The Quest for Immortality

But Iron Skill Bone also did something good.

He leaked the secret, and in turn that was equivalent to giving the Shugu Main Department an ”answer.” Now that Mo Hua knew their ”answer,” he could change the question again.

And Mo Hua had an even more important objective.

”Shugubu’s Heavy Armor—tomorrow we try to grab a few suits,” Mo Hua said to Dan Zhu.

Dan Zhu nodded; he clearly had the same idea.

Originally, Dan Zhu didn’t even have the concept of ”robbery.”

But after spending so long with Mo Hua, he’d been subtly led astray; he was starting to feel that when you lead troops to war, ”robbing” the enemy’s stuff was the most normal thing in the world.

Only...

Dan Zhu frowned. ”In the Second Grade Mountain Realm, this kind of Bone Heavy Armor is indestructible. I can’t even break their defense, there’s basically no way to rob them...”

Mo Hua said, ”Relax, I have a way.”

Dan Zhu nodded. ”I’ll follow the Gentleman’s lead.”

After that, Mo Hua told Dan Zhu the whole plan.

He didn’t change much; overall it still followed the version of the tactics Iron Skill Bone knew.

He only added some tweaks in the details—turning ”attack” into ”defense,” and ”advance” into ”retreat.”

That way it wouldn’t easily arouse Shugubu’s suspicion.

Mo Hua still hoped to let Iron Skill Bone win as much trust from Shugubu as possible.

If the ”military secrets” Iron Skill Bone leaked were completely fake, he wouldn’t be able to work as an inside agent.

Over at Shugubu, he’d become a ”discredited person.”

Mo Hua really didn’t want to see that outcome.

After all, Iron Skill Bone had helped him a lot; he also didn’t want to make things too hard for Iron Skill Bone.

At the same time, Mo Hua also added some small traps into the plan, meant for catching ”fat sheep.”

The battle began the next day.

Standing on high ground, Mo Hua surveyed the whole situation and found that things were largely as he’d expected.

Shugubu had indeed formulated their tactics according to the ”secret” passed out by Iron Skill Bone.

However, that leading ”Lord Lugu” of Shugubu clearly didn’t fully trust Iron Skill Bone, so the plan they made was somewhat conservative.

That gave Mo Hua even more room to maneuver.

In a frontal clash, they naturally couldn’t win.

To begin with, the troops of the Danque Tribe and the Wutu Alliance were no match for the Shugu Main Department.

None of them could break the Bone Heavy Armor of Shugubu.

Now that their tactics had been leaked by Iron Skill Bone and Shugubu was countering them at every turn, the Danque Tribe had even less chance of victory.

Thus, once the two sides engaged, the Danque Tribe only held out for a dozen or so rounds before ”collapsing in rout.”

The rest of the Wutu Alliance also pulled back, regrouping toward both wings.

Shugubu naturally pressed their advantage, continuing to advance in pursuit.

The battlefield was a chaotic mess.

Everyone in Shugubu charged forward according to their own whim.

But they clearly didn’t realize that their ragged routes were already within the scope of a pre-calculated causal prediction.

Someone had laid this out in advance.

They were following their own ”intent” while marching along a path someone else had designed.

As Shugubu pursued, the terrain grew more complex, with more Mountain Stone gullies and ravines.

And because Heavy Armor troops and ordinary Barbarian Soldiers marched at different speeds, the Shugubu pursuit formation actually split first.

The Bone Heavy Armor troops became briefly separated from the main Shugu army.

Lugu, the General of the Shugu Main Department, felt a subtle warning flicker in his heart, but by the time he tried to issue commands to warn the troops, it was already too late.

This separation lasted only a short while.

But for people who were prepared, that window was already more than enough.

From the grass, Dan Zhu, Chi Feng, Ba Shan, and Bachuan, together with more than thirty Danque Barbarian Soldiers at Foundation Establishment Peak, burst out in an instant.

They began encircling and slaughtering the isolated Bone Heavy Armor troops.

Far off, Lugu, who was commanding the overall situation, sensed this scene with his Divine Sense; his expression changed at once, and he understood Dan Zhu and the others’ intent.

He immediately ordered Shugubu’s Barbarian Soldiers to move in support.

But the battlefield was chaotic; any order issued suffered significant delay.

And Dan Zhu and the others moved far too fast.

Their formation was like a dagger, instantly slicing apart more than twenty of Shugubu’s Bone Heavy Armor troops.

Then, led by Golden Core cultivators, every ten attackers encircled five Bone Heavy Armor soldiers.

Under normal circumstances, this would already be a completely one-sided situation.

But these ”Bone Heavy Armors” passed down from Shugubu’s ancestors were truly far, far too hard—like turtle shells, utterly unbreakable, especially within the Second-Grade State Boundary, where even Golden Core cultivators were helpless.

Seeing this from afar, Lugu let out a small breath of relief.

But before he could finish that breath, a sudden change erupted.

On the ground, golden light flared, sand and soil flew; mud and stones swirled together into a vortex that swept those Heavy Armor troops directly into its midst.

Holy Pattern!

And it was an extremely High-Rank Second Grade Holy Pattern!

It was even a Holy Pattern that General Lugu had never seen before!

These Holy Patterns contained many heavy transformations; they were a very special Compound Formation structure.

The earth turned to Quicksand; the Quicksand condensed into a cage, directly locking the Bone Heavy Armor troops inside, leaving them no way forward or back.

Following the sealing Formation, Dan Zhu and the others each took out a custom-made chain.

On the chains was inscribed a bizarre ”Water Prison” Formation.

Once the Water Prison was activated, it directly transformed into a blue cage, ”drowning” the Bone Heavy Armor troops within.

The earth prison and the Water Prison mixed together; earth and water acted upon each other—water turned the earth into a mire, while earth provided a carrier for the water; the two fused, and with water drowning and sealing their throats, there was simply no way to struggle free.

If the Bone Heavy Armor of Bone Qian Man was top-tier Second Grade defense—

Then this Formation, tinged with some Law fusion and jointly using water and earth, was top-tier Second Grade control.

Trapped in mud and sand as though weighed down by a thousand Qian Jun, mouth and nose drowning and unable to breathe—it was an extremely disgusting ”soft” control.

And while those Heavy Armor troops were controlled, Danque Barbarian Soldiers who had been ready beforehand dragged out flatbed carts.

Chi Feng and the three Golden Core cultivators Ba Shan and Bachuan then relied on their great physical strength to forcibly ”lock down” three Bone Heavy Armor troops.

They hoisted those Heavy Armor troops onto the flatbed carts.

On the carts, Mo Hua had laid down a Golden Prison Formation.

By the way, Mo Hua had also drawn some basic ”Wind Formation” Patterns on the cart wheels, for speed.

Then everyone abandoned any thought of further fighting; after kidnapping the three Heavy Armor soldiers, they bolted straight out.

All this took less time than it takes to tell.

In just a few dozen rounds, with the aid of the Formations, Dan Zhu and the others robbed all the Bone Heavy Armor troops along with their wearers.

The operation was swift and disciplined; they were there only to snatch people, with no desire to linger in battle.

By the time Lugu, General of the Shugu Main Department, led his troops over, he could only vaguely see in the distant dust the flatbed carts racing away.

And on those carts, three Shugubu Heavy Armor troops tied up like ”fat pigs”...