Chapter 1285: The Wujiao War
Chapter 1284: The Wujiao War
In the year 20,045 of the Dao Calendar, the 12th year of the New Great Wilderness Calendar, Autumn of the 4th year of the Divine-Shaman Era, famine spread across the land, and the earth was steeped in deathly silence.
Amid the harsh, piercing Wu-Feng mountain winds, the Divine-Shaman Army, intent on unifying the Great Wilderness, clashed with the powerful Wujiao Alliance.
Using the core region of Wu-Feng (Witch-Wind) Mountain realm as the boundary, they fought nearly a thousand desperate battles, leaving the land soaked in blood and scarred beyond recognition.
The Wujiao Alliance, centered on the resurgent Wujiao Tribe, included subordinate tribes of the Wujiao as well as hundreds of barbarian tribes absorbed during the Wujiao’s expansion.
With a million warriors, fully equipped forces, and mastery of various shamanic warfare techniques, their combat strength was formidable.
Behind the scenes, they also received full support from the Huà Clan—supplies, strategic guidance, and infiltration through causality.
This was an extraordinarily vast force, capable of sweeping through the Great Wilderness.
Without Mo Hua, the Divine-Shaman who descended from the heavens, the only force capable of unifying the Great Wilderness would have been this Wujiao faction, forged through three generations of painstaking effort and over a century of meticulous planning.
The Young Chieftain of the Wujiao would have risen as the ruler of the Great Wilderness, and the era itself would have been named after the Wujiao.
However, with the Divine-Shaman descending from the heavens, all of this became uncertain.
At this moment, the Divine-Shaman forces under Mo Hua were equally formidable, standing toe-to-toe with the Wujiao Alliance.
The Divine-Shaman Army, the main force behind this divine war, included the top third-grade tribes of Vermilion Bird Mountain Realm, the Divine Slave Tribe directly under Mo Hua, the Gāo-Tú Tribe of Green-Marsh Mountain Realm, the Ghost-Face Tribe of Ghost-Wailing Mountain Realm, and other tribes conquered along Mo Hua’s campaign…
On the surface, Mo Hua’s army matched the Wujiao Alliance in numbers and strength.
In terms of true combat power, however, the Divine-Shaman Army—built in just a few short years—surpassed the Wujiao Alliance, which had been cultivated over thousands of years and hundreds of years of careful development.
The Wujiao Alliance wielded secret Wujiao techniques and barbarian dark arts.
The Divine-Shaman Army relied on Mo Hua’s divine blessing and unwavering loyalty to the Divine-Lord.
The Wujiao Alliance had many types of troops; Mo Hua, however, also equipped his army with numerous ancient barbarian armors.
Most of these armors had been “lost” ancestral relics of various barbarian tribes.
Mo Hua, invoking the name of the Divine-Lord, recreated them using his mastery of formations, employing the principles of “Taotie Devouring-Assimilation” and “Demonic-Pattern Dragon Transformation.”
After many years, these ancient armors reappeared across the Great Wilderness—a true “divine marvel” in some sense.
The Wujiao Tribe’s armor was strong, but it paled in comparison to the ancestral armors recreated by Mo Hua.
When the two forces clashed, the difference in strength was immediately apparent.
The Divine-Shaman Army, wearing the ancestral armors personally granted by Mo Hua, split into units and advanced into the Great Wu-Feng Mountain Realm like a rainbow streaking across the sky.
They breached the outer mountains and set foot on the land of Great Wu-Feng Mountain.
This marked the first large-scale invasion of the Great Wu-Feng Mountain Realm by outsiders in nearly a millennium.
But after crossing the boundary, their advance was halted.
The first reason: the Wujiao Alliance could use the terrain of the mountain to block the enemy.
The second reason: the “Demonic Cavalry”—the strongest unit of the Wujiao Tribe.
The so-called Demonic Cavalry was a forbidden barbarian method of taming demonic beasts. By using the Four Symbols demonic patterns, beast shackles, and certain shamanic herbs, the beasts’ wild natures could be temporarily suppressed, forcing them into obedience to fight alongside the warriors.
In the past, only the Royal Court of the Great Wilderness had the qualification and ability to train such units.
By deploying them, the Wujiao Tribe was both defying royal authority and demonstrating its formidable strength.
Years ago, in the Battle of Vermilion Bird Mountain Realm, the Wujiao Demonic Cavalry had been unstoppable—but due to the difficulty of taming their wild nature, their numbers had been limited, and their impact restrained.
Now, the situation was reversed; Mo Hua’s forces had reached the Wujiao homeland.
The Wujiao could unleash their full Demonic Cavalry, nearly a thousand in total, forming a line like a long dragon of demonic energy, awe-inspiring in presence.
When the Demonic Cavalry charged, beast and warrior fused, and nothing could withstand them.
The Divine-Shaman Army could not resist their frenzied charge, repeatedly breaking formation and retreating.
After several battles, they were even driven back out of the Great Wu-Feng Mountain Realm.
At this critical moment, Mo Hua’s cold and imposing figure appeared at the front.
He simply pointed forward, and the Sacred Tiger that always accompanied the Divine-Shaman, black-and-white patterned and radiant, slowly stepped out.
But this time, the tiger looked different.
It wore a set of “demonic armor,” custom-made for a tiger demon. Inside the armor, Mo Hua had painted the Four Symbols Mysterious Tiger Formation.
Demon Beasts were already powerful; tiger demons were kings among them.
With iron armor and the Four Symbols Tiger Formation, the great big tiger now appeared as an unstoppable “war beast,” ferocious beyond measure.
And it was not alone.
As it growled, another top-tier third-grade One-Eyed ferocious tiger appeared behind it, also clad in demonic armor and empowered by the formation, radiating lethal intent.
Then, with a sudden gust of wind, more tiger demons emerged one after another, until there were a hundred in total—tamed by Big Tiger from various mountains along Mo Hua’s campaign.
Demon Beasts are naturally strong, and among them, tigers are kings, revered as “King Demon Beasts” by the Great Wilderness, some with special bloodlines even earned the title of “Sacred Beasts.”
Now, under Mo Hua’s command, a hundred tiger demons had assembled.
Each wore demonic armor and bore sacred patterns, forming a “beast battalion”—the “Tiger Army,” soldiers of the King Beasts.
Humans could command the Tiger Army.
Such a terrifying spectacle was unprecedented in the history of the Great Wilderness.
Needless to say, the barbarian soldiers witnessing this were stunned.
The shock was overwhelming—not only the Wujiao Division but even some of Mo Hua’s own barbarian troops froze in disbelief.
“Kill…”
Mo Hua, golden eyes, spoke softly with cold indifference.
The Big Tiger’s gaze instantly turned ferocious, its aura solidifying into palpable demonic energy. It roared to the sky, the sound shaking the forest, then surged forward like a gale toward the Wujiao Demonic Cavalry.
Behind it, the hundred tigers all roared and charged together.
The Tiger Army charge was overwhelming, terrifying even other demon beasts.
The Wujiao Demonic Cavalry trembled in fear.
Though there were a thousand of them, they could not stand against a hundred tiger demons head-on.
Many began to falter, trembling, low growling, some attempting to break free and flee.
The Wujiao commanders desperately forced their formations and shackles to restrain the demon beasts, driving them into the charge.
But kings do not move in packs; when they do, they are invincible.
Moreover, these tiger demons were true, unbound kings among beasts.
The cavalry beasts, by contrast, were forcibly restrained.
The tiger armor and formation amplified their power, while the cavalry beasts’ shackles and formations suppressed theirs.
The outcome was inevitable.
One hundred versus one thousand.
The thousand Wujiao Demonic Cavalry shattered almost immediately.
The hundred tiger demons tore through them like tigers(wolfs) among sheep, mercilessly slaughtering all.
Yet they only killed humans; beasts were spared unless necessary.
As a result, the “beasts” mounted by the cavalry began to rebel.
Their fear of the King Beasts stirred their wild nature and their hatred of humans.
This hatred ignited their fury at being enslaved.
Some went mad, trying to break their chains.
Some cavalry beasts even turned on their riders, biting into the Wujiao warriors atop them.
Some failed, but some succeeded.
Those that succeeded tore their former masters open and devoured them.
Blood splattered, the air filled with the stench of gore, and more cavalry beasts became frenzied.
The once-invincible Wujiao Demonic Cavalry began to lose control on a massive scale, rebelling and attacking their own.
The battlefield became a bloodbath, throwing the Wujiao ranks into chaos.
Seizing the opportunity, Mo Hua commanded his army to strike.
Chief of the Shugu Tribe, Lu-Gu, drew the Bone-Slaying Demon Blade and shouted:
“For the Divine-Lord, we offer our faith!”
“For the Divine-Shaman, we offer our lives!”
“Kill!”
Morale surged; the cries of “kill” shook the heavens.
Where Mo Hua pointed, sacred beast tigers led, with the army following.
The Wujiao demon cavalry collapsed, trampling each other in chaos, countless dead, forced to retreat.
Thus, the Divine-Shaman army broke through the gates of Great Wu-Feng Mountain, advancing directly toward the Wujiao headquarters.
However, this momentum lasted less than ten days before encountering resistance.
Great Wu-Feng Mountain was a strategic stronghold of the Great Wilderness, with complex terrain, difficult to attack and easy to defend.
Combined with the perennial howling winds and dense fog, without local guides, even finding direction was impossible.
Mo Hua could use causal divination.
But even as a Divine-Shaman, he was only one person, unable to handle the complex, ever-changing situation of millions of barbarian troops advancing along dozens of battle lines into Great Wu-Feng Mountain.
Moreover, the previously defeated Wujiao forces had regrouped.
Their supplies suddenly became abundant.
Many barbarians even wore unmarked, refined iron armor.
Mo Hua knew this was the Huà Clan’s doing.
The Huà Clan was supplying the Wujiao tribe’s war effort.
If one wanted to profit from war, chaos was essential—the more chaotic, the more lucrative and exploitable.
Thus, the Huà Clan could never allow Mo Hua to achieve “unification.”
If Mo Hua unified the tribes and seized power, the Huà Clan’s operations in the Great Wilderness would be completely ruined, and their plans would collapse.
Moreover, Mo Hua, as a Divine-Shaman, had become their mortal enemy.
In every sense, the Huà Clan had to support the Wujiao tribe fully to resist Mo Hua’s pressure.
Elder You could only rely on the Wujiao tribe’s strength to evade Mo Hua’s causal tracking and debt pursuit.
He pinned his hopes on the Wujiao defeating the Divine-Shaman army—or better yet, killing Mo Hua at any cost.
That would permanently resolve the Huà Clan’s problems in the Great Wilderness.
How to handle the Wujiao Tribe afterward—whether to sow division internally or secretly infiltrate and turn them into a “puppet” of the Huà Clan—could be considered later.
The Wujiao were a proper tribe, and members were all human.
As long as they were human, they had weaknesses, easy to exploit.
Handling the Wujiao was far easier than confronting the Divine-Shaman.
With full Huà Clan support, the Wujiao had an endless supply chain.
Coupled with ghostly winds, dense fog, and tangled terrain, Mo Hua’s Divine-Shaman army seemed mired in quicksand, entering a “stalemate.”
Thus began a series of grueling, hard-fought battles.
Every victory came at great cost.
In this complex war, the Wujiao Young Chieftain finally took action.
The Wujiao Young Chieftain, mid-Golden Core cultivation, bore the Four Symbols Wujiao Dragon Transformation Runes, with a body clad in dragon scales, extremely powerful.
During the battle at Vermilion Bird Mountain altar, he alone suppressed several late-stage Golden Core Great Chieftains of the Crimson-Sparrow and Flame-Wing tribes using his “Dragon Transformation” body.
However, the Wujiao God perished at Mo Hua’s hands in that battle, shattering the tribe’s faith and sealing their defeat.
The Young Chieftain retreated, nursing hatred and determination.
With Huà Clan support, his power had grown another level.
Hardened by past failure, his ambition became more unyielding.
Although still mid-Golden Core, he seemed reborn.
His goal in this battle was to annihilate the Divine-Shaman army, kill Mo Hua, and avenge past shame.
Killing Mo Hua would eliminate the greatest external threat, making the Great Wilderness his.
Several major battles erupted around the Wujiao Young Chieftain.
No one could match him.
Dan-Zhu was talented but young, only early-Golden Core, unable to contend with the Young Chieftain.
Others elders, like chief Dan-Lie and the like, were too aged to withstand his assaults.
Lu-Gu could clash blows with him a few times, but his Bone-Slaying Blade couldn’t pierce the Young Chieftain’s dragon scales.
Moreover, in a drawn-out battle, any injury could lead to Lu-Gu being counter-killed.
Mo Hua personally controlled Shi-Gu to fight the Young Chieftain once—but failed.
Shi-Gu’s strength lay in immortality, relentless killing, yet his individual power wasn’t enough.
He couldn’t break the Young Chieftain’s scales or extract his Golden Core, so prolonged combat meant inevitable defeat.
In a sense, the Wujiao Young Chieftain had been right.
Human bloodlines differ.
With the Dragon Mark, his bloodline had transformed; he was “half-dragon,” not to be judged by ordinary standards.
He should be seen as a Golden Core “monster,” with unmatched offense, defense, and combat prowess.
And this formidable Wujiao Young Chieftain was still only mid-Golden Core.
If he reached late-Golden Core, how powerful would he become?
Who in the Great Wilderness could oppose him?
No one could imagine.
Thus, fear began to grow even within Mo Hua’s Divine-Shaman faction.
“The Wujiao Young Chieftain bears dragon lineage, his bloodline noble, beyond ordinary mortals… We will inevitably die opposing him…”
This thought spread among Mo Hua’s followers.
Many, especially those already harboring doubts or with weak faith, began to waver under the Young Chieftain’s might, even secretly harboring betrayal.
This triggered one of the most severe “mutinies” within the Divine-Shaman forces, lasting several months…