Chapter 1018

Facing Spectral Soul, several Heavenly Court Gu Immortals volunteer to sacrifice themselves and control Heaven Overseeing Tower to slay him. Heaven Overseeing Tower Lord decides: volunteers join him to activate the Tower, and the rest retreat to white heaven with the Immortal Gu House’s remains. A beam of light covers the entire Tower. Spectral Soul tries to stop it leaving phantom form, but its final attack needs that form kept the whole time. ^{ch. 1018}

Heaven Overseeing Tower Lord announces the attack, and under the Tower’s control the vine dragon tribulation turns from Spectral Soul to strike the ten extreme formation. Despite tens of thousands of years of planning, Spectral Soul never deduced this method. More than half his soul path dao marks are gone, yet he fights back at full strength. He blocks every vine, defending the formation completely. ^{ch. 1018}

Heaven Overseeing Tower disassembles fast, a rank eight Heavenly Court Gu Immortal dying every few breaths to sustain it. Spectral Soul pays too. His main body is badly hurt, his soul thinning fast. Heaven Overseeing Tower Lord perishes with every Gu Immortal left in the Tower. Its remaining half breaks into fragments that flee through the wind qi wall into white heaven, where guards retrieve them, fate Immortal Gu above all. ^{ch. 1018}

Spectral Soul’s body shrinks from thousands of meters to a few as earth collapse finally dissipates. Immortal zombie Bo Qing flies to him, and Mo Yao’s remnant soul inside him screams for her husband’s return. The ten extreme formation’s dark fog has cleared: every immortal zombie is spent, leaving one round ball shining in nine colors. Bo Qing moves closer and holds Spectral Soul to his promise of a revival. The split soul that made Bo Qing was destroyed in the tribulations, Spectral Soul answers, so he cannot revive him, though Bo Qing would gain rank nine once the main body dominates the world. ^{ch. 1018}

Furious, Bo Qing attacks, but Spectral Soul’s will inside his sword path Immortal Gu leaves him helpless. Spectral Soul gives him one final chance: kill the Heavenly Court Gu Immortals sheltering in white heaven, and atone for betrayal. He then devours Mo Yao’s remnant soul in one mouthful, and his body condenses slightly. He tells Ying Wu Xie to guard him for the little over ten breaths he still needs. Ying Wu Xie agrees. The beam through the wind qi wall fades, and Heavenly Court’s Gu Immortals retreat, admitting they have no chances left. ^{ch. 1018}

Spectral Soul touches his newly finished rank nine sovereign immortal fetus Gu, calling it the fruit of tens of thousands of years of plotting. With it, he declares, he can surpass every venerable in history, take an otherworldly demon’s body, and outmatch even a resurrected Ren Zu. He laughs. He has nearly spent his strength, and without Mo Yao’s devoured soul he might not hold his form at all. So near the end, he says, he can afford no carelessness. He surveys a huge radius, then spits spectral qi through the wind qi wall, destroying every investigative Gu worm Heavenly Court left behind. ^{ch. 1018}

He then senses Fang Yuan, still unconscious and guarded by Tai Bai Yun Sheng and Hei Lou Lan, beginning to stir. Hei Lou Lan urges them to wake him and flee using Fixed Immortal Travel. Spectral Soul frowns, then calms: Fixed Immortal Travel can only carry Fang Yuan to ten thousand li from Yi Tian Mountain, and even a risky approach would leave time enough. Across that radius the ten extreme formation has refined the dead Gu Immortals and their apertures, a small portion destroyed by the tribulations, with only life and death blessed land preserved on purpose. Spectral Soul asks Ying Wu Xie’s remaining lifespan; fifteen minutes, more than enough, and he relaxes. ^{ch. 1018}

His form condenses into a soul the size of a face. It floats toward the sovereign immortal fetus Gu. Fang Yuan wakes abruptly, screams about heaven’s will, and attacks the two who saved him, sending Tai Bai Yun Sheng and Hei Lou Lan flying. Fixed Immortal Travel fails once, then succeeds before the two return, leaving him ten thousand li from Yi Tian Mountain and too late. Just as Spectral Soul is about to enter the Gu, Ying Wu Xie seizes him and strikes with lead soul into dream. Spectral Soul falls into a dream realm, and Fang Yuan’s soul flies out of Ying Wu Xie’s body and enters the rank nine Immortal Gu in Spectral Soul’s place. ^{ch. 1018}