Chapter 1221: Kneel

Chapter 1220: Kneel

“Heaven and Earth as a chessboard, all living beings as mere pawns.”

In that instant, Mo Hua felt a deeper understanding of this phrase.

Just as his heart stirred, a familiar evil thought suddenly spread forth, and from beneath the earth surged a strange aura of deathly stillness. It was as if something had come alive once more.

Mo Hua froze, his pupils trembling, before immediately shouting:

“Lu-Gu, careful!”

The abrupt words shattered the heavy atmosphere.

Lu-Gu, immersed in sorrow, didn’t quite understand.

The next moment, the ground beneath his feet exploded, and a massive blood-soaked hand shot up, clutching Lu-Gu’s right leg in a death grip. Lu-Gu’s expression changed at once.

Everyone else also looked shaken.

They knew this hand all too well.

It was this very hand that had crushed the skulls of many barbarian soldiers earlier, tearing dozens of bodies apart.

Mo Hua instantly commanded: “Fall back!”

Suppressing their terror, everyone retreated.

The Abyssal-Bone heavy troops sensed the anomaly and quickly closed in, shielding Mo Hua.

But Lu-Gu’s right leg was firmly seized, unable to break free.

At that moment, the tombstone that Lu-Gu himself had erected shattered completely. Amidst the flying dirt, a colossal figure—fierce and fiendish like a demon—crawled up from underground.

Like a ghost that had died yet returned to the mortal realm.

Everyone’s faces paled in horror.

“Shi-Gu!”

“He’s not dead?!”

The first thing Shi-Gu did after emerging from the earth was to lunge at Lu-Gu.

That bloody, mud-covered arm gripped Lu-Gu’s right leg tightly.

Fingers pierced into his flesh, making escape impossible.

Shi-Gu’s monstrous body, once towering like a beast, had become disturbingly pliant, like a boneless mass of flesh, wrapping around Lu-Gu like a giant python.

Then Shi-Gu opened his gaping maw, reeking of rot and stench, lunging for Lu-Gu’s throat.

He wanted to “eat” him—just as he had devoured the flesh of the Shugu Five Freaks’ third brother—this time feeding on his very own younger brother.

At the critical instant, battle-hardened Lu-Gu twisted his arm and thrust the Demon-Slaying Bone Blade diagonally into his own back.

The blade tore his own flesh, but at the last possible moment, it wedged into Shi-Gu’s gaping jaws.

Shi-Gu’s mouth split open grotesquely, teeth biting hard against the bone blade, face contorted in savagery.

Lu-Gu’s fresh blood ignited Shi-Gu’s maddened hunger.

His younger brother had killed him, cutting off his last thread of life.

Now he wanted to devour that brother, to taste his flesh and blood.

A deep craving consumed Shi-Gu’s heart.

He exerted force, limbs coiling like a giant python, locking Lu-Gu with monstrous strength. Mouth straining past the bone blade, inch by inch he pressed toward Lu-Gu’s throat—even as the blade sliced open his lips, deformed his jaws, spilled putrid blood, and nearly split his skull in half.

But Shi-Gu’s eyes shone with madness. To him, if he could just feast on his brother’s flesh, it was worth shattering his own skull.

Even Lu-Gu, though seasoned in countless battles, could not immediately break free from such a grapple.

Mo Hua’s voice cut deep and firm: “Strike together!”

Dan-Zhu and Chi Feng instantly joined forces—one flaring the Mystic-Flame Feathers to burn Shi-Gu’s limbs, the other driving a blazing spear straight at his face. Over a dozen other Golden Cores also struck at once—treasures, bone weapons, witchcraft—bombarding Shi-Gu in unison.

So many Golden Core attacks at once—the force was terrifying.

Shi-Gu’s flesh was torn apart, his body lacerated, and his grip on Lu-Gu’s arms slackened slightly.

Lu-Gu seized the fleeting chance, roaring as he reversed his bone blade, pouring all the vast power of his late Golden Core cultivation into his strike, cleaving down hard from his own arm.

Entangled with Shi-Gu’s flesh, the blow could not avoid cutting himself.

But there was no room for hesitation.

With that stroke, he truly wounded himself a hundredfold, slicing away a huge chunk of his right arm’s flesh, blood spraying.

But in the same motion, he severed Shi-Gu’s arm.

The monstrous grip was broken.

Lu-Gu felt the restraint vanish, and with his left fist he hammered Shi-Gu’s chest, collapsing it inward and forcing him back several steps.

Lu-Gu staggered back as well, breaking free from the savage bite. When he steadied himself, his body throbbed in pain, right arm a bloody ruin. Yet he ignored his injuries, lifting his head to scrutinize this so-called “resurrected” brother.

Before, Shi-Gu had still clung to a shred of life, a “living corpse” whose sanity had been devoured by hunger.

But now, he was utterly dead, reduced to an indescribable “flesh monster.” His heart had been dug out, chest a dark hollow oozing black blood.

His limbs had once been severed, crudely reattached for burial.

Yet now, with mere twitching of will, they fused with his torso again—like a grotesque creature that sewed itself together.

“Corpse transformation?!”

Lu-Gu’s pupils shrank.

But even corpse transformation couldn’t happen so quickly…

It required years of absorbing yin qi, sun and moon essence, or the filth of the earth.

One doesn’t just bury a body and have it transform instantly.

Nor was this corpse refinement—no one could refine such a powerful man into a zombie, and refinement too required time.

Shi-Gu’s body bore no trace of refinement.

So why…?

He had truly died. His body showed no signs of life, no force animating him.

Yet he crawled out of the ground to feed again.

“What… is going on?”

Lu-Gu’s brows furrowed, his face grim.

The others were also stricken with terror.

Soon, there was no more time for thought.

One-armed Shi-Gu stood in eerie silence, like a corpse with no aura at all—so faint that even divine sense struggled to detect him.

Yet his flesh writhed constantly.

The severed arm wriggled like living flesh, crawling back toward his stump. The bloody tendrils fused it back together.

Dead, yet somehow alive.

Alive, but monstrously wrong.

The next instant, Shi-Gu’s eye sockets sank further inward, becoming darker.

Hearts froze in dread.

Chi Feng shouted: “Careful! He’s going to eat again!”

Before his words finished, Shi-Gu vanished—reappearing instantly before Chi Feng.

Chi Feng gasped, thrusting his spear across to block.

But before he could even see the motion, a crushing pain shot through his palms. His spear was knocked aside, and under a monstrous, inhuman force, his legs plowed across the ground for ten steps, blood spraying from his mouth.

Before he could even spit the last of it, a foul stench filled his nose.

He looked up—into a hideous face, its dark sockets fixed on him.

At the same time, bloody hands swung down toward his skull, aiming to crack it open.

Chi Feng, drained of strength, had no time to resist. His face turned pale.

Dan-Zhu cried out, unleashing a Mystic-Flame Feather toward Shi-Gu. But his early Golden Core power was far too weak to stop him.

Just then—a Demon-Slaying Bone Blade whistled through the air, severing Shi-Gu’s arm and saving Chi Feng.

Losing his arm again, Shi-Gu roared, a low, guttural sound.

It wasn’t shrill, but it stirred agitation and terror in the depths of the heart.

Everyone trembled under its force.

Meanwhile, the fallen arm wriggled again, crawling toward Shi-Gu.

Chi Feng, seizing the moment, thrust his spear to pin it down, trying to stop the fusion.

He succeeded—piercing the arm and nailing it to the ground.

But the severed limb dissolved into amorphous flesh, sliding around the spear, merging back into Shi-Gu’s body.

The arm regrew once more.

Everyone who saw this looked grim.

Lu-Gu drew a deep breath and said: “Everyone… with all your strength… kill Shi-Gu.”

He had completely given up hope.

His elder brother was truly dead. What stood here now was only a grotesque, indescribable monster of flesh and blood.

Thus began the siege once more.

A Golden Core–level encirclement, overwhelming and terrifying.

But soon, not only Shi-Gu, even those already buried—the fallen remnants of Shi-Gu’s tribe—also “came back to life,” one after another, crawling out from underground, hungering to devour the living.

The Vermilion Sparrow Tribe warriors clashed once more with these corpse remnants of Shi-Gu’s tribe.

The situation seemed to repeat itself.

Yet unlike before, when the warriors of Shi-Gu’s tribe still retained a trace of life. Now, however, they were completely dead—mindless “walking flesh” devoid of the slightest vitality.

And these “walking corpses” were even more difficult to deal with.

A living person, once their heart veins were severed and limbs cut off, lost all supply of vitality, and their life would vanish completely—that was “death.” But these corpses, even when slain and torn apart, still fused their flesh back together and crawled up again.

Before the might of Abyssal-Bone heavy armor troops and six thousand barbarian warriors, the numbers of these remnants were not overwhelming. Troublesome, yes, but not impossible to suppress. As long as they kept killing, it would work.

Alive, kill them. Revived, kill them again. Over and over.

The warriors under Mo Hua’s command also had the strength to do so.

The truly troublesome one was still Shi-Gu, the late-stage Golden Core general.

Shi-Gu had already been strong before.

But now, having died once, fearing no death, and able to endlessly regenerate his flesh—Shi-Gu had become nearly invincible, terrifying beyond compare. The Golden Core cultivators joined forces, engaging him in a bitter struggle.

They followed Mo Hua’s earlier tactics, carrying out a “rotating slaughter.”

Lu-Gu, too, now truly aimed to kill this “brother” of his, holding nothing back.

Yet no matter how they attacked, they could not truly “kill” Shi-Gu.

Cut off limbs, and they re-fused.

Pierce his chest, and the flesh re-knitted.

Once, even his head was cut off, but the headless Shi-Gu fought on as if nothing had changed.

Like a terrifying warlord, “undying and indestructible.”

Soon, Shi-Gu even reattached his head.

Despair began to sprout in the hearts of the Golden Core barbarian cultivators.

They had no idea how to kill Shi-Gu—why he, though already dead, could not be slain. Despair cracked their hearts wide open.

Among the four freak brothers of the Shugu, the fourth one was the first to succumb to fear. He dared not face this “monster” that could never be killed.

He fled.

And with his escape, the rotating formation was broken—Shi-Gu lost one turn of suppression.

Seizing the gap, Shi-Gu’s first target was none other than the fleeing Shugu fourth brother.

Shi-Gu bypassed Lu-Gu, slipped past Chì Fēng and Dan-Zhu’s blockade, and with a few flickers of movement, grabbed the fleeing man.

A cold, foul-smelling hand clamped around the fourth brother’s neck.

His eyes bulged wide with terror.

Lu-Gu, watching the fourth brother fall into Shi-Gu’s grasp, was horrified.

Shi-Gu, even without “feeding,” was already this dreadful.

If he truly devoured a Golden Core like the fourth brother, nourished by Golden Core flesh and blood, no one could predict what he would mutate into.

Lu-Gu and Chì Fēng wanted to save him, but it was already too late.

Shi-Gu had been starving too long, his hunger unbearable. His movements were faster than anyone’s. Almost the instant he caught the fourth brother, he opened his maw and bit down.

Blood splattered, and flesh was sucked in as though liquefied by an immense force.

The fourth brother wailed in terror and despair.

Having eaten Golden Core flesh, Shi-Gu’s aura instantly surged, and his mangled skin began repairing itself at a shocking speed. Lu-Gu, Chì Fēng, and the others felt their hearts plummet into the abyss.

“It’s over…”

At that moment, just as Lu-Gu’s thoughts sank into despair, a figure suddenly appeared before him.

This figure was not tall, slender of build, wearing a Shamanic robe, handsome and solemn in bearing.

It was none other than “Mister Wu” — Mo Hua.

Mo Hua understood better than anyone present why Shi-Gu had become like this.

The current Shi-Gu was nothing more than a “flesh puppet” of the Evil God.

His flesh was already dead. His divine sense annihilated.

But the will of the evil god had seized control of Shi-Gu’s body, manipulating this vessel as a slave of flesh and blood to devour others. That was why in the earlier battle, Mo Hua had constantly tried to lock onto Shi-Gu — aiming at his eyes.

But Shi-Gu was too powerful, his cultivation too high. In such life-and-death slaughter between Golden Core experts, Mo Hua dared not easily intervene, for with the slightest misstep he would be annihilated.

And Shi-Gu’s form was constantly shifting in the clash, giving Mo Hua no chance to aim.

But when the fourth brother of the Shugu freaks was being devoured by Shi-Gu, it gave Mo Hua a once-in-a-lifetime opening.

With Shi-Gu seizing the fourth brother, his body would inevitably be fixed in place.

When Shi-Gu devoured the fourth brother’s flesh and blood, biting into his neck, the direction of his head and eyes was also fixed.

That instant of stillness gave Mo Hua the chance to lock on with his Sword Manifestation of Divine Sense.

Mo Hua stepped forth with Flowing-Water Step, his figure flashing as he cut into the battlefield, his gaze locking directly onto Shi-Gu’s pitch-black, horrifying eye sockets.

“Beast!”

Mo Hua raised two fingers to his forehead, golden light dazzling like a sword flashing in his eyes, and spoke in a deep voice:

“Kneel!”

That single word—kneel—shook the very hearts of all who heard it.

At the same moment, Mo Hua pointed forward with two fingers, his divine sense leaving his body, breaking the barrier between reality and illusion.

An invisible killing intent burst forth, a concealed yet resplendent golden brilliance exploded forth, as though ten thousand sword-lights blazed dazzlingly, blinding and terrifying enough to strike terror into hearts.

Lu-Gu and the others only saw a flash of gold before their eyes. A dreadful wave swept across, making even their sea of consciousness feel the crushing pressure of sharp blades.

Moments later, all of it vanished.

When everyone looked again, they saw a scene almost impossible to even fathom.

That towering, mountain-like figure who seemed to have crawled out of hell itself, that blood-drenched and terrifying, near-undying late Golden Core general — Shi-Gu — was truly kneeling on the ground, like a servant.

Kneeling… before that Foundation Establishment Shaman.

Lu-Gu, Chi-Feng, Dan-Zhu, and every Golden Core barbarian cultivator present all felt their chests tighten, their faces filled with utter shock.

(End of this Chapter)