Chapter 780

In Central Continent, Heaven Overseeing Tower stands among Heavenly Court’s white jade halls and originated from Star Constellation Immortal Venerable. As the name says, the whole world can be observed from it. She died of her own lifespan’s end despite talent to rival the heavens. Heavenly Court has since survived three Demon Venerables’ attacks. ^{ch. 780}

Heaven Overseeing Tower Lord, a rank eight Gu Immortal, climbs the stairs on a cane. Each step costs him a bead of immortal essence. The walls beside him shift between fog and rare clear pictures. One shows Luo Po Valley, where a wind path and a metal path Gu Immortal fight and break off, the wind path Gu Immortal lowering his head to the other. Elsewhere, escapees appear across the world, and the more he sees, the colder his face turns: these people have all escaped the judgment of fate. ^{ch. 780}

At the tower’s peak waits rank nine Immortal Gu Fate, its aura weak around a scarlet wound that nearly cuts it in two. Heaven Overseeing Tower is itself a rank nine Immortal Gu House built on Fate. The core is close to destruction. ^{ch. 780}

Red Lotus Demon Venerable broke Fate, shattering the chains that once bound every living being’s destiny, though Fate was not completely destroyed. The injury has not healed in a million years despite Heavenly Court’s care. It shows in two ways: the physical wound, and every person who has slipped fate’s judgment because of it. ^{ch. 780}

Healing Fate means mending the wound and hunting every escapee, the harder task. The five regions are extremely vast, and escapees appear constantly. ^{ch. 780}

Early on Heavenly Court kept up. But merely some years later escapees were countless, and over a decade on they spread through all five regions. Decades later came immortal zombies, a trend Heavenly Court could not resist, and a branch of them now exists even inside Central Continent. ^{ch. 780}

The goal keeps receding. Yet Heavenly Court has never given it up, since fate Gu was the cornerstone of its ancient glory. Healing it completely would mean grasping the paths in life of all living beings, and Heavenly Court paramount again. ^{ch. 780}

Generations of Gu Immortals and enormous cost have recovered fate Gu bit by bit, though it is dying and barely usable. That recovery is why the tower’s walls show pictures. The escapees they reveal are only the strongest ones, not hidden inside blessed lands or grotto-heavens and not concealed by wisdom path methods, so they are easy to deduce. ^{ch. 780}

Caressing Fate, the old man mutters that the latest Refinement Path Convention should let fate Gu display fifty percent of its might. His anger eases as he speaks. Every life, he holds, has its trajectory fixed by the law of heaven and earth, so no escapee’s life belongs to the one living it. He vows to act as heaven’s proxy before Fate recovers and cut down the tallest weeds. ^{ch. 780}

In Central Continent’s Hu Immortal blessed land, Fang Yuan sits with eyes shut inside a cave lit by the light of wisdom. He opens his eyes, unsatisfied. The malicious thought Gu he spent so long accumulating are already spent. ^{ch. 780}

He first spent half his stock deducing whether Pulling Mountain and Pulling Water could fold into the killer move myriad self, for under ten percent progress. He then used up the rest deducing the immortal killer move vaguely familiar face, reaching only a little over ten percent there. He judges his own transformation path attainment too low for the work. ^{ch. 780}

A moving perspective cup Gu emerges from his immortal aperture, carrying a letter. Its four words read, the time has arrived, sent by Fairy Li Shan. Fang Yuan had meant to follow Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable’s inheritance clues to Luo Po Valley, but her earlier news had already turned him from it. ^{ch. 780}

That news concerned the wisdom path inheritance of Dong Fang Chang Fan. Rather than hand it to his chosen successor Dong Fang Yu Liang, a mere mortal Gu Master, he hid it away at his death to block other Gu Immortals. Fairy Li Shan, with her vast connections, has learned that Dong Fang Yu Liang has slipped off to an unknown location to claim it. ^{ch. 780}