Chapter 194

Another ball of light falls from the yellow talisman and becomes a spinning black-and-white Taiji sphere holding two circling Gu worms, baffling Bai Ning Bing and the onlookers. Fang Yuan recognises it as rank four, and Lord Sky Crane names it: the Yin Yang Rotation Gu, mocking that First gen Gu Yue’s plan to become human again is now ruined. First gen Gu Yue thrashes and snarls, all composure gone, since both this Gu and the Blood Skull Gu are pillars of a scheme he has built across a thousand years. ^{ch. 194}

A third yellow light falls, a translucent scarlet sphere, and this time First gen Gu Yue stops struggling and shouts for it to be destroyed instead. The seal on it blocks him from activating it by thought, but the Gu is an expendable type meant to be destroyed to work, so several Gu Masters attack the yellow imprint until it collapses. A soft cry sounds and a blood-red sphere blooms outward into a shield spanning six mu, splitting the white eyebrows in two and freeing everyone the eyebrows had bound. First gen Gu Yue, Bai Ning Bing and Fang Yuan end up inside the shield; Xiong Jiao Man and others are left outside with Lord Sky Crane. Fang Yuan has never seen this Gu before and wonders why its aura, at rank five, resembles the Water Curtain Skyflower Gu. ^{ch. 194}

Lord Sky Crane calls the shield a trifling defence that only delays the inevitable, and First gen Gu Yue dares him to test it; cranes, feather arrows and eye beams all crash against the shield and it does not move. Forced to ask what Gu this is, Lord Sky Crane hears the answer: First gen Gu Yue’s own fusion, the Blood Curtain Skyflower Gu, built from the rank four Water Curtain Skyflower Gu that can block rank five attacks but traps its own user inside. This version is rank five, stronger, and lets its owner leave while sealed, and First gen Gu Yue taunts him to keep attacking while he recovers. ^{ch. 194}

Furious, Lord Sky Crane attacks without restraint and kills every Gu Master left outside the shield, including Xiong Jiao Man. Inside, the group is calm and relieved, cheering First gen Gu Yue as an unrivalled hero who has saved them. Only Bai Ning Bing snorts: his death from the Ten Extreme Aptitude is certain regardless, and this stalemate only dulls it. ^{ch. 194}

Lord Sky Crane eventually stops, realising the taunts were meant to bait him into wasting his essence, since a Blood Curtain Skyflower with the Water Curtain Skyflower’s nature is a costly, one-time, time-limited Gu that will dissipate on its own. He sits to recover his own primeval essence with stones instead. First gen Gu Yue asks the Gu Masters around him for primeval stones, and they hand them over freely even as Lord Sky Crane shouts that helping him only signs their own death warrants; no one believes him, and they give even more. ^{ch. 194}

First gen Gu Yue chews and absorbs the stones, a load no ordinary body could take but his blood wight body can, and his primeval essence rises fast. The Demon Suppression Iron Chain Gu weakens, turns to a pool of blood, and dies out completely. Freed, First gen Gu Yue roars and draws blood into his body through his vital Gu, regrowing his severed arms, and the Problem Nipped in the Bud Gu on his forehead dissolves the same way. ^{ch. 194}

The group cheers for him to behead Lord Sky Crane next, but First gen Gu Yue’s laughter fades and he says he has one thing to do first: take their lives. Fang Yuan, alarmed by his tone, edges toward the outer rim of the group before the others react. First gen Gu Yue punches a claw through a nearby clansman’s chest and tears out his heart, calling the blood too good to waste, then sends the Blood Skull Gu circling the body to drink every drop, brightening the red stripes on its crystal skull. He cuts down more of them as they flee and curse him for turning on the people whose stones just saved him, but a fully recovered peak rank five against Gu Masters of rank one to three is no contest, and the sealed shield gives them nowhere to run. He kills every Gu Yue clansman trapped inside, sparing only the Bai and Xiong clan members, and after several hundred deaths the Blood Skull Gu turns a deep glistening red, full to its limit. ^{ch. 194}

First gen Gu Yue calls the Blood Skull Gu back above his head, and it opens its mouth and pours out a sweet-smelling blood fountain that soaks him without a drop touching the ground, seeping through his skin into his aperture. He stands silent for a moment, then bursts into wild laughter, shouting that his aptitude has truly advanced. Outside the shield, Lord Sky Crane points at him and furiously demands his Blood Skull Gu back. ^{ch. 194}