The Quest for Immortality - Chapter 1162 (Patreon)

Chapter 1162: Lord Shaman

Of course, talking about founding achievements now is still far too early.

Mo Hua turned his head and took the measure of the ragged barbarian survivors before him, then quietly shook his head.

The Great Wilderness had rebelled, and the royal court conscripted—skimming off the choicest elites from three thousand tribes as neatly as cutting chives.

What was left to him were all the “seconds,” a batch of stopgaps with middling aptitude.

Worse, these two hundred barbarian cultivators came from different tribes with different customs, different faiths, different dress; even their sizes and builds varied wildly. At a glance they looked like a jumble of “miscellaneous troops.”

He had cowed them with force and strong-armed them into his camp. Their hearts were scattered; they basically had no ability to fight in concert.

As for weapons and armor, those were crude to the point of embarrassment.

The beast-pattern arrays the barbarians used in battle were likewise low in grade and pitifully few. All their array patterns together wouldn’t even fill one of Mo Hua’s hands.

There were only three to five Foundation Establishment cultivators, and every one of them was at early-stage.

The rest were all Qi Refining.

From the vantage of a minor tribe in the Great Wilderness, this was “not bad.” In Mo Hua’s eyes, though, they were nothing but shrimp soldiers and crab generals.

Still, a startup can’t be picky on day one.

There was a great deal to prepare.

Drill the troops, forge armor, carve arrays… all of it would have to come step by steady step.

Mo Hua’s next move was to attack the Wulu Tribe and unify this mountain domain once and for all.

In the Three Thousand Great Mountains there was no concept of “provincial borders.” Instead, people spoke of “mountain domains.”

Natural mountain boundaries were used to divide territories by grade.

In the Nine Provinces, the names of provinces were fixed and had been used since ancient times.

But in the Great Wilderness, the names of mountain domains refused to stay put.

Originally, whichever tribe was strongest within a mountain domain lent its name to the domain.

Yet the Great Wilderness was chaotic and turbulent; tribes rose and fell, split and merged, again and again. With the churn so constant, mountain-domain names changed just as often, sometimes dozens of times in mere decades—so confusing as to be meaningless.

Gradually, no tribe even bothered naming “mountain domains” anymore.

Barbarian tribes lived within customary ranges, scratching out a living close to home with a closed-off mindset. Unless driven by necessity to migrate, they seldom traveled far.

And so the very notion of “mountain domain” faded from common speech.

It was said that when the Dao Court entered the Great Wilderness, it tried to reestablish “provincial borders” across the Three Thousand Great Mountains to divide regions. The barbarians fiercely rejected the attempt.

The effort ran aground on language, custom, border lines, even border names—difficulties everywhere, impossible to implement.

To force it would simply waste manpower for little gain; the barbarians themselves refused to recognize the court’s divisions. In time, the matter died on the vine.

All this Elder Zhamu had told Mo Hua.

And the Wulu Tribe was the strongest tribe within the mountain domain where Mo Hua now stood.

When Mo Hua had previously gone “hunting” at Wulu—sneaking a bite of their tribe’s savage god—he’d formed a deep impression of them.

Warlike. Bloodthirsty. Cruel. Wanton killers.

They also had the numbers: nearly two thousand barbarian cultivators. They had three late-stage Foundation Establishment experts, and more than twenty at early- and mid-stage Foundation Establishment.

In this region, they were a bona fide colossus.

And this was the power remaining after the Wilderness royal court’s conscription.

Otherwise Wulu’s strength would have been greater still.

Thus, when Mo Hua hinted at his intention to attack Wulu, his “subordinate” elders objected as a matter of course.

Mo Hua’s status was exalted and his cultivation unfathomable—but the Wulu Tribe’s strength was also terrifying.

They had too many people, and they reveled in blood and battle.

Relying on this rabble of two hundred to campaign against Wulu was no different from courting death.

In a real melee, how many would come back alive?

Yet cowed by Mo Hua’s majesty, these newly-submitted minor-tribe elders didn’t dare oppose him too openly. They muttered dispirited words instead, hoping to prick holes in this “Lord Shaman’s” blind confidence.

Elder Zhamu harbored the same worries and felt they should not provoke the fearsome Wulu Tribe.

He knew all too well how blood-soaked and ruthless Wulu was.

But he had been the first elder to submit to Mo Hua. When others opposed, he kept silence.

Mo Hua waited deliberately while they had their say, then looked to taciturn Elder Zhamu and asked, “Elder Zhamu, what do you think?”

Zhamu studied Mo Hua for a long while, sighed in his heart, then bowed solemnly. “My Wutu Tribe is willing to go through fire and water for Lord Shaman and never regret it, even in death. As for attacking Wulu—let Lord Shaman decide.”

A drawn bow looses no backward arrow.

Since he had pledged himself to Lord Shaman, he would of course support all of Lord Shaman’s designs.

The more others opposed, the more this “supporter” had to stand up and back him.

Mo Hua inclined his head. “Well said, Elder Zhamu. It’s settled then—three days from now, we attack the Wulu Tribe.”

Several other elders still wanted to object.

Mo Hua merely glanced at them.

A tremor ran through their bodies; none dared say another word.

All they could do was bow and say, “Yes, Lord Shaman.”

“We will strictly obey Lord Shaman’s command.”

After that, the elders dispersed.

Elder Zhamu lingered to the last. He glanced at Mo Hua, but in the end asked nothing. He gave a respectful salute and took his leave.

That very night, word of the coming attack on Wulu spread and immediately stirred the camp.

One minor-tribe elder and a dozen barbarian cultivators tried to desert.

They feared Wulu.

And they had no wish to follow this selfish, foolish, arrogant pretty-boy who called himself “shaman” to their deaths.

Mo Hua showed no mercy. He had them seized on the spot, beheaded, and their heads hung outside the tents as a warning.

Mercy does not command soldiers.

In the Nine Provinces he might have been gentler.

But this was the Great Wilderness. Barbarian cultivators were savage by nature; he would not soften his hand.

The severed heads did serve as a blood-drenched warning. For the moment, no one else dared run.

Still, the incident gave Mo Hua a nudge.

With hearts so disunited, this was a hard army to lead…

Fighting alone, or cooperating with a few smart people and experts, was one thing. Leading a squad of “pig teammates” to get things done was a different beast entirely, and far more difficult.

They were only setting out to attack one little Wulu Tribe, and they hadn’t even started fighting—yet there were already deserters.

What about later, when they went after bigger, stronger tribes?

Wouldn’t a single spark of war see his men scatter in a heartbeat?

Mo Hua frowned slightly.

Even if things hadn’t yet reached that point, one could not fail to prepare for rain.

He had to establish prestige.

He had to steady hearts.

He had to build force.

And his power was still in its “startup” phase. He needed to preserve living strength; these “mixed troops” could not be thrown away casually.

Mo Hua reconsidered the situation at Wulu with extra care.

Objectively, Wulu’s power was indeed strong and not easy to handle.

The hardest part wasn’t “killing” but “subduing.”

Killing Wulu’s cultivators—even slaughtering the whole tribe—was no trouble for Mo Hua.

He could deploy arrays to reap them by the masses.

Or he could take his time and kill them one by one with spells. Neither posed difficulty.

After all, Wulu’s highest-ranked elder was only late-stage Foundation Establishment, hardly worth his notice.

But he could not indulge in wholesale slaughter; if his fate-killing baleful qi flared, he would once again face memory loss and the risk of his shibo descending.

Besides, if he killed everyone in Wulu, he’d have no manpower left.

The territory would be won for nothing.

That ran counter to his original intent.

How to cow more than two thousand barbarian cultivators while killing few or none—that was the tricky question.

If he failed to overawe them, he himself wouldn’t be in danger, but Zhamu, the Wutu cultivators, and the two hundred he’d scraped together from other minor tribes would all be butchered by Wulu’s cruel warriors.

Yet he couldn’t leave his two hundred behind either.

Without taking them to campaign and win renown—without training them to advance and retreat as one—they would remain a heap of sand and a pile of waste.

Without people he had trained, he could not build a power base; all designs would be empty talk.

He was now a man with “ambition” to change the current order and make his mark.

He no longer held the mindset of “as long as I’m fed, the family won’t starve.”

There were many things he could not shoulder alone forever.

Especially later, when punitive expeditions set them against major tribes in real war—his role alone would be limited. In the end it would still be his barbarian soldiers charging and bleeding on the front.

Mo Hua let out a soft sigh, then settled his heart and began to plan in detail—pushing through every scenario that might arise in the “campaign” against Wulu, laying out a plan with no loose ends.

…

Three days later, two hundred barbarian cultivators marched toward the ruthless Wulu Tribe.

Grief hung on every face.

Some wore the hollow look of men going to their deaths.

Even Elder Zhamu, the most “loyal” to Mo Hua, looked grim.

Only little Zhatu, following behind Mo Hua and holding the shaman’s banner for him, strode along puffed up with pride.

Ten li from Wulu, a heavy stink of blood rolled over them. Heads lined the road on both sides, paste of flesh still clinging.

Several barbarian cultivators’ legs went soft; they collapsed and almost couldn’t walk.

The rest turned anxious and pale with fear.

One man, overcome, still tried to run; Elder Zhamu caught him and skewered him with a single thrust.

No one else fled, but tension snapped taut across the column.

Just then, Mo Hua’s calm and solemn voice sounded in every ear:

“You answer the summons of this shaman and fight for the Divine Lord.”

“Even if you die, you shall receive the Divine Lord’s blessing.”

“But if you run, that is betrayal of the Divine Lord. After death you will be cast into the Great Wilderness Purgatory and sink forevermore.”

His voice seemed to carry a magic of its own, an irresistible majesty.

Terror-struck, they pressed their brows to the ground together, not daring another thought of escape.

Mo Hua nodded. Cloaked in black, expression austere, he took firm steps at the head of the host.

The two hundred barbarian cultivators, seeing this, tightened formation and followed close behind him.

They advanced another ten li and reached the Wulu stockade.

Dozens of Wulu warriors had already caught wind of them and stood guard at the gate.

Mo Hua pointed. “Breach the gate.”

The two hundred behind him hesitated a beat, then raised bone sabers and bone spears and rushed the stockade gate.

The sides clashed for roughly a hundred exchanges.

Two or three of Mo Hua’s men were killed or wounded. Then they broke Wulu’s gate and poured into the stockade.

Inside lay a great plaza.

A blood-red wolf idol towered at its center, ferocious and domineering. Severed limbs lay strewn around it; rotting flesh stank to the heavens.

Most of Wulu’s cultivators had gathered in the plaza.

At their head stood the tribe’s three strongest—late-stage Foundation Establishment, all three: the chieftain and two senior elders.

Behind Mo Hua, the stockade gate eased shut.

Seven to eight hundred Wulu warriors, blades dripping, drew in from all sides, hemming Mo Hua’s group in a ring.

Clearly the Wulu Tribe had known he was coming and had deliberately let them in to “close the door and beat the dogs.”

For a time the air thickened with tension.

The Wulu warriors were many, eyes glittering with bloodthirst.

Behind Mo Hua, the barbarian cultivators from the various minor tribes had long since shed whatever courage and loyalty they had. Faces twitched, eyes flickered—they were all nerves.

Only Mo Hua remained as calm as ever.

The Wulu chieftain was tall, his body daubed in blood-colored paint. His brown eyes were bestial as he stared Mo Hua down. After a moment, he rasped:

“You’re the so-called shaman, are you?”

Mo Hua’s expression was devout. “I carry the Divine Lord’s command and have come to subdue your Wulu Tribe. Kneel now in submission and spare yourselves from perdition.”

The chieftain laughed. “Trying your tricks on me, are you…? With that milk smell still on you, you dare call yourself a shaman and chant the Divine Lord’s name? You think Wulu are fools?”

Mo Hua shook his head, pointed straight at the chieftain, and rebuked him:

“You lack piety.”

The chieftain was about to sneer again when fire flared at Mo Hua’s fingertip.

Spiritual power pooled like liquid, condensing into a magma-like fireball.

Black baleful qi coiled around it, making hearts quail.

The chieftain’s face changed. He roared; blood patterns writhed across his skin as he warped into a half-man, half-wolf, fangs bared. Then he lunged at Mo Hua with brutal speed.

He was fast; Mo Hua’s fireball was faster.

Before the chieftain could touch him, the baleful-qi-laced fireball smashed into his shoulder.

Flames erupted.

The chieftain staggered back three steps. Half his shoulder charred black; the wound burned—and a cold like maggots gnawing bone made his heart shiver.

He looked to Mo Hua, face grim. “What… are you?”

Mo Hua remained indifferent. “I am a shaman who spreads the Divine Lord’s way. I proclaim Heaven and deliver the Great Wilderness.”

The chieftain wavered, unsure whether to believe him.

Just then a senior elder spoke to the chieftain: “This brat falsely claims Heaven’s mandate—he deserves death.”

“If he were truly a shaman, his status would be exalted. How could he come with these third-rate rabble?”

Another elder added, “Chieftain, let’s kill them all—strip their bones and skin, grind them to paste, and offer them to Wulu’s god.”

“Our Wulu has our own god; we needn’t worship any ‘Divine Lord.’”

The chieftain nodded, killing intent in his eyes.

Staring at Mo Hua, a gleam slid into his gaze.

He’d eaten human flesh before. Seeing Mo Hua’s fair skin, he felt a stir of appetite. He thought:

I wonder what this “shaman” would taste like.

Mo Hua’s eyes turned cold.

The rest of the Wulu warriors could wait no longer. They rushed Mo Hua’s two hundred from behind, blades flashing.

They were born to kill; once their bloodlust rose, they could not hold back.

The chieftain and the two senior elders shared a look.

Then the three late-stage Foundation Establishment aces, together with seven or eight ordinary Foundation Establishment elders, all surged toward Mo Hua.

Mo Hua met them with Five Elements spells that prized pure speed.

At the same time he glanced back. Elder Zhamu and the two hundred were being swamped by Wulu’s butchers. They could barely breathe. In another moment the first would fall; then the line would collapse and they would all die under Wulu’s bloody blades.

“As expected, they still can’t…”

He had anticipated as much.

Letting these two hundred face a brush with life and death and taste what it meant to fight shoulder to shoulder—that would be enough for now.

He couldn’t expect more—yet.

“For the moment, I still have to do it myself…”

Mo Hua stopped holding back.

Trading spells with Mo Hua, the chieftain and elders grew more and more alarmed.

Alone, with spells alone, he held Wulu’s strongest at a draw.

Such mastery of the Dao of spells could not come from a common Great Wilderness tribe.

This youth who called himself shaman was absolutely no ordinary wanderer.

“Take him alive,” the chieftain snapped. “Use the flensing blade and question his origins. If he truly is a shaman, we’ll seize his inheritance. If he’s not—kill him and cook him.”

“Understood!”

The three late-stage powerhouses pushed their savage strength to the limit and closed around Mo Hua.

In the next instant, Mo Hua’s eyes sharpened; his spiritual power surged.

The chieftain and his two elders were suddenly pressed beneath a barrage of spells—faster, truer, more ferocious.

Spells came one upon another, endlessly morphing, leaving them almost no space to breathe.

“Not good—this boy’s shamanic inheritance is strange…”

An elder’s face went ashen.

“We can’t hold him!”

“Quick! Use the Blood God Mantra!” the chieftain barked.

He leapt back, opened distance, bit his finger, and drew a blood-wolf sigil on his brow.

The blood seeped into his sea of consciousness. His eyes slowly reddened. A feral violence bled off him as if only murder could vent it.

The other two elders did likewise. Their body hair lengthened; a blood-colored wolf-shadow flickered in their eyes.

The three roared in unison once the Blood God Mantra took hold.

A wave, invisible to the eye and only present in the realm of divine sense, rippled out at once.

It seemed to catch every Wulu cultivator. A film of blood spread over their brows; killing intent blazed up like dry grass in wildfire.

Elder Zhamu and the others were seized by the blood-red pall that washed from Wulu and felt a despairing will to kill bearing down on them. Ice spread through their hearts.

Bitterness filled Zhamu’s chest. Was it truly “the master fails before he begins”?

Mo Hua blinked in mild surprise, thinking:

“Using divine sense to rouse morale—no, to rouse killing intent?”

“Interesting…”

But that made things simpler.

Golden light welled within Mo Hua’s gaze. He locked on the chieftain, pointed two fingers, and murmured: “Break.”

A strand of Sword Light Within the Gaze shot forth.

The chieftain was just about to ride his killing will to swell his blood and slaughter without end.

But with one glance—one sliver of gold lancing into his eyes—he felt a prison of swords clamp down on his soul. Panic stabbed his heart.

His vaunted Blood God Mantra shattered at once.

And when it broke, the rest of Wulu’s cultivators were forced out of the “Blood God’s blessing” all at once, each suffering backlash to varying degrees. Faces blanched.

The chieftain spat blood; his brow split open.

This had never happened before.

A savage god’s blessing could not be broken.

Panic flashed through Wulu’s ranks.

The chieftain stared at Mo Hua in disbelief. “What… are you?”

Mo Hua’s voice was cold. “Submit—or die.”

The chieftain’s face twisted. After a pause he sneered:

“You can break my Blood God Mantra—so you have some skill. But perhaps you don’t know—Wulu’s savage god is a fierce one. As long as our god remains, my Wulu—”

“Do you know why I could break your mantra?” Mo Hua cut in, voice light.

A thought struck the chieftain; his face changed.

Mo Hua smiled thinly, pointed at the idol in the plaza’s center, and ordered:

“Kneel.”

At his word, both knees of the blood-red wolf idol cracked in unison.

The enormous statue crashed down. As if in supplication, it toppled forward and prostrated itself before Mo Hua.

Mo Hua set his foot upon the idol’s head, looking down upon all with unshakable authority.

“I carry the Divine Lord’s command,” he intoned, “proclaiming the Desolate Heaven and delivering the Great Wilderness. The three thousand savage gods, great and small, all bow in submission. Your tribes are no exception. Defy this, and Heaven will punish you—you will never know rebirth.”

God-image fallen, savage god on its knees.

The sight was too shocking. It shattered the Wulu warriors’ last defense in an instant.

The chieftain stared in terror, then slowly knelt and offered the grand salute of the wilderness tribes.

“Your subject Wusha greets Lord Shaman. May Lord Shaman’s noble body be ever at peace.”

The other Wulu elders—and then all their cultivators—knelt in turn and cried out together:

“Greetings to Lord Shaman!”

Even Elder Zhamu and the two hundred could not help but waver in their hearts. They sank to their knees as one and called out, unbidden:

“Lord Shaman!”

Standing upon the Wulu savage god’s head, Mo Hua looked indifferent. From afar, he seemed Heaven’s own proxy receiving the worship of all.

Thus, from Wutu Mountain to Wulu Mountain, the entire mountain domain was unified.

All surviving tribes were taken beneath Mo Hua’s banner in the name of a Great Wilderness “shaman.”

Mo Hua himself named this mountain domain “Wutu Mountain Domain.”

It was the first mountain domain he had ever named.

And the first piece in the Great Wilderness map he would assemble…

Thanks for reading! If you’re enjoying Mo Hua’s “startup arc” in the Great Wilderness, your comments keep me grinning while I grind these chapters. If you can, please consider supporting me on Patreon—every cup of coffee helps me survive long enough to translate the next battle. And if you have a moment, drop a rating or review on NovelUpdates so more readers can find this story—your kindness really does make a difference!

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