Chapter 944

In Central Continent’s Spirit Affinity House, Feng Jin Huang weeps alone. Central Continent’s Gu Immortals have returned from investigating Northern Plains with no news of her father, Feng Jiu Ge, and by her own reckoning he is likely dead. For days she has barely eaten, hiding her grief behind normal cultivation. ^{ch. 944}

Her mother, Fairy Bai Qing, appears and comforts her. Feng Jin Huang asks whether her powerful father must still be alright, but Fairy Bai Qing will not say so. She answers that even invincible rank nine Gu Immortals die one day, and offers a story instead of false comfort. ^{ch. 944}

In the story, from The Legends of Ren Zu, Ren Zu’s scheme to save his daughter Boundless Forest Samsara through the feathermen fails, since they would rather die than surrender their freedom. He can save neither child. Self Gu offers a method instead, saying fate Gu left a trace inside the Door of Life and Death while searching for fairness Gu, and that is why all living beings die. A traveler who avoids that trace forms a brand new road. Leading his son Verdant Great Sun out on that road would let him escape death and revive. ^{ch. 944}

Hesitant but out of options, Ren Zu leaves his daughter in ordinary abyss a while longer and sets out to save his son first. On the way he meets a beastman. Powerfully built yet terrified of his own shadow, the beastman flees in every direction, and Ren Zu mocks his cowardice. ^{ch. 944}

A worm inside the beastman’s heart answers instead, naming itself Fear Gu and blaming Ren Zu’s own ignorance of it for the scorn. Fear wells up in Ren Zu at its appearance alone. It releases the beastman, who weeps in joy, and flies into Ren Zu’s own heart instead, promising him endless fear for the insult. ^{ch. 944}

Fear Gu makes him afraid of wind, sunlight, tree leaves, snakes, and rain, until he can barely move. His progress toward the door stops entirely. Once it senses his goal, Fear Gu turns him afraid of death itself, since entering the door means walking from life toward death, and he can no longer approach it. ^{ch. 944}

Self Gu tells him death itself is not the frightening thing, only the fear inside his own heart. Fear Gu agrees, boasting that fear alone is worth fearing. ^{ch. 944}

Fairy Bai Qing tells her daughter she must grow stronger, since death spares nobody, not even a rank nine venerable. Feng Jin Huang must never let the fear in her own heart defeat her. Feng Jin Huang, moved, resolves to cultivate without fear, whatever becomes of her father. ^{ch. 944}

Privately, Fairy Bai Qing is frantic. Feng Jiu Ge’s disappearance has drastically weakened Spirit Affinity House’s lead among the ten ancient sects and stirs unrest across Central Continent. Within her own sect, rivals long suppressed by his presence are now gathering strength against her. ^{ch. 944}

She loves Feng Jiu Ge deeply and wants to go help him in Northern Plains, but holds the impulse down. She has a daughter to protect. If she too were lost, Feng Jin Huang would be left with no one. ^{ch. 944}

In Northern Plains, Hei Cheng’s headless corpse lies in the mud, his captured soul wailing in Hei Lou Lan’s grip, bound now for torture and interrogation. Killing him was not enough. ^{ch. 944}

Blazing Heaven Demoness works a fire path immortal killer move, a small hand of flame drawing an aperture out of the corpse as a pearl, which she hands to Hei Lou Lan. It will last only seven days and seven nights before fusing into an ordinary blessed land, and every Gu worm inside it, mortal and immortal alike, has already been destroyed. Hei Lou Lan takes it in silence. ^{ch. 944}

Blazing Heaven Demoness says the method is not her own invention. She built it from an inheritance of Immortal Kong Jue in Eastern Sea. She is named an extremely rare great grandmaster, drawing on other paths through her own attainment. ^{ch. 944}

Fairy Li Shan turns to Fang Yuan next. It is time, she tells him, to deal with his own matter. ^{ch. 944}