Though lacking high-level cultivators above the Jindan stage, the Shennu Ministry, with its vast numbers, immense power, and unshakeable faith, became Mo Hua’s greatest asset in “spreading the Dao” throughout the Great Wilderness. Driven by their belief in the Divine Lord and their loyalty to the Grand Shaman, they diligently disseminated the divine doctrines elucidated by Mo Hua to the lowest and most numerous strata of the wilderness, profoundly influencing their consciousness and understanding.

With the formation of the Shennu Ministry, Mo Hua finally acquired a loyal “inner circle” of his own. He had established his initial “foundation” among the common people. All the wild slaves in the Great Wilderness who had suffered and were now liberated became his followers as the “Divine Lord” and supporters of him as the “Grand Shaman.” This laid the groundwork for his future path of “Enlightenment through Divine Consciousness.”

From above, he used his divine consciousness to perceive the Dao of Heaven; from below, he used formations to aid the common people. However, at this time, Mo Hua was merely acting upon his good intentions and Dao heart, without thinking too much. All his cultivation, experiences, insights, and various nascent thoughts were merely vaguely fermenting in his Dao heart, slowly growing, and gradually incubating into “Dao” over a long period.

With the establishment of the Shennu Ministry, the situation in the wilderness underwent a dramatic change, and a new aura suddenly emerged. Mo Hua, now in control of the Shennu Ministry, had his own “military force.” Although the wild slaves were mere cannon fodder, with few high-level wild cultivators and low combat power, their sheer numbers were immense. This massive quantity, when brought together, was also a formidable force. As the Grand Shaman, Mo Hua not only symbolized divine authority and manipulated faith but also directly controlled political power and held military authority. In the wilderness, at least for now throughout the entire Third-Grade Zhuque Mountain Realm, Mo Hua was “God” in every sense of the word.

The first thing Mo Hua did after his power grew to an unprecedented level was to construct a grand formation. Building such a formation required immense manpower and material resources. This was especially true in the wilderness, a place characterized by tribal divisions, factional disputes, chaotic beliefs, barbaric customs, and scarce resources. Almost no one, no force, had the qualifications or strength to build such a grand formation, except for Mo Hua. Except for Mo Hua, who had unified the Zhuque Mountain Realm and achieved a high degree of unity in divine, political, and military power, gathering the hearts of thousands in the name of the Divine Lord and reaching an unprecedented peak of personal authority.

Besides him, no one else could concentrate all human and material resources to undertake such a massive and “wasteful” formation project in the remote wilderness. Even if someone could concentrate power, they would lack the necessary formation capabilities. Looking across the entire cultivation world, those capable of building grand formations were rare, even among genius formation masters. Such individuals typically would not appear in an ordinary wilderness.

Moreover, this was not just a simple matter of “building a grand formation.” Ordinary formation masters, especially lead formation masters, typically build grand formations based on established “templates,” following formation diagrams optimized and passed down by ancestors, previous sects, and esteemed seniors. Only with a grand formation diagram can one “draw the formation according to the map” and construct a large-scale formation.

However, the grand formation being built now was not meant for attack or defense. Instead, it was intended to suppress the famine, to create a place for the people of the Great Wilderness to live and thrive amidst the continuously spreading famine, in an almost desperate dead end. This type of formation had no “textbook” and no ready-made “standard answer.” To build a specific grand formation to solve a specific problem was a different dimension of formation mastery.

And the specific problem at hand was the famine spread by the Guidaoist. Even experienced lead formation masters in the cultivation world, when faced with such an “extremely over-the-top” situation, would mostly feel overwhelmed and fearful. It was already extremely difficult to construct a grand formation according to established standards when a ready-made “answer” was available, let alone when there was no “answer” at all. They might not even know where the “famine question” was, and the questioner was the terrifying and unfathomable demonic sect Guidaoist. This was not something an ordinary formation master could handle.

Even Mo Hua, who had personally delved deep into the wilderness and conducted extensive research on the famine problem, even deducing and comprehending relevant laws to some extent, still found it incredibly difficult to extensively suppress the famine and resolve the current plight of the Great Wilderness through formations.

Firstly, the assertion that “the famine was a man-made disaster created by Shibo through a grand formation with Taotie-like power” was based on Mo Hua’s own experience and judgment. Although Mo Hua was seven or eight parts certain that this was the case, he couldn’t be too confident until he personally verified it.

If Shibo’s “famine grand formation” did exist, the most thorough way to solve the famine would be to break this formation. But the problem was that even with Mo Hua’s unified divine authority and elevated status, he still couldn’t uncover the details of this “famine grand formation.” Shibo’s methods were unfathomable. Mo Hua struggled to find any traces of Shibo’s involvement. Even if he found them and obtained the complete formation diagram of the “Great Wilderness Famine Grand Formation,” Mo Hua wasn’t confident he could break Shibo’s formation.

Furthermore, Mo Hua didn’t dare to “destroy” it. This was a scheme personally set up by Shibo, and no one knew the depth of its planning. If he were to truly destroy the grand formation, it would be equivalent to directly undermining Shibo and ruining his scheme right under his nose. Mo Hua truly didn’t dare. Moreover, he feared that if he brazenly destroyed Shibo’s grand formation and angered him, something even more terrifying might occur.

At this stage, the famine was a catastrophic disaster for the wilderness. But Mo Hua knew that for Shibo, this was already a very “mild” method. If Shibo truly became angry and the Guidao descended, then the current wilderness would probably be filled entirely with Guidaoist “puppets,” with no living person remaining. Mo Hua didn’t know why Shibo hadn’t delivered a fatal blow. It was possible that Shibo had other plans, or perhaps he was secretly engaged in a game of chess with the Hua family or some ancestors of the Daoist courts. Mo Hua, limited by his perspective, could not fully comprehend the true grand scheme.

Regardless, at this time, he could not “disrupt the game” too much, lest the powerful chess players themselves intervene and unleash a bloody storm. Mo Hua had just barely stabilized the situation in the wilderness and could not withstand such drastic changes. Therefore, while Shibo was still relatively “mild” and the noble families’ attention wasn’t entirely focused on the wilderness, he had to suppress the famine in a relatively low-key manner.

Mo Hua considered many solutions and ultimately chose to construct the grand formation using the “Thick Earth Reconstruction Formation” (Houtu Fugou Zhenfa). This way, without destroying the famine grand formation, the Thick Earth grand formation could provide a lifeline for the people of the wilderness. Using the vitality of the thick earth to suppress the death energy of the famine would barely achieve a balance between “life” and “death” in the Heavenly Mechanism (Tianji)格局 of the Great Wilderness.

However, this Thick Earth grand formation, strictly speaking, couldn’t be considered a true “grand formation.” Because true “grand formations” were too difficult; Mo Hua currently lacked the ability to completely “create” a grand formation in its true sense. This was far beyond his capabilities. Moreover, the terrain and layout of the wilderness were not suitable for building a truly standardized “grand formation.” This was because the wilderness was too chaotically divided, with various mountain realms intertwined, different grades of mountain realms, steep and rugged mountains, winding and remote mountain paths, and numerous swamps and miasmas. To level the terrain, build foundations, cross mountains, and connect regions to construct a grand formation was almost impossible with the current human and material resources. Even if it could be built, it would take too long. By the time the grand formation was completed, the people of the wilderness would have long since died.

Considering all these factors, Mo Hua could only adapt to local conditions and construct the “Thick Earth Grand Formation” based on his own abilities and the specific, objective, and actual circumstances. He also had to consider the practical difficulty and cost of building the grand formation, as well as the learning and comprehension abilities of the formation shamans in the Great Wilderness regarding related formations. Even the number of formation shamans and the speed of drawing formations had to be taken into account. The progress of the grand formation had to be compressed into a sufficiently short period.

The “question” itself was very difficult, and the “questioner” was terrifyingly eerie. There was no standard answer, not even a reference answer. Coupled with so many complex, redundant, and strict “limiting” conditions, Mo Hua naturally couldn’t design a true “grand formation”; a true “grand formation” wouldn’t solve the current problem either.

Mo Hua spent a great deal of time and effort, ultimately coming up with a “pseudo-grand formation.” It had the scale of a grand formation but lacked its structure. The formations were interconnected but, unlike other grand formations, lacked a central hub that “controlled” everything. There was no “overall formation eye” constructed either. Mo Hua, holding a “pragmatic” mindset, stripped away all formal constraints based on the flow of laws, using only the simplest framework to achieve the most practical effect. Therefore, overall, what Mo Hua constructed looked less like a “grand formation” and more like a large-scale patchwork and “hodgepodge” of formations.

If an ordinary formation master were to see it, they would certainly deem it “irregular,” “unstandardized,” a “heterodox path,” lacking tradition and proper methods. But Mo Hua knew in his heart that all forms of formations were merely carriers of the Grand Dao’s laws. Formations are not fixed, and methods are not rigid. This was almost the most perfect “answer sheet” a formation master could produce on the “Great Wilderness” canvas, under the “famine” examination question.

It was a pity that no one could understand his answer. No one knew the severity of the “examination” he faced. Not only would they not understand, but they would also question and oppose it.

In the ancient council hall of Zhuque Mountain, almost all high-ranking tribal chiefs, grand elders, chief chieftains, powerful elders, and barbarian generals from the various tribes unanimously opposed and strenuously tried to dissuade him from building this grand formation. They did not understand why the Grand Shaman, at this very moment, sought to exhaust manpower and material resources, undertaking such an expensive cultivation project—even, in some sense, depleting the very foundation of a mountain and a realm to construct this incomprehensible “Sacred Pattern” (Shengwen) grand formation. This was a year of disaster, a year of turmoil. The entire Zhuque Mountain Realm had just recovered from a brutal and deadly war with the Wujiu Tribe, and to now embark on something that would deplete its foundation was truly inconceivable.

“The famine problem is indeed severe, tribes are perishing, and wild cultivators are dwindling,” one elder began.
“But the spread of the famine has stopped for now, and many tribes in most areas of the Zhuque Mountain Realm have, after all, survived.”
“Next, we should hoard supplies, conserve rations, and slowly endure. Once we overcome this famine, we can continue to develop and grow.”
“Such famines have occurred in the history of the Great Wilderness before.”
“Our ancestors throughout the generations have done the same.”
“As long as we persevere, we will eventually get through it.”
“Our barbarian people still possess this resilience.”
“Exactly,” another chimed in, “there’s no need to gamble everything, exhausting all material and human resources to build such a massive Sacred Pattern.”

Famine was a problem, but not the primary problem at hand. The fact that Mo Hua was pouring everything into solving a problem that was not primary was something almost all tribal high-ranking officials present could not comprehend. Although Mo Hua wielded great power under the banner of the Divine Lord and controlled divine authority, this matter had too great an impact, and everyone still had numerous criticisms and doubts about it. Even Dan Zhu, Lu Gu, Chi Feng, and Chief Dan Lie, who generally trusted Mo Hua, found it somewhat incomprehensible. However, they knew that the Grand Shaman always had his reasons for acting, and many seemingly “impossible” words had ultimately come true. Thus, Dan Zhu and the others remained silent.

Seeing the crowd’s uproar and continuous questioning, Mo Hua’s expression remained calm, but he sighed softly in his heart. The wilderness was a game. The brilliance of this game lay in the fact that those outside generally knew it was a “dead end,” while those within were utterly oblivious. They believed that the famine was temporary, that it would eventually pass, just like the numerous disasters that had occurred in the history of the wilderness. But they did not know that this time was truly different. This famine would truly claim all their lives.

Trapped in this game, they failed to see the true danger, only focusing on tribal conflicts, power struggles, and mutual plunder, playing a bloody and cruel “war” game. Yet they did not realize that in their game, there would be no victors. No matter who ultimately won, all would lose, all would die. This was the fate of pawns. This was the cruelty of the game. The discerning see danger in the unseen; the wise see misfortune in the hidden. Those who cannot see the situation clearly will all perish.

Mo Hua was also unwilling to explain too much to them. Some things, they would not understand until disaster struck, until death clutched their throats. Even if he explained, they might not listen, might not believe, and certainly might not immediately take action to combat the disaster. Therefore, only “commands” were needed. In the name of God, with power and force, he would compel them to act.

Mo Hua stood at the highest position in the ancient council hall. Though not tall, he exuded a powerful and solemn aura. He spoke in a deep and solemn tone, “This is the command of the Divine Lord.”

“Last night, strange phenomena appeared in the heavens, the stars dimmed, and in my dream, I heard the Divine Lord’s oracle.”
“The disaster will not stop; it will not dissipate.”
“This famine will continue to spread until it devours the entire Great Wilderness, darkness descends upon the land, and the uncanny walk among mortals.”
“This is an unprecedented calamity; everyone will die.”
“The Divine Lord is compassionate, with a benevolent virtue of cherishing life, unwilling to see the lives of the Great Wilderness suffer and perish. Therefore, he bestowed the Sacred Pattern of the earth, granting all living beings a glimmer of hope.”
“This is not a prophecy of the future, but a reality that is about to unfold.”
“From this day forward, all tribes that believe in the Divine Lord must, by the Divine Lord’s command, exert all their strength to construct the Sacred Pattern Grand Formation.”

Mo Hua’s gaze was cold, his expression stern, exercising inviolable divine authority in his mortal body.
“I am not asking for your opinions; I am issuing a command to you in the name of the Divine Lord.”