Chapter 1227: Bone-Engraved Spirit-Pivot Array

Chapter 1226: Bone-Engraved Spirit-Pivot Array

Lu-Gu was still torturing Jin Wutuo, as if he wished to skin the man alive, to grind his bones to pieces—anything to vent the hatred in his chest.

Jin Wutuo kept smiling like a fool, as if he were a lump of flayed, rotten flesh.

Mo Hua stepped forward. “Enough. If you keep hitting him you’ll kill him—and then you’ll get nothing out of him.”

The voice was quiet, almost youthful, but when it came from Mo Hua it carried an inexplicable weight.

Lu-Gu gradually suppressed his rage and drew back his hand.

Jin Wutuo, beaten nearly beyond recognition, glanced at Mo Hua with a faint, stunned curiosity.

That mere Foundation Establishment youth had said one sentence and stopped a raging Golden Core. Lu-Gu’s expression shifted, revealing a touch of blankness and confusion.

Mo Hua beckoned and summoned several barbarian soldiers. “Take this ‘traitor’ to the prison. Feed him some medicinal herbs—patch up his wounds. Don’t let him die.”

“Yes.”

A few soldiers dragged Jin Wutuo away.

Lu-Gu stared at Mo Hua with an icy gaze.

Mo Hua replied calmly: “Patience brings results; haste breeds mistakes. Sit quietly, think through how you’ll interrogate him… the more you rush, the more you’ll ruin things.”

Lu-Gu offered no verbal reply, his face was expressionless. He left without another word.

After Lu-Gu departed, Mo Hua sat quietly, contemplating how to handle Jin Wutuo.

Physical punishment seemed useless now.

Even array-based torture probably wouldn’t work.

Lu-Gu had already tormented Jin Wutuo until his flesh was shredded and his bones likely broken, yet the man simply resigned himself, refusing to speak. Lu-Gu was a late-stage Golden Core—his methods were crueler than Mo Hua’s, and even brute force hadn’t opened Jin Wutuo’s mouth. Mo Hua suspected that even using an array to inflict pain wouldn’t help.

Perhaps it was that skin-shedding shamanic craft Jin Wutuo had learned.

If a man treated flesh as something external, did not regard himself as a person, then all bodily pain could be discarded.

Mo Hua’s brows tightened.

If bodily punishment wouldn’t work, then he must break the man’s spirit.

He instinctively planned to try the “Dao-Heart Seedling” technique.

He spent some time crafting the words, forming the “seed.” While thinking, he walked to the prison and stood before Jin Wutuo.

Looking at Jin Wutuo bound in iron chains, his flesh slashed and bleeding, Mo Hua prepared to speak and trigger the Dao-Heart Seeding — but a sudden tremor ran through him. His mind cleared in an instant.

“What am I doing? Using Dao-Heart Seeding on someone else?”

Mo Hua frowned, feeling an inexplicable unease.

Under the circumstances, Dao-Heart Seeding seemed the best option. Yet he quickly realized it was also the most dangerous.

This land of the Great Wilderness was his Martial Uncle’s chessboard.

To manipulate others’ thoughts here—using a technique learned from his Martial Uncle—was to move pieces on his Martial Uncle’s board. That thought startled Mo Hua.

This wasn’t just recklessness. He had used a sliver of Dao-Heart Seeding in the Great Wilderness before. Could his Martial Uncle have noticed?

It wasn’t impossible.

A chill crept into Mo Hua’s heart.

But the Great Wilderness was vast—the chessboard was huge. There were many cultivators, many pieces. He was only one among countless pieces, his Martial Uncle had important affairs and might not detect him. Mo Hua could not be certain either way.

Still, the prepared Dao-Heart Seedling could not be used now.

Ignorance allows fearlessness—when one doesn’t know, one doesn’t worry. But now that he knew, he could not help but be wary, even afraid. Even if his Martial Uncle did not yet know, using the method repeatedly would leave traces that would eventually betray him.

Frequent travel by the river inevitably wets the shoes. Those drowned were often the best swimmers.

Mo Hua drew a deep breath and swallowed the seductive words back down.

If he would not use Dao-Heart Seeding, what else could he employ?

What means could shatter Jin Wutuo’s heart and force him to speak?

Mo Hua concealed himself in the shadows and watched Jin Wutuo, his gaze deep, as if trying to peer through to the man’s inner self.

Inside the prison, Jin Wutuo had felt nothing at first. But under Mo Hua’s stare a sudden unease and panic rose in him, as if some terrifying thing were scheming against him—some mind-reading demon watching him.

Jin Wutuo closed his eyes and tried not to think.

The more he tried to suppress thought, the more thought surged.

When a mind shows a crack, its most dreaded things inevitably surface.

Sweat beaded cold on Jin Wutuo’s forehead, pressure mounted until he could barely bear it. He began murmuring to himself, as if consoling himself:

“It’s nothing…”

“It’s nothing… he’s already dead, he’s already dead…”

He’s already dead?

Mo Hua’s eyes flickered at that, and he gradually eased the press of his spirit and withdrew. His figure thinned and faded.

Once Mo Hua left, the oppressive presence in the cell dissipated instantly.

Yet Jin Wutuo did not feel relief. The spiritual pressure had widened the gap in his mind, his fear only deepened. There was no additional physical pain, but the mental oppression and trembling clung to him like a shadow.

Jin Wutuo’s eyes stayed wide-open, panic-stricken.

…

After leaving the prison, Mo Hua pondered for a full hour before entering the deepest tent in the camp.

Within the tent lay a huge coffin.

Shi-Gu’s corpse was sealed inside.

Though he had resolved his plan, when the moment came Mo Hua hesitated.

Standing before Shi-Gu’s coffin, Mo Hua was silent for a long time, torn within. At last he sighed deeply and set his gaze with determination.

In the world of cultivation, one is often not free to act as they wish. In the face of catastrophe, some principles must be bent.

Mo Hua summoned Chi Feng and instructed, “Shi-Gu’s corpse shows strange anomalies. I will use the Divine-Lord’s power to purify it. Seal off the surrounding area, no one is to disturb or approach.”

Chi Feng’s expression was stern. He nodded. “Yes, Lord Shaman.”

After sealing the site, Mo Hua had Chi Feng open Shi-Gu’s coffin. He remained silent a moment, then spoke slowly: “Cut open Shi-Gu’s flesh, expose his meridians and bones…”

Chi Feng’s face changed. “Lord Shaman, this…”

Mo Hua shook his head, he said calmly. “Do it. It is all the Divine-Lord’s will.”

Chi Feng frowned but, after a moment’s hesitation, decided to trust Mo Hua.

He drew his bone-knife and, following Mo Hua’s instructions, began to cut into Shi-Gu’s corpse.

Shi-Gu had been a late-stage Golden Core; his corpse retained a corpse-stiffness, his flesh and bones tenacious. But he was dead—with no spirit to control the body. Though stiff as iron, Chi Feng, a mid-stage Golden Core, could still force it open, it simply required many heavy cuts.

Mo Hua had earlier drawn several lines and marked points on Shi-Gu’s limb bones.

Chi Feng followed Mo Hua’s markings and cut along the lines.

The dull blade sliced through as if cutting iron. Over an hour passed before Shi-Gu’s corpse was fully opened, revealing the pale bones within.

Mo Hua nodded. “Enough. You may leave.”

Chi Feng looked at Mo Hua intently, then bowed. “Yes.”

After Chi Feng left, Mo Hua sighed softly as he stared at Shi-Gu’s exposed skeleton.

Then, without further hesitation, he drew his bone-knife, dipped it in spiritual-ink, and began to draw formations on Shi-Gu the general’s bones according to his plan.

The technique for carving arrays into bone had come from Mister Tu’s bone-engraving method.

The array he drew was the small Spirit-Pivot array he once used to control others.

Bone-engraving required study, practice, and absolute mastery—no mistakes could be allowed.

This was one of the essential techniques for forming a Golden Core.

One day he intended to use bone-engraving to carve that twenty-four-pattern Taotie Twelve-Meridian-Spiritual-Skeleton Absolute Formation onto his own bones.

To carve formations into one’s bones was monstrously dangerous; not an ounce of carelessness could be tolerated.

He had long lacked the opportunity to practice.

Previously he had had Chi Feng break Iron Shugu’s bones and tried to draw once on Iron Shugu’s bones.

But after a single stroke, the iron-Shugu in the Golden Core realm had fainted from pain, and a great deal of vitality had been lost.

If he had used Iron Shugu as consumable practice material, the man’s root of life could not withstand the drain; Mo Hua would not have many chances to practice.

Pain was intolerable and vitality leaked away; thus he could not practice on the living.

If not the living, then only the dead remained.

The dead feel no pain and no longer suffer loss of vitality.

The late Shi-Gu was, at present, the best “material” available.

And besides, Shi-Gu’s corpse had to be dealt with.

As a Golden Core late-stage general, Shi-Gu had been immensely strong in life; after death, his corpse resembled a malevolent specter, terrifying in its own right—a foundation for an extremely powerful “base-corpse.”

Lu-Gu, however, was unwilling to simply “cremate” this elder brother of his.

That very corpse of Shi-Gu had thus become a hidden danger.

If, in the future, someone else refined or controlled Shi-Gu’s body, the disaster wrought would be boundless.

To prevent such a “catastrophe,” to ensure the corpse of Shi-Gu would not fall under another’s control, Mo Hua could only first think of a method to seize control himself.

Just as he had once done back in Nanyue City.

Dangerous factors must always be kept in one’s own hands.

As for the orthodox corpse-controlling methods of the sinister Yin-Corpse Valley, Mo Hua certainly did not know them. The only corpse-control method he possessed was the Small Spirit-Pivot Absolute Formation.

This was a first-rank, twelve-pattern Absolute Formation.

A first-rank Absolute Formation could barely be considered “half of a second-rank.” To apply it upon a Golden Core late-stage corpse like Shi-Gu’s was still far too weak.

At most, it might only control Shi-Gu’s corpse for simple movements, not for battle, not for slaughter.

But for now, that was already enough.

Mo Hua had no better means, and so could only proceed this way.

Inside the closed, dim tent,

Mo Hua leapt into Shi-Gu’s coffin alone and began, with the Bone-Carving Method, to engrave the Small Spirit-Pivot Absolute Formation upon Shi-Gu’s massive corpse.

In this way, he could both practice how to perform “bone-carving” modifications upon the human body, and at the same time lay down the Small Spirit-Pivot Formation in advance, preventing future corpse mutations.

Time passed little by little.

Affairs outside were left to Dan-Zhu and the others.

Mo Hua devoted himself wholly to carving the Spirit-Pivot Formation upon Shi-Gu’s bones.

For Mo Hua, the Spirit-Pivot Formation itself was not difficult.

The difficulty lay in the bone-carving.

Especially carving a formation into the bones of Shi-Gu’s corpse.

Here, countless details required care, countless issues demanded consideration.

Mo Hua steadied his mind, solved each problem in turn, and step by step advanced the progress of the carving.

As time flowed on, line after line of Spirit-Pivot runes were imprinted by Mo Hua into the corpse of Shi-Gu.

His mastery of the Bone-Carving Method—especially the art of inscribing formations into the skeletons within “human bodies”—was further honed, slowly edging toward maturity—

…

At last, after five full days, Mo Hua finally completed the initial carving of the Small Spirit-Pivot Formation.

Within Shi-Gu’s body, the Small Spirit-Pivot Formation had taken basic shape.

Mo Hua no longer had the time to construct a more complete or complex system of the Spirit-Pivot.

Time was too short; usable was good enough.

He brought out several Blood-Essence Pills, crushed them, and sprinkled the powder upon Shi-Gu’s wounds.

This corpse, having once been parasitized by the evil divine will, retained some “flesh-reviving” ability. Upon absorbing the blood essence, the flesh began to heal on its own, and the wounds started to close.

The formations Mo Hua had carved into Shi-Gu’s bones also sank deep within as the wounds healed, now hidden inside the body.

Afterward, Mo Hua stuffed a few spirit stones into Shi-Gu’s mouth.

The formations on Shi-Gu’s teeth shattered the spirit stones automatically, releasing pale-blue spiritual energy that was absorbed.

Mo Hua pressed a finger against Shi-Gu’s forehead, using divine sense to connect with the formation eye of the Minor Spirit-Pivot array within, along with its various formation nodes, thus activating the formation.

Moments later, a faint blue glow lit up from within Shi-Gu’s body.

The Minor Spirit-Pivot Formation carved by Mo Hua began to operate, and as it circulated, the spiritual energy transformed into Spirit-Pivot power, spreading throughout Shi-Gu’s corpse. It gradually filled his long-dead meridians and bones, seeping deeper into the bone structure until all fused together as one.

Spiritual energy.

Minor Spirit-Pivot Formation.

Bones.

The corpse itself.

These layers gradually connected, and in accordance with the formation’s design, established a resonance, all ultimately unified under Mo Hua’s divine sense.

When the medium and the formation, spiritual power and bone, were completely integrated, and divine sense flowed unhindered, a strange pale-blue gleam shone in Mo Hua’s eyes.

He softly called out:

“Rise!”

(TN: Arise)

As the word fell, the long-dead corpse of Shi-Gu, towering like a small giant, began to tremble faintly.

First its fingers twitched, then its arms, and soon the smaller bones, the limb bones, the spine—all began to stir with subtle strength.

The formation was awakening, spiritual power manipulating Shi-Gu.

The blue light within the corpse grew ever brighter, until reaching its peak brilliance—then drew back, concealed once more beneath the flesh, hidden within the bones.

At last, the blue radiance condensed to its utmost, merging seamlessly into the corpse.

The massive “Shi-Gu” slowly rose to its feet, like a demonic god looming in the darkness.

Mo Hua stepped before it, his eyes glowing with blue light as he looked upon the towering figure.

That godlike Shi-Gu also slowly opened its eyes and looked back at Mo Hua.

Its pupils were pitch black and hollow, terrifying to behold—Yet deep within that darkness, a glimmer of blue shone faintly, a light strikingly similar to the Spirit-Pivot patterns glowing in Mo Hua’s own eyes.

(End of this Chapter)