"This black fire can still transform?" A sharp glint flashed through Fang Yuan's eyes before he shook his head. The silver-white water qi still radiated an bizarre aura, belonging to no known path.
The silver-white water qi appeared to differ from the black fire in no essential way. Under its shroud, Shen Shang continued to go mad, and the two Primordial Year Beasts wailed without cease.
Fang Yuan fired the Dawn Breaker Flying Sword once more, only to discover that its power actually strengthened the silver-white water qi, causing its scale to expand.
Startled and suspicious, Fang Yuan immediately switched paths, unleashing a barrage of wind blades instead.
The silver-white water qi was weakened again, though the degree of reduction remained minuscule.
After the attacks persisted for a time, the silver-white water qi suddenly transformed into three great whirlwinds, enveloping Shen Shang and the two Primordial Year Beasts.
Fang Yuan's wind blades shot into the whirlwinds, once more bolstering their power.
Fang Yuan tested the waters briefly before wisely changing tactics once again.
Any other Gu Immortal would likely have given up in frustration long ago, but Fang Yuan was different. He cultivated all paths, possessed a jaw-dropping number of Immortal Gu, and had attained profound mastery across multiple paths—switching between them was second nature to him.
Under Fang Yuan's ceaseless assault, the strange black fire kept transforming, growing smaller and smaller.
The two Primordial Year Beasts were the first to be reduced to nothing, and soon Fang Yuan had only Shen Shang left as his target.
"Wait, wait! Fellow Immortal Fang Yuan, I have a heaven-sent fortune to offer you!" Shen Congsheng could no longer watch in silence and hastily shouted out.
To his delight, Fang Yuan actually stopped.
Fang Yuan looked at Shen Congsheng with a smile on his face. "Fellow Immortal of the Shen clan, you want me to spare your ancestor? You should know that this is a Demonic Immortal—one personally suppressed by Immortal Venerable Le Tu. You've seen his current state: mad as a beast, mindless, perfectly matching the descriptions on the Merit Stele. And you still want to save him?"
Shen Congsheng fell silent, gazing deeply at Shen Shang imprisoned within the pillar of light. Steeling his resolve, he said, "I believe this madness is only temporary. If I were to rescue Ancestor Shen Shang and he immediately descended into madness, wouldn't that be far too much of a coincidence?"
"Then what price are you willing to pay?" Fang Yuan asked.
"How about this?" Shen Congsheng produced an immortal material.
It was a bag.
The bag was small—seemingly large enough to hold only a grown man's fist. But its surface was covered with intricate patterns that resembled gemstones, or perhaps blue whirlpools.
If one stared closely, these sapphire-like whirlpools could be seen constantly rotating.
Yet when one snapped back to awareness, the patterns were just patterns—as if what one had witnessed moments before was merely an illusion.
Fang Yuan, however, raised an eyebrow slightly and chuckled softly. "So it's the stomach of a Precious Blue Civet."
The Precious Blue Civet was a Primordial Desolate Beast that frequently roamed between the Eastern Sea and the Primordial Azure Sky. The Primordial Azure Sky had long since shattered, and the Precious Blue Civet had been driven to extinction. Throughout history, the Gu Immortal who had slaughtered the most Precious Blue Civets was Kong Jue Old Immortal.
Kong Jue Old Immortal was one of the three supreme grandmasters of the Refinement Path, on par with Ancestor Mao Li. That the Precious Blue Civet had caught his covetous eye and earned his recognition was proof enough of its extraordinary nature.
Setting all else aside, the stomach alone was half an immortal aperture. It contained Space Path and Water Path dao marks, with a world of its own inside that could store countless treasures. A Gu Immortal who obtained it could merge it into their own immortal aperture, expanding the internal space of their blessed land.
It was precisely this trait that had led Gu Immortal after Gu Immortal to hunt the Precious Blue Civet with reckless abandon. Its eventual extinction was hardly surprising.
The Precious Blue Civet's stomach was arguably the most valuable part of its entire body. And with the species now extinct, its value had skyrocketed several times over!
In short, it was an exceptionally rare and immensely valuable treasure.
Fang Yuan reached out and took the stomach bag directly from Shen Congsheng's hand.
The bag was feather-light, its surface extraordinarily slick.
Fang Yuan inspected it carefully, found no tampering, and in full view of Shen Congsheng, deposited the bag into his own immortal aperture with grand poise.
Then he smiled. "Anything else?"
Shen Congsheng took a deep breath and, with great effort, produced a long black rod. "There's this too—catch."
With considerable strain, he tossed the black rod toward Fang Yuan.
Fang Yuan caught it effortlessly. The rod was remarkably heavy, but with a wealth of Strength Path dao marks on his body, it posed no trouble at all.
Unlike Shen Congsheng, who was a pure Sound Path Gu Immortal.
The black rod stood a head taller than Fang Yuan himself, as thick as a goose egg, its surface coarse and rough. It was heavy—like a crudely forged piece of ironwork.
Yet from it, Fang Yuan sensed a rich aura of life.
This was a Primordial Desolate Plant!
But it had no roots, no branches, no leaves—only a single trunk.
At the top of the trunk were clusters of star patterns, some with five points, others with two, arranged tightly together. Each one emitted a faint starlight glow.
"The Star-Falling Stick Tree," Fang Yuan named it.
Shen Congsheng nodded in admiration. "Fellow Immortal Fang Yuan, your breadth of knowledge is truly admirable."
The conditions required for this tree's growth remained a mystery to this day, and it had been extraordinarily rare throughout all of history—its numbers vanishingly few.
It possessed a unique gift: the ability to continuously attract stars, drawing them down into its trunk where they became the star patterns adorning its surface. Hence its name—the Star-Falling Tree.