Chapter 281

Fang Yuan steps into the arena and puts his scattered thoughts aside to size up Tang Xiong: eight feet tall, thick-armed, bare-chested and bare-footed on ground baked into black-red lava rock. Tang Xiong swears to send him to join his dead brother, and the few dozen spectators have come mainly to watch the revenge play out; nobody rates the still largely unknown Fang Yuan’s chances. ^{ch. 281}

At the bell, Tang Xiong charges like a bull, his bare feet shattering the lava rock with every step, and Fang Yuan meets him head on rather than giving ground. The collision throws both men back, Tang Xiong six steps and Fang Yuan three, and the shock on Tang Xiong’s face says he had not expected a boy this young to out-strength him. Fang Yuan carries the combined strength of two boars, a crocodile, and days of use of a Brown Bear Innate Strength Gu; Tang Xiong, for now, has only the strength of two bears. ^{ch. 281}

Tang Xiong activates his Grand Bear Gu, his body swelling to a bear’s full size and strength, then his Bear Palm Gu, swelling his hands and feet into thick bear paws over three times their size. Fang Yuan trades blows with him fist against palm and holds even, until a Beast Phantom flares behind Tang Xiong, a roaring black bear image that turns an ordinary smack into one carrying a bear’s full strength. Onlookers say Tang Xiong can call the phantom as many as five times in an average fight, and that the match is now his to lose. Fang Yuan cannot dodge in time. He blocks with both arms and is sent flying, landing with his arms numbed and his Canopy Gu’s white armour flickering back on but visibly weaker. ^{ch. 281}

Reasoning that he has boar and crocodile strength but no bear strength of his own to answer a beast phantom, and that his Canopy Gu will not survive another hit or two in close combat, Fang Yuan changes tactics. His Jumping Grass Gu carries him leaping clear of each charge, and from range his Blood Moon Gu, a rank three Gu, throws scarlet moonblades that flicker against Tang Xiong’s defensive light. Tang Xiong has ranged attacks of his own, but they are many times weaker than his close combat strength and never threaten Fang Yuan, no matter how he curses and provokes him, or how the crowd boos for a real brawl. ^{ch. 281}

Fang Yuan’s advantage sharpens as their reserves burn down: he carries light silver primeval essence at rank three initial stage, while Tang Xiong, with only B grade aptitude, carries red steel. By the time the Blood Moon Gu has opened five or six wounds, Tang Xiong’s own healing Gu cannot keep pace with the bleeding, and he surrenders, promising to smash Fang Yuan into paste another day. He leaves the stage pale and unsteady. Fang Yuan claims his third win along with Tang Xiong’s Grand Bear Gu, the most valuable Gu Tang Xiong owned, cutting his battle strength by thirty percent. ^{ch. 281}

Victory brings Fang Yuan no comfort. The Stellar Stone is empty, the counter’s leg has already been repaired so he cannot look again, and he can find no other rock-propped counter, in this den or any other, that fits what the rumor described. Without the legendary Gu, he reasons, the strength path needs at minimum an ancient strength path inheritance behind it, and by his previous life’s memory only three such inheritances exist: one at the Eastern Seas, one at Central Continent, and a third at Southern Border, long held by the Wu Clan, whose Empress Wu Ji rose to be Southern Border’s strongest mortal power on the strength of it. Seven or eight more days of quiet inquiry turn up nothing, and Fang Yuan is not one to keep chasing what will not be solved. His last remaining thread is Li Ran, still not certainly the man who obtained the legendary Gu in his previous life. ^{ch. 281}