Chapter 273: Black Mountain Fortress
Chapter 273: Black Mountain Fortress
Mo Hua was stunned as he stared at the sight before him.
"Black Mountain Fortress!"
Hidden deep within the heart of Dark Mountain was a fortress, its ancient gate appearing centuries old.
The gate was splattered with blood, likely from the decapitated heads of victims, their blood staining the surface and emitting a nauseating stench over time.
It was both eerie and uncanny.
"Midnight, three beats to ask for direction." Mo Hua muttered to himself.
So that was what "asking for direction" meant—killing and offering a human head as a token of one's sincerity. Only then would the gate to the Black Mountain Fortress reveal itself.
The opening of the gate signified that the sinful cultivators within had accepted you.
Indeed, after a moment, accompanied by an ancient and irritating creak, the massive gate of the Black Mountain Fortress slowly swung open.
The plump cultivator's face was filled with madness as he straightened his robe and stepped into the fortress.
Once he was inside, the gate creaked again and slowly closed, gradually disappearing from view.
The plump cultivator was gone without a trace.
Mo Hua's eyelid twitched.
So that was how one entered the Black Mountain Fortress...
Hidden so deeply, no wonder it had remained undiscovered for so many years.
Moreover, it seemed that only those with blood-stained hands could enter. Those like that fat cultivator, who had taken six lives, were truly sinister.
He had befriended the skinny cultivator, intending to use him as a living token. When the time came, he would behead him and use his head to enter the fortress.
He probably never cared about the skinny cultivator, now lying headless.
The path of cultivation was treacherous, and the human heart was difficult to fathom.
Mo Hua had learned this lesson once again and took it to heart.
It was best to be cautious around unfamiliar cultivators, especially those one barely knew. After all, one could only recognize a person's face, not their heart.
At the same time, Mo Hua had learned something new.
If he ever had to make a move, he would ensure that his strike would be as swift and unexpected as that of the plump cultivator.
"What should I do now?" Mo Hua frowned as he pondered his next move.
Should he try to sneak in and take a look?
There was something uncanny about this Black Mountain Fortress, and he felt uneasy not knowing what lay within.
At the very least, he wanted to get a rough idea of how many sinful cultivators were inside.
Just a quick glance, without alerting anyone...
Mo Hua thought to himself.
But how could he sneak in?
Mo Hua was perplexed.
The mountain gate of the Black Mountain Fortress was likely protected by a concealment array, and it was probably denser than the one on the mountain path.
One could easily miss it if they didn't carefully scan the area with their spiritual sense.
Now that the gate was closed and concealed, it likely wouldn't open again unless someone else "asked for direction." Mo Hua certainly couldn't throw a human head as a means of knocking.
Moreover, even if he could conceal himself, approaching from the front might still lead to discovery.
And if he was found out, it would be dangerous.
"What should I do?" Mo Hua wondered.
Although the mountain gate had disappeared from view, its outline remained clear in Mo Hua's sea of consciousness.
Using his spiritual sense, Mo Hua inspected the Black Mountain Fortress, his thoughts racing as he devised a plan.
In the world of cultivation, arrays were integral to every aspect, especially in architectural design.
While the Black Mountain Fortress was eerie and uncanny, it hadn't appeared out of thin air. It was constructed by cultivators, and its concealment, defense, and early warning systems were all array-based.
Furthermore, there was likely a skilled array master within the fortress. In that case, the entire fortress might have been built relying on arrays.
Since arrays were the foundation, there was a solution to his dilemma.
After all, arrays were Mo Hua's forte.
Maintaining his concealment, Mo Hua circled the mountain gate, forming a hypothesis in his mind.
The Black Mountain Fortress was built against the mountain, nestled within its embrace. Where the mountain range opened up, the gate stood, and high walls likely extended from either side.
Mo Hua climbed up the peaks on both sides and indeed found tall walls.
While the mountain gate was concealed by the array, the side walls were not.
Concealment arrays were probably difficult to learn and draw, so they could only hide the gate and not the entire fortress, including the side walls.
Among the defensive arrays were earth and stone arrays, earth and wood arrays, and some soil-stabilizing arrays. Most of them were composite arrays with a few solitary arrays mixed in.
There were also some arrays on the walls that Mo Hua hadn't seen before, but their patterns resembled the Compass Mother-and-Child Array and were also composite gold-based arrays.
Thus, Mo Hua speculated that these were likely early warning arrays.
The front was concealed to prevent discovery, while the sides were reinforced with defensive and early warning arrays to guard against sneak attacks by cultivators.
Mo Hua nodded in approval; the array design was quite reasonable.
It should be sufficient to deter ordinary cultivators, and even a typical array master might not spot any flaws.
However, Mo Hua had personally designed and overseen the implementation of all the arrays on the largest pill and artifact forges in Tongxian City, so he was intimately familiar with first-rate architectural arrays.
While the arrays on Black Mountain Fortress were cleverly designed, they were constrained by the array master's limited vision and scope, resulting in a furtive mountain fortress with many crude elements.
To Mo Hua's discerning eye, there were numerous flaws.
Moreover, the arrays on the mountain fortress were likely the work of a single array master.
Painted over an extended period, the older and newer arrays overlapped, with some even conflicting and only loosely connected.
Ordinarily, array masters were slow in their work.
Only a select few, like Mo Hua, who practiced arrays daily and had an innate talent for them, coupled with his sharp spiritual sense due to his study of the Heavenly Deviation Technique, could paint arrays with exceptional speed.
It was understandable, then, that a lone array master's work would have such shortcomings.
Mo Hua was reassured that in some aspects, this array master fell short of his own capabilities.
After circling the fortress a couple more times, Mo Hua gained a basic understanding of the arrays and located a weak point. He sat down cross-legged, retrieved his brush and ink from his storage bag, and prepared to start drawing.
The best way to counter an array was to unravel it.
Breaking an array would create too much noise, and with his current cultivation, Mo Hua couldn't break the fortress's arrays anyway.
Moreover, as Mr. Zhuang had told him, the true testament of an array master's prowess was in their ability to unravel arrays.
Mo Hua kept this lesson in mind as he began his work.
First, he unraveled the early warning arrays to avoid detection by the cultivators inside. Then, taking advantage of the mutually destructive nature of certain array patterns, he disabled the interconnected earth and stone arrays and earth and wood arrays in front of him.
This small section of the array was independent and not part of the larger composite arrays surrounding it, so disabling it wouldn't raise any alarms.
As he finished unraveling the array, the array patterns flickered and turned gray, losing their effectiveness.
The corner of the wall, which served as the array's medium, also dried up and crumbled, becoming soft due to the loss of the array's power.
Mo Hua extended his spiritual sense to ensure no one was around, then secretly took out a small dagger and began chipping away at the wall corner.
In addition to the Thousand-pound Rod, Chen Shifu had also refined a small dagger for Mo Hua, intending it to be used for peeling fruit.
Now, this dagger proved useful for chipping away at the wall corner.
Mo Hua took breaks in between chipping away at the wall, recovering his strength and spiritual power, and ensuring no one was around before continuing.
After an unknown amount of time, he finally created a small hole.
Mo Hua was covered in dust and dirt, but his eyes shone brightly.
"Success!"
Now he could sneak inside for a look!
Being young and small in stature, Mo Hua was able to fit through the small hole, and it was unlikely that anyone would notice his intrusion.
After resting to restore his strength and spiritual energy, Mo Hua once again cast the Concealment Technique and activated the Concealment Array to ensure he was well-prepared. Then, he carefully crawled through the hole and into the eerie depths of Black Mountain Fortress under the cover of the dark night.
Black Mountain Fortress, which had stood for two to three hundred years, now welcomed its first little cultivator who chose not to enter through the main gate.
(End of Chapter)
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