263 RI
"Kill!" Ba clan's Gu Immortal shouted as his body inflated to a giant size, he stomped, blood splattered, he had directly stomped an ancient year beast to death. Whoosh! Puff! A great fire spread out and set dozens of year beasts on fire, Chai clan's Gu Immortal was bathed in flames, resembling a divine general.
Fang Yuan remembered this person, in the previous life, this person had a decently developed fire path immortal aperture, he had several majestic volcanoes, it was quite valuable.
Tie Qu Zhong was silent, his hands moved rapidly as golden light shot out with immense sharpness, splitting year beasts into halves easily like tofu.
Fang Yuan thought of the edge Gu in Tie Qu Zhong's hands, it was one of the core Gu of time cutting edge, in the previous life, he had obtained it through great thief ghost hand. This depended on luck, it was not reliable. He had to be careful in this life.
"Demon Fang Yuan, we have to thank you for such a huge amount of wealth. Hahaha!" Shang Hu Zhang laughed as he used his wood path killer move, trapping the surrounding year beasts and keeping them in his immortal aperture.
Fang Yuan was very calm, it did not matter how many of them Shang Hu Zhang took, in a moment's time, even Shang Hu Zhang himself would belong to Fang Yuan.
Howl...
Year beasts continued to stream into the formation, Southern Border's Gu Immortals were fighting against them tirelessly, but the year beasts just kept coming!
"Why are there so many?!"
"This demon Fang Yuan is trying to waste our energy!"
"Breaking apart this formation is the way to victory."
The Southern Border Gu Immortals conversed, they could tell what this battle was about. But they had no way of diverting themselves to do that.
Lu Wei Yin and Xia Cha were the most likely people to break the formation.
Roar—!
At this time, the spiral suddenly expanded drastically as an arrogant year beast stepped into the battlefield.
Fang Yuan was slightly shocked: "Oh, I summoned an immemorial year tiger. It seems even stronger than the immemorial year chicken that I summoned last time. Hmm... is it because I used the self luck true inheritance to increase my personal luck?"
The Southern Border immortals' expressions changed.
"An immemorial year beast!"
"This formation could summon immemorial year beasts, as expected."
"What formation is this? It is so vicious! Quickly destroy it!"
Lu Wei Yin wanted to take action but Tie Qu Zhong stood up: "Let us deal with it, both rank eights need to break open this formation, that is the wisest move!"
"Or maybe I should do something?" Ba Shi Ba transmitted.
"No, now is not the time yet, Brother Ba, wait first." Xia Cha transmitted and urged restraint.
Ba Shi Ba thought to himself, that was not wrong, this was merely an immemorial year tiger, they had two rank eights on the surface, this was not a problem, he continued to conceal himself.
Tie Qu Zhong and several Southern Border rank seven experts faced off against the immemorial year tiger. They were powerful rank seven Gu Immortals after all, by working together, they had quite the strength, but after fighting, they quickly fell into a disadvantage.
In the previous life, they fought against the immemorial year chicken that Fang Yuan summoned, they were evenly matched.
But now, Fang Yuan summoned a much stronger immemorial year tiger.
Tie Qu Zhong had an ashen expression, he was stunned in his heart: "This is truly strength at rank eight, it is very impressive! To think I actually wanted to challenge such power..."
"There is a formation core here." Suddenly, Xia Cha's eyes flashed as she pointed her finger, the rank eight killer move activated, mysterious light shot out, causing a huge sound. The formation shook thrice before it stabilized.
The Southern Border immortals were overjoyed, there was a formation core indeed, Xia Cha destroyed it according to everyone's expectations.
Next, the formation core was destroyed, a second spiral entrance appeared as large numbers of year beasts rushed in.
The Southern Border immortals' joyful expressions vanished.
Howl!
With a loud roar, an immemorial year dragon jumped into the battlefield.
The immortals' expressions changed again, this was the second immemorial desolate beast!
"It is my turn now." Ba Shi Ba wanted to move.
"Don't be anxious, Ba Shi Ba, let me do it." Lu Wei Yin transmitted as he moved for the first time, he made a grabbing motion with one hand, a huge yellow hand formed and grasped the immemorial year dragon, preventing it from escaping despite its struggles.
Lu Wei Yin was indeed Paradise Earth's inheritor, he managed to subdue a fierce immemorial year tiger in one move in the previous life. Now, he was able to capture an immemorial year dragon similarly. Even though he had no attacking methods, this move was unfathomable and made people feel great admiration towards him.
The Southern Border immortals had a surge of morale, while Shadow Sect's members and the variant human Gu Immortals had dark expressions.
The might of rank eight was truly intimidating.
Fang Yuan thought about the final battle in his previous life, because Lu Wei Yin had immense battle strength, he was a huge obstruction to Fang Yuan's side. Right now, Lu Wei Yin had not even displayed half of his full strength, even so, he was already one of the strongest rank eights out there.
Hiss hiss hiss...
An immemorial year snake dragged its thick and long body while hissing as it slithered out of the spiral entrance, entering the battlefield.
A third immemorial year beast!
Caw caw caw!
An immemorial year chicken came out with an arrogant attitude and raised neck.
A fourth immemorial year beast!
With two immemorial year beasts entering the battle at once, the Southern Border immortals' faces turned pale.
This immemorial year snake was not easy to deal with, it was huge and had a greater aura than the first two. The fourth immemorial year chicken even had the aura of wild Immortal Gu on it, it was much more dangerous.
After the two immemorial year beasts appeared, a vast number of year beasts surged out of the spiral like a raging tsunami.
Both sides engaged in fierce combat, Gu Immortals used their wisdom and killer moves as they cooperated, while the year beasts were unintelligent and fought with brute strength, but they had advantage in numbers.
Fang Yuan's subordinates were all guarding the formation cores, watching the huge fight between them.
"This damned formation, we must destroy it for a chance of victory!"
"Actually, as long as we destroy a portion of it, we will be able to send out information and get reinforcements from our righteous path allies."
"This time path formation is truly profound..." Xia Cha frowned, after finding the first formation core, she could not find the second one.
"The formation is complete and flawless. My formation path attainment is too low, maybe I should go all out and make this formation unable to handle the attack, I can create a flaw myself!" Xia Cha's killing intent surged.
Lu Wei Yin could sense Xia Cha's intention as he quickly urged: "Don't fall into the demon's trap. This Fang Yuan is very devious, even Heavenly Court cannot capture him. Shadow Sect had obtained Graceful Chaotic Duel Stage before, even though it was destroyed, many of the Immortal Gu were left in their hands. If you attack with your full strength, you might fall into Fang Yuan's trap, he would use it against you."
Xia Cha hesitated, but the immemorial year chicken approached her quickly.
"A mere beast." Xia Cha laughed from anger, aura of many Gu worms burst out of her body, forming into an immortal killer move.
Immortal killer move — Spring Scissors!
A pair of scissors that was jade green in color and large as an elephant flew towards the immemorial year chicken's neck and clipped.
The immemorial year chicken could not rival her, after getting heavily injured from the scissors, it quickly fell into a disadvantage.
Xia Cha displayed shocking battle strength that was not lower than Heavenly Court's members. Right before the immemorial year chicken was about to die at Xia Cha's hands, suddenly, Fang Yuan activated the formation.
The heavily injured immemorial year chicken vanished on the spot.
"Submit to me." Behind the scenes, Fang Yuan targeted this weakened immemorial year chicken as he used his overbearing enslavement path method, like what happened in the previous life, he succeeded in capturing this beast.
Ever since rebirth, Fang Yuan had been collecting immemorial year beasts.
His plan was to gather twelve different immemorial year beasts, even though there would be many immemorial year chickens in the River of Time next year, this immemorial year chicken had superior battle strength, he did not want to lose it.
Fang Yuan used the strength of the Southern Border immortals to weaken the immemorial year beast and enslave it forcefully.
Xia Cha's expression turned dark, but she smiled: "You finally exposed a flaw, so what if you get a few immemorial year beasts?"
Fang Yuan teleported the immemorial year chicken away, it allowed Xia Cha to comprehend more of the formation.
As expected, not long after, she found the second formation core and destroyed it.
The Southern Border immortals started to cheer, but at the next moment, the formation core that was destroyed turned into a spiral entrance.
On the battlefield, there was a new entrance that transported more year beasts inside.
"How can this be?" The Southern Border immortals were stunned.
"There is no choice, I need to show up now and make my move!" Ba Shi Ba transmitted.
Xia Cha and Lu Wei Yin continued to urge him to lay low.
"No rush, we are already at this step, you should continue to wait."
"We need to probe this entire formation, you need to act at the crucial moment, let Fang Yuan miscalculate and expose a weakness!"
Ba Shi Ba was silent for a moment before replying reluctantly: "Fine."
The battle continued.
Many Southern Border immortals were already injured.
They were about to puke from killing these year beasts, the killer moves prepared for Fang Yuan and the cooperation between Gu Immortals were all used on these year beasts, they were truly helpless and tired beyond belief.
And the killing of year beasts was simply never going to end, they kept coming.
Lu Wei Yin and Xia Cha resisted the immemorial year beasts, even though they faced huge pressure consistently, they persevered.
Thanks to them, Fang Yuan enslaved more immemorial year beasts.
But the quantity was much smaller than the previous life.
Fang Yuan enslaved the immemorial year beasts that were stronger than the ones in his previous life, he only chose the elites among these beasts.
The main reason was that his soul cultivation was much lower than the previous life, he could not enslave too many of them.
Southern Border's side was making huge progress.
Xia Cha destroyed two more formation cores, these two formation cores turned into spiral entrances and the year beasts that charged in became even more threatening to the Southern Border immortals.
A cold light shined in Fang Yuan's eyes: "In the previous life, my years flow execution formation only had three spiral entrances at most, but after my modifications this life, it can sustain a maximum of five."
"It is about time."
"In the previous life, the battle lasted two days and one night, this time, there were even more year beasts, even though it has only been one day and night, the Southern Border immortals have had even greater expenditure than in the previous life."
"Everyone, cooperate with me, activate the formation's strongest method!" Fang Yuan suddenly transmitted.
-x-X-x-
Ying Wu Xie and the rest had serious expressions, their eyes shined with bright light.
Some variant human Gu Immortals hesitated, they thought: Why are we using the strongest method now, isn't it too early?
Fang Yuan had his previous life's memories, he knew that Xia Cha had already found a lot of this formation's information, she just kept it to herself. When she attacked abruptly last time, Lady White Rabbit died, while Fang Yuan and the rest were caught unguarded.
This time, Fang Yuan would not commit the same mistakes.
"Then who do we target? Lu Wei Yin or Xia Cha?" Bai Ning Bing asked.
The modified years flow execution formation had one strongest method, it could shine one silver-white beam of light on a single person. Whoever gets hit by it would experience an extremely slow time flow, they would be defenseless.
Lu Wei Yin was the current generation Paradise Earth's inheritor, he had incredible methods and secret trump cards.
Meanwhile, Xia Cha was a time path great expert, she could destroy the formation, she was a huge threat to the years flow execution formation.
This decision was not easy to make.
But once this method was used, the remaining Gu Immortals would be on guard, it would be extremely unlikely to hit them again.
Fang Yuan's reply was very short: "Neither Lu Wei Yin nor Xia Cha, we will target that 'rank seven' Gu Immortal!"
Ba Shi Ba was still concealed among the people.
Another immemorial year beast came out into the battlefield through a spiral entrance again.
Ba Shi Ba's eyes twitched, he forcefully held down the urge to take action.
"This formation is still firm, I need to wait!"
"The time I take action has to be the most crucial moment, I need to catch Fang Yuan off guard and make him expose a flaw so that we can gain victory!"
While he was thinking of this, the ancient year beast near him froze as the Pure Dream Reality Seeker Physique body inside self-detonated, the dream realm spread rapidly.
Ba Shi Ba immediately became alert: "Hmm?"
At this moment, a silver-white beam shot out, hitting him directly.
"What?!" Ba Shi Ba's eyes slowly expanded, his time was slowed down by multiple times.
In his field of vision, everything outside was rushing towards him rapidly, the dream realm was close to him to begin with, after he got hit, it completely covered him in an instant.
"I..." Ba Shi Ba wanted to scream, but he had no time to do anything!
He was submerged by the dream realm, he fell asleep.
"What happened?"
"Ah! This is a dream realm."
"Lord Ba Shi Ba?!"
"Damn it, Fang Yuan saw through lord's identity!!"
The Southern Border immortals were moved, many people shrieked. This attack was too sudden, they were deeply shook.
"There was a third rank eight Gu Immortal?!" The Gu Immortals under Fang Yuan were all scared and shocked.
At the final moment, Ba Shi Ba exposed his true rank eight aura, but it was useless, everything was too late.
Seeing this, Xia Cha had the urge to cough blood.
They had concealed this trump card for so long, but Fang Yuan actually saw through it, Ba Shi Ba had been biding his time, he had not even used his true strength yet, but Fang Yuan got rid of him so easily!
Xia Cha was enraged!
She shrieked as an intense storm started around her.
Crack crack, lightning flashed and thunder roared.
These illusions condensed into a huge fan that she held in her hands.
Immortal killer move — Summer Fan!
In the previous life, Xia Cha used this move to deal major damage to Fang Yuan, the years flow execution formation was destroyed, Fang Yuan and the rest were injured, while Lady White Rabbit died.
But now?
"Feel my fan!" Xia Cha waved ruthlessly.
Winds were whipped up, emitting loud noises.
"Good, I was waiting for you!" Fang Yuan shouted as his eyes shined with brightness like lightning.
The formation was activated, it emitted a buzzing noise as overwhelming silver light enveloped all of the wind and absorbed it.
"What?!" Xia Cha stared with wide eyes, feeling extremely shocked.
The offensive killer move that she entrusted her hopes to actually... actually had no effect?!
"Again!" She waved once more.
Winds moved, surging powerfully as they killed many year beasts, even the immemorial year beasts were unable to hold on, they were scattered by the wind.
But at the next moment, silver light appeared as the winds were blocked entirely.
Xia Cha: "..."
She had an ashen expression, her heart was filled with a bad feeling, she waved her fan like she had gone mad.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
An unprecedented wind started to blow, it carried immense might with it.
Under the silver light, the wind was instantly devoured, the heaven destroying might earlier seemed like an illusion!
Xia Cha opened her mouth in a daze, after a breath of time, she screamed: "Impossible!"
Indeed, it was impossible.
She was clearly being targeted in this situation, not just that, her summer fan killer move had been completely countered!
Oh heavens, have mercy!
Xia Cha cried out in her heart: She had rarely used summer fan, why did Fang Yuan know so much about it to be able to resolve it like this?!
Was this a dream?
It was completely illogical!
But of course it was logical...
Because in the previous life, Fang Yuan not only obtained summer fan, he even modified it to surpass Xia Cha's version.
Thus, Xia Cha's proud trump card was merely an inferior initial version in Fang Yuan's eyes.
In this life, Fang Yuan considered Xia Cha's killer move and modified years flow execution formation, causing her threat to fall to its lowest level.
The reason he allowed her to act freely until now was because he wanted to weaken the year beasts using her, and he also wanted to probe the foundation of these Southern Border Gu Immortals.
Thus, the truth was, even though Xia Cha attacked ferociously and had great battle results, to Fang Yuan, she was the least dangerous Gu Immortal out of the three rank eights present.
Xia Cha's emotions were changing rapidly, she quickly exposed a flaw.
Using this opportunity, Fang Yuan and the rest used the silver-white beam on her, they spread a dream realm to capture her as well.
Not far away, Lu Wei Yin smiled bitterly, he used a certain killer move to fall asleep as a dream realm started to spread around him.
All of a sudden, all three rank eights had stopped fighting.
The rest of the rank seven Gu Immortals were going crazy!
What the heck had happened, how did the situation change so quickly?
They were not able to escape from Fang Yuan's demonic claws, the silver light shot towards Tie Qu Zhong, followed by Liu Hao, followed by...
This sequence was specifically deduced by Fang Yuan meticulously.
Several minutes after the Southern Border immortals went into the formation and lost all contact, a ray of white light appeared in the sky.
The white light turned into a rank eight Gu Immortal, this person was dressed in white clothes that was not stained by even a speck of dust, he had a pair of thin white brows that extended towards the outer sides of his face.
It was a Heavenly Court rank eight Gu Immortal, Jun Shen Guang, he cultivated light path.
He was originally a supreme elder of one of the ten great ancient sects in Central Continent. He had recently been recruited into Heavenly Court by Fairy Zi Wei after contributing his immortal aperture.
"Liu Hao and the rest disappeared here... hmm?" Jun Shen Guang had just started his investigation when he found many suspicious traces.
"This does not look good for Liu Hao. There was definitely a fierce battle here, unfortunately Liu Hao did not even send any request for reinforcements. Was it an immortal formation or an immortal battlefield?"
A moment later, cold sweat appeared on Jun Shen Guang's forehead.
Shock and fear flashed in his eyes for a moment.
All the signs pointed to the fact that Xia Cha and the rest had been taken down, the three rank eights as well as many rank seven experts had all fallen into Fang Yuan's trap!
"Fang Yuan should have made use of dream realms!" Soon, his gaze landed on the only small dream realm in the battlefield, becoming even more certain of his guess: "Besides using dream realms, Fang Yuan's other methods, no matter how penetrating they are, cannot create such a result. Hmm?"
Jun Shen Guang sensed something amiss, he quickly retreated and left.
After a while, Clear Jade Dripping Wind Tiny Bamboo Building brought Wu Yong, Chi Qu You, and the rest as they arrived.
"They disappeared here!" Southern Border's Gu Immortals had grim expressions.
"Quickly investigate what happened here. My clan cannot reach our first supreme elder." Xia clan's Gu Immortals were extremely anxious.
"We cannot contact Lord Ba Shi Ba either!" Ba clan's Gu Immortals were also very anxious.
In this life, Xia clan was not alone, they were accompanied by the similarly pitiful Ba clan.
"It looks like there was a tributary of the River of Time here."
"There was also a time path immortal level formation, the group rushed here then fought a very fierce battle!"
"What is up with this dream realm?" Someone saw that remaining small dream realm left behind by Fang Yuan.
"Be careful." Southern Border's immortals gradually separated and encircled this small dream realm.
"This dream realm is continuously shrinking." Someone suddenly exclaimed.
After a while, several Gu worms fell out of the shrinking dream realm.
Like in the previous life, these information path Gu worms contained the extortion letters that Fang Yuan had written to Southern Border's righteous path!
The Southern Border immortals went into a commotion!
"This, this this..."
"Blatant lies! How can this be possible? Our organized team was actually captured by Fang Yuan? Hmph!"
"This must be a huge scam!!!"
"But why can't we contact our clan's Gu Immortals?"
The Southern Border Gu Immortals were uncertain, they started to discuss among themselves, after a while, the dream realm continued to shrink as Lu Wei Yin slowly appeared.
Lu Wei Yin woke up slowly as the dream realm dissipated, he opened his eyes and saw Wu Yong and the rest, he then looked at his surroundings and blurted out: "Oh no!"
His presence and the words he told them crushed the final bit of hope that these Southern Border immortals had.
Southern Border's righteous path brought in many people to organize a troop of experts to specially chase and kill Fang Yuan, but not only were they unable to kill Fang Yuan, they were instead taken captive by Fang Yuan!
Oh heavens!!
Why was Fang Yuan this strong?
Why was there a time path formation out of nowhere?
Who could explain what happened?
Nothing was logical!
The assault that was very likely to succeed had reversed the role of hunter and hunted, the Southern Border immortals suffered a huge loss, discussions were happening among all of them, they were all panicking and flustered.
They had lost all their face, and their material losses were also severe!
If Fang Yuan extorted them now, what would they do?
These Southern Border immortals wanted nothing more than to crush and mince Fang Yuan's corpse, but this accursed demon had already escaped far away. Nobody knew where he was right now.
Immortal killer move — Jade Flow Pearl!
Fang Yuan's body flickered as he arrived at the Five Regional Mountain Range.
Fixed Immortal Travel made traveling truly convenient.
Fang Yuan did not care about the reactions of the Southern Border immortals. His gaze flickered as he looked at this mountain range, he needed to obtain the true inheritance while there was still time now.
-x-X-x-
Rumble!
Fang Yuan floated in the sky, looking at the ground below him.
The huge mountain range was collapsing, five colored lights emerged, they shined dazzlingly.
But these lights did not fuse together or interfered with one another, they had their own routes.
"It is not so easy to destroy the Five Regional Mountain Range, in the previous life, Wu Yong succeeded because he obtained the accumulation of Qiao clan who had researched this inheritance for many years." Fang Yuan thought.
In order for Tao Zhu's true inheritance to appear, he needed to destroy the entire Five Regional Mountain Range.
The commotion would be huge, this was why Fang Yuan had waited until now before he acted.
Firstly, he had just won and captured the Southern Border immortals, his strength rose sharply. Secondly, the Southern Border immortals were disoriented currently, Heavenly Court's attention was also drawn there, he could act rapidly here!
The five colored lights started to dissipate and break apart, they were disintegrating at a rapid speed as they shrunk continuously.
Fang Yuan nodded in satisfaction.
If anyone tried to change the earth vein without knowledge, unless they were extremely lucky, the lights would still exist for the most part.
Only a specific method that targeted this arrangement could succeed, to change the earth vein and cause the five colored lights to completely vanish.
After a while, the five colored lights disappeared completely.
A powerful aura suddenly emerged. Enormous pillars in five colors soared to the skies, a loud voice reverberated throughout the five regional mountain range: "Junior, you did well, you actually passed my final test of destroying the Five Regional Mountain Range. Now, my five regional inheritance is yours! Cultivate properly and you can move unrestrained and unhindered over the world in the future, don't let down my name."
In the middle of the five colored light pillars, a smoke-like will condensed into the vivid appearance of a Gu Immortal.
This was the will that Tao Zhu left behind.
Fang Yuan smiled coldly, he stretched his arm towards Tao Zhu's will.
Tao Zhu's will froze instantly, he felt a formless force restraining him.
Next, he was pulled out of the rainbow pillar like a carrot that was uprooted, he flew towards Fang Yuan and grabbed by the throat.
Tao Zhu's will was furious and humiliated, he stared at Fang Yuan: "Rank seven junior, don't humiliate me, I was a rank eight back in my day... hmm!"
Fang Yuan purposely revealed a trace of his rank eight aura, Tao Zhu's will had a change of expression after sensing it.
He chuckled as his attitude turned around entirely, he spoke with a tone of being on similar status: "So you are a rank eight friend."
Secretly, he was thinking to himself: "This young man looks talented and has great disposition, but he actually acts so viciously and domineeringly. He is a rank eight but he pretends to be rank seven, he must be up to no good. Hmm, he is not a good person!"
Fang Yuan smiled: "I am a current generation demon, Old Man Tao Zhu, I will take your true inheritance."
Saying so, his sleeves billowed and he unleashed the killer move that he had prepared.
The ground shook as Gu worms flew out of the five colored light pillars rapidly, they all flew into Fang Yuan's immortal aperture, including the Immortal Gu mixed among them.
Next, the five colored light pillars faded away, they no longer were eye catching.
Tao Zhu's will was flabbergasted.
Fang Yuan's wisdom path method could sense his inner thoughts, that was not strange.
The shocking thing was, Fang Yuan could actually take the entire true inheritance without his consent.
The main body's arrangements were completely useless against him!
"Sir, who in the world are you?" Tao Zhu's will had a change of attitude again, he looked towards Fang Yuan with curiosity and wariness.
Fang Yuan's action earlier had already surpassed Tao Zhu's own attainment, not only did he see through Tao Zhu's arrangements, he even dealt with them perfectly.
Fang Yuan looked over with a cold gaze, Tao Zhu's will felt like he was completely emptied, no, he felt like his entire body was transparent to the other party, he had no secrets left.
Fang Yuan smiled: "Old Man Tao Zhu."
"Yes, yes I am here." Tao Zhu's will felt extremely terrified by Fang Yuan's smile, he did not dare to put up airs.
"Your true inheritance is quite interesting, when I dominate the world and invade Heavenly Court, it will be very useful. To reward you, I will allow you to find a new inheritor in my grotto-heaven. I will not destroy your will, I will replenish you and allow you to live for a long time." Fang Yuan said.
Tao Zhu's will was currently at Fang Yuan's mercy, he was like a puppet that could not move, he felt extremely bitter inside.
Back then, when the main body researched upon the mysteries of the five regional walls, he made a breakthrough towards the end of his life, he had a shocking achievement!
But the main body's lifespan was up, he had no time to become famous, he could only leave the inheritance and wait for an inheritor.
It was a huge regret.
Thus, Tao Zhu's main body set up this true inheritance that would cause a huge commotion in the Five Regional Mountain Range, he would attempt to choose and test a proper disciple to inherit this legacy. When his disciple becomes renowned in the world, he would also gain fame and reputation, that would make up for his regret before death.
But the result was?
Fang Yuan came and disrupted everything.
Not only did he destroy the Five Regional Mountain Range, he skipped all of the tests and arrived at the end, even capturing the will and forcefully taking the true inheritance, he had no politeness at all, he was domineering.
Tao Zhu's will felt deep grievance, this was not what his main body had intended for.
But what choice did he have?
He was just a will.
"If I am not wrong, even my main body is not this person's match?"
"From what he said, he actually wants to attack Heavenly Court, without sufficient strength and confidence, why would he say that?"
Thinking so, Tao Zhu's will sighed, saying to Fang Yuan: "Forget it, this is life."
"I don't care if you are a good or bad person, the true inheritance is in your hands, you might cause bloodshed and death in the future, but that will surely shake the five regions, right? This is what my main body wanted to see too. As long as you do not cover up my main body's achievements, so what if you get the true inheritance?"
"Hahaha." Fang Yuan laughed loudly.
His laughter became intense, his black hair fluttered in the wind, his eyes shined with divine light, the surrounding winds and clouds moved with his will.
After laughing, he looked at Tao Zhu's will solemnly: "Don't worry, why would I fight with a dead person over this reputation? If I cannot even let go of this, how can I surpass Heavenly Court, how can I surpass the generations of venerables and pursue my supreme goal of eternal life?"
Tao Zhu's will stared with wide eyes, thinking: 'Hmm? This person talks big! He wants to defeat Heavenly Court and surpass venerables? Is he crazy or foolish? Oh no, he can detect my thoughts!'
Fang Yuan laughed again: "If I lack even this bit of ambition, what's the point of being human? Failure is fine, just try again several times. Even if I cannot achieve my goals in the end, so what?"
Tao Zhu's will froze, he stared at Fang Yuan in a daze.
He saw Fang Yuan taking a deep breath as he looked into the horizons, his eyes were dark like the abyss, but Tao Zhu could see that within this pure darkness, there was a brilliant spark!
Instantly, memories surfaced in his mind.
The questioning and disdain of countless people...
"Researching the five regional walls? What's there to research about?"
"He is so arrogant, this question has existed since the start of time. On what basis does this Tao Zhu think he can possibly resolve it?"
"A mere rank six immortal, and even a lone cultivator at that, he is so ordinary."
The suppression of Southern Border's righteous path...
"Tao Zhu! Stop researching it." The person who warned him had high cultivation level, his face was cold as ice.
"Why? I did not provoke you!" Tao Zhu replied in anger.
"Don't you get it?" The Southern Border righteous path Gu Immortal looked at him with a deep gaze, his tone was very cold: "What is the true meaning of the five regional walls?"
"Right now, Central Continent is the strongest while the other four regions are weaker. If your research really succeeds, it will cause a huge commotion in the world, the five regions will go into war, it will be a calamity."
"For the sake of all the living beings in this world, we will be taking away these research gains of yours."
"No—!"
Bam.
"Blind fool, if not for her, would you still be alive now?" The Southern Border righteous path Gu Immortal gave him a cold stare as he left.
The separation from his lover...
"Tao Zhu, we are not compatible, let's end it here."
Tao Zhu was filled with sadness: "Yes, I am just a lone immortal, while you are the beloved child of Yao clan's first supreme elder!"
"No, that's not the problem! Do you not get it? Tao Zhu! You are the reason! You research the mystery of the regional walls every day, how much time do you spend with me? Ask yourself this question, do you really care about me? You love your research more than you love me!" The female immortal sobbed.
Tao Zhu was speechless.
The female immortal wiped her tears as she breathed in deeply, looking at Tao Zhu with teary eyes: "This is the final time I will ask you, do you want me or your research?"
Tao Zhu lowered his head, he had a hesitant expression that was filled with uncertainty.
The female immortal walked closer: "Be with me, marry into Yao clan, we will live together and have our own children. Don't think about the regional walls, we will provide you all the resources you need, with my father around, you do not need to fear any calamities or tribulations, darling..."
The female immortal spoke endearingly, Tao Zhu's heart shook.
He looked at her.
The female immortal had an expectant gaze, he took a step back as if he was pushed by a formless force.
"I, I..." He clenched his fists, he gulped his saliva, he wanted to say something but no words came out.
He did not want to lie to the female immortal, he did not want to lie to himself!
The female immortal looked at him as her beautiful face turned increasingly pale.
Eventually, the hope in her eyes vanished.
She smiled lightly.
Turning around.
As the crystal tears fell.
She flew away on a cloud.
Not long after, news got out that Yao clan was having an alliance marriage with another righteous path force, the bride was that female immortal...
"He is Tao Zhu?"
"Is he stupid? In order to research the pointless secret of the five regions, he gave up on that marriage!"
"He is a lunatic. I've often seen him heading to the regional walls for his research, he often ends up injured and in a sorry state."
On the night of the female immortal's wedding, Tao Zhu stayed in a dark and tiny cave, he looked at the mortal formation in front of him in a daze.
This tiny formation was only at rank two level, but it was the research gains of his entire life until now.
He looked at the formation while thinking about the figure of that beautiful female immortal, her smile was stunning and beautiful like the moon.
He laughed to himself, his hoarse voice echoing in the tiny cave.
He continued to research the formation in front of him with overflowing tears.
All his efforts were not in vain, his stubborn nature was deeply planted into the soil that was filled with the blood of his bleeding heart, it bore fruit in the end...
Yao clan's first supreme elder came to him.
As a rank eight himself, Tao Zhu looked at him directly.
Yao clan's first supreme elder looked at Tao Zhu calmly but with a hint of pity in his eyes: "I heard that your research had some progress recently?"
"I was lucky." Tao Zhu sneered: "You are here to snatch my research gains?"
The old man shook his head: "You just became a rank eight, I do not want to bully the young and weak."
Tao Zhu's sneer turned colder: "Your words can deceive a naive newbie, but trying that on me?"
Tao Zhu shook his head, disdain was shown all over his face.
Yao clan's first supreme elder smiled nonchalantly.
"I admit." He sighed as he nodded: "I had underestimated you, to think that you could advance to rank eight. If I had known this, I would not have hindered you and my daughter's relationship in secret, I would have nurtured you and tried all ways to get you two to be together. Even if you are obsessed with this, even if you cannot give my daughter happiness, I would still do it for the sake of my clan's benefit."
Tao Zhu's expression changed, thinking about the female immortal he loved, his gaze became dark.
"However..." Yao clan's first supreme elder had a solemn expression as he added: "I will not allow you to do any research on the secrets of the five regional walls!"
Tao Zhu's eyes shined with cold light, he regained his cold demeanor as before: "Hmph, the same excuse about causing chaos and creating war between the five regions which would cause bloodshed in the world? Have you thought about it? Once we decipher the secret of the five regional walls, we can bring prosperity and hope to the world! The five regional walls are the biggest obstruction to the interaction between all five regions, if they vanish, Gu Immortals will be able to move more freely and unobstructed, we would be able to share our cultivation knowledge with each other."
"However, the possibility of war is far higher than peace, isn't that so?" Yao clan's old man interrupted Tao Zhu.
Tao Zhu was silent, he did not rebuke.
The five regions had too many differences, not just in terrain and culture, their resource allocation and population density also varied, there was also no lack of ambition people.
Unlike the current five regions that were isolated and had economic, political, and military balance, once the five regional walls were removed, this balance would break instantly!
"So, you are here to advise me to stop?" A moment later, Tao Zhu broke the silence, he snickered in disdain: "You know that is impossible."
Yao clan's old man said solemnly: "I must admit, killing a rank eight existence is too risky, it is hard for Southern Border's righteous path to make a decision on this."
"Unless there was no choice, we would not choose to fight to the death. Thus, we are here to tell you a secret, I hope that you can keep it a secret after you learn about it."
"Why must I listen to you?" Tao Zhu laughed.
Yao clan's old man also laughed: "Because this secret involves the five regional walls, don't you want to know?"
Tao Zhu was moved, he felt a sense of anxiety in his heart but he quickly suppressed it.
The look of pity in the Yao clan old man's eyes became even deeper now: "This secret is too cruel to you, but in this situation, I need to tell you. In the future, the earth veins of the five regions will merge and become one, the regional walls will disappear by themselves."
"What?!" Tao Zhu shouted in deep shock.
This was a fatal blow dealt by Yao clan's first supreme elder!
This secret voided the goal of Tao Zhu's entire life.
The five regional walls would vanish in the future, then what was the point of Tao Zhu's research? He put in so much hard work and effort, he took all the life threatening risks and even gave up on his beloved woman... all of these sacrifices that he made, were they just cruel mockery towards him?
"This is impossible, you lied to me!" Tao Zhu's voice was loud but there was panic in his tone.
"This is a Paradise Earth true inheritance that our Yao clan inherited, the evidence is with you already. Even if you do not believe me, do you not believe in the words of Paradise Earth Immortal Venerable?"
Yao clan's first supreme elder said this and smiled: "Furthermore, you researched about the five regional walls and earth veins your entire life, you must know something about it, haven't you sensed anything? All of your research gains can prove the fact that this will happen in the future, right?"
Tao Zhu was covered in perspiration, he stared with his huge hollow eyes as he fumbled backwards, he lowered his head towards the ground as his expression was full of nervousness.
Yao clan's first supreme elder smiled.
He looked at Tao Zhu, his kind old man demeanor had an extremely cold and cruel disposition!
This was all that needed to be said.
Yao clan's old man turned around to leave, before going, he said his parting words: "Don't research about the five regional walls, they will disappear on their own in the future, your research is meaningless."
"Of course, if you can succeed while the five regional walls are still intact, I am sure the moment you achieve success will also be the moment Southern Border's righteous path and all our rank eights join forces and exterminate you."
"This is all I have to say, Tao Zhu, think about it yourself."
Tao Zhu was dazed on the spot, he stayed motionless, defeat was written all over his face.
...
It was like a dream.
Back to reality.
Tao Zhu had died long ago, while his lingering will was grabbed by Fang Yuan at the throat.
The true inheritance was already taken away forcefully!
But Fang Yuan's words had a huge impact on Tao Zhu's will —
"If I lack even this bit of ambition, what's the point of being human? Failure is fine, just try again several times. Even if I cannot achieve my goals in the end, so what?"
"Hahaha, hahaha!" Tao Zhu's will laughed maniacally.
Years later, his main body had already recovered from the impact that Yao clan's first supreme elder dealt, he had the same kind of realization!
Indeed.
Even if I fail in the end and obtain nothing, even if my life was a complete failure, so what?
Even if the five regional walls would disappear in the future, so what?
Even if my research is meaningless, so what?
That is what I want to do!
You can call me crazy, you can call me an idiot, you can call me stubborn, you can call me stupid...
Alright.
I am crazy, I am an idiot, I am stubborn and also stupid.
But I... still want to do it regardless!
That is how I want to live!
That is how I can find meaning in my life!
However, I still had lingering regrets in the end, therefore, I created this inheritance.
And now, this inheritance is in the hands of Fang Yuan.
At this moment, Tao Zhu's will became excited: "Fang Yuan! I will give you this inheritance, I will also give you the true meaning that is hidden somewhere else."
"My main body was not skilled at fighting, that was why I had lingering regrets. But I feel that if this inheritance is given to you, all these regrets will be fulfilled! This is truly... a match made in heaven!"
Fang Yuan's lips curled up, he showed a confident but arrogant smile.
"Then observe it yourself, Old Man Tao Zhu."
"I will make sure your true inheritance — "
"Stuns deities and shocks immortals, it will be renowned in the world!"
-x-X-x-
After obtaining the entirety of Tao Zhu's true inheritance, Fang Yuan left the Five Regional Mountain Range immediately.
Like the previous life, this mountain range was inevitably still destroyed. But the result was very different for Fang Yuan.
In the previous life, he set up an ambush and created a huge battle in the Five Regional Mountain Range, Tao Zhu's true inheritance has appeared unexpectedly, he had no chance to obtain it as he had to escape.
This time, Fang Yuan was wary of the ink effect, he waited until he ambushed Southern Border's pursuers, after capturing them all, the time was ripe and he came to obtain this true inheritance.
After some time, Southern Border's righteous path would agree and support Tie clan in building the Beacon Towers.
By then, it would be problematic for Fang Yuan to take action.
The scattered Beacon Towers would allow Southern Border's Gu Immortals to travel much more quickly and efficiently.
During the final battle in his previous life, Fang Yuan obtained important information about Tao Zhu's true inheritance from Wu Yong and Chi Qu You, he even set up a super immortal formation with them. Thus, he knew a lot about it, with all the deductions he made in advance, he was prepared to successfully take it by force.
"Tao Zhu's true inheritance!" Fang Yuan sighed deeply in his heart.
The methods inside this inheritance were very useful to him, they would help him greatly!
Even though Tao Zhu was just a rank eight, the importance of this true inheritance surpassed even some venerable true inheritances.
His previous life was the best proof.
Fang Yuan used Tao Zhu's methods to deal with the nine-nine consecutive unceasing formation, it gave Chen Yi and the rest huge problems, they were able to advance with great progress!
Tao Zhu's methods were also able to deal with the killer move heroes among people.
Due to heroes among people's amplification, Heavenly Court and Central Continent's Gu Immortals had a huge boost in battle strength.
But as long as they were inside the five colored smoke, these Gu Immortals would face greater backlash the stronger they were.
This was a mystical move that had an incredible effect!
Fang Yuan had to give it a thumbs up, it deserved all his praise.
The nine-nine consecutive unceasing formation and heroes among people were venerable methods, but Tao Zhu's true inheritance was actually able to counter them, this made many Gu Immortals' jaws drop, they were deeply shocked.
"This time around, even if I cannot find a way to break heroes among people, I can use the five colored smoke to counter it, Central Continent's people will have a hard time!"
"But the methods of this true inheritance are not too flexible. When used, an immortal formation has to be created. Even though I know this method, I do not want an immobile immortal formation, I need to modify it on this foundation."
Fang Yuan thought about it as he looked at Tao Zhu's true inheritance.
As he expected, the formation that he created with the Southern Border and Northern Plains Gu Immortals was the essence of Tao Zhu's true inheritance.
In this true inheritance, Tao Zhu named the formation — Five Regional Limit Formation.
And the good news was that other than this formation, there was another immortal killer move, it had the same value as this five regional limit formation.
This move was known as five restriction profound light qi, once activated, it could shoot out light qi made of five colors.
The effect of the light qi was similar to regional walls, within it, Gu Immortals of the five regions would face backlash, the stronger their move, the greater the backlash.
Of course, because Fang Yuan was a special existence, he was not restricted inside this light qi.
Five regional limit formation, five restriction profound light qi, these were the essence of Tao Zhu's true inheritance.
Other than that, there were two remaining Immortal Gu.
These Immortal Gu were rule path Gu worms, one was rank eight 'Region', the other was rank seven 'Limit'.
Rank eight region Gu was clearly Tao Zhu's vital Gu, it had risen to rank eight alongside him.
Tao Zhu's immortal aperture was not preserved.
According to the true inheritance, Tao Zhu was very poor then, most of his resources were used for research, his immortal aperture had barely anything.
And most importantly, before he died, he left his immortal aperture for the Southern Border righteous path so that he could conceal his true inheritance.
Fang Yuan looked at the true inheritance as he felt deeper emotions.
This Tao Zhu was a peculiar genius, he spent his entire life's time and effort on research, he invested so much manpower and resources.
In the contents of the true inheritance, he wrote about his countless experiments, he had risked his life each time in all these attempts.
Even after he became rank eight, he often went into the regional wall to experience its profundity.
This was not something normal people could do.
Thus, his immortal aperture was very poor, he could barely maintain the feeding of his Immortal Gu, it could not develop as he constantly faced backlash inside the regional wall as a rank eight Gu Immortal.
"Next, I need to manage my immortal aperture and gain the ability to feed these two Immortal Gu."
"Then..."
Fang Yuan was faced with a tough problem.
Should he choose the five regional limit formation or five restriction profound light qi?
Both used Region and Limit as the cores with a vast number of supplementary mortal Gu. If he created a formation, he could not use five restriction profound light qi. Similarly, if he chose five restriction profound light qi, he would not have enough time in the battle to set up the five regional limit formation.
Creating a formation had huge drawbacks, because a stationary formation needed the power of an earth vein.
Tao Zhu true inheritance had clearly stated, not only did the five regional limit formation need to be set up on the ground, it needed to be rooted to an earth vein.
Thus, in the previous life, Chi Qu You added in earth vein Immortal Gu.
But now, earth vein Immortal Gu had not appeared yet.
Once a formation was created, it would not be very usable, because Fang Yuan would not be able to take it out at crucial timing. Unless he used formation flag Gu or the Formation Spirit to move this formation around, but that would require a lot of modification and deductions from him, and the results were unknown.
Choosing the five restriction profound light qi was more convenient and stronger, but it could not last as long as a formation.
Furthermore, it had its weakness too.
Each time this move was used, the Gu Immortal would need to expend a vast amount of earth qi in their immortal aperture!
The expenditure was colossal, even Fang Yuan was tongue-tied when he saw it.
"However, there is a method to resolve the drawback of five restriction profound light qi... hmm? I arrived."
Fang Yuan stopped thinking as he arrived at an ordinary looking cave.
"It is well hidden, even I could not sense anything amiss." Fang Yuan nodded to himself.
Next, he let out Tao Zhu's will.
Tao Zhu's will took a few steps forward, the cave changed, a gush of true meaning permeated the walls.
Tao Zhu's will handed this true meaning to Fang Yuan.
Fang Yuan first inspected it, after finding no problems with it, he absorbed it without hesitation.
A moment later, he became a great grandmaster in rule path!
This Tao Zhu's true meaning could allow a person who had no foundation in rule path to become a great grandmaster instantly.
Of course, Fang Yuan had his own foundation, he was a rule path grandmaster. Even though Fang Yuan was still a great grandmaster now, his original foundation was not wasted, it was still accumulated even though he did not achieve a qualitative change into supreme grandmaster.
"It seems that Tao Zhu was a rule path great grandmaster when he was alive." Fang Yuan nodded slightly.
When any path reaches great grandmaster in attainment level, a qualitative change would occur.
Rank eight Gu Immortals were the elites of the elites.
Chi clan's Chi Qu You was a formation path great grandmaster who could use natural dao marks to create immortal formations.
Blazing Heaven Demoness was a fire path great grandmaster, back then when she made a trap for Fang Yuan, he could not sense it in the immortal materials no matter what.
Spectral Soul Demon Venerable was a great grandmaster of all paths, this showed how powerful he was. The lifetime achievement of many rank eight Gu Immortals would only be one aspect of Spectral Soul Demon Venerable. If not for Fang Yuan turning the situation around back then, Spectral Soul Demon Venerable would have infiltrated Heavenly Court, Shadow Sect would control the entire world.
As for why Tao Zhu cultivated restriction path but left behind a rule path true meaning?
Because restriction path was a sub branch of rule path, it was a small path that had not been fully separated.
It was like the emotion path derived from wisdom path, this path specialized in using charm and emotion to influence others.
The truth was, rule path had many smaller paths derived from it, it was truly the number one path without question in this regard.
The more famous ones were restriction path and phantom path.
Phantom path was derived from rule path, it focused on illusions and phantoms, between truth and falsity, it had not fully separated from rule path yet.
Fang Yuan had some rule path Immortal Gu, they were Precaution, Big, Fight, and others.
The characteristics of rule path could be easily seen from this.
Big, small, tall, short, fat, skinny, far, close, good, bad, round, square, curved, straight, truth, false, strong, weak, one, two, three, four, these were all rule path Gu worms.
Because rule path was a huge concept, it had many branching smaller paths as a result.
"Among all the paths, rule path Gu worms have the widest range of use, or rather, they are the most practical for usage."
"For example, rule path Gu worm 'Strong', can be used with any path to make any killer move stronger."
Rule path had another advantage, the Gu Immortal could often create their own true meaning using it.
This was the advantage of wisdom path as well.
True meaning involved the 'truth' of rule path, as well as the will of wisdom path.
Other than these two paths, there were truly very few Gu Immortals of other paths that could leave true meaning behind.
The ten venerables were exceptions.
These monsters were not confined to common sense, they were unique existences that could not be assessed through logic.
Tao Zhu's true meaning was quite a joyful surprise to Fang Yuan!
Because he knew that Wu Yong and Chi Qu You did not obtain it in the previous life.
It was not hard to understand.
Fang Yuan had already deduced much of the truth.
Tao Zhu was suppressed by the Southern Border righteous path when he was alive, before dying, he gave up his immortal aperture to lure the attention of the righteous path while he set up his true inheritance and hid his true meaning elsewhere.
Southern Border's righteous path obtained Tao Zhu's immortal aperture, they thought that his research had no results, because they could not see through the Five Regional Mountain Range, they could not discover Tao Zhu's true inheritance.
Even though Tao Zhu's true inheritance ended in the hands of Southern Border's righteous path last time, Tao Zhu's true meaning had been hidden from them.
Tao Zhu's true meaning was very useful to the current Fang Yuan, it came at the perfect timing.
Because he had just captured Ba Shi Ba.
This rule path rank eight Gu Immortal's grotto-heaven could not be annexed with Fang Yuan's original rule path attainment level.
"I wanted to undergo some transactions with Chi Qu You to get some rule path dream realms and raise my attainment level."
"To think that this would happen, I do not need to wait anymore, I can save a lot of effort."
-x-X-x-
Wu clan's headquarters.
In a room, light was dim.
Wu Yong had an ashen expression as he sat like a motionless statue.
The information path Gu worm in his hand was still a little warm because he had just activated it.
There was an intense conference of higher-ups earlier among the Southern Border righteous path forces, it was as heated as a market, Xia clan's and Ba clan's Gu Immortals were close to screaming, their voices filled with terror and helplessness.
Most of the people were engaging in loud discussions, close to the point of arguments, as they vented their shock and fear.
"How is this possible?!"
"Fang Yuan ambushed us and obtained complete victory, our Gu Immortals were all captured by him!"
"What do we do now? This has never happened before in Southern Border's history."
"If news get out, our Southern Border righteous path would become the laughingstock of the five regions!"
"Reputation is no longer important, the important thing is that our clansmen are in his hands!!"
"Earlier, Fang Yuan left an information path Gu worm behind, didn't he ask us to wait for his reply?"
"Yes, but he has not sent anything to us, do we just... wait for him?"
...
Wu Yong could still hear the discussions of these people echoing in his ears.
"Hmph, a bunch of useless people, what is the point of talking and discussing now?"
Wu Yong snorted coldly in displeasure, he squinted as his already long and thin eyes became even slimmer.
An eerie cold light flickered in his eyes continuously.
While his fists were clenched uncontrollably.
"This is troublesome."
"Fang Yuan has the absolute initiative!"
"Even if I reject his extortion, Xia clan and Ba clan would not, because their first supreme elders are the ones captured."
"Heavenly Court's arrangements were useless as well, hmph, I wasted my effort in contacting Zi Wei."
"But this is not because Heavenly Court is weak, this Fang Yuan has simply shown battle strength that is too terrifying in this fight!"
"With such terrifying battle results, looking at my Southern Border righteous path, only Chi Qu You is a character, he remained calm and cool."
Wu Yong remembered clearly, in the intense discussion earlier, Chi Qu You had a calm expression and even was the first to suggest a plan to chase after Fang Yuan and pursue him.
Even though barely anyone responded, that was the proper behavior of a righteous path member!
Wu Yong had no idea that Chi Qu You was forcing himself to act calm, he was filled with shock and anxiety internally.
He pretended to make this suggestion to pursue Fang Yuan so that he could conceal himself deeper.
"Fang Yuan actually won?!"
"Not only did Fang Yuan win, he even captured two rank eights and multiple rank seven experts!"
Was it a joke?
Before this battle, Chi Qu You would definitely think this was a joke.
But now, he could not laugh at all.
Chi Qu You did not dare to believe it, but the evidence that Lu Wei Yin showed them was genuine, he had to accept it.
Fang Yuan obtained complete victory in this battle, not only did Southern Border's righteous path go into chaos, even Chi Qu You felt like Fang Yuan had a hold on him!
Because Fang Yuan won using dream realms.
And these dream realms were given to him by Chi Qu You!
That was to say, Chi Qu You was the biggest contributor to Fang Yuan's success, he had become the greatest traitor of Southern Border's righteous path!
Before this, Chi Qu You had thought that Fang Yuan would use the dream realms to deal with Southern Border's righteous path.
But he was limited by common sense.
Firstly, transacting with Fang Yuan simply benefited Chi clan too greatly. This temptation and desire blinded Chi Qu You.
Secondly, Fang Yuan had escaped by self-detonating the Pure Dream Reality Seeker Physique bodies last time. In the entire process, he was in a distressed state, and he could not even control the self-detonated Pure Dream Reality Seeker Physique bodies that formed dream realms, thus, Chi Qu You felt that this self-detonation held little threat.
"But to think that Fang Yuan would set up a time path super immortal formation!"
"If not for this immortal formation stopping Gu Immortals from teleporting, how could he succeed in using the dream realms?"
"The time path immortal formation is not scary, the scary thing is how deeply concealed this formation was, if Fang Yuan had not activated it, it could not be detected."
Chi Qu You felt a headache thinking about it.
He was a formation path great grandmaster, he naturally understood formations.
But the immortal formation of each path had their own strengths and weaknesses. The strength of time path immortal formations was that they could affect the flow of time inside, Fang Yuan used this to fight for days and nights inside the formation, capturing the pursuers. Only several hours had passed outside.
But time path immortal formations were not good at concealment!
It was the strength of dark path, phantom path, and transformation path formations.
Once time path immortal formations were created, they would be out there in the open, easily detected and seen, it should not be concealed so deeply.
So how did Fang Yuan make it this hidden?
Chi Qu You was stumped by this question, while at the same time, Fairy Zi Wei who was inside Heavenly Court found the answer.
She had just ended her deductions, Central Great Hall was still flickering with purple light.
Fairy Zi Wei sighed deeply.
"It should be the past arrangements of Shadow Sect."
"Shadow Sect had once been scattered in all five regions, hiding under Zombie Alliance while searching for natural tributaries of the River of Time, using the surrounding time path dao marks to set up formations."
At great grandmaster, formation path Gu Immortals could directly use natural dao marks to set up formations.
But the formation created would have different strengths and advantages according to the distribution of the natural dao marks. The Gu Immortal would often only be able to adjust it slightly, it was not as convenient as using Gu worms to create formations.
"But that time path formation in Southern Border is specialized in concealment, Fang Yuan had perfect use of it."
"He added more time path formations inside and used the dream realms to capture all of the Southern Border pursuers in one go!"
Fairy Zi Wei had a dark expression.
She felt regret now.
Had she known this, she would have told Southern Border about the deaths of Chen Yi and Thunder Ghost True Monarch.
After the loss in Lang Ya blessed land, Fairy Zi Wei only told the world about a portion of the details.
As long as Southern Border's righteous path knew of Chen Yi's and Thunder Ghost True Monarch's deaths, they would place more emphasis on Fang Yuan, they would not send just two rank eight Gu Immortals. (Lu Wei Yin had joined on his own accord, that was not under the control of Southern Border's righteous path.)
This was not to say that Fairy Zi Wei had made a mistake, she had her own considerations too.
Initially, Fairy Zi Wei had lingering hope that Chen Yi and Thunder Ghost True Monarch might still be alive. Thus, she only exposed Fang Yuan's secrets to the world while hiding this incident.
But after a long time passed, Fairy Zi Wei realized that Chen Yi and Thunder Ghost True Monarch were truly dead.
She chose to conceal this information because she did not want to help raise Fang Yuan's reputation, and also because she was afraid that Gu Immortals of the other four regions would compromise with Fang Yuan.
Fang Yuan had the strength to harm rank eight Gu Immortals, his influence had reached a qualitative change!
The other four regions were not like Central Continent, they had many forces that opposed each other, those forces were not united and could easily be crippled by Fang Yuan, it was easy for them to secretly reach an agreement and undergo transactions.
Fairy Zi Wei was not wrong at all, Western Desert's Tang clan and Southern Border's Chi clan were doing this.
Fairy Zi Wei concealed this fact to ensure that the four regions would still be antagonistic towards Fang Yuan. Regardless of the results, both sides would have some expenditure, any loss to either of them would benefit Heavenly Court overall!
At the same time, they would expose information and clues that Heavenly Court could gain by simply observing.
When the time is right, Heavenly Court would deduce Fang Yuan's exact location and take action to exterminate this demon!
Fairy Zi Wei made a good plan, she was looking towards the future and making preparations for the five regions chaotic war.
But the situation was way out of her expectations.
Fang Yuan actually obtained complete victory, he captured all the Southern Border immortals!
"Even though Fang Yuan has rank seven cultivation level, last time, he made use of Lang Ya blessed land's foundation. And this time, he is using Shadow Sect's remaining arrangements."
"The result is a one-sided victory by him, our arrangements did not even have time to take effect."
Fairy Zi Wei gritted her teeth.
Fang Yuan was too devious and cunning!
It was getting increasingly harder to deal with him.
Fairy Zi Wei started to feel a sense of helplessness.
Fang Yuan only had rank seven cultivation level, but she could do nothing to him.
One of the reasons was that he cultivated too many paths.
Wisdom path for example.
Fang Yuan had deep wisdom path attainment.
Even if Fairy Zi Wei made deductions with her full power now, she could not deduce his location, she needed a lot more clues.
Normally speaking, Gu Immortals who were not in wisdom path would be easy to locate through deductions.
There were many demonic path Gu Immortals in this world, but why were there few who would wreak havoc like Fang Yuan?
It was because the moment they create chaos and make everyone angry, wisdom path Gu Immortals would undergo deductions and locate them quickly, before pursuing and hunting them down.
Or for example, refinement path.
Lang Ya blessed land was not so easy to annex, many Gu Immortals could not do it even if they wanted to.
Even some rank eight Gu Immortals could not.
Because Lang Ya blessed land was rank seven, one needed at least grandmaster refinement path attainment level!
Or, for example, dream path.
Fang Yuan was reborn from the future, he had many dream path methods.
During the Battle of Yi Tian Mountain, he used these methods to escape danger and survive the ordeal.
Or, for example, this ambush battle.
Fang Yuan showed incredible formation path attainment.
To be able to use the time path formation to this extent, his formation path attainment level was at least great grandmaster!
"Of course, this can be part of the arrangements left by Shadow Sect. But why did Fang Yuan not use it back then? There is little possibility in this."
"There is another possibility, after Fang Yuan annexed Lang Ya blessed land, one of the variant human Gu Immortals that he took in has great grandmaster formation path attainment level."
"I don't have enough clues..."
Fairy Zi Wei placed her hand on her forehead as cold flight flickered in her eyes.
She stood up and left Central Great Hall, arriving at the place where Spectral Soul was imprisoned.
Soul search!
Not long after, Fairy Zi Wei nodded in satisfaction.
She searched specifically within Spectral Soul's memories, about the secrets regarding the time path formation.
"It is a formation with strong concealment capability indeed, but it does not have the power to summon year beasts, Fang Yuan must have added it in afterwards." Fairy Zi Wei was in deep thought.
The eerie light in her eyes was just a speck earlier, but it had already spread to a larger area now.
-x-X-x-
Heavenly Court.
Throughout the eras, countless immortal halls were built.
Behind Central Great Hall, there was a tall tower that was covered in a white-gold halo.
It was the rank eight Immortal Gu House Heaven Overseeing Tower.
Surrounding Heaven Overseeing Tower, several Heavenly Court Gu Immortals were working together, they were very busy.
Through their hard work, a refinement path formation was slowly taking shape.
A Gu Immortal with a strong body that was like a monolith was watching outside the formation. Even though he was just standing, he gave a feeling of a huge pillar that could support the sky.
It was Duke Long!
"Greetings, Duke Long." Fairy Zi Wei arrived at this moment, standing behind Duke Long.
"Right now, Lang Ya blessed land is in Fang Yuan's hands, that means he also knows the details of Refinement Cauldron. Originally, Heavenly Court's refinement path formation was modeled after Refinement Cauldron. I ordered them to disassemble the original formation and modify it into another one." Duke Long said as he turned around, facing Fairy Zi Wei.
Guilt showed on Fairy Zi Wei's face as she said: "I have failed in my duties..."
Before she finished, Duke Long interrupted: "No need to take about blaming yourself, I believe you have already reflected upon your actions, the past cannot be changed, we should face the present and plan for the future."
Duke Long looked at Fairy Zi Wei as he sighed: "Right now, Heavenly Court has control of the situation, but it seems like our control is slowly dwindling. Fang Yuan... this pawn arranged by Red Lotus Demon Venerable was able to thwart our plans and cause the deaths of Chen Yi and Thunder Ghost True Monarch, right now he even captured many Southern Border immortals. Even if he is only rank seven, regardless of what methods he used, the result is apparent to us all, the facts are simply like this. Zi Wei, how will you deal with it?"
In the previous life, Duke Long did not place importance on Fang Yuan, he thought that he was just a nuisance.
But now, after Fang Yuan attained great victories one after the other, Duke Long became alert towards him.
He no longer entrusted everything to Fairy Zi Wei like in the previous life, he started to feel uneasy and asked questions about future plans.
Fairy Zi Wei breathed in deeply, she already had a plan on how to deal with Fang Yuan, she said calmly: "The first thing is to find his location. Wisdom path methods are not enough, right now, I have sent out three rank eight Gu Immortals in Southern Border to search for his traces."
"Furthermore, we need to counter his killer move that uses Fixed Immortal Travel as the core. This move is more threatening than Omni-directional Travel, it gives Fang Yuan the initiative to advance or retreat at will."
"I have already given orders to prepare the refinement of fixed space Gu before anyone else."
Fixed space Gu was in Liu Hao's hands, but he was captured by Fang Yuan now. Fairy Zi Wei was confident in Heavenly Court's methods, they could make Liu Hao's fixed space Immortal Gu self-detonate.
With the crucial fixed space Gu, they would be able to deal with Fixed Immortal Travel's killer move.
"And thirdly." Fairy Zi Wei said as she paused, continuing in a heavier tone: "We need to guard against his Spring Autumn Cicada."
"I am increasingly suspicious that Fang Yuan has already used Spring Autumn Cicada, he had been reborn already."
"In the battle of Lang Ya blessed land, our side lost because star cast was broken."
"This is very suspicious, Feng Jiu Ge left so many dao marks at various locations, why did Fang Yuan lock onto that particular one? Setting a formation in advance and blocking us from entering?"
"But I have made many deductions on this without any result, the clues are too few."
Fairy Zi Wei sighed deeply.
"Spring Autumn Cicada is a problem indeed." Duke Long nodded: "Do you have any way to deal with it?"
Fairy Zi Wei nodded: "Lord Duke Long, didn't we discuss already, we will use the killer move benevolent equality on Spring Autumn Cicada. But benevolence Gu is still in Southern Border, it is owned by Paradise Earth's inheritor, Lu Wei Yin."
"That's right." Duke Long said in a low tone: "If Fang Yuan uses Spring Autumn Cicada, he might not just be using it alone, he likely would be using a killer move. Using benevolent equality to deal with any potential Spring Autumn Cicada killer move is most appropriate."
"Precisely." Purple light flickered in Fairy Zi Wei's eyes: "That is why I plan to contact Lu Wei Yin soon, I want to discuss the matter of borrowing benevolence Gu from him."
At this time in the previous life, Heavenly Court was calm and composed, they had not contacted Lu Wei Yin so early.
But due to the ink effect, they decided to approach Lu Wei Yin in advance.
Duke Long nodded as he had a thought: "You want to use this chance to see if Fang Yuan has truly been reborn?"
"That's right. If Lu Wei Yin rejects us, the likelihood of Fang Yuan using rebirth is higher. That is because our benevolent equality killer move counters Fang Yuan."
"But if Lu Wei Yin agrees, it means that we were able to use benevolent equality, it would be unlikely that Fang Yuan managed to rebirth."
"At the same time, we can probe the attitude of this current generation Paradise Earth inheritor." Fairy Zi Wei said slowly.
On the topic of Paradise Earth, Duke Long had a complex expression as he said: "Let's do that."
"However, even if Lu Wei Yin refuses to lend to us, we do not need to worry even if we cannot deal with Spring Autumn Cicada."
"As long as we control the situation and progress as planned, no matter how that scoundrel Fang Yuan tries, he cannot turn this around."
"Back then, with Red Lotus' strength and foundation, he still failed in the end, not to mention this mere Fang Yuan?"
Duke Long said this with a grand tone as he smiled.
Fairy Zi Wei was a little hesitant, she asked: "Lord Duke Long, there is something I do not understand. With our Heavenly Court's deep foundation, why do we need to borrow Gu in order to deal with Spring Autumn Cicada? Do we really lack any kind of method to deal with Spring Autumn Cicada?"
Duke Long's smile faded away: "The cause is likely Red Lotus. Back then, he had told me this personally when we fought. He said that in the River of Time, there are many stone lotus islands that are not connected to each other, yet they share a special influence. All of the stone lotus islands form one immortal killer move, it is his proudest creation. This method can influence the flow of the River of Time, it can indirectly affect the traces of all beings in this world."
Without the River of Time, the entire world would be still.
The myriad beings could only move and live because of the moving River of Time.
Using this relationship, Red Lotus Demon Venerable created a grand method that exerted its influence until today.
The most evident effect was that any Gu worm or method that countered Spring Autumn Cicada would never end up in Heavenly Court.
After the matter of Red Lotus, Heavenly Court concealed the truth to defend its reputation while aggressively searching and planning for methods to deal with Spring Autumn Cicada.
Gradually, Heavenly Court found something strange.
Any Immortal Gu that could counter Spring Autumn Cicada would intentionally 'avoid' Heavenly Court. Among the Gu Immortals that joined Heavenly Court, very few cultivated time path!
"But as time passes, this influence is weakening. Heavenly Court has obtained some methods that can influence and disrupt Spring Autumn Cicada. You know them too, most are still unusable." Duke Long added.
"So that's it." Fairy Zi Wei had a calm expression but she was shocked on the inside. Red Lotus Demon Venerable had created an incredible method, this truly surpassed the limits of time path, it had a trace of the power of fate!
He not only damaged fate Gu, he even forcefully used time path methods to mimic the power of fate in order to counter it.
Fairy Zi Wei blinked as she calmed her emotions: "Next, I will let out news that Fang Yuan is trying to undergo tribulation and ascend to rank eight."
"At the same time, I will talk to Wu Yong and interact with the Southern Border righteous path forces, to find more people that would go against Fang Yuan."
"And finally, I have already given orders to nurture Fang Zheng fully. This person was brought about by the Heavenly Dao, he is a crucial key to dealing with Fang Yuan. Has he already undergone immortal ascension?"
Central Continent.
The blood rain became smaller as Gu Yue Fang Zheng floated in the sky above the mountain peak, his heaven, earth, and human qi were condensing into one spot.
He had gone through many ordeals, his suffering had turned into his precious wealth, allowing him to balance the three qi successfully.
Fang Zheng suddenly opened his eyes, he breathed in deeply and tossed a rank five blood path Gu into the lump of qi.
Boom!
A shocking sound exploded around him, the qi lump burst out and turned into an immortal aperture.
High grade blessed land!
Fang Zheng's immortal ascension succeeded, there was also a lot of heaven and earth qi remaining.
Fang Zheng was overjoyed, these heaven and earth qi could raise his vital blood path mortal Gu into an Immortal Gu!
"Fang Zheng, quickly let me in, I will help you with the tribulation!" Fan Xi Liu transmitted, he had been guarding Fang Zheng's entire immortal ascension process.
"Hmm?" Fang Zheng frowned, showing displeasure. The immortal aperture was the most private area of the Gu Immortal, Fan Xi Liu was infringing on it, Fang Zheng felt a sense of anger.
But immediately, Fang Zheng relaxed his brows, he opened the immortal aperture door and said plainly: "Sure, Fan Xi Liu, please enter."
Fang Zheng knew that not only was Fan Xi Liu here, during his immortal ascension, countless eyes were watching him.
He gradually understood his value, he was just a tool, he was being nurtured to deal with Fang Yuan.
A moment later, his tribulation ended.
Fan Xi Liu was inside his immortal aperture, he had a complex expression: "Fang Zheng, this is a high grade blessed land, back then, I went through so much and faced a great risk during my tribulation, but only gained a medium grade blessed land."
"Your immortal aperture has at least a size of 5666km2, while the limit is at 6000km2."
"This is definitely a large tributary of the River of Time, the rate of time compared to the outside world is one to twenty-eight. The limit of a high grade blessed land is one to thirty, the difference is very small."
His time path and space path resources were far beyond what Fan Xi Liu had back in his day.
Rank six Gu Immortals with high grade blessed lands were elites, they were few in numbers to begin with.
"And during this tribulation, you ascended your vital Gu as well, you now own two blood path Immortal Gu."
"The sect has given orders, I brought you a lot of resources to plant and get past the toughest initial stage post ascension."
Fan Xi Liu said this as he took out a large amount of blood path resources from his immortal aperture.
All these resources had huge value, they were mostly immortal materials, this experienced Gu Immortal Fan Xi Liu could not even conceal the jealousy and envy in his eyes.
The sect was putting so much effort into nurturing Fang Zheng!
The value of these resources was equivalent to a rank six lone cultivator's hundred years of accumulation. Even for Fan Xi Liu who had Immortal Crane Sect's support, he had to spend fifty years to reach this stage.
One could say that Fang Zheng became a rich rank six Gu Immortal without doing anything.
"The sect is putting so much effort for you, Fang Zheng, don't let them down." At the end, Fan Xi Liu said with a hoarse voice.
Just by seeing Fan Xi Liu's complex expression, Fang Zheng understood.
He was also shocked that he was receiving so much attention and nurturing.
"Regardless of their motive... I have finally become an immortal. Fang Yuan, the difference between you and I is no longer immortal and mortal."
Fang Zheng's divine sense looked around, he felt deep emotions while looking at his immortal aperture: "This is my immortal aperture, my blessed land, my foundation!"
At this moment, he felt that his future was bright, it seemed to be filled with endless possibilities.
"Fang Yuan, even though you are strong, you were still forced to escape from Central Continent and Heavenly Court, you dare not step into Central Continent."
"With their help, it will not be impossible for me to deal with you."
"Even though I understand you, I will not forgive you. Fate toys with people, we will still end up as enemies after all."
This current life was different from the previous, Fang Zheng received much more attention and help, his immortal ascension was brought forward by quite some time.
In the previous life, everyone knew about the nightmare that Southern Border faced, Fang Yuan's demonic might was overwhelming.
But now, Heavenly Court concealed the facts behind their loss, while Southern Border's situation had not been known to everyone yet.
Thus, Gu Yue Fang Zheng had no idea that Chen Yi and Thunder Ghost True Monarch had died, he did not know that Southern Border's immortals were all captured by Fang Yuan.
This created a misconception after his immortal ascension that if he continued like this, he might be able to reach Fang Yuan's height and face him directly.