Chapter 987: Slaying the Divine Out-of-Body

Taixu Gate, north of the disciples' residence, in the secluded mountain forest.

The sunlight was bright and beautiful, ancient trees reached for the sky, forest leaves were lush green, the scenery was imbued with faint clouds and mist, dyed with golden edges by the sunlight, quiet and elegantly beautiful.

In the mountain forest, Mo Hua practiced his Divine Sense Transformation Sword alone.

On the periphery of the mountain forest, a large white dog sat with its head and chest held high, its gaze bright and sharp as it looked around, standing guard for Mo Hua.

In its heart, Mo Hua was already "big brother."

It also had self-awareness and voluntarily became big brother's "little follower," staying in the small woods outside to guard Mo Hua, not letting others disturb his sword practice.

Of course, this was only one of the reasons.

There was another reason:

When Mo Hua practiced his sword, the overflowing divine sense fluctuations were too terrifying. The large white dog found it somewhat unbearable, so it ran to the small woods outside to hide.

In the mountain forest, in front of a towering ancient tree.

Mo Hua stood still and focused, his eyes filled with powerful and varied intentions, manifesting into sharp and dazzling sword intent, piercing through the air and striking the ancient tree in front.

Killing intent filled the air, one sword after another.

In the mountain forest, heart-palpitating divine sense fluctuations rose and fell.

But divine sense was originally ethereal, not within the scope of what could be seen by the eyes.

Therefore, despite Mo Hua practicing Taixu Gate's sword dao forbidden technique, the divine sense killing and stirring vigorously, from the surface, the forest was still calm and sunny, peaceful and quiet. Occasionally, a mountain wind blew through, but other than that, there was no trace of movement.

Only the large white dog at the edge of the forest occasionally felt waves of shock and terror.

After practicing for a long time, Mo Hua sat on the ground to rest, reviewing everything in his heart. He shook his head.

"Not very good..."

His previous estimation was correct; only by forming a core with his divine consciousness and further consolidating his divine sense foundation could the Zhan Shen Sword leave his body and be released outwards.

His Zhan Shen Sword did indeed leave his body and had preliminary divine sense killing power.

But the moves were crude, and correspondingly, there were many drawbacks.

First, the execution was too slow, and the consumption of divine sense was too great.

The Zhan Shen Sword was the ultimate form of the Taixu Divine Sense Transformation Sword True Secret, one level stronger than the Jing Shen Sword.

Not to mention Mo Hua's Zhan Shen Sword, which was a fusion of various dao, a "big mishmash" style Zhan Shen Sword, incorporating the sword arrays of Duan Jin, Kai Shan, Li Huo, and Gui Shui, fused with Taixu Sword Intent, and also the Taishang Zhan Qing Dao...

With such sword dao laws fused one by one, it not only made the sword too slow but also consumed a huge amount of divine sense.

Basically, after Mo Hua unleashed two swords, he had to rest for a while.

Also, his eyes would hurt, very much.

When the Zhan Shen left the body, it used the eye orifices as carriers to bear the divine sense sword.

Mo Hua's physical body was originally weak. Furthermore, although he had now formed a core with his divine sense, his cultivation and physical body were only at the Building Foundation stage.

His divine sense had become strong, while his physical body remained weak.

Therefore, when the divine sense sword left his body, the pressure on his eyes became even stronger.

Moreover, the sword light of the divine sense transformation sword was originally sharp.

Holding the sword light in his eyes for a long time felt even more like a needle pricking pain.

The last problem was the low success rate of the Zhan Shen leaving the body.

Since morning, Mo Hua had practiced more than ten times, but not every time could he successfully make the Zhan Shen Sword leave his body and be released outwards.

First condensing, then leaving the body, operating two things at once, sometimes the Zhan Shen Sword form would extinguish.

The sea of consciousness had a boundary between the virtual and the real, the eye orifices had an inner and outer division. The divine sense sword would occasionally be hindered by these barriers, stuck and unable to leave the body.

Even if it left the body, the subsequent divine consciousness was insufficient, the divine sense was unstable, and the sword intent would dissipate before even being chopped out...

Mo Hua sighed slightly.

The Zhan Shen Sword leaving the body, using an illusory divine sense sword to chop real flesh and blood enemies, seemed very powerful. But in reality, when truly practiced, there were problems everywhere.

He hadn't even practiced it proficiently, let alone use it in actual combat to fight with people.

However, Mo Hua was not discouraged.

Cultivation was originally like this.

Any method was just a "law," an external "technique."

Even after learning and mastering it, it was still very difficult to truly apply it.

Therefore, after cultivating a method, one still needed to continuously practice, continuously practice, and continuously correct and improve through actual combat...

Only then could one deepen their understanding of the method, thereby truly mastering it, truly integrating and penetrating.

Only by truly integrating and penetrating would a cultivator in future actual combat, even more severe life and death fights, not panic, not fear, and be able to freely and skillfully use their painstakingly comprehended and physically practiced sword moves and methods.

Mo Hua calmed down and began to focus on thinking.

Relying on his own cultivation knowledge, cultivation experience, and comprehension of the divine sense dao, he thought about how to optimize and improve the problems of cultivating the Zhan Shen Sword leaving the body, bit by bit.

The mountain forest was quiet, branches and leaves were green.

Sunlight cut into broken shadows, sprinkled on Mo Hua's body.

Mo Hua sat quietly, his divine consciousness focused, merging with the mountain forest.

As he thought and thought, his heart moved slightly, and he gradually had some ideas.

"Since the divine sense transformation sword is too strong and incorporates too many arrays, sword arrays, and sword dao, the burden is too heavy... then I cannot be greedy and should appropriately subtract..."

"Only fuse the five elements sword array to urge the Zhan Shen Sword to leave the body."

"Subsequently, appropriately add some Taixu Sword Intent."

"As for the Taishang Zhan Qing Dao, just set it aside temporarily..."

This one came from Old Ancestor Dugu's mouth.

But Mo Hua was also not certain that the one who taught him was really Old Ancestor Dugu.

The matters of the back mountain were mysterious and confusing; he fundamentally could not see through them.

Therefore, this Taishang Zhan Qing Dao, although it had infinite wonders, had a suspicious origin and exuded a strange evil. It was temporarily better not to let it leave the body and be released.

And by removing these, the difficulty of the divine sense leaving the body was almost reduced by half.

Although the power would also decay, being able to completely control one's own power was one's true ability.

And with the subtlety of the divine sense transformation sword, if it could leave the body, even half the power would actually be sufficient.

Removing the Taishang Zhan Qing, removing half of the Taixu Sword Intent, reducing the fused dao by half, correspondingly, the load would lighten, the execution would be faster, and the actual combat effect would be better.

Among the techniques in the world, only speed is unbreakable.

This was taught to him long ago by Grandpa Kui.

Better to be a little faster than to seek to be an inch stronger.

The problem of the Zhan Shen Sword condensing was probably solved.

The next problem was the release problem.

And leaving the body for release must use both eyes as orifices, breaking the virtual and real boundary between the sea of consciousness and the present world, only then can the divine sense transformation sword be completely released.

In some sense, this problem was more fatal.

If at a critical moment, the divine sense transmission is obstructed, the virtual and real boundary cannot be broken, and the divine sense sword cannot be successfully released, then it's over.

Like two cultivators fighting with swords desperately.

The other person's sword has already chopped to your neck, but your sword cannot yet be unsheathed, then you can only be stupidly killed.

Mo Hua's expression was solemn.

He did not want to die "stupidly."

"Must find a way to ensure one hundred percent that the divine sense transformation sword can leave the body..."

But the method of leaving the body was originally not something Mo Hua at this realm could learn.

He was "over the syllabus" too much, to the point where there were fundamentally no referable precedents. He could only grope bit by bit himself, according to his own situation, to conduct improvements.

Mo Hua pondered for a moment, thinking of some teachings from Old Ancestor Dugu before.

According to Taixu Gate's most orthodox Divine Sense Transformation Sword True Secret, a "sword" was needed as a medium for leaving the body.

Mo Hua was not an orthodox sword cultivator; he did not have this sword.

Therefore, he could only use both eyes as a medium.

But using the eyes as orifices, the divine sense transformation sword was obviously a more complex and profound method.

With Mo Hua's current cultivation and sword dao attainments, it was fundamentally impossible to control it stably.

If it was not stable, it was easy to fail. Once it failed, it would be finished.

"Need to add another medium to ensure stability..."

But what should he add?

He did not have a natal magic treasure, not even an embryo had been nurtured.

Besides his eyes, his physical body also had no other suitable medium...

Mo Hua frowned, racking his brains for a long time. Finally, relying on his profound and abstruse array knowledge, from the laws of the first-grade thirteen-pattern Five Elements Source Array, he found a trace of inspiration.

Spiritual power!

The core of the Five Elements Source Array was to borrow divine sense, transform it through the array, amplify the power of the five elements, thereby elevating the power of the five elements class dao methods.

This showed that spiritual power and thought power, seemingly two completely different cultivation powers, had interconnected origins.

Spiritual power could fuse with divine sense.

Then, to a certain extent, it also meant that spiritual power could act as a medium for "divine sense."

This process was very complex and necessarily involved certain great dao laws. Otherwise, the Five Elements Source Array would not be Five Elements Sect's town sect absolute array.

But Mo Hua did not need to conduct too complex a transformation.

He only needed to borrow his own spiritual power to guide his own divine consciousness.

Spiritual power and divine consciousness were both his own and originally possessed a certain affinity. Mobilizing them together would also not cause mutual repulsion.

"Spiritual power guides divine consciousness..."

Mo Hua pondered for a moment, suddenly startled, and thought of his own cultivation method - Tian Yan Jue.

When cultivating the Tian Yan Jue and breaking through realms, each time involved spiritual power flowing in reverse, gathering at the Tian Men, entering the sea of consciousness, and then connecting with divine sense, weaving into a spiritual curtain composed of puzzle arrays, to be used as a breakthrough bottleneck.

Didn't this mean...

The operation of the Tian Yan Jue involved the resonance of spiritual power and thought power... or some kind of fusion?

Mo Hua's expression changed slightly, and he was quite shocked in his heart.

This involved the fusion of the most basic powers of cultivators.

The Master passed down this ancient cultivation method to him, indeed hiding a very big mystery.

But unfortunately, his current cultivation was still shallow, and he could only vaguely see a rough outline, still unable to peek into the deeper essence of the Tian Yan Jue.

"Cultivate slowly, perhaps when my cultivation is high and my knowledge is more profound, I can gradually uncover the secrets of this ancient cultivation method..."

Mo Hua temporarily set aside the doubts about the Tian Yan Jue and continued to focus on researching the divine sense transformation sword leaving the body.

After pondering for another moment, he already had ideas for most of the problems and had constructed a set of methods based on his own knowledge and experience.

Now, all that was left was to try.

Mo Hua calmed his heart and mind, discarded all distractions, and then his gaze gradually sharpened, his whole person like a treasure sword hiding killing intent in its sheath.

In his sea of consciousness, Mo Hua raised his hands high.

The four sword arrays of Duan Jin, Kai Shan, Gui Shui, and Li Huo gathered at his hands endlessly.

A wisp of Taixu Sword Intent was also fused in by him.

Because he only fused a part of the sword dao, this Zhan Shen Sword formed extremely quickly.

And after the Zhan Shen Sword was formed, the sword intent was fierce, accumulating power, waiting to be unleashed.

Mo Hua's eyes became increasingly radiant, his sharpness fully revealed.

He pointed his fingers together, pointing at his brow.

A wisp of spiritual power was at his fingertip, connecting to his sea of consciousness. His thought power in his sea of consciousness was bit by bit being "guided" out.

Mo Hua could clearly perceive the boundary between the virtual and the real.

And with his eyes as orifices and spiritual power as a guide, Mo Hua's divine sense sword was also bit by bit breaking through the virtual and real barriers.

Mo Hua was perceiving all of this.

Carefully experiencing the changes in the flow of spiritual power and thought power inside.

He was also constantly anchoring the path, direction, and target of his own Zhan Shen Sword leaving the body, experiencing the virtual and real transformation of sword dao.

Finally, the timing arrived.

The light in Mo Hua's eyes suddenly surged, and in illusion, it seemed to condense into a handle of sword light flowing with five elements and vast with Taixu, coming out.

This handle of sword was guided by the spiritual power at Mo Hua's fingertip.

Then Mo Hua pointed his hand forward, spiritual power moved, also driving this handle of "divine sense sword," breaking through the virtual and real wall, transforming into a divine light, shooting out.

In the void, sword intent bloomed like colored glaze.

More violent divine sense fluctuations than before, in the form of sword intent, oscillated outwards.

Between the bright and dim divine light, the Zhan Shen Sword pierced through the towering ancient tree in front.

Then, seemingly nothing happened.

But the ancient tree suddenly trembled.

The entire mountain forest was silent because of it.

The large white dog guarding on the periphery, watching the wind for Mo Hua, also had its white fur standing on end at this time.

This was the first time Mo Hua had truly guided his Taixu Zhan Shen Sword form out of his sea of consciousness and chopped it into the present world.

That surging, fierce sword intent, even from afar, could transmit a feeling of oppression like thorns on one's back.

Besides being shocked, the large white dog was somewhat dumbfounded.

It did not expect that Mo Hua was clearly already strong enough, yet he could become even stronger.

In a short time, he had become so strong that it felt a bit "unable to catch up."

The large white dog secretly stared at Mo Hua, its gaze narrowed.

It also began to doubt Mo Hua's "composition" now.

It seriously suspected that Mo Hua was actually also a divine beast, just wearing harmless human skin...

Waiting for the waves of divine sense to calm down.

In the woods, Mo Hua smiled brightly.

"Succeeded!"

The Zhan Shen Sword was finally chopped by him from his sea of consciousness to reality.

From now on, this powerful divine sense killing move, invincible in the divine sense realm, could also finally break through the virtual and real boundary and be used in reality.

But subsequently, Mo Hua looked at the towering ancient tree in front, looking at that non-existent divine sense sword mark, and frowned again. He pondered in his heart for a moment, still feeling not quite satisfied.

Although it was chopped out, the power of this sword was far from reaching his expectations.

The fused sword dao was "cut corners" by him, deducted by half.

Furthermore, the divine sense leaving the body and the sword intent being released outwards was a very complex and troublesome process.

To break through the virtual and real wall, to cross the Tian Men of the sea of consciousness, to borrow spiritual power for guidance, to anchor the sword dao path...

During this, the power of the divine sense would be heavily lost.

Moreover, this sword dao was originally a discounted one of Mo Hua's.

Therefore, in the end, the power of the Zhan Shen Sword leaving the body...

Mo Hua estimated a bit and felt that it was probably only about one-tenth of his full power display in his sea of consciousness.

The Zhan Shen Sword, so strong in the sea of consciousness, could only play about one-tenth of its power when chopped to reality...

Mo Hua's mood was somewhat complex.

But this was also unavoidable.

The divine sense transformation sword was originally not something he at this realm could play with.

His realm was too low; being able to barely urge this sword was already not bad, and he could not ask for too much.

Only by continuing to practice subsequently and step by step elevating the proficiency of "Zhan Shen leaving the body" could he maximize the power of the Taixu Zhan Shen Sword.

Thinking of this, Mo Hua was startled again.

Another doubt surfaced in his mind:

What exactly was the "killing power" of his move, the Zhan Shen Sword...?

Chopping a big tree with divine sense was for practicing the sword.

But the big tree itself was a plant, only having the most instinctive life, and almost no divine sense, approximately equal to a "dead object."

Mo Hua could not use the big tree to measure the killing power of his Zhan Shen Sword.

Because it simply had no divine sense to kill.

To truly test the sword, he needed a "living thing."

"Living thing..."

Mo Hua looked around, then involuntarily looked towards the only "living thing" in the forest - the large white dog.

The large white dog was slightly stunned and instantly understood Mo Hua's intention, immediately widening its eyes with an "angry" expression.

It barked "wang wang" twice at Mo Hua.

The implied meaning was to advise Mo Hua not to be ungrateful!

Not to bite the hand that feeds!

People must have self-knowledge!

Not to not know their own strength and come to harm this harmless large white dog!

Who could receive that shocking sword?

Mo Hua also realized the impropriety, smiled apologetically, and then said, "I'll treat you to something good to eat."

The large white dog reluctantly hummed.

Mo Hua then prepared to take the large white dog to the dining hall, but before leaving, he looked back again at the big tree that he had chopped many times, silently enduring everything but unable to express its suffering. He also felt some apology in his heart.

He pointed his fingers, moved his spiritual ink, and drew several thick earth arrays and water-earth arrays on the ground for the big tree as compensation.

Then Mo Hua patted the big tree, "I'll draw more for you later when I have time..."

The towering ancient tree remained silent, but its injured "heart" probably also received a bit of consolation.

After that, Mo Hua just took the large white dog to the dining hall.

Because it was mealtime, he also needed to eat.

In the dining hall, fragrance filled the air, disciples were bustling, and Mo Hua then sat side by side with the large white dog. He gnawed on a chicken leg, and the large white dog gnawed on an elbow.

One person and one dog, their eating movements were almost the same.

After eating, Mo Hua sent the large white dog back to the book garden, secretly stuffing it a bone-sealing demon on the way.

This made the large white dog very happy. Its tail wagged nonstop, and its big head kept rubbing against Mo Hua's face.

After sending the large white dog away and returning to the disciples' residence, Mo Hua was still considering the "test sword" matter.

But finding an object for the test sword was not easy.

He couldn't find people.

Otherwise, if he missed, killing people would be big trouble.

He could indeed use some evil cultivators and demon cultivators.

But he was now in the sect and also needed to cultivate, so it was not convenient to go out, nor did he have time to go through great trouble to separately find a demon cultivator to test his sword.

After thinking about it, he probably could only find a demon beast to test his sword.

Humans had divine consciousness, and demon beasts also had "demon consciousness."

Demon beasts had weak spiritual intelligence, and their demon consciousness was not as complex as cultivators' divine sense, but their instinctive impulses were stronger, and some were also not lacking in beastly cunning and craftiness.

The flesh and blood and demon power of demon beasts were much stronger than the physical body and spiritual power of cultivators.

But the demon consciousness of demon beasts, compared to the divine sense of cultivators, was not too disparate in terms of pure divine sense strength.

And if the demon consciousness was extinguished, the demon beast would die.

Mo Hua nodded, having made up his mind in his heart.

Two days later, when he had free time, he went to Lian Yao Mountain, planning to find a demon beast to "test his sword."

(End of this chapter)