Chapter 375

Tie Ruo Nan takes in what she has just learned, sighing that even a blessed land can be destroyed. Tie Mu Bai answers that nothing in the world is indestructible, and that only a Gu Immortal rises past mortality to become, in his words, an island able to resist the sea rather than a single grain of sand within it. Asked whether the people inside a dying blessed land are in danger, he describes a wind of assimilation that blows the moment the land vanishes, fusing heaven and earth and reducing everything inside to primeval essence; even a Gu Immortal fears this wind, because even a Gu Immortal can be destroyed by it. ^{ch. 375}

He reassures Tie Ruo Nan that destruction is still a long way off. As the blessed land weakens, the restrictions on its Gu Masters will ease in stages, first to one or two Gu, then three or four, then five or six, until the land is riddled with loopholes and anyone can come and go freely. Only at that final stage, he says, will the true decisive battle for the three kings inheritance begin, drawing far more than three rank five Gu Masters to San Cha mountain. Tie Ruo Nan realizes this is why Tie Mu Bai never fought Wu Gui and Ku Mo to the death: showing his full strength now would only profit whichever expert is still watching for the richer rewards still to come. ^{ch. 375}

At Central Continent’s Tian Ti mountain, where Hu Immortal Blessed Land opens, Fang Zheng reaches the mountain’s waist with numb limbs and a spinning head, his soul spent to the point that he can barely think. In his daze, the incubating flea, Lord Sky Crane, praises his endurance. A formless energy pours into the depths of his soul, and the falling sensation vanishes at once; his vision clears, and he feels like a desert traveler who has just found water. ^{ch. 375}

Urged to climb quickly, Fang Zheng surges forward with newfound confidence, closing on Feng Jin Huang and the other leaders as they begin to slow. His sudden burst draws attention from the ten Gu Immortals watching outside the now open blessed land, who quickly trace it to Immortal Crane Sect and to Supreme Elder He Feng Yang’s rank six one’s own way Gu, a Gu that lets other Gu worms function inside the blessed land but can only be used three times before it vanishes. He Feng Yang admits, with practiced modesty, that his sect could not otherwise compete with the young talents of Myriad Dragon Dock, Spirit Affinity House and Spirit Butterfly Valley. ^{ch. 375}

The other Gu Immortals can only laugh dryly, since each holds one or two Immortal Gu of their own but none possesses a one’s own way Gu, and He Feng Yang’s move breaks no rule of their contest, so they can only watch. Some regret their own Immortal Gu are unsuited to help: one’s is purely offensive and would count as an attack on the inheritance itself, another’s could protect a disciple’s soul but his disciples lack the immortal essence to use it. The narration states how rare such Gu truly are: many rank six Gu Immortals never gain even one Immortal Gu, and in his previous life Fang Yuan spent enormous effort refining his first, only for the righteous path to attack him for it the moment he succeeded. Someone notes that He Feng Yang first used the one’s own way Gu eighty years ago and has now spent his second use, leaving only one more, a heavy price for a single advantage; the assembled Gu Immortals agree to keep watching rather than act. ^{ch. 375}

On San Cha mountain, the three kings inheritance keeps opening and closing, and just as Tie Mu Bai predicted, established experts begin converging on it. Li Fei Le, an earth path Gu Master known as sturdy as a mountain, arrives first, a Li clan prodigy who turned demonic after killing people to refine Gu in his single minded pursuit of strength. Over the following month more names follow: Zhang San San, called the enslavement master since killing a rank four Gu Master at rank three peak stage; the righteous healer Tao Zi, famed across Southern Border for his rank five spirit peach Gu; and Yun clan’s young leader Yun Luo Tian, a wind path Gu Master who reached rank three peak at twenty three and now, at thirty five, stands a step from rank four peak. More Gu Masters keep arriving like sharks smelling blood, with at least rank three upper stage cultivation and some already rank four. ^{ch. 375}

A month later San Cha mountain gains its fourth rank five Gu Master, the poison cultivator Wang Xiao, overlord of Wu mountain. Two months after that, Wu clan sends Wu Lan Shan, the clan leader’s younger cousin, whose battle with Wang Xiao ends in a draw that still marks her above both Wu Gui and Ku Mo. Eight days later the rank five healer Chou Jiu, who has little battle strength but is one of the four great doctors and known as the killer ghost doctor for demanding a life in return for every life he saves, causes a stir on arrival and is invited by Tie Mu Bai to a friendly banquet. ^{ch. 375}

Time passes as the inheritance opens and closes again and again, until one day two figures reappear at the mountain foot, and the gathered Gu Masters recognize them at once as the black and white twin demons. ^{ch. 375}