Chapter 1127

The two sides fight only briefly before Fang Yuan assassinates Zheng Tuo, the strongest rank seven Gu Immortal confronting him. Feng Jun judges they cannot beat Fang Yuan even together and retreats toward Old Immortal Chen Chi for an encirclement instead, carrying a struggling Zhou Min away and calming her by promising that distance will strengthen her farsight weapon light. Fang Yuan does not give chase. He lands, retrieves Zheng Tuo’s corpse, split in two, and seals it inside his immortal aperture, ignoring Zhou Min’s scream to release their brother’s remains. ^{ch. 1127}

Ordinary Gu Immortals can only absorb dao marks from an enemy of their own path, since marks of a different path conflict, but Fang Yuan’s sovereign immortal body carries no such conflict and lets him absorb dao marks from anyone he kills. Annexing a dead immortal’s aperture is harder, bound by strict conditions, but the dao marks alone are an immense gain, and Zheng Tuo brings his kill count to four Gu Immortals. This body was made from sovereign immortal fetus Gu, and Spectral Soul intends to revive by taking the body itself. Success would let him repeat his old era’s slaughter and grow at an incredible speed, backed by countless cultivation experience, great grandmaster attainment or higher in every path, and Shadow Sect’s remnants. Fang Yuan holds grandmaster attainment in only four paths. He is usually left absorbing dao marks rather than annexing apertures. ^{ch. 1127}

Fang Yuan then activates Sword Escape and closes the gap within a few breaths. The speed stuns Feng Jun and Zhou Min into stillness. Cornered, Feng Jun burns his trump card again, the immortal killer move Luck Whirlwind, and it repels Fang Yuan for the third time, a count Fang Yuan notes aloud without dejection. Zhou Min, shocked rather than angry now, tells Feng Jun to run and regroup with the others, and his whirlwind keeps ruining every attempt Fang Yuan makes to close on them again. ^{ch. 1127}

Two Gu Immortal lone cultivators, Jiang Ji and Gao Mi, warned ahead by an information path method, join Feng Jun and Zhou Min to confront Fang Yuan together, certain he will die inside Hei Fan grotto-heaven. Chen Le arrives next, demanding to know if he killed Chen Wan Yun and their old ancestor too; she had searched for him after sending a warning, then hid until Feng Jun’s letter revealed that Fang Yuan, disguised as her, had killed Zheng Tuo. Fang Yuan admits it outright: Chen Chi, Chen Wan Yun, Chen Li Zhi and now Zheng Tuo have all died at his hands, every rank seven Gu Immortal on their side is gone, and the rest should submit. Chen Le screams to know what wrong they had done him. Zhou Min tells her not to let him inside her head and calls the group into formation. ^{ch. 1127}

A huge jade light ball rises around Fang Yuan as the five anchor the Green City battle formation, drilled for generations against desolate and ancient desolate beasts. Fang Yuan knows it. He names it a fragment of the true ancient formation, Green City Rampage. Chen Le, who once told him of it herself, pales at the reveal and cannot live with the regret. After the immortals boast of the formation’s kills, Fang Yuan warns them that once it breaks, every one of them will suffer heavy backlash injury even if they survive, cutting their morale to pieces before the fight begins. ^{ch. 1127}

Fang Yuan unleashes Myriad Self, flooding the formation with tens of thousands of strength path phantoms, his true body hidden among them. The phantoms take heavy losses, but he has hundreds of thousands more stockpiled and a huge reserve of green grape immortal essence to replace them, and strength path’s low cost keeps him ahead while he studies their methods. After several hours the five grow exhausted in mind and essence, and the moment they expose that weakness Fang Yuan’s true body appears. He thanks Chen Le for the information that let him kill Chen Wan Yun and the others, and kills her instantly with his flying sword Immortal Gu, always striking the weakest enemy first. Her death sends the formation shaking, though the remaining four hold it together. ^{ch. 1127}

From the start Fang Yuan has fought with the most fitting tactics, knowing all of their methods while they know none of his, and the huge advantage he built has already assured his victory. Chen Le’s concealment killer move had been an advantage Fang Yuan could not answer, and she gave up that greatest advantage of hers when his scheming drew her into the formation. Hei Fan grotto-heaven’s Gu Immortals lack the battle experience only fighting on the edge of death can teach. Fang Yuan kills two more of them and breaks the formation apart. Feng Jun and Zhou Min flee again, courage gone, running for Immortal Succession Mountain. Fang Yuan kills Zhou Min along the way, and Feng Jun, heavily injured, crashes onto the mountain’s peak and screams for its heavenly spirit to save him. ^{ch. 1127}

Fang Yuan appears inside the stone pavilion, unmarked by the fight. He tells him the brass bell heavenly spirit will not save him. He explains Hei Fan’s final test: because the grotto-heaven holds descendants of criminal immortals, Hei Fan ruled that the inheritance passes only to whoever wins half of their votes. Killing every one of them satisfies that condition, since Fang Yuan alone would then be left to vote. ^{ch. 1127}

The heavenly spirit gives no reaction. Feng Jun, despairing, looks up at the sky he had spent so long trying to escape. Fang Yuan then offers him a way out: submit and serve him, and he will spare his life, valuing Feng Jun’s clear head over Zhou Min and Chen Le’s emotion. Fang Yuan demands the luck path true inheritance’s details along with every Immortal Gu that Feng Jun holds, and within three breaths Feng Jun surrenders, hands over all his Gu worms, and helps suppress them. Feng Jun asks him to make the alliance agreement, and Fang Yuan puts a bloody hole through his forehead instead, leaving him to fall with an expression of shock as the third breath passes. ^{ch. 1127}