Chapter 645

Mo Yao’s will confirms that when she first discovered Fang Yuan’s Spring Autumn Cicada she was extremely excited and thought at once of using it to be reborn. She used calamity beckoning Gu to draw him to Water Pavilion. Letting him refine ten percent of Water Pavilion was engineered to lower his guard, and when he left she activated Water Pavilion and hid in the sweat on his skin. Fang Yuan explains how he confirmed it: her will alone was not enough to guarantee his safety, so the rank seven Immortal Gu House Water Pavilion had to be her strongest safeguard. Thinking should have expended and weakened her will, yet she never weakened, even while creating a killer move, contesting Giant Sun’s will in his mind, helping refine the supreme true inheritance of True Yang Building, and standing under the light of wisdom. The only explanation, he realized, was that Water Pavilion had been replenishing her all along. He had missed it when he first inspected Water Pavilion’s Gu worms, and names the crucial one as a wisdom path Immortal Gu, delight in water and mountain Gu. ^{ch. 645}

Mo Yao’s will says he is only half right: delight in water and mountain Gu creates joyful will alone, but hers is not a joyful will, so she used other Gu worms to convert it. This will of hers, she says, can meddle with his thinking and make him act against his own nature, and she asks whether he was purposely losing to Giant Sun’s will. Fang Yuan answers that Giant Sun’s will is strong, but not so overwhelmingly strong that the gap between them should be that large. He could not be certain yet. ^{ch. 645}

When he awakened in shock to find Water Pavilion had turned into armor around him and saved his life, he realized something was wrong, though his prior alertness had gradually eroded under her influence. When Giant Sun’s will attacked in a frenzy, he reasoned that this small battlefield held few outside forces able to interfere, so he stayed wary of the formless hands and deliberately moved slowly to let one attack him, gaining proof of her ill intent. Even after Water Pavilion broke apart, he still feared its power. So he coaxed her into entering his immortal aperture while using her borrowed Gu worms to fight. He purposely took hits from many killer moves so that most of those borrowed Gu worms would be sealed, denying himself any Gu that did not need primeval essence to activate. ^{ch. 645}

Mo Yao’s will calls him too shrewd. She says his acting surpassed hers once he found something wrong. Fang Yuan raises something he still does not understand. He lost Fixed Immortal Travel to a six fingered formless hand. He knows the Immortal Gu threatened her plans enough that she wanted it gone, but he asks how she could be sure that hand would take Fixed Immortal Travel rather than another Immortal Gu, least of all Spring Autumn Cicada. ^{ch. 645}

Mo Yao’s will laughs bitterly that she is only a will left behind for ten thousand years and cannot control the whole situation. In the chaos, when the formless hand grabbed him, she hesitated. She feared showing Water Pavilion would draw his suspicion. Once it took Fixed Immortal Travel she was overjoyed and quickly steered his thoughts toward helping Tai Bai Yun Sheng, a delay that cost him the Immortal Gu. Her luck turned terrible after she once sneaked into True Yang Building for fortune rivalling heaven Gu and ended up releasing it. Later, when she blocked the seven fingered formless hand for him, she meant to sacrifice the rank seven calamity beckoning Gu inside Water Pavilion, but the formless hand took its core, water harmony Immortal Gu, instead. ^{ch. 645}

She would have struck long ago if his Cicada held a mortal’s consciousness. Since his Gu Immortal will remained inside it, she never dared act openly and only influenced him in secret. While lurking in his mind she watched his thoughts and tried to read his memories, but after the fight with Giant Sun’s will began, all her will went into using Water Pavilion to protect him instead. Otherwise she would have noticed his suspicion and steered him to dismiss it. Most of her immortal essence had gone into creating wills, and she admits that five or six more beads of red date immortal essence would have changed the outcome. ^{ch. 645}

Fang Yuan calls it an unfair fight, since a will alone cannot think as deeply as the main body and acts on its own specialty, and praises her as Fairy Mo Yao for reaching this far on a left-behind will alone. He notes he might have kept falling for her scheme had it come earlier, but he made a similar mistake just before reaching northern plains. His resolve is never to repeat the same mistake twice, and an image of a young woman in white rises in his mind as he says it. He credits wisdom Gu’s help too, saying its light halo alone sharpened his thoughts enough to expose her scheme, as befits a rank nine Immortal Gu. He then asks what type of will she is. ^{ch. 645}

Mo Yao’s will decides to tell him, since he will learn it soon regardless and it is already too late for him to avoid using Spring Autumn Cicada to self-detonate. Her will is called fake will, one that can disguise itself as a person’s own thoughts, collide with other thoughts, and change the results of their thinking to influence decisions and actions. Fang Yuan realizes at once why he could never find where she was lurking: she was disguised as part of his own thoughts. He tells her she is wrong about one thing. He will not use Spring Autumn Cicada. ^{ch. 645}

Mo Yao’s will laughs and doubts him, since the six arm heavenly zombie king killer move she perfected with him carried a deliberately wrong estimate that has already cost him any future to progress toward. She is sure, after all this time beside him, that he has no trump cards left. With the wind veil of assimilation closing in and Fixed Immortal Travel already lost, she doubts he can open a stargate here. She warns that his real battle strength still falls short of Giant Sun’s will outside the true inheritance secluded domain, where wills and thoughts are normally suppressed. She adds that she will not lend him worldly wave trace Immortal Gu again. She reminds him that Hei Lou Lan’s Great Strength True Martial Physique has reached rank five peak stage, a threat beyond Giant Sun’s will if it self-detonates, and that only the light of wisdom is keeping him alive right now. ^{ch. 645}

Her tone softens as she says he refuses Spring Autumn Cicada out of fear for his black coffin luck, since the Gu’s drawback worsens its owner’s luck over time, as it once did to Red Lotus Demon Venerable. Luck is strong, but it does not decide everything. It depends on who faces it, she says. He had terrible luck yet went this far on strength and wisdom, while Ma Hong Yun had good luck and still could not hold it, certain to be captured by northern plains’ Gu Immortals even after escaping. Fang Yuan snickers that she has schemed this long and is sure of victory, but a contest of wills is not his strength, and self-detonating would mean fighting her strength with his own weakness. ^{ch. 645}

Mo Yao’s will laughs too, surprised at his timid side, but says he is not entirely right, since she does mean to use Spring Autumn Cicada, though his own foundation cannot carry it ten thousand years back. She plans instead to find Red Lotus Demon Venerable’s inheritance while traveling upstream in the river of time, then use its power to travel the rest of the way back. She asks if he does not want to see what that inheritance looks like. It is a shock that she knows the location of Red Lotus Demon Venerable’s secret inheritance ground at all. Fang Yuan gives no response and stays silent. ^{ch. 645}

Outside, Giant Sun’s will’s countdown finally reaches one. It says he is still stubborn and wants to resist to the end. Ye Lui Sang shouts that the demon deserves death despite Ancestor Giant Sun’s mercy, and the Gu Masters clamor to kill him and end a menace to society. Someone warns that the wind veil of assimilation is already within a hundred steps. The Gu Masters stand at the edge of wisdom Gu’s light halo and outside it, with only Fang Yuan inside, and as the wind veil closes the space, it will soon reach the halo’s surface. ^{ch. 645}