Chapter 1972

Mo Li wakes Peng Da in the sand. The caravan is gone, only the two of them remain, and many Gu Masters fled desperately and died. Peng Da slept deeply through it and still survived, and Mo Li dug him out after discovering his faint breath, before he could be buried alive. Mo Li calls surviving the natural disaster the greatest of all blessings, though he mourns the caravan he worked most of his life to own. He wishes he could become an immortal, and since Peng Da does not know that immortals exist, he promises to explain later and leads the way to the closest oasis. ^{ch. 1972}

A group of desert wolves emerges from under the sand, and Mo Li curses that the disaster did not wipe them out. The Heavenly Dao, from which the qi tides originate, does not wipe out all life. Other lifeforms have a chance of survival as well. The wolves do not attack, and golden scorpions, each the size of a millstone, rise from the sand to fight them. A wolf stung by a needle dies, while the scorpions are often torn apart by claws and teeth. ^{ch. 1972}

Weak in intelligence, both groups ignore the two men, but Peng Da fears the winner will attack them. Mo Li tries to break out, and when they move, several scorpions and wolves attack from both sides. He repels only two beasts with his mortal Gu before the groups encircle them, and he gives up the fight. Peng Da despairs and asks whether he is going to die. ^{ch. 1972}

Inside the sovereign immortal aperture, the mini regions are in chaos. Mini Southern Border’s mountains collapse, Mini Central Continent’s rivers flood, and sandstorms in Mini Western Desert devour cities and oases. In Mini Northern Plains, frost ice flame, a special fire immortal material, spreads on Triple Sacred Mountain and burns snowmen and snow monsters to death once it grows to a certain size. It can arise where ice and snow path dao marks are dense, and its heart holds dense fire path dao marks. Xue Er, the snowman Gu Immortal whom Fang Yuan tasked with managing the mountain, cannot stop it, and the snowmen flee and trample each other. While she saves them, the flame reaches the ice path crystal essence, the core of the snow crystal formation. She blames herself, since the formation Fang Yuan entrusted to her is about to be destroyed by her mistake. ^{ch. 1972}

Fang Yuan suddenly appears and draws all the frost ice flames within the formation away. Pale white traces appear around his body, and Xue Er recognizes heaven path dao marks, at least a thousand of them. He leaves the rest to her and vanishes with the flame. She understands why he went into seclusion after the fate war and rarely fought. ^{ch. 1972}

Fang Yuan returns to his secret room to continue closed cultivation. While refining fate Gu, Fang Yuan absorbed more than three thousand complete heaven path dao marks, and he can be called the biggest winner of the plan Red Lotus created. Because his sovereign immortal body has non-conflicting dao marks, Sovereign grotto-heaven gains all of them at once, with a huge impact. He reasons that the way of heaven takes surpluses to replenish deficits, that the Heavenly Dao can alter even an extreme environment, and that a spreading flame would completely change Mini Northern Plains beyond recognition. Ignoring it would leave Sovereign grotto-heaven a complete ecosystem with good prospects, but would consume too much of his foundation, which is what Red Lotus Demon Venerable wants. ^{ch. 1972}

With fate Gu destroyed, that plan has succeeded, and Red Lotus Demon Venerable uses the marks to limit Fang Yuan’s growth speed. Fang Yuan takes the bait because Spectral Soul tampered with the sovereign immortal fetus Gu, and he needs the marks to counter it. Red Lotus Demon Venerable made use of him. Fang Yuan used the million year plan to destroy fate Gu and escape Spectral Soul’s arrangement. ^{ch. 1972}

Zhao Lian Yun lets the marks make their alterations, but Fang Yuan interferes in his aperture, resisting and cooperating to preserve its foundation. He gains much insight from this. ^{ch. 1972}

Some time later he stores the sovereign immortal aperture and arrives in Western Desert before the thousand wish tree, ringed by his immortal formation. He stores the formation and sends it and the tree into the aperture, and the action spreads a vast air current across the desert. Fang Yuan flies off as a flash of light. The air currents arrive just as Mo Li and Peng Da, surrounded by wolves, are about to die, and the wolf group scatters in chaos. Peng Da cries out that it is another disaster, but Mo Li laughs that they are saved, since this is merely a normal hurricane. ^{ch. 1972}