Fang Yuan stands wrapped in heaven and earth qi as Hei Lou Lan and the others retreat, while Giant Sun’s will, reduced by more than half after their fight, worries it cannot defeat him alone without reinforcements from the main will. It does not dare charge in. The battlefield falls silent, and Fang Yuan breathes out in relief that matters are unfolding as he planned. His position in the contest for Eighty-Eight True Yang Building had swung wildly and nearly cost him the initiative more than once, until he gambled his own life on a mutual defeat and finally won it back. ch. 627
Fang Yuan tells himself his trip through Northern Plains has reached its crucial climax, and that the coming immortal ascension can nearly decide the whole contest. Tai Bai Yun Sheng warns him solemnly not to be careless. Newly become an immortal himself, Tai Bai Yun Sheng credits Giant Sun’s will’s help for his own success despite his deep foundation, and privately worries his junior brother is too young for this choice and hopes he received their master’s guidance. ch. 627
Fang Yuan once took a major risk in Three Kings blessed land and gained a second aperture Immortal Gu, so he now carries two apertures, both at rank five peak stage, crystal purple primeval essence, after the imperial court contest. Immortal ascension has three steps, the first of which is shattering the aperture, and Fang Yuan shatters his second. An ordinary Gu Master with one aperture cannot retreat once it shatters. Fang Yuan can fail this tribulation and would lose his second aperture, but he would still keep the first, preserving his life, a benefit Tai Bai Yun Sheng never learns. ch. 627
Lightning strikes down at Giant Sun’s will, one of the ten great catastrophes and shaped like a trident. Fang Yuan’s shattered aperture has formed a new heavenly tribulation and earthly calamity that fuses with the once-in-ten-years blizzard, so bolts that normally fall tens of breaths apart now strike less than a breath apart. Giant Sun’s will pays a heavy price each time but cannot leave. Eighty-Eight True Yang Building has lost almost all its functions and would crumble without his protection, since he is the inheritance treasury’s controller and its purpose forces him to resist the tribulation head on, becoming Fang Yuan’s unwilling protector. Protecting his sworn enemy against his own will, Giant Sun’s will vows to tear out Fang Yuan’s tendons once he survives. ch. 627
Eighteen spirals then form in the lightning-filled air, each growing a snow-white beast tooth over thirty meters tall: chaotic branching teeth, one of the top ten catastrophes, ranked above the snow war tribulation lightning and carrying greater might. Giant Sun’s will judges he cannot survive all eighteen striking at once and sends ten dragon-shaped wills to destroy them early. Wind blades, hail and lightning cut the group down to five, and of those three destroy their targets while two fail, the spirals they struck merely flickering before recovering. He splits out ten more dragons and charges again. ch. 627
Inside the secluded domain, Fang Yuan lies calm, his mind on the shattered second aperture: his first aperture holds his vital Gu Spring Autumn Cicada, but he judges his knowledge of time path too limited to risk an ascension on it. His second aperture holds the strength path All-out Effort Gu, and since rebirth he has studied strength path intensely, giving him a sufficient foundation even short of blood path. Tai Bai Yun Sheng is under a hundred years old but carries an immortal inheritance, yet Fang Yuan judges his own five hundred years of experience more than enough to compensate. It is not, he admits, the best time to ascend. His strength path cultivation has not reached its limit: he holds only a hundred jun of strength, his bones are impermanence bones, his skin is turtle jade wolf skin, and not all his strength path Gu are rank five. These gaps will limit his future potential and his immortal aperture’s size. He had meant to perfect his foundation before risking ascension, but events forced his hand. ch. 627
As heaven and earth qi enter him, Fang Yuan’s body gives off a thick white human qi that swells like a huge balloon and covers him completely. Hei Lou Lan’s pupils shrink at the sight, and Ye Lui Sang says in disbelief that it is even greater than Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s. Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s own worry eases. He reads it instead as proof his junior brother prepared for this ascension long ago, as the three qi merge into a many colored lump and carry Fang Yuan into the second step: taking in the qi. ch. 627
The river-like Giant Sun’s will curses that the scoundrel has begun taking in the qi and wonders why reinforcements have not come, but does not dare act rashly: heaven qi would melt him to air, earth qi would turn him to rock. Fang Yuan, at the meeting point of all three qi, faces the greater danger and must hold them in balance at every moment, since too much heaven or earth qi kills him and an imbalance in human qi would make him self-detonate. The balance itself brings him a stream of insight into the Great Dao. The three qi heal him faster than his six arm heavenly zombie king mode ever did, cleansing his flesh, soul, mind and will together. ch. 627
His eyes clear, his muscles rebuild, his scars fall away, and his hair grows to his waist before breaking and regrowing in a repeating cycle. In a short span he relives his whole life, the five hundred years of his previous existence and everything since his rebirth flashing through his mind together. Old cultivation questions he could never answer now find perfect answers. He must balance his emotions against this flood of memory while still holding the three qi steady, since losing that balance means death, and countless Gu Masters fail at exactly this step. ch. 627
