The green-faced leader’s fierce eyes lit up. He rasped, “Would the Master please clear a path for us?”
Mo Hua pretended to hesitate, then said, “I only know a little. I’m afraid I might slip up.”
The green-faced leader said, “No matter. Please, Master, make your move.”
Since Master Wu had sent this black-robed ritual master to help him hunt down the Dao Court’s criminals, he must have some real skill.
Mo Hua slowly nodded. “Then... this master will have a try.”
The green-faced leader said, “Please.”
Mo Hua took the lead and stepped into the tangled forest ahead, a chaotic formation zone dense with array marks and ruined terrain. The green-faced leader’s tall frame followed close behind him.
In truth, Gu Changhuai’s formation skills were not particularly impressive, especially in Mo Hua’s eyes, one might even call them amateurish. Mo Hua could see through the formation’s core and structure with his eyes closed.
Still, he made a show of pacing back and forth, looking thoughtful. Finally, he pointed at an empty spot and said, “Have someone probe that place.”
The green-faced leader casually pointed at one of his men. “You go.”
The man’s face stiffened, but under the green-faced leader’s fanged, terrifying stare, fear overwhelmed him. He had no choice but to walk to the spot Mo Hua had indicated. The ground went dull, then erupted with a boom. The man could not dodge in time, his leg blown off at the thigh, and he crashed to the earth howling.
Mo Hua sighed. “A miss.”
The green-faced leader silently cursed Mo Hua for being useless, but he still offered consolation. “No harm done. Master, please keep trying.”
Mo Hua said, “Then I’ll try again?”
The green-faced leader said, “Please.”
Mo Hua randomly pointed at another spot.
Another underling was forced to test the formation and lost both legs to another blast.
The green-faced leader’s expression soured. He began to suspect that this “black-robed master” might be a fraud, just as ignorant of formations as he himself was.
Mo Hua sensed the green-faced leader’s displeasure and knew he could not afford another failure.
The third spot he pointed at was safe.
Only then did the green-faced leader’s expression ease.
After that, Mo Hua stopped holding back. He revealed the formation’s route, pointing out the “life gates” of the trapping arrays and killing arrays, and told the green-faced leader the key points for breaking them.
If they forcibly destroyed the array eyes and bases, they could nullify the entire formation area.
Of course, to make it look real, Mo Hua occasionally made mistakes, pointing out wrong spots and sending a few thugs to their deaths.
---
Whether they lived or died was up to luck. Mo Hua hadn’t killed them; he’d only offered “suggestions.” It was their own leader who had sent them to their deaths.
And so, with Mo Hua erring now and then, then succeeding again, he killed more than twenty men total and wounded thirty more. All the while, occasional spells flew from the distance; especially fierce Azure Luan Wind Blades.
Those wind blades, clearly Gu Changhuai’s handiwork, were extremely powerful and abruptly claimed a dozen or so green-faced men. But the rest of the blades were blocked one by one by the green-faced leader, who formed armor from his own hide.
If Gu Changhuai did not strike, the cunning green-faced leader would not rush into action for fear of being ambushed. But if Gu Changhuai did strike, he would not stand by.
They stumbled forward for another half hour, and under Mo Hua’s guidance, the group actually crossed the killing ground of the formation.
To the green-faced leader and his men, the seemingly unbreakable killing formation had been dissolved by Mo Hua in a way they could not understand but seemed impressively profound.
The green-faced leader looked back. The formation killing ground now lay in ruins. Some parts dodged, some dismantled, some broken through. If he had tried to fill the killing ground with lives, who knew how many would have died.
Formations truly were mysterious. No wonder people said that to seize the world’s momentum, one must wield the advantage of formations.
He looked at Mo Hua again, shaken.
As expected of Master Wu’s “special envoy”. His mastery of formations was astonishing.
He had only miscalculated seven or eight times, losing a dozen men, and yet he had broken the formation. That was truly terrifying.
But then his heart sank. He thought to himself, "This black-robed master was clearly skilled enough, yet he had not acted sooner. Instead, he had waited for his brothers to charge ahead and suffer heavy losses before putting on a show and saying he 'knew a little.'"
This must have been Master Wu’s order to secretly teach him a lesson, to make him listen to the ritual masters. Otherwise, the cost would be heavy, just as it had been now.
Regardless of the thoughts in the green-faced leader's mind, he did not show any of it and outwardly spoke respectfully, “Thank you for your aid, Master. Your formation arts are truly unfathomable.”
His flattery was far too shallow.
Mo Hua had no idea what part of his recent trick had been “unfathomable.”
Still, he nodded slightly. “A mere trifle. Master Wu sent me here to rid us of the Dao Court’s hounds.”
“Since matters have reached this point, let us settle it quickly. We must not delay.”
“Good!” The green-faced leader grinned savagely and turned to his men. “Boys, time to feast!”
The green-faced underlings all showed bloodthirsty looks.
Beneath his black robe, Mo Hua frowned slightly. He vaguely felt that these green-faced brutes were uncanny.
“Feast” was not a word he was hearing for the first time.
---
But this was not the time to think about that.
Mo Hua calmed his mind and followed the green-faced leader and his group deeper into the forest.
They had gone less than a mile when a camp abruptly appeared before them.
The camp had been hastily erected for temporary shelter, rest, and healing. There were a few defensive formations around it, but they were half-built and extremely weak; practically nonexistent.
Forty or fifty cultivators were gathered in the camp, all wearing the Dao Court’s uniform robes. Most were wounded, with faint purple marks between their brows, and they stared at the green-faced band with alarm.
The man at their head was tall and handsome, with a cold, composed face. It was Gu Changhuai.
Seeing Gu Changhuai standing across from him, pale, but with all his limbs intact, Mo Hua finally breathed a sigh of relief.
“Good, Uncle Gu is still alive,” he thought. “No missing arms or broken legs... that’s a blessing.”
At that moment, Gu Changhuai’s cold gaze was fixed on the vicious late Golden Core green-faced leader. His heart was sinking.
He had never imagined that his carefully built formation killing trap would be broken so easily.
He did not even know how these brutish bandits had shattered his formation.
When he had worked with Mo Hua in the past, he had watched Mo Hua easily break other people’s formations and thought nothing of it.
But now, his own formation had been casually demolished by these “bandits.”
Gu Changhuai was furious, his heart feeling as though it were bleeding.
Only now did he understand what it felt like to have a formation he had painstakingly constructed broken with ease.
No wonder, in war, the first priority was to kill the enemy’s formation master.
No wonder so many people wanted that kid Mo Hua dead.
Then Gu Changhuai felt weary.
They had relied on the formations preserved by the Dao Court to hold out for a while and seek a turning point. But now, the formation built with the last of their materials had been broken. All that remained was a desperate, death-defying fight.
He had long since ceased to care about his own life or death, but those of the brothers who had followed him through life-and-death battles... he could not bear to drag them down with him.
Gu Changhuai sighed inwardly, then turned a sharp gaze on the green-faced leader and said coldly: “Green-Face Fiend, are you so eager to die?”
The green-faced leader, called “Green-Face Fiend,” flushed with rage.
Before he could speak, his men shouted at Gu Changhuai, "How dare you! That name is not for a Dao Court dog like you to utter!”
“You should address our leader as Venerable!”
“Qingchou Province is now unified! Only Venerable Green-Face reigns supreme! Life and death, reward and punishment, dominance over all!”
The rest of the men joined in: “Venerable Green-Face unifies the world! Life and death, reward and punishment, dominance over all!”
The Green-Faced listened, and his ugly face blossomed with self-satisfaction.
Gu Changhuai sneered. “A beast who claims a mountain as his kingdom, gathers his kind in the wilds during the great calamity, plunders the provinces, and calls himself a Venerable—shameless! In the end, he’s nothing but a plague-ridden brute.”
Venerable Green-Face flew into a rage. “Gu, you dog! You’ve slandered my mighty name! You deserve to be cut into ten thousand pieces!”
Without another word, he waved his hand and shouted, “Men, kill! Skin these Dao Court dogs, break their bones, drink their blood, and eat their flesh!”
At Venerable Green-Face’s command, every vicious thug drew his long blade and charged at Gu Changhuai and his men.
Gu Changhuai’s expression darkened. He glanced back at his comrades and subordinates, sighed, and said calmly:
“Brothers, each of you, flee for your lives.”
Then, without hesitating, he activated the Seven-Colored Peacock Silver-Plume Treasure Fan, transforming it into a storm of gorgeous wind-feather blades. Alone, he charged at Venerable Green-Face and his followers.
The other Dao Court cultivators were already severely wounded, and the heterodox mental energy within the old forest had eroded them further. They knew they were no match for these cruel brutes.
The best choice was to flee while the fight was still chaotic.
But they could not bear to abandon Gu Changhuai and let him die alone.
After a moment’s hesitation, they went against the earlier plan. They drew their spirit artifacts, activated their dharma treasures, and surrounded Gu Changhuai, clashing head-on with Venerable Green-Face’s men.
Gu Changhuai saw this and felt both anxious and helpless. He could only grit his teeth and continue his assault on Venerable Green-Face.
At this moment, he could no longer worry about anything else.
This Venerable Green-Face was a mighty foe, a late Golden Core cultivator with terrifying strength.
It was said that he was naturally huge, with an insatiable appetite. From childhood, he had eaten demons as food, causing his meridians to mutate and his nature to become demonic and cruel.
He had long been a mountain bandit, and though the authorities had tried to wipe him out many times, he never died.
He then gathered followers, came down the mountain to eat people, and terrorized the region; almost certainly the greatest source of chaos in all of Qingchou Province.
If Gu Changhuai could slay this man here, perhaps he could eliminate a major scourge from Qingqchou Province, and perhaps his comrades might have a chance to live.
But Gu Changhuai also knew this was nearly impossible. The situation was far too difficult.
This “Venerable Green-Face,” commonly called Green-Face Fiend, was a cultivator with an innate, mutated bloodline. He was not so easy to kill.
From the very first exchange, Gu Changhuai had felt tremendous pressure.
Wood-poison blood surged through the man’s thick meridians, and at the same time, a suit of “bone armor” formed from demonic qi grew across his skin.
The Green-Skin Fiend Bone Armor.
This was Venerable Green-Face’s dharma treasure, fused into his skin. During battle, it became armor that resisted both blade and spear. The fangs on the bone armor were even tipped with wood-attribute poison.
If a body cultivator closed in for melee combat, they would receive backlash damage and be poisoned as well.
It was both an offensive and defensive treasure, extremely sinister, troublesome, and disgusting.
Even the well-traveled Mo Hua found it strange.
What was more, this treasure was somewhat similar to his own Twelve Meridian Spirit Bone Formation.
Mo Hua had carved his treasure into his bones.
Venerable Green-Face had refined his treasure into his skin.
Mo Hua pondered.
Against a late Golden Core cultivator, especially in close combat, the high defense, backlash damage, and poison of Venerable Green-Face would make it almost impossible to win.
Fortunately, Uncle Gu made his living through spells, and his best Dao arts were long-range wind techniques.
Thus, Uncle Gu’s attacks were, to some degree, well-suited against Venerable Green-Face.
The key was not to let him get close.
Once Venerable Green-Face closed in, things would be dangerous.
If Uncle Gu’s footwork made even the slightest mistake, his life would probably end right here.
And the battle indeed proved this.
As soon as the two clashed, the fight turned brutal.
The towering Venerable Green-Face, like a fierce fiend, his green skin covered in poisonous bone armor, lunged at Gu Changhuai again and again, every move lethal.
Gu Changhuai, meanwhile, moved like a raging wind, constantly opening distance while condensing azure luan feather blades to strike at Venerable Green-Face.
The razor-sharp feather blades, fine as knives, sliced against Venerable Green-Face’s body without cease.
But Venerable Green-Face was thick-skinned, and in the short term, the blades could not break through his armor.
Seeing that he could not hurt Venerable Green-Face quickly, Gu Changhuai relied on the Gu family’s hereditary wind Dao arts—wide-ranging, far-reaching, and densely destructive.
He wore Venerable Green-Face down while diverting attention to kill the other green-faced followers with wind-blade arts.
The other green-faced followers were nowhere near Venerable Green-Face’s level. If a wind blade grazed them, they lost a limb; if it struck them fully, they were split in two.
Venerable Green-Face grew furious.
Furious that Gu Changhuai was like a kite, leading him around in circles.
Furious that Gu Changhuai was slaughtering his men right before his eyes.
Though he seemed crude, he was crafty. His mind turned, and he suddenly spun around, intending to hunt down the other Dao Court cultivators and force Gu Changhuai to hold back for fear of hitting his allies.
But Gu Changhuai was quick-witted as well. He did care about his comrades, but he knew that if he went to save them, he would exactly play into Venerable Green-Face’s hands.
So he deliberately acted cold-blooded. He activated his movement technique and made as if he would flee alone.
Seeing this, Venerable Green-Face hurried back to pursue Gu Changhuai.
He was late Golden Core, but his build was huge.
Gu Changhuai was mid Golden Core, but his body movement was more agile.
If Venerable Green-Face dared to switch targets, he would give Gu Changhuai an opening, and Gu Changhuai could escape using his swift wind movement arts.
Venerable Green-Face did not know whether Gu Changhuai was a fool who would live or die with his men, or a selfish coward who would flee when disaster struck.
But he did not dare gamble on it.
Because Venerable Green-Face himself would never live or die with his subordinates.
His followers were cannon fodder, sometimes even “rations.” Dying for them would be laughable.
All the Dao Court cultivators in this place put together were not as important as that dog Gu Changhuai alone.
Venerable Green-Face wanted nothing more than to tear off Gu Changhuai’s skin and eat his flesh. How could he let him leave?
Thus, Venerable Green-Face’s attacks grew increasingly vicious. Each strike was lethal, a storm of blood and murderous intent.
Gu Changhuai, too, did not dare slack. He pushed the Seven-Colored Silver-Plume Treasure Fan to its limit, unleashing dense wind blades like a violent storm that swept through the entire forest.
The once-dead Myriad Spider Ancient Forest now trembled with surging spiritual power, a cacophony of chaos.
Colossal ancient trees were torn apart by brute strength and shredded by spells. Wood chips rained down like hail, and the ground was gouged open. Green-faced bandits were constantly chopped in half by wind blades, blood gushing.
The remaining Dao Court cultivators, led by Gu An, struggled to hold on, fighting for their lives.
After some time, it was Venerable Green-Face who felt that something was wrong.
This dog Gu, for reasons unknown, seemed to have taken some kind of drug. He looked weak and depleted, yet the power of his spells had not diminished at all.
Instead, it was Venerable Green-Face’s own men who were dying faster. He could not keep grinding like this.
The casualties were too heavy. Even if he killed Gu Changhuai, it would not be worth the price.
And besides...
Venerable Green-Face glanced back and saw a dark figure silently watching from outside the battle, looking entirely unconcerned.
Venerable Green-Face hated him for it, but his gaze hardened. He called in a coarse voice, “Master, strike now!”
The moment the word “Master” left his lips, Gu Changhuai was shocked.
Whoever could be called “Master” by a vicious monster like Venerable Green-Face could not be simple.
And he had not even noticed this person until now?
Gu Changhuai’s expression changed. He followed the voice and indeed saw a cultivator in a black robe standing in a tree far away. Not tall, face unclear, but exuding an air of gloom and uncanny strangeness.
Gu Changhuai’s heart turned cold. He suddenly thought of the formation from earlier.
Green-Face Fiend was a vicious fool who understood nothing about formations. He could never have broken Gu Changhuai’s array by himself.
So the one who had broken his formation was this “black-robed master”?
Gu Changhuai was shocked and hateful, but when he looked at the black-robed master again, he was suddenly stunned.
For no reason, he felt the black-robed master seemed familiar.
Dammit... a little like Mo Hua.
But that was absurd!
This was a “Master” in league with Venerable Green-Face, a strange enemy. How could it be Mo Hua?
And how could Mo Hua be everywhere?
Mo Hua should be enjoying himself in Houtu City right now. Even with all his talent and boundless power, he could not suddenly appear in this hidden forest in Qingchou Province.
The black-robed master, however, remained where he was, motionless after hearing Venerable Green-Face’s plea.
Venerable Green-Face had no choice but to grit his teeth. “I beg you, Master, help me!”
Only upon hearing the word “beg” did the black-robed master slowly make his move.
His pale fingertip pointed at Gu Changhuai.
Gu Changhuai’s heart sank. He braced himself as if facing a great enemy.
Venerable Green-Face also looked grim, curious to see what deadly technique this black-robed master would use.
Then, spiritual power flowed around the pale fingertip. A fierce blaze condensed into a fireball and shot toward Gu Changhuai in the distance.
Gu Changhuai, already unsettled, saw the fireball and looked as if he had seen a ghost in broad daylight. His pupils abruptly constricted.