Chapter 1273

Although lacking high-level cultivators above Jin Dan.

But with their vast numbers, immense power, and most steadfast faith, the Shen Nu Tribe would later become Mo Hua's greatest ally in "spreading the Dao" across the Great Wilderness.

Guided by their faith in the Shenzhu Lord and loyalty to Lord Wuzhu, they actively spread Mo Hua's teachings of the Shenzhu Sect to the lowest, most numerous strata of the barbarian lands, profoundly shaping the spiritual awareness and cognition of these people.

After establishing the Shen Nu Tribe, Mo Hua finally had his own "trusted" tribe.

Among all living beings, he had now laid his first "foundation."

Every barbarian slave who had suffered and been liberated across the Great Wilderness became a follower of this "Shenzhu," a supporter of this "Lord Wuzhu."

This also laid the groundwork for his future path of "Spiritual Consciousness Enlightenment."

Above, he perceives the Dao through spiritual consciousness; below, he aids all living beings through arrays.

But at this time, Mo Hua merely acted according to his own benevolence and Dao heart, without overthinking.

All cultivation, experience, insight, and the myriad thoughts arising from them merely stirred vaguely within his Dao heart, slowly fermenting and gradually hatching into "Dao" over long years.

With the establishment of the Shen Nu Tribe, the situation in the Great Wilderness changed dramatically, and the atmosphere transformed utterly.

Having seized control of the Shen Nu Tribe, Mo Hua now possessed his own "military force."

Though the barbarian slaves were all expendable, with few high-level barbarian cultivators and meager combat strength, their numbers were sufficient.

A vast multitude, when united, formed a formidable power.

As Lord Wuzhu, Mo Hua symbolized divine authority, manipulated faith, directly controlled political power, and held military command.

In the Great Wilderness—at least for now, throughout the entire third-grade Zhu Que Mountain Realm—Mo Hua was "the god."

In every sense of the word.

After his power swelled unprecedentedly, the first thing Mo Hua did was build a great array.

Building a great array required enormous human and material resources.

Especially in the Great Wilderness, where tribes were fragmented, factions clashed, faiths were chaotic, customs were savage, and resources were scarce.

Almost no one, no faction, had the qualification or strength to construct such an array.

Except Mo Hua.

Except Mo Hua, who now unified the Zhu Que Mountain Realm and achieved complete unity over divine authority, political power, and military command—gathering the hearts of countless people under the name of the Shenzhu, his personal power reaching an unprecedented peak.

No one else could concentrate all human and material resources to undertake such a massive, seemingly "exhausting and wasteful" array project in the remote Great Wilderness.

Even if someone could concentrate power, they lacked the arraying ability.

Across the entire cultivation world, those capable of building great arrays were rare even among prodigious array masters.

Such individuals rarely appeared in ordinary barbarian lands.

Moreover, this was not merely "building a great array" in the ordinary sense.

Ordinary array masters, especially chief array masters, always relied on fixed "templates"—large arrays passed down, refined, and inherited from ancestors and past sages.

Only after possessing a great array diagram could one "follow the blueprint" to construct a large array.

But the array Mo Hua now intended to build was not meant for offense or defense—it was to suppress famine, to carve out a place of survival for the people of the Great Wilderness amid spreading famine and near-desperate ruin.

Such an array had no "textbook."

Nor did it have any ready-made "correct answer."

Constructing a specific great array to solve a specific problem was another dimension of array mastery entirely.

And the specific problem at hand was the famine spread by the Guidao cultivators.

Even experienced chief array masters in the cultivation world, faced with such an "extremely beyond-syllabus" situation, could only be plunged into darkness and terror.

Even reproducing a known "answer" according to standard array construction was already extremely difficult.

Yet now, there was no "answer" at all.

Even the "exam question" of this famine, they might not know where to find.

The examiner himself was the terrifying, unfathomable Mo Sect Daoist.

This was simply beyond the reach of ordinary array masters.

Even Mo Hua, having personally delved deep into the Great Wilderness and studied the famine problem extensively,

Even having deduced and comprehended certain principles related to the famine,

Still found it immensely difficult to suppress the famine's spread on a large scale through arrays and resolve the Great Wilderness's current crisis.

First, the assertion that "the famine was a disaster artificially created by Master Bo through a certain array possessing Taotie power" was based on Mo Hua's own experience and judgment.

Although Mo Hua was seventy or eighty percent certain this was true,

Without direct verification, he could not be overly confident.

And if Master Bo's "famine array" truly existed, the most thorough solution to the famine would be to destroy this array.

But the problem was, even with his unified divine authority and exalted status, Mo Hua still could not uncover the details of this "famine array."

Master Bo's methods were unfathomable.

Mo Hua could hardly find any trace of Master Bo's involvement.

Even if he found it and obtained the complete array diagram of the "Great Wilderness Famine Array," Mo Hua had no confidence he could dismantle Master Bo's array.

In fact, Mo Hua dared not even attempt to "destroy" it.

This was a scheme personally laid by Master Bo; no one knew how deep its machinations ran.

If he truly destroyed the array, it would be equivalent to dismantling Master Bo's plan right under his eyes.

Mo Hua truly dared not.

Moreover, he feared that if he openly destroyed Master Bo's array and enraged him, something even more terrifying might occur.

At this stage, the famine was a catastrophic disaster for the Great Wilderness.

But Mo Hua knew that, for Master Bo, this was already a "mild" method.

If Master Bo truly became angry and the Guidao descended, then the entire Great Wilderness would become nothing but "puppets" of the Guidao cultivators—no living soul would remain.

Mo Hua didn't know why his senior uncle hadn't delivered a killing blow.

It might be that his senior uncle had other plans. Or it might be that his senior uncle was secretly maneuvering against the Hua family, or certain ancestral elders of the Dao Court.

The true grand scheme was beyond Mo Hua's perspective—he still couldn't see it clearly.

But no matter what, at this moment he must not stir things up too much, lest the powerful players behind the board take direct action and unleash a storm of blood and chaos.

Mo Hua had only just stabilized the situation in the Wilds—he simply couldn't withstand further upheavals.

So, while his senior uncle still remained relatively "mild" and the aristocratic clans hadn't yet turned their full attention to the Wilds, he had to suppress the famine using a relatively low-key approach.

After much thought, Mo Hua devised many plans, but ultimately chose to construct the Great Array using the Thick Earth Reconfiguration Array technique.

This way, without destroying the Famine Array, the Thick Earth Array would grant the beings of the Wilds a path to survival.

Using the vitality of Thick Earth to suppress the deathly qi of the Famine Array, he would barely achieve a balance between "life" and "death" within the celestial pattern of the Great Wilds.

Strictly speaking, however, this Thick Earth Array couldn't be called a true "Great Array."

Because true "Great Arrays" were far too difficult—Mo Hua currently lacked the ability to fully "create" a genuine Great Array from scratch.

It lay far beyond his capabilities.

Moreover, the terrain and layout of the Wilds were unsuitable for constructing a properly regulated "Great Array."

Because the divisions of the Wilds were far too chaotic.

Mountains of varying sizes and ranks jumbled together, their slopes steep and treacherous, paths narrow and remote, riddled with poisonous swamps and miasma—

To level the land, lay foundations, span mountains and rivers, and connect territorial boundaries to build a Great Array was, given current manpower and material resources, nearly impossible.

Even if it could be done, the time required would be far too long.

By the time the Array was finished, the people of the Wilds would already be dead.

Given all these factors, Mo Hua could only, based on his own abilities and the concrete, objective, actual conditions, construct the Thick Earth "Great" Array in a manner suited to local circumstances.

He also had to consider the practical difficulty and resource drain of constructing the Array, as well as the Wilds' array-witch cultivators' capacity to learn and comprehend the relevant techniques.

Even the number of array-witch cultivators and their speed of drawing arrays had to be factored in.

The Array's construction timeline had to be compressed as tightly as possible—

The "exam question" itself was already extremely difficult, and the "examiner" was terrifyingly unpredictable.

There was no standard answer. Not even a reference answer existed.

Added to that were so many complex, redundant, and harsh "constraints"—

Mo Hua naturally could not design a true "Great Array," and even a true "Great Array" couldn't solve the current problem.

After immense effort and time, Mo Hua ended up creating a "pseudo-Great Array."

It had the scale of a Great Array, but lacked its structure.

The individual arrays were interconnected, yet unlike other Great Arrays, it had no central nexus to control them all.

Nor did it have a constructed "master focal point."

Adhering to a "pragmatic" mindset, Mo Hua erased all formal constraints according to the flow of cosmic principles, using only the simplest framework to achieve the most practical effect.

Thus, overall, what Mo Hua constructed looked less like a "Great Array" and more like a massive patchwork and "mishmash" of arrays.

Any ordinary array master who saw it would deem it irregular, unorthodox, a heretical path lacking lineage or method.

But Mo Hua knew clearly: all array forms were merely vessels of the Great Dao's principles.

Arrays have no fixed form; laws have no fixed form.

This was, under the current conditions of the Great Wilds' "exam paper," under the "Famine" question, the most perfect "answer" an array master could possibly produce.

Unfortunately, no one could understand his answer.

No one knew what kind of brutal "exam" he had faced.

Not only did they not understand—they would question and oppose him.

In the ancient council hall of Zhu Que Mountain.

At this moment, nearly all high-ranking tribal chiefs, elder chiefs, regional chiefs, powerful elders, and barbarian generals unanimously opposed and desperately tried to dissuade the construction of this Array.

They didn't understand why this Lord Wuzhu, at this very moment, was exhausting manpower and material resources to undertake such a massive, costly cultivation project.

—In a certain sense, this was draining the very essence of mountain and territory to build this inexplicable "Sacred Glyph" Array.

This was a year of famine, a year of turmoil.

Zhu Que Mountain Territory had barely recovered from its brutal war against the Wu Jiao Tribe, and now they were being asked to expend their foundational reserves on such a thing—it was utterly unthinkable.

"The famine problem is indeed severe—the tribes are declining, the barbarian cultivators are dwindling—"

"But the famine's spread has already halted; most regions of Zhu Que Mountain Territory, many tribes, have survived."

"Next, we hoard supplies, ration food, endure slowly, and wait out the famine—we can still continue to grow and strengthen."

"Throughout the history of the Great Wilds, such famines have happened before—"

"Our ancestors always did it this way."

"As long as we endure slowly, we will survive—"

"Our people of the Wilds still have this kind of resilience."

"Indeed—there's no need to gamble everything, exhaust all material and manpower, to build such a massive 'Sacred Glyph'—"

Famine is a problem, but not the primary one.

To exhaust all resources to solve a non-primary problem—this was incomprehensible to nearly every high-ranking tribal leader present.

Even though Mo Hua invoked the Divine Lord's banner and held divine authority, wielding great power, this matter carried too great an impact, and widespread criticism and skepticism remained.

Even Dan Zhu, Lord Lugu, Chifeng, and Chief Dan Lie—who trusted Mo Hua to varying degrees—were somewhat confused.

But they knew: Lord Wuzhu acted with his own reasoning.

Many things that seemed "impossible" had ultimately come true.

Thus, Dan Zhu and the others remained silent.

Seeing the crowd buzzing with debate and relentless skepticism, Mo Hua's expression remained calm, though he sighed softly within.

This wasteland is a scheme.

The brilliance of this scheme lies in the fact that those outside it largely know it is a "dead end."

—

But those inside know nothing.

They believe the famine is temporary, that it will pass, like the disasters that have repeatedly occurred in the history of the wasteland.

But they do not know this time is truly different.

This famine will truly kill them all.

Within this scheme, they see no true danger, only fixating on tribal warfare, power struggles, mutual plundering, playing a bloody, cruel "war" game.

Yet they do not know that in this game of theirs, there are no winners.

Whoever ultimately prevails will still lose—they will all die.

This is the fate of the pawns.

This is the cruelty of the board.

The wise perceive danger before it takes form; the intelligent foresee calamity even when it is hidden.

Those who cannot see the situation will die.

Mo Hua had no desire to explain further to them.

Some things cannot be understood until disaster strikes, until death grips their throats.

Even if he explained, they might not listen; even if they listened, they might not believe; and even if they believed, they would hardly act immediately to resist the calamity.

Thus, only "orders" are needed.

Force them to act—in the name of the divine, through power, through might.

Mo Hua stood at the Gao Wei of the ancient council hall; his stature was unimposing, yet he radiated a powerful, solemn aura, and in a deep, solemn tone, he declared: "This is the command of the Divine Lord—"

"Last night, celestial signs appeared—the stars dimmed—and in my dream, I heard the Divine Lord's decree."

"The disaster will not cease; it will not vanish."

"This famine will spread relentlessly until it consumes the entire Great Wasteland; darkness shall descend upon the earth, and the uncanny shall walk among men."

"This is an unprecedented calamity—everyone will die."

"The Divine Lord, compassionate and merciful, unwilling to witness the annihilation of life in the Great Wasteland and the extinction of all beings, has bestowed upon us the Sacred Patterns of the Earth, granting all life a single thread of hope."

"This is not a vision of the future—it is the imminent reality."

"From this day forward, all tribes that revere the Divine Lord must obey His command and spare no effort—construct the Sacred Pattern Array."

Mo Hua's gaze was cold, his expression majestic, and with his mortal flesh, he wielded the inviolable authority of the divine.

"I am not seeking your opinions—I am issuing you a command in the name of the Divine Lord—"