Era of Three Venerables

Hei Lou Lan’s healing between exchanges and the biao’s speed suppress Chu Du until his robe is torn and blood shows on his lips, and Chu tribe’s immortals can see no way back for him. He takes her fist through the right side of his chest to reach her shoulder and shield her from her own killer move’s backlash, then throws off the biao with an aura that reveals rank eight cultivation the immortals had not known he held; he had sealed his cultivation to fight her as a rank seven. Hei Lou Lan heals him, asks why twice, and leaves saying he has won this battle, and he answers that strength path has been silent far too long and tells her to revitalize it. He refuses the celebratory banquet his god-children propose and stays low-profile, but news of his rank eight causes a huge commotion in Northern Plains, and days later Heavenly Court and Longevity Heaven announce that Star Constellation Immortal Venerable and Giant Sun Immortal Venerable have revived and that Gu Yue Fang Yuan has become a refinement path Demon Venerable. ^{ch. 2214} Fang Yuan lands on a small deserted island off Eastern Sea’s Xia clan, checks it with investigative killer moves and covers it in the five colored smoke of the five regional limit formation; at rank eight he would have hidden in Xia clan’s headquarters or in immemorial white heaven, and at rank nine he would welcome an attack by either venerable, and the title Heavenly Court and Longevity Heaven give him is Heaven Refining Demon Venerable. ^{ch. 2215}

Fang Di Chang tells Fang clan that Northern Plains, Central Continent and Eastern Sea each have a venerable leader while Southern Border has a righteous path alliance and only Western Desert stays divided, which makes it the weakest region, so Fang clan must not take the lead in causing problems or declaring a stance. Luo clan’s first supreme elder opens a hall on Tian Lan Mountain with the question of what Luo clan does in an era of three reigning venerables, and Luo Ran answers that a venerable would rationally devour Southern Border and Western Desert first, which puts Luo clan in Star Constellation’s path. Fang Yuan rejects the title Heaven Refining Demon Venerable over treasure yellow heaven, calls himself a righteous path member who destroyed fate to grant the world freedom, says Paradise Earth entrusted him with his wishes before dying and that Star Constellation and Giant Sun cooperated to end that life rather than he, and declares himself Great Love Immortal Venerable and the founder of the Heaven and Earth Great Love Alliance. He then posts a list of Gu in treasure yellow heaven and promises to refine any of them for a price, mortal Gu without limit and Immortal Gu up to rank eight, for friend and foe alike, and names Western Desert’s Fang clan, Wu Yong, Heavenly Lord Bai Zu and Immortal Crane Sect’s He Feng Yang as forces that have already dealt with him. ^{ch. 2219}

An immemorial dragon crocodile is killed in the Western Desert sand and three Gu Immortals of three super forces climb out of its mouth, Shi Kang of earth path with Zuo Qiu Yan Ming and Tuoba Feng Yan of fire path. Inside treasure yellow heaven, Fang Yuan’s will announces in a grand tone that a rank seven movement Immortal Gu, capture wind Gu, has been refined at the request of Southern Border’s Wu Yong, and the transaction is made in the open; Wu Yong’s will takes the Gu, says nothing and leaves, and every Gu Immortal present gasps. ^{ch. 2222} Giant Sun Immortal Venerable reflects that as a venerable he can do nothing about a mere Northern Plains rank six lone immortal, since immortals transacting publicly with Fang Yuan are trampling a venerable’s pride, and sends one of the Eight Extremities to have the Huang Jin tribes recruit that immortal in secret, because a statement in his own name would only disadvantage him and Longevity Heaven. ^{ch. 2225}

Giant Sun Immortal Venerable, who knew from Longevity Heaven’s repeated cooperation with Fang Yuan that heaven form had been exposed during the fate war, sets off for Eastern Sea quickly and without hesitation; Fang Yuan had sensed the investigation and dispelled obscured heavenly secret on purpose to draw it, and asks himself what Star Constellation will do. ^{ch. 2229} Star Constellation names the price of her own move: star thought Immortal Gu, star eyes Immortal Gu and permanence Immortal Gu; Fang Yuan asks how she means to deal with Giant Sun and asks to see her sincerity first, and she turns into a star rainbow and flies straight for Northern Plains. ^{ch. 2230} Fang Yuan breaks out of Spectral Soul’s soul smoke with seven kills rainbow, sacrifices the white heavenly spirit so heaven form no longer keeps him from the sun, and stalls the last of the time he needs while the two venerables hold back rather than weaken a soul path attack for him; Four Elements Square Regret Blood Refinement Pool then erupts and Heavenly Essence Treasure Imperial Lotus is elevated, its rank nine aura filling the aperture. ^{ch. 2234} The lotus taken from Lang Ya Sect had run rank three, four and five as Treasure Lotus, Monarch Lotus and King Lotus before this; at rank nine it activates on its own, converting surrounding primeval energy into clear dew beads that run down its glazed leaves into the bud, and Fang Yuan tells the two venerables he needs no help and will take Spectral Soul’s life himself. ^{ch. 2235}

The contribution board in Star Collection City Square shows the newly arrived mermaid immortals Yu Zi and Lian Ke Xin who Fang Yuan’s most important subordinates are and roughly how his factions rank, and the name at the top, Sixth Hair, stands so far above second place that nobody can catch up for the time being, while the gap narrows from second place down. The Gu Immortals they pass greet each other and talk about missions and rankings, welcome the mermaids as relief for a rising workload, and envy Twelfth Hair the mission of bringing them in. ^{ch. 2242}

Fang Yuan stops refining natural dao marks with a hundred beads of yellow apricot immortal essence stored, having openly refined Eastern Sea’s refinement path dao marks while secretly using most of that immortal essence to unseal the truthful floating ice in his aperture, and that open work is what keeps Star Constellation and Giant Sun in their own territories instead of attacking him. Because the three venerables watch each other closely, he soon learns that Giant Sun has stopped refining natural dao marks. ^{ch. 2247} Giant Sun instructs Heavenly Lord Bai Zu to obtain all of Fang Yuan’s blood path Immortal Gu if he can, and Bai Zu names ten Gu instead, among them Bloodline, Blood Asset, Blood Skull and Blood Qi; blood asset Immortal Gu had come from Lang Ya Sect at rank six and is now rank eight and one of the core Gu of Four Elements Square Regret Blood Refinement Pool, and while Bai Zu is left unanswered, tens of rivers merge inside the sovereign immortal aperture and advance refinement Gu rises from them at rank nine. ^{ch. 2252}

Fang clan attacks so suddenly that the anti-Fang alliance is caught in an ordinary desert rather than at a resource point, still arguing over payment before the battle; the repeated open transactions with Fang Yuan that Fang Di Chang proposed had already unsettled the alliance internally and greatly postponed its official expedition. From inside Chicken Dog Coop, Fang Di Chang has the whole battlefield reflected in his mind, orders the ancient desolate beasts released to scatter rather than kill, and chooses to rescue Inquiry Dock before reinforcing Fallen Flower Hall when he sees Zuo Qiu San Sha’s state of disunity nearing completion. ^{ch. 2258} Wan Gu Chou, who had stayed hidden until Wan clan crumbled, revives, defeats Fang clan in one move and shakes all of Western Desert; the anti-Fang alliance retakes Wan clan’s headquarters, and in its hall she tells the assembled immortals, Xiao Ye Hu and Heavenly Court’s Wan Zi Hong and Zhou Xiong Xin among them, that Wan clan cannot pay what it agreed and that they should chase and eradicate a Fang clan fallen to the demonic path for a share of the spoils. ^{ch. 2261}

Hundreds of stars fall on Profound Literature grotto-heaven; its immortal formation is left tattered and its Gu Immortals cough blood, Old Immortal Hua Yu orders a retreat and his subordinates refuse to abandon their home. Profound Literature grotto-heaven had been condensed into a small dot in empty space and was unaffected by whatever flew outside it, and the fusion of the two heavens has changed that. Comparing Shen Shang’s contributed human path results against what he knows, Fang Yuan concludes that soul path cultivation carries a drawback and that Spectral Soul, who devoured the black heaven heavenly spirit trying to create killing path and made soul path instead, had forced his way past the hundred million man soul limit in the wrong direction. ^{ch. 2265} Fang clan members are sold as slaves in treasure yellow heaven by Xiao Ye Hu at ordinary prices, rank five Gu Masters and young talents fetching the most, and families are broken up for good; elsewhere Spectral Soul, thrown off by a rank nine immortal material’s interference, is found by Ying Wu Xie and Fairy Zi Wei on the far side of a heavenly chasm and lands several hundred fists on it until it is close to breaking. ^{ch. 2269}