Chapter 267: The Cliff
Elder Yu finished speaking, then suddenly slammed the table and roared furiously, "Truly damnable!"
More than two hundred years had passed, and in that time, so many Demon Hunters had vanished in the depths of Black Mountain.
Some, of course, had fallen to the fangs and claws of beasts.
But among those, who knew how many were killed by those villains lurking in the mountains, their corpses dragged away and hidden deep within?
The key point was, no one had noticed for all these years.
Elder Yu thought for a moment and realized, it was likely *because* Black Mountain was so perilous that the disappearance of cultivators seemed perfectly normal.
Those villains had used that danger as a perfect cover, murdering people without leaving a trace.
A chill crept into Elder Yu's heart.
This group had committed countless evils, plotted for generations—their scheming ran deep indeed!
He took a deep breath and turned to Mo Hua.
"I'll send word down. Whether this matter is true or false, everyone should be on guard. Your movement technique is good, but still, be careful."
Mo Hua nodded. "Don't worry, Elder Yu. I'll be cautious."
Elder Yu nodded with satisfaction.
If not for Mo Hua's keen mind uncovering this hidden thread, even after another hundred years, they might never have realized such danger lurked upon Black Mountain.
To sleep with a tiger by one's bedside—how perilous indeed!
Elder Yu sighed heavily, his brows furrowing tight.
He spread the news about the deep mountain.
When the Demon Hunters heard it, they were all thunderstruck.
Among those who had vanished over the years were their fathers, elders, brothers, and friends.
Demon Beast hunting had always been dangerous—life and death uncertain. When someone disappeared, what could they do?
They had only been able to bury their grief and keep living.
But now, learning that such a hidden evil existed within the mountains—that those "disappearances" might actually have been brutal murders, their remains never found—their hearts filled with both shock and rage.
From that day on, every Demon Hunter entering the mountains stayed fully alert, searching both for traces of the Criminal Cultivators and for the landmarks marked on the map.
Yet still, no clues were found.
Those villains had hidden themselves for two or three centuries, it was indeed difficult to uncover them so quickly.
Though filled with righteous fury, the Demon Hunters could do nothing.
...
Within the inner ranges of Black Mountain, Mo Hua sat cross-legged atop a large boulder.
Before him lay the deep mountain, shrouded in heavy mists that blanketed the ridges.
He extended his Divine-Sense, but all he perceived was a tangled blur of chaotic spiritual residues, threads of spiritual energy in every color, interwoven like skeins of thread, veiling everything within the inner mountains.
"Black Mountain's great fog… can conceal the Abyss-Marsh…"
Mo Hua murmured the phrase again, then unfolded the map and began comparing landmarks along the border between the inner and deep mountains.
The fog in the deep mountains was thick, charging straight in without direction meant certain death.
For the Criminal Cultivators to have entered the deep mountains, they must have possessed a secret path.
If Mo Hua's guess was right, the bald monk's map was, in truth, a *guide* leading into the deep mountain.
When those criminals, condemned by the Dao Court Division and hunted with nowhere left to run, had this map, they could use it to find the hidden route inward.
Otherwise, with fog this dense, even local Demon Hunters couldn't navigate, let alone outsiders.
If it was indeed a guide, then it must lead *from* the inner mountain *to* the deep mountain.
That explained why the map had felt both familiar and foreign—familiar because it showed the inner mountain, foreign because it showed the deep.
If he could locate the landmarks shown on the map, he could pierce the fog, enter the deep mountain, and find where those villains hid.
But with only this incomplete map, finding the precise spot would not be easy.
The markings were rough and hasty—clearly a copy, and an incomplete one at that, missing large portions of terrain.
No one knew who had copied it, nor how it had ended up in the bald monk's hands.
The monk must have killed someone for it, intending it as a fallback route.
After all, a Criminal Cultivator not only kills others but risks being killed himself.
With this map, if his luck ran out, he could flee into the deep mountain—a place to hide and survive.
But since the map was incomplete, he had never found the entrance.
And though he prided himself on his movement technique, he had still fallen into Mo Hua's hands before ever reaching the deep mountains—imprisoned in the Dao Prison.
Perhaps he had withheld the truth then, still clinging to false hope.
After his hoarded treasures were seized and his savings of many years lost, he must have thought—if ever he escaped, the deep mountains would be his only refuge.
As it would be for all such desperate fugitives.
Now that Mo Hua had a lead, he at least had direction.
After several fruitless days of searching, he finally found a place that resembled the map by six or seven parts.
It lay right at the border of the inner and deep mountains.
The ridges on both sides rose and fell, facing each other, like two titans leaning in support.
Though technically within the inner range, the fog here was thicker. A faint aura of the deep mountain drifted out from the mist.
Mo Hua's spirit lifted.
Holding the map, he compared and advanced step by step.
But soon, his path came to an abrupt end.
Before him loomed a cliff.
Vast, endless, and sheer.
Below—an abyss that plunged into fog, depth unknown, inspiring a bone-deep dread.
Mo Hua's heart sank.
After so many days of searching, he had finally found this place, and it was a dead end.
To give up now… he was unwilling.
He studied the surroundings again, thinking:
"'Black Mountain's great fog can conceal the Abyss-Marsh'… The 'Abyss-Marsh' could mean the abyss of sin… or it could mean an actual abyss."
"If that's the case—could they be hiding *beneath* the cliff?"
Mo Hua's eyes gleamed.
It wasn't impossible.
"Then what should I do? Jump straight down?"
He leaned over the edge and glanced downward... instantly, his hair stood on end.
The cliff was far too deep.
A fall would surely shatter him into dust.
"Maybe… maybe it only *looks* deep because of the fog?" he muttered hopefully.
He found a large rock nearby, heaved it to the edge, and pushed it off.
The rock disappeared into the mist—
a faint *crack* echoed, as if it struck the cliffside, rolled… and then silence.
"Truly bottomless…"
Mo Hua extended his Divine-Sense, scanning the surroundings.
In the pale expanse of his spiritual perception, countless traces mingled: thin, barely visible wisps of spiritual energy; murky yellow miasma; pale fog; and faint, indistinct outlines of trees and stone.
Still... no path.
Mo Hua sighed.
"Perhaps… it isn't here."
He searched several more days, yet found nothing.
For now, he could only set the matter aside.
Any Demon Hunter entering the mountains would keep an eye out, many eyes see more than one; perhaps they'd uncover a clue.
Mo Hua, however, had another task to attend to.
He had completed the *Nine and a Half Layers of the Spirit-Reversal Formation* and could now visit Mister Zhuang to learn the Concealment Array.
Once he mastered it, even with his slightly flawed spiritual root, he could still perform concealment arts.
*(End of Chapter)*