Chapter 193

Lord Sky Crane’s face turns malevolent and he unleashes a rain of feather arrows, aimed not at First gen Gu Yue, whose blood wight body is nearly impossible to breach, but at the Gu Masters around him, killing countless outright. Twin beams from his eyes sweep the village, collapsing bamboo buildings and melting anyone they touch, and screams fill the battlefield as a rank five Gu Master’s every move creates huge casualties. Fang Yuan survives a feather arrow by grabbing a man beside him and throwing him into its path. He then rolls clear of an Iron Beak Flying Crane’s claw. Even Bai Ning Bing is dodging nonstop, and though his Northern Dark Ice Soul Physique heals every wound, each healing also brings him nearer to death. ^{ch. 193}

Watching his own clansmen slaughtered, First gen Gu Yue shouts for it to stop, since the village is the fruit of centuries of planning and not merely a hiding place. Left with no choice, he calls his blood guillotines and bladewing bats back to defend the village instead of attacking Lord Sky Crane, giving up the Blood Sea inheritance’s attacking strength for its weak defense. Lord Sky Crane, who knows the scheme well, had let the clansmen go first for exactly this moment, and escapes the disadvantage while First gen Gu Yue is busy holding the village together. ^{ch. 193}

Iron chain shadows suddenly wrap First gen Gu Yue’s body and solidify, binding his hands and feet, and a talisman appears between his eyes; he crashes to the ground, wings useless. Lord Sky Crane recognises the Demon Suppression Iron Chain Gu and the Problem Nipped in the Bud Gu, both of the Tie family’s main Gu that Tie Xue Leng once used to capture countless demonic Gu Masters. First gen Gu Yue realises the trap was planted in his final blow against Tie Xue Leng: a bloodied palm strike he had dismissed as too weak to matter, delivered as Tie Xue Leng died. His zombie body, strong in offence and defence but dulled in feeling, never sensed it, and he blames the many prices such an unnatural, extended life demands. ^{ch. 193}

With First gen Gu Yue’s aperture sealed and his Gu resisting the suppression, his primeval essence expenditure balloons, and Lord Sky Crane attacks without pause, tearing open his head, exposing his ribs, and severing both arms at the shoulder. Facing death, First gen Gu Yue lets out an unearthly, ear-splitting cry that hits Lord Sky Crane like a blow, sending him flying dozens of steps and leaving him bleeding from the eyes, nose, ears and mouth, unable to move for a moment. Other Gu Masters throw moon blades and water bullets at him, but his light halo blocks them all, and dozens of flying cranes break their beaks against First gen Gu Yue’s steel-hard zombie skin without cutting it. Only these two rank five Gu Masters can hurt each other. Everyone else can only watch, for as long as their primeval essence lasts. ^{ch. 193}

Unable to move anything but his eyes, Lord Sky Crane concentrates his mind on the Raise Eyebrows & Exhale Gu, greatly accelerating the drain on First gen Gu Yue’s essence. With his primeval sea about to run dry and the Problem Nipped in the Bud Gu ready to start extracting his worms the moment it does, First gen Gu Yue cries out for help, and Gu Masters from the Gu Yue, Bai and Xiong clans rush to grab the white eyebrows. The eyebrows split and coil around their wrists and bodies, and a rank two Gu Master’s primeval essence is no match for a rank five’s; apertures dry up, crack, and collapse in succession, and since the aperture is the single most vital part of the body, more than the heart itself, many die where they stand. The iron chains tighten and cut into First gen Gu Yue’s flesh even though Tie Xue Leng is dead, because the Gu has been infected by a berserk blood Gu that lets it draw primeval essence from the air, and because it still carries Tie Xue Leng’s will to subdue him. ^{ch. 193}

Seeing rescuers slow down as the deaths mount, Fang Yuan shouts that everyone dies anyway if First gen Gu Yue loses, and grabs the eyebrows himself. His Thousand Li Earthwolf Spider is already dead and the enemy’s cranes could hunt him down if he fled alone, so helping is his best chance at benefit. Others follow his lead. Bai Ning Bing and Xiong Jiao Man both step in. Fang Zheng is nowhere to be found, still lost from the earlier chaos, and though no one can say whether he is alive, everything about it looks bad. ^{ch. 193}

Only rank three Gu Masters can hold their ground in the draining stalemate, and confidence starts to crack as time drags on. Lord Sky Crane declares his victory certain, since the gap between rank three and rank five is too wide, and the three rank four clan leaders who might have closed it are already dead by his hand. Then the Problem Nipped in the Bud Gu glows and slowly draws a ball of yellow light out of First gen Gu Yue’s aperture, revealing a palm-sized skull of red-streaked crystal: the Blood Skull Gu. Lord Sky Crane weeps with joy at the sight of it, calling out that he can finally see it again after hundreds of years. ^{ch. 193}