The wolf groups still move like a tsunami through the blessed land. Fang Yuan sits indifferently on the back of an azure wolf king, turning a blind eye to the massacre in front of him. In his mind, Mo Yao’s will frowns slightly. She is a fairy nurtured by Spirit Affinity House, of the righteous path, and is naturally unhappy at his casual massacre. ch. 572
Mo Yao’s will marvels that this young man disguised his identity and slipped into Imperial Court blessed land under the eyes of Northern Plains’ Gu Immortals, calling him dauntless and crafty. She notes that he also deciphered the clues of her inheritance and refined the Immortal Gu, and judges him not only fated but possessed of extraordinary methods. Most tellingly to her, he knows to bow and compromise the moment he sees things will not go his way, which she reads as proof of real shrewdness. She wonders what his origin could be. ch. 572
Mo Yao’s will had recently emerged from Water Pavilion and taken up residence in Fang Yuan’s mind, and had already read many of his thoughts and learned several of his secrets. Fang Yuan reacted quickly and took countermeasures. His response slowed her progress greatly, so what Mo Yao’s will learned stayed limited to the secrets Fang Yuan had revealed to her of his own accord. She still did not know that he possessed Spring Autumn Cicada, and so had no way of knowing his greatest secret, that he was a transmigrator. ch. 572
This is the world of Gu. Mo Yao herself had already died, leaving behind only a portion of her will, which cannot use Gu worms and can only exploit Fang Yuan’s low attainment in wisdom path. She reasons that, having only just awakened, she does not yet know his background, though she can see he has absurdly firm willpower and strong opinions. She decides to bide her time and guide him back to Water Pavilion at the sect first, planning to persuade him toward good only once they reach Spirit Affinity House. Having inherited some of the original Mo Yao’s intelligence, her will senses that persuasion would be useless and falls quiet. ch. 572
Fang Yuan’s dark, eerie gaze slowly retracts. He closes his eyes to rest on the wolf’s back. He is not someone who slaughters willfully, and there is a reason he lets the wolves massacre at full force today. ch. 572
The first reason is to draw the earth chief beast groups up from underground, since the thick smell of blood stimulates their savage nature and pushes them to risk emerging. The second is that the massacre produces large numbers of souls, which Fang Yuan has been collecting with soul burial toad since the Imperial Court contest began. He feeds these souls into Dang Hun Mountain, and more souls serve him better as long as it survives. The third reason is to probe Mo Yao’s will. ch. 572
As for repercussions from wantonly killing Gu Masters, Fang Yuan feels happy rather than afraid, since he had already made a public announcement that made the consequences clear to everyone. Even rising resentment does not concern him. He stands at the peak of mortals, going by the name Wolf King Chang Shan Yin, no longer the minor figure of years earlier who had to move cautiously. ch. 572
Inside Imperial Court blessed land, where Gu Immortals cannot enter, one shout from him can make countless Gu Masters tremble. His stomp can shake the sacred palace. A single thought from him sends the wolf groups into an instant bloodbath. ch. 572
On Earth, the novel states, political power comes from military strength and a strong fist is power, yet because power there stays with the masses, one still needs righteousness to dress up the truth and win over public sentiment. Here, individual strength stands far above the group, and public sentiment and righteousness carry far less weight. Fang Yuan himself is the example given. Whoever crosses him faces destruction, and whoever displeases him can be killed without hesitation, since he looks on all lives with disdain, tramples public sentiment and moves free of restraint. ch. 572
Yet in his pursuit of the Great Dao, Fang Yuan has no real interest in slaughtering ants for its own sake. Today’s massacre is only a small step toward his larger goal. He opens his eyes as he thinks of that goal. ch. 572
A beast roar echoes across the sky. A mound bulges up in the distance and bursts open, and a fifty foot tall earth chief myriad beast king jumps out, scattering mud and stones. Fang Yuan’s eyes flash with a chilly light as he names it his target. He commands the wolf group to attack. ch. 572
Seen from high above, innumerable wolves rush forward like an endless tide. As they near the myriad beast king, the wolves split into several groups like ants climbing an elephant, while azure wolves fly down and spiral around it like birds. The earth chief myriad beast king rampages through the wolf group, splattering wolf blood and covering the ground with wolf corpses, its giant legs leaving blood pits in its trail. ch. 572
Fang Yuan watches with a smile from the sky. Under his control, the wolf groups advance and retreat, sometimes slow and sometimes fast, charging forward wave after wave in a pattern of ants devouring an elephant. The earth chief myriad beast king roars again and again as it charges, inflicting large numbers of casualties on the wolf groups. ch. 572
In Fang Yuan’s mind, Mo Yao gives a soft exclamation of surprise. She marvels that so young a talent commands these wolves as naturally as breathing, using them like his own arms. She judges that he has already mastered the enslavement path’s attrition tactics, fighting a strong enemy with a weak force at a master’s level. Still, it is only a slight shock to her. Mo Yao has seen and lived through a great deal, being a certain generation’s fairy of Spirit Affinity House with broad horizons, and masters as young as Fang Yuan are not rare in her memory. ch. 572
The battle drags on and the myriad beast king’s energy drains. It can no longer show its fiercest strength, and large numbers of earth chief beasts climb up from underground to join the fight. Fang Yuan chuckles, commanding the wolves with ease, since he had already expected this. The outcome of the battle was decided from the start, since a myriad beast scale earth chief beast group could never match him. The fight covers a range of a thousand li, but Fang Yuan divides it into dozens of battle circles, using weak wolf groups to surround while strong, vigorous mutated beasts form an arrowhead that charges forward. Section by section the wolf group destroys the earth chief beast forces, and as the dominance accumulates the wolf group’s pace quickens until they finally butcher the earth chief myriad beast king. ch. 572
Mo Yao judges his commanding ability exquisite and bold, mixing sharp and mild tactics, yet still far from grandmaster level. Raising, using and refining Gu are each profound skills. Some Gu Masters perform well enough at these to be called an art, and such people are named masters, a level that can be found but not sought, requiring innate talent as well as capability rather than resources alone. Above master stands grandmaster. Comparing master to grandmaster is like comparing grass to a tree, since grandmaster attainment also needs fortuitous opportunity and comprehension beyond talent, aptitude and resources. Once a Gu Master reaches grandmaster level, the novel states they can draw comprehension of any path from their own, grasp yin and yang and heaven and earth, and surpass the mortal realm to become immortals among immortals and sages among sages. ch. 572
Mo Yao herself was a refinement path grandmaster. Though she has perished, her broad vision remains within her will, and she has seen countless masters across her life. What impresses her most is Fang Yuan’s young age. ch. 572
Before long, the earth chief myriad beast king falls, dead of its wounds. Blood pools rapidly beside its body. Fang Yuan descends, skins it himself, and begins refining a Gu beside the pool of blood while the wolves surround him. Mo Yao’s modified earth chief zombie Gu needs the freshest flesh, and a myriad beast king’s flesh serves best, a thousand beast king’s second best, and a hundred beast king’s flesh only as a last resort. That is why Fang Yuan moved at such scale and personally killed the earth chief myriad beast king. The refinement continues for three days and three nights before it finally succeeds. ch. 572
Fang Yuan’s goal is reached. With it, he dismisses most of the wolf groups to hunt in the wild. He keeps only the elite mutated beasts with him and returns to the sacred palace without stopping. ch. 572
The battlefield falls into deathly stillness. A bloody figure suddenly claws his way out of a hill sized blood forest wolf corpse. He sways as he moves and falls to the ground after only a few steps, gasping and muttering in disbelief that he is still alive. He rubs his face and reveals himself: Ma Hong Yun. ch. 572
After Jiang Dong knocked him unconscious, Ma Hong Yun had remained on the ground, and the old earth chief beast king had ignored him to keep chasing Jiang Dong. But the wolf group soon swept through and slaughtered everything living there, and Ma Hong Yun ended up inside a wolf’s mouth. An ordinary wolf, a turtleback wolf, water wolf or wind wolf, would already have torn him into pieces and left him in its stomach. Fortunately, that wolf was the hill sized blood forest wolf. With one lick of its huge tongue it had swallowed everything within a hundred steps, taking Ma Hong Yun down together with the old beast king’s corpse. Left to run its course, he would eventually have been digested into wolf droppings, but this wolf was attacked from every side and died on the battlefield, its chest and belly torn open and letting air back in. ch. 572
Ma Hong Yun wakes dizzily and claws his way out. By then the battle had already ended, and the field lay covered in beast corpses, with the occasional dying beast still gasping and only deepening the stillness around him. Once he catches his breath, his strength slowly returns, and the thick smell of blood fills his nose. He realizes he must leave quickly, before the smell draws in wild beasts. Having been born and raised in Northern Plains, this survival instinct is already ingrained in him. He stands, gets his bearings toward the sacred palace, and sets off. ch. 572
He stops after only a few steps. His eye catches a wild Gu worm still clinging to the corpse of an earth chief beast. The beast is dead and its Gu should have perished or flown off, but a fractured bone holds this one back. Ma Hong Yun cannot quite place its rank or name, only guessing at a rank two Gu of some kind, but he still recognizes its value. Excited, he thinks he could sell it for primeval stones. He walks over and easily picks up the Gu worm. ch. 572
