Chapter 605

Tribe leaders of Lou tribe, Lu tribe, Xi tribe and other small and middle sized tribes kneel before Tai Bai Yun Sheng, begging him to intervene after suffering the heaviest casualties in the Eighty-Eight True Yang Building challenges. Hei Lou Lan had already rejected their earlier written requests to halt the advance. They fear approaching Hei Lou Lan directly, so they turn instead to Tai Bai Yun Sheng, Hei tribe’s external elder and, the chapter says, the current top healing master in northern plains. The chapter adds that he is known as kind and merciful, with a reputation in northern plains second to none. ^{ch. 605}

Tai Bai Yun Sheng agrees to plead their case and goes to Hei Lou Lan, who at first refuses outright. Tai Bai Yun Sheng thinks the aggression most likely comes from the owner token Hei Lou Lan lost in the second round, and from heavy pressure by Hei tribe’s supreme elders. He relents only under one condition: the resting tribes must lend the army every one of their Gu worms, and each worm’s rank exempts one Gu Master of matching rank from the fighting. Facing near extermination, the tribe leaders accept. The black banner army collects the worms the next day, and after three days Hei Lou Lan holds a banquet praising Tai Bai Yun Sheng for cutting the army’s casualties. ^{ch. 605}

At the banquet, Hei Shu arrives covered in blood. He reports that the matter has been settled appropriately. Hei Lou Lan then admits it outright: stripped of their Gu worms, the small and middle tribes were defenceless, so his black banner army slaughtered them entirely, sparing no woman or child. He states plainly that he used Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s trusted name to get them to hand their Gu worms over. Hei Shu reads three motives behind it: an example written in blood for other tribes, a lesson for Tai Bai Yun Sheng about his standing, and a blow to his reputation that strengthens Hei Lou Lan’s own position. ^{ch. 605}

Tai Bai Yun Sheng calls him an unscrupulous scoundrel; Hei Lou Lan answers only that political affairs have always been dirty, and that Tai Bai Yun Sheng, once a tribe leader’s son himself, should know it. Tai Bai Yun Sheng walks out and goes straight to the killing ground, which Hei Lou Lan has left uncleared on purpose. He finds men, elders, women and children among the dead. Some have messy clothing and twisted, agonized expressions, evidently humiliated in an inhuman way before they died. Kneeling in the blood, he blames only himself for trusting Hei Lou Lan and pushing the mediation that let this happen. ^{ch. 605}

From a hidden corner, Fang Yuan watches intently and in silence. He thinks Tai Bai Yun Sheng a good person, darkness in his heart notwithstanding, and grants that any normal person loses themselves facing death. Seeing it with his own eyes settles what the black coffin luck means: a severe disaster that threatens the life of whoever carries it. The death energy on Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s own body now runs dozens, even a hundred times thicker than on the slaughtered tribespeople. ^{ch. 605}

Fang Yuan decides to test whether this bad luck can actually stop him, and secretly casts an untraceable illusory voice into Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s ears, mimicking Gao Yang and Zhu Zai telling him they still believe in him. His mind, already close to collapse, cannot tell the voice from memory. He screams, then breaks into wild, bitter laughter, and the Hei tribe Gu Masters around him cry out that he has gone mad. ^{ch. 605}

An earlier act of his own inside what the chapter calls the blood hall had already felt to Tai Bai Yun Sheng like a betrayal of his own values. He could no longer accept himself. Helping the tribe leaders had been his chance to redeem that mistake, but the massacre turned his good deed into the very thing that broke him. Fang Yuan has searched Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s soul and knows him intimately, even as an enemy. He watches the old man’s laughter with something close to appreciation. ^{ch. 605}

A wind begins building around Tai Bai Yun Sheng. The chapter reads it as the start of a mystical change, with heaven and earth trembling. Fang Yuan reacts with excitement, tells him he has not disappointed him, and withdraws at speed, since a Gu Master’s advance to immortal is never something to stand near. Dark clouds then go wild enough to threaten the sacred palace, and panicked shouting spreads through it. Hei Shu identifies the source as Tai Bai Yun Sheng. Hei Lou Lan, stunned for a moment, then orders a full retreat from the sacred palace. ^{ch. 605}