Chapter 908

Xiao Shi Rang formally presents the transaction token, naming Fang Yuan an official trading partner with preferential policies recorded in an information path mortal Gu. Fang Yuan accepts happily. Xiao clan’s token carries the most value in Western Desert, the most commercially developed region. Accepting it draws him closer to Xiao clan but complicates trade with their rival Tian clan. ^{ch. 908}

With the token he can now trade dragonfish and eerie fire dragon pythons formally. Profit is expected to pass a thousand immortal essence stones a month. Over the next few days he closes several deals across Western Desert, mostly short term. Xiao Shi Rang, still unable to identify him despite repeated investigation, reads the quick acceptance as goodwill and warms further to him. ^{ch. 908}

Returning to Hu Immortal blessed land, Fang Yuan learns that Song Yi Shi flattened the island where Li clan village lived. During the contest for Ascending Heaven Plain, Seven Seas Snake Woman mocked her body as worth only six hundred immortal essence stones. In fury, Song Yi Shi massacred everyone on the island and drowned it under repeated tsunamis, leaving no survivors. Fang Yuan is shaken. In his previous life Song Yi Shi and Li Xiao Yao were a famous couple, and killing those ancestors leaves the once prominent Li Xiao Yao no chance to rise in this history. Fang Yuan regrets losing the chance to tie his fortunes to Li Xiao Yao’s luck. ^{ch. 908}

Days later, Starry Sky grotto-heaven shatters, its fragments falling like meteors and drawing forces of every size. Fang Yuan works out the cause correctly. His own earlier move against Star Lord Wan Xiang and Immortal Monkey King Shi Lei had woken immortal zombie Seven Star Child from a dream realm. In his previous life Seven Star Child never woke, and after Star Lord Wan Xiang died Shi Lei inherited the chance and plundered the grotto-heaven in secret. This time the waking trapped Shi Lei, who had to beg Combat Immortal Sect for aid, and even that sect could not suppress Seven Star Child. Rather than lose the grotto-heaven, Seven Star Child detonated it himself, so its fragments fall two to three hundred years early. ^{ch. 908}

Fang Yuan reflects that his own hand has now upended Northern Plains, Eastern Sea, and Central Continent alike. The whole of Central Continent flocks to the fragment worlds. Its Refinement Path Convention is forgotten. He smiles bitterly at the timing, since the collapse would have profited a lone cultivator like him far more once the chaotic war finally began. Heavenly Court and the ten great ancient sects still dominate, and soon prove him right: the sects strike an internal deal and expel every outside force, leaving him to regret the grotto-heaven as a lost plan. ^{ch. 908}

Unexpectedly, a letter reaches him by hole earth Gu from He Feng Yang, inviting him on Immortal Crane Sect’s behalf to explore a fragment of the shattered grotto-heaven. Excited, and judging a trap unlikely, Fang Yuan still investigates before replying. Two days later he reaches the fragment’s valley in Central Continent, already ringed by the ten sects’ allied forces as a forbidden zone where trespassers die without mercy. ^{ch. 908}

He Feng Yang escorts him past more than ten guarding Gu Immortals. Several threaten or warn him. Fairy Bai Qing, Feng Jin Huang’s mother, appears in person to ask Fang Yuan for mercy in the coming contest, promising future repayment, and he agrees without hesitation. He Feng Yang sends him in last, since his cultivation is the highest of those entering, and reminds him once more to occupy the place already named to him. The valley’s mirage-like scenery is the fragment world’s own entrance, and Fang Yuan waves off the reminder and enters completely. ^{ch. 908}