Chapter 1362: Transforming the Mortals into Dragons
Chapter 1361: Transforming the Mortals into Dragons
Shentu Ye, who had previously been lying in the coffin, now stood behind him, face drained of all color.
Mo Hua was silent for a long time before asking,
“Are you alive… or dead?”
Shentu Ye looked at Mo Hua, as if wanting to carve his face into memory. With a shake of his head—half loss, half regret—he said:
“I died long ago…”
He murmured the words again and gave a bitter smile.
“It’s just that… perhaps the ancestors of the Great Wilderness knew its fate was nearing its end. So they exhausted everything to preserve a wisp of my Divine-Sense, allowing me to linger and accomplish… what must be done.”
Mo Hua looked at the frail Shentu Ye, brows slightly furrowed.
He then turned to the stone stele and asked slowly:
“This Dragon Pool stele… who left it behind, and what is its purpose?”
Shentu Ye looked at Mo Hua.
“First tell me what these patterns mean.”
His words sounded like a bargain, yet also carried the curiosity of a youth before the unknown.
Mo Hua asked, “You can’t understand them?”
Shentu Ye nodded.
“I can’t. Not only me, Brother Ao, and the entire Royal clan of the Great Wilderness… as far as I know, in the past several thousand years, not a single person has understood the meaning of these patterns…”
He looked at Mo Hua with eager expectation.
“Can you tell me what they mean?”
“You really want to know?” Mo Hua asked.
Shentu Ye nodded. “Mm.”
Looking at Shentu Ye’s face, Mo Hua suddenly thought of Yu’er. His heart softened for no reason. He sighed and patiently explained:
“This is a schematic of a Law Chain.”
“A Law Chain?” Shentu Ye froze.
Mo Hua nodded.
“A complete Taotie Law Chain.”
He raised his head to look at the archaic, vast, and spirit-filled pictographic patterns flowing across the stone stele. His pupils gradually deepened.
“Images form the body; the Law is the spirit within.”
“Within the patterns, that chaotic mass—an indescribable entity born from absolute darkness—represents the ferocious beast Taotie.”
“Beside Taotie, the most powerful divine beast refers to the dragon.”
“As the Law flows, the dragon’s form begins to distort, divide, and disintegrate, symbolizing Taotie devouring the dragon and tearing it apart…”
“The dismembered dragon attempts to reassemble. But the dragon is an ancient being of heaven and earth. Once slain and dismantled, its origin is destroyed, it cannot be reborn.”
“Since a true dragon cannot be recreated, one must artificially create a ‘false’ dragon.”
“Using the essence of other birds and beasts between heaven and earth to piece together a dragon.”
“But what is assembled is not only a dragon.”
“What flies becomes the Vermilion Bird. What walks the earth becomes the White Tiger. What enters water becomes the Black Tortoise.”
“These are the Four Symbols… also the Four Sacred Beasts of the Great Wilderness.”
“This is the grand design of the ancestors of the Great Wilderness.”
“And all this is merely the surface narrative of the patterns. Deeper within these forms lies a chain of laws governing cultivation power.”
“The beginning of this Law Chain originates from the primordial Taotie mother-form, born from heavenly catastrophe and the starvation of all living beings.”
“All origins begin with Taotie.”
“The ancestors of the Great Wilderness feared Taotie, worshiped Taotie, then imitated, studied, and comprehended Taotie. Ultimately, they attempted to control its power, master its laws, and transform those laws into their own use… using this as the foundation to create the entire civilization of the Great Wilderness…”
Mo Hua explained the patterns on the stele to Shentu Ye one by one, from form to spirit, from lines to laws.
This understanding came from his dedicated study after encountering Four Symbols formations in the Qianxue Prefecture Realm. After entering the Great Wilderness, he verified and practiced repeatedly until everything connected.
Shentu Ye stood stunned, lost in thought.
“But…”
Mo Hua pondered for a moment, his gaze sinking.
“There are still things I don’t understand… metaphysical laws require a physical medium.”
“What exactly is this entire Law Chain used for?”
“And what serves as the medium for a complete Taotie Law Chain?”
He looked at Shentu Ye.
“Does it relate to the Dragon Pool where I stand now? Is it a formation?”
Shentu Ye’s pale face shone with flickering light. After a moment, he sighed softly:
“You truly are the smartest person I have ever met.”
Mo Hua asked, “How many people have you met in your life?”
Shentu Ye replied, “Other than Brother Ao… only you.”
Mo Hua: “…”
Shentu Ye added earnestly:
“You are very smart. The smartest I’ve ever seen. Your formations are formidable, and what you said about Taotie, laws, and the Four Sacred Beasts is probably correct.”
“I don’t fully understand… but it feels right.”
“But it’s normal you can’t discern the Dragon Pool’s true nature. That’s because you don’t know the name of the stele left by the sages of the Great Wilderness.”
Mo Hua’s gaze sharpened. “Its name?”
Shentu Ye nodded and said word by word:
“This stele is called… the Grand Formation Diagram of Transforming the Multitudes(living beings) into Dragons.”
These words seemed to carry immense taboo power. Mo Hua’s chest suddenly tightened.
“All living beings… transform into dragons? A grand formation?!”
Shentu Ye nodded and sighed.
“Transforming the Mortals into Dragons… This is the grand formation the sages of my Great Wilderness clan devoted their entire lives to. It is an absolute secret, an absolute taboo. For its sake, our sages even slaughtered a true dragon.”
Mo Hua’s expression changed.
“You mean… a true dragon? Not an Azure Dragon?”
Shentu Ye said:
“Don’t you think the characters for ‘true’ and ‘azure’ look somewhat alike? That is because what the sages killed was a true dragon. What they created themselves was the Azure Dragon.”
Mo Hua’s heart surged like a storm-tossed sea.
A true dragon…
That meant the Dragon Pool he stood in now was the pool of a true dragon.
The dragon corpse he saw… was the corpse of a true dragon?!
No wonder the Dao Court insisted the Great Wilderness must perish…
What kind of people were these sages of the Great Wilderness? They dared to slay a true dragon, were able to slay one, and even used it…
Mo Hua’s pupils contracted.
“In your Great Wilderness history, was there someone revered as—”
Shentu Ye shook his head.
“I cannot tell you.”
Mo Hua froze.
“My remnant Divine-Sense is very weak. I cannot mention certain… names. Otherwise, I would suffer karmic backlash.”
Mo Hua’s brows knitted tighter.
Shentu Ye sighed and continued with quiet loneliness:
“I died very young. I slept for a long time and dreamed many dreams. In those dreams, it seemed someone instructed me…”
“He told me to pass on the name ‘Grand Formation of Transforming the Mortals into Dragons’ to the person I would meet in a future dream… the one capable of understanding the patterns on this stele.”
“He told me the fate of the Royal clan of the Great Wilderness has ended.”
“The qi of the true dragon must be dispersed back into heaven and earth…”
“And heaven and earth will soon face a world-shaking upheaval.”
Mo Hua’s gaze darkened.
Shentu Ye turned to look at the Dragon Pool within the dream, as if gazing upon a vast aspiration reaching heaven and earth:
“The land of the Great Wilderness suffers frequent disasters; the people live in hardship.”
“In those years, the sages pitied the people of the Great Wilderness. Born into the world with fragile flesh and weak Dao hearts, they faced countless fierce demons, heavenly fiends, and monstrous foes, perishing like grass. Thus they made a grand vow: that every citizen of the Great Wilderness will become a dragon, striving unceasingly. They poured out their hearts and lifeblood, seeking through the ‘Grand Formation of Transforming the Mortals into Dragons’ to reshape the Dao foundations of the people and alter the fate patterns of all living beings…”
“Thus our people established a Dao lineage, constructed the Dragon Pool, and began to prosper step by step…”
“But the sages were human. And all humans must face life and death.”
“The long torment, and their painstaking efforts drained away their lifespan…”
“After the sages fell, our Royal clan of the Great Wilderness should have inherited their will… yet instead, we stole the fruits of their toil.”
“We… trampled upon the sages’ great vow.”
“We erased the historical records, proclaimed ourselves the Royal clan, stood loftily above all, seized the superior inheritances for ourselves, declared the Dragon Pool a forbidden ground of the Royal house, and bound the True Dragon qi within the Royal Court.”
“Our Royal clan of the Great Wilderness is guilty.”
“We betrayed the sages’ will. From that moment on, no one within the Royal clan could comprehend the meaning of this stone stele.”
“The supreme arts of the sages were lost…”
“This was the sages’ punishment upon us. Thus, the Royal clan of the Great Wilderness deserves extinction.”
“In truth, everything was destined long ago…”
Within Shentu Ye’s calm tone lay an indescribable desolation.
Mo Hua’s emotions also surged and churned, filled with boundless sighs.
Shentu Ye let out a breath. “I once wished to tell Brother Ao these things, but he would not listen, nor would he believe.”
“His mind is filled only with hatred. He seeks revenge and the revival of the Royal clan.”
“But he cannot see—or refuses to accept—so he cannot see that the Royal clan of the Great Wilderness… has already perished.”
A bitter expression crossed Shentu Ye’s face. “And the reason only a wisp of my remnant Divine sense has lingered so long may be that, as a prince, I must atone for the Royal clan…”
“I must pass down the name of the Grand Formation of Transforming the Mortals into Dragons.”
“The lifeblood of the sages must not be buried in the hands of our clan.”
“This is the final thing I can do…”
Mo Hua sighed.
Shentu Ye looked at him. “Hurry and memorize this diagram. How much you can retain depends on you.”
“There is little time left. This is all I can do…”
Mo Hua’s feelings were complicated, but he nodded.
At a time like this, he had no room to refuse.
From then on, he devoted himself entirely to observing and recording the “Grand Formation Diagram of Transforming the Mortals into Dragons” on the stone stele.
This was not a grand formation in the ordinary sense, but a complete structural framework of formation laws.
The entire chain of laws linked head to tail. Even grasping a single law was extraordinarily difficult, let alone fusing all of them into one unified whole.
Mo Hua’s talent in formations was extraordinary, yet even so, he could only do his utmost to record each critical juncture of the circulating laws.
He imprinted the overall dragon-transforming patterns into his mind.
As for whether there might be omissions, he had no leisure to worry about them.
Shentu Ye stood beside him the entire time, watching him study the stele’s patterns.
Time passed little by little.
At last, the patterns upon the stele began to dim, and the surrounding scenery warped and blurred. He knew the time had come: the dream was collapsing, and his mission was complete.
Mo Hua also ended his contemplation.
The distortion of divine sense caused by the collapsing dream made it impossible for him to probe further secrets.
He could only commit everything on the stone stele to memory.
At the end, he turned to look at Shentu Ye, his expression shifting slightly.
Shentu Ye’s form had already begun to fade. Even his cheeks showed signs of decay.
Mo Hua wanted to say something, yet did not know what to say. Finally he asked, “Do you have any last wishes? I can help you…”
Shentu Ye shook his head. After gazing deeply at Mo Hua, he said with a trace of regret:
“I died long ago. In this life, I never truly spoke with anyone…”
“When I lived, I was imprisoned and had no friends. After death, there was only absurd emptiness within dreams.”
“If one counts it, you are the first person to speak with me.”
“If I had been an ordinary youth, without the sins of the Royal clan upon my shoulders, without dying young… if I could have been your friend, talked more, chatted more… that would have been nice…”
“Sadly… I never had time in my life that truly belonged to me.”
Shentu Ye smiled faintly. His body weathered away bit by bit.
“Farewell…”
He gave Mo Hua one last look. On his youthful face lay deep weariness and reluctance. “Young Divine Lord.”
As his words fell, Shentu Ye’s figure completely weathered away.
His Divine sense body, like rotten wood, crumbled into the dust of time.
This prince of the Great Wilderness—youngest of his generation, dying early, fated to misery—left behind his final trace in this world… and it vanished.
A sudden ache rose in Mo Hua’s chest.
All the bizarre illusions faded.
Mo Hua’s gaze shifted, and he discovered everything before him had vanished.
He was in the Dragon Pool’s secret chamber in reality, seated in meditation, preparing to form his Golden Core.
Spirit stones, pills, and formations surrounded him.
Straw-Dogs still rested securely on his person.
Everything that had just happened truly felt like a dream.
It was as though he had merely dozed off before forming his core.
Yet everything in that dream left his heart unsettled for a long time.
He first took out a jade slip and recorded all the forms and insights of the “Transforming the Mortals into Dragons Diagram” from the dream. Then, thinking of Shentu Ye, a trace of sorrow entered his gaze.
Shentu Ye was a prince of the Great Wilderness. By ordinary standards, he was born into honor and splendor.
But for Shentu Ye, that may have been the weight of destiny, the root of his lifelong tragedy.
From the moment he was born, he had been stripped of the right to truly live.
Half alive, half dead, he existed in this world, enduring endless solitude, so much so that even having someone to talk to became an unattainable luxury.
Mo Hua stroked the jade slip in his hand, his emotions difficult to put into words.
After a moment, he let out a long sigh, gathering his sorrowful thoughts and restoring firmness to his gaze:
“The Grand Formation of Transforming the Mortals into Dragons…”
This was the lifelong labor and grand aspiration of the Great Wilderness sages.
It was the foundation of the Great Wilderness’s former strength.
And it was also the origin from which all its inheritances and civilization flowed.
Now scattered across this land—whether lost or preserved—supreme arts such as Taotie, the Four Sacred Beasts Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, Black Tortoise, the Four-Symbol demon patterns, and the countless derived formations, armor techniques, body-refinement methods, bloodline inheritances… perhaps all could trace their source back to this grand formation.
The Dragon Pool was the core of this formation.
At present, he had only recorded a basic framework of its laws.
As for how the Grand Formation of Transforming the Mortals into Dragons was constructed, and how its chains of laws operated, he had to form a Golden Core personally to experience it firsthand and explore the mysteries of the transformation of all beings into dragons.
A sharp glint gradually appeared in Mo Hua’s eyes:
“All beings become dragons… altering the fate of all under heaven…”
“Everyone a dragon…”
“Then today, I shall form my Golden Core in this Dragon Pool and change my own fate, for myself, a wandering rogue cultivator of humble origins with only intermediate-lower grade spiritual roots, I will forge a Superior-grade, even Supreme-grade Golden Core!”
“If I succeed, it will prove that the transformation of all beings into dragons is possible…”
“And one day, I will make it so that beneath heaven, everyone becomes a dragon, everyone of Superior grade, with no distinction of spiritual root superiority, no hierarchy of noble and lowly.”
Mo Hua took a deep breath.
His Dao heart was firm, his mind clear and reflective as a mirror.
He began following his established plan, cultivating step by step, refining the Minor Circulation and pushing toward breakthrough.
At the same time, within the Dragon Pool, the first breath of dragon qi was swallowed into Mo Hua’s abdomen.