Chapter 408

Fang Yuan wakes to a blur of pink that resolves into a thin silk curtain, chimes ringing as it sways in the wind. He gets up from an enormous round bed, big enough to fit forty or fifty people, a silk blanket red on the underside with golden rims still covering him. The room around him is golden brick walled, silver bricked underfoot, its stove burning incense and every surface, bed, table, dressing stand, crowded with pearls, agate and diamonds; the previous owner’s affluence still hangs in the air. This is Hu Immortal’s Dang Hun Palace. ^{ch. 408}

He calls it a gentle home and steps off the bed, his body shaking, his mind still dizzy. He understands why. He pushed himself past his limit back on San Cha mountain, between Bai Ning Bing’s betrayal, two factions’ pressure, and scheming against the land spirit there, then refining the second aperture and the fixed immortal travel Gu in the torrential light stream under the weight of one long gamble. Feng Jin Huang and Fang Zheng were at their own limits when he used fixed immortal travel Gu to reach Dang Hun Mountain, but his toll ran deeper still, since Spring Autumn Cicada could no longer be used and he had just torn the inheritance away in front of the ten sects’ Gu Immortals, an extremely dangerous move by the narration’s own judgment. ^{ch. 408}

He was first to reach the peak. The land spirit drove the other claimants off, and once Fang Yuan was confirmed as the blessed land’s master he ordered it sealed shut. After a few last instructions he fell asleep at once in a safe spot. ^{ch. 408}

He wakes still exhausted, a weakness reaching into his soul, his ears buzzing and his thoughts slow to form. His soul is injured, and he traces it to refining an Immortal Gu in a mortal’s body. A good recipe drawn from Ren Zu’s tales, and materials centered on divine travel Gu, since the work amounted to turning divine travel Gu into fixed immortal travel Gu, spared him the hundredfold difficulty his previous life’s Spring Autumn Cicada refinement carried. Even so, his soul’s own foundation was too weak, and it paid the price. At least, he thinks, this happened on Dang Hun Mountain. ^{ch. 408}

He calls for the land spirit. Little Hu Immortal appears, her face red, and reports that she healed his left arm on her own while he slept and wanted to bring him clothes, but nothing in the palace fits him; it is all Hu Immortal’s own women’s clothing. Fang Yuan waves off the clothes and asks how long he slept, and whether the blessed land was attacked. Seven days, she tells him, and nobody came. ^{ch. 408}

He does not know that Immortal Crane Sect’s He Feng Yang shielded him from the other nine sects, but he can guess part of the reason on his own. The blessed land is young, yet a land spirit, a deep store of immortal essence, and Dang Hun Mountain’s own protection together make it as hard to force as a fortress. He knows this from his previous life, when he joined nearly ten demonic Gu Immortals to invade this same place and won only narrowly, ending with himself and Song Zhong as the last two standing. Song Zhong, not yet born this time, was Song Zi Xing’s son and a rising demonic path star, and he fought Fang Yuan for tens of rounds without either winning, rising to fame on that fight alone. ^{ch. 408}

Recalling how that life used him as a stepping stone for Song Zhong, Fang Yuan resolves to find a chance to kill Song Zi Xing before the boy can even be born. Song Zi Xing holds part of the blood sea inheritance, the ancient desolate beast violent blood dragon bat, a creature rather than a worm, one that can simply be captured. Commanding blood bats was Fang Yuan’s greatest skill in his previous life, and the dragon bat would give him an endless supply, though that plan waits on the future; for now, this blessed land is what carries his cultivation forward. ^{ch. 408}

He asks the land spirit how long until the next earthly calamity. Five have already struck, she answers, her voice anxious, and the sixth is a year and three months away. Fang Yuan jumps up from the bed at the news, his face turning grim. An earthly calamity strikes every ten years and a heavenly tribulation every hundred, each earthly calamity worse than the one before; the fifth killed Hu Immortal, and Fang Yuan, having held a blessed land in his previous life, knows exactly how dangerous the sixth stands to be. ^{ch. 408}

He reasons that Feng Jin Huang’s account never dwelt on the timing because her Gu Immortal parents and Spirit Affinity House can shield her from it, a comfort he does not have. The sixth calamity is coming too soon for full preparation, and he still has to watch for outside enemies. He suspects the ten sects, having not yet moved against him, are simply waiting for the calamity to open a loophole they can exploit. Once it strikes, the land spirit will be fighting for the blessed land’s survival and cannot also protect him, and at rank four upper stage he would be an easy kill. His death would leave the land ownerless and force the land spirit to find a new master, and a big enough loophole would let outside Gu Masters in at will, worse still if the ten sects seize the moment. ^{ch. 408}

He decides to assess the danger and prepare as well as he can. If the fight is lost, he will abandon the blessed land, order it to self-destruct rather than leave resources for the righteous path, and flee on fixed immortal travel Gu. His own safety outweighs the land. ^{ch. 408}

He has the land spirit lead him outside to see it properly. She wonders aloud whether he might want proper clothing after all, since it would lift his spirits, and gets no answer. Dang Hun palace holds nothing his size, so he changes into a black robe he had stored inside the tusita flower and follows her up the mountain to its peak, where she turns the fierce wind into a gentle breeze with a wave of her hand. ^{ch. 408}

She lays out the land for him: four thousand square kilometers, time flowing five times faster than outside, mostly grassland grown from blue degree grass, water chestnut grass and six divine grass, with seven treasure flowers and milk tea flowers scattered through it, and she floats a virtual image of it all for him to see. These plants are refinement ingredients, some carrying wild Gu worms of their own. Across land equal to one and a half Hong Kongs, Fang Yuan wonders how many such worms there might be. A word from him is all it would take for the land spirit to catch any of them for him, whole. ^{ch. 408}