Chapter 688

Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s shout wakes Fang Yuan inside the snake sea, coiled snakes kept off his stomach only by his hair armor. He laughs, tearing dozens of snakes apart, true meaning flooding into him with each kill. The higher his attainment climbs, the faster he absorbs each one. Addicted to the killing, he drops his hair armor and sucks the snakes in whole to chew and swallow. ^{ch. 688}

After he kills the third shield snake, his strength path attainment jumps to grandmaster realm, and with a little more time it would match his previous life blood path. He keeps slaughtering as the calamity keeps reshaping: rockmen teach him thickness, a bee group teaches piercing, a rhinoceros group teaches charging. Once grandmaster stabilizes, he starts pushing toward quasi-great grandmaster. ^{ch. 688}

Hei Cheng and Xue Song Zi find Fang Yuan and the others. The size of the phantom army tells Xue Song Zi the icy plain rumor seems true. Hei Cheng’s gaze settles instead on the still unabsorbed qi cocoon, Hei Lou Lan’s human qi simply too vast. He offers her surrender, revealing a rank six time path Immortal Gu whose aura sets Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s two time path Immortal Gu vibrating. Fairy Li Shan names it Instant Pause, which freezes a target’s time for six moments, so Hei Cheng need not fear Fang Yuan leaving by Fixed Immortal Travel. ^{ch. 688}

Hei Cheng mocks Fairy Li Shan for turning him against his own daughter. He accuses her of wanting his yin-yang life extension method for herself. She answers that he is finished today, dropping her disguise to reveal her true rank seven aura, though northern plains has only ever seen her at rank six. Roots burst into a stand of trees within a few breaths, pear blossoms opening into the battlefield killer move Pear Orchard. She vanishes into its leaves while Hei Lou Lan keeps balancing the three qi atop one of its trees. ^{ch. 688}

Xue Song Zi warns that Fairy Li Shan, Snowy Mountain blessed land’s third leader, has secretly reached rank seven and had this battlefield ready; as a member of the same blessed land, alliance rules forbid him from fighting her. Hei Cheng sets the plan: Xue Song Zi takes the immortal zombie and the rank six ally while Hei Cheng kills Fairy Li Shan, and together they finish Hei Lou Lan after. Xue Song Zi agrees and drops toward the calamity. He wants a share of the true meaning too. ^{ch. 688}

Fang Yuan shouts a warning as Xue Song Zi drops toward him. Xue Song Zi sneers back, calling him merely a rank six immortal zombie. Having only seen Fang Yuan flee before, both assume his movement Gu were borrowed, and Xue Song Zi underestimates him further given the half destroyed calamity and common wide range moves. He closes fast and fires three killer moves at once, Drifting Snow, Ice Mountain Awl, and Snow Sparrow Crisis, filling the air with snow formed birds and mountain sized icicles. Fang Yuan waves a hand and the myriad army answers: ice mountains collapse, snow sparrows cry, and the snow stops. ^{ch. 688}

Only in the fight does Xue Song Zi grasp what Myriad Self truly is, raising a frost Snow Domain and layering two defensive moves, Towering Pine Tree and Icy Hair Dragon Stream. The army crashes through anyway. His defenses collapse and the whole domain lasts only a moment before breaking apart. Xue Song Zi flees faster than he arrived, pale, asking who this immortal zombie really is. ^{ch. 688}

Hei Cheng and Fairy Li Shan fight intensely from the first exchange. He fires three dark arrows into the pear orchard hunting her position, while sunflower king lotus fire beams of light back at him. He answers with Dark Veil, pouring black balls down as the same Dark Vortex that Hei Lou Lan once used at the Imperial Court contest, tearing holes through the orchard. The light beams open gaps in his veil but thin out as the vortexes multiply, and Hei Cheng quickly takes the upper hand. ^{ch. 688}