Chapter 1271: The Grand Shaman Priest

Chapter 1270: The Grand Shaman Priest

The Sacred Beast phenomenon lingered on the distant horizon for a long time before slowly dissipating.

A sense of auspicious radiance seemed to descend upon the entire mountain peak. Within the tiger’s ferocity, strands of sacred aura intertwined, echoing through the valleys for a long while.

In later generations, the people of the Great Wilderness would name this mountain “Sacred Tiger Mountain” — the mountain where the Sacred Tiger descended—and generations would come to worship it.

Meanwhile, inside the cave, the big tiger was huffing and puffing while eating.

It had successfully broken through—now a third-grade Golden Core realm tiger demon. The newly formed demon core had condensed within its body, while the pure white Sacred Beast bloodline had been completely “stitched together,” fused into its flesh and bones, deeply buried within its demonic marrow, no longer revealing itself.

However, Big Tiger’s appearance had changed greatly.

It was as if it had changed into new skin—its fur now whiter, purer, more divine. The contrast of black and white stripes was even sharper; one glance would tell anyone its bloodline was noble beyond compare.

Its body had grown larger, and its aura was stronger than ever.

For cultivators, the formation of the Golden Core marked a great transformation of the Dao Foundation.

For demon beasts, it was the same. Once a true demon core was formed, they became a third-grade beast—gaining rapid advancement in Dao cultivation, their bloodline and body reborn anew. From then on, their cultivation path opened into a broader world.

For that reason, forming a demon core was an immense trial.

Only one in ten peak second-grade beasts ever succeeded—surviving the tribulations and completing the transformation whole.

Big Tiger had crossed that threshold.

Its bloodline had awakened perfectly; its flesh and bones were reforged like cast iron, and its fur became tougher yet more majestic.

Its fortune, indeed, was extraordinary.

Mo Hua couldn’t help but rub the white fur around Big Tiger’s neck.

Big Tiger was in a wonderful mood.

It had suppressed its cultivation for far too long, waiting for Mo Hua while being watched hungrily by its own kind, danger lurking everywhere. It had been on edge for months.

Now everything was well. The demon core had formed, the breakthrough achieved, its inheritance secret shared with Mo Hua—and now Mo Hua was even petting it again.

Big Tiger wagged its thick tail happily, humming in satisfaction, though it didn’t stop eating—it was simply too hungry.

Mo Hua smiled as he watched the beast devour its meal. But when his eyes fell upon its black-and-white stripes, his smile faded.

His gaze deepened; he sank into thought.

Those two “heretical” discoveries resurfaced in his mind.

“Formations… can create living flesh…”

“Sacred Beasts… are ‘synthetic beasts’—formed from formations and blood…”

If that reasoning held true…

Then perhaps the so-called “Sacred Beast bloodline” that existed among the Great Wilderness beasts… was, in truth, a kind of ancient Life Array Rune sealed deep within their blood.

When a demon beast broke through realms—its flesh transforming through ancestral regression or Sacred Beast metamorphosis—those hidden “life arrays” would awaken, rewriting and recompiling its blood and flesh like living code, fusing the body anew.

Once the life arrays’ “compilation” succeeded, the beast would partially revert to its ancestral form and undergo “sanctification,” awakening the powers and bloodlines of the Sacred Beasts of the Great Wilderness.

The stronger the Life Array Rune, the more complete the reassembly—the more profound the sanctification.

The greater the sanctification, the closer the beast came to becoming a true Sacred Beast.

That might be the real truth of the Great Wilderness’ Sacred Beasts.

On the surface, it appeared as inherited bloodlines—but in essence, it was life constructed through formation arts.

Not the logic of flesh and blood—

but the logic of Arrays!

Mo Hua’s heart trembled, waves crashing within his mind.

Only now did he begin to grasp the meaning of “The Dao gives birth to all things.”

Why they said… formations are the true essence of this world.

All appearances are illusion.

All forms are non-forms.

Their essence is Dao… and Dao manifests through formations, and operates through formations.

Mo Hua’s brow furrowed tightly. A dreadful realization dawned.

If formations can create life… if Sacred Beasts are synthetic…

Then who possessed such power—to use formations to create living flesh?

Who had the ability to forge the Sacred Beasts of the Great Wilderness?

Mo Hua drew in a sharp breath.

There were no visible traces, no clues—yet a long-buried name began to surface in his mind:

“The ‘Grand Shaman Priest.’”

Those three words had been erased from the history of the Great Wilderness.

Though Mo Hua had journeyed deep into the tribes, fought their wars, and as a Shaman unified the entire Vermilion Bird Mountain Realm—after scouring countless ancient tribal records—he’d rarely seen any mention of the Grand Shaman Priest.

Only on a few relics—faded leather scrolls, half-eroded bone tablets—did those three characters faintly remain, barely legible.

And even then, they were mentioned only in passing.

All that was known: in the ancient history of the Great Wilderness, there once existed such a figure.

But who he was—his origins, his cultivation, his deeds, his legacy—nothing was recorded.

It was as if the world had forgotten.

A few myths spoke his name, but they were mere conjectures—no evidence.

Yet Mo Hua was not an ordinary man.

He walked the path of Proving the Dao through Divine-Sense, half a step into godhood, and was also an extraordinary master of formations.

He could see deeper than most cultivators.

And he could sense the Grand Shaman Priest’s shadow behind countless events across the Great Wilderness.

According to the Second Elder of the Demonic Sect, the Taotie Twelve-Meridian-Spiritual-Skeleton Formation—a twenty-four-rune, second-grade Absolute Formation—was created by this very Grand Shaman Priest.

The Taotie law itself was an intricate chain of interlinked laws.

All Taotie formations seemed connected to him, and thus the Taotie Twelve-Meridian-Spiritual-Skeleton Formation could ultimately be traced back to the Grand Shaman Priest.

The Four Symbols Azure Dragon Formation used by Mister Tu, the Taotie Devouring-Assimilation Formation within the Shugu Tribe’s divine statue, and even the Abyssal-Bone Dragon Transformation Formation crafted by the Shugu ancestors—all likely bore the hand of the Grand Shaman Priest.

Perhaps, even more broadly, every tribe in the Great Wilderness that forged ancestor armors using the “Devouring and Dragon Transformation” laws and the Four Symbols Absolute Formations—the very methods by which tribes crafted their ancestral Barbarian Armors—could be traced back to the same source…

The Grand Shaman Priest’s Legacy.

If the Four Symbols Azure Dragon Formation existed, then surely the others did as well:

the Four Symbols White Tiger Formation,

the Four Symbols Vermilion Bird Formation,

and the Four Symbols Black Tortoise Formation.

That would mean—the Grand Shaman Priest had established the entire Four Sacred Beasts Formation System of the Great Wilderness!

It was even possible the so-called Four Sacred Beasts themselves were creations—stitched together by the Grand Shaman Priest using beasts’ flesh and divine bloodlines through ancient Life-Creation Formations.

Formations so advanced that even with Mo Hua’s mastery, he could not begin to comprehend them.

Had he not witnessed it himself through Big Tiger, he would never have dared think it possible.

Every thread pointed back to that one figure: The Grand Shaman Priest.

The entire lineage of Great wilderness formations seemed tied to him… and yet, his name was nowhere in history.

The more Mo Hua pondered, the colder his heart grew.

Could this Grand Shaman Priest truly have been so powerful?

If so, then he must have:

– Comprehended the full Taotie Law Chain,

– Created countless Taotie Absolute Formations, including the Twelve-Meridian Spiritual Skeleton Formation,

– Synthesized the Four Sacred Beasts—Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise—establishing the Four Sacred Beast Formation System itself, and

– Even encoded their bloodlines as ancient life arrays, embedding them within countless beasts of the Great Wilderness, passed down generation after generation.

…

Could a human truly achieve such things?

To achieve such feats, what kind of realm must one have reached? What kind of earth-shattering destiny and creation power would that take?

What kind of being could defy the heavens so brazenly?

It was as if Heavens themselves had given him a cheat code!

Mo Hua frowned deeply.

He had always thought he was already “monstrous” in the Dao of Array Formations.

But now… he had encountered someone even he found terrifying.

Truly, there is always a higher heaven beyond the heavens.

Mo Hua sighed deeply, then steadied himself, shaking off the weight of despair.

“There are no enemies in this world—only those stronger than you.

Meeting a stronger one means you’ve seen your own weakness and found a chance to learn.

Only by recognizing weakness can one learn strength.

Only by turning weakness into strength can one progress endlessly toward the Dao.

Heaven moves ever forward; a gentleman strengthens himself without ceasing.”

That was what he had learned during his studies in Qianxue Prefecture.

But even so, his heart still felt heavy, as though a great mountain pressed upon it—an unseen shadow looming above.

And then another thought struck him.

Was the Twelve-Meridian Taotie Spiritual-Skeleton Absolute Formation truly obtained by chance?

Was the Demon Sect’s Second Elder truly “honest before death” when he traded that knowledge?

Why had Mister Tu launched the Arhatian Blood-Sacrifice Grand Formation exactly when Mo Hua was studying in Qianxue?

Why was the Taotie Absolute Formation hidden within the white-horned evil god idol that Mister Tu himself knew nothing about?

Who placed it there?

Was Mo Hua’s discovery of it truly coincidence?

And when he was fighting on the Dao Court’s frontlines, it was Big Tiger, a beast with Sacred Beast bloodline, that brought him into the heart of Great wilderness…

The place he entered—Wutu Mountain Realm — lay in the east of the Great Wilderness.

“Wutu”, located in the east of the Great Wilderness—symbolizing the spark of fire…

…

The more he thought, the more chilling it became.

Mo Hua felt a cold wind crawl down his back.

Could this entire game of the Great Wilderness… have been orchestrated all along?

Someone placing the pieces, step by step, around him?

From the time he studied in Qianxue Prefecture…

No… even earlier.

Perhaps since childhood—when he first met that kitten-sized tiger cub—the first piece had already been placed beside him, and the game had already begun.

A shudder ran through him. He turned sharply, casting a wary gaze at Big Tiger.

Big Tiger froze mid-bite, sensing the coldness.

It looked up, meat still in its mouth, big round eyes wide and innocent—utterly confused by Mo Hua’s glare.

Mo Hua stared blankly for a moment, then sighed helplessly, the tension fading from his face.

“You big fool… all you know is eating. You clearly don’t know a thing.”

He realized he might be overthinking.

The Great Wilderness surely contained many deliberate manipulations—but not everything was calculation.

Especially not his childhood, nor Big Tiger—it might really just be coincidence.

Or rather…

He frowned thoughtfully.

Perhaps it wasn’t manipulation, but attraction; as if some unseen existence exerted a gravitational pull, drawing destinies together, intertwining their cause and effect.

There were inevitabilities, yes—but also countless accidents, intertwined with his own cultivation, choices, and life. Too complex to be explained simply as “fate” or “karma.”

Feeling slightly embarrassed by his paranoia, Mo Hua smiled faintly, and gently stroked Big Tiger’s head.

“Eat more.”

Big Tiger blinked blankly, then happily resumed munching.

Mo Hua watched silently.

Big Tiger could live carefree—but he could not.

For he knew… though chance played a part, there were invisible threads of cause and effect secretly steering the flow of events…

The Great Wilderness was a chessboard—perhaps not only the living were playing it, but also… a dead one was still making moves.

…

Once the big tiger had eaten its fill, its blood energy recovered, and its cultivation stabilized.

Mo Hua then sketched the Sacred Beast bloodline changes he had observed on the tiger’s body into rune patterns, recording them onto a jade slip for future study.

He still couldn’t fully comprehend these things related to the Sacred Beast bloodline, but the formation principles contained within were terrifyingly profound, perhaps even too terrifying to be spoken of.

He stored the jade slip carefully within his Storage Ring.

After organizing his thoughts, he recorded several key causal points to ensure nothing was missed, then, together with the tiger, stepped out of the cave.

Outside, Lu-Gu and the others had been keeping watch.

When they saw Mo Hua emerge accompanied by a snow-white, black-striped tiger, a third-grade Golden Core beast exuding an aura akin to a Sacred Beast, their expressions turned solemn.

Even though they knew what had happened, seeing it with their own eyes—a living, unbound Golden Core Sacred Tiger following the Lord Shaman faithfully and guarding him step by step—still filled them with disbelief.

The third-grade One-Eyed Black Tiger also looked at Big-Tiger with reverence—though within that gaze lay not only awe, but also thinly veiled jealousy and resentment.

Mo Hua sensed the hatred in its eyes and gave it a calm glance.

A moment later, his mind stirred as he asked: “You wish to become sacred?”

The black tiger’s ferocious eyes trembled slightly.

Mo Hua pondered briefly, then said quietly,

“Though you are a demon beast, fate grants opportunities.

Serve me—serve the Divine-Lord faithfully.

One day, when your merits are complete, I can grant you a stroke of ‘Creation,’ allowing you to shed the mortal and ascend to ‘Sacred,’ earning your place among the Sacred Beasts.”

The black tiger froze in shock, then the ferocity in its eyes slowly faded.

Subdued by Mo Hua’s divine majesty, and sensing the weight of an opportunity upon him, it lowered its head and bowed in submission.

As it did, the other tiger demons growled lowly, then fell to their knees before Mo Hua as well.

Lu-Gu’s pupils contracted; his expression shook with awe.

He dropped to one knee, and proclaimed with devotion: “Lord Shaman is wise and holy.”

The rest followed, kneeling and chanting together:

“Lord Shaman, brilliant and mighty,

your sacred power protects our Great Wilderness!”

Amid their reverent praises, Mo Hua’s expression remained calm—his bearing unconsciously growing even more divine, solemnity and detached, like a true god descending.

…

Afterward, Mo Hua personally led the big tiger back to the Vermilion Sparrow Tribe.

With everything now in place, the next matter awaiting him was the ancient divine throne deep within Vermilion Bird Mountain.

(End of Chapter)