Contest Between Two Fangs
In the Central Continent Refinement Path Convention’s twelfth round, only Fang Yuan and Fang Huai, a wood path Gu Immortal who placed third in Fang Yuan’s previous life, remain. Fang Yuan deliberately picked this round, the one least suited to Fang Huai. Fang Huai fights back hard, using three refinement path killer moves to close the distance instantly and leave the result uncertain again. Each man started with two live blue peacocks, and both still hold one chance left, to strip the other’s materials. ch. 844
Fang Yuan’s flame flickers. The blue peacock head he is melting turns unexpectedly to ash. He turns to kill his remaining live blue peacock, but Fang Huai spends his chance to remove it first, and the hosting elder approves. The crowd gasps: Fang Yuan must now take a huge detour through a different Gu recipe while Fang Huai looks set to catch up and eliminate him. ch. 844
Fang Yuan’s streak has inflated his reputation to grandmaster attainment. Some even claim quasi-great-grandmaster, though Northern Plains publicly knows only four at that level or higher. He alone knows every round’s questions in advance, keeping him far ahead of second place. ch. 844
Some in the crowd gloat over Fang Yuan’s reversal. Immortal Crane Sect’s disciples shout for Fang Yuan to hold on. The sect has said nothing since Fang Yuan captured Fang Zheng, which looks like acceptance. ch. 844
Fang Huai declares victory with a confident smile. Fang Yuan only sneers and calls back the headless corpse of the first blue peacock, then bursts a thick blood-colored fog from his hand to cover it entirely. ch. 844
Bystanders cry that this is evil blood refinement again, and Fang Yuan’s repeated public use of it leaves Immortal Crane Sect facing strong public criticism. One disciple defends him, but a sect elder scolds the disciple into silence. ch. 844
The fog fades, the corpse shrunk by a fifth. A new blue peacock head appears in its place. Fang Yuan throws the head into the fire, where it melts and fuses fully into the incomplete Gu. The crowd sighs that it is as good as over, calling the earlier failure a low-probability fluke. ch. 844
Fang Huai gloats inwardly that wasting Fang Yuan’s time was his objective all along. His last refinement path killer move will still carry him past Fang Yuan to win. He thanks Fang Yuan sarcastically for approaching him personally, since beating him would be like beating every opponent Fang Yuan has already defeated. ch. 844
Fang Huai smiles coldly to himself and thinks Fang Yuan may remove whatever he wants. Fang Yuan spends his last chance on the wild bull eyeball. Fang Huai’s cold smile freezes, and the audience thinks that eyeball, already fused into his incomplete Gu, is a used material the rules forbid removing. Fang Yuan presses on, accusing Fang Huai of secretly hiding a wild bull eyeball and breaking the rules. ch. 844
Fang Huai is stunned that Fang Yuan sensed the eyeball, which Fang Huai hid with his own unique technique and which his winning killer move depends on. Refusing it would still ruin his reputation under a thorough Convention search, leaving him no choice but to comply. He takes the eyeball from the fire, smashes it on the ground, and scatters his own flame as he walks away, conceding defeat. The crowd falls silent before bursting into commotion. ch. 844
Fang Yuan ignores the noise and refines the Gu until he succeeds. He judges there should now be no problem getting top six. Only his previous life’s memory of Fang Huai’s trump card saved him; without it, Fang Huai might have won. Though he looks at ease under the crowd’s admiration, he actually faces great internal pressure. Even with his rebirth advantage, defeating these competitors as only a refinement path quasi-grandmaster is very difficult, except for Firesmith Dragon Chief’s case, unlike what the outside world believes. ch. 844
