The battlefield around Ma Hong Yun became more chaotic with every breath.
Fang Ming had already withdrawn from the center.
He stood among broken roots and fallen branches, his aura restrained, his body hidden behind the shadow of an ancient tree. The power inside him still surged like a sealed furnace, but he no longer stood openly between Ma Hong Yun and danger.
That moment had passed.
He had protected Ma Hong Yun long enough.
A faint thread of fortune had leaned toward him. It was not something that could be touched, nor was it something an ordinary Gu Master could sense. But Fang Ming felt the pressure around his future ease by the smallest amount, like a thin layer of fog being pushed aside.
That was enough.
Fortune Rivalling Heaven Gu was not something to challenge greedily.
It was a vortex.
Borrow from it lightly, and one might gain.
Reach too deeply, and one would be dragged into the storm.
Fang Ming had no intention of dying for Ma Hong Yun.
Across the battlefield, Fang Yuan still had not given up.
Even after repeated disruptions, even after seeing how absurd Ma Hong Yun's survival was, his killing intent remained. He stood above the chaos with cold eyes, like a blade refusing to dull. The more unreasonable Ma Hong Yun's luck became, the more it stirred Fang Yuan's will to test it.
The treemen moved under shifting control.
Some attacked Ma Hong Yun's direction.
Some turned toward Fang Yuan.
Some froze in place, as if different wills were pulling them apart from within.
Ma Hong Yun dragged Zhao Lian Yun through the tangled roots, stumbling again and again. Zhao Lian Yun's face was pale, but her mind was far clearer than his. She pulled him away from danger, cursed him under her breath when he hesitated, and kept searching for a path of survival.
Fang Ming watched without moving.
His eyes were calm.
He could still protect Ma Hong Yun again.
But now, the risk was different.
Fang Yuan was no longer the only one acting.
A new pressure appeared inside Eighty-Eight True Yang Building.
It was golden.
Majestic.
Ancient.
But smaller than before.
Fang Ming's gaze shifted.
This was not the great Giant Sun will that Fang Yuan had expelled outside the building. That main will was still trapped beyond Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, battered by chaotic lightning balls, restraining smoke, and the blizzard outside.
This will was different.
Smaller.
Sharper.
It had come from deeper within the building.
From the true inheritance secluded domain.
Fang Ming's eyes narrowed slightly.
So the guard had left his post.
Golden light gathered above the ancient forest, condensing into the vague figure of Giant Sun's will. Though much smaller than the vast will outside, the pressure it carried was still enough to make ordinary Gu Masters tremble.
The small will looked across the battlefield.
It saw Fang Yuan.
It saw the glass owner token.
It saw the Central Continent arrangements.
Then its gaze swept over the others.
For a brief instant, it paused on Fang Ming.
A Rank five strength path Gu Master.
Not Huang Jin bloodline.
Not one of Giant Sun's descendants.
But also not the main threat.
Fang Ming's current appearance had no connection to the old records. His face, eyes, bones, body shape, and aura had all changed after the Great Strength True Martial Physique took root. The Fang Ming who had once entered hidden spaces of Eighty-Eight True Yang Building was no longer visible on the surface.
To this small will, he was merely a powerful outsider from Northern Plains.
Suspicious, perhaps.
But not urgent.
The golden figure's voice rang through the forest.
"You, strength path Gu Master! Assist me in suppressing this outsider!"
The order was directed at Fang Ming.
Several gazes turned instinctively toward him.
Fang Ming did not answer.
He did not bow.
He did not attack Fang Yuan.
He did not attack Giant Sun's will either.
He simply stepped back.
One step.
Then another.
His aura lowered further, and his figure slipped behind the broken trees.
Giant Sun's will became furious.
"Impudent!"
Golden light surged, but only for an instant.
Fang Yuan moved.
The glass owner token in his hand shone with unstable light, cracks spreading across its surface. His face was pale from the earlier clash of wills, but his eyes were still frighteningly calm.
He would not allow Giant Sun's will to regain the board so easily.
A hidden arrangement activated.
The Central Continent Gu Immortals had prepared more than one trap, and Fang Yuan had not revealed all of them at once. The moment the small Giant Sun will tried to stabilize the round, the trap struck.
Invisible force wrapped around the golden will.
The golden light trembled.
Part of it was torn away.
Giant Sun's will roared in rage.
Fang Ming's footsteps did not pause.
He did not even look back for long.
This was exactly why he would not obey Giant Sun's order.
If he attacked Fang Yuan, he might be dragged into Fang Yuan's hidden methods.
If he attacked Giant Sun's will, he would expose himself to an Immortal Venerable's wrath.
If he protected Ma Hong Yun again, he might be caught between both.
The battlefield had become a pit where every step was bait.
Fang Ming wanted profit, not glory.
Let Fang Yuan and Giant Sun tear each other apart.
His opportunity was elsewhere.
The small will's appearance had revealed something far more valuable than another chance to fight.
The true inheritance secluded domain had lost one of its guards.
Fang Ming's eyes turned toward the deeper layers of Eighty-Eight True Yang Building.
Teleport Gu stirred.
Space around him bent faintly.
Behind him, Fang Yuan broke through another obstruction and moved again toward Ma Hong Yun. The boy's luck twisted the situation once more. Treemen blocked at the wrong time. Vines dragged people in the wrong direction. Attacks missed by inches. The battlefield became ridiculous, as if heaven and earth themselves were improvising excuses to keep Ma Hong Yun alive.
Then golden light erupted.
Not from Giant Sun's will.
Not from Eighty-Eight True Yang Building's structure.
From deeper within.
The true inheritance secluded domain.
A vast golden mass tore through space and descended toward Ma Hong Yun like a falling sun.
Fang Ming felt it even as he vanished.
Luck path supreme true inheritance.
It had left the inheritance space.
It had moved for Ma Hong Yun.
For Fortune Rivalling Heaven Gu.
A faint smile appeared on Fang Ming's lips.
"Absurd."
He was not jealous.
Not now.
Seeing it only confirmed his judgment.
Ma Hong Yun was not a piece one could hold tightly. He was not a servant, not a disciple, not a treasure that could be locked in a box. He was a moving calamity of fortune. Attack him, and luck would retaliate. Protect him briefly, and luck might reward you. Try to control him too deeply, and the entire board might overturn on your head.
Fang Ming had already taken what he needed.
Now the luck path supreme true inheritance was descending to protect Ma Hong Yun, dragging Fang Yuan, Giant Sun's will, and Mo Yao's obsession deeper into the storm.
Fang Ming would not follow it.
Space folded.
The battlefield disappeared.
Darkness replaced the ancient forest.
There was no sky here.
No earth.
Only a boundless void filled with drifting lights.
True inheritance secluded domain.
Fang Ming appeared silently, his body wrapped in faint spatial distortion. The pressure of the domain pressed against him immediately, deeper and stranger than before. True inheritances moved like stars in the dark, some slow and gentle, some violent and fast, some carrying auras that made his soul tighten just by approaching.
He had been here before.
Back then, he had only one official chance.
He had seen temptations and chosen Steel Body.
Now he returned under completely different circumstances.
The main Giant Sun will was outside.
The smaller will had left to fight Fang Yuan.
The luck path supreme true inheritance had rushed toward Ma Hong Yun.
The secluded domain was not unguarded, but its rhythm had changed.
There were gaps now.
Short ones.
Dangerous ones.
Enough for someone decisive.
Fang Ming did not wander.
He did not chase the brightest lights.
He did not look toward the supreme inheritances.
Wisdom Gu was not something he could touch.
The luck path supreme inheritance had already left.
The control rights of Eighty-Eight True Yang Building were too involved with Giant Sun's will and Fang Yuan's traps.
Greed had to have limits.
Fang Ming had a target.
In the distance, a golden-white inheritance light drifted slowly through the void.
Around it flickered images he remembered clearly.
Granaries.
Gu feeding pools.
Beast pens.
Resource fields.
Immortal aperture landscapes.
Large-scale sustenance formations.
Food path.
The inheritance he had seen before and refused.
At that time, he had chosen Steel Body because survival came first.
That decision had been correct.
Without the Steel Body inheritance and Steel Body Gu, copying the Great Strength True Martial Physique would have been far more dangerous. Without that physique, he would not have stood before Fang Yuan, Hei Lou Lan, and Tai Bai Yun Sheng even briefly.
But now, his needs had changed.
His immortal ascension was approaching.
His future immortal aperture would need to support beasts, Gu, resources, strength path materials, and perhaps far more than that. A barren aperture produced little. A well-managed one could become the foundation of everything.
Food path was not flashy.
It did not tear mountains apart in one punch.
It did not deceive wills.
It did not overturn an Immortal Gu House in an instant.
But it fed armies.
It sustained Gu.
It maintained ecosystems.
It turned resources into cycles and cycles into long-term strength.
For Fang Ming, who walked enslavement and strength, this inheritance was no less important than a combat method.
The golden-white inheritance drifted past another light.
Fang Ming moved.
He did not rush wildly. The true inheritance secluded domain punished recklessness. Instead, he advanced with sharp precision, using Teleport Gu only in short bursts, never giving the domain's pressure enough time to lock fully onto him.
The golden-white light sensed his approach and began to move faster.
Fang Ming's eyes remained calm.
Outside, the battlefield roared.
Ma Hong Yun's fortune had drawn a supreme inheritance.
Fang Yuan was clashing with Giant Sun.
Hei Lou Lan was raging.
Tai Bai Yun Sheng was being dragged deeper into schemes that had started long before he ascended.
All of that was important.
But not here.
Here, there was only the inheritance light before him.
The food path inheritance curved away, slipping between two faster inheritance lights.
Fang Ming followed.
His body flickered once.
Twice.
The distance closed.
The pressure on his soul grew heavier.
He ignored it.
His hand reached out toward the golden-white light.
At that moment, the inheritance seemed to show him a vast immortal aperture.
Mountains of grain.
Rivers of nutrient fluid.
Beast groups separated by terrain and food chains.
Gu houses designed only to feed Gu worms.
Formation fields that turned waste into resource.
Meat, blood, bone, grass, soil, water, qi — all flowing through one great cycle. This was survival on the scale of a world.
This was a food path inhertance left by Giant Sun teh creator of food path himselfe, while it was emprty and had no gu worms in it, the recepies of mortal gu and immortal gu were all in there.
His fingers touched the inheritance light.
The golden-white glow brightened.
Outside, thunder shook Eighty-Eight True Yang Building.
Inside the secluded domain, Fang Ming smiled faintly. Now that he was done with this, the next step was preparing to ascend to the immortal realm.