Xuan Yuan Divine Pheasant
Half a month passes, and Bai Ning Bing grows leaner while her aura sharpens into what Fang Yuan reads as an elite bearing. She has adjusted to the wilderness, her concentration sharper and her eyes brighter, and although she still argues back at some of his ideas, shallow as they remain, she has moved past her old naivety. Fang Yuan judges he can feel her improving by the day, though he expects subduing her fully to stay hard, since any true demon resists with spirit. ch. 207
Hidden in a shaded forest, they watch a lava crocodile sleeping in the valley below: the size of three elephants together, dark red scaled, a metallic sheen along its tail, the whole reaching almost ten metres, with two lumps like small volcanoes on its back breathing out columns of black smoke. Bai Ning Bing names it a thousand beast king and calls attacking it too great a risk. Fang Yuan wants to test its strength anyway, since their crocodile meat for the Crocodile Strength Gu has fallen below half. ch. 207
She gets to within about fifty steps before it wakes, and she activates the Sky Canopy Gu but still feels its blast of hot breath gush across her face as she fires the Blood Moonblade into its back, shaving scales and angering it. It answers with a lava fireball the size of a stonemill; she dodges, and the blast craters the mountainside. Fang Yuan reads it as a rank three Lava Explosion Gu. ch. 207
Pulled back up by rope, he concludes the crocodile king carries three rank three Gu covering attack, defense and healing between them: the explosion Gu, a Flame Stomach Gu, and an Accumulating Ash Gu. Bai Ning Bing lays out why it still cannot be killed. The Blood Moonblade cannot break the Flame Stomach Gu’s defense; only the Chainsaw Golden Centipede can, and using it that way would ruin razors already worn down from other kills. Even then, the Accumulating Ash Gu could outlast their combined stamina, and nothing would stop the crocodile from simply burrowing home. ch. 207
Fang Yuan still wants it dead, mainly for the Accumulating Ash Gu, which eats ash and would make an easy healing worm. Bai Ning Bing warns him not to mistake her, through his hold on the Yang Gu, for someone he can order into a suicidal fight. His answer is to turn other beast kings against it: lured close, a rival would fight the isolated crocodile king, whose underground life keeps it unknown to surface rivalries, and once both were left injured, the two of them could move in on whichever was weaker. She agrees to try, despite having no movement Gu between them. ch. 207
Over the next five days they scout the surrounding beast groups. To the southeast, a white ape gang led by an old thousand beast king proves too fast to lure safely. The southwest holds a rotting swamp ruled by a small, rank four poison swallowing toad, too dangerous and too hard to search. Northeast, a beehive as large as a house shelters frenzy needle bees whose rank three Gu form can pierce straight through Sky Canopy Gu protection. ch. 207
With no target found, they settle into a cave for the night and agree to abandon the crocodile king and press on toward Bai Gu mountain. The lava crocodile king’s furious roar interrupts them. In the valley they see a mountain sized pheasant crowned in gold and lit in shifting rainbow colors. Fang Yuan names it the Xuan Yuan Divine Pheasant, a myriad beast king, and judges the lava crocodile king as good as dead: a rare lone flier, sharp eyed enough to kill them if it noticed their hiding place. The two retreat deeper into the cave. ch. 207
