Chapter 1275: Slaughter Machine

Chapter 1274: Slaughter Machine

Shi-Gu’s corpse pulled out the Golden Core of the Gao-Tu Tribe barbarian general and… swallowed it whole.

The Golden Core, fused with the cultivator’s life, blood, and spiritual energy, was crushed between its teeth.

The tremendous power contained within the Golden Core erupted, deforming Shi-Gu’s face and entire skull, yet it could not escape its fate of being chewed and devoured.

With flesh and blood mangled, Shi-Gu ate the Gao-Tu Tribe barbarian general’s Golden Core as if it were a mere fruit.

The scene was utterly horrifying.

All the Golden Core-level barbarian generals present felt a chill in their dantian; their painstakingly cultivated Golden Cores shivered as if sensing danger.

None of them in their lifetime had seen anything so bizarre.

Even demonic cultivators had never done such a thing.

What was even stranger was that after devouring the Golden Core, Shi-Gu’s corpse began to manifest ancient and ferocious beast markings.

These beast markings seemed almost “alive,” sucking in the spiritual energy of the Golden Core and then feeding it back to Shi-Gu’s corpse.

The savage beast markings appeared to be Shi-Gu’s totem, while Shi-Gu seemed merely the medium.

Shi-Gu was human, the beast markings were the formation.

But the markings were alive, while Shi-Gu was dead.

This bizarre and chaotic sensation weighed heavily on everyone present.

At the same time, Shi-Gu, whose energy had been weak and spiritual power nearly depleted, seemed replenished by the Golden Core’s force, radiating a deep, icy blue light as his aura suddenly surged.

It was as if he had fully recharged and “come alive” again.

“Watch out!” Gao-Du shouted sharply.

Another Gao-Tu barbarian general suppressing Shi-Gu panicked at the warning and tried to flee—but it was too late.

Shi-Gu’s bloodied hand gripped his neck and twisted, deforming his throat.

This general had trained in the Hundred Viper Technique, but lacking mastery, he could not split his flesh to “snake escape” like Gao-Du. Once Shi-Gu caught him, there was no escape.

In the next instant, he met his doom.

Shi-Gu pierced his abdomen, pulled out the Golden Core from his dantian, and devoured it like a monster.

The Taotie markings on Shi-Gu glowed brighter, tinged with a sinister aura, like a colossal beast inhaling and exhaling.

Two generals, both close subordinates, had now fallen to Shi-Gu’s slaughter. Gao-Du, furious, could no longer restrain himself.

Biting his teeth, he forced the Hundred Viper Technique, his hands like venomous snakes, and struck Shi-Gu again.

But Shi-Gu’s massive hand seized the twin bone blades with ease.

Having consumed two Golden Cores, Shi-Gu gained tremendous spiritual energy; his strength had become extraordinary.

Gao-Du, exhausted from repeated battles, felt the pressure spike instantly.

Worse, Shi-Gu’s left hand held his blade while the right reached for his abdomen.

The intent was clear: to seize his Golden Core.

Terrified, Gao-Du retreated, but Shi-Gu growled and pursued like a monster.

Gao-Du fought while falling back, trapped in the poisonous swamp—their home territory—yet he was crushed by the already-dead Shi-Gu.

Seeing the danger, an elder of the Gao-Tu Tribe commanded gravely, “Deploy the Hundred Wards, Thousand Toxins Web! Stop this monster!”

The swamp churned as poisonous vines spread like chains, forming a net to trap Shi-Gu.

The net, woven from toxic vines and teeming with poisonous insects, took over a century to cultivate and refine.

It was the Gao-Tu Tribe’s deadliest trap, designed to restrain key enemies like generals or the “Divine Shaman” Mo Hua.

Now, forced by Shi-Gu’s pursuit, they activated the trap to suppress him.

But Shi-Gu wasn’t alive. He was a corpse.

Parasites could infest him without harm, toxins could corrode him without effect—his flesh was already “dead.”

Poisons and bugs were useless.

The web’s function was reduced to merely containment—unable to kill.

Even containment alone could not fully restrain him.

The barbarian generals and soldiers had to form a formation, taking turns using the net to pressure Shi-Gu.

Under coordinated effort, Shi-Gu was indeed temporarily suppressed.

Gao-Du seized the chance to rest, consuming some pills and meat from unknown poisonous beasts, meditating to restore strength.

When his power recovered halfway, he opened his eyes, only to find the web losing its grip on Shi-Gu again.

Alarmed, Gao-Du immediately rejoined the fray.

With Gao-Du holding the front line and others supporting, plus the web, Shi-Gu was finally restrained again.

The corpse’s blue light dimmed, and its movements slowed.

Yet Gao-Du could not relax; the lesson was clear.

Even weak, Shi-Gu could “eat” people.

And the terrifying part wasn’t that it ate humans—it ate Golden Cores.

“Be extremely careful! Suppress it, don’t give it any chance!” Gao-Du ordered.

The men obeyed, but in tense moments, the more you instruct, the more mistakes happen.

One Gao-Tu barbarian general, half a zhang from Shi-Gu, faltered—fear or fatigue made his legs weak, his focus broken.

Opening his eyes, he met Shi-Gu’s hollow black gaze.

The black eyes were like an abyss, pierced by that chilling blue light.

Frozen in fear, he failed to react as a piercing pain tore through his abdomen.

Shi-Gu’s corpse hands pierced him, pulling out his lifelong-cultivated Golden Core and devouring it before his eyes.

His eyes flooded with boundless terror, yet he was powerless to resist.

Horrified, he collapsed, kneeling, and perished.

His death sent shockwaves through the Gao-Tu ranks.

Seeing Shi-Gu eat Golden Cores up close intensified their terror.

Gao-Du, both shocked and enraged, cursed his subordinates but felt a twinge of panic.

After consuming a Golden Core, the previously weakened Shi-Gu flickered with eerie blue markings and regained strength.

Gao-Du gritted his teeth. “Quick! Suppress it again! Be careful, don’t let it kill anyone else!”

He wielded his bone blades and attacked again, though now with hesitation.

Meanwhile, Shi-Gu, having eaten another Golden Core, restored his spiritual energy. And not only that—after these several rounds of deadly combat, its movements and techniques had clearly grown smoother and far more fluid, more versatile.

It was adapting to its corpse body, growing stronger.

Gao-Du, despite nervousness, had no choice but to engage Shi-Gu directly.

With everyone working together, Shi-Gu was again temporarily suppressed; the blue light dimmed, movements slowed.

But Gao-Du felt no relief, only mounting dread.

He knew this corpse monster would eat Golden Cores again.

No matter how cautious, he could not protect the Golden Cores of other generals.

Finally, in a moment of carelessness, blood splashed…

Another mistake, and another barbarian general had his Golden Core devoured.

Gao-Du’s morale collapsed entirely.

Shi-Gu’s corpse had no special techniques—just thick skin, brute strength, resistance to weapons and poison, and simple, fast attacks.

But the problem was that while it could endure and fight, it could also “eat” Golden Cores to restore spiritual power.

Gao-Du could win against it, but could not kill it; to fully suppress it required everyone taking turns, rotating and exhausting it.

Fail to do so, and it would outlast them.

Assist too much, and you feed it more Golden Cores. Like throwing meat buns to a dog—you’ll never get them back.

And Gao-Du had guessed correctly: from then on, every Golden Core in the entire Gaotu Tribe became meat buns. The more they fought, the stronger it grew.

Without top-tier suppression, Shi-Gu’s corpse became truly “unrestrained.”

Its simple punches and kicks were brutally lethal.

The Taotie markings ensured that nearly every strike claimed a life.

Their combined attacks could damage its flesh, but could never kill it.

It was already “dead.” How could it die again?

A typical late Golden Core cultivator—no matter how powerful—would eventually fall to endless waves of foes.

But this corpse was different.

It could devour Golden Cores and eagerly wade into crowds—killing while eating, eating while killing—like a perpetual engine, neither dying nor weakening.

Especially when facing masses of barbarian soldiers—so long as Shi-Gu did not die, it would keep slaughtering endlessly. But Shi-Gu was already “dead,” so it would simply keep killing until every last enemy was gone…

But Shi-Gu was already dead—so it would keep killing until every enemy fell.

This was a monstrosity seemingly simple, but terrifying in essence—purely a slaughter machine.

In the poisonous swamp, the Shi-Gu corpse stood like a small mountain, its ferocious Taotie-runes flickering eerie blue and sinister. Eating and killing in tandem, it resembled an ancient savage primordial beast roaming a purgatory of corpses, butchering all living beings.

And the more Shi-Gu killed, the stronger it became; the more it devoured, the more powerful it grew.

With every kill, its limbs grew more agile, its movements more precise, its slaughter swifter.

The more it consumed, the more the Taotie-patterns awakened, gradually merging with its bones until the two became one.

And so Shi-Gu resembled more and more a humanoid Taotie monster.

Seeing the corpses piling up and the creature growing stronger and stronger, Gao-Du—once a proud general—felt as though plunged into an icy abyss, utterly losing the will to resist.

Gao-Du fled.

And once he fled, the Gaotu warriors collapsed entirely.

With the Taotie-patterned Shi-Gu acting as a walking slaughter machine, it single-handedly brought the entire third-rank Gaotu Tribe to ruin.

Not only the Gaotu Tribe—everyone was terrified and despairing.

Even the warriors of Vermilion Bird Mountain looked horrified and pale.

As for Shi-Gu’s younger brother, Lu-Gu, the Great Chieftain, he stared at his elder brother’s current form in shock, utterly stunned.

Only Mo Hua remained calm from beginning to end.

Seeing the Gaotu Tribe routed and the front line broken, Mo Hua’s gaze stayed indifferent. With a wave of his hand, he ordered:

“Put on the Poison-Warding Armor. Sweep forward. Exterminate the Gaotu Tribe…”

“Yes, Divine-Shaman Lord!”

The warriors of Vermilion Bird Mountain donned sets of barbarian leather armor inscribed with dark green patterns.

This Poison-Warding Armor had been forged specifically—under Mo Hua’s instruction—to traverse the poisonous swamps of the Green-Marsh Mountain Realm.

But although the armor resisted poison well, its other defenses were extremely poor. If they were ambushed by the Gaotu Tribe while crossing the swamp, the Vermilion Bird Mountain Realm warriors would suffer devastating losses.

However, now that the Gaotu Tribe had been crushed by the Taotie-patterned Shi-Gu, and Gao-Du had been defeated and fled, this was naturally the best time to cross the swamp.

All of this was within Mo Hua’s calculations.

Lu-Gu, suffering from the Hundred-Viper poison, temporarily suppressed the venom within his body. He too donned Poison-Warding Armor and marched at the very front, personally leading the Vermilion Bird forces into the toxic marshes of the Green-Marsh Mountain Realm.

The Divine-Shaman’s army began its advance.

This was the first time in countless years that the poison-filled Green-Marsh Mountain Realm had been invaded on such a massive scale by outsiders.

An unprecedented event in the realm’s long history.

Once they crossed the poisonous swamp—an almost insurmountable natural barrier—the toxic mists and poisonous forests beyond were comparatively simple.

Under Mo Hua’s guidance, with Lu-Gu charging bravely in front, and after half a month of bitter fighting, the main camp of the third-rank Gaotu Tribe finally fell.

The gravely wounded General Gao-Du was captured alive, the Gaotu Great Chieftain fled, and the remaining tribesmen surrendered.

Thus, the largest tribe of the third-rank Green-Marsh Mountain Realm—the Gaotu Tribe—was conquered.

And through this real battle, through the corpse of Shi-Gu, Mo Hua verified the feasibility of the Taotie Twelve-Meridian-Spiritual-Skeleton Absolute Formation.

At the same time, it also confirmed that he had begun to comprehend and master this Absolute Formation—created by the mysterious Grand Shaman Priest of the Great Wilderness, a second rank formation with twenty-four runes patterns, embodying the savage Taotie Laws, and possessing utterly heaven-defying difficulty—the Taotie Spiritual-Skeleton Absolute Formation.

And this Taotie Spiritual-Skeleton Absolute Formation would soon become his…

Life-Bound Formation.