"You have good taste." Fairy Minghao laughed.
*Swish swish swish.*
Bursts of starlight shot out from beside her one after another, streaking toward Lu Weiyin.
Lu Weiyin leaped forward to meet her, engaging in battle.
At first, he could trade blows with Fairy Minghao on relatively even terms. But before long, he was pushed onto the defensive.
Fairy Minghao continued to merely drive her flying stars to attack.
At first, her flying stars fired one after another in sequence, but before long, they came in volleys of two or three, five or six, even a dozen at a time.
The power of each individual flying star hadn't changed, but the increasing number striking Lu Weiyin simultaneously caused the pressure on him to soar!
"There's something profound about these flying stars — they seem to chain together in a continuous combo! The damage I take keeps mounting." Lu Weiyin's face was grim as he gradually grew exhausted trying to keep up his defense.
The two exchanged blows for a while longer, but Lu Weiyin could only retreat while fighting, and Fairy Minghao had gained complete dominance.
With every wave of her hand, she scattered a massive burst of fragmented starlight.
The number of stars in each volley had climbed past the hundred mark.
The starlight was dazzling, the swishing sounds of cutting through the air were continuous, and the spectacle was extraordinarily brilliant and varied.
"This Minghao dual-cultivates in Wisdom Path and Star Path — she's definitely at the Half-Immortal Venerable combat level. I should retreat for now!" Lu Weiyin began to consider withdrawing.
Fang Yuan also issued a timely retreat order. Ice Crystal Immortal King and the others breathed a sigh of relief and hastily pulled back.
Fairy Minghao laughed: "You came all this way to court death — why not leave your lives behind before going?"
Fairy Minghao charged toward the group of immortals.
"Not a chance!" Lu Weiyin moved to intercept.
Fairy Minghao giggled, and a strange light suddenly flashed in her eyes, illuminating Lu Weiyin's forehead.
Lu Weiyin immediately felt some indescribable change occur in his mind — he could now only hold a small fraction of his thoughts.
At the same time, his thoughts operated at a much faster speed, but every train of thought was cut short prematurely. It was as though all remaining thoughts had become "anxious," unable to patiently interact and compute toward true results.
Lu Weiyin was immediately thrown into a predicament.
To activate a killer move, he needed to mobilize his thoughts.
The more killer moves, the more complex — the more thoughts required.
But now, with most of his thoughts missing, his thinking was no longer composed. More critically, even when these thoughts interacted, they were cut short prematurely, unable to produce the desired results.
This was a fatal flaw.
If Lu Weiyin's thinking was cut short during the activation of a killer move — with the move built up to the final moment, only to fall short at the last step —
Then the killer move would fail, and Lu Weiyin would suffer severe backlash from his own attack.
"What terrifying Wisdom Path methods!!" Lu Weiyin had no choice but to focus solely on protecting himself, with no energy left to look after others.
Having established absolute dominance, Fairy Minghao immediately ordered the Eighth Transformation Gu Immortals on the Holy Mountain to mobilize and follow her in pursuing Fang Yuan's subordinates.
Ice Crystal Immortal King, Xiao Hejian, and the others retreated in disarray.
Along the way, nine Gu Immortals lost their lives, three of whom were at the Eighth Transformation.
These Gu Immortals' immortal apertures fell to the ground and were immediately absorbed by the Azure Lotus Great World, their immortal Gu completely consumed as well.
The Gu Immortals left behind obsessions upon death, but Fang Yuan did not notice any Earth Spirits or Heavenly Spirits coming into being.
After Fang Yuan's forces retreated into the Yellow Earth Great World, Fairy Minghao quit while she was ahead and called off the pursuit.
Lu Weiyin led the remaining immortals to meet Fang Yuan. Ice Crystal Immortal King, Xiao Hejian, and the others immediately knelt to accept their punishment.
But Fang Yuan consoled them with a kindly expression: "This defeat is not your fault. I saw clearly — Fairy Minghao possesses extraordinary strength, at the level of a Half-Immortal Venerable. I didn't expect that a being like this could be cultivated here."
Ice Crystal Immortal King and the others, having received his reassurance, finally calmed down.
On the retreat back, every single one of them had been consumed with worry, terrified that Fang Yuan in his fury would execute them all as punishment.
Fang Yuan then assigned these Gu Immortals to garrison the various defensive lines across the Yellow Earth Great World. The priority of the deployments was the two major passages connecting the Yellow Earth Great World with the Azure Lotus Great World and the Barbaric Wilderness Great World.
"A disgrace, a disgrace. I never expected the Heavenly Court to produce such a female immortal — she possesses an exceptional combat system. I was no match for her." Lu Weiyin's face was filled with guilt.
Fang Yuan offered a few words of comfort.
Fang Yuan knew that Lu Weiyin had most likely already given it everything he had.
After all, during the previous pursuit battle, he and Lu Weiyin and the others had fought against Demon Venerable You Hun and the Heavenly Court — a battle that was essentially a brush with death. Under those circumstances, it was nearly impossible for Lu Weiyin to have been holding back.
In the battle against Fairy Minghao, Lu Weiyin had deployed nearly every method that Fang Yuan knew about. And yet he still wasn't her match.
"In any war, there will be sacrifices. Perhaps in the future, you or I will also be defeated and lose our lives. This is the nature of a Gu Immortal's path — there's no need to dwell on it." Fang Yuan was actually quite satisfied with this battle.
On the whole, Fang Yuan's losses were less than the combined losses of the Heavenly Court and Eternal Life Heaven. That, in itself, counted as a victory.