Remaining trump card
The flying bear phantom fights at roughly the strength of the real desolate beast flying bear, at least half immortal battle strength, but for its bulk it moves with surprising agility. It blocks the river of Giant Sun’s will on its own. Even without Fang Yuan’s own direction, the phantom has enough intelligence to fight independently and keeps Giant Sun’s will from swerving past it to reach Fang Yuan directly. Its bear paw smashes one strand of the will into golden dust, though the main river simply coils back around it like a python and sends countless smaller strands to attack from every side, holding both combatants at a stalemate. ch. 625
Giant Sun’s will, drawing on the Immortal Venerable’s own inherited wisdom, calculates that killing Fang Yuan would take at least half of the river, and that the half left behind would be no match for the flying bear phantom. Attacking forcefully would be like handing over the initiative. It has already made this mistake once. Earlier, drawing its will out of the secluded domain, it lost a portion when Fang Yuan used the glass owner token to challenge a small part of it directly, and only regained the treemen round afterward at great risk and cost. Wary of repeating that error, it declines to split again, which only deepens Fang Yuan’s own predicament as he holds the true inheritance and watches the standoff. ch. 625
Most of Giant Sun’s will is occupied outside the tower enduring the heavenly tribulation and earthly calamity, leaving only two portions active: one tied down by the flying bear phantom, the other refining the supreme true inheritance against Fang Yuan and Tai Bai Yun Sheng. The golden trace has grown to palm size. Both men have already spent everything they have, shivering and sweating, unable to slow Giant Sun’s will’s steady expansion of it any further. With the flying bear phantom already committed and Tai Bai Yun Sheng locked into the same struggle, Fang Yuan has used every trump card except the Spring Autumn Cicada. ch. 625
He considers using it, then rejects the idea. Spring Autumn Cicada carries no guaranteed success, and with his luck already thick with black death bad luck, self-detonating to send his remaining consciousness upstream through the river of time would give him, by his own estimate, less than one chance in ten of surviving. ch. 625
Tai Bai Yun Sheng suggests retreating through Fixed Immortal Travel back to Fang Yuan’s own blessed land. Fang Yuan weighs it: giving up now would let Giant Sun’s will retake Eighty-Eight True Yang Building at once, and its obstruction could well keep Fixed Immortal Travel from even activating successfully. Even success would not satisfy him. Indignant at how close his long scheme has come to paying off, Fang Yuan instead thinks of Ma Hong Yun and decides to use him as a piece still on the board. ch. 625
Carrying the supreme true inheritance, Fang Yuan flies off with Tai Bai Yun Sheng, who is bound to follow since only Fang Yuan can activate the Fixed Immortal Travel that would let either of them leave. The river-like Giant Sun’s will re-forms into one body, slips past the flying bear phantom, and gives chase, while Fang Yuan repeatedly changes direction until the phantom catches back up to guard him. No true inheritance dares come close. The supreme true inheritance’s own aura keeps the smaller, chaotically flying inheritances at a distance throughout the chase, so Giant Sun’s will can only slow Fang Yuan’s flight, never stop it, even as its portion refining the tower keeps gaining on them regardless. ch. 625
Spotting the luck path true inheritance ahead, Fang Yuan laughs and asks Tai Bai Yun Sheng what would happen if two supreme true inheritances collided. Tai Bai Yun Sheng is stunned by the idea. Neither of them can let go of the light lump they carry without dying, but holding on only postpones the same fate, so a collision, however drastic, strikes him as their one remaining plan. Ma Hong Yun shouts at Fang Yuan to stay back, holding Zhao Lian Yun close, since without their extraordinary luck the two of them, the weakest on this whole battlefield, would already have been ground to dust. The luck path true inheritance has sheltered them by coincidence, but its protection nearly failed once it was pushed into the secluded domain. Only Giant Sun’s will’s own caution over damaging it, and its need to keep fighting Fang Yuan, has kept Ma Hong Yun and Zhao Lian Yun alive this long. ch. 625
The river-like Giant Sun’s will shouts from behind that Fang Yuan must not do this, since a collision between two supreme true inheritances would badly damage both, the luck path inheritance and Eighty-Eight True Yang Building alike. It self-detonates all of the thoughts that form its will. The move surges its battle strength by at least half and lets it suppress the flying bear phantom completely, forcing Fang Yuan to split his attention and personally direct the phantom’s fight. Under his direct control, the phantom moves more agilely and finally blocks the river-like will outright. ch. 625
Unable to break through, Giant Sun’s will warns Fang Yuan not to forget the overwhelming power of Ma Hong Yun’s fortune rivaling heaven Gu. As long as Fang Yuan carries ill intent toward him, his luck will decrease drastically. It doubts aloud that Fang Yuan could hold his half immortal battle strength for long against that cost. Mo Yao’s will echoes the same warning. Fang Yuan presses on regardless, certain that only victory amid danger gives him any chance of survival. ch. 625
As the two supreme true inheritances close to under a thousand steps apart, dozens of fighters teleport in ahead of Fang Yuan, familiar faces among them. Their leader, a brawny, hammer-fisted man, announces that Old Ancestor Giant Sun has exposed both of their crimes and that Fang Yuan’s life ends here. It is Hei Lou Lan. Ye Lui Sang, Gu Guo Long and Bian Si Xuan stand among the reinforcements. Tai Bai Yun Sheng, still locked into resisting Giant Sun’s will over the true inheritance, cannot free himself to react, and the arrival of Hei Lou Lan’s group feels like a final, fatal blow at the worst possible moment. The river-like Giant Sun’s will laughs that they have arrived just in time, since the main will had taken the time earlier to summon this bunch of reinforcements as the deciding weight to tip the balance. The initiative shifts back to Giant Sun’s will. ch. 625
Tai Bai Yun Sheng, sighing that they have lost, urges Fang Yuan to retreat now through Fixed Immortal Travel while Giant Sun’s main will is still troubled by the tribulation outside. Fang Yuan refuses, warning that letting go now would hand Giant Sun’s will the tower, which could then draw in Immortal Gu across the whole of northern plains and leave even Fixed Immortal Travel with a high chance of failing. Tai Bai Yun Sheng insists they must risk it anyway before their last chance disappears entirely. Fang Yuan hesitates, looking at the true inheritance again. Its golden light now fills a third of the light lump and is expanding faster by the moment. Fang Yuan admits he never expected matters to reach this point and that he would rather not do what comes next, leaving Tai Bai Yun Sheng shocked, overjoyed and suspicious all at once at the news that he still has one method left. ch. 625
