Chapter 1436

Spectral Soul’s will grows choppy and increasingly translucent, and it refuses Fang Yuan’s offer to replenish it. Its main body is already suppressed by Heavenly Court, the will itself expects to be found out sooner or later, and with the island gone its mission is finished. The split souls need no worry yet. With what strength remains, it offers one last contribution, speeding up time for the group. Fang Yuan agrees, and the group enters the self cleansing immortal Gu formation as the island gives off its final light. ^{ch. 1436}

News of Huang Shi’s death reaches Feng Jiu Ge and the two rank eight Gu Immortals from Heavenly Court, shocking all three. Fairy Zi Wei relays more detail. Fang Yuan lost the upper extreme heavenly eagle but gained control of an immemorial year monkey, and Red Lotus’ true inheritance can control a segment of the River of Time. Without the stone lotus island, Fang Yuan’s rank eight level strength and the monkey’s protection could not have taken Huang Shi’s life. ^{ch. 1436}

Their strongest member has fallen first, and their morale suffers: the plan had Huang Shi destroy Red Lotus’ true inheritance and force Fang Yuan out, with the three of them closing in from outside. They hesitate over whether to keep waiting. Fairy Zi Wei orders them to keep waiting: by her own deduction this tributary is Fang Yuan’s only remaining route, and Huang Shi’s sacrifice at least bought valuable intelligence on Fang Yuan’s group and on Red Lotus’ true inheritance. Her resolve restores the group’s fighting spirit. ^{ch. 1436}

Ten days pass, then half a month, with no sign of Fang Yuan. The waiting immortals stay patient, especially Feng Jiu Ge, who has fought Fang Yuan before and rates Fang Yuan’s growth as a serious threat. In Heavenly Court, Fairy Zi Wei grows increasingly puzzled. Not long after Huang Shi’s sacrifice she completely loses track of Fang Yuan’s group, who used the self cleansing immortal Gu formation and Red Lotus’ true inheritance to erase the tracking placed on them. She has no evidence that Fang Yuan escaped the River of Time, but a wisdom path premonition leaves her vaguely uneasy that he already has. ^{ch. 1436}

Heavenly Court knows Fang Yuan’s two exits from soul searching Spectral Soul’s main body, and with Feng Jiu Ge’s group blocking the last one, Fairy Zi Wei wonders whether he risked another Western Desert tributary instead. She weighs the three Western Desert forces that control such tributaries, Tian clan, Gong clan and Tang clan. Fairy Zi Wei names Gong clan for long range curse methods, above all bow shadow cup, which needs only a trace of its target’s shadow and has terrorized Western Desert’s Gu Immortal world. Tang clan, though weak, still holds an Immortal Gu House and its own tributary. Seeing no movement from the three clans, she judges Fang Yuan may still be inside the river. In truth Fang Yuan’s group had already bought three months of concealment and left through Tang clan’s tributary ten days earlier, already back in Western Desert. ^{ch. 1436}

Fang Yuan surfaces with Bai Ning Bing, Hei Lou Lan, Ying Wu Xie, Black Tigress and Fairy Miao Yin, none of them missing, and two young Tang clan Gu Immortals bow and greet him as Shadow Sect’s leader. They are Tang Fang Ming and Tang Lan Ke. Fang Yuan thanks them and returns the Immortal Gu he borrowed from their clan. Tang Fang Ming checks each one carefully before storing them away, apologizing for his caution: borrowing personally from the clan is a huge responsibility that demands care. ^{ch. 1436}

Fang Yuan reflects that Tang clan, a righteous path force secretly cooperating with the demonic Shadow Sect, risks denunciation and immense trouble if this is ever exposed. Benefit outweighs faction for them. In Fang Yuan’s first life Tang clan rose on dream realms during the five regions chaotic war to become Western Desert’s number one righteous path force. Weakness and enormous outside pressure leave almost all of Tang clan’s Gu Immortals willing to take risks and endure, and the clan’s grand strategy is to develop dream path. Fang Yuan had traded Shadow Sect’s dream path research and future joint dream realm work for Tang clan opening its River of Time tributary as his retreat, and took their funding to produce guts Gu. Such benefits moved the whole clan, and guts Gu, along with Fang Yuan’s unravel dream and Ying Wu Xie’s own lead soul into dream, are all greatly desired by Tang clan’s Gu Immortals, though the latter two would not be easy to obtain. ^{ch. 1436}