White Bone Chariot
An hour later, Fang Yuan lands with Ge Yao safely on the ground, and her legs give out under her; pale and gasping, she needs a long moment to recover. In the air she had killed at least a hundred shadow crows and felt, by her own account, at death’s door throughout, as the crows came in endless waves and earth spikes shot up from below. Fang Yuan had twisted, turned, circled, dived and climbed through the assault, finding openings that should not have existed. ch. 430
Watching him tend his wounds, Ge Yao judges his flying the equal of northern plains’ own named fliers, Lightning Dong Po Kong, Water Immortal Song Qing Yin and Green Bat Wu Ye, and wonders again just what kind of man Chang Shan Yin really is. Fang Yuan’s rank four bone wings Gu shows only rank three strength in northern plains, and Ge Yao’s added weight cost him agility besides, which is why some of the crows’ attacks landed. He privately credits her water arrow, water dragon and water armor with saving his own primeval essence through the fight, worth more to him than the trouble she causes. He also weighs killing her for her Gu against keeping her alive, and judges that only her continued use lets a rank three middle stage Gu Master’s worth be fully spent; he still needs to trade out his own southern border Gu, suppressed here and a risk to his cover, which is why he needs the battlefield ahead. A person adapts to a new region over time, he reasons, but Gu worms never do, so his southern border Gu will always spend the same primeval essence for a smaller effect, until a rank four Gu of his is worse here than a northern plains rank three. ch. 430
He deepens the Immortal Gu’s concealment again, using dusty Gu, a cocoon-like Gu that bursts into grey smoke and settles over bright pearl Gu, dimming its shine and muffling fixed immortal travel Gu’s leak still further; the method comes from his previous life, developed for Gu Masters slipping between regions during the five-region chaotic battle. Ge Yao asks what he is doing, and he does not answer. ch. 430
Deeper on, Ge Yao steps on a human skull and screams, but Fang Yuan only says it is because this is a battlefield and walks faster. As the purple fog thins around them, she sees human and wolf skeletons scattered across ground pitted with old trenches, evidence of a fierce fight at least twenty years past. The sight jars loose a childhood memory: her father once hosted a guest who told of Chang tribe’s own hero, an enslavement path Gu Master nicknamed the Wolf King, filial enough to his poisoned mother that he went alone into poison grassland seeking the snow wash Gu that could cure her, only for his rival Ha Tu Gu to scheme against him there; the guest’s story ended with the Wolf King, Chang Shan Yin, losing his life on this same ground. ch. 430
Ge Yao blurts out that Fang Yuan is Wolf King Chang Shan Yin, then catches herself: the real Chang Shan Yin would be near forty by now, and this man’s face and accent do not match, so she wonders instead if he is Chang Shan Yin’s grown son, since the Wolf King left behind a wife and children, among them a son now grown and known for his talent. Fang Yuan only laughs. ch. 430
A grinding, wheel-like sound cuts him off, and a towering white bone wheel rolls out of the fog, two men tall, its rim studded with bone spikes and its hub a skull with flame-red eye sockets: Ha Tu Gu’s rank five Battle Bone Wheel, wild since its master’s death and now fed on white bones. It smashes Fang Yuan’s golden dragon Gu to pieces on its first charge and keeps coming; he flees into the air, but the wheel follows, and rather than dodge he meets its next hit with golden coat Gu and is still sent crashing into the grass. Ge Yao’s three water arrows draw its attention onto her instead, and she dodges and fights back with water trace and water armor until Fang Yuan rejoins the fight. He had meant to dodge the wheel entirely and go straight for Chang Shan Yin’s corpse, but with Ge Yao able to help him, he decides to fight it instead. Using a kiting tactic Fang Yuan devises, and exploiting the wheel’s lack of intelligence, the two take turns wearing it down for four hours until it finally topples, and Fang Yuan spends fifteen minutes pouring his will and primeval essence into it, his hundred man soul giving him mental energy enough to hold that will firm, before it yields: a rank five Gu, though cracked nearly to pieces, more than even his rank six Spring Autumn Cicada and fixed immortal travel Gu could have refined whole in an instant. ch. 430
