Chapter 704

The third Gu Immortal’s dagger closes on He Feng Yang, and the nine palace crane wrenches around beneath him, throwing him aside to take the blow into its own chest. The ambusher is startled, since heavily disturbing He Feng Yang’s emotions was meant to unsettle the crane, assuming he had enslaved it. He never had. Seeing Little Nine struck down for him, He Feng Yang weeps and cries out its name. ^{ch. 704}

He raised the crane after meeting it in his youth while fleeing pursuers on a mission; both badly hurt, they helped each other survive. He spent all his wealth, barely managing to stabilize its life. Decades more of care followed, until their bond ran closer than brothers. Badly injured on a later mission as a rank five Gu Master, able to save only one life, he thought three days and three nights before choosing to sacrifice himself for the crane. That choice moved third supreme elder, Lord Tiger Demon, to save them both, and He Feng Yang joined his faction on becoming a Gu Immortal. ^{ch. 704}

The crane’s grey light shrinks its enormous, slender body from maturity to infancy, as it cries out in mourning. The dagger, it turns out, is a time path Immortal Gu that reverses its target to a younger state. Tiger Demon’s anger will tells him to retreat and not waste the sacrifice. He Feng Yang refuses. He charges back with blood red eyes, his robe transformed into a crane feather cloak. ^{ch. 704}

The mysterious Gu Immortal raises the dagger to meet his jade green lightning, while using emotion path killer moves against him. But He Feng Yang’s heart, filled completely with anger, goes unaffected. The blow throws the ambusher back. He Feng Yang coughs blood from the strain, forces himself upright, gathers the now goose sized infant crane into his arms, and retreats. ^{ch. 704}

The other two mysterious Gu Immortals cancel soul taker battlefield, which cannot hold He Feng Yang, and hurry to the ambusher. The wind path one sighs that he escaped after all, and the emotion path one says his close combat lightning move is not what it appears to be. The poison path one wants to give chase. The emotion path Gu Immortal overrules him: the ambush was too hastily planned, and they will retreat rather than risk their identities and their master’s plan. ^{ch. 704}

He Feng Yang flies to Fei He mountain and on into Fu Hu blessed land, where Lord Tiger Demon watches tens of thousands of rockmen labor in an enormous stone pit. Injured and ashamed, he bows, admitting failure. Lord Tiger Demon only tells him to rest and heal. He then draws the anger will into his own mind, taking in the trip at once. ^{ch. 704}

Lord Tiger Demon sends a fresh anger will to the conference hall on Fei He mountain’s peak, where wills of the first, second and third supreme elders monitor the sect, and it fuses with his earlier will to narrate the incident. The first and second elders’ wills fall silent, thinking so hard that their bodies visibly shrink. Second supreme elder’s will leaves Hu Immortal blessed land’s fate to Lord Tiger Demon. First supreme elder’s will judges the attempt on He Feng Yang’s life the more serious matter and asks where it happened; a Gu worm forms a map in answer. He calls the site a very good place for an ambush, and judges the ambushers very familiar with Central Continent’s terrain. Second supreme elder’s will, outraged, demands an investigation. Tiger Demon’s anger will wonders whether these attackers are fellow Central Continent Gu Immortals rather than outsiders. ^{ch. 704}

Central Continent’s sect system, founded by Primordial Origin Immortal Venerable in the Remote Antiquity Era, has spent over three million years overtaking the region’s older clan system, since a sect opens cultivation to any mortal where a clan admits only its own children. Central Continent’s Gu Immortal count has grown to far outnumber the other four regions, and those outside the ten great sects already outnumber those inside several times over. The ten sects hold eighty percent of the region’s cultivation resources, so conflict is unavoidable as outsiders keep needing more, and new sects and talents keep rising faster than the ten sects can recruit or suppress. Their own immortals can spare nothing either, since blessed land upkeep and tribulation repairs climb as cultivation rises. Great Heavenly Sword Sect proves the point. Once their vassal with two Gu Immortals, it has gained a third and now plans to break away. ^{ch. 704}