Chapter 1031

Hei Lou Lan is startled and furious, already aware from the Yi Tian Mountain battle that Ying Wu Xie, Shadow Sect and Spectral Soul stand together. Her aunts Blazing Heaven Demoness and Fairy Li Shan, the only family she still cared for, died there one after another, and her hatred of Shadow Sect, their killer, runs immense. Ying Wu Xie disregards it. He presses her to surrender or die, a rank six immortal zombie himself but backed by the rank seven Gu Immortal Shi Nu and by an extraordinary super Gu formation. That formation has protected Bo Qing’s remnant soul for years, blocking Heavenly Court’s investigation and Earth Abyss’s wild beasts. A split soul, he still carries Spectral Soul’s killing nature. ^{ch. 1031}

Weighing her odds against an enemy this unfathomable and this close to Spectral Soul, Hei Lou Lan judges resistance likely fatal and decides to endure and wait for a later chance. She asks if he fears her betrayal. Ying Wu Xie is unmoved: he is strong where she is weak, an alliance agreement under information path methods can bind her, and he understands her personality. She has taken no revenge and Hei Cheng still lives, and even had she killed him she would endure now and cultivate toward a later chance. ^{ch. 1031}

Her heart sinks at how much he knows of her while she knows nearly nothing of him, an imbalance caused by Fang Yuan. Shadow Sect’s Old Man Yan Shi had used heavenly secret Gu to deduce Fang Yuan, and Hei Lou Lan was implicated as someone close to him. Ying Wu Xie learned it from Spectral Soul’s guidance in the River of Time. She finally asks whom he wants her to help him deal with, refusing outright to fight Heavenly Court even at the cost of her life. Ying Wu Xie clarifies it is Fang Yuan, hatred plain in his voice as he reveals Fang Yuan not only survived but has gained greatly. ^{ch. 1031}

Ying Wu Xie says Hu Immortal and Star Form blessed lands should be empty by now, their resources, Dang Hun Mountain and Luo Po valley included, moved to Lang Ya blessed land. He calls it Long Hair Ancestor’s former grotto-heaven, perhaps now the five regions’ foremost blessed land since Imperial Court blessed land fell. Fang Yuan, he adds, has joined Lang Ya Sect and turned lackey to hairy men, and an insider there feeds Ying Wu Xie everything that happens. Seeing Spectral Soul’s gigantic form again in her mind, Hei Lou Lan agrees to join, but warns that her own existing alliance agreement with Fang Yuan still stands. Ying Wu Xie calls it easy to remove, but she reminds him its terms release either side once the other breaks it, a clause Fang Yuan had set against Fairy Li Shan, now dead. Removing her side would free Fang Yuan too. ^{ch. 1031}

The agreement’s information path dao marks link together, and isolating only the mutual-release marks while leaving the rest binding Fang Yuan is beyond Ying Wu Xie’s attainment and his Immortal Gu alike, so he abandons the idea. Stifled at how flawlessly Fang Yuan does things, Ying Wu Xie notes only a small part of Shadow Sect’s forces remain in the five regions and knows the sect will never reach its former level. With her value greatly diminished by that, he briefly considers killing Hei Lou Lan for a Great Strength True Martial immortal zombie and a life-and-death immortal aperture to revive in. He rejects it, since the method might explode his aperture if his luck failed. The thought leads him back to sovereign immortal fetus Gu, born from Shadow Sect’s costly, failed-then-repaired revival method, finished once Spectral Soul’s main body joined in, drawing on human path, transformation path and heaven path. Fang Yuan instead snatched the Gu and its nine-five sovereign immortal aperture, ascending in a single leap and turning Shadow Sect’s years of effort to nothing. He decides to let Hei Lou Lan off after all, short on manpower and drawn to her aptitude, but vows to tear Fang Yuan apart one day and refine sovereign immortal fetus Gu from his flesh. ^{ch. 1031}