Fang Yuan bade his farewells. He turned to Tian Wu, who looked slightly downcast. "I apologize that we couldn't completely finish the custom killer move you wanted. We only reached about eighty percent completion."
"Don't worry about it, Brother Fang Yuan," Tian Wu managed a smile. "We can still collaborate through Treasure Yellow Heaven. Thanks to you, we conquered Impossible Boulder, and my grandfather might finally take my ideas seriously."
"Do not sell yourself short, Brother. Without the two of you, I could never have shifted it. Until we meet again," Fang Yuan said.
"We will meet again, won't we?" Tian Wu called out.
"Certainly if fate allows it, we shall," Fang Yuan replied, turning away.
Instead of flying toward the regional walls, Fang Yuan navigated toward a remote, barren coordinate indicated on Thieving Heaven's secret map. Activating several hundred space path gu worms within his aperture, he perfectly executed the inherited Space Path killer move.
A massive, invisible spatial rift ripped open - a hidden Spaceless Tunnel.
Spaceless Tunnel was a killer move devised by Thieving Heaven Demonic Venerable.
The truth of the matter was that although the gu world seemed to be constructed like a hemisphere with no real way to go from place to place other than directly, all locations were connected through Space Path dao marks.
There was no River of Space like there was a River of Time, but there was the Space Cave as mentioned in The Legends of Ren Zu. All places in the world were connected via the Space Cave whose entrance was the Space Door, and if one could get into the Space Door, they could go anywhere they wanted in the gu world.
The shortest distance between two points was not a straight line - but directly through the Space Door between those places.
Spaceless Tunnel was Thieving Heaven's method of using Space Path methods to get around from one place to another quickly. Fang Yuan could not make use of this killer move directly by himself to create new Spaceless Tunnels as he had no Space Path Immortal Gu, but he could break into the tunnels which were already made by Thieving Heaven Demonic Venerable.
The location of the tunnel was miniscule, barely that of a strand of hair, and it would be nearly impossible for someone to find it unless they had the kind of information that Fang Yuan did.
Fang Yuan stepped inside. The tunnel was a deep blue in color, with rainbow colored threads that extended forward along the path. These rainbow colored threads were lined around the blue tunnel walls and decorated the empty space. This tunnel was not without dangers, as Space Path beasts could find their way in, but Fang Yuan saw nothing of the sort along his journey.
Bypassing the corrosive regional walls entirely, he transitioned seamlessly from the Western Desert into the Central Continent as it was the shortest way to get to where he wanted. He traveled seven hundred li without any further issues before finding yet another Spaceless Tunnel that he entered.
Moments later, Fang Yuan stepped out into the familiar terrain of the Southern Border. Without delay, he dropped his Immortal Aperture onto the grassy floor, opening it to feast upon the local Heaven and Earth Qi, stabilizing his domain.
There were a number of things he had to take care of in the Southern Border before making a move towards the Eastern Sea.
***
Within his aperture, there was another formation that lined the sky above the three continents. This had been handed to him by Thieving Heaven Demonic Venerable.
In the Central Continent, a man was sleeping. He suddenly felt a chill go over him, as if death was upon him, but this sensation ended abruptly. "What was that?" he wondered, waking up and glancing around him. "It was like I felt someone stepping on my grave..."
What the man hadn't realized is that he had come very close to 'death' in a way.
Heaven's Will had intended to bring the soul of an Otherworldly Demon and transmigrate them into his body, overwriting his own soul. It would've been his 'death' if not in the bodily sense than in the sense of his soul and identity being taken over by another.
Instead, the formation within Fang Yuan's aperture activated.
"As I have told you before, Fang Yuan," Thieving Heaven Demonic Venerable's Will present in this formation said, "there is no thief greater than the Heavenly Dao itself. It steals Otherworldly Demons from their homes, and kills the souls of natives before placing them within their bodies. This formation is simply my attempt to take advantage of this."
Thieving Heaven had not been able to find a way back home, so he had thought about the next best thing later on. What if he could bring those he loved into the gu world instead? He had failed to do so, but his research resulted in this formation.
Thieving Heaven could not pull anyone's soul from outside the Gu World as he pleased; that secret remained with Heaven's Will alone. But once Heaven's Will stole someone's soul, this formation could steal that soul in turn.
Now, instead of being transmigrated into their original host, this Otherworldly Demon would be transmigrated into someone within Fang Yuan's aperture.
On the Fang Yuan Continent, a family was eating dinner in a small hut when suddenly the father froze, looking around him as if he couldn't believe what it was that he was seeing.
"Husband, what's wrong?"
This man's original identity before transmigrating was AE-3048-195. In the world that he had come from, people's names were usually written like that. The letters 'AE' referred to the geographical location where he had been born. '3048' referred to the year and month when he was born and '195' meant he was the 195th baby born during that time period. All names from where he came from were like that; this was considered to be practical and far more useful than naming people after random things and the like. It was also a way of stamping out individuality amongst the populace. Too much individualism was considered to be the root of many social ills where he came from.
AE-3048-195 came from a world that had humans, but about three thousand years ago there was a genetic mutation resulting in humans that had pink hair and rainbow-colored irises. This group of humans began developing and eventually declared that they were the 'superior human race' and over the centuries subjugated all other races in the world.
Only those with pink hair and rainbow-colored irises had rights in that world - all other races were slaves. Slaves were not afforded any legal rights. They were not even afforded names in the ways that proper citizens like himself had.
As AE-3048-195's mind scrambled to assimilate with the new knowledge of where he was, he was looking around, wondering why it was that these sub-humans thought that they could dine at the same table as him.
The original man's family were naturally concerned; the children frightened by their father's behavior as he glared at them with a hatred and disgust they had never felt radiating from his eyes before. His wife was shocked and wondering what had overcome her husband who was not responding to her questions.
All of a sudden, time seemingly stopped as AE-3048-195 found himself whisked away into the skies above the Fang Yuan Continent.
Floating before him was a man with flowing black hair. AE-3048-195 found that his mind was assimilating to understand the language of this world. The man before him spoke, "My name is Fang Yuan, I am a Gu Immortal."
AE-3048-195 frowned. "You are a... venomous-insect... lord?" There was no concept of 'gu worms' where he came from. The original man's body that he was occupying was a mortal and so also knew very little of gu worms. And so, that was the closest translation his mind could grasp. "Unhand me, fiend!" he yelled out. "And send me back to where I came from!"
Fang Yuan shook his head. "That is impossible. If you want to continue living here, you will need to abide by my rules..."
AE-3048-195 glared daggers at Fang Yuan. "You can't scare me, you slant-eyed yellow bastard!" He then unleashed a number of other racial slurs unique to the world that he came from at Fang Yuan that the latter didn't fully understand, but did get the gist of.
"So be it," Fang Yuan said, taking out a Rank 5 gu worm before tossing it at AE-3048-195. "Rank 5 Enslavement Gu!"
AE-3048-195 resisted, but it was for naught. There was no way that his soul could rival that of Fang Yuan's in term of might, and he found himself completely subjugated by Fang Yuan.
"Master, what are your orders?" AE-3048-195 asked.
"First, I need to clean this up," Fang Yuan said, going down to the man's family. They were now wondering why their father had vanished, and Fang Yuan had to use Wisdom Path methods to alter their memories to make a story that would explain what had happened.
Otherwise the people of the Fang Yuan Continent would think that there was something akin to modern stories of UFOs kidnapping people. And Fang Yuan thought that the Fang Yuan Continent had enough people with strange beliefs as is. Not to mention it might contaminate the Integration Formation.
Instead, the man's family simply thought that he had a stroke while eating, choked, and died. They even had vivid memories of burying him and would be quite sad at the loss of their family's father figure, but would eventually move on.