Half an hour later.
The desolate-beast snow monster had been carved down by Fang Yuan until only a single head remained.
Roar!
Even as nothing but a head, the snow monster's ferocity remained undiminished. It roared at Fang Yuan, spraying piercingly cold icy wind from its maw.
Snow monsters were unlike ordinary desolate beasts — they were composed of ice and snow, similar to cloud beasts, blood beasts, and mud sprites.
The strength-path Immortal Zombie under Fang Yuan's control snorted coldly and stepped up to the desolate-beast snow monster's head, placing a hand atop the skull.
Instantly, a thin layer of frost spread across the back of the Immortal Zombie's hand.
Fang Yuan paid it no heed, churning out a massive torrent of My Will Gu.
My Will surged and roared like a tidal wave, pouring relentlessly into the snow monster's skull.
The skull was filled with a tremendous amount of Heavenly Will.
The moment Fang Yuan's My Will entered, it immediately locked in a death struggle with the Heavenly Will, like fire crashing into water — utterly incompatible.
The Heavenly Will was limited in quantity, but My Will flowed on without end.
Before long, the Heavenly Will retreated step by step, washed clean by My Will.
Boom.
At the final moment, the snow monster's head suddenly detonated.
A massive burst of ice and snow exploded outward in all directions.
Fang Yuan's strength-path Immortal Zombie was instantly buried under the onslaught.
However, this self-destruction at the threshold of death carried no real destructive power. Before long, the Immortal Zombie controlled by Fang Yuan burrowed its way out of the snow pile, completely unscathed.
But its expression was rather grim.
"Even if I use My Will to wash away every trace of Heavenly Will, the end result is still just the snow monster self-destructing. It can't be subdued?"
"Even if subduing it were possible, washing a single head alone consumed over a hundred My Will Gu — the cost is considerable."
My Will Gu, though only mortal-grade, were Fifth Transformation Gu at that.
Moreover, these My Will Gu had not been personally refined by Fang Yuan — he had used the Langya Sect's contributions to have other Mao Min Gu Immortals refine them. Through this process, Fang Yuan's success rate improved further.
More critical still was the time cost.
Fang Yuan first had to whittle down a desolate-beast snow monster to the point of severe injury, unable to resist, unable to move — only then could he continuously pour in vast amounts of My Will to wash away the Heavenly Will.
The time spent on a single desolate-beast snow monster might not seem significant. But in Fang Yuan's Little Northern Plains, there were so many more snow monsters.
When the numbers climbed, the time required multiplied. With the second Earth calamity approaching, it wasn't worth it for Fang Yuan to pursue this route.
"Even if I had managed to enslave the desolate-beast snow monsters and sell them off, that would have been dangerous."
"Back then, one of the Shadow Sect's first generation of split souls — codename Green, a Gu Immortal — discovered the Life-and-Death Immortal Aperture method within the super Gu formation in the Northern Plains Earth Trench. During the research, a massive explosion occurred. Many immortal materials became saturated with Heavenly Will, and Green avoided them like the plague. She simply abandoned those materials outright. That kind of unambiguous attitude speaks volumes."
"If I were to actually sell these Heavenly Will-infested snow monsters targeting me, the chain reaction of negative consequences would likely be far worse."
After the failed attempt, Fang Yuan could only fall back on his previous plan: continue slaughtering these snow monsters.
He had to eradicate every last one of them before the second Earth calamity arrived, leaving none behind. Even the Heavenly Will had to be washed away completely, not a trace remaining.
Ordinary snow monsters were cannon fodder — Fang Yuan could cut them down with ease, nothing to worry about.
But the desolate-beast snow monsters were somewhat stubborn, requiring real effort. As for the ancient-grade snow monsters, they were even more troublesome.
Fang Yuan couldn't help but feel nostalgic for the Flying Sword Immortal Gu.
Using the Flying Sword Immortal Gu as the core to unleash the Immortal move Trace Slash Life — it had been devastatingly effective against ancient-grade snow monsters. Whereas Sword Wave Triple Ripple was primarily a crowd-control technique, deploying it against a single ancient snow monster felt like using a sledgehammer on a nail.
And the cost of using Sword Wave Triple Ripple was anything but cheap.
Fortunately, Fang Yuan had reacquired the strength-path Immortal Gu, which allowed the Myriad Self killer move to be activated once again.
The strength-path lineage had always been less dependent on True Essence and Immortal Essence compared to other paths. The activation cost of the Myriad Self first form, the Strength Great Palm, was far lower than that of Sword Wave Triple Ripple.
For the time ahead, Fang Yuan would rely primarily on the Strength Great Palm, focusing on eliminating these ancient-grade and desolate-beast snow monsters.
He first used the Beast Slave Immortal Gu, attempting to enslave a snow monster.
When the enslavement failed, the snow monster, provoked, plunged into a state of extreme fury and pursued Fang Yuan relentlessly.
Fang Yuan immediately retreated, luring the snow monster far away from the others before unleashing the Strength Great Palm to cut it down.
This way, the chance of alarming the other snow monsters was greatly reduced.
In the past, after three or four of Fang Yuan's attacks, the snow monsters would huddle together in a defensive cluster. Now the situation was entirely different — his efficiency had improved dramatically.
A failed enslavement attempt would cause the target to harbor intense hatred toward the Gu Master. Fang Yuan had turned this quirk to his full advantage.
Previously, Fang Yuan had tried other methods as well, but mortal-grade enslavement techniques were too low in level, and certain wisdom-path techniques proved ineffective against Heavenly Will.
So borrowing the Beast Slave Immortal Gu had not been entirely without value.
Days passed one after another. The snow monsters had been reduced to less than thirty percent of their original numbers. The second Earth calamity was now fewer than ten days away.