Chapter 418

Fang Yuan walks out of Dang Hun Palace onto a battlefield of holes and broken rock. Fresh blood, yellow mud, and fox and crab corpses lie mixed together, the swamp crab’s huge corpse pressing on the mountain’s waist like a small mountain of its own. The smell of blood fills his nose as the wind stirs his black hair. ^{ch. 418}

Little Hu Immortal, eyes red with tears, reports the toll. About six hundred and sixty six square kilometers of land are lost, and only sixty eight beads of immortal essence remain. The fox army has fallen from four million seven hundred thousand to three hundred and ten thousand, and roughly seven hundred thousand Gu worms are gone. By her reckoning, the blessed land has lost about forty years of development. ^{ch. 418}

Fang Yuan does not see it that way. He is tired, but happiness shows through in his eyes. Surviving the calamity buys him time to recover before the seventh one arrives. He comforts the land spirit: the blessed land is safe, Dang Hun Mountain still stands, and they can rebuild. The lost land will not hinder them in the short run, he tells her, since they could not have used it anyway. He points out that gutstones will soon fill Dang Hun Mountain and grow their rockmen numbers, and that with the lightning shadow exiled they can develop without worry. ^{ch. 418}

The crab’s soul, smashed to pieces by the mountain’s vibrations, has been absorbed into Dang Hun Mountain. Large numbers of gutstones will appear there before long. Hearing this, Little Hu Immortal stops crying and allows that it makes sense. ^{ch. 418}

Little Hu Immortal mourns the Gu worms that lived inside the swamp crab and died with it when Dang Hun Mountain killed it. Fang Yuan calls their real luck the fact that the crab carried no Immortal Gu. One overwhelming Immortal Gu could easily have overturned the fight, and even a captured one might only have replaced blue charm lightning shadow as the blessed land’s next great threat. He counts himself satisfied simply to have survived, a rank four upper stage mortal Gu Master who has just killed a desolate beast that troubles even Gu Immortals. ^{ch. 418}

He orders the land spirit to clean the battlefield and preserve the crab’s corpse while he rests, worn out from commanding over a million foxes. Little Hu Immortal eyes the crab’s shell eagerly. Every desolate beast is a trove of refinement material in its blood, fur, bones and organs, and she sets off to strip the corpse. ^{ch. 418}

Fang Yuan sleeps deeply for three days and wakes reluctant to move. He is genuinely relaxed for the first time since his rebirth, through all the plotting and resisting that culminated on San Cha mountain. He reflects that losing Hu Immortal blessed land now would be disastrous, since he has already exposed a great deal to protect it. The fixed immortal travel Gu he cannot carry safely in his own aperture as a mortal now sits inside the blessed land, fed on its immortal essence. And the second aperture Gu’s refinement depends on the land spirit’s control of that essence, until he reaches the Gu Immortal realm himself. Wait too long, he worries, and someone else might finish refining that same target, called divine travel Gu, first. ^{ch. 418}

After more rest and a meal, Little Hu Immortal reports she has finished dismantling the crab. She hands over three Gu besides: letter path Gu worms sent in through the loophole on the day of the calamity, before it could grow large enough for people to pass. They are a rank three lightning symbol paper crane Gu, a rank five letter sending green bird Gu, and a rank three flying sword letter Gu. ^{ch. 418}

The green bird unfolds into a letter from the rank seven Gu Immortal Feng Jiu Ge, calm in tone. He praises Fang Yuan before proposing a battle between him and his daughter, Feng Jin Huang, who has been despondent since her defeat. She wants to reclaim her pride at Spirit Affinity House, wagering the honor of both her house and Immortal Crane Sect. Fang Yuan dismisses it with contempt. He has too little time to spare for her wish to prove herself, he reasons; she has Gu Immortal parents and a sect behind her, while he has only himself. He already knows, too, that Feng Jiu Ge will soon be summoned to the heavenly court and ascend, leaving him unable to easily return to central continent. He also notices that the letter addresses him as though he were already an Immortal Crane Sect disciple, which strikes him as suspicious. ^{ch. 418}

The flying sword letter Gu carries a second challenge, full of insults and a threat to brand him a coward publicly if he refuses. Fang Yuan recognizes the sender: Jian Yi Sheng, a metal path Gu Master twisted in both looks and temper. He is a specialist in sneak attacks who hates taking a loss, a mean and devious coward among the demonic path Gu Immortals of Tian Ti mountain. In his previous life this same man ambushed him repeatedly, until Fang Yuan angered him enough to summon the blood sea and pinned him inside his own blessed land for twenty years. It ended with Jian Yi Sheng kneeling to surrender all Gu Immortal dignity. ^{ch. 418}

Fang Yuan works out why he is being challenged now. After Fang Yuan discarded part of the blessed land and threw blue charm lightning shadow onto Tian Ti mountain, Jian Yi Sheng ran into it. Though a Gu Immortal, he had no Immortal Gu of his own, and was beaten badly before escaping home to lick his wounds and send this letter. ^{ch. 418}

The lightning symbol paper crane Gu answers his suspicion. Opening it, Fang Yuan is startled to learn that Fang Zheng is alive. Reading further, he concludes that He Feng Yang of Immortal Crane Sect has deliberately spread word that Fang Yuan belongs to the sect, a move meant to drive off rival suitors. Fang Yuan has no intention of joining Immortal Crane Sect, but judges that what the letter actually offers suits his present needs. He orders the land spirit to open the blessed land slightly and let in the Gu Master who looks just like him. ^{ch. 418}