Li Hao

On the battle stage he wears a flowery robe, keeps a delicate made-up look, and plays with long fingernails while refusing to glance at his opponent. Narration calls him rank three with rich combat experience and especially proficient against strength path Gu Masters. He mocks the challenger, then uses position swap Gu to trade places with his mountain back toad so the toad’s leap ends the fight. Spectators call that pairing unbeatable and count him at twenty-nine net victories, one win from fourth inner city, with Fang Yuan as the final opponent. ^{ch. 289}

Mountain back toad is a rank three Gu whose swollen rocky back looks like a small hill, and its signature move is a leaping crash. Position swap Gu can move the toad or trade places with an opponent, covering the toad’s slow movement. ^{ch. 289}

Wei Yang says Li Hao was once a strength cultivator who reached fourth inner city, hit a middle-stage bottleneck, abandoned the strength path after that trauma, and shifted to a support style. Wei Yang also says luck at a gambling den gave him the rare position swap Gu, after which he sold his old Gu set, bought mountain back toad at auction, and rebuilt assets through that pairing. The forceful challenge is for Fang Yuan’s all-out effort Gu. ^{ch. 290}

Crowds favor him over Fang Yuan as a battle stage veteran who fell from fourth inner city and climbed again. He enters smiling in flowery robe and makeup, stops about sixty steps out to stay beyond vertical crash Gu’s fifty-step range, lectures Fang Yuan that strength path has no future, then nearly fails when horizontal charge Gu closes the gap and forces an emergency position swap with Fang Yuan himself. He then summons mountain back toad onto the swamp stage while Fang Yuan begins smashing the toad instead of chasing him. ^{ch. 290}

He tries to crush Fang Yuan by dropping the toad onto himself and swapping Fang Yuan into the impact, but Fang Yuan reads the timing and forces him to swap early. When Fang Yuan keeps battering the toad, Li Hao’s earlier opponents’ habit of ignoring the toad fails him. Healing attempts and repeated position swaps drain his primeval essence; he has already stripped beast phantoms from his body to cheapen those swaps. Fang Yuan finally beats mountain back toad to death, then sends Li Hao flying into the mud, where he dies for that contempt. Narration says his true core was the toad and position swap Gu. ^{ch. 291}

Shang Yan Fei and Wei Yang discuss the poem Fang Yuan recited over the fight, and Wei Yang names Li Hao as the opponent treated as too weak. After the kill the battle zone goes into a commotion; narration calls Li Hao the strongest in fifth inner city battle stage and about to rise to fourth, and many later opponents surrender once that death is known. ^{ch. 292}

Fang Yuan earns three Gu from the battle but neither mountain back toad nor position swap Gu. The toad was beaten to death, and position swap Gu was Li Hao’s vital Gu and perished with him. ^{ch. 293}