Chapter 2916: Gods and Men

In the Shaman Hall.

Firelight flickered, no one around, utterly silent.

Mo Hua sat alone upon the Shaman’s high seat, like a solitary "statue of a god"; the candlelight stretched his pitch-black back into a long shadow.

"My... humanity..."

Mo Hua’s gaze gradually grew deep and indifferent; after a moment, the indifference softened.

Yet within this gentleness, there was still only a god’s compassion, and none of a man’s emotions.

The night wind stirred, the flames quivered; Mo Hua’s pupils trembled slightly, and he snapped back to himself. The aloof, god-like detachment in his eyes drew back, becoming a bit more vivid, tinged with a little more "human" color.

At least he now looked somewhat like a "person"...

But Mo Hua’s brows slowly knit together.

He realized something was wrong.

Having become a Shaman, exercising divine authority, to a certain extent he was already the "Divine Lord", bearing the faith of the people of the Great Wilderness.

The Divinity within his Divine Sense had, imperceptibly, begun to suppress his humanity.

He was becoming more and more calm, more and more like a lofty "deity", overlooking all beings, watching their life and death, watching the slaughter of the mortal world, placing others’ suffering outside his concern.

His body and mind were both shedding and turning toward that of a "deity".

Not only that, at this moment he also held immense authority.

All fame, power, and wealth in the world have always corroded the human heart.

And this "corrosion" is likewise subtle and unconscious.

Those standing in the arena of fame and fortune, holding great power in their hands, can hardly realize for themselves that they are being "assimilated" by power.

Mo Hua now held divine authority, political authority, and military authority, three powers united in one; he stood nearly at the pinnacle of the entire Third Grade Vermilion Bird Mountain Realm, a single word deciding life and death, a single thought altering rivers and mountains.

He too was being profoundly shaped by power.

His humanity was being corroded on one side by autocratic power, and on the other side oppressed by the Divinity burgeoning within him. Thus, without him even noticing at the root, he had grown ever colder, ever more indifferent, and the might he carried upon himself naturally grew ever heavier.

Mo Hua frowned slightly, and tapped his finger into the empty air; a Spell condensed into a Water Mirror.

Mo Hua gazed at himself in the mirror, and found that although his features had not changed, his bearing had grown much colder.

With Divinity upon him and great power in hand, though his appearance remained young and handsome, in every glance and turn there was already a transcendent coldness and majesty beyond the mortal.

That clear gaze which once held a hint of sincere, artless warmth had already utterly vanished.

The man he was now resembled a "King" who wielded great authority, and even more a "divine sovereign" carved of white jade.

This may not be a good thing...

Mo Hua’s brows drew tight, his heart filled with a vague disharmony that could not be spoken or explained.

He had not forgotten that, at root, he was a "human being".

He had parents who gave him life, had kin, had a master, had friends, had elders in the Sect, had many Junior Brothers...

Of course, there was also the Senior Sister etched into his heart;

And that Junior Brother whom he held firmly in mind yet had already begun to forget what he looked like...

If his humanity were extinguished, then emotion would grow indifferent, and all of these would become merely irrelevant "people"; he himself would also lose the "root" of his life.

The Great Dao is a long, hazy road of seeking. Once you forget the starting point, lose the anchor of the self, in the end you can only lose yourself in the unknown, knowing neither where you are nor where you go, trapped within the boundless mists of the Great Dao, unable to find a way out...

Divinity is a part of his Divine Soul, but can never be its whole.

These people must not, and cannot, be forgotten.

"But... how do I guard my own humanity?"

Mo Hua lowered his head and looked at his own palm.

His palm was fair, graceful, and exquisite, seeming frail and powerless, yet as though it held the faith of gods, held boundless authority; with a turn of the hand he could grant life to millions, or consign millions to death, pile corpses into mountains, let blood flow into seas...

This white-jade-like palm already no longer seemed like the hand of a "human being".

Mo Hua even felt a faint fear of himself.

Yet Mo Hua had no real way out.

The situation was as it was, the grand design yet unfinished; he could only keep being the Shaman, keep being the "god" of the Great Wilderness, leading the people of the Barbaric Wilderness step by step onward, walking the road of "deities" with no return...

The candlelight wavered, shadows intertwining, like the clash between Divinity and humanity.

In the stillness of the dark night, there came the deep sigh of a Blood and Flesh God.

...

Ensnared in the shapeless struggle between Divinity and humanity, Mo Hua did not close his eyes all night, and did not even practice Formation.

The next day, after settling everything, he finally found some time, intending to make a trip into the deep mountains to see the Big Tiger.

He did not know what state the Big Tiger was in now.

Whether it was still in the depths of the mountains, whether it had broken through, whether some accident had occurred.

After entering the deep mountains, all around was still very quiet, yet the Monster Qi was abnormally dense, so dense it seemed as if it might drip like water.

Mo Hua’s face changed in an instant.

He knew this was a sign of a Monster Beasts’ impending breakthrough; the Big Tiger indeed was about to break through to a Third Grade Monster Beasts.

But this surge of Monster Qi was odd; it seemed it should have broken through long ago, yet its Realm had been forcibly suppressed, halted at Second Grade, mired and unable to advance.

Mo Hua’s figure flickered, turning into watery light as he arrived at the Big Tiger’s cave.

Only to be blocked by six or seven tigresses.

These tigresses would not let Mo Hua enter the cave.

Mo Hua released his Divine Sense and could sense the Big Tiger within, but its aura was extremely weak; he did not know whether it had failed its breakthrough and was nursing its injuries,

Or if there was some reason for its long-delayed breakthrough that had caused its demonic power to run amok and damage its Vital Energy.