Immortality Through Array Formations

Chapter 1965: Chapter 951: Tomb-Seeking Talisman (Part 3)

Everyone, except for Mo Hua, was a Golden Core cultivator.

These zombies were all only Second Grade. They could bite Golden Core cultivators but generally couldn’t kill them.

As a result, after walking for about an hour, the group that had been scattered by the zombies regrouped.

Mr. Hui and three tomb robbers.

There were also four other black-robed cultivators.

Mo Hua observed carefully and noticed that, besides Mr. Hui, only that rat who harbored malintent towards him was bitten by the zombies.

In other words, these two were ”material.”

The others, the one called ”Rock,” was a pure body cultivator, with skin like earth and stone, the teeth of ordinary zombies couldn’t harm him at all.

As for those four black-robed cultivators, they were extraordinarily powerful, and their black robes seemed to be some treasure, capable of concealing their aura and serving as protection.

Just now, when everyone was scattered by the corpse tide and chased by zombies, they weren’t injured, not even tearing their black robes.

Mo Hua felt a bit regretful.

He also wanted to see what these black-robed cultivators looked like.

After regrouping, everyone discussed briefly and planned to turn back to leave the forked path.

It could currently be asserted that this forked path was a dead end.

And this forked path was narrow and intricate, making directions hard to discern.

Therefore, the way back would still be led by Mo Hua.

And because in this group of people, only he was at Foundation Establishment, the zombies posed the greatest threat to him, so everyone was afraid he might be bitten by the zombies and poisoned to death.

The body cultivator named Rock, taking the lead, stood in front of Mo Hua like a ”shield.”

Mr. Hui and the black-robed gentleman stood on his left and right.

The rest followed behind, taking the rear.

The group maintained this formation, inching towards the exit of the forked path.

They encountered some scattered zombies along the way, but they didn’t pose much of a disturbance.

Mo Hua guided them while following the group forward.

His position was quite safe, but occasionally he felt a chilling sensation at his back, as if a pair of sinister eyes were watching him.

Mo Hua knew without thinking; it was that rat.

This one called the rat had remarkably accurate instincts.

For some reason, he was convinced that Mo Hua had taken Mr. Pi’s tomb-raiding token, so he was trying every means possible to seize it back from him.

”Earth Sect, Secret Department, tomb-raiding token...”

Although Mo Hua didn’t know what the Earth Sect’s Secret Department was, since Mr. Pi regarded the tomb-raiding token as a treasure, and the rat with ancestral tomb-robbing heritage was greedy for it, it signified that the token indeed hid a significant secret.

And this secret was related to the Earth Sect.

The Earth Sect enshrined one part of the ”Emperor Heaven and Earth Diagram,” the ”Earth Diagram.”

Mo Hua naturally couldn’t hand over the tomb-raiding token.

So far, no one dared to snatch anything from him.

Let alone that previously, the rat had turned over his storage bag, taking the spirit stones and spiritual objects within.

All these grievances were remembered by him.

”Can’t be left alive...”

Mo Hua silently resolved in his heart.

He certainly didn’t want a Golden Core with ill intentions eyeing him covetously on this tomb-robbing journey.

But the rat was a Golden Core, and he couldn’t kill him now.

Moreover, he couldn’t commit murder with so many people present, especially in front of his accomplices.

”Use him to test how to trigger evil spirits, how to stir evil thoughts, and to research the manifestation of evil thoughts’ corruption on high-rank cultivators...”

Mo Hua pondered silently.

But outwardly, he remained composed, focusing solely on guiding the way.

Under his guidance, the group broke through several traps, killed a dozen zombies, and bypassed countless corners, finally emerging from the forked path.

Once out of the forked path, the group returned to the original point.

Naturally, they faced the same problem:

Which of the five forked roads should they take?

Mr. Hui said, ”The one on the far right is a dead end, and we’ve walked through the middle one too. Among the remaining three roads, let’s choose a new one to try.”

Mr. Hui pondered for a moment, saying, ”Let’s go with the one on the far left.”

Mo Hua said nothing, and the others had no objections, so they all moved towards the left path.

As soon as Mo Hua entered the leftmost fork, after just a few steps, he sensed the formation layout around him, and immediately said, ”Something’s not right.”

”What’s not right?” Mr. Hui was stunned.

”It’s the same,” Mo Hua said.

”The same?”

”Yes,” Mo Hua nodded, mentally calculating, ”The leftmost path, the middle path, and even the other two paths, they’re all the same.”

”These paths are connected to the same fork.”

”If you walk along this path, or the middle one, the result is exactly the same: we’ll still be trapped in the branch paths filled with mechanisms.”

”This...” Mr. Hui frowned, ”So among these five paths, four are wrong paths, and one is a dead end?”

”Four wrong paths, but the remaining one is not a dead end,” Mo Hua said, ”My previous calculation wasn’t wrong. This is a fake layout of the Earth Formation, four false and one true. The path I led us on initially is the correct one.”

”But...” Mr. Hui’s gaze was heavy, ”That was indeed a dead end.”

Mo Hua shook his head and said, ”Formations don’t lie. If it is, it is; if it isn’t, it isn’t. Even if a path seems like a dead end, if the formation deduces it to be a life path, then it is a life path.”

As he said this, Mo Hua’s gaze was calm, his expression confident, inadvertently exuding a steady confidence.

This was the aura only a truly accomplished Formation Master possessed.

The pupil of the black-robed young master shrank slightly.

Even the black-robed elder glanced at Mo Hua in surprise.

Mr. Hui pondered for a moment, then nodded, ”Alright, let’s take another look.”

So the group retraced their steps and, following Mo Hua’s instructions, entered the fork on the far right from the beginning.

They entered the fork and walked straight to the end, where a dead-end stone wall blocked their way.

On the stone wall was an opening that Mr. Hui had previously punched through, revealing an unseen depth of the mountain behind it.

At a glance, it indeed seemed to be a dead end.

”If there is really a path, there should be a formation to break it, right?” Mr. Hui said.

Mo Hua shook his head, ”If there was really a formation, I would have noticed it. It’s precisely because there isn’t a formation, it can deceive people.”

Mr. Hui considered this for a moment and nodded, ”Makes sense.”

Since there was no formation, the only solution was to ”dig through” it.

So all the Golden Core cultivators took turns using various methods to excavate the mountain stone in front of them.

They dug for a long time without seeing an end.

Everyone was a little hesitant, but Mo Hua was resolute, ”Keep digging.”

All the Golden Core cultivators could only continue to follow Mo Hua’s instructions and dig deeper.

As they dug, they gradually noticed something unusual.

The mountain stone before them seemed naturally formed, but it wasn’t.

Its interior was composed of a mix of second and third-grade stone materials, unusually solid, but upon breaking it open, they found traces of artificial construction inside.

In other words, this wasn’t a natural mountain body but an artificial ”rockery.”

If not for the combined deep excavation efforts of six or seven Golden Core cultivators, it would have been impossible to detect.

Several of them looked back at Mo Hua, secretly amazed at his mastery of formations and sharp insight.

After digging for a while, Mo Hua suddenly called out, ”Stop.”

”What’s the matter?” Mr. Hui asked.

”There’s a formation now!” Mo Hua’s eyes lit up.

If there’s a formation, they can’t forcibly dig through it, or it might cause the formation to go haywire and lead to a mountain explosion and collapse.

Mo Hua took out a brush and ink, beginning to calculate the formation-breaking method.

After he broke the formation, Mo Hua said, ”Continue digging.”

The Golden Core cultivators dug for a while before Mo Hua called ”Stop” again, then proceeded to break another formation, and after breaking it, he let them continue digging.

They kept alternating between breaking formations and digging into the mountain.

No one knew how long it took, but finally, the soil and rocks in front collapsed, revealing an opening.

All present were invigorated.

Rock walked ahead, using his sturdy body to break through the opening, and then everyone followed in succession. When they looked up, they couldn’t help but be stunned.

Before them was a massive underground palace, eerie and majestic.

But this underground palace was not enclosed, with corridors layered over one another, visible all the way to the end.

At the far end of the underground palace was a huge deep pit.

Inside the pit sat a gigantic, resplendent coffin made of golden yellow copper ore.