Chrysanthemum Akita Dog
Fang Yuan sees through every counter Han Bu Liu attempts. An hour of intense slaughter leaves only eight dogs standing on the field, and all eight are his. Han Bu Liu, pale and sweating, kneels and begs for his life, calling Fang Yuan a monstrous genius and offering to become his subordinate from that day on. Fang Yuan asks whether he could prove that sincerity by letting him use a slavery Gu on him, laughing lightly as he surrounds Han Bu Liu with his eight dogs. Han Bu Liu, flustered, admits Gu Masters cannot use their own Gu worms inside the blessed land at all, and that he owns no slavery Gu regardless. Fang Yuan answers that he has no choice, then waves his hand coldly and sends the eight dogs to kill him. Han Bu Liu screams for him by the alias, calling him Lord Fang Zheng, and tries to flee, cursing that he will not let Fang Zheng off even as a ghost, but the dogs tear his flesh apart, dig out his eyes, and strip the skin from his bones while Fang Yuan watches in silence until he stops moving. ch. 348
Fang Yuan deliberately leaves the corpse’s stomach intact and reaches his mind into the dying aperture inside it, a standard rank four middle stage aperture already shrinking as its owner’s life fades. He draws out all five of the enslavement path Gu suppressed there, two of them rank four and three rank three, and refines them into his own aperture with the blessed land’s own power helping him, never needing Spring Autumn Cicada at all. King Quan’s inheritance encourages Gu Masters to kill one another, the narration notes, and that is the cruelty of a demonic inheritance. The fight has cost him twelve of his original nineteen dogs, the last one dying in Han Bu Liu’s final struggle, leaving him with seven, and a note of regret crosses his otherwise peaceful gaze as he looks at them. Weighed against two rank four Gu and three rank three Gu, Fang Yuan judges the loss insignificant. Every Gu Master who enters the blessed land is a moving treasure to him now, worth killing for the Gu worms that strengthen whoever takes them, and as heavenly power descends again his killing intent rises and he sneers. ch. 348
Ahead sits a black shadow marking another Gu Master, to his left a spiked black shadow marking a hedgedog pack with twice an ordinary dog’s attack power, and to his right an orange shadow marking chrysanthemum akita dogs. With only seven injured dogs, he rules out a Gu Master fight and avoids the hedgedogs, since a single spike through his dogs’ wounded bodies would kill them, and walks right instead. Twenty rank one dog enslavement Gu fall into his hands as the fog clears on nearly sixty chrysanthemum akita dogs, orange furred and marked with chrysanthemum patterns, no larger than an ordinary wild dog. ch. 348
Because these dogs cooperate fiercely in large numbers and Fang Yuan stands on open, undefended ground, he runs at once for a nearby mound rather than fight where he stands. He reaches the top just before the whole pack, moving as one river-like mass, surrounds it, and a cliff at his back leaves him nowhere left to retreat. The narrow approach lets only fifteen dogs attack at a time. His seven dogs hold the line while he throws five dog enslavement Gu at the perfect moment, turning five healthy chrysanthemum akita dogs to his side and flipping fifteen against seven into ten against twelve. Their former companions’ panic lets him kill six and choose to let four flee rather than press for a clean sweep. He keeps releasing his remaining Gu in small batches rather than all at once, since fewer dogs in the field let his own exquisite manipulation matter more, and he times each capture to also break the enemy’s formation. After nearly ten repelled attacks, with three dog enslavement Gu still unused, the surviving ten or so chrysanthemum akita dogs, already wounded and deliberately spared earlier, lose their nerve and retreat rather than face him again. Fang Yuan chooses not to pursue, reasoning they would not have broken so easily with a dog king to command them. The round leaves him with three of his seven dogs but sixteen new chrysanthemum akita dogs, their injuries spread evenly under his control so the group keeps its fighting strength. ch. 348
