Multitask Gu
The two dog armies clash: Fang Yuan’s lightning symbol dogs lead, hedgedogs support them, and chrysanthemum akita dogs hold the rear, against a steel armor dog group that fills the field like a sea of black. Fang Yuan sends the big lightning symbol dog forward, and the big steel armor dog steps out to meet it, since only a hundred beast king can stop another hundred beast king. Still weakened from its earlier fight and outmatched by a defense specialist, the big lightning symbol dog starts to lose ground even as Fang Yuan commits the rest of his troops. The steel armor dogs, experts at defense, hold their line regardless. Fang Yuan is not worried. He has been waiting for this moment. ch. 351
The big lightning symbol dog spits blue plasma into the enemy’s tightly packed formation. Steel armor conducts electricity despite its strong defenses, so the plasma breaks the enemy’s formation and drains their fighting strength across the field, even though the attack itself is not powerful. Fang Yuan presses the opening at once. His combined forces kill most of the steel armor dogs and close around their king. Cornered, the king’s own Gu worm activates, and black spikes grow from its body as its strength surges. Fifteen minutes later, the big lightning symbol dog tears out its throat, and it falls dead. One of its two Gu worms is destroyed in the fighting; the other flies away. ch. 351
Fang Yuan is left with only half his dog group. He judges his luck bad this round, since the steel armor king carried two Gu worms rather than one, and one of them suited both attack and defense. A rank two dog enslavement Gu falls as his prize, refined at once with the blessed land’s own help, without any need for Spring Autumn Cicada. ch. 351
Stepping into the next round’s fog, he finds three light shadows: a corpse dog pack, a group of Yin dogs, and a huge hyena pack. Defeating the corpse dogs would earn a white silver relic Gu, which holds no interest for him now, since only the far rarer yellow gold relic Gu appeals to him at this stage, and super clans like Shang clan hold large stocks of it off the open market, beyond even what his purple thorn token can reach. He suspects Shang Yan Fei keeps it back on purpose, dangling it as a reward for full loyalty, and he refuses to compete with Shang Yan Fei in wits and strength over one Gu, unwilling to let his own plans stall over it. He knows the three kings inheritance itself holds yellow gold relic Gu, though only past the fortieth round, and getting one there would improve his situation greatly. Defeating the Yin dogs would earn a two tasks at once Gu, a rank two Multitask Gu that would raise the four tasks he can already juggle at once to six. Past the hyenas, once their shadow fades, sits a crude, roughly carved token stamped with a careless map of San Cha mountain: a King Quan travel token. Fang Yuan wants it desperately the instant he sees it, knowing from his previous life that such a token sold, near the inheritance’s end, for as much as a rank four Gu. ch. 351
The hyena pack is huge and answers to two beast kings, so even the best outcome, subduing just one of them, would cost him the strength to advance any further. Fang Yuan takes the risk anyway, reasoning that the demonic path means accepting extreme risk for extreme gain, with no regrets, and that doing so is what it means to truly be alive. Four hours later the battle ends, dog corpses and blood covering the mound, and only about a dozen of his dogs remain. Slightly injured and unable to use his own Gu inside the blessed land, he has lost almost all the dogs he built up, and with them any hope of advancing further in this cruel demonic inheritance. Still, one last hope remains in his mind. Heavenly power sends him into the fog once more, and he hopes to meet Bai Ning Bing and draw on her strength, but all three paths this time lead only to more dog groups; without the travel token, he would certainly die here. He takes out the travel token, bites his tongue, spits blood onto it, and speaks a single soft bark to it. Light flares from the token, tearing through space and dragging him away, and the fog falls empty and silent behind him. ch. 351
