Chapter 1166: Hunting the Barbarian Gods

"What?" Elder Zhamu's heart trembled.

Mo Hua had to repeat it again:

"Write down for me all the names, origins, locations, and methods of worship of every 'Barbarian God' you know in the vicinity...

"Not a single one can be left out."

Elder Zhamu did not know what this "senior" intended to do.

But he felt that on that handsome face, those luminous eyes glimmered with a dangerously ominous light.

This made Elder Zhamu feel he might be committing a crime.

The image of Wu Tu's corpse, torn apart and devoured alive, resurfaced in his mind.

Elder Zhamu's voice trembled:

"This—perhaps it's not quite right—"

Mo Hua said: "Write down the names and locations of the Barbarian Gods, and I guarantee your grandson remains healthy and unharmed."

Upon hearing this, Elder Zhamu shuddered all over.

Mo Hua added: "The Barbarian Gods cannot protect your grandson. I can."

Elder Zhamu fell silent for a moment, then silently seized the paper and, without a single word of hesitation, wrote down every Barbarian God name he knew and handed it to Mo Hua.

Mo Hua took the paper, glanced at it, his gaze bright and clearly satisfied.

Seeing this, Elder Zhamu suddenly felt regret—deep, overwhelming regret—but dared not retract it, so he cautiously asked Mo Hua:

"Senior, what exactly are you planning to do?"

Mo Hua folded the paper and tucked it into his robe. "You don't need to know. Pretend nothing happened."

"Yes—" Elder Zhamu's expression grew bitter. He glanced at Mo Hua again and whispered:

"By the way, Senior, how should I address you?"

"I—"

Mo Hua had been about to give his name, but changed his mind. "Call me—'Lord Wuzhu.'"

"Lord Wuzhu?" Elder Zhamu blinked. "Are you also a shaman of the Wang clan?"

Mo Hua's gaze flickered slightly but gave no answer.

Elder Zhamu dared not ask further, only said: "Regardless, the great kindness of Lord Wuzhu, the Wu Tu Clan will forever remember."

Mo Hua nodded and handed Elder Zhamu a vial of pills:

"Give this to your grandson. One pill each morning and evening. For the rest of the time, minimize movement, maximize stillness, keep your mind as still as still water. Here is another vial of fasting pills—two pills per day. Don't let him go hungry."

Elder Zhamu accepted it, deeply grateful, and bowed:

"This old man thanks Lord Wuzhu for his great grace."

When he raised his head again, the space before him was empty—the "Lord Wuzhu" had vanished.

He did not even know how the Lord Wuzhu had disappeared.

Elder Zhamu's heart filled with dread,

and his reverence for the young Lord Wuzhu deepened; he bent low and bowed deeply toward the empty ground before him.

An hour later.

Mo Hua, having left the Wu Tu Clan, arrived at a gorge.

Within the gorge dwelled another tribe, named "Wo Tai."

Most tribe names in the Great Wild are "taken from the land"—either plants, mountains, or barbarian beasts.

"Wo Tai" means "rat" in the barbarian tongue.

And the totem of the Wo Tai tribe was indeed a rat demon—sharp fangs, cruel mouth, hideous visage.

The Barbarian God they worshipped was also a rat deity.

All of this was written on the paper Elder Zhamu had given Mo Hua.

Mo Hua wasted not a single moment; almost as soon as he received Elder Zhamu's list, he began executing his "Hunting Barbarian Gods" plan.

Over the years, Mo Hua had always practiced array techniques with the principle of applying knowledge, of unity between knowing and doing—his action was always swift.

And his spiritual sense was truly "hungry."

Lately, he had constantly felt anxious, for his spiritual awareness had long gone without nourishment and could not grow stronger.

Now, at last, things were improving.

Mo Hua flipped through his "menu," concealed his form, and entered the Wo Tai tribe's encampment.

The Wo Tai tribe was also a small clan; though slightly stronger than Wu Tu, it was not much better—only two more Foundation Establishment cultivators, and a couple hundred tribal members. To Mo Hua, it meant nothing.

Mo Hua entered the Wo Tai tribe's tents, and no one sensed him.

Yet after circling the tribe several times, he could not locate the entrance or shrine of the Wo Tai Barbarian God.

He had also tried using the demonic bone to perform divination.

But as soon as his karmic energy extended into the Wo Tai tribe, it merged with the tribe's cultivators and dissolved entirely.

Mo Hua deduced this must be one of the Barbarian God's abilities.

The Barbarian God and its worshippers were a contradictory unity.

Worshippers gave the Barbarian God faith; the Barbarian God granted worshippers blessings—their karmic energies entangled and fused together.

Thus, when worshippers faced calamity, the Barbarian God used divine will to dispel it.

When the Barbarian God faced calamity, the worshippers' faith would also absorb part of its karmic force.

So, when this "menace" came to trouble their Barbarian God,

the power of karmic calculation would be partially diverted by the worshippers' faith, losing its lock on the Barbarian God's location.

This was the long-standing "symbiotic" ecology of the Barbarian God and its worshippers.

Of course, this is merely an ideal scenario.

In actual symbiosis, multiple contradictions and changes arise.

For instance, believers grow insatiable and commit countless evils; their faith-power becomes corrupted, forcing the deity to fall.

Or the deity descends into evil, deceiving believers and turning them into demons—such "symbiosis" is mutually beneficial but easily corrupts.

The study of the Divine Path is thus profoundly complex, with endless transformations and deep intricacies.

Mo Hua had no good solution for such "symbiosis."

He couldn't possibly strike harshly at believers to force the Wild God to reveal itself.

That is the act of a "villainous evil deity."

Mo Hua could only bide his time, waiting patiently—for the Wo Tai tribe's barbarian cultivators to offer tribute, for the Wo Tai God to slip up.

In the days that followed, Mo Hua concealed his form and observed within the Wo Tai tribe.

The Wo Tai tribe worshipped the Rat God, raising dead rats; their barbarian cultivators also greedily consumed putrid, stinking flesh, so the tribe was filled with pickled pelts and rotting meat, reeking horribly.

The Wo Tai tribe's barbarian cultivators were selfish and greedy, often acting without scruple, and loved to steal.

Ordinary Wo Tai barbarian cultivators stole food and clothing from fellow tribe members.

Elders with some power stole meat and wealth from the tribe.

Some even stole people.

Among tribe cultivators, there was constant adultery and illicit affairs; their private lives were utterly depraved.

Mo Hua had only stayed three days when he witnessed no fewer than twenty incidents of stealing grain, stealing wealth, and stealing people.

He thus realized that the Wo Tai tribe's believers and their Wild God were likely the result of "mutual selection."

Humans and gods alike were a nest of vermin—neither was anything good.

Mo Hua no longer intended to be polite.

After another four or five days, Mo Hua finally waited until the Wo Tai tribe began their "sacrifice."

They too used "humans" as offerings.

But unlike others, they did not use their own tribe members; instead, they used barbarian cultivators they had secretly captured,

or some slaves, as "offerings," presented to the Wo Tai Wild God.

In a sense, these offerings were all "stolen."

These living people had their throats slit, then bound to ropes and lowered from a cliffside, offered as sacrifices to the Wild God.

Mo Hua infused his Footsteps of Flowing Water with spiritual power, clinging to the cliffside, walking vertically downward.

After descending roughly fifty zhang, he saw a carved deity statue and an altar embedded in a cliff wall, obscured by dense Lin Mu and thick mountain mist.

But what puzzled Mo Hua was that the deity's form was not a rat, but a ferocious, wild ox demon.

"Does the Wo Tai tribe worship not the Rat God?"

Mo Hua found this strange.

He then waited patiently, as the sacrificial offering's blood drained for a while, the ritual began, and the divine mind-world began

to twist.

Mo Hua reused his old trick, using his "Sword Bone" as a medium to invade the Wild God's dream.

Entering the Wild God's dream, Mo Hua arrived at a temple.

The temple was vast, its interior crudely decorated, with an ox-headed statue standing tall—but the entity currently feasting on the offerings was a rat-headed Wild God.

Mo Hua understood again.

This Wo Tai Wild God had even "stolen" its temple from others.

Mo Hua retracted his divine essence, suppressed his aura; outwardly, he appeared only as a pale, tender, delicious human child.

The Wo Tai Wild God, upon seeing Mo Hua, was truly astonished and delighted; its mouth opened and closed, the rat head speaking in human words:

"These followers actually managed to capture such a delicious 'human offering' for this honored one! No wonder this honored one taught them the Dao and helped them rise and prosper. Marvelous, marvelous."

Mo Hua gazed calmly at the Wo Tai Wild God.

But the Wo Tai Wild God could not bear the sight of Mo Hua's pale, succulent appearance; it grinned with a sharp mouth: "Little brat, one bite and you're gone."

Mo Hua's face darkened.

A gust of evil wind swept— the Wo Tai Wild God transformed into its rat demon body, opened its huge maw, and lunged to swallow Mo Hua whole.

But its sharp, ape-like fangs were seized in Mo Hua's pale, tiny hand.

Though small and white, that hand seemed to hold the weight of a thousand jin.

The Wo Tai Wild God's expression changed; it thought:

"Trouble! I've encountered something strange!"

The next instant, Mo Hua's fist struck—golden light flared—and with one punch, he crushed the Wo Tai Wild God like an egg. After crushing it, his other hand instantly clenched the air, igniting a point-array flame that instantly refined and absorbed the Wild God's mental power into his mouth.

Having done this, Mo Hua departed.

The barbarian cultivators bound as offerings before the altar, Mo Hua also rescued, tossing them onto the cliffside.

Whether these people could survive was up to their own fortune.

As for the Wo Tai tribe's barbarian cultivators, Mo Hua considered it, but ultimately left them be.

Though this tribe was selfish, vile, and steeped in theft and shamelessness, such moral flaws did not warrant death.

Moreover, this was the Great Wilderness—it was not Mo Hua's place to govern.

Their Wild God was already dead; now their followers could only pray for their own luck.

Mo Hua crossed out "Wo Tai Wild God" from Elder Zhamu's list, then continued searching for his next target.

His next target was the Wu Lu tribe's Wild God.

"Wu Lu" in barbarian tongue means "ferocious wolf."

The Wulu Tribe's totem is a blood-colored evil wolf, and the barbarian god they worship is also a wolf deity.

And its barbarian cultivators, without exception, behave with wild brutality.

Savage, bloody, and bloodthirsty.

Any enemy or captured slave is tortured by them in groups, then killed cruelly.

The Wulu Tribe is a medium-sized tribe, with several Foundation Establishment late-stage barbarian cultivators holding court; its tribal cultivators number nearly two thousand, making it the strongest in the surrounding lands.

The Wulu barbarian god's mental force is close to third grade, also extremely powerful.

And simultaneously, the fastest to die.

Mo Hua killed the Wotai barbarian god, including travel and stakeout, using eight to nine days total.

Killing the Wulu barbarian god took only half an hour.

The Wulu barbarian god simply had terrible luck.

Mo Hua entered the Wulu Tribe just as they were holding a sacrifice.

The tribal square was vast, and at its center stood a blood-colored wolf deity statue.

Before the statue was an altar, and on the altar lay offerings of "minced meat."

These were human flesh.

The Wulu Tribe also used humans for sacrifice; during the ritual, they would chop people alive into pulp, revealing their bloody cruelty.

Mo Hua arrived too late—he had no time to save these offerings.

During the sacrifice, the dream realm spread thickly, and the god's shrine opened wide.

Mo Hua entered directly, cleanly and efficiently, and killed the Wulu barbarian god.

The Wulu barbarian god was drenched in blood, insane and ferocious; his mental force was far stronger than Wotai's.

But before Mo Hua, it made no difference.

Still, just one punch—and the powerful, bloodthirsty Wulu barbarian god perished, his spirit and Dao extinguished.

Mo Hua lit the array as usual, instantly refined it, swallowed it in one breath, then left the barbarian god's dream realm.

As for the Wulu Tribe, by Mo Hua's original habit, he would have wiped them all out.

Warlike and bloodthirsty, they tortured enemies, tortured slaves, and when using humans for sacrifice, they first chopped them alive into minced meat.

This was the Great Wilderness.

If this were the Nine Provinces, under the Dao Court's rule, such heretical conduct would long ago have warranted total extermination by law.

But as Mo Hua walked through the tribe, he found many children still in the Strong Naked stage.

These children had been born only recently, their hands untouched by blood, unsoiled by grievous spirits.

Some Wulu barbarian cultivators, though they killed, did so only in normal combat, their methods not so cruel—merely living within the "bloodthirsty" Wulu Tribe, they sometimes had to be ruthless, killing and then dismembering, just to fit in.

Mo Hua sighed softly.

The cultivators of a tribe, good or evil, form a complex whole.

To kill them all indiscriminately would make him no different from a brute.

Moreover, he himself was burdened by the Fate Curse, tricked by his senior uncle, and temporarily unable to kill—so he could only let it be.

Mo Hua finally

cast one last look at the vast, blood-colored Wulu Tribe, then turned and left.

After leaving the Wulu Tribe, Mo Hua crossed out "Wulu Barbarian God" on Elder Zhamu's list, then continued searching for his next target—

In the days that followed, apart from occasionally returning to Wutu Mountain to find the big tiger wandering in the hills, playing with it, stroking its head, petting its fur, and roasting meat for it,

Mo Hua spent all other time pursuing his "barbarian god hunting" plan.

A shadow wandered the Great Wilderness.

One barbarian god after another was erased by Mo Hua.

No one knew that in the southern tribes of the Great Wilderness's three thousand mountain ranges, a "barbarian god hunter" lurked within shadows.

No one saw him.

No one knew him.

Even the barbarian gods, revered by countless believers and infamous for their ferocity, did not know Mo Hua—the terrifying force like a natural disaster—until they were killed and consumed.

The moment they saw Mo Hua, it was almost their death.

Every barbarian god who saw Mo Hua died.

Thus, no barbarian god knew Mo Hua.

After secretly hunting and devouring the mental forces of many barbarian gods, Mo Hua's spiritual awareness finally strengthened further.

When he inwardly observed his spiritual awareness, Mo Hua could faintly sense the threshold of his mental force breakthrough.

Twenty-two-pattern mental force was not far off—