Chapter 1620: Southern Alliance
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Heavenly Court.
The large formation let out buzzing noises as glaring light pierced deep into Spectral Soul’s body like sharp needles.
Despite him curling up and defending with all his strength, he was still hard-pressed to resist the formation’s power.
Fairy Zi Wei was concentrating fully on controlling the large formation while also absorbing all kinds of information extracted from Spectral Soul.
Only when the formation let out breaking noises did Fairy Zi Wei stop while feeling unsatisfied. She gave a deep glance at Spectral Soul.
Even if they were enemies, Fairy Zi Wei could not help but admire Spectral Soul’s tenacity.
He was clearly in a desperate situation with no trace of hope, but he was still resisting to the end. He was indeed worthy of being an invincible Gu Venerable.
Fairy Zi Wei left without saying anything.
Returning to her hall, she immediately began to concentrate on deducing. The use of Star Constellation Chessboard pushed her deduction ability to the peak of the world.
Countless thoughts emerged and faded in her mind like the flickering of countless stars. Her thoughts constantly collided with each each other, even flying out of the body, turning into countless purple light specks that covered Fairy Zi Wei’s body before spreading to fill the whole vast hall.
A long while later, the purple thoughts gradually drew in, dissipated and finally calmed. Fairy Zi Wei took a deep breath, stopping her methods as she slowly opened her eyes.
A layer of thin sweat had formed on her forehead, her brows were furrowed into a tight knot and she looked mentally exhausted.
“Fang Yuan, where in the world are you going to undergo tribulation?” Fairy Zi Wei muttered.
She had been working hard, repeatedly extracting various internal details of Shadow Sect from Spectral Soul. She was especially interested in Shadow Sect’s arrangements left in the five regions.
Because Fang Yuan had used Shadow Sect’s arrangement to capture the pursuing team of Southern Border righteous path in one go. If Fang Yuan was to undergo tribulation, he was very likely to once again rely on these arrangements. It would make no sense for him to not borrow this help.
Fairy Zi Wei had been closely paying attention to Fang Yuan’s cultivation progress. After the battle in Lang Ya blessed land, she clearly deduced Fang Yuan was not far from rank eight.
Rank seven and rank eight were two completely different levels!
In the absence of rank nine, rank eights were the peak of the world.
Once Fang Yuan advances to rank eight, he would truly become difficult to suppress, and would become an enormous obstacle for Heavenly Court.
“Fang Yuan’s final grand tribulation is the crucial point. If we can kill him here, it would be greatly beneficial to Heavenly Court and people all over the world.”
Fairy Zi Wei was not going to let go of any chance to kill Fang Yuan, but she found this matter was extremely troubling.
Because she could not tell the specific time and location of Fang Yuan’s tribulation for sure.
Fang Yuan possessed emperor yama, which had strong defensive properties, not giving her any chance to make deductions against him.
Fang Yuan also had plentiful time path methods to alter the rate of time in the immortal aperture, so it could not be estimated when he was going to undergo the final grand tribulation.
Fang Yuan also had Fixed Immortal Travel and could undergo his tribulation anywhere in the world. How could Fairy Zi Wei make arrangements like this?
The most she could do was rule out black heaven and white heaven.
Because a blessed land would absorb a slightly higher amount of earth qi when undergoing tribulation, so it was usually done in the five regions.
Naturally, the possibility of undergoing tribulation in black or white heaven was small but not zero, there were several areas which were special and had abundant earth qi.
But what about the five regions?
The River of Time was only a secluded domain of heaven and earth, so Fairy Zi Wei could arrange Immortal Gu Houses in it and guard it heavily.
But when it came to the huge area of the five regions, even thousands of Immortal Gu Houses would not be enough. Let alone when Heavenly Court did not have enough manpower to a.s.sign to every area of five regions to interfere with Fang Yuan’s tribulation.
Fairy Zi Wei heaved a sigh, she did not have any good solutions.
The plan now was to use all her strength to extract valuable clues from Spectral Soul and use them to deduce the possible locations where Fang Yuan could undergo tribulation. Meanwhile, she would actively contact the righteous path forces of five regions and release the news of Fang Yuan undergoing tribulation. Heavenly Court did not have control over the other four regions and was only able to borrow their strength.
The news that Fang Yuan was about to undergo tribulation quickly spread throughout the five regions.
Not only the righteous path clans and sects, even demonic and lone immortals heard about it.
Currently, Fang Yuan was already renowned throughout the five regions. Although he only had rank seven cultivation, his battle accomplishments were so amazing that he was already recognized as the number one person below rank eight. The Gu Immortal world acknowledged that even Feng Jiu Ge was inferior to him, he was the strongest new star of the demonic path in the last hundred years, his growth was so shockingly fast that when the Gu Immortal world reacted, he had already become a demonic path overlord.
So the news of Fang Yuan undergoing tribulation quickly created a heated discussion in the Gu Immortal world of the five regions.
“If this demon pa.s.ses the final grand tribulation, he will become a rank eight Gu Immortal, how can we ignore this?!”
“Demons are rising while the righteous path is weakening, what else can we do?”
“This person is extraordinary, he possesses Spring Autumn Cicada, is someone who has been reborn, and also has obtained the inheritances of multiple venerables. A grand tribulation cannot stop him.”
“I have a different opinion. As the saying goes ‘one who commits many injustices is doomed to failure’, this demon is too arrogant, he wants to undergo tribulation, but he has to first see if Heavenly Court or the entire world’s righteous path are allowing it or not.”
Some were optimistic about Fang Yuan while some were pessimistic. But, one point was clear, the absolute majority of the Gu Immortals did not want to see Fang Yuan succeed in his tribulation.
“This demon brought chaos to the world when he was just rank six and even more disaster when he is rank seven, would he topple the world if he advances to rank eight?”
“I don’t care if Fang Yuan undergoes tribulation in other places. But if he undergoes tribulation in Southern Border, my Tie clan will not allow it!”
While the Gu Immortal world was in fervent discussions, Southern Border’s righteous path forces were also actively holding meetings or frequently contacting each other to discuss about how to deal with Fang Yuan.
Despite there still being hostages in Fang Yuan’s hands, if they were able to take this chance to eradicate this disaster, Southern Border’s righteous path forces would be more than happy.
The reason was simple: benefits!
Ignoring Fang Yuan and letting him grow stronger meant he would increasingly become a bigger threat and shroud over Southern Border’s righteous path, like a dark cloud. There might even be a day where one of them might face a calamity under his hands.
More importantly, Fang Yuan had an extremely huge amount of Immortal Gu, Immortal Gu recipes, inheritances, and all kinds of cultivation resources, he was simply a moving treasure trove. They might be able to obtain enormous benefits by killing him. Even if his immortal aperture was destroyed, as long as a fragment of his soul remains, these righteous path forces could soul search and might obtain some venerable’s incomplete inheritance. Just this alone was enough for these righteous path forces to go after him like a flock of cranes.
Wu Yong said in a heavy voice: “The headquarters of Shadow Sect are in Southern Border, there are bound to be many arrangements put in place here. Previously, Fang Yuan used one of the arrangements to capture many immortals. There is a high probability of Fang Yuan undergoing tribulation in Southern Border!”
Prior to saying this, Wu Yong had secretly received information from Fairy Zi Wei and knew of several arrangements Shadow Sect had put in Southern Border.
Wu Yong was fully aware Fairy Zi Wei was making use of him to deal with Fang Yuan. But Wu Yong was willing to be used. Because Fang Yuan had heavily toyed with him by disguising as Wu Yi Hai, Fang Yuan being alive was the greatest disgrace to the whole of Wu clan and him, Wu Yong!
“Lord Wu Yong’s a.n.a.lysis is sound.” Qiao clan Gu Immortal immediately added: “Fang Yuan captured Gu Immortals from every clan, he is also an inheritor of Shadow Sect, the current sect leader, he definitely has powerful soul path methods. After soul searching the captives, he will be clear of the situation of our Southern Border righteous path.”
“Moreover, our Southern Border has been through all kinds of large changes in these recent years, be they lone or demonic immortals, they have all suffered severe losses, especially our righteous path. If that demon undergoes tribulation here, he will face the least obstruction.”
“Even if Fang Yuan undergoes tribulation in Southern Border, how can we keep a lookout? Southern Border is so large, he could very well undergo tribulation in some corner, how would we know?” A Gu Immortal asked.
“We can know it by investigating.” Xia clan Gu Immortal replied, “Once he places his immortal aperture and connects to the world, he has to maintain this state till he finishes the tribulation. He will no longer be hidden in this period of time, and we will be able to trace him. Even without others’ help, our Xia clan’s wisdom path Gu Immortals will be able to deduce his specific location with the help of our formation.”
“Of course, if there are many wisdom path Gu Immortals helping us, we will have even more certainty in deducing Fang Yuan’s location, and also much more quickly.” Another Xia clan Gu Immortal continued, “The true difficulty is not in deducing his location but how we can reach there in time. There is also a premise here that we must have gathered a considerable number of Gu Immortals to deal with Fang Yuan.”
Southern Border’s Gu Immortals fell into silence.
Since ancient times, the Southern Border righteous path forces were numerous and divided, no one submitting to others. And to eliminate Fang Yuan, these Southern Border forces had to work with full cooperation and unity.
This could be considered an unprecedented event.
Fang Yuan was currently able to fight rank eight, but he was one person in the end. Any single super clan of the righteous path could make sure Fang Yuan had more trouble than he could handle during the tribulation, causing him to fail his tribulation and even die.
Because these righteous path forces either possessed rank eight Gu Immortal or had Immortal Gu Houses that could fight rank eight. Most of them had managed their territories and resources for thousands of years or even tens of thousands of years, so they had incomparably robust foundation. In contrast, Fang Yuan had developed for a considerably shorter time.
But was it possible for one super clan to use all their strength against Fang Yuan?
Impossible.
This was a jungle, every righteous path clan was a fierce beast who ruled over a territory. If this fierce beast left its territory to attack another fierce beast, even if the latter was not fully developed, it would still have claws and fangs.
This risk was too large.
Even if it killed the other, the fierce beast could very likely be injured and if its injuries were too severe, other fierce beasts would be attracted to invade.
Of course, the invasion would be under the cover of justice. They would find all sorts of excuses, with so many conflicts between Southern Border righteous path forces over the years, would they be worried about not finding an excuse?
Even if they really had no excuse, they could offer to ‘help’. For instance, take the initiative to help for the ‘prosperity of Southern Border’. Look at how pa.s.sionate I am to help you. Do you dare to refuse? Do you have the strength to refuse?
So, the true difficulty in dealing with Fang Yuan did not lie in Fang Yuan himself.
Was Fang Yuan strong?
Indeed, being able to fight rank eight with rank seven cultivation was extremely rare even in history.
But what if he was compared to a super force?
Fang Yuan was not strong, he could not compare to a group’s strength. After continuous conflicts, Fang Yuan would start bleeding.
Some Southern Border Gu Immortals could only smile bitterly because they knew: The current situation was ironic. The ones binding them were themselves. They were wary of each other and kept each other in check. They divided their forces to guard their large territories to defend against each other.
The silence lasted a long while, until a Tie clan Gu Immortal suddenly spoke: “Actually, there is a way to resolve a portion of this issue. Everyone knows of the Immortal Gu House Beacon Tower of my Tie clan.”
Southern Border Gu Immortals maintained their silence, but it did not last long when another voice spoke: “I agree with Tie clan in building Beacon Towers.”
Everyone was shocked, because this person was none other than Wu clan’s first supreme elder Wu Yong!
Even that rank six Tie clan Gu Immortal who had spoken just now was surprised. Wu Yong actually supported Tie clan in building Beacon Tower?
While everyone was still in shock, Wu Yong spoke again, his voice was low and deep, his every word landing in the immortals’ minds like a giant rock.
He said: “It is time to make a change. Have you still not realized? The wave of the great era is already upon us, the five regions’ regional walls have also started to thin. If we don’t start changing now, we will be submerged by this wave of the new era.”
The immortals fell into silence.
Another person stood up, he was Ba clan’s first supreme elder who had always wanted to seize the number one position from Wu clan.
He rarely spoke and thus startled everyone: “My Ba clan supports Wu Yong. We need to look ahead, Central Continent has Heavenly Court, Northern Plains has Longevity Heaven, what does our Southern Border have?”
He paused for a moment before making a logical point: “We have many forces but every force is independent, we will be taken down by the other regions eventually. So I support Wu Yong and also agree to Tie clan building Beacon Towers.”
Not long after him, Chi clan’s first supreme elder Chi Qu You expressed his support.
Then, Luo clan, Hou clan, Chai clan, and so on also expressed their strong intent to unite.
Southern Border’s immortals suddenly realized that this event was of an extreme importance and would be recorded in the history of Southern Border!
Never had such a situation appeared where Southern Border’s righteous path forces joined hands. This was not just a superficial proclamation, but a true close cooperation!
The atmosphere was heated like never before, waves rose in Southern Border Gu Immortals’ minds as they felt an excitement at partic.i.p.ating in a historical moment!
“Let Fang Yuan be the first sacrificial offering to our Southern Alliance, then… the other four regions!” Wu Yong did not conceal his ambitions.