Final Trump Card
Giant Sun’s will is strong not only in battle strength but in the deep foundation it inherited from the Immortal Venerable’s own experience, and a killer move it made out of boredom drives Fang Yuan back into a desperate state. He considers using Spring Autumn Cicada again. His first aperture is filled with pressure, its walls cracked like a spider’s web, with Spring Autumn Cicada floating at the center as yellow and green lights flicker over it, and the aperture could break the very next second. He quickly dispels the thought. ch. 643
More of his Gu worms are sealed, his firepower weakens, and he starts taking hits passively while the Gu Masters laugh at him. Mo Yao’s will suddenly warns him that zombie speckles are showing on his body as death energy invades it. If the speckles spread over his whole body, she says, he will turn into a six arm heavenly zombie king for real, even though the estimated hour limit has not yet been reached. A body fully zombified cannot return to normal. ch. 643
Unless he removes the six arm heavenly zombie king killer move now, the speckles will keep spreading, but Fang Yuan refuses, since Giant Sun’s will would attack the instant he stopped and he would have no time to react at that distance. His mortal defensive Gu are nothing against Giant Sun’s will. Only the killer move lets him hold his own, and he judges that Giant Sun’s will is capable of sacrifice, since it had already lost eight Immortal Gu to attract a seven fingered formless hand. If he cancels the killer move now, he reasons, Giant Sun’s will would kill him regardless of cost and reclaim its immortal essence, a risk he refuses to take. Mo Yao’s will sounds hesitant about his body. The zombie speckles spread faster, from a single dot on his back to covering nearly all of it, and then his chest turns black. The Gu Masters are shocked, and Giant Sun’s will explains that the balance of his life and death energy has broken, so the invading death energy will turn him into a true member of the living dead, with his cultivation stagnant forever. ch. 643
The Gu Masters gloat that persisting in evil brings self-destruction, and that a member of the demonic path who craves strength while disregarding all else has finally met the painful consequences. Mo Yao’s will urges him to stop, saying the price is too huge, that Giant Sun’s will may not attack since it has little strength left, and that it is not too late to turn back before he becomes a real zombie for good. Fang Yuan does not yield. He turns completely into a six arm heavenly zombie king. ch. 643
The speckles turn his body black, and inside his strength path immortal aperture the bright heaven and earth turn an eerie dark color, white stone mountains collapse, the sky goes dark grey, and the land rots with no life energy left. The first aperture falls deathly silent too, its purple crystal walls losing their clear shine and turning to grey rock, though this also makes Spring Autumn Cicada’s pressure less threatening. Having degraded into a zombie right after becoming a Gu Immortal, he loses every accumulation and achievement at once, and from this point his cultivation cannot advance at all, leaving him worse off in that regard than a mortal. Even with his iron will, he feels a measure of desolation. ch. 643
The thought of using Spring Autumn Cicada to restart everything rises in him again, but he forces it down. The wind veil of assimilation draws very close, compressing the space around everyone with an immense mental pressure. Fang Yuan then does something shocking: he stops activating all his Gu. Fully a six arm heavenly zombie king now, he no longer needs Gu worms to sustain the form, and since he activates none, the purple light qi of thirty-eight sealing arts has nothing to trace back to its source and seal. ch. 643
Everyone is stunned, and even Giant Sun’s will gasps. The Gu Masters erupt with fierce momentum instead, shouting that he is courting death by stopping right in front of them. Fang Yuan retreats step by step, using the zombie form’s recovery to endure the attacks, while Hei Lou Lan warns everyone not to hit wisdom Gu as Fang Yuan nears it, and the Gu Masters aim more precisely instead of unleashing flashy attacks. His chest is blown open, his bones broken, his intestines smashed, and he turns his back to the crowd to endure the worst of it. ch. 643
A bolt of lightning slams into his back and drops him to the ground, and someone cheers that his newly caught rank five thunder hammer Gu did the work. Fang Yuan crawls up with difficulty, his back burst open and his spine exposed. A huge wind blade spins out and cuts off his arm, and its wielder boasts of the trophy while another scoffs that the limb was already stripped to bone. His zombie body cannot endure such fast, heavy attacks, and he grows smaller with every defeat, but he rises again each time. ch. 643
He keeps standing with only one of eight arms left, no patch of unbroken skin, his blood staining the ground, his organs exposed, and his right shoulder down to a bare shoulder blade. Mo Yao’s will sobs, asking why he goes this far. Fang Yuan says nothing. Giant Sun’s will finally calls a halt, admiring his attitude, and offers him a surrender: recognize it as master, help rebuild Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, and in return receive freedom, an end to his zombie state, and a method to regain a human body. Everyone is shocked that Ancestor Giant Sun would show him mercy. Fang Yuan only asks to consider it. ch. 643
Giant Sun’s will refuses to let him stall and starts counting down from ten. Mo Yao’s will warns him to be careful of a trap, since leaving the light of wisdom’s range would put him entirely at Giant Sun’s mercy. Fang Yuan tells himself silently that he will not be fooled, then sighs that he must use his final trump card. Mo Yao’s will is startled that he still has one. Fang Yuan says he has Spring Autumn Cicada. Mo Yao’s will cries out, naming it the seventh ranked among the world’s top ten mystical Gu worms, one that can travel upstream along the river of time and change history. ch. 643
