Chapter 198

Fang Yuan kills another clansman in front of the crowd, declaring he will kill only Gu Yue clan members and warning any outsider to flee or die with them. The crowd is stunned into shouting and urging each other to fight back, but no one moves against him. Bai Ning Bing answers by killing a Bai clansman of his own, laughing that since so many have already died and the Bai clan leader he owed loyalty to is dead too, their clan’s future is ruined regardless, so he may as well enjoy the killing. Fang Yuan agrees happily, and the two begin slaughtering the trapped clansmen together, each death feeding Fang Yuan’s aptitude rather than First gen Gu Yue’s. ^{ch. 198}

Bai Ning Bing, already resigned to his own coming death, kills far more than Fang Yuan does, so Fang Yuan mostly holds back and only collects blood. After a hundred deaths inside the barrier, the Blood Skull Gu reaches its limit and empties a blood stream over Fang Yuan, lifting his aptitude from forty three percent to fifty three. He kills Gu Yue Mo Yan next, splitting her in half with the Chainsaw Golden Centipede as she calls him a monster, then beheads his uncle and aunt, Gu Yue Dong Tu and his wife, with a blood colored moonblade as they beg for their lives. Another bath from the Blood Skull Gu carries him to sixty three percent, crossing him from C grade into B grade. But as his aptitude rises his cultivation falls, from rank three down to rank two, because the rank four Blood Skull Gu overpowers his rank three Stone Aperture Gu and turns his aperture from stone back to light, undoing the gains that Gu had forced. ^{ch. 198}

Over six hours of slaughter, Fang Yuan bathes in blood more than ten times, each bath raising his aptitude by a shrinking margin, while his cultivation keeps dropping until it settles at rank one initial stage with a fully recovering light aperture. His aptitude ends above ninety percent, A grade, up from the forty three percent he started the massacre with. He reflects that his previous life needed roughly two hundred years of luck to climb from C grade to B; profiting from this single disaster to reach A grade leaves him quietly thrilled. When the killing ends, only Fang Yuan and Bai Ning Bing remain alive inside the barrier, and everyone caught outside it has died in the two rank five experts’ battle as well. ^{ch. 198}

Fang Yuan tells Bai Ning Bing they will wait for First gen Gu Yue’s defeat and for the Blood Curtain Skyflower to fade, then reveals what comes after: Bai Ning Bing is to self-detonate his Northern Dark Ice Soul physique against Lord Sky Crane. Fang Yuan promises to stay at his side and revive him afterward, but frames it as a mutual gamble, since his own rank one body will have no way to survive if Bai Ning Bing chooses to kill him with the resulting storm instead of trusting him. Bai Ning Bing accepts, laughing at the risk. Outside, First gen Gu Yue loses ground to Lord Sky Crane, curses Fang Yuan for ruining his thousand year plan, swears future vengeance, and flees with Lord Sky Crane in pursuit. ^{ch. 198}

Four hours later, as the thinning blood barrier nears collapse, Lord Sky Crane returns carrying First gen Gu Yue’s skull, a wound running from his shoulder to his waist deep enough to show bone. Fang Yuan judges that killing his old enemy cost Lord Sky Crane dearly. The barrier vanishes as Lord Sky Crane demands the two stolen Gu worms and threatens death; Fang Yuan and Bai Ning Bing only exchange a look and laugh. Lord Sky Crane attacks, and Bai Ning Bing steps forward to meet him, turning to ice as the detonation begins. ^{ch. 198}