Chapter 397

Fang Yuan, certain he has lost, tells Bai Ning Bing he underestimated her and calls her plan flawless, blaming his own carelessness and overconfidence for letting her succeed. She answers that only the perfect convergence of timing, place and opportunity let her plot against him, and admits that juggling an Immortal Gu refinement against both the righteous and demonic factions would have left her doing worse in his place. She asks him to give up what she calls a pointless struggle, since it is now winner takes all. Fang Yuan sneers back that the only reason he is still alive is that she and Tie Ruo Nan still want the Immortal Gu’s effects and the recipe locked in his head. ^{ch. 397}

With the land spirit dead and the blessed land crumbling toward destruction, its loopholes now let every Gu Master use Gu freely, unsuppressed by any heavenly power. That means Fang Yuan could set every one of his own Gu to self-detonate with a single thought, and neither Bai Ning Bing nor Tie Ruo Nan could stop him. ^{ch. 397}

Fang Yuan taunts Tie Ruo Nan that Tie Mu Bai and the others died in his hands, and that she must bring the Immortal Gu back to redeem herself or lose her position as young master. Expressionless, she agrees: Immortal Gu are unique and vitally important, and bringing one home would be unprecedented merit, earning her the Tie clan Gu Immortals’ nurturing and reward. Only Fang Yuan currently knows the recipe to refine one, and if she can deliver that to the clan too, she could become young clan leader outright. She privately resolves to rule as justly as Tie Mu Bai once did, so he can rest easy in the afterlife, and thinking of the clansmen Fang Yuan killed fills her eyes with red and her chest with intense fury and hatred, and with the great satisfaction of getting her revenge. ^{ch. 397}

She tells Fang Yuan she will not kill him, calling it truly spectacular that a mortal body managed to refine an Immortal Gu at all. Her offer is the Demon Suppression Tower: reform, then service to the Tie clan to atone for his sins, which she calls his best possible outcome. Fang Yuan mocks the phrase back at her and agrees to negotiate a transaction, though he is only stalling, his attention fixed on the fighting outside the hall. ^{ch. 397}

His mind is drained from Gu refinement, his primeval essence low, his rank four all-out effort Gu still unrefined and many of its beast phantoms already used up. He is in no shape to force a fight against two well-prepared opponents in Bai Ning Bing and Tie Ruo Nan, four Tie clan old-timers, and Tie Bai Qi’s dog-controlling elder. Spring Autumn Cicada remains his best chance, but it carries a real risk of dying, and he will not gamble it while any other option is left. His true hope is that the Gu Masters battling outside will eventually break into the hall and overturn everything, the very siege he had been working to hold off not long before. ^{ch. 397}

Outside, the crowd seethes that the Tie clan must be the mastermind behind it all and insists the immortal treasure belongs to everyone, not one super clan. A purple barrier shields the bronze hall, held by the four old-timers at its four directions. Tie Bai Qi stands watch at the doorway: an old man crowned in white hair, a third eye shining on his forehead. He is a rank five enslavement path Gu Master and Tie clan elder, once Tie Mu Bai’s own capable general, called out of cultivation and sent to distant San Cha mountain on Tie Mu Bai’s orders. His dogs fight at several times their normal strength, and he lets losses mount without concern, holding every attacker back. ^{ch. 397}

Mo Wu Tian struggles against wave after wave of reinforcing dogs even as dog emperor Ba Huang heals its wounds under a milky-white glow. Compared to when Bai Ning Bing strained to control Ba Huang, Tie Bai Qi commands the whole battlefield with ease, showing the enslavement path at full strength. Xiao Mang, blocked by dog emperor Ying Ming and desperate that Tie clan will claim the treasure, flies up through the vast hole torn in the blessed land’s sky. ^{ch. 397}

He builds a killer move in stages: gather light Gu pools sunlight into a huge ball, extreme light Gu infuses it with the glory of the immemorial era, and river under the sun Gu shatters it into an overwhelming river of light. Torrential Light Stream crashes down through the hole, turning the whole battlefield white and forcing everyone to shut their eyes. Tie Bai Qi can only blunt it a little before it is too late. The purple barrier holds only a moment before shattering, and the four old-timers sustaining it spit blood and take grave injuries. ^{ch. 397}

Weakened but unstopped, the light river tears through the broken hall toward Fang Yuan, Bai Ning Bing and Tie Ruo Nan. As the two women flinch to dodge, Fang Yuan activates Warp Gu, a rank five movement Gu taken from killing Chou Jiu the killer ghost doctor, and vanishes on the spot. The light carves a crater about two meters deep where he stood; Tie and Bai dodge in time and stand at its edge, unshaken. ^{ch. 397}

Tie Ruo Nan reads the escape as warp Gu at once, and when Bai Ning Bing asks if they are simply letting him go, she reminds her of the fixed star Gu: even at the edge of the world, the four old-timers’ infinite search and lock can still drag him back. Better to let him run and burn through his strength first, she says, sparing them the trouble. The narration notes how much she has grown through her recent trials. ^{ch. 397}

The warp jump leaves Fang Yuan vomiting blood, dizzy and disgusted, his insides feeling wrenched apart. It is the price of a space path Gu whose backlash tangles tendons, reverses blood flow and dislocates joints with repeated use, turning even a handsome user hideous over time. He no longer cares. Still short of the bronze hall and swarmed by dogs, he retreats, muttering that the second aperture Gu can stay safe with them for now and vowing to return this hatred a million times over. ^{ch. 397}

Tie Ruo Nan physically holds the second aperture Gu, but Fang Yuan refined it himself and keeps the power to detonate it, something he would only do with no other choice left. Using it properly needs immortal essence he lacks, or else an insane number of primeval stones in its place, and Spring Autumn Cicada already strains his aperture too much to hold a second Immortal Gu without exploding it. Carrying the Gu openly would leak its aura and make him the target of two rank five, more than ten rank four, and countless rank three and two Gu Masters, so his plan is to let Tie Ruo Nan draw that fire while he watches from the sidelines and waits to strike as the eventual winner. ^{ch. 397}

Heaven does not cooperate. Gu Masters spot him leaving the hall, cry out that the little beast king must be carrying a piece of the treasure, and turn on him at once, a small group of heavy tai dogs striking first. Beyond the righteous and demonic Masters closing in around him, Tie Bai Qi marks him out for hostile attention of his own. ^{ch. 397}