Chapter 1191: The Secret of the Shugu Tribe

Chapter 1190: The Secret of the Shugu Tribe

What could this thing be?

Mo Hua pondered for a moment, then suddenly his heart trembled. He quickly turned to Dan-Zhu and Chi-Feng:

“Stop fighting for now. Pull back the defenses—everyone retreat into the stone hall.”

Bi Jie had already drawn in other tribes, besieging them outside the Shugu Valley. Their numbers were overwhelming. If this dragged on, the Vermilion Sparrow Tribe would suffer.

Dan-Zhu and Chi-Feng nodded at once. They immediately followed Mo Hua’s instructions, withdrawing the troops into defense.

Then Mo Hua asked: “All of Shugu Tribe’s supplies—are they packed?”

Dan-Zhu nodded. “Food, barbarian armor, forging materials—everything’s been counted and stored in the storage chests.”

Mo Hua said, “Bring out all the barbarian armor. Disassemble them piece by piece.”

Dan-Zhu froze, puzzled. “Sir, why?”

Mo Hua only said, “There may be something wrong with these armors. Take them apart first and see.”

Dan-Zhu thought for a moment, then nodded. “Alright.”

Over these past days, the many “miracles” of Mister Wu had filled Dan-Zhu and the others with awe. They knew that anything he did, he always had his reasons.

Dan-Zhu passed down the order.

Some of the Vermilion Sparrow warriors, along with Chi-Feng, guarded outside the stone hall against attacks from Bi Fang Tribe and the others.

Dan-Zhu, together with Mo Hua and dozens of warriors, carried out the Shugu Tribe’s barbarian armor.

One by one, they dismantled them and laid them out across the great hall.

Most of the armor wasn’t even complete. The parts were broken, as if the forging had been abandoned halfway through—before the final tempering and “sealing.”

At first, Mo Hua hadn’t paid them much attention. But thinking carefully now, he felt something was wrong.

Why were these armors all “half-finished”?

Why stop forging halfway?

What exactly had the Shugu Tribe been trying to forge? And why did they stop?

Armor after armor was dismantled and laid out.

Mo Hua examined each piece carefully.

The Shugu armor was old, crude, forged with primitive techniques—not refined at all.

Its construction was ordinary.

Some Four-Images formation patterns were engraved on them, but in Mo Hua’s eyes, they were fragmented, unsophisticated.

That was why he had only skimmed over them before.

But the more he looked now, the stranger it seemed.

After going through most of them, Mo Hua’s expression grew even more peculiar.

Without exception, every piece of armor bore engraved formations.

And without exception, every single formation was incomplete.

Not one bore a complete set of runes.

That was the problem.

A few broken patterns—fine.

Most of them broken—still fine.

But every single one broken? That was unnatural.

Mo Hua looked again at the piles of armor filling the hall, covered in broken runes. Suddenly, an illusion seized him:

These densely packed, scattered fragments of barbarian armor, stacked together, looked like—

The “corpse” of an array that had been “dismembered.”

Exuding an inexplicable sense of eeriness and cruelty.

“These runes are the severed limbs left after a formation was torn apart…” Mo Hua frowned, muttering in his heart.

“Could it be that what Bi Jie wants isn’t the armor at all—but the incomplete runes engraved on them?”

“What use do these runes have?”

Mo Hua inspected them closely. He could only see that they were an old kind of “beast-pattern.”

The designs were ancient—essentially just ordinary Four-Images beast patterns, nothing too profound.

But instinct told him—they could not be ordinary.

What was hidden within them?

Mo Hua frowned in thought. In almost no time, he remembered something:

“Ten Thousand Beasts Transforming into a Dragon!”

Using countless fragments of Four-Images beast runes, fusing them into a greater, stronger Dragon Pattern Formation.

That was exactly what Mister Tu had done in Ten Thousand Beasts Valley of Refining Demon Mountain.

Mister Tu had tried to distill the essence of myriad beasts and merge them into a single true “dragon.”

And he had indeed succeeded.

In the end, he had forged a Four-Images Azure Dragon Formation.

Then—

Mo Hua looked at the scattered armors in the hall, his pupils contracting.

“Could it be that Shugu Tribe… was attempting the same thing? They also wanted to create a Dragon Pattern Formation?”

“That’s impossible…”

Mo Hua hesitated. Shugu Tribe wouldn’t dare be so bold.

This was a dragon.

How could a mere third-rank tribe dare to touch such a thing?

But then he thought again—maybe not impossible.

Hadn’t he himself, just a Foundation Establishment cultivator, once coveted “dragon” and even swallowed a dragon soul?

If he dared—why couldn’t a third-rank tribe?

Not openly, perhaps. But in secret?

Mo Hua wasn’t sure. He turned and quietly asked Dan-Zhu:

“Have you ever seen Dragon Armor?”

Even Dan-Zhu was startled. He shook his head at once. “Only the Imperial Court and the royal bloodline of the Great Wilderness dare wear Dragon Armor.”

“What if others wore it?” Mo Hua pressed.

Dan-Zhu said solemnly, “If one is not of the Great Wilderness imperial bloodline, not of the royal court—then whether forging Dragon Armor in secret or wearing it—both are punishable by extermination of nine clans.”

Mo Hua’s heart skipped a beat.

This was bad.

So now, he wasn’t just the Dao Court’s “number one rebel.”

He was also, by Great Wilderness law, a capital criminal deserving extermination of nine clans.

(TN: Mo Hua the Rebel, common enemy of both the Dao Court and the Royal Court.)

Mo Hua’s face paled slightly.

Dan-Zhu looked at him strangely. “Sir, why are you asking about Dragon Armor?”

Mo Hua glanced at him, thought for a moment, then leaned closer and whispered:

“Could it be… the Shugu Tribe was forging Dragon Armor?”

Dan-Zhu was utterly stunned, his face frozen.

From his reaction, Mo Hua could tell the youth had never once thought of such a thing.

Among the barbarian tribes, they could fight and plunder each other, but toward the Royal Court, toward the imperial clan of the Great Wilderness—they were loyal.

They would not entertain thoughts of rebellion.

The dragon, symbol of the imperial clan, was held in deep reverence.

But what about Bi Jie?

Would he revere it?

From what Mo Hua had seen these days, with Bi Jie’s ambition, reverence was unlikely.

What he harbored was likely only… greed.

Placing himself in Bi Jie’s shoes, Mo Hua thought:

If these armors really contained the secret forging method of “Transforming into a Dragon”…

Then, as Bi Jie, he would stop at nothing to seize them.

Not resting until death—that would be merciful.

In fact, Bi Jie’s current actions seemed almost “mild.”

If it was old Mo Hua…

Anyone competing for formations with him—he’d have just triggered an explosion, blown up the whole hall, killed everyone, and then searched for the loot afterward.

Of course, he reminded himself—now he’d “gone straight.” He couldn’t do that anymore.

Still, doubt gnawed at him:

“So the secret of the Shugu Tribe… is the ‘Dragon Pattern Barbarian Armor’?”

“And that’s why Bi Jie clings on like a starving wolf?”

“Because such a chance comes only once—and he doesn’t even dare tell others, not even his own tribe?”

It seemed possible. But Mo Hua couldn’t be sure. He decided to test it himself.

He pulled out paper and brush, copying down every fragment of formation rune from the armors. Then he began reconstructing them.

This was a profound and intricate method of derivation—something Mo Hua had been inspired to develop from Mister Tu, slowly figuring it out himself.

At his side, Dan-Zhu peeked just once—and was transfixed.

He was a genius, exposed to “Sacred Patterns” since childhood, even possessing some talent in them.

But watching Mo Hua personally sketch runes, reconstructing scattered formations—he realized what true mastery of Sacred Patterns meant.

“Could it be… only by mastering Sacred Patterns to this degree… can one become a Shaman?”

“So the threshold for becoming a Shaman is this high… No wonder across the Great Wilderness, those qualified to be Shamans are so few…”

Dan-Zhu’s heart was shaken. Yet he couldn’t resist watching, enthralled by the profundity of Mo Hua’s craft, amazed at his consummate skill, even intoxicated by the transformations between runes.

But as he watched, Dan-Zhu suddenly felt a stabbing pain in his sea of consciousness.

He froze—then realized at once.

This was the symptom of spiritual overexertion.

Overuse of divine sense?

Dan-Zhu could hardly believe it.

What Mister Wu was deducing was clearly only a second-rank Sacred Rune. How could it possibly cause him, a Golden Core cultivator, to show signs of depletion of divine sense…

And yet Mister Wu carried all this out with practiced ease, as though he had long been accustomed to it.

Could Mister Wu’s divine sense be even stronger than his own Golden Core divine sense?

Dan-Zhu’s heart was greatly shaken. Then he recalled something Mo Hua had once said:

“Those who serve the Divine-Lord, all their divine might comes from the Divine-Lord.”

Bearing divine power within his body, Dan-Zhu gave Mo Hua a deep look, his conviction growing firmer, his expression more devout.

He no longer watched Mo Hua drawing Sacred Runes, but dismissed those nearby, not allowing anyone else to look. He himself stood guard at the side, “protecting the Dao” for Mo Hua.

Mo Hua, calm and focused, continued reconstructing the fragmented Four Symbols runes of the Shugu Tribe.

But after working for a while, he noticed something unusual.

The “fragments” of runes here in the Shugu Tribe looked like demonic patterns, but the lines of derivation did not at all match the form of “Dragon Transformation.”

At the very least, they were quite different from the method Mo Hua had used before when reconstructing the “Azure Dragon Formation Runes.”

This meant that the final path of derivation for these remnants was very likely not towards a “dragon.”

And within that was a major distinction:

Not a dragon—or not an Azure Dragon?

If not “Azure Dragon,” then it might still be another kind of “dragon.”

Back then, Overseer Xia of the Dao Court had told Mo Hua that dragons in this world came in many forms, with different ranks and grades.

There were True Dragons, Karma Dragons, and Flood Dragons.

The barbarian cultivators of the Great Wilderness might revere the “Azure Dragon.”

But Mo Hua knew clearly: in the Nine Provinces of the cultivation world, the so-called Azure Dragon of the Great Wilderness was merely one type of “Karma Dragon” within heaven and earth.

And in this Wild Land, besides Azure Dragons, there might well be other kinds of “Karma Dragons.”

What the Shugu Tribe hid here might be another category of “dragon-patterned” barbarian armor.

And if it was not a dragon, then the possibilities were even broader.

It could be one of the other Four Symbols sacred beasts of the Wilderness. Or perhaps a heavenly divine beast from outside local legends—like a Pixiu—or even some kind of powerful demon beast—

This was like searching for a needle in the sea—impossible to confirm.

Mo Hua had no choice but to patiently reconstruct part of it, hoping that through the “Four Symbols forms” within the array runes,

he could instead deduce which type of beast these runes might be tied to.

To figure out exactly what kind of Sacred Rune the Shugu Tribe was researching.

And what sort of barbarian armor they were trying to forge.

Such things could not be guessed recklessly—they had to be traced step by step from the runes.

Mo Hua pressed on with the derivation.

On the paper before him, his brush had left dense, chaotic lines—paths and transformations of rune evolution, resembling a “heavenly scripture.”

Any ordinary array master would feel their consciousness go numb after just a few glances.

But after some time, Mo Hua realized his “derivation” could not progress at all.

The runes were too fragmented, with too many variations, and too many possibilities.

Without a fixed “anchor,” it was impossible to find a clear direction to handle such vast and complex reconstruction.

This sort of deduction was clearly beyond his current capability.

Mo Hua frowned, but unwilling to give up, he continued scribbling and deriving for quite some time.

Several times his divine sense was completely drained; after meditation and recovery, he used it all up again.

And still he produced no result.

The “fragments” before him remained like severed limbs and broken bones, covering an entire sheet of array paper—like a “mass grave” formed of runes.

“Shugu Tribe… barbarian armor… rune remnants—what are they?”

Mo Hua’s brows knit tightly. After much hesitation, he could not help but muse:

“If I can’t reconstruct them… should I use Cause and Effect to calculate it? See if there’s another clue?”

He wasn’t sure if this was even possible.

Would it involve some unknowable karmic entanglement?

Yet the curiosity and confusion in his heart burned like wildfire, making him restless and anxious.

“Just a simple calculation—just a simple one—”

To guard against accidents, Mo Hua sat cross-legged in meditation, restoring his divine sense to full strength.

Then, under the pretense of “seeking revelation from the Divine-Lord,” he asked Dan-Zhu to keep watch at the door.

At last, Mo Hua used the demon-bone divination art to make a quick calculation. But the hexagram was bizarre—before his eyes appeared only a field of black murk, nothing else at all.

Mo Hua didn’t understand, and unwilling to give up, he tried again with copper coins.

The result was almost the same—still a dark, hazy void.

He was still puzzled.

So he tried once more, using the newly comprehended method of Heaven, Earth, and Man—the Three Talents derivation.

In his sea of consciousness, with divine sense he reconstructed the stone hall, simulating Heaven’s timing, Earth’s environment, and Man—himself.

The Three Talents revolved, Cause and Effect flowed—this time it was different. Mo Hua could see time passing, and saw himself in the next moment—lying on the ground of the stone hall, looking upward at something.

But that was all. The image quickly vanished, and the causal line was severed.

As though something had swallowed it whole.

“What am I… looking at…”

Mo Hua’s face changed. A sudden, powerful premonition arose within his heart.

Following the omen, he lay on the stone hall’s floor, lifted his head, and looked upward. And there he saw it… the massive white-bone Barbarian God statue.

The Barbarian God statue…

Or more precisely, the enormous ferocious white skull of the statue.

In that split second, Mo Hua’s heart trembled as a sudden realization struck him.

The Second Elder, Mister Tu, the blood-sacrifice great hall, the human-faced white-bone evil god statue…

And before his eyes now—was a Barbarian God statue. More precisely—a statue of a “quasi-evil god.”

“The head of the statue…”

“Could it be…”

Mo Hua drew in a sharp breath of cold air. He suddenly leapt up, his figure flowing like water, bounding step after step up the statue until he landed atop the Barbarian God’s head.

At the crown of the statue, Mo Hua searched carefully. In a spot unfamiliar yet strangely “familiar,” he discovered a fissure.

His gaze trembled slightly as he slid his hand into the crack.

Inside, there was nothing—but beneath his fingers he could feel the marks of blade and chisel.

“These chisel marks…”

Tracing the grooves with his fingertips, he carefully sensed their patterns. His pupils contracted, and though relief flickered in his heart, he could not suppress the shudder that followed:

“It really is…Taotie…”

Inside the skull of the Barbarian God statue in the Shugu Tribe, there was carved the Taotie pattern.

(End of this Chapter)