Chapter 591

Fang Yuan has returned to Imperial Court blessed land and entered Eighty-Eight True Yang Building many times, and he has never forgotten why he first came: to save Dang Hun Mountain. He needs landscape as before Gu to save the mountain. The Gu is bound up with one person, Tai Bai Yun Sheng, whom Fang Yuan has watched closely ever since he joined Hei tribe’s army. Months earlier, Fang Yuan learned that Hei Lou Lan’s one-edge owner token let him see the reward behind every round, and that Tai Bai Yun Sheng had gone to ask him about lifespan Gu before the tower held any. Once the fifty-fifth floor took shape, Hei Lou Lan found that its eighty-fifth round would reward a fifteen-year lifespan Gu, and Tai Bai Yun Sheng poured every resource he had into forcing a path through it. He sold himself as an external elder of Hei tribe to fund it. ^{ch. 591}

Fang Yuan reasons that if Tai Bai Yun Sheng secures the lifespan Gu he will not risk advancing to immortal, and without that advance there is no resonance of heaven and earth to form landscape as before Gu. Without that Gu, Dang Hun Mountain cannot be saved. In Fang Yuan’s memory of his previous life, Tai Bai Yun Sheng did take that risk, so this time Fang Yuan stays cautious and decides to intervene in person. He had meant to remove Mo Yao’s will first, settling the internal problem before the external ones, but that effort has made no progress. So now he uses his owner token to slip secretly into the fifty-fifth floor, whose depths hold a blood river and a blood palace of three great halls and sixty-nine auxiliary halls, each crowded with blood path Gu worms and blood beasts. Killing thins the Gu worms, but the blood beasts absorb blood and resurrect, so their numbers never fall. Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s earlier attempts had all failed to the beasts, until he discovered that seizing the command token hanging on a hall’s main beam makes them dissipate. ^{ch. 591}

When Fang Yuan enters, the group has already broken through thirty-three side halls and fallen to fewer than fifty people. Fang Yuan uses his six-edge owner token, already used once on the seventh floor, to take full control of the fifty-fifth floor, while Hei Lou Lan’s one-edge token controls only the fifth. He teleports to the main beam beside the command token. From there he watches the fight unfold through the floor’s control, as Zhu Zai and Gao Yang, two rank five Gu Masters, take turns holding the vanguard. The chapter names Tai Bai Yun Sheng the era’s top healing Gu Master of Northern Plains, and at the center of the formation he keeps using man as before Gu to heal the living and revive the dead. Even so, Tai Bai Yun Sheng, a rank five peak stage Gu Master, cannot save everyone, and as the group nears the command token the blood beasts they already killed resurrect behind them and block the retreat. ^{ch. 591}

Fang Yuan judges that this round would be easy for a blood path Gu Master, since subduing wild blood path Gu and devouring blood beasts strengthens that path quickly. But blood path is dangerous to reveal: because of Blood Sea Ancestor, the righteous path hunts down any blood path Gu Master who appears, and demonic Gu Masters, fearing that same rapid strength, add sneak attacks of their own. No blood path Gu Master serves in Hei tribe’s army. Judging Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s chance of success extremely slim, Fang Yuan’s worry eases by more than half, and he settles onto the beam with a book to pass the time. Death is possible in the tower, but Fang Yuan still needs Tai Bai Yun Sheng alive. ^{ch. 591}

In the fight below, man as before Gu heals one badly hurt Gu Master back to wholeness, while a fallen comrade’s corpse is dragged off and drained until the blood beasts that fed on it start growing human-like eyes, ears and arms. The distraction lets the group push forward tens of steps. ^{ch. 591}

Flipping the book to its third chapter, fourteenth section, Fang Yuan reads how Northern Dark Ice Soul wakes his elder sister Desolate Ancient Moon so the two can ask cognition Gu how to bring their father back to life. Cognition Gu, calling itself wisdom Gu’s mother, cannot help directly and sends the siblings to wisdom Gu instead, a Gu that once escaped Ren Zu’s capture by rules and regulations Gu. Wisdom Gu demands payment before it will help, and Desolate Ancient Moon at once offers her own middle age, meaning her life will skip straight from youth to old age. Northern Dark Ice Soul cannot talk her out of it. In payment, wisdom Gu directs them to a still blue sea in a western golden desert, source of all living beings, where a human-shaped life Gu could restore their father, but more than fifteen minutes there means being assimilated. Wisdom Gu warns that a human-shaped one is extremely hard to find, then flies off before they can ask more. ^{ch. 591}

The fight below turns: a blood beast with a dragon’s head and a bear’s body shatters one Gu Master’s ribs, and the formation nearly breaks apart. A mantis-shaped blood beast then slashes off another Gu Master’s head, and Tai Bai Yun Sheng thinks they are finished. Zhu Zai drops in like a tiger off the mountain, kills the mantis beast and steadies the formation, taking three deep wounds of his own. Tai Bai Yun Sheng heals Zhu Zai’s wounds and restores his spent primeval essence with man as before Gu, but the Gu worms Zhu Zai burned through earlier stay lost. Man as before Gu restores a body, never a Gu worm. ^{ch. 591}

The siblings search the sea and find only animal-shaped life Gu. As they leave, a deer-shaped life Gu that Northern Dark Ice Soul is carrying turns into a living fawn, the birth of a new life. Watching this, Desolate Ancient Moon realizes humans themselves are born of life Gu, and that their father Ren Zu was once a human-shaped gem from this very sea. The book judges such gems exceedingly rare in so vast a sea, and reckons Ren Zu was very likely the only one it ever produced. Desolate Ancient Moon resolves to sink into the sea and be assimilated herself, since her essence is still human despite her monstrous transformation, and Northern Dark Ice Soul cannot stop her. After fifteen minutes she is assimilated into a human-shaped blue gem, but a damaged one, less than half a whole human shape, because she had already given away her middle age. Northern Dark Ice Soul carries the gem home, feeling he had killed his sister. ^{ch. 591}

Back in the tower, the group thins to five, then three, as Tai Bai Yun Sheng, Zhu Zai and Gao Yang close within ten steps of the hall door. Zhu Zai and Gao Yang tell him that dying today would only repay the life debt they owe him. The chapter notes that the righteous path has its hypocrites just as the demonic path has its true heroes. Zhu Zai then charges alone into the blood beasts and dies. ^{ch. 591}

Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s primeval essence runs dry moments later, and a python-shaped blood beast swallows Gao Yang whole. Alone and covered in wounds, Tai Bai Yun Sheng spends his last primeval essence to summon a defensive golden armor, forces the hall door open, and falls inside as the blood beasts refuse to follow. Lying inside, he tallies the round’s grading: clearing all three halls and sixty-nine side halls means high grade, two halls and forty-six side halls means middle grade, and his own one hall and twenty-three side halls means only low grade. But he still obtained the fifteen-year lifespan Gu. Overcome, Tai Bai Yun Sheng faints where he lies. ^{ch. 591}