Chapter 402

On San Cha mountain, Xiao Mang unleashes his killer move Immemorial Light Fist, and a fist of light the size of a hill punches a hole clean through the blessed land’s barrier. Gu Masters flood toward the opening, cheering and trading rumors about who might claim King Xin or King Bao’s inheritance, and the crowd’s rush drives the pressure on the blessed land sharply higher. Xiao Mang privately calls them a bunch of idiots before stepping through himself. ^{ch. 402}

Inside the bronze hall, the land spirit Ba Gui tells Fang Yuan it understands now: he had been waiting out the tremor on purpose, since refining through one could have brought disaster. Fang Yuan answers that he means to be Ba Gui’s master as well as its refiner, and says two more tremors remain to be dodged before he begins. He drops the false second aperture Gu into the cauldron, and with Ba Gui’s cooperation the bronze burns without fire, the last of its immortal essence rising as blue smoke around the Gu. Working alone this time rather than beside Feng Tian Yu, he blends the smoke with the yellow light it produces only slightly more slowly than before. ^{ch. 402}

Outside, Mo Wu Tian reaches the fog’s edge alone and sees through his purple eyes that the dog beast formation is too tight for one man to break, so he goes to recruit Hu Mei Er with talk of an immortal treasure and wins her over. On the way they learn the news has already spread, released by the killer ghost doctor Chou Jiu, who has gathered a large demonic crowd and is already marching on the bronze hall. Outmatched in numbers and standing, Mo Wu Tian has no choice but to fall in with Chou Jiu’s group. ^{ch. 402}

Chou Jiu welcomes him warmly, then stalls, insisting they wait for more people before charging, over Mo Wu Tian’s rising objections. Mo Wu Tian quietly stirs the crowd’s impatience through Hu Mei Er, Li Xian and others until Chou Jiu is forced to lead the group to the fog’s edge, still protesting that the fog is too dense to read and that his morals as a healer forbid sending people blind to their deaths. When Mo Wu Tian goads the demonic Gu Masters with the treasure again, Chou Jiu lets the crowd’s mood carry him, choosing who advances on the condition that only volunteers go. ^{ch. 402}

Land spirit warns Fang Yuan that the attack has begun; Fang Yuan, already expecting it, tells Ba Gui to take the field while he keeps the refinement stable alone. Splitting its attention, Ba Gui commands the dogs and beats the demonic crowd back exactly as it had in Fang Yuan’s previous life. A second assault Mo Wu Tian forces meets the same fate, and the group limps back with heavy losses. ^{ch. 402}

Chou Jiu steps forward to heal everyone, citing his rule of taking one life for every life saved, and the grateful crowd drifts further toward him and away from Mo Wu Tian. He needles Mo Wu Tian publicly over the dead; privately, Mo Wu Tian seethes, now certain some skilled enslavement path Gu Master is behind the dogs’ fast adaptation, and unable, with rank five Chou Jiu looking on, to bully the demonic Gu Masters into charging the way he once could. ^{ch. 402}

Chou Jiu argues for waiting until the righteous path gathers so the two factions can talk rather than spend demonic lives clearing the way for a rival’s benefit, and the demonic Gu Masters praise him for it. Time passes until Xiao Mang’s righteous coalition arrives; both sides charge separately and both are turned back. Anxious over the still unopened King Bao Inheritance, Xiao Mang uses a second killer move, My Glorious Spear, and the blast strips the fog away, revealing the bronze hall and the full dog army to everyone watching. Both factions see that only an alliance can get them through, but neither leader will bend first, Xiao Mang mindful of what it would cost the Xiao clan’s reputation, and the two sides settle into a standoff. ^{ch. 402}

Fang Yuan credits an unnamed piece of his own scheme for buying the lull and resumes the refinement once the second tremor passes. The blue smoke and yellow light finally blend into drifting grass and falling flowers, and when Fang Yuan cuts his own artery, the blood he pours in turns the mixture into a red, sea-like cloud that condenses into a floating sphere and settles into a field heavy with red wheat. Pale from the blood loss, he heals the wound, speaks a short verse about grass, blood and the turning of centuries, and drops in a three-hundred-year lifespan Gu shaped like a coiled, root-textured snake. Where the same disturbance had nearly ruined the refinement in his previous life, he now holds it steady. When Ba Gui warns that the attackers outside are moving together and there may be no time left, Fang Yuan answers only that everything is under his control, and takes out a second lifespan Gu. ^{ch. 402}