Outside the refinery shop, the faces of the children had more smiles.
Mo Hua sat at the head of the courtyard, eating spiritual meat.
This spiritual meat was a specialty of Solitary Mountain City, and though it tasted good and wasn’t particularly expensive, just thinking about the children outside being delighted over a bun…
Suddenly, the spiritual meat in Mo Hua’s mouth didn’t taste so good anymore.
But he wasn’t a picky person, and besides, the spiritual meat itself was innocent and should not be wasted.
Mo Hua still finished all the meat in front of him.
After finishing the meat, he had a bit of wine, watched the masters in the refinery shop playing rock-paper-scissors and wrestling, had his fun, and feeling tired, went back to his room to rest.
Master Gu had prepared a fine guest room for him.
Mo Hua lay on the bed, closed his eyes slightly to rest and clear his mind of the effects of the alcohol, preparing to get up to draw formations, but unexpectedly fell into a stupor and slept until just before 1 p.m.
He had that nightmare again.
In the dream, a pair of pitch-black, hollow eyes, filled with blood threads and terrifyingly evil, stared at him.
Countless mutilated bodies of the violently dead seemed to crawl up from the abyss, struggling to reach Mo Hua, gnawing at his divine thought “body”.
Mo Hua once again experienced the feeling of being weak, powerless, and in despair.
This time the feeling was even more real, clearer, more helpless.
This also meant that the power of the nightmare’s rules was stronger.
But Mo Hua’s expression was icy, without a trace of hesitation or fear.
As he was drowned by countless vengeful souls, gnawed and bitten, Mo Hua stood firm, relying on strong divine thought and will, considering everything before him as but “illusion”.
In his palm, a strand of divine thought sword light was intermittently condensing.
Who knows how much time passed before a bright light burst in Mo Hua’s eyes, the sword of divine thought formed in his hand, breaking free from the illusion of the “small self” in the nightmare; with a single sword wave, golden light surged, burying the countless ghastly vengeful souls before him.
The sinister and bloody gaze of the evil embryo disappeared.
Mo Hua awoke from the nightmare.
This time, he was more certain.
The true nightmare of the evil god carried a certain “rule” power, capable of distorting his divine sense’s perception, thus suppressing, or even to some extent, erasing his divine thought power, trapping him in a nightmare from which it was difficult to escape.
The power of the first nightmare wasn’t very strong.
This time, it was obviously much stronger than the last.
Why?
Is it because… I am closer to the source of this nightmare…
Mo Hua turned his head to look out of the window.
Outside was the endless solitude of mountains, covered by the night, dark, dead silent, desolate, eerie, like a terrifying giant silently devouring Solitary Mountain City.
Mo Hua’s gaze became slightly focused.
…
Early the next morning, after breakfast, Mo Hua said, “Master Gu, can you take me to walk around Solitary Mountain?”
“Solitary Mountain?” Master Gu was taken aback.
“Yes.” Mo Hua nodded.
Master Gu hesitated, “Solitary Mountain is rugged and messy, largely abandoned due to over-exploitation, there’s not much to see.”
Mo Hua replied, “It’s okay, I want to take a look.”
Master Gu pondered for a moment and nodded, “Alright.”
He arranged the matters of the refinery shop and then, alone with Mo Hua, followed a few abandoned rugged mountain paths into Solitary Mountain.
It was just morning, but there were already quite a few cultivators on the mountain, some of them children.
They carried bamboo baskets, heads down, picking through scattered and messy mine debris for anything possibly useful.
The cultivators lived off the mountain.
Solitary Mountain was originally their ancestral wealth, meant to provide for the descendants of Solitary Mountain’s families to live on.
But now the mountain’s resources had long been exhausted.
The descendants of Solitary Mountain could only pick up remnants on the “bones” of Solitary Mountain to exchange for some broken spirit stones, just barely getting by.
Mo Hua took it all in with his eyes, then continued forward.
As Master Gu had said, Solitary Mountain was extremely desolate.
Everywhere there were abandoned mine shafts, chaotic and disorderly. Dark mine entrances dotted the mountain, leading who knows where.
Some mountain paths were damp and gloomy, the mine debris underfoot exuding a strange smell with a trace of mine poison.
Mo Hua wandered for a long time but still found nothing.
In this place, he found no clues he was searching for, nor detected any signs of anything sinister.