Chapter 1219: Abyss Bone Armor

This was the first time Mo Hua had seen a formation that seemed to have come alive, possessing life.

Before this, he had only seen his senior uncle's formations produce a similar effect.

But his senior uncle's eerie patterns split and multiplied on their own, even parasitizing.

Unlike the Taotie patterns he had drawn, which could devour other formations like monsters.

Even Mo Hua himself felt an inexplicable sense of "eerie" unease.

He did not know what kind of "Formation Master" he would become if he continued learning this way.

But now was not the time to dwell on such matters.

Whenever there was a formation, learn it; whenever there was formation principle, comprehend it.

This was the expression of Mo Hua's inner thirst for knowledge, his greedy longing to seek the Dao and its laws.

The "Heart of the Taotie" slowly imprinted itself upon Mo Hua's spiritual soul.

Mo Hua continued to activate the "Taotie Devouring and Transforming Formation," to "devour" the Abyss Bone Transforming Long Zhen.

The Taotie patterns within the Devouring and Transforming Formation, like monsters, extended tentacle-like formation lines, forming a deep abyssal maw that swallowed the Abyss Bone Transforming Long Zhen.

The internal Taotie law flowed with domineering force.

The Abyss Bone Transforming Long Zhen resisted.

This was a battle of formations, an invasion of laws.

The Twenty-Three Pattern Devouring and Transforming Formation, imbued with Taotie law, was clearly superior in both formation rank and internal law.

The Twenty-Pattern Abyss Bone Transforming Long Zhen was at a clear disadvantage and was soon swallowed, "chewed," and "assimilated."

When the pitch-black Taotie patterns faded.

The Abyss Bone Transforming Long Zhen became "shattered," as if it had been "chewed" by a ferocious beast formation—its bones broken, leaving only fragmented "residual patterns."

Mo Hua looked on, finding it both "cruel" and wondrous; these fragmented "residual patterns" indeed possessed a certain "uniformity."

This uniformity was part of the Taotie's devouring and digesting law.

These laws, seeped through the residual patterns by the Taotie's "chewing," looked like the "saliva" of the Taotie eating.

Mo Hua examined these residual patterns and frowned slightly.

What puzzled him was that after the Taotie Devouring Formation "devoured" the Abyss Bone Transforming Long Zhen, the residual patterns remained relatively intact.

In his expectation, a Taotie formation would digest part of the target and expel what it could not digest.

That would be true "eating."

But now, it was as if the Taotie had merely chewed the formation as "food," crushed it, coated it with saliva,

then spat it back out, unchanged.

This was not "eating"—it was more like the Four Symbols Demon Pattern Formation's "disassembly."

More accurately, it was "devour-and-disassemble."

After devouring, it directly disassembled the original formation.

Mo Hua pondered for a moment and considered two possibilities.

"One possibility is that this formation contains only a portion of Taotie power, so it can devour and disassemble, but cannot 'transform.'"

"The other possibility is that my understanding of the Taotie law is shallow, and my mastery of the Taotie Devouring and Transforming Formation is insufficient, so the formation I currently activate can only chew, not truly 'consume.'"

Mo Hua could not determine which possibility was correct.

The Taotie formation differs from ordinary ultimate formations.

Previously, the ultimate formations Mo Hua studied contained mostly singular laws, and their Dao essences were specific and unique.

But the Taotie is a heavenly beast that devours all things, even the laws of heaven and earth.

Its body likely does not contain any single, isolated law.

Rather, it may contain an entire self-consistent "chain of laws," formed through endless devouring and refining since its birth.

Hence, ultimate formations imbued with Taotie power have so many varieties.

Different Taotie ultimate formations have different logics and manifestations, and even their purposes appear entirely distinct.

Mo Hua had only vaguely suspected this before.

Now, having comprehended the Taotie Devouring and Transforming law and possessing the "Heart of the Taotie," he had, in a sense, gained the Taotie's instinct.

Thus, he could almost intuitively understand the Taotie's methods.

He could also roughly confirm that this hypothesis was valid.

If so, to truly comprehend the "Taotie law," he must master all formations related to the Taotie, then construct his own self-consistent "chain of Taotie law."

Therefore, it was natural that the Taotie Devouring and Transforming Formation could only "devour," not "transform," only "disassemble," not "eliminate"—the formation contained incomplete Taotie power.

What he had comprehended was merely one thread of the Taotie law, not the complete chain.

At this stage, his formation could only "devour-and-disassemble," not "devour-and-transform."

Mo Hua felt a slight regret.

But for now, possessing this "devour-and-disassemble" power was sufficient.

It was sufficient for Mo Hua to use it as a prerequisite law to comprehend the mystery of "dragon transformation."

The Taotie devours demons, then myriad demons transform into dragons.

Now, the Taotie formation could "devour" demon formations.

Next, he would attempt to reassemble the formation using the "chewed" and "assimilated" residual patterns—put simply, first use the Taotie formation to devour the "Abyss Bone Formation."

Then, use the remnants of the Abyss Bone Formation to re-derive the "Abyss Bone Formation," thereby comprehending its internal law.

And within this process lay the law of "demon transformation into dragon."

But this was not true "dragon transformation."

The "dragon patterns" formed by the Abyss Bone Formation were not true "dragon patterns."

And it was merely a grotesque, immensely hard defensive demonic array, forged from various giant bone patterns of the Infinite Abyss.

The external forms of the arrays differed, but their inner essence was identical.

Thinking of this, Mo Hua suddenly froze.

"Immensely hard," "used for defense," "unknown grotesque heavy-armored demonic beast"—

This sounds a bit like—

Xuan Wu?

The Xuan Wu of the Four Symbols?

Mo Hua's heart jolted, and he couldn't help but think.

The Great Wild's "Qing Long" was forged from the residual patterns of ten thousand demons.

Then what of the other Four Symbols?

Bai Hu, Zhu Que, Xuan Wu—

Could they all be—artificially pieced together from demonic beast remains?

So, the Four Sacred Beasts of the Great Wild are all—

"Artificial divine beasts?!"

Mo Hua himself was startled by this "wild speculation."

But the more he thought, the more it made sense.

If the Qing Long array could be derived from demonic patterns, that meant the Qing Long divine beast—at least the Great Wild's Qing Long—its inner law logic,

was extracted and assimilated from "fang yao."

If Qing Long could be done, why not Zhu Que, Bai Hu, and Xuan Wu?

Zhu Que is the assimilation of avian demonic beasts.

Bai Hu is the assimilation of feline demonic beasts.

Xuan Wu is the assimilation of turtle-shell, heavy-armored demonic beasts.

Are all of these "artificially assimilated"?

Mo Hua drew in a sharp breath of cold air.

This logic should have occurred to him when he witnessed Mr. Tu's "Ten Thousand Demons Turned to Dragon" experiment.

But the hypothesis was too "outrageous," so much so that Mo Hua himself had never dared to consider it.

Yet—who possessed such power to create divine beasts?!

Could it be—

Mo Hua thought again of those eyes, and the mysterious trembling of the Dao Stele, and a faint chill crept into his heart.

The air in the room grew colder, heavy with suppression.

After a long while, Mo Hua frowned again.

"Have I overthought this?"

Since constantly studying laws and contemplating their operations, his mind was filled with such "metaphysical" conjectures, obscure and abstruse,

Extremely abstract.

Mo Hua always felt he was indulging in idle fantasies.

He linked together trivial, forced connections, chasing shadows.

But was this truly idle fantasy?

Mo Hua fell into thought again, then immediately shook his head and stopped thinking.

Smart people, whose minds turn too fast, often become trapped once they delve into thought.

But the thought remained deeply buried in Mo Hua's heart.

Afterwards, he held his breath and focused his attention on the array before him.

He continued his derivation according to his hypothesis.

On the chaotic array diagram, Mo Hua recombined and "reconstructed" the bone-patterns of the Abyssal Bone Ultimate Array that had been devoured by Taotie, to comprehend the "Dragon Transformation" law.

Different demonic beasts, different demonic patterns, were originally incompatible.

But after being devoured by Taotie and assimilated, their remnants and patterns gained law-based uniformity, thus acquiring the possibility of fusion and "re-creation."

This may also be one of the "fierce and tyrannical" aspects of Taotie's law.

It could "eat" anything, digest anything, and transform it into its own.

Mo Hua comprehended the twenty-three-pattern Ultimate Array.

Now, reversing course to study the twenty-pattern Ultimate Array, it became relatively easier.

Moreover, Mo Hua had previously attempted "Ten Thousand Demons Turned to Dragon" many times; though lacking prerequisite laws and taking wrong paths, he had accumulated vast experience.

Thus, before long, the Abyssal Bone Long Zhen on the Shu Gu Division's heavy armor was re-"fused" by Mo Hua using Taotie's devouring and assimilating power.

came out.

Mo Hua's understanding of this Ultimate Array deepened further.

Afterwards, Mo Hua repeated the trick: he made Taotie devour the Abyssal Bone Long Zhen again, extract its residual patterns, and re-assimilate them into a new Abyssal Bone Array.

He tried this about ten times.

Mo Hua had preliminarily comprehended the "Dragon Transformation" law.

At this point, the "Abyssal Bone Ultimate Array" on the Shu Gu Division's armor was truly mastered.

Mo Hua had successfully stolen the ancient array lineage of the Shu Gu Division's ancestors.

Mo Hua felt joy in his heart.

But he had not rejoiced long before he realized another problem.

Mo Hua drew the Deep Bone Ultimate Array he had learned onto paper, comparing it with the original diagram of the Deep Bone Dragon Transformation Array from the Tie Shugu Division.

After comparing the two, Mo Hua discovered they were different.

The array he controlled and the ancestral array of the Tie Shugu Division appeared identical, governed by the same principles, yet their specific array patterns

contained numerous discrepancies.

"The spirit" was the same, but the form differed—only similar.

It was like—a "pirated" array.

Mo Hua pondered for a moment and realized the reason.

The ancestors of the Tie Shugu Division, in ancient times, "domesticated" this "Deep Bone Array" using relatively primitive array patterns.

Meanwhile, he had effectively used the Chaotian Array to "decompose" their original patterns, then reassembled them anew.

The methods involved must differ greatly, given the countless years that had passed.

No one knew how the Tie Shugu ancestors had domesticated this Deep Bone Array.

Mo Hua had no way whatsoever to fully reconstruct their process of domesticating the array.

Mo Hua's approach was more like—

smashing an ancient "artifact" into pieces, understanding its inner principles, then learning to reassemble and repair it himself—his repaired version would inevitably differ from the original.

"A pirated array won't do," Mo Hua frowned. "I need to find a way to restore the array in its original, unaltered form—"

But no matter how hard he thought, he could not conceive of any method to restore it perfectly.

Unless the Tie Shugu ancestors revived and drew it again before his eyes.

But that was impossible.

"There's no way to fully restore it—"

Mo Hua thought again, then suddenly realized: "Why must I restore it fully?"

Why must it be identical to the array drawn by the Tie Shugu ancestors?

He was not one of those idiot array masters who insisted ancestral methods must never change, that not a single stroke of the array could be altered.

As long as the inner principles and functions were the same, wasn't that enough?

Besides, this wasn't truly a "pirated" array.

The core technology inside was identical; minor deviations in the outer array patterns—what did it matter?

Mo Hua found this reasoning sound.

He then couldn't help but let his thoughts wander further:

The Tie Shugu Division had ancestral Manjia—other great tribes must have theirs too, and within those tribal ancestral Manjia, hidden ultimate formations surely lay.

Having grasped the principles of Chaotian Devouring and Ten Thousand Demons Transforming into Dragons, did this mean that in the future, whenever he encountered any tribe's ancestral Manjia ultimate formation, he could replicate this exact method?

Deduce the array diagram, swallow it with the Chaotian Array, then reconstruct it.

In that case, wouldn't he be able to "replicate" every tribe's ancestral Manjia?

Wear the enemy's "armor" and fight them with their own weapons?

Mo Hua's heart jolted.

In that light, wasn't the Chaotian Devouring Array somewhat like the "Xiao Wu Xiang Gong" of the Four Symbols Arrays?

Swallowing another tribe's Four Symbols Ultimate Array, then re-fusing and "replicating" a "pirated" version of it?

Mo Hua froze for a moment, then immediately felt a surge of anticipation—he wanted to test it now.

He left the secluded chamber where he had been in seclusion for a long time; as soon as he stepped out, he saw Xiao Zatu.

Xiao Zatu had been waiting outside, frowning anxiously; seeing Mo Hua emerge, his expression brightened instantly.

"Mr., have you finished your seclusion?!"

Mo Hua nodded, then asked: "How is things outside?"

Xiao Zatu's face fell again. "Not good—"

Mo Hua patted his head. "Take me to see them."

"Yes!"

Xiao Zatu led Mo Hua to meet Dan Zhu and the others.

Seeing Mo Hua emerge from seclusion, Dan Zhu and the others all exhaled in relief.

With external enemies looming, Mo Hua had secluded himself, immersed in array research, oblivious to the passage of days.

Everyone else had been deeply worried.

Even among the Dan Que tribe and the Wu Tu Alliance, many barbarian cultivators had begun to suspect whether Lord Wuzhu had met with misfortune—or abandoned them.

Dan Zhu's tense heart slowly eased.

He looked up at Mo Hua, then suddenly froze.

He felt as if "Mr. Wu" now carried an additional aura—something indescribably fierce and greedy, sending a chill through his bones.

"What exactly did Mr. Wu attain during his seclusion?"

Mo Hua, meanwhile, adjusted slightly to the outside atmosphere, detaching himself from array research and Chaotian comprehension, and inquired about recent developments.

Only then did he learn that his seclusion and array contemplation had already lasted nearly two months.

During these two months, Dan Zhu and Chifeng had struggled to hold their ground against Lord Lugu's Tie Shugu Proper Division.

Now, over half of the Wusha Mountain Realm had been lost.

Their forces had been retreating to the edge of Yuansha Mountain Realm.

Lord Lugu commanded his vast army, firmly entrenched outside, watching with hungry eyes.

The situation was extremely dire.

Without Mo Hua's "foreseeing" guidance, Dan Zhu had felt unaccustomed—but under immense pressure, he had endured, though battered and weary, and had indeed grown considerably, preventing the Wusha Mountain Realm from falling entirely.

Mo Hua felt a sense of satisfaction.

Indeed, prodigies are prodigies—given just a little refinement, they grow on their own.

Mo Hua felt a kind of "nurturing" joy within him.

"Since things have come to this, we withdraw for now," Mo Hua thought, then spoke.

"Withdraw?" Seeing Dan Zhu was puzzled.

Mo Hua nodded. "Yield the Wusha Realm to Lord Lugu. Fall back to the Wutu Realm first, then plot our next move gradually."

Chifeng frowned. "But—if we withdraw now, how will we ever retake it?"

Mo Hua spoke obscurely: "The Divine Lord has given instructions."

Seeing Dan Zhu and Chifeng exchanged glances; neither understood what "instructions" the Divine Lord could have given.

Yet they still trusted Mo Hua, this mysterious "Lord Wuzhu."

Thus, Seeing Dan Zhu and his men withdrew again and again, finally retreating to the Wutu Realm.

The Wutu Realm was a small territory, with more complex terrain, easy to defend and hard to attack.

Lord Lugu had intended to press his advantage, but after several assaults failed to take it, and with the barbarian troops of Shu Gu's tribe worn down by prolonged fighting, he ordered Zhong Mingren,

to set up camp on the spot and rest and recuperate the troops.

Once the troops regained strength, he would launch a decisive strike to seize the Wutu Realm and wipe out Seeing Dan Zhu and his men.

Thus, the Yuansha Realm was entirely swallowed by the Shu Gu tribe.

The Dan Que tribe and the Wutu Alliance were forced into a corner, all with solemn expressions, their hearts shrouded in dark clouds.

They had nowhere left to retreat; if Lord Lugu attacked again, they would have no choice but to fight with their backs to the water.

Either life, or death.

Morale grew unsettled. Some tribes even began to entertain thoughts of rebellion.

Mo Hua ordered Jiao Li to lead men and execute those who defected, to preserve the unity and cohesion of the tribes and the Alliance.

Human hearts are like water—unstable and drifting. In times like these, one must steel them all the more.

Meanwhile, Mo Hua began to devote great effort to forging barbarian armor.

He had obtained the materials for forging armor—from the secret branch of Shu Gu.

He had also selected some craftsmen for the task.

The forging techniques were primarily drawn from Dan Que's heritage, with advice and reference from "Jian Gu Tou," the former swordsmith.

Mo Hua had already "reconstructed" the core array for the armor.

And all of this was carried out in secret.

The forging site was fully sealed; all armor smiths and elders were forbidden to leave a single step.

Mo Hua told no one what kind of armor he intended to forge.

Amidst the tempering of iron and fire, bone and array, time flew by.

A month later, Lord Lugu, fully rested, led his troops once more to the border, determined to kill Seeing Dan Zhu and destroy the Wutu tribe.

Seeing Dan Zhu and Chifeng led their forces to resist.

The two sides clashed, fighting without pause.

Seeing Dan Zhu and his men struggled desperately, under immense pressure.

And in this dire situation, on the third night, Mo Hua arrived at Seeing Dan Zhu's frontline camp with some barbarian troops, dragging a pile of storage chests.

Seeing Dan Zhu and the others were confused.

Mo Hua ordered Zhong Mingren to open the chests.

As the chests opened, a dim, dark glow flashed—eerily captivating.

In that instant, Seeing Dan Zhu, Chifeng, and the others could scarcely believe their eyes.

They had seen—

The ancestral Yuan Gu heavy armor of the Shu Gu tribe?!

And there were fifty sets!

This number exceeded even the heavy armor preserved by the main branch of the Shu Gu tribe.

The air grew still.

Seeing Dan Zhu and the others forgot to breathe. After a long while, they turned to Mo Hua, trembling, and asked: "Lord Wuzhu, what is this?"

Mo Hua's expression turned solemn. "These are the barbarian armors bestowed by the Divine."

He looked at Seeing Dan Zhu and the others, his face glowing with divine radiance. "Select fifty elite warriors. Put on these heavy armors. March out tomorrow,

and face Lord Lugu."

Seeing Dan Zhu drew a deep breath and nodded. "Good!"

The next day, as Lord Lugu, leading the main branch of the Shu Gu tribe, prepared to crush Seeing Dan Zhu's forces in one decisive blow, he met Seeing Dan Zhu face to face—and saw behind him fifty identical, ferocious, menacing Yuan Gu Qian Man heavy armors.

Under the bright daylight, even Lord Lugu thought his eyes had deceived him.

He stared again, carefully, meticulously.

A wave of unbelievable absurdity surged into his mind, nearly splitting his spiritual awareness.

Lord Lugu could no longer contain himself—he roared:

"What the hell?! How are Dan Que people wearing the ancestral heavy armor of the Shu Gu?!"