Chapter 190

As Bai Ning Bing’s blade falls, Fang Zheng activates Moon Raiment, wrapping the surviving Gu Masters in a blue mist, though it does nothing to lift their despair. The ground then bursts open, and the Thousand Li Earthwolf Spider erupts onto the battlefield with Fang Yuan riding it, its rank five aura enough to put everyone on guard. Bai Ning Bing is already swinging his iceblade at him mid-air; Fang Yuan meets it with the Chainsaw Golden Centipede, and after the clash cracks the blade, he shatters it outright with the strength of two boars. ^{ch. 190}

Sensing Bai Ning Bing as the greater threat, the spider attacks him directly, shrugging off a volley of icicles and forcing him to summon the rank five white form immortal snake and leap onto its back. Fang Zheng, bloodied, calls Fang Yuan brother from the ground, while the watching clan leaders register that Fang Yuan too commands a rank five Gu. Bai Ning Bing calls this the most exciting fight of his life and challenges Fang Yuan to the death; Fang Yuan, weighing that either Tie Xue Leng or the first gen Gu Yue will hunt him regardless of who wins their own fight, decides beating Bai Ning Bing is the only way through, and accepts. ^{ch. 190}

Snake and spider collide at close range while their riders duel above them: icicles turn on Fang Yuan’s Sky Canopy Gu armor, and a Blood Moonblade wound on Bai Ning Bing seals shut and heals almost as soon as it lands. The Xiong clan leader, seeing a ten extreme physique in action for the first time, stares in disbelief, and Gu Yue Bo, watching Fang Yuan’s primeval essence hold rather than drain away, becomes certain Fang Yuan carries the Desolate Yin Ancient Moon Physique. Fang Zheng’s pride crumbles as he realises his brother has been concealing this strength all along, and around them, surviving young Gu Masters marvel that two rank three Gu Masters are fighting on even terms at all. ^{ch. 190}

The fight turns again. Both mounts take heavy damage without being refined, provoked rather than harmed by the Ice Soul Physique’s aura, and the white form immortal snake spits a fog over the whole battlefield before throwing Bai Ning Bing off and fleeing, an escape that leaves even the Bai clan leader too shocked to speak. Blind in the fog, Fang Yuan falls back on his other senses and the Earth Communication Ear Grass, which reads sound within three hundred steps around him. Bai Ning Bing’s own Lightning Eye Gu, built to cut through illusions, is overwhelmed by a rank five Gu’s fog, and his blind volley of icicles strikes the spider instead once Fang Yuan hears them coming and dodges to its far side. ^{ch. 190}

Judging Bai Ning Bing too dangerous to finish off and the corrupted spider too close to collapsing into blood water to keep riding, Fang Yuan dismounts and tries to slip away through the fog alone, navigating by wind, water and birdsong and stumbling only on silent rock. Bai Ning Bing answers with an even larger iceblade storm, one that repels the spider outright, and Tie Ruo Nan spots the drifting patch of mist and calls for it to be stopped. Gu Yue Bo tries to give chase but is held back by the other clan leaders under their earlier agreement, so he declares the clan’s loss and threatens to kill anyone who gets in his way; the Bai clan leader sends Gu Masters after Fang Yuan anyway, and Tie Ruo Nan takes to the air herself on steel wings. ^{ch. 190}

A rank five Giant Mountain Puppet Gu, a blood-covered bronze mask, flies at Tie Ruo Nan’s face, and she screams for her father before a huge steel hand snatches her out of the air and carries her off. More than three hundred metres up, an elderly Gu Master rides a giant crane, a crystal red, cicada-shaped Kinship Blood Worm Gu pointed toward Gu Yue village in his open palm. He remarks that Tie Xue Leng is likely losing his own fight, then turns to address someone hidden in Gu Yue village: a senior brother who stole an opportunity from him long ago, and whom he means to repay a thousandfold after almost a thousand years. ^{ch. 190}