Chapter 192

A white-browed elder opens his palm over the ruins of Gu Yue village and reveals a crystal-red Gu, cicada-shaped and faintly glowing, pointed at First gen Gu Yue: the Kinship Bloodworm. He gloats that he refined it from the heart blood of First gen Gu Yue’s two young sons, turned into living blood sources at five and six years old and drained monthly across tens of years until enough blood had accumulated. Both boys died soon after. He used the Gu to search for First gen Gu Yue across many years, but the world proved too large and the search failed. Nearing death, he sealed himself in a preserving sleep with the life-preserving Jade Burial Gu, then broke the seal not long ago for one last attempt and found his target by coincidence. ^{ch. 192}

He also sent Tie Xue Leng a letter to draw him to the mountain, reminiscing about their days hunting demonic cultivators together as the Righteous Twin Cranes. The narration names him: Lord Sky Crane, of the Middle Continent, who rules a myriad beast king level crane through the rank five Crane Enslavement Gu and commands a ten thousand beast army strong enough to wipe out a village alone. ^{ch. 192}

Lord Sky Crane and First gen Gu Yue trained together at the Middle Continent’s Immortal Crane Sect, sworn senior and junior brothers hundreds of years before this fight. Hunting demonic Gu Masters together, the two found one of the more than a hundred thousand inheritance grounds the Blood Sea Ancestor left scattered across the world, most hollow but a few holding his true methods. This one was real: a treasure said to raise a mortal to immortality. Lord Sky Crane reached it first, but First gen Gu Yue, moved by greed, stole the Gu worm from him and tried to kill him; Lord Sky Crane escaped. ^{ch. 192}

First gen Gu Yue fled and hid his identity for tens of years, unable to find a Lifespan Gu, until he settled at Qing Mao Mountain, changed his name, and founded Gu Yue village. Lord Sky Crane, unable to find him, filled with hatred, and with the Immortal Crane Sect’s backing he too turned to the life-preserving Jade Burial Gu to hold onto his last years. The narration notes that this method, like First gen Gu Yue’s own transformation into a zombie, sustains life without truly extending it; only a genuine Lifespan Gu increases lifespan at the root, and both are desperate, unorthodox last resorts. ^{ch. 192}

Gathering his killing intent, Lord Sky Crane moves to strike, but First gen Gu Yue is faster: blood water fountains from the ground and releases tens of thousands of blood guillotines and a cloud of bladewing blood bats against the crane flock, throwing it into chaos. The smaller Gu outmaneuver the Iron Beak Flying Cranes, and a Gu Master shouts for retreat as Lord Sky Crane’s crane king charges like a falling meteor. A hidden blood river python attacks from the blood water and bites the crane king’s neck, trying to drag the crane king down where the blood pond can heal the python, but Lord Sky Crane has the crane king seize the python and fly it, already weakened from its earlier fight with Tie Xue Leng, out of the village. ^{ch. 192}

Lord Sky Crane charges First gen Gu Yue, who steps from his coffin and sprouts jet-black wings. His transformation runs on the Blood Wight Gu, one of the flying types in the classic Zombie Gu line, which climbs from a rank two roaming form up to this rank five flying one. The two collide in the air as near equals, wrecking bamboo buildings around them. First gen Gu Yue’s shadow-wrapped attacks become several times more ruthless as Lord Sky Crane, weakened by old age, starts losing ground, and First gen Gu Yue mocks him for not improving in hundreds of years. Enraged, and resentful that the blood guillotine and bladewing bat Gu he views as rightfully his are being turned against him, Lord Sky Crane unleashes his trump card. His white eyebrows grow into two thick coils over tens of metres long and bind First gen Gu Yue fast. The Raise Eyebrows & Exhale Gu bridges both their apertures and burns down primeval essence on both sides at once, a technique normally suicidal to use on someone stronger. But First gen Gu Yue’s dead zombie aperture cannot recover what it loses, while Lord Sky Crane’s living one still can, so the trade favors him. Cutting the eyebrows does nothing, since severed strands reconnect, so First gen Gu Yue instead turns his blood guillotines and bats on Lord Sky Crane himself. Forced onto a passive light barrier while he keeps sustaining the technique, Lord Sky Crane’s barrier starts to waver by the chapter’s end, and he fears being killed before he finishes draining First gen Gu Yue dry. ^{ch. 192}