Chapter 618

The black coffin shaped luck aura above Fang Yuan is dense enough to feel oppressive, and it has been growing larger and darker for some time without his notice. Tai Bai Yun Sheng and Hei Lou Lan fight nearby. Hei Lou Lan’s azure luck still stands like a towering tree, while Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s has shrunk to less than a sixth of its size, no longer a bright red cloud but a dark, heavy mist. ^{ch. 618}

Fang Yuan tests Mo Yao’s claim, and each time he thinks of striking Ma Hong Yun, the black coffin luck above him swells and darkens further. Mo Yao urges him to flee the place, warning that the black coffin luck is too dense to ignore and that its karma will eventually land even though the timing is not yet ripe. Fang Yuan refuses. He answers that bad luck cannot strike him directly and must work through an outside force, and he wants to see who dares obstruct him now. ^{ch. 618}

His killing intent surges, his hair no longer Chang Shan Yin’s short cut but long and black in the wind, his face showing crazed recklessness. He recites a private verse contrasting cowardly insects who drift with the current against a brave man who needs little wisdom and feels no regret even as his body crumbles. As his killing intent peaks, the black coffin luck above him swells to three times its size within moments. He strikes. ^{ch. 618}

The explosion sends a gale pressing outward, leaving Hei Lou Lan unsteady on his feet while Tai Bai Yun Sheng climbs from a crater with blood at his mouth. Watching Hei Lou Lan floating in the air, Tai Bai Yun Sheng reacts with shock before Hei Lou Lan charges him again and the ground shakes. Fang Yuan names it the ten extreme physique. From what he can tell, it is most likely the great strength true martial physique among them. ^{ch. 618}

A shadow flies out of the dust: Tai Bai Yun Sheng, his hair a mess, his chest caved in to bare white bone and blood spraying like a spring. A green light covers him, and the bleeding stops at once. His heavy injuries heal quickly after that. Fang Yuan, who had exchanged intel with him back at Hu Immortal blessed land, knows he holds two Immortal Gu, landscape as before Gu and man as before Gu, but sees him using an ordinary healing Gu instead. Immortal Gu Man as Before needs immortal essence to activate and is hard to fuel, so a Gu Immortal saves it as a last resort. ^{ch. 618}

Hei Lou Lan taunts Tai Bai Yun Sheng for being a Gu Immortal afraid of a mortal and hunts him through the sky. Fang Yuan reads the aura as more than the physique alone: Hei Lou Lan is already close to self-detonation. He recalls relying on Bai Ning Bing’s northern dark ice soul physique, one more of the ten extreme physiques, to overturn a fight against a stronger enemy at Qing Mao mountain when she was only rank three. A ten extreme physique’s self-detonation grows sharply more powerful as its cultivation rises, and at rank five peak stage Hei Lou Lan’s would be beyond compare, terrifying enough that killing a Gu Immortal would be no problem. Tai Bai Yun Sheng shows no battle intent, only a bitter look. Hei Lou Lan’s physique had been sealed until now by Immortal Gu Dark Limit with no aura leaking, and its sudden release leaves him a human shaped bomb nobody dares approach. Newly advanced and without a Gu Immortal’s accumulated defense, Tai Bai Yun Sheng flees at astonishing speed on his cloud path Gu, one of the better movement Gu, and the distance between them keeps growing as Hei Lou Lan fails to catch him. ^{ch. 618}

Furious, Hei Lou Lan throws a punch that breaks the sound barrier and bursts the surrounding air. The fist qi flies out shaped like a human phantom. That differs from the beast shaped phantoms Fang Yuan himself used back in southern border. This one is a vivid double of Hei Lou Lan himself, an obese body like a bear’s, jagged snow white teeth like daggers, and triangular eyes flashing with a malevolent glint. Fang Yuan thinks even every beast strength phantom he used in southern border together might not match it. ^{ch. 618}

This is the strength of rank five peak stage great strength true martial physique, terrifying and full enough of spirituality to chase an enemy on its own will. Fang Yuan cannot fully judge its power without facing it himself, but he is certain it has already surpassed the mortal realm. It could even be said that Hei Lou Lan stands half a step from Gu Immortal realm. A ten extreme physique breaks the usual conventions. It can shatter an opponent of the same realm. Fang Yuan once used his own ten extreme physique to survive an ordeal at Qing Mao mountain, but this time it is his enemy’s. ^{ch. 618}

Fang Yuan reflects that without a Gu Immortal’s qualitative gain in bodily defense, Tai Bai Yun Sheng, newly advanced and a healing Gu Master facing a battle hungry enemy, would already be in greater danger. A Gu Immortal’s greatest edge over mortals is near limitless primeval essence, but strength path relies on primeval essence the least of any path, so that edge barely applies against Hei Lou Lan. Hei Lou Lan’s killer move has already produced five or six sentient human strength phantoms that flank and cut off Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s retreat, and their intelligence and strength unsettle even Fang Yuan. Fang Yuan recalls that in his own previous life, Hei Lou Lan died suddenly. He now understands why: the ten extreme physique, a fact rebirth alone had not shown him. ^{ch. 618}

Gripping the glass owner token, Fang Yuan reviews his ruined plan. He meant to use false emotion fake will Gu, which carries a fragment of Giant Sun’s will and so needs a Gu Immortal to refine, to subdue the land spirit and claim Imperial Court blessed land. For that he had talked Tai Bai Yun Sheng into becoming his ally. But by the time he returned to True Yang Building, Ma Hong Yun and Zhao Lian Yun had already won Frost Jade Peacock’s recognition and become the blessed land’s owners. The land spirit’s condition was a Gu Master couple bound by true love, and it accepted the pair even though Ma Hong Yun was only rank three and Zhao Lian Yun had not yet begun cultivating. ^{ch. 618}

Gu Master, it turns out, means only having the aptitude. In Fang Yuan’s previous life Zhao Lian Yun became a wisdom path Gu Immortal, so her strong aptitude was already real. Fang Yuan settles on two remaining goals: seize false emotion fake will Gu from Hei Lou Lan, a task he gives to Tai Bai Yun Sheng, and kill Ma Hong Yun and Zhao Lian Yun so the blessed land returns to an ownerless state. Only once both are done could Tai Bai Yun Sheng help him refine the Gu and take the land spirit, giving him the strength to contend with Giant Sun’s will if it returns. Neither goal is met yet. ^{ch. 618}