Chapter 689

Hei Cheng locates Fairy Li Shan with an investigative move and fires three dark arrows at full strength; roots coil to block them. She calls Earth Flower Lotus Burial: a man eating flower swallows one arrow, then a chain of flowers each swallowing the last until Hei Cheng’s connection to it falls by at least thirty percent. Knowing it cannot break free soon, he turns to his two remaining arrows. ^{ch. 689}

She stains one of the two with Fading Heavenly Flower, cutting its speed and power, but Hei Cheng fuses the pair into one arrow that regains both. The reformed arrow stabs a tree trunk where he believes she hides. Her voice answers from elsewhere instead: Tree Flower Sheds Tears seals it in amber, the target only a wooden puppet in her likeness. ^{ch. 689}

Pale but bright eyed atop a tree crown, Fairy Li Shan tells Hei Cheng he will fail today. Against his attack type Dark Arrow she has only Mountain Pledge Gu, so she built these three mortal killer moves instead of fighting him directly. With both arrows sealed, Hei Cheng has lost his strongest means of attack. ^{ch. 689}

Hei Cheng then reveals Dark Prison, his Hei tribe’s rank six Immortal Gu House. He borrowed it at a huge price to guard against accidents on this trip. Fairy Li Shan’s heart sinks: it is a beast stable holding the ancient desolate beast sharp tusk boar, which could flatten Pear Orchard as easily as stomping a garden and free the sealed arrows. ^{ch. 689}

A third dark arrow, fired secretly while the other two fused, pierces Fairy Li Shan’s forehead, through her skull and out the back of her head, while she waits for Hei Lou Lan’s help. Hei Lou Lan, just freed from the cocoon, screams for her aunt as she sees it happen. Hei Cheng calls it over: Dark Prison was only a distraction while his other moves stripped her defenses for the hidden arrow. A flash of light restores Fairy Li Shan whole again through the Immortal Gu Man as Before. Tai Bai Yun Sheng says he almost failed in time. ^{ch. 689}

Hei Cheng’s anger is really at Xue Song Zi, who had agreed to kill Tai Bai Yun Sheng and the immortal zombie so Hei Cheng could finish Fairy Li Shan uninterrupted. Instead Xue Song Zi is found in tatters, nearly bald, bruised and bloodied, one arm broken and unhealed despite carrying healing Gu. His opponent gave him no time to heal it at all. ^{ch. 689}

The strength path phantom army, over two hundred thousand strong, chases Xue Song Zi alone. Hei Cheng cannot understand why the phantoms keep multiplying instead of dying. Half the army then turns on him, and Thousand Demon Rampage, Dark Fire, and Black Wind Break, fired together, are destroyed within breaths. This is an immortal killer move, Hei Cheng realizes, and he wonders whether this unremarkable zombie is the strongest of them. ^{ch. 689}

The army tears through Hei Cheng’s Dark Veil. The dome that covered half the sky is reduced to tatters, and he retreats, firing move after move that barely slows the army. He finally understands what Xue Song Zi felt: even a rank seven Gu Immortal can feel helpless before it. Even releasing Dark Prison’s sharp tusk boar, he judges, would not be enough to match it. His one path back into the fight, killing Fang Yuan’s main body with a dark arrow, is closed: two are sealed, and the last cannot touch a Fang Yuan holding Immortal Gu Worldly Wave Trace. ^{ch. 689}

Fang Yuan absorbs another trace of the Demon Venerable’s intent and looks back at Hei Cheng with a smile of open disdain, as part of the army turns to pin him too. Two Gu Immortals are now being chased by Fang Yuan alone. Tai Bai Yun Sheng calls out his approval, while Fairy Li Shan watches from her tree crown, her expression frozen at a reversal she never expected. ^{ch. 689}

Fang Yuan finishes the earthly calamity, gaining its last true meaning: his strength path stays at grandmaster, but transformation path rises to master and flying breaks into quasi-grandmaster. Still greedy, he asks Hei Lou Lan to release stored earth qi to draw down another calamity. Now a fully purified Gu Immortal, her old eye injury healed, she refuses. She calls the retreat instead, keeping her small family qi Gu to refine Immortal Gu. ^{ch. 689}

The group withdraws into Fang Yuan’s aperture, and he activates Fixed Immortal Travel, vanishing after three breaths back to Snowy Mountain. Left behind, Xue Song Zi asks whether they are letting him go. Even with Instant Pause, Hei Cheng admits, neither of them could break the phantom army’s remaining defense, and Xue Song Zi has nothing to say. ^{ch. 689}