Chapter 84: Desolate Beast Corpses
After a while, Fang Yuan who was walking in front suddenly stopped and warned Hei Lou Lan: "Slow down, there is a rank five investigative Gu ahead."
Hei Lou Lan carefully probed, and saw an eye-like small Gu worm quietly hovering in the air. Its eyes were slowly moving around, constantly scanning its surroundings.
Hei Lou Lan was young, she had just advanced into a Gu Immortal, thus was not able to recognize this Gu's details, giving a suggestion of caution: "Let's detour."
Fang Yuan smiled: "No need. This Gu is starshine fake eye Gu, it has a long range sensing ability, Gu Immortals can observe the situation of the surroundings through it. Its scope is five li, it cannot detect stealth, and not only does using this Gu constantly consume primeval essence, it also burdens the soul. We can use methods to be invisible and boldly go past it."
Hei Lou Lan glanced at Fang Yuan, still not feeling relieved: "Are you sure you are not wrong? Gu Immortals research new Gu all the time, maybe this Gu worm is a newly researched Gu that can see through invisibility?"
Fang Yuan snickered: "You think I only looked at it with my eyes and did not use other Gu worms to check it? Don't worry, eight or nine out of ten Gu Immortals are flying masters, but having even two to three refinement path masters out of ten would be pretty good. Refinement path is considerably harder to advance compared to other paths."
Fang Yuan spoke with such certainty that Hei Lou Lan chose to believe him.
The two hid their bodies and swaggered into starshine fake eye Gu's range, and they indeed did not attract any Gu Immortal's attention.
Fang Yuan used his methods one by one, sometimes invisibility, sometimes Gu worms directed at countering them, or tunneling under the ground or swimming through water, all kinds of methods to slip past these investigative Gu worms.
The two had wanted to move until they were below the eighth star hall, and the shortest way would be a straight line to the eighth star hall. If they got a chance, they could also quickly react and use the shortest amount of time to charge to the eighth star hall, and fish benefits from the messy situation.
However, as they walked through this straight line, a bloody odor assailed their noses from ahead.
Fang Yuan and Hei Lou Lan glanced at each other, the latter revealed a doubtful look as she used her divine sense to transmit: "Strange, both the amount of investigative Gu in this path and their types are increasing more and more."
"Let's take a look." Fang Yuan replied.
The two cautiously evaded or deceived the investigative Gu worms, and discovered further traces of battle.
After a while, they finally reached the area where there was the most intense odor of blood.
They saw a black leopard's corpse lying on the shattered and disordered pile of rocks.
"This desolate beast is a vanishing shadow leopard." Fang Yuan said in a low voice.
"It is that someone killed this vanishing shadow leopard and yet left behind its corpse here?" Hei Lou Lan revealed a trace of doubt.
Fang Yuan squatted down near the ground, and used his hand to feel the gully beside his legs.
He then took out a time path Gu worm and carefully activated it.
Backtrack Gu was activated; it displayed a blurry and mute battle scene.
In the scene, two giant figures were in an intense battle while a small figure was standing far away to the side.
Hei Lou Lan came closer and watched the battle.
The mute battle scene was extremely blurry. But they could roughly guess that one of them was the vanishing shadow leopard from the approximate build.
And the one battling with the vanishing shadow leopard did not seem to be a human but a tiger desolate beast.
The one standing far away had a human shape and could be a Gu Immortal. But their appearance was blurry and they could not be sure.
Not only this, the battle scene broken off intermittently and was not coherent.
After a dozen breaths of time, scorching smoke started to curl up from the backtrack Gu and the battle scene suddenly disappeared.
The backtrack Gu had died as a result of forcibly recreating the image of the Gu Immortal level battle.
Fang Yuan put the scorched corpse of backtrack Gu back inside his immortal aperture to get rid of any traces.
Hei Lou Lan was very interested: "This Gu worm is quite ingenious, what is its name, did you buy it in treasure yellow heaven?"
Fang Yuan did not reply, instead he took out another Gu.
Fang Yuan grabbed the Gu and softly whipped at the air in front of him.
Crack. The empty air suddenly showed traces of marks.
"What is this?" Hei Lou Lan gazed at the marks without blinking.
Crack crack crack.
Fang Yuan whipped the Gu repeatedly, the marks in the air continued to increase.
As various thoughts flashed past, Hei Lou Lan's pupils slightly enlarged, blurting: "Could these marks be dao marks?"
Fang Yuan gave a contented smile at this moment: "Right, they are dao marks. Whether it be Gu Immortals or desolate beasts, they are filled with dao marks, and any area they stop at will leave behind dao marks for a short period of time.
It is just that these dao marks are extremely weak, that even Gu Immortals paying close attention won't be able to sense them, that is, unless they use this thread trace Gu that I researched. From observing these dao marks, I can infer some information on them."
"Thread trace Gu...." Hei Lou Lan mumbled, her gaze towards Fang Yuan had changed a little.
Fang Yuan pointed towards the area where Star Lord Wan Xiang had stood previously: "Look, the dao marks have manifested and formed a human shape. The color is azure blue which means a star path Gu Immortal had been observing the battle.
The greater portion of the dao marks had stayed there and although there are some dao marks in the surroundings, they are mostly tightly enclosed around the greater portion, this means that star path Gu Immortal had only been observing from the side during the whole battle. And looking at the concentration of the dao marks, it seems to be a rank six Gu Immortal."
Fang Yuan then pointed at the area where the vanishing shadow leopard died, there were remaining dao marks of black color for dark path and red color for fire path.
He continued: "The dark path dao marks clearly belong to the vanishing shadow leopard while the red colored dao marks belong to the existence that killed the vanishing shadow leopard. As for their identity, whether they are man or beast, that is still not certain. Look at how concentrated these dao marks are and how they are intertwined with each other, this shows that the battle was very intense.
The dark path dao marks are sparse while the red colored dao marks are rather dense, we can deduce that the existence that killed the vanishing shadow leopard is also at least of rank six realm."
Hei Lou Lan's mouth widened slightly as she listened to Fang Yuan.
Her gaze towards the thread trace Gu in Fang Yuan's hand became slightly burning.
Fang Yuan finally stopped lashing and sighed: "This is more or less the ability of this thread trace Gu, the manifestation of dao marks lasts only for a period of time and requires the observer to have plenty of experience. Moreover, activating Immortal Gu also leaves behind responding dao marks.
In an intense battle, many abilities and methods are used, causing the dao marks to entangle and become extremely chaotic with no way to infer anything. However, fortunately, few methods were used in this battle, so we are able to roughly understand the situation."
Just as Hei Lou Lan was unable to endure and was about to ask if Fang Yuan was selling thread trace Gu, Fang Yuan took out another investigative Gu worm.
This was only a qi path Gu worm which Fang Yuan used to draw in the surrounding scents.
Next, Fang Yuan stored this qi path Gu worm and took out another Gu worm.
He moved everywhere around the battlefield and activated Gu worms from time to time. Hei Lou Lan was only able to recognize a small portion of these Gu worms, but it was also not to the extent where she was certain. The remaining greater portion, Hei Lou Lan simply had no idea, unable to recognize any of them.
She subconsciously pursed her lips, as she for the first time felt that Fang Yuan had unfathomable depths.
At this point, Fang Yuan walked back, he hummed: "Summing up all of the clues, I mostly know the other party's identities already."
"Oh?"
"One is a rank six star path Gu Immortal, he has not made a move yet and is more mysterious. The other is an earth path Gu Immortal who cultivates transformation path as well, he has a powerful aura and using Gu worms, I caught a trace of his voice, this is likely Shi Lei from Combat Immortal Sect in Central Continent." Fang Yuan said.
"That Immortal Monkey King?" Hei Lou Lan and Fang Yuan had shared most of their information, she naturally knew who Shi Lei was.
She started to frown, finding it a little troublesome.
"Fang Yuan, if you use the myriad self killer move, and cooperate with me, we might be able to resist the Immortal Monkey King. But in that case, we will not be able to deal with the mysterious star path Gu Immortal." Hei Lou Lan muttered.
Fang Yuan laughed bitterly: "I have not told you yet, but because the core Immortal Gu is starving, myriad self cannot be used anymore. All I can use are mortal killer moves."
Hei Lou Lan looked at Fang Yuan deeply, squinting: "In other words, we should avoid fighting with the other party directly."
Roar roar roar—!
Fang Yuan raised his head and looked: "There are bound to be injuries when two sides fight, we should just go with the flow and observe the situation now. Although our battle strength is lower than them, if we find the chance, it is not necessarily the case that we can't have them killed.
In the worst case, I still have Fixed Immortal Travel, we can definitely resist them while we find the time to activate Fixed Immortal Travel."
Hei Lou Lan nodded in agreement, Fang Yuan's words were very similar to her own thoughts.
The two decided to devour the loot in front of them first.
"The other party seems to be letting it bleed on purpose, it seems that the star hall in the air is truly an important place. They even ignored the desolate beast corpse for now." Fang Yuan showed an interested expression as he pondered.
After a while, the two avoided all of the investigative Gu, passing a mountain ridge and into a valley.
In the valley, there was a desolate beast corpse, resembling a small hill.
"This is the desolate beast blazing divine stallion, it has many fire path wild Gu on it and can walk on fire. Its blood is extremely hot and is a top tier material in refining fire path Gu worms, it is very rare even in treasure yellow heaven."
Hei Lou Lan's heart bled as she looked at the horse blood flowing out.
The two worked for a while, getting their hands on the blazing divine stallion.
After leaving this valley, the two moved stealthily, but Fang Yuan slowed his footsteps.
"Our destination is up ahead. But towards the left, there are large numbers of investigative Gu, should we go take a look?" Fang Yuan looked at Hei Lou Lan, transmitting.
"Of course." Hei Lou Lan's reply was very curt.
The two came to the area that was filled with investigative Gu, they found a desolate beast corpse as expected.
This was a yellow jade lion.
To be able to hurt the yellow jade lion to this extent, this Shi Lei's transformation path battle strength is greater than I thought." Hei Lou Lan praised.
Fang Yuan was overjoyed.
He quickly made his move, after deceiving many of the surrounding investigative methods, he stole the yellow jade lion.
He patted with his hand, as large numbers of healing Gu flew out of his aperture, landing on the yellow jade lion, rapidly stabilizing its injuries and keeping it alive.
"You intend to save it?" Hei Lou Lan was slightly surprised.
Fang Yuan nodded: "Saving it is a hundred times easier than capturing another desolate beast alive, why shouldn't we? You can keep this desolate beast in your immortal aperture for now, be careful and keep it safe, this will be part of my share."
This way, as long as things progressed well, the mission that Fang Yuan agreed upon with Lang Ya land spirit would be completed.