Five Months Earlier
Mu Bei Mountain
Huff...
Huff...
Ding Hao gasped for air, clutching his neck in disbelief. He could feel the warmth of his skin, the steady beat of his pulse. There was no wound—no blood, no pain.
But he clearly remembered it.
He had been beheaded.
"I… I died… didn't I?" he whispered, confusion and dread swirling inside him.
A calm voice echoed through the cave.
"So, it's as a success."
Ding Hao turned toward the sound. A young man—no older than twenty—stood in the shadows, watching him with interest. His eyes were deep, thoughtful. Cold.
Ding Hao looked down and suddenly realized—he was sitting in the same cave where he had died.
What… was this?
Before he could speak again, the young man furrowed his brows.
"So, it doesn't work that way after all."
In the next instant, Ding Hao's lungs seized. He couldn't breathe. His senses dulled one by one—sight faded, sound dulled, touch vanished. He collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
Huff... Huff...
He jolted awake once more, gasping violently, coughing.
"Still only a partial success," the voice said again—calm, clinical.
"You… who are you?" Ding Hao managed to croak, but something was wrong. His voice—it was higher. Softer. Feminine.
He looked down at his body—and froze.
He had a woman's chest. Curved, unfamiliar. But his lower half remained unchanged.
Panic twisted in his gut.
"What is this… what are you doing to me?!"
But no answer came.
Only pain.
A sharp, unbearable pressure built in his abdomen.
Then—
BOOM.
His lower half detonated. Flesh, bone, blood—all gone. He barely had time to scream before everything went black again.
Huff... Huff...
He came to, again.
This time, he tried to move—only to feel something strange. His legs were now hooved. His lower body was covered in thick fur. His hips… his backside… inhuman.
"What is this nightmare?!" he thought, heart pounding wildly.
A sigh echoed.
"Still wrong."
And then—
BOOM.
His thighs exploded. His body followed.
Huff... Huff...
BOOM.
Huff... Huff...
BOOM.
The cycle continued.
Each time he returned, his body was different—sometimes beastly, sometimes feminine, sometimes neither.
Each time he tried to question it—he was silenced.
Each time he began to grasp what was happening—he was torn apart.
Ding Hao lost count of how many times he had died.
He no longer knew who—or what—he was.
All that remained was breath.
And the next explosion.
....
"Is refining a Gu really this difficult?" Fang Yuan glanced at the broken, bloodied remains of Ding Hao and murmured to himself.
It had been four months since he began experimenting—refining a new type of Gu using Ding Hao as his test subject. But despite countless trials and modifications, the Gu remained flawed. Something essential was still missing.
He narrowed his eyes. "As long as I perfect this Gu… everything else will fall into place."
Without hesitation, Fang Yuan began the refining process once more.
He tossed a fresh batch of rare materials onto the beetle Gu, then dragged over a nearby zombie. With a push, he sent the undead creature near the beetle Gu. The beetle Gu flared to life and in an instant, the zombie began to wither.
Its dried blood, decaying flesh, and even its lingering soul were all sucked into the vortex of refinement.
Moments later, the product of this cruel refinement took form.
A Gu emerged—shaped like a miniature child, pale and silent, its small form pulsing faintly with otherworldly energy.
Fang Yuan refined it with practiced ease, injecting his primeval essence to stabilize its core. Then, without ceremony, he flung the child-like Gu onto the pile of mangled flesh that had once been Ding Hao.
A white light engulfed the remains.
Bone, muscle, sinew—everything began to reform as if time itself was reversing. Bit by bit, Ding Hao's body reassembled, rebuilt by the power of the Gu.
An hour passed.
Then, at last, Ding Hao opened his eyes. He looked fully human again—intact, breathing, conscious.
He tried to speak.
But instead of words—
"ROOAARRR—!"
A thunderous lion's roar erupted from his mouth, shaking the cave walls. Another followed—feral, deafening, primal.
Fang Yuan's eyes narrowed.
The roaring continued for several seconds before—
BOOM.
Ding Hao exploded once more, body torn apart by the backlash of failure.
Blood spattered across the stone floor.
Fang Yuan stood there silently, gaze calm, unmoved by the carnage.
"Still not right," he muttered.
And without another word, he turned to prepare the next refinement.
....
Fang Yuan glanced at the remains of the exploded Ding Hao, frowning again.
"Why is it so difficult to create a Gu that integrates Heaven Path, Human Path, Time Path, Food Path, Formation Path, Space Path, Transformation Path, Qi Path, and Wisdom Path?" he mused.
"It's not even an Immortal Gu… so why is this so hard?" Fang Yuan's brows knitted tighter.
"I'm only trying to create a Mortal Gu, and I have a Quasi-supreme Grandmaster level in the refinement path. This shouldn't be hard."
He glanced toward the cave entrance, where fewer than ten zombies wandered aimlessly, then let out a quiet sigh.
Closing his eyes, he felt a growing sense of frustration.
But then, as if struck by sudden realization, his eyes snapped open and he looked up toward the sky.
"Why do I need a Vital Gu?" he muttered.
The words rang hollow in the air—but to Fang Yuan, they struck something deep within.
"Why do I need a Vital Gu?"
He repeated it again, quieter this time, as if searching for something just beyond reach.
"Why… do I need a Vital Gu?"
Again, more softly, he repeated: "Why do I need a Vital Gu?"
"Why do I need a Vital Gu?"
The words turned into a rhythm, a chant that echoed in his mind like a song.
Then, in a voice barely audible, as if speaking to himself in a language only he understood, he said, "I am an otherworldly demon…"
"Not a complete one. But a soul that doesn't belong here…"
And in that moment, the thread of lost memory stirred.
A spark of something forgotten was reignited.
Fragments began falling into place—unraveling, rearranging, remembering.
"Otherworldly Demon… Spectral Soul… Fate Gu… Yi Tian Mountain…"
Names, truths, half-formed thoughts—coalescing into clarity. Real memories clicked into position. False ones faded like dust in the wind.
His gaze returned to the heavens—sharp, certain.
"I understand."
He looked up once more and said, "To become a Venerable… I must destroy Fate Gu."
"But only a complete Otherworldly Demon can destroy it."
A cold fire lit in his eyes.
"I'm just a half-formed one. A foreign soul in a native body."
"And Spectral Soul… he's trying to become a native soul in a foreign body."
"But neither of us alone can completely destroy Fate Gu."
"I have a foreign soul, and he'd have a foreign body."
"Only together—me with a foreign body, and him with a foreign soul—can truly overcome Fate Gu. Otherwise, both of us will fall under its influence… or be bound by Heaven's Will."
His mind cleared as everything fell into place.
"What I really need isn't a Vital Gu—but an external vessel, a foreign body to resist fate."
Lifting his head, he seemed to pierce the sky beyond the mountains.
"I know where I went wrong," he said quietly, but with a newfound resolve.
This time, without hesitation, he turned and walked deeper into the cave.