"Uncle Gu's blood..."
"That means Uncle Gu really is trapped in the Thousand Spider Forest?"
"Blood means he encountered a fight. He was wounded, and he was at a disadvantage."
Mo Hua rubbed the bloodstain again.
The blood was nearly dry, which meant Uncle Gu had been injured for quite some time.
Clearly, he was being pursued by a powerful enemy and had been unable to escape.
"This is... a little dangerous."
Mo Hua's gaze darkened slightly.
He rubbed the bloodstain with his fingertip, then activated his divine sense and karmic arts to determine the whereabouts of the owner of the blood.
After a moment, his eyes narrowed.
He rose, activated his movement technique, and sped into the dense forest to the right.
Along the way, the trees were gloomy, and cold air seeped through the forest.
The ancient woods were covered in spiderwebs, corpses of all kinds of spiders and insects lying hidden in every corner.
A purple, highly toxic spiritual force drifted through the grove and across the slopes.
This was no ordinary trap.
It was a trap constructed through Unorthodox Path techniques.
The gloom of the forest and the dense demonic intent suggested that an even more ferocious entity was hiding within.
The entire lightless ancient forest was like one enormous spiderweb.
Deep within the woods, it seemed as though a pair of cold eyes were watching everything from the shadows.
Mo Hua's divine sense remained calm and sharp, allowing him to perceive things with exceptional clarity. He could vaguely sense that this mysterious entity possessed considerable cultivation.
But this unknown threat remained extremely well hidden.
Moreover, this was its territory. Mo Hua had only just arrived and knew nothing about the situation, so he could not see through its true form for the time being.
He could only hope that Uncle Gu had not already been eaten by it.
Mo Hua's expression grew solemn.
Following the karmic traces within the blood, he searched the ancient forest for a while.
On tree trunks, beside cocoons, and among the corpses of spider demons, he found traces of cultivator flesh and blood.
But that was all.
There were no further clues.
Sunlight could not penetrate the dense forest, and visibility was extremely poor.
The ancient trees were so tangled together that it was impossible to establish one's bearings.
When Mo Hua spread out his powerful divine sense, even his perception became hazy. Every direction seemed identical, making it impossible to distinguish one from another.
Even his karmic calculations began to distort.
It was as though an invisible divine sense magnetic field within the ancient forest was driving and influencing his calculations, causing them to gradually deviate from their original course.
Mo Hua circled around several times, only to find himself returning to the same place.
His heart sank.
"There really is... some kind of trick here."
He stopped calculating karma.
Instead, he relied purely on his divine sense to search for the aura of "living people" within the Myriad Spider Forest.
Actually, they did not necessarily have to be "living people."
Any moving "living thing" would do.
He searched in this manner for another half a day.
Yet everywhere he looked remained deathly silent.
Apart from dead spiders and dead insects, the entire forest seemed like a silent fog of death. There was not the slightest sign of life.
By now, Mo Hua had completely lost his way.
He had no idea where he was.
He frowned slightly.
Just as he was considering whether to resort to some more extreme, crude, and less polite methods to find his bearings, a very faint sound suddenly drifted over from afar.
It sounded as though someone was speaking.
Mo Hua concealed his form and followed the sound.
After walking several li, the voices gradually became clearer.
There really were people talking.
Although Mo Hua was confident in his divine sense, he still retracted it for safety.
He suppressed his entire aura to the limit.
His footsteps were as light as feathers as he slowly approached and carefully looked ahead.
There was indeed a group of people gathered in the forest.
They were all tall and burly, wearing worn-out armor. Three blue-green marks had been painted across their faces, their pupils were white, and murderous intent radiated from their bodies.
At a glance, it was obvious that these were people with blood on their hands.
Mo Hua frowned slightly.
These cultivators looked like rioters, but they were clearly different from ordinary rioters.
They were much stronger.
At the very center of the group sat a leader, chewing on some kind of meat.
The man was enormous.
Even while sitting, he was nearly as tall as an ordinary man standing upright.
His features were ugly and ferocious. His face was livid, his earthy-green muscles were hard as iron, and dark-green blood flowed through the bulging veins on his limbs.
He was clearly a living person, yet he looked like a green-faced, fanged "living ghost."
At that moment, this "living ghost" was wolfing down a roasted human leg, making his appearance even more ferocious.
His cultivation had actually reached the late Golden Core stage and was not far from the Golden Core peak.
Mo Hua's gaze sank.
Just as he was observing him, the green-faced living ghost suddenly stopped moving.
He abruptly widened his eyes, turned his head, and stared fixedly in Mo Hua's direction.
His voice was loud and harsh.
"Grrr!"
Mo Hua was startled.
The green-faced living ghost spat and spoke hoarsely.
"Fresh and tender... living human..."
The other "rioters" became excited when they heard this. They all turned toward Mo Hua, their eyes growing bloodshot.
The place where Mo Hua stood was clearly empty.
There was not the slightest trace of aura.
Yet they seemed certain that a fresh delicacy was right there.
These people, who had experienced extreme "hunger," seemed to have developed instincts that surpassed common sense.
Mo Hua frowned.
He simply dispelled his concealment and revealed himself.
Within the dim ancient forest, a black-robed figure silently appeared before them.
His face was impossible to make out, with only a fair chin exposed. His appearance was grim and eerie.
The rioters were startled and felt an inexplicable sense of fear.
But influenced by their bloodthirsty nature, their eyes became even more vicious and excited.
Mo Hua's eyes darkened.
He brought his fingers together, preparing to strike.
But the green-faced leader suddenly spoke cautiously.
"Are you one of Master Wu's men?"
The other rioters changed expressions upon hearing the name "Master Wu." A trace of fear appeared in their eyes.
Master Wu?
Mo Hua was taken aback for a moment.
Then his mind stirred.
He calmly nodded.
"Mm."
It was only a faint "Mm," spoken in an utterly flat tone.
Yet somehow, it sounded unfathomable.
The green-faced leader looked at Mo Hua's clothing, his silent concealment technique, and his deep, invisible aura.
Indeed, he had the appearance of a sorcerer.
The leader believed him to some extent, but he was still somewhat uncertain.
He looked at Mo Hua with vicious eyes and asked in a rough voice:
"What did Master Wu send you here for?"
Mo Hua thought for a moment before replying coldly, "You're too slow. Master Wu has been waiting for you for a long time."
The green-faced leader was startled, "Those people... are not easy to deal with."
Mo Hua sneered, "A bunch of Dao Court lackeys. What's so difficult about them?"
The green-faced leader no longer doubted him. He explained, "Master Wu should know that these Dao Court lackeys aren't ordinary lackeys.
"The one leading them is an Imperial Envoy from the Dao Court. His cultivation is only at the mid Golden Core stage, but he follows the orthodox path and his techniques are fierce. He's truly difficult to deal with.."
"But after pursuing them for so many days, we've already killed quite a few of them Dao Court lackeys."
The green-faced leader pointed toward the human leg he had been gnawing on.
"I reckon that in a few more days, that official Gu will be gutted open by me."
Mo Hua's eyes were cold.
He nodded approvingly.
"You've done well. Master Wu will reward you."
Upon hearing the word "reward," the green-faced leader's expression became somewhat displeased.
Only when a superior rewarded a subordinate could it be called a "reward."
He respected Master Wu, but he did not consider himself inferior to him.
However, sorcerers were all like this.
They had terrible tempers, arrogant dispositions, and narrow minds. They could not be offended.
The green-faced leader let out a gloomy laugh.
It was a deep, muffled sound, like a broken bellows.
Mo Hua's gaze swept across the man's expression as he silently read his thoughts.
The green-faced leader looked at Mo Hua and suddenly asked suspiciously, "I've never seen you before..."
Mo Hua sneered, "What? Have you seen every one of Master Wu's people?"
The green-faced leader said nothing more.
Instead, he asked, "Master Wu sent you to..."
Mo Hua pondered for a moment before saying, "We can't keep waiting. If we delay any longer, the situation may change."
"Master Wu knows that these Dao Court lackeys aren't easy to kill. That's why he specifically sent me to help you. We are to use thunderous means to wipe them out as quickly as possible and serve the greater plan."
The green-faced leader felt a chill, then looked at Mo Hua suspiciously.
"You will help me?"
Mo Hua deliberately released a trace of Golden Core pressure.
His cultivation was only at the early Golden Core stage, but his divine sense was far too powerful. Once he deliberately revealed it, it created an indescribably eerie pressure.
The green-faced leader did not dare underestimate him.
This was the aura of a sorcerer who had walked the Unorthodox Path for many years.
Even if he was only at the early Golden Core stage, he could not be underestimated.
Moreover, this person was Master Wu's "special envoy."
He must possess extraordinary methods.
With his help, they would surely be able to kill those Dao Court dogs sooner, flay and bone that Officer Gu, roast his flesh, and make soup from it.
At the thought of this, the green-faced leader was overjoyed.
That Gu fellow really was a tough bone to chew.
Over the past few days, they had pursued him and fought several battles, yet they had gained little and had even suffered losses themselves.
The green-faced leader nodded, "Good! With the envoy's help, I will surely kill these Dao Court lackeys to the last! After they are dealt with, there is still the real business to attend to."
Mo Hua nodded.
The green-faced leader stood up.
When sitting, he had been nearly as tall as an ordinary man.
When he stood, however, his size became even more astonishing.
He resembled a malformed little giant or an evil ghost from the mortal world, radiating terrifying might.
The green-faced leader's eyes flashed fiercely.
It was as though a living evil ghost had opened its eyes.
He ordered, "All of you, summon the troops. We'll make one push and kill all these Dao Court lackeys!"
Several men raised strange horns to their lips and blew.
The resulting sounds resembled the shrill cries of night owls, harsh and ugly.
Before long, answering calls came from afar.
Voices overlapped.
Trees shook.
One after another, armored, baleful, grim-faced "rioters" gathered.
A rough count put their number at two or three hundred.
Mo Hua's expression also sank slightly.
The green-faced leader roared, "Let's go. Time to kill."
He then led the crowd, walking at the very front.
The other thugs followed behind him, their eyes fierce and saliva dripping from their mouths.
Mo Hua's gaze flickered.
Like a ghost, he blended into the crowd as they set off to kill the Dao Court lackeys.
The Thousand Spider Forest contained a maze constructed through Left Path arts, as well as an unknown evil presence dwelling within it.
Both divine sense and karma would inevitably be affected.
But there was one peculiar thing.
In a dead forest filled with spider corpses and insect remains, the craving for the scent of living people had become a reliable means of finding one's way.
Mo Hua did not possess this ability.
He had never eaten people, after all.
But the group led by the green-faced living ghost all seemed to be experts at it.
Even Mo Hua, who excelled at concealing himself without leaving a trace, could be detected by them through the delicious "scent of human flesh."
Let alone Gu Changhuai and the other Dao Court cultivators.
The green-faced leader walked at the front, his enormous body leading the way.
His two ugly, twisted nostrils constantly sniffed the air, using the scent of living humans to determine their direction.
Mo Hua grew curious and secretly sniffed the air himself.
But apart from the stench of rot and insect corpses, he smelled nothing.
Let alone any delicious scent of living humans.
Mo Hua gave up.
At the same time, he felt somewhat relieved.
At least this proved that he was a normal person.
These brutes were extremely skilled at finding people.
And in order to avoid their pursuit, Gu Changhuai's group had clearly gone to considerable lengths.
Along the way, Mo Hua could see traces of what Uncle Gu and the others had done.
They had scattered foul-smelling medicinal pills, set traps, and used spirit-eye misdirection techniques.
But none of it worked.
After all, the green-faced leader and his men hunted by instinct.
So after only an hour, the green-faced leader found traces of Gu Changhuai's group.
"Found them."
The green-faced leader bared his teeth and grinned ferociously.
There were dense footprints in the forest, fresh bloodstains, and traces where someone had stopped to rest.
At last, Mo Hua also sensed Gu Changhuai's karmic aura through his karmic intuition.
His eyes lit up slightly.
But he remained patiently among the green-faced leader's group.
After walking for less than half an hour, the surroundings suddenly changed.
The area ahead was relatively open, but the ground was a complete mess.
Huge trees had been cut down and laid across the earth, forming a natural barrier.
Within the barrier, the soil had been disturbed in many places.
With a single glance, Mo Hua could tell that numerous formations had been buried beneath the ground.
Most were trapping formations and killing formations.
These formations were also extremely familiar to Mo Hua.
They were standard formations based on the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams, conventional yet practical.
They were among the formations frequently used by the Dao Court Bureau when handling cases.
But setting up so many formations at this moment meant that the situation was not good.
Mo Hua looked around and gradually understood.
Uncle Gu and the others must have been driven into a dead end.
Within the maze of the ancient forest, they could not determine their direction, and there was nowhere left to flee.
Under such circumstances, they could only exhaust all their resources and rely on the completed formations to make a final stand.
If they could hold their ground, they would at least have some breathing room.
But if they failed, all their preparations would be wasted.
After all, arranging and activating formations required a large number of spirit stones.
Once large quantities of spirit stones were fed into the formations, if the formations were broken or destroyed, there would be almost no chance to turn the situation around.
"To be forced to this point, Uncle Gu's situation must really be difficult..."
Mo Hua sighed and shook his head.
But the green-faced leader and his people were only sensitive to the scent of "human flesh" and were extremely dull when it came to formations.
They probably knew that traps had been laid beneath the trees ahead, but they did not know what kind of traps they were.
Seeing their "prey" directly ahead, the green-faced leader waved his hand.
A group of his men charged.
The situation immediately changed.
Killing intent erupted.
One after another, the formations on the ground lit up.
Water and fire worked together.
Earth trapped.
Metal killed.
Wood entangled.
Fire burned.
Formations were somewhat rigid and inflexible. They could only wait for prey to enter their range.
In single combat between cultivators, especially in clashes between experts, formations were cumbersome to set up and easy to see through, so they were rarely useful.
But in large-scale defensive counterattacks and group charges, formations were undoubtedly formidable weapons of slaughter.
The larger the scale, the greater the number of people, and the denser the charge, the more terrifying the killing power of formations became.
The green-faced leader's subordinates had made only one charge before they directly entered the formation field.
The water-and-fire killing formation instantly slaughtered more than twenty people, severely wounded another thirty, and injured many more.
The rest were horrified and hastily retreated.
Formations?!
They were all local cultivators from the Qingchou Prefectural Realm.
Although their hands were stained with blood and they had killed many people, they lacked powerful inheritances and had little experience dealing with formations.
Let alone facing so many formations at once.
Some men asked the green-faced leader:
"Chief, what should we do?"
The green-faced leader's expression was gloomy.
Although he looked like an evil ghost, he was cunning and selfish. He had no intention of leading the charge himself.
If he charged forward and exhausted his strength against the formations, that Gu fellow would surely hide in the shadows and attempt to kill him.
But although he did not understand formations, he knew that formations were limited in number and that their killing power was not inexhaustible.
Using lives to exhaust the formations was the only way.
In a year of calamity, human lives were worthless.
Were subordinates not meant to serve as cannon fodder?
Thus, the green-faced leader said:
"Keep charging."
The men hesitated upon hearing this.
The green-faced leader flew into a rage.
"Charge! Anyone who retreats before battle will be executed!"
Yet his men still hesitated.
Seeing that they refused to obey, the green-faced leader grew even more furious.
He grabbed a retreating deserter and tore him apart with his bare hands, then roared, "Charge!"
The others were terrified and could only steel themselves and charge again.
But the formations before them were far stronger than they had expected.
There were even several third-grade formations mixed among them.
Ordinary cultivators who charged in were simply throwing their lives away.
These details were invisible to the fierce brutes.
But Mo Hua saw them clearly.
He said nothing.
After two more rounds of charging, the formations erupted in a series of deafening explosions.
Another thirty or forty people died, while even more were severely wounded.
The green-faced leader finally realized that something was wrong.
His already gloomy face became even more livid.
He had not expected these Dao Court lackeys to possess such means, nor had he expected the formations they had arranged to be so powerful.
"This..."
The green-faced leader's expression was extremely ugly.
He thought for a moment.
Then, as though suddenly remembering something, he turned toward Mo Hua, who had remained silent among the crowd.
In a low voice, he asked:
"Master... do you know formations?"
His manner of address had become much more respectful.
Mo Hua stroked his fingers and counted the number of dead.
He felt that the casualties were about enough.
Only then did he slowly nod.
"A little."