Chapter 610

An immortal aperture is a qualitative leap beyond an ordinary one, a whole small world of its own, ranked as a blessed land at rank six or seven and a grotto heaven at rank eight or nine. If a Gu Immortal’s obsession lingers after death, it can fuse with that aperture’s heavenly power and become a land spirit. Formed from obsession, it does not bend. Where a Gu Immortal seizes a blessed land by force without meeting its requirements, history records the land spirit rejecting them, or even self-detonating and wasting all their effort. ^{ch. 610}

Giant Sun’s will sealed Imperial Court blessed land’s Frost Jade Peacock and let hundreds of thousands of years of anger build in it, and now that he means to reseal it for good, that resolve finally breaks free. Cracks spread across the sky, showing the starry night of the outside Northern Plains through them. The crowd panics, afraid the blessed land itself might be destroyed. ^{ch. 610}

Fang Yuan alone stays calm. He is certain Imperial Court blessed land will not self-destruct so easily, since it is Giant Sun Immortal Venerable’s own arrangement, built by a rank nine Gu Immortal to cover the whole region, with Eighty-Eight True Yang Building as its greatest obstacle. He reasons that only because Giant Sun’s will just woke, caught off guard and forced to waste time on this mess, and because his own gruel mud Immortal Gu had already weakened the land spirit’s seal, could it struggle so violently. He silently credits Giant Sun’s resolve and method, since the will had used Tai Bai Yun Sheng as a chess piece to buy time and tilt the balance back. ^{ch. 610}

Fang Yuan reasons that even unable to self-destruct, the land spirit can still absorb its own heaven and earth qi, and he turns to watch Tai Bai Yun Sheng as a new tribulation cloud and calamity dust begin forming above and beneath him. Ye Lui Sang and Hei Lou Lan are both baffled, since no record describes two heavenly tribulations and earthly calamities striking one advancement in a row. Tai Bai Yun Sheng is shocked, since his inheritance never said this could happen. ^{ch. 610}

The second tribulation is forming inside his own immortal aperture at the same time, since turning a mortal Gu into an Immortal Gu is its own heaven-defying, dangerous change that draws heaven and earth qi and provokes tribulation just as advancing to Gu Immortal did. Caught between trouble inside and outside, he cannot attend to both. Only Fang Yuan understands the truth: his own gruel mud Immortal Gu woke the land spirit, and Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s advancement became a pawn in its race against Giant Sun’s will, wholly out of his own control. ^{ch. 610}

The land spirit cannot outpace Giant Sun’s will directly. So it turns on Tai Bai Yun Sheng instead, sacrificing its own foundation’s heaven and earth qi to shape a tribulation meant to kill him. An immortal aperture, unlike a mortal one, can be devoured and assimilated between worlds after its owner dies, which is why Gu Immortals once rushed to claim the territory Fang Yuan abandoned from Hu Immortal blessed land on Tian Ti mountain. If Tai Bai Yun Sheng dies here, his aperture would be absorbed into Imperial Court blessed land, raising its foundation and strengthening the land spirit’s chance of breaking Giant Sun’s seal. ^{ch. 610}

Purple lightning gathers into chaotic lightning balls overhead, while a crack hundreds of metres wide opens on the ground, spewing flame and thick restraining smoke. Fang Yuan names them at once: chaotic lightning balls can also derange a Gu Master’s mind, and restraining smoke seals off the senses like a maze, and together the two make perfect partners. He does not want Tai Bai Yun Sheng to fail. Gripping the glass owner token, he admits to himself that his own strength is still too weak, too easily bound by circumstance. ^{ch. 610}

Restraining smoke would finish him if it touches him, and with his defensive Gu already gone and a second tribulation already forming in his own aperture, Tai Bai Yun Sheng grits his teeth and chooses to risk the lightning instead. He flies straight up into the thunder cloud rather than wait for the smoke to close around him. It is a moth flying at a flame. Ye Lui Sang asks whether he is seeking death, Hei Lou Lan praises the move, and Fang Yuan’s eyes shine. But the smoke was the greater danger. ^{ch. 610}

Inside the cloud he weaves between countless lightning balls with practiced control. The crowd shouts in amazement, and Ye Lui Sang credits it to skill with cloud path Gu. Hei Lou Lan judges him the region’s foremost healing Gu Master, reasoning that a healing Gu Master, usually the first target in battle and often left unprotected, needs a way to survive on their own, through defense or through flight. Hei Lou Lan turns to look far off at Fang Yuan, who sits on the azure wolf king’s back watching Tai Bai Yun Sheng closely. The chapter notes that Chang Shan Yin is a flying master too, and much younger than Tai Bai Yun Sheng. ^{ch. 610}

Giant Sun’s will, amused rather than angry, remarks that the little sparrow is enjoying himself, and sends out the divert disaster Immortal Gu once more, its light piercing through the lightning balls and the smoke around Tai Bai Yun Sheng. Some in the crowd marvel that the old ancestor keeps blessing him despite his missing bloodline, while others grow suspicious. Fang Yuan sighs to himself that the strike came as expected. Tai Bai Yun Sheng has become the crucial factor between two rivals, the land spirit meaning him harm and Giant Sun’s will meaning to protect him. ^{ch. 610}