Chapter 1334

Purple Mountain True Monarch changes the subject and admits his recurring insanity, though it is heaven’s will’s interference, is something he set in motion himself. Long ago, he cultivated wisdom path and led the first generation split souls against heaven’s will, then devised a method using part of Star Constellation Immortal Venerable’s true inheritance: assimilating with heaven’s will. The split souls were losing badly then, dying under heaven’s will’s attention. Left without a choice, he judged the method not a proper solution but used it anyway, feigning surrender to infiltrate heaven’s will for intelligence. Contact with heaven’s will dulls him the way it dulls a heavenly spirit whenever grotto-heavens devour a fragment of the nine heavens, driving him insane each time. It also greatly blunts heaven’s will’s intent to kill him, letting him survive and learn its plans. ^{ch. 1334}

Heaven’s will treats every being as a pawn on a chessboard of destiny, he says. Assimilating with it has shown him some very crucial pawns within that arrangement. Each time he goes mad, he uses the contact to approach one, then works to turn it into his own piece once sane again. One such pawn already proved its use in their recent escape: Tai Bai Yun Sheng. Tai Bai Yun Sheng once met him while a Gu Master and received his true inheritance, carrying both heaven’s will’s design and his influence afterward. Heaven’s will, and Fang Yuan’s own intelligence, won his submission when it later used Fang Yuan to overturn Spectral Soul’s plan. ^{ch. 1334}

Tai Bai Yun Sheng later broke from Fang Yuan and turned to aid Shadow Sect greatly, since Fang Yuan had betrayed heaven’s will by keeping sovereign immortal fetus Gu for himself rather than destroying it. Purple Mountain True Monarch’s influence drove that shift. Tai Bai Yun Sheng died in the fighting that followed. On the surface it was due to Fang Yuan, but he was also a sacrificial piece in the struggle between Shadow Sect and heaven’s will. Ying Wu Xie grasps the design at last: the pawns Purple Mountain True Monarch has spent years winning over will supply the strength to break the super Gu formation and rescue their main body. ^{ch. 1334}

Inside his sovereign immortal aperture, Mini Central Continent, Fang Yuan completes the coiling thread caves’ Gu formation using rank six Blood Asset Immortal Gu. He judges the caves themselves half finished. Next he must move the regretful spiders in and begin nurturing them. Chi Shang leaves for Chi clan, and Fang Yuan returns to exploring dream realms, clearing the two scenes left in the formation path dream realm and reaching grandmaster attainment as a result. Drawing on that attainment and his immense gains from Chi Shang, he works out a new coiling thread Gu formation that doubles its yield, short of the eightfold multiplier his original, unbuildable concept promised but enough to satisfy him. With Chi Shang gone and drawing attention elsewhere, Fang Yuan spends the following days claiming closed cultivation while secretly exploring dream realms. ^{ch. 1334}

News breaks that shakes all five regions: Central Continent’s ten great ancient sects and Heavenly Court have suffered a crushing defeat in Northern Plains trying to save Ma Hong Yun. Of the three rank eight Gu Immortals sent, two die and one goes missing. Wei Ling Yang, Myriad Tidal Dragon and Bi Chen Tian were the three, the two who died killed by Giant Sun Immortal Venerable’s former steed, Dog Tail Life Extending Ferret. Wei Ling Yang risks his life to save Zhao Lian Yun, Yu Yi Ye Zi, Shi Zheng Yi and the rest, who narrowly escape under Central Continent’s later reinforcements. The loss stuns a world that saw Heavenly Court, backed by three Immortal Venerables, as unshakeable. Longevity Heaven, the descendants of Giant Sun Immortal Venerable, did the fighting, and Heavenly Court’s group had also fought Old Ancestor Xue Hu. Longevity Heaven and Giant Sun Immortal Venerable’s reputations climb sharply, while Heavenly Court’s and the ten great ancient sects’ fall drastically. ^{ch. 1334}