Witnessing with his own eyes Mo Hua, impervious to myriad evils, and effortlessly, like slicing melon and cutting vegetables, slaughter the legion of nightmare demons, Situ Zhenren fell into deep self-doubt.
Seeing his own demonic "offspring" cut down by Mo Hua, the evil god's true embryo also flew into a rage.
Its form grew a bit taller.
The ram-like horns atop its head became even more grotesque.
Ancient patterns transformed into jet-black scales, covering its skin like a malevolent armor.
This true embryo of the evil god was growing at a speed visible to the naked eye, and at the same time, its innate divine abilities were gradually awakening: black mist, blood claws, evil howls, scaled armor… countless means rose up one after another, all attacking Mo Hua.
But before Mo Hua—seasoned by countless battles—the newly awakened minor divine arts posed no real threat.
The black mist was dispelled by his fireballs; the blood claws were blocked by his golden body; the evil howls were no match for Mo Hua's dragon roar.
In terms of divine consciousness, the evil god's true embryo had only just been born, still an "infant."
Mo Hua, having long weathered array warfare, possessed a Dao-imbued pure golden body. Now, having surpassed the limitations of the great path and broken through to the Golden Core Realm of Twenty Ranks, Third Grade, his divine consciousness form was unrivaled, and his repertoire of divine techniques was unfathomably profound.
Each divine art he manifested was swift and piercing; every punch and kick carried overwhelming divine might, all supported by instantly formed formations.
The Great Wilderness evil god's true embryo was controlled, suppressed, bound, burned by fire, drenched by water… then further beaten down by Mo Hua's overwhelming fists and feet—continually forced into retreat, thoroughly humiliated.
Even the laws of his divine authority seemed ineffective against Mo Hua; though he radiated the awe of a deity, he could neither frighten nor subdue Mo Hua.
This was a battle of god-tier combatants.
A newly born evil god was being "pummeled" into the ground—such an unbelievable scene was unfolding before them.
Situ Zhenren gaped, truly believing for a moment that he was dreaming.
Yet…
Watching the fierce battle before him, Situ Zhenren frowned slightly.
It seemed Mo Hua truly held the upper hand.
But no matter how fierce his divine-consciousness attacks, he could only "humiliate" the evil god; he could not truly harm its core.
This nascent Great Wilderness evil god's true embryo, though appearing battered—beaten senseless by Mo Hua, covered in wounds—had not yet faced any "lethal" threat. In fact, its power continued to recover bit by bit, and its awakened divine arts grew ever stronger.
It seemed that Mo Hua, as this "formidable enemy," was exerting tremendous pressure upon it, forcing it to rapidly awaken and evolve, step by step.
All of Mo Hua's attacks had instead become a "whetstone" for the evil god's metamorphosis.
At this rate, the situation would become precarious…
Situ Zhenren's expression grew grave.
Perceiving that under his own attempts to "humiliate" it, the evil god's embryo was growing stronger bit by bit, Mo Hua's expression changed slightly, and he silently sighed in his heart:
"As befitting the Great Wilderness evil god—its embryonic form is hard to kill, the true form even harder."
Even though his divine consciousness had Dao-ized and already broken through to the Golden Core Realm, his various divine techniques nearly doubled in power, with his true strength he could still only suppress this newly born evil god's true embryo, keeping it from retaliating, unable to truly "tear it apart."
Moreover, this Great Wilderness evil god's true embryo, under his "tempering," was constantly growing stronger; its divine arts and techniques were becoming increasingly proficient.
If this continued, once it grew to a certain stage and awakened yet stronger divine powers, he would genuinely lose control.
"There's still a significant gap…"
Mo Hua sighed faintly in his heart.
Suddenly, his heart trembled; he heard a faint, strange sound by his ear.
This sound was obscure and archaic, as though an ancient divine language.
Mo Hua paused, looked up, and saw that the evil embryo, while countering his divine techniques with various divine arts, was also moving its lips, uttering the ancient tongue of gods, seemingly speaking to him:
"You bear… the aura of my true being…"
"Who… are you?"
Mo Hua vaguely understood its meaning, but he did not know the divine language, so he remained silent.
The evil god, seeing Mo Hua not answer, suddenly froze, its voice ancient and hoarse: "You… are not a deity?"
Mo Hua still did not respond.
The evil god's true embryo narrowed its gaze, its voice filled with shock, even tinged with an inexplicable excitement and fear:
"You… you have transgressed the taboo of the deities, you are… a heretic of the Heavenly Dao!"
Mo Hua was taken aback, then knitted his brow.
"Heavenly Dao heretic? Me?"
"A heretic!" the evil embryo roared.
As if spurred by the insult "heretic," the Great Wilderness evil god's true embryo's expression twisted; its innate memories began to awaken swiftly, the evil-fleshed body around it grew stronger, and an ancient and potent aura gradually stirred…
Mo Hua's expression changed; he thought: Not good!
In his perception, this evil god's infantile body was growing at an inconceivable speed, advancing step by step toward a full transformation into that true Great Wilderness evil god.
It was growing too fast.
Mo Hua no longer held back; he launched a punch imbued with surging golden light toward the evil god's head.
But in the next instant, a jet-black palm seized Mo Hua's fist.
A domineering evil will suppressed Mo Hua's golden divine consciousness.
The evil god's true embryo had already grown a head taller than Mo Hua; its palm, twice as large, was covered in primitive scales, its claws razor-sharp, gripping Mo Hua's fist tightly.
Mo Hua frowned, an icy glint flashing in his eyes.
"It has grown stronger again; I cannot prolong this…"
Seeing Mo Hua being suppressed, the evil god's true embryo's face twisted into a feral grin.
It began to seize the initiative, its fists and claws attacking Mo Hua at close range, accompanied by black mist and blood claws—its momentum surged. For a moment, it drove Mo Hua to the point where he could hardly lift his head.
Situ Zhenren saw this and his heart sank; he thought urgently: This is bad.
The Great Wilderness evil god's origins were too grand, its divine status ancient, its divine lineage profound; its growth was simply too rapid!
He could no longer contain it!
Meanwhile, the evil god's true embryo continued to grow stronger, and at the same time, it relentlessly pressed Mo Hua with increasingly fierce and dangerous techniques.
Its consciousness was also maturing continuously.
Because it had devoured too much resentful energy from blood-sacrificed cultivators at the moment of death, and since it had hatched from a human's divine embryo, and also because it had been born only recently and was still in its youthful stage, its divine status had not fully awakened. Thus, its character was interwoven with too much evil from humanity.
Compared to a terrifying evil god, the Great Wilderness lord at this moment resembled a powerful malevolent spirit born of "human nature's original evil."
The look it gave Mo Hua was full of mockery and disdain.
It even began, with ever more fluent and piercing tones, to ridicule Mo Hua:
"Is this all you've got?"
"With only this level of divine Dao skill, you dare to obstruct my descent—laughable indeed!"
It slashed out with a claw; blood claws emerged, raking across Mo Hua's arm, tearing a few gashes. It then forced Mo Hua back several steps, continuing to lunge forward, simultaneously pressing Mo Hua with fierce maneuvers and, in divine tongue, taunted:
"You are a heretic of the Heavenly Dao, daring to steal the path of the deities, transgress the great Dao's taboos, yet you do not aspire to devour the world's 'fodder-dogs,' to ascend above all beings. Even in your youth, unripe and immature, you overestimate yourself to oppose me—truly a fool with lingering mortal desires!"
The implications of this speech were profound, revealing too much information; Mo Hua was momentarily stunned, frowning as he said:
"'Devour fodder-dogs'?"
He did not know divine tongue, but seemed to understand. The evil god, seeing Mo Hua's "ignorant" expression, looked upon him with disdain, then its voice grew hoarse, adopting a lofty, solemn demeanor:
"Heaven and earth regard all living things as fodder-dogs; deities regard mortals as fodder-dogs."
"Fodder-dogs are sacrifices."
"Only by raising and devouring vast numbers of sacrifices can a deity consolidate and amplify its divine Dao, become the supreme celestial deity, soar above all laws of the heavens, merge with the Dao, and achieve eternal life…"
"And yet you have willingly fallen so low, consorting with such despicable fodder-dogs, destined to be forever separated from the celestial Dao. The path you know, cultivate, and pursue is utterly inferior…"
Mo Hua's gaze turned icy, showing no signs of agreement.
Mo Hua's gaze was icy, unconvinced.
The evil god sneered coldly, as if mocking Mo Hua's stubborn ignorance.
"A heretic is always a heretic—ignorant and unenlightened, unable to comprehend the Heavenly Dao."
But stalling for so long had been more than enough…
The evil god's eyes suddenly turned blood-red as it let out a hissed roar. A domineering wave of corrupted-principle will rippled outward, shaking all the demons and spirits in the area; their divine minds went into disarray, their consciousnesses muddled.
This, it seemed, was yet another newly awakened divine art of his.
Situ Zhenren felt his primordial spirit screech in pain, his divine force tremble. Under the oppressive weight of this evil will, heaven and earth fell silent—no sound anywhere.
Situ Zhenren froze, then quickly realized something; his expression changed drastically.
He turned to look at Wen Renwan and indeed saw Wen Renwan's lips moving, but no sound emerged.
"He's stripped away the principle!"
"Within this nightmare, no one can speak!"
"This is bad!"
Situ Zhenren immediately turned back to the evil god's true embryo. Sure enough, he saw the embryo suddenly swell in size again, evil thought-armor forming all around its body, making it strong and imposing. The two horns atop its head had grown even more jet-black and grotesque. Within them, a more powerful evil energy surged and condensed to a point, radiating a terrifying fluctuation.
By awakening this divine art and stripping away all principles, it temporarily silenced Wen Renwan.
No longer could the natural principle of motherly protection restrain it.
Now, by leveraging the innate divine arts of the evil god, it could form a killing strike: gathering all its evil power and, in an instant, completely obliterating Mo Hua—the greatest threat before it.
The evil god's innate divine arts were nothing less than top-tier divine-mind techniques.
And the power of such a divine-art killing strike was truly horrifying.
Even a deity could not withstand it.
Situ Zhenren's face turned ghostly pale, his whole body trembling with dread. He struggled to rush to Mo Hua's aid, but his divine force was exhausted, his treasures all shattered—he had no recourse. He could only watch helplessly as the terrifying evil will continued to gather.
Just as Situ Zhenren was filled with utter despair, a glint of golden light caught his eye.
It was a blade of searing gold.
Situ Zhenren turned to look and saw Mo Hua, confronting the evil god, calm and composed. His hands were empty, raised atop his head, and in his crystal-clear, glass-like eyes shone a radiance so fierce it was almost blinding.
Simultaneously, the Mountain-Opening, Gold-Breaking, Departing-Fire, and Gui-Water Sword Arrays manifested in sequence, and the ancient Taixu sword intent surged forth.
A heartbeat-stopping aura of sword Dao condensed in the palm of Mo Hua's hand.
"This is…" Situ Zhenren's pupils contracted, his face filled with astonishment.
A name he could scarcely have predicted—one he never expected to hear again in this lifetime—sprang to mind.
"Taixu Divine Mind… Sword-Transforming True Art?!"
Situ Zhenren's heart trembled, and his pupils jolted:
"No—this is not an ordinary Divine Mind Sword-Transforming True Art, but the ultimate form of divine-mind sword transformation… the God-Slaying Sword?!"
The God-Slaying Sword!
A tremendous shock crashed into Situ Zhenren's heart; his face went pale with disbelief:
"This child… how could he possibly wield the God-Slaying Sword?!"
"Is he the heir of the Lone Ancestor of the Taixu Sect?!"
"That's impossible…"
"How old is he? What is his cultivation level? How could he possibly learn the Taixu God-Slaying Sword, a secret only a peerless sword cultivator of the Taixu Sect's Feathered-Immortal Realm could even glimpse?!"
"Moreover, this doesn't look like an ordinary God-Slaying Sword—the sword is enormous…"
"What on earth… is happening?"
Situ Zhenren's mind spun, stunned and overwhelmed.
On the other side, the evil god's true embryo—once full of sneering contempt—now also paled at the sight.
From this sword technique, it felt a trace of genuine fear.
This was a fearsome sword art forged through the painstaking efforts of the greatest human cultivators—designed specifically to annihilate divine minds and even slay deities.
"You despicable heretic, scheming for so long to slay me with this sword art—everything before was just biding time…"
Anger flared in the evil god's true embryo's heart. It sneered at Mo Hua and said, "An evil god cannot die; you cannot kill me."
"If you do not treat all living beings as fodder-dogs, you cannot forge a true godly status."
"Your Dao of the divine is too shallow."
Mo Hua frowned slightly. After a moment's contemplation, his mind suddenly cleared, and he understood his own "path."
He looked at the Great Wilderness evil god's true embryo, his eyes deep as he spoke slowly:
"Heaven and earth are unkind, treating all beings as fodder-dogs."
"Deities are also among all things—so you too are a fodder-dog."
"If the living are your sacrifices, then you… shall be my sacrifice!"
The moment these words left his mouth, the heavenly mechanism trembled. In the void, a mysterious causal change occurred. A faint, barely perceptible principle of the Heavenly Dao infused into Mo Hua's entire being, imprinting itself on his fate.
If a deity uses living beings as sacrifices,
then he shall use the deities as sacrifices.
The evil god's true embryo's pupils trembled violently, and in an instant it exploded into rage, its face contorted grotesquely, yet its eyes betrayed a hint of panic. It let out a high-pitched shriek:
"Presumptuous! Arrogant! Ignorant! What are you?!"
Yet in its heart, it felt a great sense of dread and foreboding.
"This is no ordinary heretic!"
"I must, at all costs, utterly crush this heretic here; leave no trace of future trouble!"
Willing to pay any price!
At any cost!
The Great Wilderness evil god's true embryo glared with terrifying intensity, even to the point of depleting its vital energy, and began to draw on its primordial power.
A deeper, more sinister force of the evil god fused into its twin horns. The demonic energy between those horns grew darker still, even shimmering with a hint of void-like flicker.
This power drained all color from Situ Zhenren's face.
On the other side, Mo Hua's expression was equally grave.
But the arrow was already on the bowstring—he had to strike. His God-Slaying Sword had reached its final accumulation; the blade now appeared like a sky-cleaving sword, vast and magnificent.
In sheer momentum, Mo Hua and this juvenile evil god were evenly matched.
Yet in terms of primordial divine power, Mo Hua was somewhat inferior. If they truly fought to the death, the outcome would be uncertain.
Just as both of their finishing moves were about to collide—
Mo Hua's expression turned ice-cold. His pupils abruptly darkened, and an ancient, eldritch demonic aura—capable of severing sentiments and slaying all—rapidly merged into the God-Slaying Sword.
This sudden shift in sword-principle was so swift that Situ Zhenren couldn't even react.
The evil god's true embryo suddenly froze, then its eyes flew wide. In its cold, malicious gaze was pure disbelief:
"The aura of the Heavenly Demon?!"
"How could it be?"
"What is this brat… what exactly is he?!"
Before it could fully process, the "insidiously ruthless" Mo Hua let out a cold shout:
"Slash!"
Using his Dao-imbued pure-gold body and Twenty-Rank Golden Core divine consciousness, fully integrating the Qi Five-Element Sword Array, the Taixu Origin Sword Intent, and the terrifying Heavenly Demon Dao, he fused these complex, profound principles into a single sword. He forged what, to date, was Mo Hua's greatest and most powerful Taixu God-Slaying Colossal Blade.
At the word "Slash"—
The colossal sword, like an inverted Milky Way, toppled the horizon and thunderously descended, clashing against the evil god's terrifying divine-art killing move.
Interwoven five-colored golden light and surging black-red evil radiance roiled like titanic waves.
The entire evil god's nightmare trembled and twisted.
Situ Zhenren was caught in the maelstrom, feeling as though he stood at the eye of a terrifying divine-mind storm. His primordial spirit flickered like a candle in the wind, on the verge of extinction, yet each time he seemed about to vanish, a hidden force protected him, preventing him from truly being snuffed out.
But in Situ Zhenren's heart, tumultuous waves still raged.
This was the first time in his life he had seen human divine consciousness surge as violently as a storm tsunami.
After a long, shuddering quake, the storm of divine mind finally subsided.
Shaken but awakened, Situ Zhenren slowly opened his eyes, only to see the evil god's nightmare altar reduced to ruins.
Within that ruin stood Mo Hua, holding the colossal sword.
Opposite him, the evil god's true embryo lay cleaved in two from shoulder to abdomen.
Situ Zhenren's expression trembled in disbelief: "He actually… split the evil god apart?"
But moments later, the evil god's eyes moved. Situ Zhenren's heart clenched.
It wasn't dead!
This evil god… still lived!
Despite Mo Hua's lower cultivation, the God-Slaying Sword had indeed bisected the evil god. The Heavenly Demon Dao had prevented its divine body from healing, but still could not slay its primordial self.
The evil god's true embryo's body hung half-riven, its primordial core wounded. Since its birth, this was the first time it felt genuine lingering dread.
That indomitable divine-mind body.
That tremendously powerful God-Slaying Sword technique.
That ancient, uncanny Heavenly Demon Dao.
This "heretic" before it—whether man, god, or demon—was an existence even deities would fear.
But…
The evil god's true embryo stared at Mo Hua and sneered coldly, "An evil god cannot die—I told you, you cannot kill me…"
Mo Hua's face turned faintly pale. He nodded once. "I know. I cannot kill you."
After saying this, Mo Hua licked his lips.
Sensing danger, the evil god's face changed. "You… what are you going to do?"
Without a word, Mo Hua raised the colossal sword formed from his divine consciousness and charged forward. He cleaved the evil god's true embryo into countless fragments—black ichor pooled everywhere.
Then Mo Hua opened his mouth and, with a sudden inhalation, drew in the evil god's blood and flesh, swallowing it whole.
Witnessing this, Situ Zhenren nearly had his heart leap from terror.
He had never dreamed there could be someone in this world capable of carving a newly born evil god to pieces and then— Alive— "Eating" it?!
Such a monstrously callous, brutal, and terrifying scene shattered the old man's soul, sending chills racing through his entire body…