More and more Year Beasts stormed the battlefield, clashing with the Southern Border immortals in fierce combat.
As time wore on, the Southern Border immortals' fighting condition quietly slipped by yet another significant notch.
They were sick to death of killing these Year Beasts, but the supply was inexhaustible—endless and unrelenting. The killer moves painstakingly prepared for Fang Yuan, the brilliant coordination between Gu Immortals—all of it was wasted on these mindless beasts. It was maddeningly frustrating and left them exhausted to the point of collapse.
The Year Flow Execution Formation was essentially a triple formation merged into one. The branch of the River of Time here was massive in scale, and with Fang Yuan and his forces fully commanding it, its might was overwhelming, making the pursuers suffer terribly.
In a short while, even Lu Weiyin was panting heavily. Not only was he fighting two Ancient Year Beasts single-handedly, he was also covertly supporting the Seventh Transformation Gu Immortals behind the scenes.
Once an Ancient Year Beast was defeated, Fang Yuan collected it and enslaved it from the shadows. Before long, another Ancient Year Beast would be lured into the fray.
Lu Weiyin and Xia Cha's shoulders bore enormous pressure throughout, and the fighting remained intense.
Still, the Southern Border immortals made some headway. After the first discovery, Xia Cha found two more formation eyes and destroyed them one by one. When these two fell, they did not transform into vortex gates. The Year Flow Execution Formation now had at most three vortex gates—the upper limit of its capacity.
This fierce battle raged for a full day.
Fang Yuan gained seven more Ancient Year Beasts under his command, and Xia Cha destroyed nine formation eyes.
The entire Year Flow Execution Formation had begun to wobble, far less orderly and stable than before.
"The time is right." Fang Yuan sneered and finally struck personally.
Immortal Path Killer Move—Great Thief Ghost Hand!
A monstrous, enormous hand trailing sinister winds burst from the mouth of an Archaic Year Beast. Caught completely off guard, Tie Quzhong was seized by the hand and instantly lost an Immortal Gu.
"My Seventh Transformation Blade Gu!" He spat out a mouthful of blood, gravely wounded by the move's backlash. What made his heart bleed even more was that the Seventh Transformation Blade Gu had been snatched away by Fang Yuan—a catastrophic loss!
"Hahaha, not bad, not bad. A Blade Gu, just as expected." Fang Yuan smiled with satisfaction. This Blade Gu was precisely what he needed—one of the core Immortal Gu for his Flying Blade of Time killer move.
"Fellow Immortal Tie, hold on! I'm coming to save you!" When Shang Huzhang and the others saw Tie Quzhong attacked, they desperately carved a path through the enemy ranks to lend support.
Fang Yuan remained hidden behind the scenes, sneering coldly.
He didn't press the attack on Tie Quzhong to the finish. Instead, he used the besieged to lure the rescuers.
"No!"
"Damn it, it's an ambush!"
"We've walked into a trap!!"
The Southern Border Gu Immortals rushing to help fell into ambushes one after another, and the Great Thief Ghost Hand succeeded in stealing several Immortal Gu.
"Everyone, be careful! Some of these Year Beasts are under Fang Yuan's control—they're extremely dangerous!!" Shang Huzhang had no time to mourn his own lost Immortal Gu; cold sweat broke out across his body as he bellowed across the battlefield.
If this had been at the start of the battle, when the Southern Border immortals were at full strength, the Great Thief Ghost Hand would never have gotten close to them. But now they were exhausted beyond measure, their combat power had plummeted, and their attention had bottomed out—giving the Great Thief Ghost Hand room to operate.
The Great Thief Ghost Hand was already highly stealthy, and Fang Yuan had further concealed them inside the mouths of Archaic Year Beasts.
This move startled the Southern Border immortals so badly their hair stood on end. They immediately intensified their attacks and maintained maximum vigilance, killing any Year Beast that tried to approach before it could get close.
For a time, the Southern Border side seized the upper hand once more.
Fang Yuan, perfectly at ease, stopped attacking.
Before long, the Southern Border Gu Immortals' offensive momentum slumped again. They had been fighting for far too long, and such a relentless offensive could not be sustained.
Fang Yuan seized the moment and struck again.
Southern Border Gu Immortals fell victim one after another, and several more Immortal Gu were stolen by Fang Yuan.
Fang Yuan's Great Thief Ghost Hand could normally deploy only one at a time, but within the Year Flow Execution Formation, he could harness its power to unleash three simultaneously.
Unlike in the Purple Star Severing Fate battlefield, where the Great Thief Ghost Hand would be suppressed by the environment, this formation space had no Dao Marks. The Great Thief Ghost Hand wouldn't receive any augmentation, but at least it could exert its baseline power.
The killer move Unfavorable Years had already been deployed along with the Year Flow Execution Formation. Under Fang Yuan's Fortune suppression, the Immortal Gu stolen from the Southern Border Gu Immortals were either core components of their killer moves or precisely what Fang Yuan needed.
In this wave of thefts, several Southern Border Gu Immortals suffered backlash from failed killer move activations and were severely wounded.
Yet what disappointed Fang Yuan was that Lu Weiyin and Xia Cha's defenses remained watertight. The moment two Great Thief Ghost Hands appeared, the pair crushed them instantly. Moreover, they still had the strength to support and rescue the other Seventh Transformation Gu Immortals. Lu Weiyin in particular, despite having no offensive methods, was outstanding at protecting his Seventh Transformation companions. Without him, a Gu Immortal would have fallen long ago.
At this point, Fang Yuan did not deploy Soul-Entering Dream.
The Soul-Entering Dream killer move had been exposed for too long, and the Gu Immortals of the five domains had all developed countermeasures against it. More critically, if the move failed, Fang Yuan himself would be dragged into the dream. That was why he had always been extremely cautious in using it.