Chapter 372

Central Continent’s Hu Immortal blessed land holds Dang Hun Mountain at its center, a tall pink crystal peak that gives off the colors of dreams and illusions. Elite disciples from the ten sects climb it like ants. Near the mountain’s waist, Fang Zheng grips the rock face with a pale, sweat soaked face; the closer any living soul gets to Dang Hun Mountain, the more its shocks make that soul ache, and the higher he climbs the dizzier he grows, until he feels close to collapse. ^{ch. 372}

The Hu Immortal land spirit appears to him as a snow skinned girl with a fluffy white fox tail and mocks his exhaustion, telling him to give up since he has fallen so far behind the others. Fang Zheng, who has learned after her many earlier visits simply to ignore her, says nothing. She calls him a boring, stupid lad, wishes he will not become her master, and leaves to find more entertaining disciples. ^{ch. 372}

Once she is gone, Lord Sky Crane’s voice sounds from the spirit incubating flea in Fang Zheng’s aperture, urging him to endure at least past the mountain waist for any chance at victory, since a soul’s strength can still be dug deeper. Fang Zheng answers silently that he is only resting, then asks whether catching the land spirit himself would let him skip the climb entirely. ^{ch. 372}

Lord Sky Crane scolds his recklessness. A land spirit forms when a Gu Immortal dies and the remaining fragments of will and soul mix with the blessed land’s own power; this one formed from the former Gu Immortal Bai Hu, and though she keeps none of her past life’s memories, only lingering desire, she can freely wield the blessed land’s heavenly power and contend directly with a Gu Immortal. She can seal any rank one to five Gu at will, and only a rank six Immortal Gu can move freely within the land. ^{ch. 372}

Chastened, Fang Zheng promises not to scheme again. Lord Sky Crane’s tone softens: whoever becomes lord of the blessed land wins the land spirit’s loyalty, an aid equal to a Gu Immortal’s inside the land, though the spirit itself can never leave it. A blessed land with no spirit at all is destined for destruction, left like a slumbering divine dragon that anyone can eat and drink from until it finally dies, and Fang Zheng is fortunate to hold both a spirited land and the sect’s backing. ^{ch. 372}

Lord Sky Crane adds that once Fang Zheng becomes the blessed land’s lord he must give its resources back to Immortal Crane Sect, which raised him, since a stronger sect means stronger protection for him in turn. Fang Zheng agrees at once: the sect adopted him and gave him his only chance at both the inheritance and revenge on his brother, and he hopes one day to repay it and even revive his master. Lord Sky Crane laughs this off as foolish, but says he is glad for the thought. ^{ch. 372}

On San Cha mountain, Tie Mu Bai’s dominance has turned the three kings inheritance into a righteous path preserve that bars every demonic Gu Master. The crowd shut outside grumbles that he is greedy and overbearing, even as they note that the inheritance’s opening times are shrinking and its three pillars weakening, decaying toward the destruction little beast king predicted a month before. Some demonic Gu Masters urge a mass charge on the mountain; others counter that waiting for Tie Mu Bai to enter the inheritance first only means meeting him again on the way out, with nobody knowing where the group might scatter to. ^{ch. 372}

Dark clouds and ghostly wailing announce Lord Wu Gui, a demonic rank five peak stage elder and Tie Mu Bai’s lifelong rival, who blots out the sun over San Cha mountain to a roar of demonic cheering. Onlookers recall that Wu Gui, hundreds of years old at least, was ruined during his own attempt at a rank six breakthrough by a young and unwitting Tie Mu Bai, and has since slaughtered Tie clansmen many times in revenge. ^{ch. 372}

Tie Mu Bai greets him calmly from the peak, asking if he has been hiding all these years only to lose again. Wu Gui snarls back that Tie Mu Bai only won by one move a decade ago, calls him a little bastard who will die today without a proper corpse, and turns his dark clouds into a huge grasping hand. Tie Mu Bai tears the clouds apart with his own strike, and their clash inside the clouds explodes like thunder. Tie Mu Bai taunts that when he began cultivating, Wu Gui was already an established expert he had to avoid; fifty years on he could merely escape him, eighty years on Wu Gui could do nothing to him, a hundred years on Wu Gui lost to him outright, and now, another decade later, Wu Gui will lose his life. Wu Gui, breathing raggedly and clearly losing, snarls that he would be a Gu Immortal too with Tie clan’s resources, then laughs that he has a backup. A third rank five peak stage aura bursts out, and Tie Mu Bai’s shock names its owner: Ku Mo. ^{ch. 372}