Hoodwinking the Land Spirit
Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s tribulation clouds thin and the devastating silver horn green scale python shrinks to one-tenth its original size, so his crisis begins to ease. The light of divert disaster protecting him then dissipates without warning, and chaotic lightning balls bombard him until he loses all reason and flies out of control. Eighty-Eight True Yang Building bursts out with an absorption force and captures him. ch. 612
Giant Sun’s will cannot sacrifice divert disaster Gu and cannot let Tai Bai Yun Sheng die, and only Frost Jade Peacock could otherwise throw him clear of the blessed land, so pulling him inside the building is called an inferior method. The building itself becomes the tribulation’s new target. Using Gu worms under a heavenly tribulation invites backlash, and Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, a rank eight Immortal Gu house built from many Immortal Gu and countless mortal Gu, has its Gu worm coordination affected as it forcibly resists. ch. 612
Inside the building, five Immortal Gu with flaming tails pursue Frost Jade Peacock as it dodges among giant trees, refusing to be sealed again. It loses its head and crashes into countless trees, and the trees themselves turn into treemen that block its path. Giant Sun’s will can draw on any round to build the cage. It breaks through three old treemen but slows, and a metal path Immortal Gu catches it, wrapping it in a golden shell it cannot move against. A second Immortal Gu floods it with sleepiness until it crashes to the ground unable to fly, weeping in grief at the certainty of being sealed again. ch. 612
Though the Gruel Mud’s residual power still clings to its body, the two Immortal Gu sealing it now are not restrained by Gruel Mud. Rather than be sealed again, it resolves to die and draws on Imperial Court blessed land’s own heaven and earth qi to intensify the heavenly tribulation and earthly calamity. The draw leaves Frost Jade Peacock rapidly weakening. It is only an obsession left behind after a Gu Immortal’s death. It cannot scheme against Giant Sun’s will, but its obsession makes it brave and unyielding all the same. ch. 612
Imperial Court blessed land was born from a space path Gu Immortal and later developed by Giant Sun Immortal Venerable into a peak blessed land with the power to shift between day and night. It could be said to stand at the doorstep of becoming a grotto-heaven. Its territory spans the size of a small world. If it swallowed the time path Gu Immortal Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s immortal aperture, space and time would converge, and a qualitative change advancing it to a grotto-heaven would be extremely likely. That would let Frost Jade Peacock break apart most of Giant Sun Immortal Venerable’s arrangements, though it still could not suppress Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, only expel it from the blessed land. Giant Sun’s will proves too resolute, and would rather take the damage of the heavenly tribulation and earthly calamity than let Tai Bai Yun Sheng die. ch. 612
Drawing out that much heaven and earth qi is like adding fuel to fire: the chaotic lightning balls multiply tenfold and the restraining smoke thickens and darkens. Cracks appear on the building’s outer wall. Its eaves collapse piece by piece and the restraining smoke blackens its walls until they look eroded by a thousand years. Onlookers shout in shock and call for retreat as wind and snow pour in from outside. ch. 612
Pulling out that much qi strips Imperial Court blessed land’s foundation the way tearing bricks from a house leaves only its frame, opening countless holes to the outside world of northern plains, which is in the middle of its once-in-ten-years blizzard. Divert disaster Gu is dormant. Blessed lands and grotto-heavens draw calamities in proportion to their fortune, and this is in fact the source of that recurring blizzard across all of northern plains. Eighty-Eight True Yang Building can resist the lightning and smoke, but not a blizzard that can ravage the whole region, so the blessed land will erode and crumble if nothing changes. ch. 612
The fix is to use divert disaster Gu to convert the tribulation and calamity into heaven and earth qi the blessed land can absorb, stabilizing it and sealing off the outside connection. That requires Frost Jade Peacock’s cooperation, which Giant Sun’s will calls an impossible dream. Giant Sun’s will does not know that Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s immortal aperture holds landscape as before Immortal Gu, which could handle the trouble more easily, and instead recalls his own false emotion fake will Gu. Frost Jade Peacock will only recognize an owner who is part of a couple with true love for each other, but even the land spirit can be hoodwinked. Two people fooled by false emotion fake will Gu suit him better than a real couple, since the Gu itself carries his will, and if either candidate later disobeys he can simply choose two new ones. ch. 612
He mobilizes Eighty-Eight True Yang Building’s strength to inspect candidates while the blizzard drives casualties across Imperial Court blessed land and snow monsters rise from the drifts. He picks two of Giant Sun’s bloodline. Hei Lou Lan, at rank five peak stage, cannot resist and is absorbed into True Yang Building. Ma Hong Yun is still running in panic when he runs headfirst into a tree. ch. 612
