Chapter 1398

Myriad statue desert in Western Desert is filled with countless sand statues shaped like humans and beasts, and any statue at least sixty feet tall is an immortal material dense with transformation path dao marks. It formed during the Olden Antiquity Era, when a battle between humans and variant humans in Reckless Savage Demon Venerable’s era killed large numbers of Gu Immortals whose immortal fetuses became blessed lands and whose dao marks slowly grew the sand into statues. Humans won a pyrrhic victory after a hundred days and nights, in an era when transformation path was mainstream. A million years of tribulations and seizure have destroyed those blessed lands, but wild Gu worms and even wild Immortal Gu remain, and the dense dao marks keep mortals out. Fortune balances disaster there: the ruined battlefield turned into a cultivation sanctuary dense with resources. Western Desert Gu Immortals detour around the desert. Thousand Transformations Ancestor, a rank eight transformation path Gu Immortal, has held it as his territory for a thousand years, and meets any trespasser with rank eight fury. ^{ch. 1398}

Deep in Myriad Statue Palace below the desert, Thousand Transformations Ancestor passed the first of the three myriad tribulations a rank eight Gu Immortal must face, and half a month later he is still severely injured. The pain has him screaming, more than ten thick chains coil around him, and his four limbs are fixed to chains driven into the surrounding walls, whose light absorbs every sound so nothing carries outside. With his sanity nearly gone, he activates the rank eight killer move Cutting Flesh Transformation, a style of suicide transformation from Reckless Savage true inheritance, and his body swells until meat lumps burst and produce desolate and ancient year beasts. Each beast that leaves his body lifts part of the burden, and his pain falls to a bearable level. These year beasts carry his shed time path dao marks and heaven’s will, so despite being made from his own flesh they turn on him as enemies rather than obey. At his will chains shoot from the walls and capture them all. ^{ch. 1398}

Thousand Transformations Ancestor judges that without the Immortal Gu House that Reckless Savage Demon Venerable left behind, he would not have survived this first myriad tribulation at all. He passed it, but at a cost: cutting flesh transformation stripped away not only the time path dao marks from his injury but his own transformation path dao marks too, leaving him with a net loss instead of the growth a tribulation should bring. The myriad tribulation itself came near to catastrophic damage on his immortal aperture. He had stalled the tribulation until he could stall no longer, and now wonders whether he was better off never facing it. He admits he was wrong. A thousand years earlier he trusted Reckless Savage true inheritance to carry him unhindered, and he now sees he grew arrogant and underestimated the myriad tribulation’s power, calling this injury both a blessing and a disaster. ^{ch. 1398}

Outside the palace a female immortal calls him lord husband and reports that Cui Bo’s life tablet Gu has broken and her soul lantern Gu has dimmed. She adds that Cui Bo went to translocation desert and that none of her fellows can contact her. She had no choice but to report it, given how urgent the matter is. ^{ch. 1398}