Chapter 394

Within five minutes the battle turns the ground to a red river studded with corpses, the noise of yells, howls and dying men shaking the whole mountainside. Bai Ning Bing, hidden and drawing on the land spirit’s help, slowly steadies the dog groups even as the common breeds, lightning symbol and chrysanthemum akita dogs among them, take the worst of the losses. Gu Masters who fight through them run straight into the five great mountain dogs’ circular formation, a dam that both righteous and demonic factions batter themselves against at heavy cost. ^{ch. 394}

Jiao Huang, bleeding badly, leans on Meng Tu’s arm to keep moving; stopping now would mean the dog beasts swallow them. He laments that the pair, rank three peak stage Gu Masters famous for once assassinating rank four Xiao Fu Lu, took Shang clan’s contract on Fang Zheng’s head, only to be swept up chasing an immortal treasure and driven into this danger instead. Across the field, only rank five fighters move freely and rank four peak stage Gu Masters fight well, while rank four upper stage Gu Masters can only move with the crowd, rank one and two Gu Masters take the worst of the dying, and rank three Gu Masters survive mostly on luck. Even so the crowd keeps charging, its greed for the treasure not cooling until the moment of death, and by then it is too late. ^{ch. 394}

Tie Ruo Nan, guarded by Tie clan’s four old-timers, slows in shock at the carnage, and the elders’ leader suspects Mo Wu Tian, a soul path Gu Master, is secretly stoking everyone’s bloodlust to fuel it. Tie Ruo Nan’s hatred flares, but an elder talks her down from going after a rank five opponent, and she agrees, refocusing on their real objective: little beast king Fang Zheng. ^{ch. 394}

Mo Wu Tian, delighted at how well the joint charge is going, reads the cracks appearing in Bai Ning Bing’s control: she once had Fang Yuan’s own instructions to follow, but the battle has grown far more complex than she can manage alone, and a Gu Master of his level can see it. While attacking the dogs and stirring the crowd’s fervor with his own Gu, he also scouts the field for her, reasoning that enslavement path Gu Masters hit hard but are resource-hungry and fragile once found. The moment he locates her, he turns himself into a bolt of purple demonic fog and closes to within a thousand steps in a few breaths. ^{ch. 394}

Bai Ning Bing sends her trump card, the hill sized dog emperor Ba Huang, which leaps over a hundred feet to smash into Mo Wu Tian; its bark alone lifts every dog’s morale and drives the Gu Masters’ casualties even higher. Ba Huang, lion maned and sun bright, is powerful enough with its wild Gu active to contend with a rank five Gu Master, and it stops Mo Wu Tian cold. A second threat arrives just as fast: rank five Xiao Mang, closing the distance in a streak of silver light. Bai Ning Bing answers with her second dog emperor, Ying Ming, cherry blossom patterned and small enough to pass for an ordinary dog until its wild Gu conjures clouds under its feet; Xiao Mang’s contempt for it lasts only a few exchanges before he starts fighting carefully. ^{ch. 394}

Even with both rank five experts held, Bai Ning Bing knows the standoff cannot last, since human cunning will sooner or later see through the dog emperors’ tricks or find a way around them to reach her directly. With the rest of the battlefield still occupied and no immediate threat, she turns her attention to the bronze hall instead, aware that time is short. ^{ch. 394}

Inside, Fang Yuan gasps for air with blood running from his seven orifices while Feng Tian Yu lies unconscious beside him, and a shapeless Gu hangs glowing in front of him, shifting between colored cloud and whirlpool of light. Fang Yuan exults: divine travel Gu is refined, and only the second aperture Gu remains. ^{ch. 394}

The land spirit Ba Gui appears at his side, weak but glowing with happiness, praises him as worthy of becoming a future Gu Immortal, and tells him the hardest step has passed: only third watch Gu remains, and it should come easily. It reflects that thousands of years of effort have finally paid off and the recipe works, sighs that it will not live to see the second aperture Gu finished, and fades away completely as it dies. ^{ch. 394}

Ba Gui had been sustaining both the refinement and Bai Ning Bing’s defense, and the strain finally withers it away; the narration notes that this death, unlike its desperate end at many Gu Masters’ hands in Fang Yuan’s previous life, comes as a comparatively proper one. Its death also ends the immortal essence Fang Yuan could draw on, but he is not worried, since the final step can run on primeval stones instead, and the essence remaining in the bronze cauldron was needed only to keep the blessed land itself running, never available for refinement regardless. ^{ch. 394}

Fang Yuan reflects that this refinement outstrips Spring Autumn Cicada’s difficulty. Xiao Mang’s earlier blast nearly wasted everything, and a failure at his current mortal cultivation would have killed him before he could even trigger Spring Autumn Cicada. This final step’s mental demands were beyond an ordinary mortal too, which is exactly why he had enslaved Feng Tian Yu as insurance. In his previous life he was already a Gu Immortal when he refined Spring Autumn Cicada, so succeeding here as a mortal should have been impossible; he credits three things instead: the mysterious Gu Immortal’s lifetime spent perfecting the recipe, the recipe’s own use of the Immortal Gu divine travel, and the help of the land spirit and refinement grandmaster Feng Tian Yu. ^{ch. 394}

Calm again, Fang Yuan starts listening for news of the fight outside when Bai Ning Bing’s warning cuts in: a rank four Gu Master has broken through the dog formation and is heading straight for him. His expression turns heavy as he slowly stands. ^{ch. 394}