Chapter 1170

After unifying and naming the Wutu Mountain Realm, Mo Hua, this mysterious Lord Wuzhu, became the lord of all tribes within the Wutu Mountain Realm.

The situation in the Wutu Mountain Realm stabilized slightly.

With his hands free, Mo Hua's first act was to improve the livelihoods of the barbarian cultivators.

The wealth and food of most tribes were gathered together and distributed equally, ensuring that in these chaotic years, every barbarian cultivator—old or young, weak or strong, women or children—could have at least one meal to sustain basic survival.

In addition, Mo Hua divided the barbarian cultivators into several hunting squads.

Each squad was led by a Foundation Establishment cultivator, ascending the mountains to hunt demonic beasts and stockpile meat.

The hunted meat was divided into two categories.

Herbivorous demonic beast meat was given to children and the elderly.

Carnivorous demonic beasts were reserved for the young and strong barbarian cultivators.

Carnivorous demonic beasts, having devoured human flesh, carried intense stench, resentment, and malevolent energy in their flesh and blood.

Eating too much caused severe side effects: mental instability, shortened lifespan, and frequent cultivation mishaps.

Therefore, children could no longer eat this meat, lest it impair their development.

The elderly, being weak, must not eat it either—any slight imbalance could cost them their lives.

The young and strong barbarian cultivators were robust, and as barbarians, they had long consumed such demonic meat and developed some resistance.

This meat, with its side effects, could only be eaten by them.

In this wasteland, conditions were limited; just surviving was already a blessing, and there was no room for refinement.

Mo Hua also improved the cooking methods for demonic meat.

In this barbarian region, metallurgy was backward, materials scarce, and no good stoves could be forged.

Mo Hua could only erect several large pots, inscribing melting-fire arrays and purification-fire arrays on their bases, which, to some extent, removed demonic energy, reduced the stench, preserved nutrients, and allowed the barbarian cultivators to eat with greater peace of mind.

He also gathered nearby spices.

Though not particularly delicious, it was vastly better than before.

Beyond meat, Mo Hua selected a slightly more fertile plot in the valley, activated a Thick Earth Array to commune with the Earth's Dao essence and nourish the soil, and set up small Cloud Rain Arrays to maintain soil moisture.

On this land, he planted wild millet and foxtail millet native to the Wutu Mountain Realm.

Thus, if disasters struck and no demonic beasts could be hunted, there would still be coarse grains to stave off hunger, preventing starvation.

These plots were a preliminary trial.

Mo Hua issued a strict order: they must be defended to the death; anyone who dared damage them would be executed without mercy.

These measures were implemented one by one. Soon, the livelihoods of the vast majority of tribes improved.

Especially for children who had previously starved and the elderly awaiting death, having food to eat filled them with boundless gratitude.

And the young and strong barbarian cultivators ate more meat than before; moreover, after cooking and array-baking, the stench faded and the flavor improved, deepening their trust in the Lord Wuzhu.

Livelihood was the foundation of everything.

Thanks to Mo Hua's coordination, governance, and profound array expertise, the entire Wutu Mountain Realm underwent a transformative change.

But soon, new contradictions arose.

Among the tribes, there remained deep divisions over whether to submit to Mo Hua, this "Lord Wuzhu."

These divisions could not be resolved in a short time.

The cowardly, having witnessed Mo Hua's divine might, dared not resist.

Most were indifferent, wavering.

A few ambitious ones, seeing Mo Hua amass wealth and stockpile food, could not resist stealing—or even killing to seize it.

The thieves were from the Wotai Tribe.

The killers who seized goods were from the Wulu Tribe.

Some barbarian cultivators inexplicably deserted on their own.

All of these were provocations against Mo Hua, the Lord Wuzhu.

Mo Hua showed no mercy: he executed a batch, punished a batch, imprisoned a batch, and even mass-produced the punishment boards he had long studied in Qianxue Mountain Realm, forcing rebellious, thieving, and murderous barbarian cultivators to kneel and undergo Shen Shouxing's judgment.

The effect was striking.

Fearing Mo Hua's ruthless methods and the horrific torment of the punishment instruments, the barbarian cultivators' attitude toward Mo Hua grew markedly more respectful.

Though inwardly they may not have submitted, on the surface, no barbarian cultivator dared openly defy Mo Hua anymore—including the most brutal Wulu Tribe.

But without opposing Mo Hua, they began turning on each other.

The animosity between barbarian tribes ran deep.

Their customs differed, their tribal laws diverged, they had killed each other, stolen from each other, and carried ancestral grudges.

Now gathered together, friction was inevitable.

Any minor dispute would erupt into conflict.

More importantly, each tribe worshipped a different barbarian god.

Different barbarian gods held different doctrines.

Believing in a barbarian god's doctrine subtly shaped the barbarian cultivators' spiritual awareness, gradually assimilating them.

This meant their spiritual awareness had become fundamentally distinct.

Even though Mo Hua had already "eaten" all these barbarian gods.

But the imprints within their spiritual awareness were not easily erased.

This divergence in spiritual form became an essential, irreconcilable conflict.

Thus, after only a brief stabilization and a few days of full meals, conflicts between the tribes erupted continuously.

Fearing Mo Hua's authority, they did not resort to lethal combat, but mutual insults and private brawls occurred frequently.

There were even cases of child abuse and the defilement of women—morals had deteriorated severely.

Mo Hua could only spend more time consulting with the elders of each tribe to draft a stricter set of tribal laws.

These included: no insults between tribes or within the Alliance, no theft, no private duels, and certainly no indiscriminate killings.

Children must be protected, elders respected.

No one may arbitrarily violate female cultivators of the tribes.

Violations would be punished with penalties ranging from execution, array punishment, flogging, to imprisonment—sentences determined according to the gravity of the crime.

Mo Hua, in the name of Lord Wuzhu, promulgated these tribal alliance laws and enforced them strictly.

The corrupt atmosphere was temporarily halted.

But Mo Hua knew such measures treated symptoms, not root causes.

Fundamentally, the barbarian cultivators were a group of "immoral" cultivators.

A few had character, but their numbers were extremely few.

Cultivators like Elder Zhamu—who had traveled to large tribes to study, learned shamanic arts, and possessed enlightened minds—were exceedingly rare.

Most barbarian cultivators were either petty thieves or ruthless killers.

In their eyes, there was nothing beyond eating, drinking, killing, and mating.

Such barbarian cultivators could never accomplish anything.

Mo Hua himself was truly reluctant to serve as Lord Wuzhu to this degenerate crowd of barbarians, lest his own reputation be ruined in the future.

For the first time in his life, Mo Hua felt the importance of "civilization."

Without civilization, many of the barbarians under his command were merely "beasts" who could speak.

Worse than beasts—they were greedier, more selfish, more cruel.

Thus, in the name of Lord Wuzhu, Mo Hua told them to "unite the tribes," to "maintain alliance goodwill," to "cultivate the heart," "cultivate the body," "restrain oneself," "strengthen oneself," and to "pursue the survival and long-term development of the tribes…"

But these words were as meaningless as flatulence.

Many barbarians looked at Mo Hua as if he were a fool, utterly unable to grasp what nonsense he was speaking.

Even Mo Hua felt like a "fool."

He gave up, and deeply understood the truth: "The ignorant cannot be civilized."

In that instant, Mo Hua even doubted whether his plan to unify the Great Wilderness was correct.

Dogs cannot change their habit of eating feces. These barbarians' depraved nature ran too deep.

Could they truly possess a Dao-seeking heart? Could he ever use them?

Was he truly practicing the Dao by helping them—or merely raising "pigs" to become a plague?

As his grand ambitions had just begun, Mo Hua involuntarily slipped into initial self-doubt.

Yet he was not the kind to give up easily.

Every undertaking has difficulties; one must overcome them step by step.

If organizing the Great Wilderness were truly so easy, someone else would have done it long ago—why wait for him?

Precisely because it was hard, it was worth doing.

Mo Hua nodded slightly, solidifying his Dao heart.

Yet internal tribal conflicts still had to be resolved.

After much thought, Mo Hua realized that under current conditions, the conflicts within the tribes stemmed from spiritual-form-level belief chaos and moral decay—there was no way to reconcile them.

Unless he killed all these barbarians and eradicated the conflict entirely.

Then, for the next generation of barbarian children, for these newborn minds, he could re-civilize them, reshape them on the spiritual-form level, and truly change the situation.

But such a method was impossible.

After long contemplation, Mo Hua still had only one solution:

Wage external campaigns, divert the conflict outward.

Send these barbarians to advance into other mountain realms, conquer other tribes.

With a common enemy, with targets to fight and kill, these barbarians would no longer fixate on internal strife and infighting.

"External expansion" had always been within Mo Hua's original plan.

But in his original calculations, he intended to wait until the Wutu Mountain Realm was fully stabilized, internal conflicts resolved, and the barbarians reorganized and retrained before proceeding with outward expansion.

To pacify the outside, one must first secure the inside.

But now, it seemed this plan must be accelerated.

Without external expansion, internal conflicts could never be reconciled.

Rather than let these barbarians endlessly turn on each other until they slaughtered one another,

Better to send them outward to expand, to fight enemies.

Even if they died, let them die on the campaign trail—as warriors—rather than in their tribes, dying for stealing chickens or petty theft.

Thus, ten days later, Mo Hua assembled a force of eight hundred barbarian cultivators and set out southward, dust-choked and weary.

Of these eight hundred, the overwhelming majority were from the Wulu Tribe.

The Wulu Tribe remained the strongest among Mo Hua's forces in Wutu Mountain.

And the Wulu cultivators were the most bloodthirsty.

Mo Hua dared not leave the Wulu cultivators behind in Wutu Mountain, lest they incite rebellion.

Thus, in this campaign, he withdrew all the core strength of the Wulu Tribe.

Including the Wulu Tribe's chieftain, two senior elders, a dozen Foundation Establishment cultivators, and six hundred elite Qi Condensation-stage Wulu barbarians.

Leaving Wutu Mountain, the group marched south, crossing treacherous mountains into a pitch-black forest.

The air within the forest was thick with miasma, heavy with demonic energy.

Using his spiritual sense to locate positions, Mo Hua found a tribal encampment at the foot of a mountain.

This was also a small tribe, neither powerful nor large, with only five or six hundred barbarian cultivators.

But what surprised Mo Hua was that these barbarian cultivators wore armor made of leather and bone, upon which were painted demonic patterns to enhance the armor and repel blades and spears.

This tribe was named "Black Horn Tribe."

This was the first time Mo Hua had seen barbarian cultivators resembling "barbarian soldiers" in the Three Thousand Wilds.

War between the two sides was imminent.

On the Wulu side, cultivation levels held the advantage.

But the Black Horn barbarians held the advantage in armor.

As the two sides clashed, Mo Hua did not stand idly by; he casually hurled several fireballs to suppress the Black Horn Tribe's chieftain.

But the Black Horn chieftain was fierce-tempered; no matter what Mo Hua said, he refused to yield, choosing death over submission.

The Wulu chieftain then severed his head.

With the chieftain dead, the matter was settled; the battle quickly ended.

In this slaughter, the Wulu Tribe lost dozens of men.

The Black Horn Tribe lost over a hundred; the rest were forced to surrender.

After their defeat, the Black Horn barbarian warriors all wore expressions of grief and fury.

Some ordinary barbarian cultivators also looked sorrowful; the children's faces bore terror.

According to the customs of the barbarian wastes, a defeated tribe would become "barbarian slaves."

Barbarian slaves were no different from livestock—subject to beatings and killings, their plight was miserable.

This was the cruelty of the Wilds.

Amid a bloody and tense atmosphere,

Mo Hua, in the guise of a youth, wore the black robes of Lord Wuzhu, his demeanor solemn, as he slowly ascended the high platform of the Black Horn Tribe's square, surrounded by blood-splattered Wulu barbarian cultivators.

All fell silent.

In this silence, Mo Hua addressed the crowd, declaring himself the chosen "Lord Wuzhu" of the Divine Master, come not to kill, but to bring peace and prosperity to the tribes of the Wilds.

He would let no one become a barbarian slave.

Mo Hua's voice was gentle and clear, carrying a calming power.

The formerly terrified Black Horn tribespeople quietly calmed.

Mo Hua then ordered Zhong Mingren to distribute grain and meat, soothing the crowd, before commanding his allied Wulu, Wutu, and Wotai barbarian cultivators to occupy the Black Horn Tribe and set up camp.

All wealth and food of the Black Horn Tribe were seized and redistributed by Mo Hua.

Everything was temporarily calmed.

But that night, an incident occurred.

Several Wulu cultivators secretly infiltrated the Black Horn camp, chopped off the arms of several barbarians, and attempted to take Black Horn women for their amusement.

This was their nature.

Killing and mating.

Kill the men of other tribes, then seize their women to satisfy their desires.

In the past, barbarian cultivators generally acted this way.

Sometimes, once stirred by bloodlust, these cultivators could not control themselves.

Fortunately, Mo Hua's spiritual sense was strong—he detected it immediately and trapped the several Wulu cultivators with a Water Prison technique.

But the damage to morale was severe.

The Black Horn Tribe, whose emotions had just settled, showed signs of renewed resistance.

Mo Hua's gaze turned icy; he considered killing another to warn the rest.

But the Wulu chieftain personally came to Mo Hua to plead:

"I beg Lord Wuzhu to show mercy."

One of the offenders was his nephew.

Mo Hua knew this well, but he did not care and had no intention of leniency—even the Wulu chieftain could not break his rules.

Sensing Mo Hua's cold indifference, the Wulu chieftain immediately grew alarmed and pleaded:

"Lord Wuzhu, I, Wu Sha, do not act for personal gain, but to stabilize the hearts of our people."

Mo Hua raised an eyebrow. "Explain."

The Wulu chieftain Wu Sha said:

"Lord Wuzhu, in the Wilds, when tribes fight and win, they seize spirit stones, food, and women—it is tradition. Now, our Wulu tribe follows you into battle, wins, yet gains nothing."

"And now, because we broke your rules, we face beheading."

"Even I, as chieftain, dare not do such things. If this continues, my Wulu tribe's people may… rise in rebellion."

Mo Hua's gaze was cold as he looked at Wu Sha. "Do you think I care?"

Wu Sha's heart jolted.

Mo Hua spoke coldly: "Do you truly believe I cannot destroy your Wulu Tribe? That I must rely on you?"

"If your Wulu Tribe obeys, I will give you a chance."

"If not, I will simply replace you with another tribe."

"In the Wilds, there are three thousand tribes—many more than you. If your Wulu Tribe refuses loyalty, others will step forward."

Wu Sha's back turned cold; his heart pounded.

Seeing Wu Sha now feared him, Mo Hua softened his tone:

"Still, your coming to speak with me shows your loyalty. For your sake, I will spare your men's lives."

"But death may be spared—the punishment cannot."

"You go personally and whip them forty lashes, to serve as a warning—this matter is settled."

"But this is the last time. If they offend again, I will not spare their lives."

Wusha immediately bowed and said: "Lord Wuzhu's great grace, Wusha will forever remember."

Mo Hua nodded. "You may go."

Wusha took his leave, but just before departing, he stole a glance at Mo Hua, as if harboring some secret thought.

Mo Hua's gaze shifted slightly, and he asked: "Do you… have something you want to ask?"

Wusha was startled—he felt this Lord Wuzhu looked young, but his eyes held a depth that pierced straight through the soul.

Under Mo Hua's gaze, Wusha dared not hide it, and could only whisper: "Lord Wuzhu… are you not from the Great Wilderness?"

Mo Hua's heart tightened slightly, but he replied without expression: "Why ask that?"

Wusha said: "Your manner of handling affairs doesn't resemble that of a Great Wilderness native. Moreover, the water and fire arts you use don't look like Great Wilderness shamanic techniques—they resemble more the cultivation arts of the Nine Provinces."

Wusha kept his head lowered.

Mo Hua gave no answer, only said coolly: "Everything I possess is granted by the Divine Lord. All is arranged as the Divine Lord wills."

Wusha clenched his fist against his chest and bowed: "Yes, Wusha spoke out of turn. Please forgive me, Lord Wuzhu."

Mo Hua waved his hand. "No matter. Go."

Wusha said respectfully: "Yes, I shall go now and whip those tribe members who broke the law, to establish authority."

Wusha turned and left.

Mo Hua, however, sank slowly into thought.

Though Wusha was cunning, he had indeed given Mo Hua a warning.

He could no longer use his arts carelessly.

In fact, from now on, he should avoid acting directly as much as possible.

The more he acted, the more traces he left, the more likely he would be exposed and his identity revealed.

Not only would his identity as Lord Wuzhu be questioned.

He might even invite death.

Most importantly, what he was doing in the Great Wilderness was itself illicit—if he acted too often and his identity was exposed, he would leave behind a "black record."

If others followed those traces and uncovered his true identity, it would be over.

He was a Dao Court cultivator who had come to the Great Wilderness to "build merit and achieve glory."

He would be hated by the Wang Ting.

He would also become a wanted "rebel and traitor" of the Dao Court, officially recorded.

Therefore, from now on, he must remain low-key, stay hidden behind the scenes, and be a Lord Wuzhu who was symbolic, never acting personally—never move a finger if he could avoid it.

Let the others handle the fighting and killing.

Mo Hua made up his mind and gave a slight nod.

That night, under cover of darkness, he went to the Black Horn tribe's altar and, using the sacrificial method he had extracted from the Black Horn elders, entered the Savage God's dream and met the Black Horn tribe's

Savage God.

The Black Horn Savage God was a black ox with one horn broken off.

This Savage God was steeped in malevolent energy—not a good thing at all.

But to Mo Hua's surprise, this Black Horn Savage God possessed formidable cultivation—even stronger than the Blood Wolf God of the Wulu tribe.

Mo Hua punched it dead.

Then he used an array to refine its remains and absorbed its spiritual essence into his mouth.

After a while, his spiritual awareness suddenly cleared, like a great river surging, endless and unceasing.

Mo Hua froze—he had unexpectedly discovered that after consuming the Black Horn Savage God, his spiritual awareness's bottleneck had shattered outright.

His spiritual awareness had now officially reached the Twenty-Two level.

(End of Chapter)