Chapter 381

Bai Ning Bing, who understands the three kings inheritance better than most for having stayed close to Fang Yuan, is only more shaken by his sudden appearance rather than less. Asked whether she remembers their vow and still wants Yang Gu, she snaps that she knows he would not ask without reason, and demands he explain himself before she agrees to anything. ^{ch. 381}

Fang Yuan reminds her of the poison vow they swore at Shang clan city, that either must aid the other in mortal danger, and tells her plainly that Gu Masters will soon besiege him and that he needs her to guard him while he refines a Gu. Judging that hiding anything now risks wrecking the refinement through misunderstanding, he tells her the whole story outright. Bai Ning Bing is stunned that Ba Gui still lives and that he means to refine an Immortal Gu, calling it reckless, and is shocked further still when he confirms he has already killed Tie Mu Bai, Wu Gui and Ku Mo; she loses her composure entirely when he produces their actual Gu worms as proof. ^{ch. 381}

Tie Mu Bai, the narration recalls, was Southern Border’s Tie clan’s former leader, a naturally gifted and unyielding figure whose fame spread young, who ruled the clan with an iron hand in his middle years and became feared as a regional power in old age, venerated as the clan’s glory and the righteous path’s own pride, so that even Shang Yan Fei and Wu clan’s proud Wu Lan Shan had to bow before him. Even a man like that, and two more rank five Gu Masters besides, had died at Fang Yuan’s hands with every one of their Gu worms stripped from them. Bai Ning Bing, an outsider to it all, still feels stifled at how these three rank five Gu Masters died with grievance. ^{ch. 381}

Business settled, Fang Yuan tells her he will send her into King Quan Inheritance to gather dog beasts, the more the better; she balks that she never agreed to help. He offers Yang Gu if he succeeds, freedom to part ways afterward or to stay together if she prefers, and states flatly that he will refine the Gu whether she agrees or not. Furious, she calls him shameless for using the poison vow to force her hand, since his death would be hers too; he answers gently, calling it cooperation rather than a threat and pointing to their unbroken partnership since Qing Mao mountain, then needles her over whether she still wants Yang Gu to turn male again or has grown fond of being a woman. Goosebumps rise on her skin at hearing him drop her clan name and call her simply Ning Bing, and his needling provokes a furious demand that he be silent, which Fang Yuan takes as her answer. He hands her a dog enslavement Gu and vanishes; the land spirit sends her into King Quan Inheritance’s first round. ^{ch. 381}

Fang Yuan next appears before Wu Lan Shan, a famed rank five Gu Master who catches herself quickly despite the shock, recognizing him only by the epithet Little Beast King and demanding how he can move in and out of the blessed land so freely. He answers with a bone spear through her heart. She manages only a second disbelieving question, how he can use Gu at all, before her aura fades and she dies. Unlike the others, her rank five Gu do not fall to him: a burst of light tears space open at her death and carries all three away. Fang Yuan is not surprised, since he already knows Wu clan holds a rank six Immortal Gu called no loss Gu that retrieves precious Gu this way, a rank the blessed land’s restriction on rank one through five Gu cannot touch, true of any blessed land against any Immortal Gu. ^{ch. 381}

He still takes her remaining rank four Gu and feeds her aperture, the fourth rank five aperture taken so far, to the beast placenta Gu, which now feels like fine smooth pottery; its aptitude has risen to seventy five percent. The gain is slowing, he notes: forty percent came from Tie Mu Bai alone, but Wu Gui, Ku Mo and Wu Lan Shan together only added another thirty five. He reasons the gain depends on each Gu Master’s own foundation: of San Cha mountain’s five rank five Gu Masters, only Tie Mu Bai, Ku Mo and Wu Gui had reached peak stage, Tie Mu Bai’s foundation deepest of all on Tie clan’s resources, while Wu Lan Shan and Wang Xiao sit at upper stage and Chou Jiu only at initial stage, so killing the rest might not even add another ten percent. No matter, he decides: there are plenty of other Gu Masters, Yi Huo and Kong Ri Tian among them, and all of them must die. ^{ch. 381}

Guided the whole way by the land spirit’s voice, which despite losing most control of the blessed land still knows King Quan Inheritance’s contents precisely and can advise her at almost no cost in essence, Bai Ning Bing clears round after round on the best possible choice each time, her strength snowballing. Told an upcoming opponent has just fought a hard battle and has few dogs left, she steps out to find him already known to her: Yun Luo Tian, the Yun clan’s young clan leader who once tried to obstruct her and Fang Yuan before they entered the inheritance. He sneers that her luck has run out against him, since she has less than half as many dogs as he does, and does not finish the taunt before choking in shock as an endless column of dog beasts pours out of the mist behind her. ^{ch. 381}