Chapter 767 – The Four Symbols Formation
Elder Xun Ziyou sighed deeply.
If this continued any longer… he honestly couldn't tell whether he should be more worried about Mo Hua, or the entire Myriad Demon Valley.
As soon as that thought arose, he froze, then shook his head quickly.
Mo Hua is just a child, after all…
The Myriad Demon Valley, on the other hand, was truly a nest of evil and chaos—dangerous beyond words.
Who knew how many lurking threats waited within, ready to pounce on the boy…
Unable to grasp the situation in the valley, Elder Xun could only endlessly remind Mo Hua:
"The valley is perilous—be cautious at all times. Keep a low profile, don't take risks. If you sense any danger, tell me immediately…"
"Mhm, got it."
Mo Hua nodded in reply.
He always was cautious. And always very low-key.
Even when he tricked that demon cultivator supervisor into dying, he had done thorough cleanup afterward—erasing the body and destroying all traces. Not a single clue was left behind.
But truth be told, at this point… the Myriad Demon Valley wasn't quite as dangerous as Elder Xun imagined anymore.
With the Golden Core stage cultivators gone, there were no more true "dead ends" lurking in the valley.
With the Primordial Magnetic Spirit Vision Array fully activated, even the slightest movements nearby were now under his control.
And now that the Demon Banner was in hand?
Huge advantage: mine!
With the chat over, Mo Hua got back to business.
He took out the demon supervisor's storage bag and rifled through it. Most of the contents were typical of demon cultivators:
Bottled demon blood, human meat pills, demonic sword arts, transformation manuals, and other gruesome, bloodstained items.
None of that interested him.
What did catch his eye, though, were the demon cultivation manuals.
Mo Hua pulled out a few of them and flipped through, gaining a general understanding of demon cultivation techniques—but stopped shortly after.
This sort of stuff… better not go too deep.
Knowing the principles and techniques of demon cultivators—understanding the enemy—was useful.
But diving too far in… that's how devil seeds get planted. And before you know it, you've slipped into demonic cultivation and become the next big villain.
Once done, he put the manuals away, then carefully pulled out what he'd truly coveted all along—the black Demon Banner.
The banner had a black background with blood-red patterns, a shaft made of bone. It was cold to the touch—slightly sticky even—which made Mo Hua visibly uncomfortable.
This was the natural repulsion a proper spiritual cultivator had toward evil artifacts.
Without hesitation, Mo Hua began to disassemble the demon banner.
This thing was an evil tool, powered by demonic energy.
But Mo Hua was a proper cultivator—he had no demonic power, so he couldn't activate it, let alone use it to command other demons.
And there was no way he'd learn demon cultivation just to use the banner. Not worth it.
Still, that didn't mean the banner was useless.
Mo Hua grabbed his refining tools and, in no time, had taken it completely apart.
His crafting skills weren't amazing—but his disassembly technique was excellent. Mostly because he'd practiced it… a lot.
Soon, the demon banner lay in pieces across the floor.
Mo Hua sifted through them one by one until—on the inner surface of the banner—he found a set of unique, blood-colored formation patterns.
"Four Symbols array patterns…"
He found it!
And these weren't ordinary formation patterns… they looked more like something special…
Mo Hua furrowed his brow, examining closely.
"…A Four Symbols array core?"
Something was definitely unusual.
He pulled out a sheet of paper and carefully copied down all the core formation patterns from the banner. Then he also jotted down several Four Symbols beast patterns he had seen before:
The Four Symbols Eagle pattern taken from that bald convict known as "Vulture."
The Four Symbols Wolf pattern he acquired after severing that werewolf's arm in the dense forest.
Mo Hua laid all his Four Symbols materials out and began comparing them, matching the structure of the banner's core to the beast patterns.
At the same time, he recalled bits of Elder Xun's fragmented teachings about Four Symbols arrays—and cross-referenced those with his own deductions and notes.
Time passed.
The underlying logic of the Four Symbols Formation began to take shape in Mo Hua's mind.
Finally—after pondering deeply for quite some time—inspiration struck.
He understood the true foundation behind the Four Symbols array.
All formation arts… are manifestations of the laws of Heaven and Earth.
A cultivator borrows power from nature through the use of formations.
The Five Elements arrays borrow elemental forces.
The Eight Trigrams arrays tap into the eight fundamental laws.
But the Four Symbols Formation—at its core—was a system that borrowed the power of beasts from Heaven and Earth.
Based on his studies at the Great Void Sect and historical Daoist texts, Mo Hua knew that the beasts of Heaven and Earth came in many forms:
Legendary divine beasts from ancient myths.
Rare and powerful variant beasts.
Spiritual beasts born from nature or raised by cultivators.
Brutal and violent demon beasts…
If his deduction was correct, the pure Four Symbols Formation used proper beast sigils.
One would paint these sigils on their body using beast blood, with:
Flesh as the medium,
Meridians as the array's structure,
The heart meridian as the array eye,
And vital blood as the energy source.
The cultivator would fuse the beast's power into themselves—using their body as the formation—commanding the power of countless beasts, moving like the wind, striking like thunder.
But this method had one glaring issue…
Mo Hua took a sharp breath, eyes solemn.
This Four Symbols structure… is almost identical to the workings of a "demonic formation."
The only difference was that this version used the cultivator's own flesh and blood—not stolen life.
No slaughter. No desecration.
Unlike true demonic formations, which required human sacrifice, skinning, bone-carving, and the invocation of vengeful spirits.
But still—as Elder Xun had warned—this formation was incredibly dangerous.
The line between righteous and evil is razor-thin…
Using beast power, fusing it into one's flesh, and transforming the body into an array—this method danced right along that boundary. One misstep, and you'd fall straight into the abyss.
Not to mention what Elder Xun said:
"Beasts are close to demons."
The beast sigils used in the Four Symbols array could easily degrade into demonic sigils.
Why?
Because high-quality beast sigils were hard to come by:
Divine beasts were just legends.
Variant beasts were extremely rare.
Spirit beasts were often too weak or expensive.
So if proper beast sigils were too scarce or too feeble…
The only viable option left was to use demonic sigils—taken from powerful demon beasts.
Which meant—once you used those—the array became a true evil formation.
And any cultivator who drew such sigils on their body, fusing demonic beast power into their flesh, would suffer:
Blood contaminated by demon energy,
Qi polluted and distorted,
Spirit sense corrupted…
Eventually, they'd lose their humanity—becoming a beast themselves.
Mo Hua sighed.
No wonder the Dao Court never tried to promote the Four Symbols Formation.
It was simply too dangerous.
Widespread use would only lead to pain—or worse, provide fertile ground for demonic sects to tempt, twist, and mass-produce evil formation masters.
He shook his head and muttered:
"No wonder I could never properly learn the Four Symbols array before…"
To truly learn it, you couldn't just memorize the pattern and structure.
You needed to understand how blood and flesh channeled qi flow, how the body itself became part of the array.
Which meant—no matter how well you drew the array on paper, if you weren't using flesh as the medium, heart meridian as the eye, and blood as fuel—you'd never get it to work.
Mo Hua scratched his head.
This… is a problem.
It was basically a demonic array system.
Worse still—the diagrams he had were all using demon sigils. That made them fully-fledged evil formations.
Not only were they dangerous to learn… they were completely unusable.
What, was he supposed to draw these on himself?!
If demon energy entered his body, he'd become a demon cultivator on the spot.
Worse, he wasn't even a body cultivator—his blood energy was weak. A blast of demonic power, and he might just explode.
…What about drawing it on someone else?
Paint it on someone else?
Wouldn't that just be raising a future demon cultivator?
Mo Hua shook his head.
That would just be harming others—no way that's acceptable.
He felt a bit deflated.
"If I can't put what I learned to use… wasn't all this just a waste?"
"I spent all this time thinking, and ended up figuring out… an evil formation."
With a sigh, Mo Hua laid down on the floor to rest a bit.
As he lay there, his gaze drifted over the disassembled pieces of the black demon banner scattered nearby. Suddenly, a thought struck him, and he sat up straight—
"Control!"
Mo Hua's mind spun rapidly.
This formation… he couldn't use it on himself.
He couldn't use it on others either.
But—what if he used it on demon cultivators?
Just like the demon banner—it could be used to control demons.
By utilizing the Four Symbols array core, he could regulate other demon cultivators!
Mo Hua's eyes lit up.
He immediately turned the demon banner over again, closely examining the Four Symbols core etched into it, studying it with a renewed focus.
"The entire Myriad Demon Valley… is using Four Symbols Demon Arrays to manage and control the vast number of demon cultivators inside."
"I don't yet know who created this array system."
"But based on earlier clues, it's likely that 'Mister Tu'—the one who worships the Great Wilderness Evil God and has deep ties to the Savage Mountains—is behind it."
"If that's true…"
Mo Hua mused to himself:
"Then that Tu fellow must be an incredibly skilled formation master… at the very least, a master of Four Symbols Demon Arrays."
"He split the Four Symbols Demon Formation into two parts—"
"One part, the demon sigils, drawn directly onto the demon cultivators' bodies to enhance their demonic power."
"The other part, the formation core, engraved onto the demon banner to control the demon cultivators by governing their sigils."
"This system is airtight. Judging by the scale of the demon population in the valley, it's also widely implemented."
"Plus, since the banner can only be activated with demonic power, righteous cultivators can't use it—so the 'control authority' can't fall into the wrong hands."
"The whole Four Symbols Demon Array system is very secure."
"But… there's a loophole."
Mo Hua's gaze sharpened.
"If I can master the Four Symbols array core… then in theory, I could hijack control of the demon sigils—effectively seizing life and death authority over countless demon cultivators within the Myriad Demon Valley!"
But…
Mo Hua frowned.
The array core was hidden within the demon banner.
And if he wanted to hijack it, he'd have to do it through the banner.
But he was a righteous cultivator—his spiritual power couldn't activate the banner at all.
Not to mention, the demon banner had already been torn apart by his own hands.
Tearing things apart? No problem for Mo Hua.
Putting them back together again? Ehh… that's asking a bit much.
"So then… should I try refining a new 'spiritual banner'?"
He thought it over, then shook his head.
No way I have the conditions or materials to refine a spiritual artifact right now.
Besides, trying to use a righteous spiritual banner to control evil demon sigils?
That's straight-up wishful thinking.
He kept thinking.
"At its core, the demon banner… is just a formation medium for the array core."
"That demon cultivator needed the banner because he couldn't use formations directly—he had to rely on the tool."
"So basically, the banner is a crutch for formation idiots."
"But I'm not a formation idiot…"
Mo Hua's eyes brightened.
With his skill in formations, he could skip the banner entirely and use the Four Symbols array core directly to control the demon cultivators.
"But without the banner as a medium… how exactly do I do it?"
He frowned again.
"What if I use the demon cultivators' own flesh as the medium—and paint the array core directly onto their bodies to control the Four Symbols Demon Sigils they already have?"
"That's kind of like the Spiritual Core Formation technique…"
But the two had clear differences.
The Spiritual Core Formation was a righteous spiritual formation. It used hierarchical control via array cores to command puppets.
(Of course, if you used it to control zombies with evil power… it became a demonic formation.)
The Four Symbols Demon Array, on the other hand, was a demonic power formation. It used array cores to manipulate the flow of demonic energy through sigils.
Would this idea work?
Mo Hua decided—there was only one way to find out.
When it comes to formations… nothing beats hands-on testing.
That's how you validate theories, patch holes, and uncover what you're missing.
He turned toward the Spirit Vision Array.
Time to pick a "lucky winner"… or more like an unlucky one.
In the vision array, the magnetic field projections of various demon cultivators were moving throughout the Myriad Demon Prison.
Mo Hua quickly locked onto one target.
This demon cultivator was weak—about mid-Foundation Establishment stage. Tall and skinny, with vertical pupils and a long tongue. The kind of guy that just looked sinister.
He was a jailer, and his demon sigil was on his back.
Mo Hua used a hidden channel through the array core to approach the target. After silently observing for a while, he seized the moment while the guard dozed off and, using his spiritual sense to control ink, began to draw a Four Symbols array core on the demon cultivator's back.
The guy was cold to the touch—like a corpse—and didn't notice a thing.
The array core was completed successfully.
But… the test failed.
Mo Hua attempted to activate the core and control the demon sigil—but nothing happened. No response at all.
Worse, the demon cultivator stirred.
"What the hell? Something's crawling on my back?!"
Panic.
The guy started shouting, and Mo Hua was immediately put in a bind.
Left with no choice, Mo Hua rubbed his hands together and cast a mini meteor spell, vaporizing the guy's head on the spot.
Instant death.
(He aimed for the head instead of the chest to preserve the body, so he could copy the demon sigil from the corpse for further analysis.)
After copying the sigil, Mo Hua tampered with the chains and released a demon beast.
The beast devoured the corpse, went berserk, and charged out of the prison—causing another commotion.
The Myriad Demon Prison erupted into another round of chaos and panic.
Meanwhile, Mo Hua calmly returned to his secret array chamber.
Time to analyze.
Why had he failed?
He'd clearly drawn the array core.
It was functioning.
So why couldn't he control the demon sigil?
Was it the ink?
Maybe spiritual ink wasn't compatible. Did it require pure demon blood? Or even human blood?
Mo Hua frowned. No, it probably wasn't some trivial detail like that.
At least, not the root of the problem.
There must've been something in the structure of the array core itself that he overlooked.
Mo Hua fiddled again with the disassembled demon banner. This time, he used Heavenly Deduction techniques, combining them with Heavenly Pattern Derivation, to deconstruct the array further.
Finally, he discovered something new:
Tiny demon sigils inside the banner—previously unnoticed.
These sigils were pictographs of different demon beasts.
Could they represent… different authority levels?
Mo Hua was stunned—then suddenly understood.
Of course! A single demon banner couldn't possibly control all categories of Four Symbols Demon Sigils at once.
Different demon cultivators had different types of demon sigils, and each would need a corresponding array core.
Eagle sigils, wolf sigils, bear sigils… each type of sigil must have its own matching array core.
The demon banner's function was integration—it contained multiple array cores within it.
However many core types it held, that was how many kinds of demon sigils it could control.
This was clearly a very high-level technique, involving advanced core fusion and array design. Even the crafting of such an evil artifact must involve special methods.
And Mo Hua… had absolutely no clue how any of that worked.
With his current array knowledge, he'd never encountered such complex array-crafting systems.
"That Mister Tu… really is impressive. I wonder what grade of formation master he actually is…"
Mo Hua thought silently.
At the same time, he also realized something else.
No wonder that Tu fellow was so confident—he didn't even bother adding any kind of self-destruct mechanism inside the banner. He wasn't afraid of anyone reverse-engineering it.
Because the integrated cores were too complex. Even if someone did obtain them, they'd be useless unless they could understand them.
But… that was other people.
Mo Hua's eyes lit up.
Once I understand the underlying principles—everything else becomes doable.
The Four Symbols array core had to be compatible with the corresponding demon sigil.
Mister Tu had integrated them into the demon banner, allowing him to selectively activate specific array cores that matched the sigils, thereby achieving control.
That was the effect of the evil artifact.
But Mo Hua couldn't use the demon banner. And since he intended to paint the array cores directly onto the demon cultivators' bodies, he couldn't rely on the integrated version.
He had to go single-core only.
One core for one sigil.
For example: eagle-pattern core for eagle-type demon sigils, wolf-pattern core for wolf-type sigils, bear-pattern core for bear-type sigils, and so on.
This meant he had to deconstruct the integrated array core inside the demon banner into individual beast-type cores, each one compatible with a specific sigil.
The demon banner's array cores were a master composite structure.
What Mo Hua needed was to do the reverse—split it apart. From integration to separation. From general to specific.
But how to derive and deconstruct it?
Mo Hua thought for a moment—this reminded him of something from the Primordial Magnetic Array.
With stable magnetic runes and secondary thunder currents, he could derive unknown magnetic runes.
So maybe, with the integrated core, and a specific demon sigil, he could use Heavenly Pattern Derivation to parse the corresponding beast-type array core.
Mo Hua immediately gave it a shot.
His pupils grew deep, and within them the flowing light of Heaven's mysteries stirred. Using Heavenly Pattern Derivation, he began deconstructing the integrated array core inside the demon banner and matching it against a wolf sigil he had recorded earlier.
It all went smoothly.
After about an hour, Mo Hua had successfully derived a complete Four Symbols "Wolf-Type" array core.
He was thrilled.
Time to test it!
Staring again into the Spirit Vision Array, he picked a new unlucky soul.
This one was a green wolf demon cultivator.
Since he had just derived a wolf-type core, he could only test it on a wolf-type subject.
This demon was patrolling near the prison.
Once his shift ended, he'd take a break to eat some meat and drink some blood.
Mo Hua didn't know what kind of meat or whose blood it was—and maybe it was better that way.
After feeding, the wolf demon leaned back in a chair, blood still smeared around his mouth, dozing off while drooling—clearly dreaming about eating people.
In the darkness, a thread of blood-colored spirit ink wove silently through the air like a tiny snake and slithered onto his arm.
The wolf sigil was tattooed onto the demon's arm, fused deep into the flesh.
The blood-ink thread crept along the arm, bringing with it a faint chill.
But the demon's skin was thick, and he was drowsy—he didn't even notice as the ink quietly twisted across his skin, forming a Four Symbols array core, linking to the existing sigil, infiltrating it completely—and taking total control.
Once the core was fully drawn and the sigil fully dominated—
Mo Hua, hiding in the shadows, let a small smile curl at his lips. He activated the array with a flick of divine sense.
Suddenly, the demon's arm lit up blood-red, and a surge of blue-red demonic power roared from the arm, through the shoulder, and straight into the skull.
The reverse flow of demonic power obliterated his sea of consciousness in an instant, smashing his mind to pieces.
In a single breath, his humanity was wiped away—leaving only primal savagery.
The wild demonic energy rampaged through his body.
Driven by instinct, the demon grabbed his head and howled, eyes glowing red with bloodlust, ready to devour anything nearby.
A few other patrolling demons noticed something was wrong and rushed over.
The moment they appeared—this green wolf demon pounced, tearing into them viciously.
Curses erupted, followed by screams, howls, growls, and the sickening sounds of flesh being devoured…
Until the green wolf demon finally ran out of power and died.
At that point, the chaotic demon force burned out his sigil, leaving only a mangled arm of flesh and blood—no evidence left behind.
And before the chaos subsided, the mastermind Mo Hua had already slipped away unnoticed.
Meanwhile, he had successfully proven his theory.
By using a Four Symbols array core, he could indeed bypass the demon banner and usurp control of the demon sigils on a cultivator's body.
As long as he killed one demon of each type and copied their sigil…
Then, by using those sigils in conjunction with the demon banner's integrated core, he could derive the matching beast-type array core.
And from there—if he could draw that core on any other demon of the same type…
Their life and death would be in his hands.
If he could eventually derive all the corresponding Four Symbols array cores for every type of demon cultivator in the Myriad Demon Valley…
Then every single demon cultivator branded with a Four Symbols sigil…
…as long as Mo Hua could draw his formation on them, they would never be free again.
Mo Hua couldn't help but smile.
It was a simple smile.
But in the darkness… it looked incredibly dangerous.
(End of Chapter)