Chapter 731: The Source Armor
Chapter 731: The Source Armor
In the dense forest outside Lian Yao Mountain, demonic energy swirled and black mist shrouded the area.
A second-grade Pig Head Demon charged through the forest at breakneck speed.
Mo Hua and the others, including Elder Xun, who were in the process of evacuating, also sensed the ferocious demonic aura approaching from behind.
Elder Xun's eyebrows furrowed slightly.
Mo Hua's heart skipped a beat, and he said in a low voice, "Run! That pig demon is chasing us."
Cheng Mo and the others tensed up, pushing their movement techniques to the limit and increasing their speed. But the pig demon was even faster.
The dense demonic beast aura drew closer and closer.
Mo Hua quickly set up several array plates and planted array flags, forming a restraining array to block the Pig Head Demon.
The Pig Head Demon charged headlong into the array.
The array activated, forming a golden light cage that bound the demon.
But the Pig Head Demon ignored the restraint and continued to charge forward wildly.
The golden light sliced through its flesh, drawing blood, but this did not cause any significant damage. Instead, it only served to further enrage the demon.
Its saliva became more putrid, and its eyes gleamed with increasing greed.
As Mo Hua fled, he continuously deployed techniques to try and stop the Pig Head Demon, hoping to ensure the safety of everyone evacuating.
But the pig demon pursued them relentlessly, gaining on them with each moment.
"We can't escape!"
Cheng Mo and the others' faces paled as they looked at Mo Hua.
Mo Hua's eyes turned cold. "This fat pig is asking for death!"
Hunting such a tough and powerful demon was a risky endeavor with many variables. It was not wise to take chances.
Mo Hua had intended to merely obstruct the demon slightly, ensuring everyone's safe escape.
But this stubborn fat pig was determined to charge to its death, leaving him no choice but to comply...
"Hao Xuan, your movement technique is excellent. Lure it away."
"Cheng Mo, you and the others slightly delay it, but don't get too involved."
"Give me some time to set up an array and slaughter this fat pig!"
Mo Hua spoke clearly and quickly.
Cheng Mo and the others were taken aback but soon nodded solemnly.
Then, Mo Hua disappeared, using his invisibility technique, and made his way to the other side of the forest.
Hao Xuan followed Mo Hua's instructions and took out the Demon Stink Grass to lure the Pig Head Demon.
At the same time, he unleashed sword qi with his other hand, piercing the demon's forehead and attracting its hatred.
The Pig Head Demon flew into a rage and charged towards Hao Xuan.
Cheng Mo and the others slightly obstructed its path, striking once before disengaging. They intended to merely restrain the demon without fully engaging in battle.
From a distance, Elder Xun, who had been about to lend assistance by condensing sword qi with his fingers, paused upon witnessing this scene.
"These youngsters... Are they planning to turn the tables on this Pig Head Demon?"
How could they possibly kill it?
Elder Xun frowned slightly.
How could they possibly kill such a formidable demon?
After a moment of contemplation, Elder Xun reluctantly lowered his fingers and dispersed the sword qi. He decided to wait and observe the situation for the time being.
Facing life-and-death crises was also a form of tempering.
When confronted with a formidable enemy, letting these youngsters think of their own solutions and do their best was also a valuable experience.
If things truly turned sour, he could always intervene.
In the most critical moment, he could turn the tide and showcase the capabilities of a late Gold Core Elder of Tai Xu Gate...
Elder Xun nodded to himself.
On the other side, Hao Xuan and the others exerted their full strength, using all their techniques to hold off the ferocious Pig Head Demon.
Mo Hua, meanwhile, took advantage of this time to bury array plates and set up arrays in the forest.
He carefully selected the most powerful seventeen-pattern killing arrays from the various Five Elements and Eight Trigrams arrays he had learned from the Shang Guan family, the Wen Ren family, and even Elder Xun's private collection.
Tai Xu Gate's sect inheritance also included killing arrays, but they lacked ferocity.
The sect's primary focus was on imparting knowledge and techniques, and their arrays leaned more towards cultivation, regular sparring, and combat, lacking the sheer lethality of those used by true aristocratic families.
The array legacies of these aristocratic families were vastly different.
Outside the sect, there was no room for courtesy in the face of enemies—kill or be killed. The best enemy was a dead enemy.
Moreover, array legacies were complex and diverse, with numerous variations and derivations.
As such, the number of patterns in an array was not set in stone.
For example, during the Qi Refining period, there were both inferior six-pattern Molten Fire Arrays and superior first-grade nine-pattern Molten Fire Arrays.
Second-grade killing arrays also had many variations with the same name but different patterns.
For instance, the Earth Fire Array had thirteen patterns, sixteen patterns, and high-grade variations with seventeen to nineteen patterns.
The same was true for the Earth Killing Array.
These different patterned arrays of the same type were scattered among the legacies of various aristocratic families.
Mo Hua, proficient in the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams arrays, incorporated the strengths of several families' array legacies, selecting the most powerful killing arrays among the seventeen-pattern arrays.
One was a high-grade second-grade, seventeen-pattern Earth Fire Array obtained from the Wen Ren family.
Another was a high-grade second-grade, seventeen-pattern Earth Killing Array from Elder Xun's private collection.
The last one was a high-grade second-grade, seventeen-pattern Shang Guan Golden Sword Array, named after the Shang Guan family.
These three arrays were pure and refined killing arrays.
After setting up these three high-grade killing arrays and several restraining arrays, Mo Hua concealed his aura and covered his tracks.
Once everything was prepared, Mo Hua whistled.
The clear whistle echoed through the forest.
Hao Xuan and the others, who were struggling to hold their ground, heard the whistle and breathed a sigh of relief. They immediately changed direction, leading the Pig Head Demon towards Mo Hua.
Having been led on a wild chase by its "prey," the Pig Head Demon was furious. Its eyes turned scarlet, and its aura became even more violent.
It intended to devour its prey alive, bones and all.
The Pig Head Demon's speed increased even further.
Trees bent backward, and demonic winds raged.
With its arrogant and sinister aura, this powerful Pig Head Demon charged straight into the array Mo Hua had set up earlier.
"Scatter!" Mo Hua commanded.
Hearing this, Hao Xuan and the others immediately dispersed.
In the blink of an eye, Mo Hua released his spiritual sense, communicating with the array's core and activating it.
The ground turned into quicksand, trapping the Pig Head Demon.
Then, rocks rose up like a prison, confining its body.
Vines and trees twisted like chains, binding its limbs.
The Pig Head Demon roared and struggled, infusing its demonic power into its limbs. It broke free from the stone prison and snapped the wooden chains, about to leap out of the quicksand.
At that moment, Mo Hua's eyes turned cold, and he said calmly, "Explode!"
The ground shook, and killing intent surged.
Strand after strand of golden light coalesced into a sword formation, crisscrossing and slicing the pig demon's flesh into pieces.
Finally, the Earth Fire Formation erupted.
Scarlet flames engulfed the bloodied pig demon, leaving nothing behind...
First entrap, then kill. The restraining arrays linked together seamlessly, while the killing arrays layered deadly strike after strike.
The formidable power of the formations surged like waves, spreading in all directions and painting the scene with a dazzling and awe-inspiring display.
Cheng Mo and his companions stood there with their mouths agape.
Even Elder Xun was momentarily stunned, his eyebrows knitting together as he realized something amiss.
Was the power of this formation a bit too strong? Could it be that this was a formation laid by a cultivator of his level?
The pig head demon was blasted by the triple killing formations, causing rocks to fly and trees to snap. The spiritual power reverberated, and when the dust settled, the demon's body was left riddled with wounds.
In the pig head demon's ferocious eyes, there was both rage and fear.
Mo Hua seized the opportunity to strike while it was weak. "Kill it!" he shouted, his eyes glinting with cold determination.
Cheng Mo hesitated only briefly before raising his axe and charging forward. Yang Qianjun, Situ Jian, and Hao Xuan also joined the fray.
The pig head demon roared in fury and clashed with the group.
As a second-grade mid-tier demon beast, the pig demon possessed thick demonic energy and a clear advantage in strength. However, due to the severe injuries inflicted by Mo Hua's formations, it could only manage to hold its ground against Cheng Mo and the others.
Mo Hua, standing apart from the group, precisely unleashed various Five Element spells to restrict, disrupt, and supplement the damage dealt to the demon.
The battle reached a stalemate.
Even though victory was slowly tipping in their favor, Mo Hua knew that hunting demons was unpredictable and situations could change in an instant.
Moreover, the terrain of the Refining Demon Mountain was complex, adding more variables to the mix.
He had to find a way to end the battle quickly and decisively, annihilating the pig demon.
Mo Hua's eyes deepened with resolve as he gathered his calm.
He was waiting for an opportunity.
Finally, after an unknown amount of time, the pig head demon, which had been raging due to its injuries, suddenly slowed down.
Mo Hua was taken aback, his eyes reflecting his confusion. But in the next moment, he understood.
It was the poison of the Azurewood Wolf!
This pig head demon had drunk the blood and devoured the flesh of the Azurewood Wolf, unknowingly ingesting its poison as well.
The demonic energy of beast demons was inherently filthy, and this poison was not lethal. Given some time, the demon could cleanse the poison from its system.
At most, the poison would leave it feeling sluggish and slow.
However, this greedy pig demon had consumed the Azurewood Wolf without waiting for the previous meal to fully digest. Then, it had given chase, only to be injured by the formations and now surrounded by Cheng Mo and the others.
Its demonic energy could no longer suppress the toxicity of the Azurewood Wolf, and finally, it began to show signs of weakness.
Mo Hua's eyes gleamed with sharp killing intent as he instructed Cheng Mo and the others, "Use superior Taoist techniques!"
Cheng Mo and his companions were slightly taken aback.
Even though the pig demon was severely injured, its remaining demonic energy was still intense.
Given the current situation, even if they exerted their full strength and employed their clans' superior Taoist techniques, they wouldn't be able to kill this pig demon.
But Mo Hua was their senior brother, and his word was law.
No longer holding back, they began to pour all their efforts into unleashing their most powerful clan techniques.
Cheng Mo bellowed loudly, his eyes widening as his blood energy surged. The muscles on his bare arms took on a deep, ancient bronze hue, and his aura became akin to that of a giant axe capable of cleaving mountains and splitting the earth.
He activated the Cheng Clan's ancestral Taoist technique—the Mountain-Splitting Axe!
Once the technique was activated, the aura of mountains and stones enveloped him, turning his skin as tough as steel and imbuing his axe with the power to split mountains and shatter stones.
Yang Qianjun's eyes shone with golden light, and the tip of his spear glowed with a dazzling golden radiance.
The flame on Situ Jian's Fire Sword blazed fiercely, and wild winds gathered around Hao Xuan's spiritual sword.
Each of them unleashed their clan's ancestral techniques, combining their forces to strike at the pig head demon.
The pig head demon, weakened by the poison of the Azurewood Wolf, moved sluggishly and was unable to dodge.
However, Elder Xun, who had been observing from the sidelines, silently shook his head.
They couldn't kill it.
Although the superior Taoist techniques were formidable, these disciples were only at the middle stage of the Foundation Establishment. They couldn't fully unleash the true power of these profound techniques.
If these techniques were used against cultivators, even those at the late Foundation Establishment stage would likely be defeated.
But against demon beasts, it was a different story.
Moreover, the demon beast they were facing was a pig demon from the Refining Demon Mountain, known for their thicker demonic energy than ordinary demon beasts.
Elder Xun silently calculated the odds.
These techniques, when used against the pig head demon, would probably deplete most of its demonic energy, leaving it with around one-tenth remaining.
The less blood a demon beast has, the closer it is to death, but it also becomes increasingly frenzied.
At that point, these disciples would have exhausted their spiritual power after using their ultimate moves, leaving them as sitting ducks for the pig demon to devour.
That was the nature of demon hunting—having the upper hand didn't guarantee victory.
Even with a clear advantage, once your spiritual power was depleted, death was imminent.
Nonetheless, these youngsters had performed admirably...
Elder Xun nodded inwardly.
They knew when to advance and retreat, planned their moves carefully, executed ambushes, and worked together, looking out for one another even in the face of danger. None of them showed cowardice or attempted to flee for their own lives...
"They are all excellent disciples," Elder Xun thought to himself.
It was now time for him, as the elder, to step in and wrap things up... or rather, deal with the aftermath.
Elder Xun began to condense sword qi with his fingers once more.
But before he could unleash it, he paused again, his eyes falling on the battlefield in the forest, a look of bewilderment on his face.
"Its aura seems... stronger?" he muttered to himself.
What was going on?
At that moment, within the forest.
Mo Hua stood apart from the group, his eyes deep and serene as he released his spiritual sense, connecting with the Five Element Source Armor and activating the Five Element Source Formation within it.
His vast spiritual sense, tinged with a faint golden hue, merged with the formation's spiritual power and the intricate and unique formation patterns on the Five Element Source Armor lit up once more.
A clear, resonant buzzing sound echoed through the air.
Cheng Mo and Yang Qianjun, who were wearing the Five Element Source Armor and in the midst of executing their killing moves, suddenly felt a strange intent communicating with their armor.
The armor was activated, and spiritual power enveloped their entire bodies.
A mysterious force resonated with their meridians, causing their spiritual power to boil and flow faster and stronger, to the point where they felt a slight stinging sensation in their meridians...
"What is this?"
In that moment, they felt empowered, their spiritual energy enhanced, and they feared nothing, not even the formidable demonic beast before them.
Their weapons clashed as they attacked in unison.
The brown-gray mountain stone spiritual energy on Cheng Mo's axe surged, transforming into an unstoppable force as it cleaved downwards.
The tip of Yang Qianjun's spear shone with dazzling golden light, piercing the pig demon's neck with blinding speed.
Spiritual and demonic energies collided violently.
Sensing its impending demise, the pig demon howled desperately, its demonic energy surging, but to no avail.
Soon, the dust settled.
The mighty axe cleaved open the pig demon's forehead, while the sharp, golden spear pierced its throat.
Simultaneously, the sword energies of Situ Jian and Hao Xuan arrived, tearing into the demon's flesh.
With its skull shattered and throat slashed, the pig demon slowly collapsed to the ground, its lifeblood draining away.
Cheng Mo and the others heaved a sigh of relief, but their respite was short-lived as they recalled Mo Hua's "teaching." They quickly gathered their remaining spiritual energy and took turns striking the demon again with their weapons, just to be sure.
Only after confirming that the pig demon was truly dead, with no signs of life, did they finally relax.
From a distance, Elder Xun paused once more, his fingers still poised to unleash sword qi. He witnessed the entire battle, and despite his vast experience, he couldn't help but draw in a sharp breath.
What just happened? Armor? A formation?
As a member of the prestigious Xun family and an elder of Tai Xu Gate, he had studied the most orthodox cultivation teachings. Yet, in his long life, he had never seen such armor or formation.
He could sense that when the armor was activated and the formation took effect, the five elemental spiritual powers were greatly amplified.
A formation that amplified spiritual power...
Elder Xun's heart trembled.
Where did this formation come from?
Elder Xun's gaze turned to Mo Hua, his expression filled with confusion.
While it was Cheng Mo and Yang Qianjun who wore the armor, it was clear that Mo Hua had played a crucial role in the demon's defeat by amplifying their powers through the formation.
However, it was obvious that they hadn't drawn the formation themselves.
Among them, the only one capable of creating such an extraordinary formation was Mo Hua.
Moreover, Elder Xun had clearly sensed Mo Hua projecting his spiritual sense to control the formation on the armor.
"But..." Elder Xun furrowed his brows, perplexed, "Where did he learn this formation from?"
Amplifying spiritual power, surpassing levels to slay the enemy.
Such a formidable formation must be an ultimate legacy.
Even within Tai Xu Gate, one of the Eight Great Sects of Qianzhou, it would be considered a sect-protecting ultimate technique.
How could this child have learned it?
"Could it be..." Elder Xun mused, "That the Old Ancestor taught him?"
If such a rare legacy existed within Tai Xu Gate, it would surely be in the Old Ancestor's possession.
The Old Ancestor was renowned for his mastery of formations and extensive knowledge.
Elder Xun nodded to himself, but then his thoughts took another turn.
"That's not right either..."
Having grown up in the presence of the Old Ancestor, he had never seen or even heard of such an ultimate formation within Tai Xu Gate or the Xun family.
Did the Old Ancestor keep it a secret? Did he withhold the best techniques for himself and only pass them on to this boy?
Elder Xun's brows furrowed even deeper.
He was now uncertain about Mo Hua's lineage.
How else could he explain the Old Ancestor's special treatment of Mo Hua?
The Old Ancestor was known for his strict and unyielding nature, applying the sect rules impartially, even to members of the Xun family. He did not show favoritism.
Elder Xun was well aware of this.
However, people were still people, and even the strictest individuals had their biases.
If Mo Hua truly carried the Xun bloodline...
Then the Old Ancestor's favoritism towards Mo Hua might indicate a closer blood relation.
How close?
A great-grandson from several generations ago? Or perhaps a great-great-grandson? Or could it be... a great-great-great-grandson?
As these thoughts raced through Elder Xun's mind, his heart skipped a beat.
"Oh no!"
"If that's the case, then this Mo Hua... could he be my senior?"
Should I be addressing him as "Uncle" or even "Grand-Uncle?"
Elder Xun took another sharp breath.
The generational gap was too vast!
What should I do?
"No!"
Elder Xun refused to accept the possibility of being the junior.
Since the Old Ancestor hadn't explicitly stated it and Mo Hua hadn't admitted anything, then... let's just pretend nothing happened.
Whether it's true or not, I'll act as if I know nothing!
With this thought, Elder Xun felt much better, but his gaze towards Mo Hua now carried a hint of "reverence."
On the other side, the pig demon lay dead.
Mo Hua breathed a sigh of relief, withdrawing his spiritual sense and deactivating the formation on the Five Element Source Armor, causing the spiritual power amplification to cease.
Cheng Mo and Yang Qianjun returned to their normal state, no longer feeling the enhanced power they had during the battle, and their eyes reflected a hint of loss and gloom.
However, Yang Qianjun's heart was filled with awe.
"Little Senior Brother, this armor..."
Yang Qianjun's voice trembled.
Mo Hua didn't hide the truth. "This is the 'Five Element Source Armor.' It's inscribed with a formation that can temporarily enhance the five elements and amplify spiritual power..."
Enhancing the five elements and amplifying spiritual power!
Yang Qianjun's eyes widened in shock.
As a disciple of the Yang family and a member of the Daoist Weapon division, he understood the implications more deeply. He grasped the significance of this armor, and his mind raced with excitement.
On the other hand, Cheng Mo didn't think too much about it.
He only remembered the feeling of his spiritual power boiling when he wore the armor—a sense of invincibility that made him feel like he could take on any god or Buddha.
Cheng Mo clutched the armor tightly, his eyes shining as he looked at Mo Hua, and he almost blurted out the words, "Foster father."
(End of Chapter)
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