Chapter 611

Fang Yuan sends primeval essence into his luck inspection Gu and sees that Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s once fiery red luck, burning bright before, has shrunk after Giant Sun’s will helped him twice, down to only a third of what it was. His own black coffin luck stays as thick as ink and has even grown larger. Most of the watching Gu Masters have unknowingly gained a thin layer of that same black coffin luck, all but Hei Lou Lan, whose profuse azure luck is unchanged. The sight strains his eyes, and he stops using the Gu. ^{ch. 611}

Heaven and earth qi run wild during an ascension. Using Gu worms in that storm causes a backlash, and forcing their use would injure both the Gu Master and his Gu worms, or even kill them. Tai Bai Yun Sheng, with no defensive Gu left, is surviving on flight alone, dodging chaotic lightning balls like a man walking a tightrope. He has flown into the thunder clouds to avoid the earthly calamity of restraining smoke, a wise choice between two difficulties and a helpless one. Only his green grape immortal essence, converting to endless primeval essence, keeps such reckless speed from draining his aperture dry. ^{ch. 611}

A chaotic lightning ball suddenly veers toward him too fast to dodge, and a white light pillar from divert disaster Gu strikes it down first, melting it back into heaven qi. Tai Bai Yun Sheng feels lingering fear at how close it came. As a new Gu Immortal his body could endure over a dozen such balls even without defensive Gu, but a hit still deranges the mind, and enough hits in a row, with no chance to steady his thoughts, would drown him under the barrage. ^{ch. 611}

The crowd counts at least ten rescues from True Yang Building already and expects the tribulation to succeed without fail, but Hei Lou Lan, watching differently, wonders whether such heavy intervention will really hold. History records Gu Immortals whose own Immortal Gu were destroyed by backlash after helping someone else through a tribulation, a danger most bystanders never learn. Divert disaster Gu is no exception. Fang Yuan reasons that Giant Sun’s will would not risk divert disaster Gu, one of the building’s foundation pieces meant to shield Imperial Court blessed land itself, without limit for Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s sake. What matters now is his own aperture. Only there will the calamity and tribulation decide whether he becomes a Gu Immortal. ^{ch. 611}

Landscape as before Gu is one of Fang Yuan’s main goals in coming to Northern Plains, so he watches with real tension. Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s speed slows as the threats inside and outside his aperture pull at his attention together. His body suddenly locks still. Countless chaotic lightning balls converge on him at once. The divert disaster light pillar bursts out to shield him just as Fang Yuan, Hei Lou Lan and Ye Lui Sang all sense the crucial moment has come. ^{ch. 611}

Inside the immortal aperture, bright light explodes and a jade, ladybug shaped Immortal Gu rises, its shell marked half with rivers and seas and half with valleys and mountains. It is Landscape as before Gu, born from the resonance of heaven and earth rather than his own refining, so even Tai Bai Yun Sheng is unsure of its effect at first. It was not part of his goal, only an unplanned gain. At the center of the blessed land, man as before Gu has swollen into a cracking cocoon leaking rainbow light, and it breaks open into a colorful butterfly trailing a curved rainbow behind it. Tai Bai Yun Sheng laughs with joy: after years of accumulation, anticipation and danger, Immortal Gu Man as Before is his. ^{ch. 611}

His internal threat is not gone: the tribulation cloud shapes itself into a silver horned, green scaled python hundreds of metres long, and the ground splits open into molten earth spewing lava. Facing both alone, he feels an immense pressure. He sends a bead of green grape immortal essence into Landscape as before Gu, and everywhere it flies the land springs back to how it stood before the calamity struck, easing his fear of the earthly disaster. ^{ch. 611}

The python lunges at Landscape as before Gu. He worries, since a non-defensive Immortal Gu is usually fragile. Because the Gu was born from his own aperture, he can move it like one of his own limbs, and he escapes strike after strike as the python tears apart the ground behind him. ^{ch. 611}

Sweat forms on his brow as the strain builds, and, still shielded outside only by the divert disaster light pillar, he decides to cut his losses. With man as before Immortal Gu already his, he only needs time, so he abandons a portion of his own immortal aperture to protect its core, the sky of his blessed land shaved away layer by layer. It is self-mutilation, the same sacrifice Fang Yuan once made to shed the blue charm lightning shadow by discarding part of Hu Immortal blessed land. Frost Jade Peacock happily devours the discarded fragments to grow stronger. ^{ch. 611}

Giant Sun’s will shouts in anger, since he is trying to protect Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s life and the man is now fuelling his enemy’s strength. He must still protect Tai Bai Yun Sheng, because his death would let Imperial Court blessed land devour his whole aperture. But divert disaster Immortal Gu is already cracked, and reinforcing him again risks destroying a foundation piece of Eighty-Eight True Yang Building that cannot be lost. Caught between two costs, Giant Sun’s will falls into a genuine predicament. ^{ch. 611}