Heaven qi descended.
Earth qi rose.
Human qi surged.
Inside the true inheritance secluded domain, Fang Ming floated silently in the dark void, wrapped within three different currents of power. There was no sky here, and there was no earth, yet the moment his aperture shattered, heaven and earth still answered.
Clear heaven qi pressed down from above.
Golden earth qi rose from below.
And from Fang Ming's body, human qi erupted like a furnace opening its doors.
The first collision almost tore him apart.
Fang Ming's shoulders trembled. His muscles tightened so hard that faint cracking sounds came from his bones. The Great Strength True Martial Physique inside him was not gentle. It did not release human qi like a calm stream. It released it like a beast breaking through a cage.
Too fierce.
Too heavy.
Too much.
Fang Ming's expression remained steady, but his mind became completely focused.
He finally understood, more deeply than before, how different his ascension was from Tai Bai Yun Sheng's. Tai Bai Yun Sheng's human qi had been vast because of age, experience, and deep accumulation. Fang Ming's human qi was violent because his body itself had become abnormal.
This was not the accumulation of an old man's life.
This was the roar of one of the ten extreme physiques.
The human qi pressed outward, trying to overwhelm heaven and earth qi. If Fang Ming allowed it to continue, he would not even reach calamity. He would self-detonate here, destroyed by the very foundation that gave him power.
Lesser Human Qi Gu floated quietly in his thoughts.
Fang Ming ignored it.
Now was not the time.
The counterfeit Gu could only add human qi. It could not remove it. Using it now would be like pouring oil onto a burning house. He had copied it for a later moment, when his human qi weakened, when the balance tilted away from him.
Not now.
Now, he had to restrain himself.
He slowly drew in a breath.
The action was meaningless to the three qi, yet it steadied his mind. His thoughts sank into his body, into his bones, into the strength path dao marks flowing through his flesh.
The dao marks stirred.
Before the Great Strength True Martial Physique, they had been clumsy things. Powerful, yes, but difficult to command. They had existed in his body like foreign metals buried in stone.
Now they responded.
They moved with his muscles. They echoed with his bones. They helped press his human qi inward, keeping it from exploding outward too quickly.
Heaven qi continued descending.
Earth qi continued rising.
Fang Ming guided them carefully.
He did not try to dominate them. That would be foolish. A mortal, even one with a ten extreme physique, could not command heaven and earth like servants. He could only adjust, borrow, resist, and survive.
The three qi gathered around his shattered aperture.
A multi-colored mass began to form.
The second step had truly begun.
Taking in qi.
Outside the secluded domain, Eighty-Eight True Yang Building shook violently.
Fang Yuan's ascension had already thrown the battlefield into madness. Giant Sun's will roared in anger, and the smaller will that had come from the inheritance space was forced to focus on him. Hei Lou Lan and the others had been driven toward Fang Yuan's side of the battlefield. The attention of the building, the will, and the surrounding Gu Masters all leaned in that direction.
That was why Fang Ming had waited.
If he had started first, Giant Sun's will might have turned its gaze on him. Hei Lou Lan might have been ordered to attack him. Tai Bai Yun Sheng might have interfered. Fang Yuan might have used the chance to scheme.
But Fang Yuan had already drawn the blade.
Now Fang Ming could step into the shadow of that blade.
A tremor passed through the secluded domain.
Somewhere far away, a true inheritance light shattered against another and scattered sparks across the void. The domain was becoming unstable. The large Giant Sun will outside was bearing heavenly tribulation and earthly calamity. The smaller will inside was fighting Fang Yuan's arrangements. The luck path supreme true inheritance had already left for Ma Hong Yun.
This was not a safe place.
But safety had never been the point.
Fang Ming wanted Eighty-Eight True Yang Building to share the burden.
If he ascended alone in the outside world, heaven and earth would strike him directly. Here, his ascension was tangled with Giant Sun's arrangements, Fang Yuan's gamble, and the damaged structure of the Immortal Gu House.
His calamity would still come.
But before it reached him, it would have to pass through this chaos.
Fang Ming's lips tightened.
The three qi became heavier.
The mass around his shattered aperture spun faster. Heaven qi tried to lift his body into emptiness. Earth qi tried to drag him into stillness. Human qi tried to burst outward and tear a path through both.
He could not allow any side to dominate.
If heaven qi exceeded the limit, he would dissolve into air.
If earth qi exceeded the limit, he would become like stone, buried alive by his own ascension.
If human qi exceeded the limit, his ten extreme physique would explode.
Each possibility was death.
Fang Ming held the balance with all his focus.
At this moment, ordinary Gu worms were almost unusable. The heaven and earth qi around him formed a natural danger zone. Any careless activation could cause backlash, injuring him and destroying the Gu worm at the same time.
This was both danger and protection.
The smaller Giant Sun will could not charge into Fang Ming's three-qi vortex casually. Will was not immune to heaven and earth. If stained too deeply by heaven qi, it could disperse. If corroded by earth qi, it could collapse into stillness.
Fang Ming had seen enough from Fang Yuan's side to understand this.
The three qi were killing him.
But they were also keeping enemies away.
He closed his eyes.
Then the world changed.
Memories rose.
Not slowly.
All at once.
He saw himself first entering this world, weak and cautious, walking beneath forces far greater than himself. He saw the first time he used strength path Gu. He saw the feeling of power entering flesh, crude but intoxicating.
Then he saw the consumable strength Immortal Gu.
The dao marks it had left inside him.
At that time, those dao marks had been like buried treasure he could not fully use. He had possessed power, but not the body to command it.
Then came Hei Lou Lan.
Great Strength True Martial Physique.
The moment Counterfeit Copy succeeded, Fang Ming had felt his body begin to change. Itching. Bone pain. Muscles twisting. His face failing beneath the disguise. His old appearance dying in agony.
Now, during ascension, he saw that transformation again, but clearer.
The physique was not merely strength.
It was structure.
A body born to bear force.
Bones that could act as pillars.
Muscles that could transmit power without waste.
Flesh that could store violent strength path dao marks without collapsing immediately.
Aperture, body, and dao marks — all aligned toward strength.
Then Steel Body appeared in his thoughts.
Not the Gu worm itself, but the meaning behind the inheritance.
Steel was not strong because it was hard alone.
Steel was strong because it could bear, bend, return, and hold shape under pressure.
A body of strength could not only explode outward.
It had to endure inward.
Fang Ming's mind shook.
The three qi spun faster.
For an instant, countless ideas opened before him. How strength path dao marks should settle into flesh. How Steel Body Gu could support the structure of an immortal body. How force should travel through bones without damaging organs. How strength path was not merely hitting harder, but allowing the body to become a vessel that could contain power without being destroyed by it.
Heaven and earth were teaching him.
The Great Dao was close.
Too close.
Fang Ming felt the temptation.
If he followed those insights deeper, he might gain more understanding in a few breaths than years of ordinary cultivation. Strength path mysteries unfolded before him like doors opening one after another.
But Tai Bai Yun Sheng's lesson remained in his mind.
Do not be greedy.
Even enlightenment could kill.
Fang Ming forced himself to stop chasing every answer. He took only what helped him now.
Containment.
Structure.
Balance.
Endurance.
His human qi surged again, trying to use the moment of inspiration to expand further. Fang Ming pressed it down with the newly grasped understanding. His body became like a furnace with reinforced walls. The fire inside still burned violently, but the furnace did not crack.
The three qi stabilized slightly.
Only slightly.
But that slight stability was life.
Outside, thunder roared.
The sound did not belong to ordinary lightning.
The calamities around Eighty-Eight True Yang Building had already begun mutating under Fang Yuan's ascension. Snow war tribulation lightning struck more frequently, each bolt forcing Giant Sun's main will outside the building to pay a price. The building trembled again and again, its empty shell groaning under the pressure.
Then another change appeared.
Black spirals formed in the distant void outside the building's structure, their shapes reflected faintly even inside the secluded domain. Within those spirals, pale beast teeth slowly emerged, each one enormous and cold.
Chaotic branching teeth.
Even Giant Sun's will feared them.
Fang Ming did not look toward them for long.
Those were born from Fang Yuan's ascension and the already twisted disasters around True Yang Building. They were not his direct calamity, not yet. But his own three-qi vortex had begun adding another weight to the collapsing balance.
The domain shook harder.
A few inheritance lights nearby fled from Fang Ming's area, as if sensing a coming disaster.
The heaven qi around Fang Ming sharpened.
The earth qi thickened.
His human qi burned.
The first fusion deepened.
Fang Ming's body was cleansed by the three qi. His skin, bones, muscles, soul, mind, and will all felt as if they were being washed and hammered at the same time. Scars from old battles faded. Hidden injuries vanished. His flesh became purer, but also more burdened, because every improvement made the three qi demand more from him.
His brown eyes opened.
Within them, three colors reflected.
White.
Gold.
Human mist.
The multi-colored mass around his shattered aperture pulsed.
One pulse.
Then another.
The rhythm began to match his heartbeat.
Fang Ming felt his mortal body being pushed toward a higher level of existence, but the road ahead was still long. Balancing the three qi was only the beginning. After this would come calamity. Then immortal aperture formation. Then Gu refinement. Then whatever mutation his Great Strength True Martial Physique attracted.
He had no illusions.
This was not success.
This was the first gate.
Far away, Giant Sun's will roared again.
This time, the roar carried more than fury.
It carried alarm.
Fang Ming knew why.
A second ascension had been noticed.
Even hidden within the true inheritance secluded domain, even covered by Fang Yuan's madness, the reaction of heaven and earth could not be concealed forever. Giant Sun's will might not know exactly who he was. It might not yet connect him to the earlier suspicious Fang Ming. But it knew one thing.
Another mortal was trying to become immortal inside Eighty-Eight True Yang Building.
And this one carried the aura of the Great Strength True Martial Physique.
Fang Ming did not panic.
The smaller will could be angry.
The main will could roar.
Hei Lou Lan and the others could chase Fang Yuan.
The calamities could mutate.
None of that mattered if he lost focus now.
He pressed his mind back into the three qi.
Heaven qi.
Earth qi.
Human qi.
The three forces revolved around him like three grinding stones.
Fang Ming sat at their center, silent and unmoving.
His face was pale.
His body trembled.
Blood slowly leaked from the corner of his mouth.
But his eyes remained calm.
The Great Strength True Martial Physique made the ascension monstrous, but it also gave him the foundation to endure what ordinary mortals could not. Steel Body gave his flesh structure. The strength path dao marks helped anchor his human qi. The lessons from Tai Bai Yun Sheng stopped him from using Lesser Human Qi Gu too early.
Each preparation mattered.
None guaranteed survival.
The first shadow of his own calamity began to gather at the edge of the secluded domain.
It was faint.
Unformed.
Only a pressure, like a mountain hidden behind clouds.
Fang Ming felt it.
His heart sank slightly.
So fast.
The three qi had not fully settled, yet heaven and earth were already preparing to strike.
His improved luck had opened the timing.
It had not reduced the price.
Fang Ming closed his eyes again and held the balance.
Outside, Fang Yuan fought under the eyes of everyone.
Inside, Fang Ming fought where almost no one could see.
One battled enemies.
The other battled himself.
But both had already stepped past the point of return.