Huff… Huff…
Ding Hao gasped for air as he awakened once more.
His hands trembled as he checked his body—his face, his chest, his lower half.
It was human.
A surge of emotion overtook him and he shouted, "Why?!"
This time, the voice that came out wasn't that of an animal or a woman—it was his own. For the first time in what felt like eternity, it was truly him.
But that only deepened the despair.
"Why… why are you doing this to me?!"
He didn't know how many times he had died.
Thousands? Tens of thousands?
He'd long lost count. He didn't even know how much time had passed.
All he knew was pain—relentless, unending pain. Dying from violent explosions, suffocating to death, aging into dust in seconds, turning into beasts or insects. The horror never ceased.
He had no idea who was doing this or why. The only thing he felt was overwhelming terror and suffering.
Collapsing to his knees, he cried out, voice raw and broken:
"Please… just kill me!"
The deaths were horrifying, but what truly broke him was the feeling of returning. Each time he was brought back, it felt as if his very existence was being torn apart—his soul stretched, shredded, forced back into a body that no longer felt his own.
He didn't want to live anymore.
He wanted release. Peace.
So he begged for death.
The cave was empty, no figure in sight. But he knew—someone was watching. Always watching.
He wept for over an hour, rambling about his past, pleading for mercy, for rest, for an end.
Then, at last, the voice came again. Calm. Indifferent.
"Okay."
In that instant, Ding Hao felt his head severed cleanly.
And this time, his face showed only peace—no fear, just relief.
As his blood pooled across the cave floor, Ding Hao's consciousness faded for the last time.
...
Fang Yuan looked down at Ding Hao's decapitated corpse and shook his head.
"So it turned into an Expendable Gu Worm," he muttered, then turned his gaze to the sky.
Dark clouds were gathering rapidly above. If Ding Hao had survived just one minute longer, the impending tribulation would have descended upon this place.
"So even though it's a Mortal Gu, it still invites tribulation…"
Fang Yuan felt no fear—not because the tribulation was weak, but because he could abandon the Gu at any moment and escape unscathed.
"Should I refine it now as a mortal Gu," he wondered aloud, "or wait until I become a Gu Immortal and refine it into an Immortal Gu?"
He already knew the consequences. If refined as an Immortal Gu, it would trigger nothing less than a Rank 7 or even Rank 8 tribulation.
He sighed and glanced over at the Tusita Flower, where a special blood essence was stored in full. But now, half of it was already gone.
"Just a single drop of that blood can raise someone's aptitude by one percent... and yet, half of it was consumed in a single refinement."
Even if he used the remaining half, he would only be able to produce a Rank 1 Gu. And whoever used it would still have to face tribulation during the refinement process.
To refine a higher-rank version—Rank 5 or 6—he would need not only more of this blood essence, but also other exotic materials. It would be an arduous task.
"Ding Hao was a rare success," Fang Yuan reflected.
Unlike previous attempts, Ding Hao had survived nearly an hour. That was because Fang Yuan had used fewer materials during the refinement, producing a weaker—but still viable—Gu.
And yet, once the Gu fully assimilated into Ding Hao's new body, it was powerful enough to invoke tribulation.
The irony wasn't lost on Fang Yuan.
"If only he hadn't begged for death… If he had just checked his cultivation first…"
He would have seen that the body he'd been given wasn't his original one.
It was a new body.
A mortal one, yes—but one whose aperture had awakened. His aptitude had been raised dramatically—from C-grade to something just below the Ten Extreme Physiques.
Not an extreme physique… but close.
"He had obtained a Partial Otherworldly Demon Body," Fang Yuan concluded.
But Ding Hao never realized what he had become.
And now… he never would.
...
A finger-sized Immortal Gu slowly cracked open before turning to dust.
An elderly man, known as Yan Shi, opened his eyes in the darkness and observed this, murmuring in surprise, "A Quasi-Supreme Grandmaster in Wisdom Path?"
He spoke to himself in bewilderment, "Did the Star Constellation Immortal Venerable make a move?"
This man, Yan Shi, belonged to the Shadow Sect.
Suddenly, as if sensing something beyond his understanding, Yan Shi glanced towards the distant southern border and murmured in shock, "A Heavenly Tribulation."
He hadn't predicted anyone facing a Heavenly Tribulation at this time.
After waiting for an hour, Yan Shi observed that the Heavenly Tribulation, which had seemed ready to descend, vanished, leaving the sky calm again.
He tried to deduce the cause, but upon closing his eyes, his face paled as he mumbled in shock, "Someone attempted to combine the Heaven Path and the Heaven Path."
"Wait… Space Path too? No, it's not just one, but multiple paths."
Yan Shi continued to delve deeper into his deductions, but was forced to cough up blood as he gasped, "Even the Theft Path and Wisdom Path are involved."
"This is no simple matter."
...
Like Yan Shi, countless others were also alarmed by the sight of tribulation clouds over Mu Bei Mountain, yet they couldn't find anyone at all in the area.
The sudden disappearance of the clouds left them even more baffled.
If it wasn't a Heavenly Tribulation, could someone have been attempting to refine an Immortal Gu? The fact that the tribulation never descended suggested the refinement had failed.
Some were envious, some were covetous, while others were secretly relieved.
Meanwhile, Fang Yuan, the one responsible for it all, had successfully refined nine Expendable Gu Worms and had already left Mu Bei Mountain.