Formidable Hei Lou Lan
Fang Yuan lies hidden inside the thick lump of three colored qi in the secluded domain. Tai Bai Yun Sheng warns him to control himself, worried less about emotional turmoil than that he might grow greedy for the Great Dao’s mysteries and take in more heaven and earth qi than he can bear. The qi has already spread outward, forcing Tai Bai Yun Sheng to fly back slowly, and Giant Sun’s will, still contesting him for the supreme true inheritance, eases its own advance in turn. The river-like Giant Sun’s will curses that Fang Yuan carries so much human qi and still has not lost balance. Hei Lou Lan and the others watching nearby want the same outcome, murmuring over whether one so young can really hold three qi balanced this long and become a Gu Immortal. Nobody moves against him. A backlash from such intense qi would be no small matter. ch. 628
Fang Yuan floats calm and faintly smiling inside the qi, mumbling that it is incredible as the Great Dao’s mysteries flow into his mind like a warm spring. This is his second ascension: in his previous life he became a blood path Gu Immortal, and that experience leaves him far calmer than an ordinary Gu Master and gives him a truer sense of what is actually happening. Man holds the greatest spirituality of all beings. Gu are the essence of heaven and earth and carriers of the Great Dao, and any path to longevity is a path of transcendence that demands accumulation, which at its root means learning. Gu Masters usually learn only indirectly, through using, nurturing and refining Gu, while a Gu Master undergoing ascension converses with heaven and earth directly. Such an interaction is so precious that most people meet it only once in a lifetime, and Fang Yuan treasures the chance, steering his focus toward strength path alone since the Dao’s mysteries run deeper than the sea and he knows his own limits. ch. 628
In his previous life he only cultivated strength path on the side, and in this life he cultivated it directly for only a short time, so his original attainment was merely quasi strength path master. This opportunity changes that quickly. His understanding surges, carrying him past the barrier to strength path master and on toward the realm of grandmaster. He has no choice but to push this hard: the rank four All-out Effort Gu seated in his shattered aperture is not rank five, and a lower ranked vital Gu needs a higher strength path attainment to compensate. Otherwise the third step risks failing to form the immortal aperture at all. ch. 628
Outside, the heavenly tribulation and earthly calamity form a cocoon of qi that completely covers Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, and nine snow white chaotic branching teeth suddenly shoot out together, moving so fast only nine shadows can be seen. Giant Sun’s will, already braced, thickens his will armor to ten meters and splits out dozens of will hands to raise a barrier in the air. The nine teeth collide with each other as they fall, veering unpredictably, piercing many of the will hands and stabbing the main will nine times through armor a thousand times tougher than steel. Two of the nine wounds run six meters deep, almost breaching the building. Giant Sun’s will is relieved he had already destroyed half of the original spirals in advance, since all eighteen striking together would have been impossible to predict or stop. Before he can recover, eighteen more spirals form, and then another eighteen form together with them, a second and third wave making thirty-six chaotic branching teeth at once, a power beyond simple addition. ch. 628
His rage nearly drives him to abandon the building and kill Fang Yuan outright, but he holds back to protect the inheritance treasure, contact the other subsidiary wills and gather his full strength against the coming attack. The main will then orders him to help defend against the heavenly tribulations. The river-like Giant Sun’s will, still contesting Tai Bai Yun Sheng for the supreme true inheritance, has to divert most of its strength to the main will, though it keeps a portion back to hold the true inheritance light lump. Tai Bai Yun Sheng feels his pressure ease and credits Fang Yuan’s plan: the fusion of three heavenly tribulations has grown terrifying enough to force Giant Sun’s will to defend with everything it has. He urges Fang Yuan to survive, since the third step matters most of all. ch. 628
The three colored qi lump around Fang Yuan slowly shrinks until it disappears entirely into his broken aperture, completing the step of taking in the qi. Hei Lou Lan’s group panics at the sight. Ye Lui Sang asks whether they should just watch him become a Gu Immortal, and Bian Si Xuan suggests killing him now that he has no more heaven and earth qi around him, though she does not move to do it. Everyone else only looks on, shocked, suspicious and unsure what to do. ch. 628
Tai Bai Yun Sheng still shields Fang Yuan, holding the true inheritance light lump, and when Hei Lou Lan orders an attack he threatens to hurl the supreme true inheritance at the luck path true inheritance if they come any closer. The threat drains the group’s fighting spirit. Hei Lou Lan orders a few to guard the luck path true inheritance while the rest chase anyway. Fang Yuan, already awake and laughing, taunts them to come chase him and asks how many of them are flying masters. His Eagle Rise Gu was destroyed, but he, ever cautious, kept spares, and since he owns Hu Immortal blessed land and can connect to treasure yellow heaven, he lacks no mortal Gu. The taunt demoralizes the group even more than Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s threat did, given his flying master’s reach and the huge space inside the secluded domain. ch. 628
Hei Lou Lan, Lord of the Imperial Court this round, stays unmoved and vows they will chase Fang Yuan even if they cannot catch him, wanting to see how he manages ascension under such pressure, and the group’s spirits lift again. Fang Yuan falls silent at this. Ordinarily the heavenly tribulation itself would surround an ascending Gu Master and block anyone who tried to interfere, but with Giant Sun’s will occupied outside, Hei Lou Lan’s group gains an opening it would not otherwise have. Leftover heaven and earth qi inside the secluded domain still risks backlashing mortal Gu, but Hei Lou Lan’s group relies on mortal Gu just as Fang Yuan does, so both sides face the same risk. Even with Giant Sun’s will fully occupied outside, Fang Yuan’s predicament does not ease, and his ascension stalls again between the second and third steps. ch. 628
