Chapter 485

Eight days later, Fang Yuan sets out again on the white-eyes wolf. Ge Guang reports that most small and mid-sized tribes have already left crescent lake for the heroes assembly, leaving only the large tribes behind; Bei Cao Chuan, Pei Yan Fei, and their peers are the first to go. Fang Yuan reasons that large tribes usually attend the assembly’s second half, held back by their own affairs, and decides Ge tribe will stay a while longer to digest its gains rather than travel yet. Eight days of steady expansion and captive recruitment have already swelled the tribe’s strength. ^{ch. 485}

Told that roughly five thousand water wolves den nearby each night, Fang Yuan waves off Ge Guang’s offer of an escort. He rides out with the weakened turtleback myriad wolf king and eighteen thousand wolves, leaving the wind wolf king behind to guard the tribe. Following his scouts’ maps, he breaks one den after another. The water wolves resist, but his larger numbers overwhelm them, and by nightfall he has subdued over six thousand water wolves, two thousand turtleback wolves, and a thousand night wolves, though a targeted pack of wind wolves outruns him and escapes, and any group guarded by its own myriad wolf king he leaves alone. ^{ch. 485}

The hunt is cover. Once satisfied, Fang Yuan finds a secluded spot, reaches Little Hu Immortal through moving perspective cup Gu, and has her open a stargate Gu. He sends the injured turtleback king and his weakest wolves through first, to recover and breed faster in the blessed land’s quickened time, keeping only his strongest wolves with him before following. Inside, Little Hu Immortal reports that Lang Ya Old Immortal has resurfaced in treasure yellow heaven, buying materials Fang Yuan recognizes as ingredients for second aperture Gu. He reasons that the buyer must be Lang Ya land spirit, that the purchase means the land spirit survived the recent second wave of attacks, and that the urgency of a second buying trip means the land spirit still holds divine travel Gu. Judging the land spirit intelligent but too rigid to scheme, he decides to move at once. ^{ch. 485}

Fang Yuan returns to crescent lake, marches the wolf group to the stone forest without rest, and re-enters Lang Ya blessed land through Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable’s old entry point. The twelve cloud buildings stand scarred by fire, lightning, and frost, and a mountain-sized nine color spirit deer lies dead on blood-stained cloud soil. The land spirit greets him grumpily and explains that intruders tampered with his purchase, slipping in through a passage that opened mid-refinement, and that he killed every one of them. Fang Yuan privately reasons that Lang Ya blessed land, built on Long Hair Ancestor’s deep foundations, could not fall easily to this second wave, that only one of its twelve desolate beasts has died, and that with Old Man Yan Shi still alive, the attacks have only begun. ^{ch. 485}

Fang Yuan states plainly that he has guessed the land spirit’s identity, and that it bought and kept divine travel Gu safe. The land spirit boasts as much, crediting the nine color spirit deer’s death for it, then turns wary and demands to know why Fang Yuan has come. Fang Yuan answers that he wants the land spirit to refine second aperture Gu for him. Long Hair Ancestor once promised to refine nine Gu, free of any cost, for Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable; six of those chances are already spent, and the remaining three were sealed into an inheritance for a fated successor. In Fang Yuan’s previous life the inheritance went to Ma Hong Yun, but this time Fang Yuan arrived first and claimed it himself. He has already used the first chance for stargate Gu, and now means to use the second. Bound by Long Hair Ancestor’s own promise, the land spirit cannot refuse, but it is furious at being outmaneuvered after paying so dearly to protect divine travel Gu, and demands to know if Fang Yuan engineered the raid himself. Fang Yuan denies it, claiming he only learned of the Gu once the land spirit’s purchases gave it away, and the land spirit, cursing him for a schemer, has no choice but to comply. ^{ch. 485}