The Immortal Aperture, with nothing to anchor it, hovered in midair. Before it could even open its entrance to wildly absorb the surrounding Heaven and Earth Qi, Fang Yuan seized it with a single hand.
This hand was itself an Immortal killer move — one capable of capturing and relocating Immortal Apertures, originally derived from Sky Burner Demonic Woman's Flame Hand killer move.
By now, Fang Yuan had long since refined this technique into a composite killer move, its power greatly amplified and its effects far more formidable.
Next, Fang Yuan dismissed the composite battlefield killer move and used Heaven and Earth Travel to swiftly retreat.
Before long, the leaked Immortal aura attracted many Ancient Desolate Beasts and Prehistoric Desolate Beasts from the surrounding area.
Fang Yuan was still unable to conceal his aura.
He had never been proficient at that sort of thing.
After reaching a relatively safe corner, Fang Yuan tossed the Fire Origin Lord's Immortal Aperture into the sky.
This was an Eighth Transformation Grotto-Heaven, attached to two of the Nine Heavens, so it would not fall into the Five Regions.
The Grotto-Heaven's entrance yawned wide, furiously absorbing the surrounding Heaven and Earth Qi as it rapidly settled into place, fixing itself in a single location.
Fang Yuan, however, held his ground and did not enter. He merely dispatched the subordinate Gu Immortals within his own Immortal Aperture to venture into the Grotto-Heaven and scour it.
Over this period, Fang Yuan had absorbed several more Grotto-Heavens. His Dao Marks had surged enormously in volume. The moment he squeezed into this still-unstable Grotto-Heaven, the result would inevitably be its explosion.
Before long, the subordinate Gu Immortals returned. They had not brought back any Immortal Gu, and the immortal materials they carried out were sparse.
"Flames are burning everywhere inside, incinerating all things."
"This is all that remains. Please forgive us, Master!"
"The newly born Heavenly Spirit is also actively destroying everything within the Grotto-Heaven. It seems to be the obsession of that Eighth Transformation Gu Immortal."
The subordinate Gu Immortals reported.
Fang Yuan was unconcerned. He told them to return inside his Supreme Immortal Aperture.
Once the Grotto-Heaven had fully stabilized, Fang Yuan began forcibly absorbing it.
Even if the Heavenly Spirit was unwilling, Fang Yuan had means to suppress it — and those means had already been refined into a composite killer move as well.
The domain in which Fang Yuan could refine composite killer moves was actually limited to conventional killer moves and battlefield killer moves.
When activating conventional killer moves and battlefield killer moves, all the Gu worms used resided within Fang Yuan's Supreme Immortal Aperture, bolstered by the Free Heavenly Marks, which was what granted composite killer moves their power.
But ancient battle formations, modern Gu formations, and Immortal Gu Houses all required extracting Gu worms to the outside world, where the Free Heavenly Marks provided no benefit. This meant that even if these methods were refined into composite killer moves, they held no practical value.
As Fang Yuan absorbed the Grotto-Heaven, he simultaneously reviewed the battlefield composite killer move he had used earlier.
The offensive power of this killer move was insufficient. Its strength lay in the coordination between Wisdom Path and Theft Path. But in practice, the effectiveness of this battlefield killer move had been mediocre.
The Fire Origin Lord was merely an ordinary Eighth Transformation Gu Immortal, yet the Immortal Gu Fang Yuan had managed to forcibly steal from him numbered only one.
Immortal Gu were far too easy to destroy — a single thought from a Gu Immortal could cause self-destruction.
Even when Fang Yuan pushed his Wisdom Path abilities to the absolute limit, he could only interfere with the processing speed of an Eighth Transformation Gu Immortal's thoughts. It was impossible to obstruct every single thought.
Achieving that would be extraordinarily difficult.
Unless there was an immense chasm in power.
The Fire Origin Lord was, after all, an Eighth Transformation Gu Immortal. His Dao Marks were dense, forming a natural defense. Moreover, he possessed proper defensive killer moves as well.
In all of recorded history, there were virtually no instances of a Wisdom Path Gu Immortal accomplishing this against a peer of the same rank.
If one truly counted carefully, Mr. Kui Xiao, Sect Leader Mei, Steward Qia Zhi, and a handful of others had achieved similar feats — many under special circumstances that were nearly impossible to replicate — but at most the count barely reached five.
Star Constellation Immortal Venerable was not even among their number.
Whether she could actually do so remained unknown. At any rate, there was no clear record of it.
This demonstrated how extraordinarily difficult it was to completely suppress all thoughts of an opponent of equal rank, rendering them witless and unable to resist, even for the briefest of moments.
The strongest method Wisdom Path Gu Immortals employed against their enemies was, in general, Emotion.
Thought, Will, and Emotion — these were the three pillars of Wisdom Path cultivation.
With this in mind, the practical utility of Fang Yuan's composite battlefield killer move was not particularly high. He would need to continue refining it.
No matter how elegant the theory, it had to be tested through practice.
The same applied to combat systems.
Constructing a combat system out of thin air, shut away from the world, was an exceedingly difficult task. One needed worthy, powerful opponents, or a certain intensity of life-or-death battle, to properly evaluate whether a combat system was sound.
Thus, as Fang Yuan spent these days contemplating his own combat system, he felt a measure of gratitude toward Long Gong, Demon Venerable Soul Devourer, and the rest.
It was precisely because they served as reference points that Fang Yuan possessed the standards to evaluate and pioneer a combat system of his own.
After swallowing this Eighth Transformation Grotto-Heaven, the Flame Path Dao Marks on Fang Yuan's body surged upward once more by a significant margin.
Fang Yuan was still not satisfied. He pressed onward.
This time, his dark reach extended toward the Fire Origin Grotto-Heaven.
Immortal killer move — Heavenly Image!
Fang Yuan crudely and directly opened a colossal passage leading into the Fire Origin Grotto-Heaven.
The Heavenly Spirit within the Fire Origin Grotto-Heaven took the form of a rabbit.
Having absorbed fragments of the Nine Heavens, the rabbit Heavenly Spirit had become dull-witted and muddled. But at this moment, it suddenly leapt to its feet, bounding in every direction, shrieking in panic.