Chapter 603

Tai Bai Yun Sheng wakes from a nightmare, sitting up drenched in sweat. Since failing the round that let Gao Yang and Zhu Zai die for his own greed, the same dream returns almost every night. Blood beasts encircle him while the two beg him as their benefactor to save them, and even with an aperture full of primeval essence he cannot move, watching them consumed down to bare bone. He wakes feeling like a stranger to himself, no longer sure he is still Tai Bai Yun Sheng. ^{ch. 603}

That night Imperial Court blessed land shines under silver light, and above the sacred palace Eighty-Eight True Yang Building is still growing new floors. Watching from his window, Hei Lou Lan seethes over the owner token he lost while challenging the round. No Lord of the Imperial Court before him had ever lost it. Without the token he cannot use the Grey Meltdown killer move. He vows the loss will not stop him from taking the strength path Immortal Gu, and swears revenge to his dead mother. ^{ch. 603}

Fang Yuan walks the sacred palace garden, troubled over how to subdue the Imperial Court land spirit. Frost Jade Peacock had told him its condition for a new owner: true love, a Gu Master couple genuinely in love with each other, not one person alone. Giant Sun Immortal Venerable met that condition easily. For Fang Yuan, being truly in love with any woman is close to impossible. ^{ch. 603}

Stopped on a stone bridge over the garden’s lake, Fang Yuan finds himself thinking of a woman buried deep in his previous-life memory, met during the poorest stretch of that life. He catches himself asking why he would think of her over true love. His gaze turns cold, and her image vanishes from the water. He reasons this is why the central continent Gu Immortals of his previous life chose to destroy Imperial Court blessed land and Eighty-Eight True Yang Building rather than claim them. Gu Immortals carry deep secrets and extreme personalities that make true love harder for them than for mortals. ^{ch. 603}

Since Gruel Mud began melting the seal, the land spirit’s hatred and hunger for freedom keep pushing it to resist further. Giant Sun’s will still sleeps, but Fang Yuan judges it will wake once the seal melts far enough or the land spirit keeps struggling against it. A fight between an enraged Immortal Venerable and a land spirit drawing on an intact blessed land would be worse than a battle of deities. Fang Yuan freed the land spirit himself. If Giant Sun’s will targets him for that, he has no way out. ^{ch. 603}

Fang Yuan’s plan for Imperial Court blessed land runs three steps. First, using his previous-life memories, he killed the Wolf King Chang Shan Yin at his last breath, took his identity, rose to a higher-up of Hei tribe’s army, and entered Imperial Court blessed land hidden inside the alliance army. Second, inside Eighty-Eight True Yang Building he would use the previous-life video to subdue the land spirit and become the blessed land’s new owner without waking Giant Sun’s will. Third, once he owned it he would not rush to seize Eighty-Eight True Yang Building itself, but hide and develop in secret while the land spirit stayed inside the white jade hall cooperating with the building’s operation. Secrecy is forced on him, since the building holds an Immortal Venerable’s will and Imperial Court blessed land is sacred to northern plains’ Gu Masters and cannot be defiled. Discovery would turn the whole of northern plains against him, and no super force would shelter him from that pressure. Only during the chaotic battle of the five regions, when no one has energy to spare for him and all five regions are suffering setbacks, could he survive being exposed. ^{ch. 603}

Owning the land spirit would let Fang Yuan draw on the blessed land’s strength against Tai Bai Yun Sheng. Whatever their confrontation’s outcome, he would not lose. Even if he failed to take the landscape as before Immortal Gu, the land spirit’s protection would keep him out of mortal danger. It would also let him use Fixed Immortal Travel to shuttle between Hu Immortal blessed land and Imperial Court blessed land. Hu Immortal, coveted by the Immortal Crane Sect, would serve as cover for scheming against that sect, while Imperial Court, shielded by an Immortal Venerable’s own setup, served as his true and safer base. Each time Eighty-Eight True Yang Building opened he could gather its resources freely, working toward becoming a blood path Gu Immortal as he had in his previous life. ^{ch. 603}

But the plan stalls at step two. Unable to become the land spirit’s owner, Fang Yuan cannot borrow its strength, and as a mortal there is little else he can do. He could flee through hole earth Gu to Hu Immortal blessed land if Giant Sun’s will wakes, but he could not carry his summoned Immortal Gu with him. Even if he obtained the landscape as before Immortal Gu, a mortal without the land spirit’s help could not return to Hu Immortal blessed land quickly and safely. His remaining option is to convince the land spirit to side with him against Giant Sun’s will, though he says he does not want to resort to one final method he does not name. ^{ch. 603}