Chapter 391

Fang Yuan holds on until the cloud finally settles. He has time now to curse the dead Gu Immortal who wrote this recipe without ever warning him about this moment; only his own focus and Feng Tian Yu’s help have pulled it back under control. The cloud finishes digesting the three hundred year lifespan Gu and returns to its blood field imagery, the red wheat now turned blue green and crowding like new spring growth, which is what the recipe means by “three hundred years as spring.” The recipe’s original author, Fang Yuan concludes, must never have performed this step himself, or he would have said so. ^{ch. 391}

With a moment to breathe, he checks on the jade sky poison zone through the land spirit’s image. Two rank three Gu Masters have stumbled onto Long Qing Tian’s corpse, excited at the thought of looting a famous demonic head’s remains, unaware the green light around it has already infected them. Fang Yuan sneers that they are courting death. Within ten steps, both dissolve into green light. The poisoned ground has rotted through completely, and the loophole it will tear open, he judges, will be even greater than the one Xiao Mang made. Five minutes later it does: a second breach shakes the hall and doubles the blessed land’s speed of collapse. ^{ch. 391}

Fang Yuan presses on, throwing in the five hundred year lifespan Gu next. This time the cloud fights harder, a green snake swollen into something like a flood dragon, and only Fang Yuan and Feng Tian Yu working together hold it down through repeated surges. Five minutes later it settles into a field of golden wheat ready for harvest, the recipe’s “five hundred years as autumn.” Had this Gu gone in before the second breach instead of after, Fang Yuan reflects, the shock would have ruined the whole refinement. ^{ch. 391}

What falls from the cloud is a golden, peanut shell shaped Gu marked with traces of scarlet blood, able to survive forty years where the unstable false Gu before it could only have lasted a week. The true second aperture Gu has taken shape inside it, but left alone it could sit for ten thousand years without ever becoming real. Only the rank six divine travel Gu, an Immortal Gu used to refine an Immortal Gu, can force that last change. Fang Yuan steadies his breathing and begins the most important step of the whole refinement. ^{ch. 391}

Outside, killing and plunder spread across the mountain, casualties mounting fast. Tie clan and Wu clan Gu Masters grow uneasy: their own leaders, Tie Mu Bai and Wu Shen Tong, have not been seen. They search. Only the deep fog at the heart of the blessed land remains unchecked. ^{ch. 391}

Mo Wu Tian reaches the fog’s edge alone, senses an Immortal Gu’s aura, and uses his purple eyes to glimpse an endless mass of guardian dogs through it. Unable to break the line by himself, he crosses a hundred miles in moments to reach Hu Mei Er, newly advanced to rank five and stalled outside a green eggman stronghold she cannot break into. Mo Wu Tian dismisses her plan, calling her too short sighted and sneering that this is just what he would expect of a woman, and tells her the land spirit here is not dead: a dead Gu Immortal’s treasure waits in the deepest area, behind a thick fog and over a hundred thousand dogs neither of them can clear alone. He rattles off what the three kings actually held: King Bao, Wang Ba Dan, with eight egg empresses and countless eggmen; King Xin, Wang Xiao Ya, with a divulge information Gu and the undefeated hundred battles Gu; King Quan, Wang Er Gou, with the two dog emperors Ying Ming and Ba Huang. None of it interests him. ^{ch. 391}

Hu Mei Er understands at once, abandons the egg empress, and joins him to recruit. Between her network and his reputation, a demonic army thousands strong gathers quickly once word of the treasure spreads, drawing in the merchant Li Xian, Fiery Star Bao Tong and Rock Lizard Li Qiang among others. Watching clearly through the fog with the land spirit’s help, Bai Ning Bing sees them arrive at last and rises from the hill. ^{ch. 391}

Mo Wu Tian splits the army into four routes. Li Qiang takes three hundred people straight in, meeting the steel armor dogs first and the chrysanthemum akita dogs after retreating left, before breaking out to the southeast. Hu Mei Er takes five hundred left through lightning symbol dogs, hedgedogs and corpse dogs, ordered north regardless of her losses. Bao Tong takes eight hundred southwest, unopposed for five hundred steps before the lightning symbol dogs, with forty five minutes to break through or fall back. Li Xian holds four hundred in reserve, ready to move on command and otherwise responsible for the troops coming back. Mo Wu Tian himself will stand guard at the base. When Li Xian questions that, Mo Wu Tian only asks if it is a problem. Chilled, Li Xian privately judges that Mo Wu Tian’s cultivation and killing intent have grown so far that he now outstrips even the little beast king, and obeys without another word. ^{ch. 391}