Chapter 536

Fang Yuan studies Chang Biao and the others’ faces. He knows Chang Shan Yin’s history mostly from a biography and does not know who caused his downfall, and the narration notes that even if he found out, he would not bother avenging a dead man whose identity is only a mask to him. To Chang Biao he announces that the matters of the past will be investigated in full once the Imperial Court contest ends, and that from today he is Chang tribe’s one and only supreme elder. Chang Biao bows at once. Fang Yuan sets the rest of the order himself: Chang Ji You becomes tribe leader, Chang Biao becomes the tribe’s number one elder, and his own bond to Ni Xue Tong is over, with instruction that she remain Chang Biao’s wife. The narration notes that under Giant Sun Immortal Venerable’s tradition, women hold low status across northern plains, at times sold in transactions or sent to sleep with an esteemed guest. Fang Yuan waves them off to return to his own cultivation. ^{ch. 536}

Once outside in the cold, Chang Biao feels only relief at surviving. He tells himself the affair from the past was handled flawlessly and its evidence is long gone after so many years. He reminds himself that he cultivated closeness with the real Chang Shan Yin on purpose, so a cooled relationship after so many years and Chang Shan Yin’s great change will read as natural. He reasons that his own authority is mostly intact, that the Wolf King must still trust him, and that naming Chang Biao elder and making Chang Shan Yin’s son tribe leader shows the Wolf King still cares about his own blood. He grows more confident, missing his wife Ni Xue Tong’s complicated expression beside him. The old Chang Shan Yin had been infatuated with her beauty, but this one has not given her a second glance. She had dreaded being reclaimed as the Wolf King’s own wife and separated from her lover Chang Biao, and instead gets to remain his, yet still feels an unexplained sense of loss. ^{ch. 536}

Chang Ji You cycles through joy, confusion and suspicion. His father did not call him son, only by name. He wonders whether he can manage the tribe at only rank three cultivation and so young. He decides this must be a test set by a father he has never met, resolving to prove himself in the fight for the Imperial Court ahead. ^{ch. 536}

The narration notes that Fang Yuan never expected such an emotional ripple from a simple arrangement, and that he would not have cared if he had. In the five hundred years of his past life, Chang Shan Yin helped Ma Hong Yun rise to Lord of the Imperial Court and held total control over Chang tribe. Unlike Earth, in this world a person’s strength can be accumulated, and the stronger someone grows, the greater their authority becomes. No longer the young man once suppressed at Qing Mao mountain, Fang Yuan now stands at the peak of the mortal realm, holding the power to reshape a whole tribe’s structure. He credits it entirely to his own strength. ^{ch. 536}

He takes stock of that strength. His first aperture, adapted, can now hold rank five peak stage primeval essence, and his second aperture has reached rank five middle stage, with both apertures at ninety percent A grade aptitude giving him ample essence for his two sets of Gu worms. But his enslavement and strength path Gu worms are not yet strong enough together: rank five amplify effect Gu already gives him high explosive force, except his body cannot sustain the increase. ^{ch. 536}

Fighting Liu Wen Wu and his brothers’ combined killer move Three Head Six Arms earlier, he could have met them with his strength path alone. But the instant he unleashed five hundred jun of strength, his own body would crumble first. This holds regardless of how the fight went for his opponent. His bones are impermanence bones and his skin is turtle jade wolf skin, not enough to sustain five hundred jun of strength. Modifying his body to favor one path undercuts the other, unlike soul path, which pairs cleanly with either enslavement or wisdom path. He resolves to leave soul path alone until he secures Luo Po Valley and focuses instead on resolving the conflict between his enslavement and strength paths. ^{ch. 536}

He studies the east window Gu, a storage Gu from Lang Ya land spirit. It holds the details of the three brothers’ killer move Three Head Six Arms, which he won from Hei tribe’s reparations by trading battle merit. The move needs eighteen Gu worms of rank three to five activated together by three Gu Masters at once. It is unusable by Fang Yuan alone, but valuable for showing how combined Gu worms can achieve more than any one of them could achieve apart. The recipe seeds an idea in him: whether his own body, the foundation beneath both his enslavement and strength cultivation, could be widened enough to support both at their full height, indifferent to how monstrous the result might look. ^{ch. 536}

Northern plains turns cold in July, and fewer than fifty armies remain in the contest. In the middle of the month, at Du Jiao, Ye Lui Sang’s army defeats an alliance of seven, and he personally kills three rank five Gu Masters. The greatest feat belongs to Qi Lian tribe’s hidden elder and the tribe leader’s godson, Wu Ming, a rank five middle stage dark path Gu Master. Wu Ming slips into the enemy camp and kills two rank five experts and thirteen rank four Gu Masters, leaving the seven alliance armies gripped by fear and low morale. In August, Yang tribe surges after recruiting the enslavement master Jiang Bao Ya. The new enslavement master and Leopard King, Nu Er Tu, marches on Tao tribe until its alliance leader Tao You, seeing no hope left of becoming Lord of the Imperial Court himself, submits and merges his forces with Nu Er Tu’s. By the middle of the month Hei Lou Lan resumes his own conquest. ^{ch. 536}

By September five armies hold the strongest claim on the Imperial Court. Hei tribe has Chang Shan Yin and Tai Bai Yun Sheng, Nu Er tribe stands under the new Leopard King, and Yang tribe has its Rat King and Eagle King. Ma tribe stands under the Horse King, and Ye Lui tribe has the Immortal Gu holder Ye Lui Sang. In the first half of September, Nu Er tribe’s leopards cannot contest the combined eagles and rats, and after half a month Nu Er Tu loses. At the start of October, Ye Lui Sang catches Yang tribe still digesting its own reparations; divided between fighting, defending and retreating, its army cannot agree on orders and falls to him. Before Ye Lui Sang can digest that win, Ma tribe forces a march of three days and three nights to catch him off guard in turn, and Ye Lui Sang flees with what remains of his troops to submit to Hei tribe. ^{ch. 536}

At the start of November, Hei tribe marches north, sets up eight defensive lines, and by the middle of the month meets Ma tribe in the battle both sides treat as deciding who stays in the Imperial Court. The loser faces reparations and ten years of blizzard. Hei tribe takes the early advantage, pushing Ma tribe back to its third defensive line, and Ye Lui Sang, seeking his own revenge, keeps up the pressure until Ma tribe’s morale sinks and its army can only hide and defend. Ma tribe turns to its backer, Snowy Mountain blessed land, for help. ^{ch. 536}