Chapter 703: Divine Comedy and Divine Authority
Chapter 703: Divine Comedy and Divine Authority
These strands of pure golden divine marrow were like flowing liquid gold, dazzling and awe-inspiring, imbued with profound mysteries, and seemingly containing the principles of the grand dao flowing within them.
According to Lord Huangshan, pure golden divine marrow was a tier higher than the pale golden divine marrow.
It was a truly remarkable treasure!
Mo Hua's face lit up with a smile, and without hesitation, he opened his mouth and swallowed all the pale golden divine marrow and a small amount of pure golden divine marrow in one go.
These divine marrows had been purged by the tribulation lightning, eradicating any traces of will within them, leaving them pure and uncontaminated.
Mo Hua consumed them without any hesitation.
As soon as the divine marrow entered his mouth, it transformed into strands of golden filaments, like bloodlines, seeping into Mo Hua's incarnation of divine thought.
An ancient and profound aura of principles enveloped Mo Hua's entire being.
Mo Hua's incarnation of divine thought gradually merged with the golden divine marrow.
His divine incarnation became more translucent, and on his skin and within his "flesh," pale golden patterns began to emerge.
His eyes also shone with a more intense golden light.
After only a moment, Mo Hua's expression turned cold and distant.
His delicate and cute features now exuded an air of authority.
A sense of superiority, transcending the mortal realm and towering over all living beings, emanated from his divine thought.
Divinity began to consume humanity.
Mo Hua's facial expressions faded, and the emotions in his memories grew fainter.
"This isn't good..."
Mo Hua thought to himself silently.
He quickly tried to recall the insights he had gained about the divine path during his enlightenment.
One shouldn't view divinity as something to be feared or revered...
Humanity and divinity are both paths to the Dao.
Cultivators seek the Grand Dao, whether they are human or divine, or even the myriad things, creatures, and laws of heaven and earth; they are all part of the "Grand Dao" and abide by its principles.
Since this is the case, there is no need to fear or exalt divinity.
Embrace humanity and temper divinity.
The unity of humanity and divinity, in harmony with the Grand Dao, and immersed in the Dao heart—this is the path I must tread!
This is the path to enlightenment and the Grand Dao of heaven and earth that I must strive for with my supreme divine consciousness!
In his sea of consciousness, a clear and ancient sound resonated, causing the Daoist stele to vibrate in response.
Mo Hua's mind suddenly cleared, and his thoughts became lucid.
The cold and piercing golden light in his eyes gradually softened, taking on a gentle warmth as if showing compassion for all beings.
The sharpness of the Great Thousand Divine Dao was now hidden within his eyes.
The golden divine marrow also began to break down, being absorbed and transformed into fine strands of divine "bloodlines." They flowed along a profound and enigmatic trajectory, similar to the pattern of the Heaven-Mystifying Formation, throughout Mo Hua's divine incarnation, weaving and ultimately merging completely.
Divine marrow and divine thought became one.
Divinity and humanity united.
In a subtle way, Mo Hua felt that his understanding of the "Dao" had deepened, and his Dao heart had undergone a slight "metamorphosis."
At the same time, a word surfaced in Mo Hua's mind almost instinctively:
"Divinization of Divine Thought..."
"Divinization of divine thought?!”
Mo Hua was taken aback and furrowed his brows.
He was almost certain that he had never heard anyone, any demon, or even any deity—mainly Lord Huangshan—mention these four words before.
These four words seemed to be etched into the "divine marrow," and as he gained insight into the Grand Dao, they naturally surfaced in his mind.
"What does 'divinization of divine thought' mean?"
Mo Hua struggled to comprehend the full meaning.
Does it mean that divine thought comprehends the Grand Dao and becomes one with it? Going by the literal meaning, that should be the interpretation.
But is it really that simple?
The Grand Dao is vast and profound; how could it be so easily comprehended? And what exactly does it mean to become one with the Grand Dao?
Mo Hua's frown deepened as he racked his brains, but ultimately, he could only sigh in resignation.
It was beyond his understanding...
"My cultivation experience is still lacking, and my knowledge of divinity is insufficient. Pondering endlessly on my own and obsessing over trivial details are not the right approaches. It's better to find someone to seek guidance from when I have the time..."
Mo Hua nodded slightly and temporarily set aside the four words, "divinization of divine thought."
He had a hunch that these words, obtained from the "divine marrow" and related to the "divine" and the "Dao," were definitely not to be taken lightly.
Mo Hua then surveyed his sea of consciousness and found that everything had returned to calm.
The Black Water River God was dead.
The will of the evil god had been eradicated.
He had consumed the divine marrow.
The only imperfection was that he had only consumed the divine marrow and not the divine thought.
This Black Water River God seemed to have completely transformed into an incarnation of the Great Desolation Evil God. Apart from the divine marrow, his own evil thoughts had merged with the will of the Great Desolation Evil God and were wiped out by the tribulation lightning.
With the advancement of the divine marrow, the divine thought also improved.
Consuming only the divine marrow could increase divine rank but not the level of divine consciousness.
Although there was a slight improvement, it was negligible and could be ignored.
After annihilating the Black Water River God and consuming a significant amount of divine marrow, including a few strands of higher-tier pure golden divine marrow, Mo Hua's divine consciousness had deepened, the golden color in his divine thought had intensified, and his power had increased.
However, without consuming a demon, the level of his divine consciousness could not advance.
He was still one step away from the late foundation establishment stage of seventeen patterns.
This one step away caused Mo Hua a great deal of distress.
"Is there anything else I can 'eat'?"
Mo Hua pondered for a moment and looked around, searching his sea of consciousness, but found nothing.
The Black Water River God, or rather the incarnation of the Great Desolation Evil God, had been thoroughly eradicated, leaving nothing behind.
"As for the others..."
Mo Hua replayed the events before and after entering the fishing village in his mind, looking for any "stragglers" among the demons that could help him make up for the gap in his advancement to the seventeen-pattern divine consciousness level.
However, it seemed there were none.
Even if there were any in the collapsed dream of the River God, they wouldn't have survived.
Outside the fishing village, the demons were made of flesh and blood, not demons.
What about the leeches? Those leeches could also be considered a type of demon.
Mo Hua thought for a moment and shook his head.
They were a bit too disgusting for his taste.
Moreover, although those leeches were sinister and filthy, the amount of evil thoughts they possessed was not significant. Even if he consumed them, it would barely make a difference.
Furthermore, they drifted in the real world.
Mo Hua did not possess any divine thought techniques that could be used to slaughter them in the physical world.
His divine thought sword was still at the beginner stage and was only incredibly sharp within the dream world created by divine consciousness and in his own sea of consciousness.
It couldn't be used in the real world.
Unlike that sword cultivator senior, who had refined his sword into qi and his qi into intent, unifying sword, sword qi, and sword intent into one.
Mo Hua sighed.
Hungry one moment, full the next. After a meal, the hunger returns.
Now that he was full, he would go through a period of hunger again.
The next time he wanted to eat, who knew when that would be?
"It's not easy to achieve enlightenment through divine consciousness," Mo Hua thought to himself.
However, one shouldn't be greedy. Asking for both demonic essence and divine marrow was too much...
There probably wasn't anyone who could afford to keep him well-fed and satisfied all the time.
Even a demonic god would likely struggle.
Mo Hua nodded and withdrew from his sea of consciousness.
In the river god temple within the fishing village, Mo Hua, who had been meditating with his eyes closed, slowly opened them. He saw Gu An clutching the black cloth and Gu Quan holding a stick, while the others surrounded him with wary gazes.
Gu An glanced at Mo Hua's eyes and, seeing their clarity, breathed a sigh of relief. However, he still felt uneasy and asked, "Young Master..."
"I'm fine," Mo Hua reassured him with a smile.
Only then did everyone relax, and Gu Quan lowered his stick.
"Let's go back," Mo Hua said cheerfully.
This trip could be considered a complete success.
Yu Dahe's two children had been rescued.
Guo Jianglong had been captured.
The other black-robed men, aside from those who had died, had also been captured.
The dream of the river god temple, which had been under the control of the evil god, had been destroyed, and most of the fisherman cultivators who had been offering their faith had been saved.
The river god had been chopped up by him.
The Black Water River God had also been tricked to his death by him.
It could be said that he had accomplished a great deal of merit.
This trip had also yielded significant gains.
He had learned the basic divine formation patterns, the beginner's technique for transforming divine thought into a sword, and the causal clues to the Grand Void Divine Sword Manual, which was hidden in the broken sword of that senior sword cultivator...
In addition, he had consumed a large amount of divine marrow and absorbed a lot of demonic essence.
His "divine rank" had undergone a further qualitative change.
Although his divine consciousness had not yet reached seventeen patterns, which was a bit regrettable, one should always be content and not too greedy.
Overall, he was nine-tenths satisfied if not entirely.
Hearing Mo Hua's instructions, everyone got up and left the river god temple.
Mo Hua was in high spirits, and his steps were much lighter.
However, as soon as he stepped out of the river god temple, Mo Hua paused, feeling a sense of unease.
He felt as though he had overlooked something...
In his heart, Mo Hua had a premonition.
It was as if he would be returning the pearl and keeping the box if he left just like this, missing out on something very precious...
Something very precious... What was it? Mo Hua frowned and stopped in his tracks.
When Gu An and the others saw this, they also stopped and whispered, "Young Master, is something amiss?"
Mo Hua shook his head, turned back, and looked at the river god temple, deep in thought.
"Something's not right..."
"A 'god' is based on an object."
Divine thought cannot exist independently of reality.
Everything in the evil god's nightmare followed this principle.
In reality, the fisherman cultivators worshiped the river god, and in the nightmare, the villagers knelt in the square; in reality, there were blood-fleshed demons kept in the dojo, and in the nightmare, there were demons in the rear palace;
In reality, there was a river god temple, and in the nightmare, there was a grand hall for the river god...
And in the nightmare, there was an "altar"...
Didn't that imply that there should also be a real altar in reality, corresponding to the one in the dream?
But now, he hadn't discovered the real altar in reality.
This didn't make sense.
"Where is the real-world altar?"
"Or did the evil god deliberately hide it?"
Mo Hua felt that this was very likely.
He looked at the river god temple, recalling everything that had happened in the dream, and then realized a problem.
The layout was wrong.
As an array master, he had set up array formations for many cultivation buildings and was sensitive to architectural layouts.
The layout of the river god's grand hall in the dream was different from that of the river god temple in reality.
The grand hall in the dream was more spacious.
The river god temple in reality didn't seem odd at first, but now that he was looking at it again after leaving the dream, it felt noticeably narrower and shorter, as if...
Someone had divided it from within? Mo Hua was startled. He returned to the river god temple, released his divine consciousness, and carefully examined the surroundings. Finally, he noticed something amiss.
There was a faint trace of a divine formation within the river god temple!
Mo Hua followed the wall, tracing the faint divine formation aura, and finally discovered its source behind the statue of the river god.
The divine formation was subtly inscribed on the wall, obscuring the aura behind it.
Mo Hua's eyes lit up, and he turned to say, "Little Brother An, Little Brother Quan, help me break through this wall!"
Gu An and Gu Quan were taken aback but didn't refuse.
Together, they used their Late-Stage Foundation Establishment might to break through the wall, which took about the time it takes an incense stick to burn.
The wall itself didn't have any reinforcing formations, only the divine formation concealing the aura behind it.
So it was hidden but not particularly sturdy.
Once the wall was broken, a strong and sinister aura rushed out.
It was the aura of the evil god!
Moreover, within this aura was a profound, complex, and indescribable ancient essence.
It was like the ancient law of a deity.
Mo Hua couldn't help but remember the inexplicable longing he had felt when he first stepped into the fishing village and saw the soil stained with blood.
His little heart was pounding.
There was a hole in the wall, and the inside was dark and gloomy.
Mo Hua released his divine consciousness outside the wall to probe, and when he found no other auras or demonic beings, he said to the group, "I'll go in and take a look. Wait here."
Gu Quan worriedly said, "Young Master, it's eerie in there, and there might be danger. We'll go with you."
The others nodded in agreement.
They didn't know what was behind the hole, but the profound aura emanating from it made their hearts pound and sent chills down their spines.
This didn't seem like a place for humans.
"There's a dangerous formation inside. It's very dangerous, so I can go in, but you can't," Mo Hua said solemnly.
Gu An and Gu Quan were taken aback but then nodded, feeling that it made sense.
If the formation was dangerous, it wouldn't be a good idea for them to go in. They might end up causing more harm than good...
Only Little Mo could handle formations.
Thus, Mo Hua proceeded through the cave entrance and into a hidden passage concealed behind the statue of the river god.
The passage was dimly lit and not very long; after only a few dozen steps, Mo Hua reached the end.
At the end, there was a faint and eerie green candlelight, mixed with a dream-like mist of blood, exuding an ancient and terrifying aura.
Yet, it also felt vaguely familiar.
Mo Hua raised his head and saw, as expected, an altar.
The altar's setting was almost identical to the one in his nightmare.
At the center stood a river god statue made of gold and stone, with a human body and a fish head, but with two ram horns on its head, giving it an evil and bizarre appearance.
Below the river god statue was an offering table.
The table was filled with fish and other offerings, but among them seemed to be fragments of human flesh and bones.
In the center of the offering table was a fish bowl made of translucent glass.
However, the offerings had already rotted, and the fish bowl contained only stagnant water.
Perhaps due to the destruction of the nightmare, the death of the evil god, and the lack of worshippers, the entire altar was enveloped in decay and silence.
Mo Hua circled the altar twice but didn't find anything of value. After a moment of contemplation, he reached out and pushed the river god statue.
The statue was made of heavy gold and stone, and while it wasn't particularly large, it was quite heavy. Mo Hua struggled to push it, but eventually succeeded, and then he naturally sat down on the vacant spot.
As soon as he sat on the altar, an ancient divine aura descended upon him.
It was similar to the experience he had in the Magic Cave of Mount Bi.
In an instant, it seemed as if countless demons and monsters were bowing before him, and infinite divine mysteries were converging on the altar, "offering" their reverence to Mo Hua's position.
However, this time, there was also a difference.
This was an altar that had already been constructed and had been operational.
And Mo Hua himself had also changed.
After consuming a large amount of divine marrow, his divine consciousness had undergone a further qualitative change, bringing him one step closer to the "divine realm."
The divine marrow within Mo Hua's body began to circulate, emitting a faint golden light, and his eyes turned dark golden, their gaze filled with authority and an unfathomable depth.
He seemed like a true "deity" who had descended upon the altar.
With the arrival of the "true" god, the altar bestowed upon him the true authority.
Mo Hua's divine consciousness trembled as he felt countless grand dao principles flashing before him like a meteor shower.
The beams of light intertwined and transformed, eventually merging into a vast stream of light.
Like a towering tree reaching for the heavens, it branched out and covered the entire world.
Mo Hua sat on the altar, his clear eyes taking in the extreme beauty and terror of the intertwining and transforming beams of light, forming a grand dao torrent akin to the mythical Cosmic Tree. He couldn't help but be stunned and lost in awe.
The altar shone brightly for a moment, as if calibrating its position.
After a short while, the world fell silent.
Mo Hua realized that he was now situated on a tree of divine light.
This tree was composed of the flowing light, or to be more precise, a portion of the grand dao principles.
While this tree was not small, it was far from the infinite vastness of the Cosmic Tree that overshadowed the heavens and the earth.
It was a tree that symbolized a portion of the grand dao principles and the...
Divine Authority!
Mo Hua's thoughts stirred, and he indeed felt a connection between his divine consciousness and the tree of divine authority.
The tree of divine authority was now under his control.
However...
"What is divine authority?"
"What exactly is the authority of the gods?"
"Also, whose divine authority does this tree belong to?"
The River God's? Mo Hua thought about it and felt that it was unlikely. While the altar ostensibly worshiped the River God, it actually paid homage to the Great Desolation Evil God.
So, the authority he had stolen... belonged to the Great Desolation Evil God? Mo Hua's heart skipped a beat.
He examined the tree of divine authority, which was now connected to his divine consciousness, and noticed that it was lush with branches and nodes.
However, most of it, especially the top portion, was shrouded in mist.
With his current abilities—both in terms of divine consciousness and divine rank—he was unable to penetrate the mist and aspire to the ultimate divine authority.
In other words, what he had stolen was only a fraction of the Great Desolation Evil God's authority? It seemed he wasn't yet qualified to claim the true pinnacle of divine authority.
Mo Hua nodded slightly and continued to study the tree of divine authority.
The tree of divine authority had deep roots and lush branches, with numerous nodes at the junctures.
And each node seemed to correspond to a shrine, an altar, an incarnation of the evil god, and...
Countless demons and evil spirits.
The more Mo Hua observed, the more shocked he became.
This was the true "authority" of the gods.
To cultivate followers, expand their influence, and through the authority of the divine tree, command countless demons and evil spirits.
However, Mo Hua still couldn't quite understand...
What was the mechanism behind the divine authority? How did it function? What exactly was the power of the Lord of Great Desolation? How did the demons attack? Mo Hua frowned, deep in thought, his mind still clouded with confusion.
Just then, Mo Hua's peripheral vision caught a glimpse of something, and he was suddenly startled.
He noticed that on the tree of divine authority, one particular node was exceptionally bright.
This node seemed extremely important and unique, devoid of any trace of evil or bloodlust. Instead, it exuded a pure and rich aura of childhood innocence.
This aura was very familiar to him.
Mo Hua's eyes narrowed as he whispered,
"Yu'er..."
(End of Chapter)
Chapter end
Report
