Chapter 1231: Slaughter Them All

Chapter 1230: Slaughter Them All

At a branch of the Vermilion Bird Mountain Realm, beneath an unnamed hill, lay the encampment of the Acha Tribe.

Mo Hua, Dan-Zhu, and Ba Chuan were there as guests.

It had been three days since they entered this final battlefield at the heart of the Great Wilderness.

The tribes were divided and chaos reigned. For the time being, Mo Hua dared not act rashly. He found a desolate mountain nearby and settled six thousand barbarian soldiers there, leaving Lu-Gu to guard the place.

Chi Feng remained as well—to make sure Lu-Gu didn’t hatch any wicked thoughts.

As for Mo Hua, he disguised himself along with Dan-Zhu and Ba Chuan as ordinary traveling merchants, wandering about to gather information and grasp the situation.

Over these three days, they had visited quite a few tribes.

Most had treated them with hostility; the Acha Tribe before them was one of the few that showed friendliness.

At this moment, a young man named A-Bu was pouring tea for Mo Hua.

The tea was bitter—some wild herb from the mountains, no doubt.

Mo Hua took a small sip and asked, “So you’re from the Xuanwu (Black Tortoise) Mountain Realm?”

A-Bu nodded. “Yes, honored guest.”

He was about twenty, tall, dark-skinned, and wore a warm, open smile.

“We were lucky,” A-Bu said, speaking with natural familiarity. “The Acha Tribe is a small one. By coincidence, we were migrating our herds when the famine struck, so we avoided disaster. After that, we just kept wandering, one step at a time, until we ended up here.”

At this, the youth’s expression still held lingering fear.

“Truly, Heaven showed mercy. Our Acha Tribe is tiny, and yet many tribes far stronger than ours starved to death. Only we survived…”

Mo Hua looked at the honest, straightforward young man with a gentle expression and asked more about the Xuanwu (Black Tortoise) Mountain Realm.

But A-Bu was only a youth from a small tribe.

He knew little—only that many of the Great Wilderness’ vast mountain ranges were named after the Four Symbols, and that his tribe had once lived near the great Xuanwu Range. Beyond that, his understanding was limited.

Still, from A-Bu’s few simple words, Mo Hua could roughly infer the overall situation.

At present, his Martial Uncle and the noble clans were “playing their game,” drawing together all the surviving barbarian cultivators into enormous clusters, forming a tangled and chaotic web of powers.

The “final pasture” his Martial Uncle had fenced in for these “livestock” was, in truth, an enormous region—perhaps ten times the size of the Vermilion Bird Mountain Realm.

The conflicts within it would surely be the fiercest yet.

Mo Hua sighed quietly, feeling, for a moment, unsure where to begin.

Just then, the youth A-Bu glanced timidly at him and asked, “Honored guest… you’re not just an ordinary trader, are you?”

Mo Hua’s eyes flicked to him. “You noticed?”

A-Bu looked at Mo Hua, then at Dan-Zhu and the brooding Ba Chuan.

He thought to himself: Ordinary merchants don’t look like this. Even the “guard” among them radiated a pressure that made his heart quiver.

Mo Hua smiled kindly. “Indeed, my identity is… a bit special.”

A-Bu nodded, hesitated a moment, but said nothing more.

Mo Hua asked, “You wanted to ask something?”

A-Bu shook his head. “I shouldn’t pry into an honored guest’s background. If you wished to tell me, you would have said so. If you didn’t, that means it’s not convenient. Best I remain ignorant.”

The words were clumsy, but the meaning was wise.

Mo Hua looked at him for a moment, then took out a tattered leather-bound manual and handed it over.

“Fate has brought us together. Take this—some cultivation techniques from the Great Wilderness.”

A-Bu was startled and quickly shook his head. “This… this is too precious. I… I can’t accept it.”

Mo Hua smiled faintly. “They’re simple, basic techniques—nothing more.”

A-Bu hesitated for a long while before finally accepting it.

In such small tribes, inheritance was scarce. Though he possessed ambition, he had never found a proper path to cultivation.

For him, even this “basic” technique was an invaluable gift.

A-Bu knelt and said earnestly, “A-Bu thanks the benefactor for his grace. I shall repay this great kindness someday!”

Mo Hua, of course, did not expect repayment.

Afterward, he asked a few more questions. A-Bu, grateful for the gift, answered everything honestly—and for things he didn’t know, he even went to ask the tribe’s elders before returning to report to Mo Hua.

After chatting for a while, dusk began to fall. Mo Hua rose to leave.

A-Bu was reluctant, thanking him repeatedly.

Mo Hua walked a few steps, then turned back to look at A-Bu—his gaze lingered on the youth’s forehead before he finally spoke:

“A-Bu… would you like to leave with me?”

Dan-Zhu and Ba Chuan were both surprised.

A-Bu froze. “Leave?”

Mo Hua nodded. “The world’s in chaos. If you follow me, perhaps you can make something of yourself. But if you stay…”

His eyes rested again on the faint gray-black aura gathering at A-Bu’s brow. He said nothing more.

Lately, Mo Hua had begun to notice these omens of death in the foreheads of most cultivators from the smaller tribes—faint, uncertain, but present.

Not always fatal, but ominous.

A-Bu’s expression wavered, but he shook his head. “I still have my grandfather… and a younger sister. If I leave, no one will care for them.”

Mo Hua nodded softly. “I understand.”

A-Bu then said solemnly, “Benefactor, I’m still weak now and unworthy to follow you. But I’ll train hard. Once I’m strong enough and have settled my family, I’ll come serve at your side.”

Mo Hua smiled and nodded. “Good.”

Then he turned and left.

A-Bu followed him to the tribe’s entrance, waving until Mo Hua vanished from sight.

After leaving the Acha Tribe, Mo Hua visited two more tribes to gather intelligence. As night fell, they camped in a small grove to rest.

Mo Hua didn’t sleep. He spent the night poring over his map, deducing possible movements and planning his next steps.

When dawn came, the three set out once more.

After walking for about the time it takes incense to burn, Mo Hua suddenly froze, glancing sideways.

Out of the thinning morning mist, a troop of riders burst forth—mounted on barbarian steeds, native beasts of the Great Wilderness, somewhere between spirit beasts and demonic beasts.

Not as savage as demons, yet not as tame as spiritual creatures, they carried a trace of demonic energy. Such beasts were rare and required special breeding—few places in the Wilderness could raise them.

Neither the Second-Grade Wutu Realm nor the Wusha Realm, nor even the Third-Grade Vermilion Bird Realm, had many.

That these riders—ten or so—were mounted on them meant they were of no low status.

The leader, a barbarian commander, had cultivation around the early Golden Core stage.

Times were chaotic, and Mo Hua preferred to avoid trouble.

The riders, too, seemed disinterested as they passed through the fog.

But as they crossed paths, Mo Hua caught the faint scent of fresh blood—and within it, a thread of familiar karmic resonance. His expression darkened.

“Stop.”

His voice wasn’t loud, yet in the still dawn, it carried a commanding weight.

The barbarian commander pulled his mount to a halt, looking down at Mo Hua with a sneer.

“Boy, did you just order me?”

Mo Hua didn’t answer, only asked quietly:

“Did you kill someone recently?”

Dan-Zhu and Ba Chuan exchanged looks.

The commander frowned, saying nothing.

Mo Hua’s tone deepened. “Did you, perhaps, pass by a small tribe… called the Acha Tribe?”

At those words, both Dan-Zhu and Ba Chuan’s faces changed.

The barbarian commander’s patience snapped. He cursed, “I don’t know what the hell you’re babbling about—what Acha—”

Mo Hua’s face went cold.

Sensing his intent, Dan-Zhu burst forth—his body wreathed in the blazing Mystic-Flame Feather Robe, striking at the barbarian commander.

The man roared in fury, drawing a massive blade that howled with black wind. He fought back fiercely, but how could he stand against the prodigy Dan-Zhu?

After these long campaigns, his strength had been tempered like true steel in raging fire—unshakable and unstoppable. Ba Chuan joined the fray as well.

After a hundred exchanges, Dan-Zhu’s flames burned through the commander’s armor, charring his flesh. A palm strike to his chest sent him crashing to the ground.

The other dozen Foundation Establishment warriors were swiftly subdued by Ba Chuan.

Dan-Zhu broke the commander’s legs, sealed his meridians with mystic flame, and dragged him before Mo Hua.

Mo Hua asked, word by word, “Did you pass by a small tribe called the Acha Tribe?”

The man’s bravado melted into fear. “I… I don’t know any Acha Tribe…”

Mo Hua’s tone deepened. “Then tell me… did you just kill someone?”

The man nodded hesitantly. “Y-yes… we killed…”

Mo Hua frowned and gestured for Ba Chuan to hold him down, while he himself turned to head back.

Dan-Zhu said, “Sir, I’ll go with you.”

Mo Hua thought for a moment and nodded.

They walked half a day before reaching the Acha Tribe’s camp—only to find it in ruins.

Scorched earth. The stench of blood and charred flesh filled the air. Corpses piled together, half-burned, the smoke still rising.

Mo Hua searched among them for a long time before finally finding A-Bu—buried near the bottom.

He was dead. Both legs hacked off, his body half-burned. But clutched tightly to his chest was the same leather-bound cultivation manual Mo Hua had given him.

Mo Hua felt as if a heavy hammer had struck his chest without warning; he stood there stunned for a long while.

Beside him, Dan-Zhu clenched his fists, face twisted with silent fury.

After an unknown length of time, Mo Hua finally spoke softly.

“Let’s go.”

Dan-Zhu looked at him and slowly nodded.

The two returned to the forest grove, where Ba Chuan was still holding the crippled barbarian commander as ordered.

Seeing the commander now, Dan-Zhu’s anger flared. He strode forward, kicked the commander ten-odd zhang away, then stepped on his chest and pressed down, gradually increasing the force until the commander coughed up blood.

With an icy voice he demanded, “Why did you kill the people from that small tribe?”

The commander finally seemed to realize he might have killed people he shouldn’t have. He grinned through the blood in his mouth and said, “This world is survival of the fittest. It was only a small tribe—slaughtered them, so what?”

Dan-Zhu’s expression brimmed with rage and for a moment he showed a crack in his composure.

Knowing he couldn’t match Dan-Zhu, the commander didn’t fight back when the crack appeared. Instead he snapped off one of his fingers; hidden inside the finger bone was a black token that burned into a ball of black flame and shot up into the sky.

It seemed to be a tribal signal.

Dan-Zhu’s face changed and he moved to kill the commander.

But the commander still smiled coldly, blood in his grin. “Too late… once the ritual-smoke goes up, the main force will come. All of you here will die—cut to pieces, torn limb from limb. You can’t escape…”

The smile on the commander’s face grew ever more sinister.

Dan-Zhu wanted to slaughter him on the spot, but turned instead to look at Mo Hua.

Mo Hua said calmly, “No hurry. We’ll wait here too.”

Dan-Zhu paused in surprise, thought a moment, then nodded.

The commander glanced at Mo Hua, frowning—he didn’t understand why this mere Foundation Establishment boy’s words carried so much weight. Even that Golden-Core prodigy in the splendid feathered robe would obey him?

Could this young man be someone extraordinary?

But after thinking he sneered inwardly. No matter how exceptional a person is, in front of a horde of barbarian soldiers they’d still only have one road—death.

If these people didn’t kill him now, when reinforcements arrived they’d be forced to kneel and kowtow.

A cold ruthlessness flickered in the commander’s eyes.

The mountain forest was bleak and silent. Less than an hour later the sound of hooves came from afar, shaking the ground like an earthquake. Soon dust rolled up and a large army charged out.

At a glance there were more than two hundred barbarians, all clad in black barbarian armor, led by three Golden-Core barbarian cultivators.

These Golden-Core fighters and the barbarian soldiers rode barbarian horses and surrounded Mo Hua and the others tightly.

One man at the front, spear in hand, pointed at Dan-Zhu and barked, “Release Commander Man!”

Dan-Zhu’s face did not change.

The commander beneath Dan-Zhu’s foot laughed through his bloody mouth and said, “Three fools who don’t know their place dared to lay hands on me. You’re dead. Kneel and kowtow eighteen times to me—maybe I’ll let you die a little more quickly.”

But Dan-Zhu remained silent.

Mo Hua looked at him and asked quietly: “Have your men arrived?”

The commander sneered: “So what if they have?”

Mo Hua nodded slightly. “Convenient… my men have arrived too.”

(TN: Reverse Card)

The commander’s face paled; he was about to speak when a deep tremor came from the ground, numbing half his face. The vibration was not from hooves—far from that. It was heavy and resonant like a mountain.

Large, heavily armored barbarian soldiers were stamping the ground in unison, producing that weighty rumble.

And there were an astonishing number of them.

The commander turned his head with difficulty and saw orderly footsteps approaching from the distance like thunder.

Before long a group of battle-hardened elite troops wearing fierce Abyssal-Bone heavy armor—like marching beasts—appeared. Roughly counted, there were more than a hundred of them.

Behind these heavy-armor troops were over six hundred more elite barbarians in standard barbarian armor.

Altogether, over eight hundred barbarians.

Over eight hundred, fully equipped with heavy barbarian armor!

At the front of this army stood five Golden-Core powerhouses.

Led by five Golden-Core barbarian warriors and more than a hundred Abyssal-Bone heavy troops, the over eight hundred barbarians quickly encircled the two hundred or so men the commander had summoned. The commander felt his bones tremble. Even those “reinforcements” trembled and turned pale, their souls nearly leaving their bodies.

Mo Hua knew a few should be taken alive for interrogation.

But he was in no mood for that. He said coldly, “Slaughter them all…”

Under the crushing encirclement of heavy troops and the deadly, despairing intent of the killers, the Golden-Core barbarian commander’s face filled with fear and he glared at Mo Hua: “You bully the weak and slaughter them without shame?”

Mo Hua looked at him indifferently and replied in a calm tone: “You can’t only talk about ‘survival of the fittest’ when you’re the one slaughtering others…”

“Now you are the ant and I am the strong—so we slaughter, and what’s there to say?”

(End of this Chapter)