face.
The face seemed to mock Master Tu.
And within the smiley face, there was a pattern of the Spirit Rebellion Array.
Master Tu’s pupils dilated, and he suddenly understood.
The Sundial Array was a fake!
From the beginning, it had been a decoy!
Its countdown had no real significance!
Even if it reached the end, it wouldn’t explode.
Mo Hua couldn’t accurately predict his own escape timing, and if he miscalculated or something went wrong, he would be killed too.
So, he didn’t set a real countdown. The Sundial Array was just a “formality.”
But he must never touch the Sundial Array because it was the trigger for the Spirit Rebellion Array’s destruction.
Destroying the Sundial Array was like lighting the fuse of the Spirit Rebellion Array!
The cunning Mo Hua didn’t play by the rules.
So, this “exam” had no real “questions.” The true “question” was the Sundial Array, designed to mess with his mind.
Never touch it!
Otherwise, it would “rip the exam” and trigger the self-destruction!
Master Tu’s face turned pale, and his heart turned cold.
He had been “toyed with”…
Everything was part of Mo Hua’s twisted plan.
He had been manipulated from start to finish by this devious, heartless little devil.
The strange smiley face on the Sundial Array mocked Master Tu.
Then, a jet of pitch-black, twisted spirit energy emerged from the bizarre smile, seeping into the Blood Sacrifice Formation.
The Heaven-Sundering Blood Rite Formation began to collapse…
(End of Chapter)
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