Chapter 185

The tunnel entrance that could have been Fang Yuan’s way out is buried again in the blast. Tie Xue Leng’s Iron Fist Grappling Gu grabs for the python’s tail. The creature’s wet scales throw the hand off. He switches tactics, breathing black oil into an Oil Dragon Gu. The python tears the dragon apart on contact, leaving its own body coated in oil. ^{ch. 185}

He follows with a Fire Dragon Gu that ignites the spilled oil. Both the python and the lake surface catch fire. The rank four dragon cannot match the python outright, but the raging fire around it lets the dragon keep healing and pressing the attack. Burned and finally giving ground, the python dives back into the blood lake to heal. The python heals as fast as it is wounded, and as long as the blood lake exists, nothing can kill it. ^{ch. 185}

The spreading inferno chokes what little air the sealed chamber holds. Fang Yuan starts to suffocate even as the Sky Canopy Gu strains under the heat. He reads the python’s retreat as Tie Xue Leng’s cue rather than his win. Tie Xue Leng pours his full rank five essence into the copper mask, and it flares. The flare pulls the surrounding rock into an eighteen meter Giant Mountain Puppet Gu, with the fire dragon and oil dragon coiled on its arms. ^{ch. 185}

The python coils up the puppet’s body and rams its head at the puppet’s face. An Iron Fist Grappling Gu shatters catching the blow, but it stops the python all the same. Pinned by the puppet’s hands and roasted by the twin dragons, the python coils around it and constricts with killing force, cracking the puppet’s waist. Only a coughing fit from Tie Xue Leng’s old illness lets it wrench half free, before the grip tightens again. Fang Yuan reaches the tunnel entrance just as a bloody fog rises from the lake’s center. The fog snuffs the fire and opens into a whirlpool. A blood wave reaching as high as ten meters throws up a crimson coffin. A hoarse voice from inside threatens to kill whoever spoiled its plan. The lid bursts open on a fanged, skinless corpse that speaks without moving its mouth, in the archaic thee-and-thou of a thousand years gone. Fang Yuan places it at once: a rank five Blood Wight Gu, the advanced form a Roaming Zombie Gu becomes as one of the five great flying zombies. Only that path could have let its bearer escape needing the rare Lifespan Gu. This is the Gu Yue clan’s first generation head, buried here and transformed. ^{ch. 185}