Chapter 1042: A New Method for World Annihilation
While the effects on his physical body were well within his expectations, the transformation of the Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven under the influence of this Yin energy was a delightful surprise for Li Fan.
The five cave-heavens, once distinct and separate, now showed faint signs of merging.
A deep rumble, like the cry of a dragon, echoed through the cave-heavens. Amidst the continuous vibrations, the circulation speed of the five elements nearly doubled.
While their overall power hadn't increased significantly, their already astonishing endurance and resilience had broken through to a new level.
Li Fan focused his spiritual sense on the Long Moon Yin Jade cradled in his hands, his expression shifting inscrutably.
"Heaven and earth unite, yin and yang harmonize," he mused. "The Tianxuan Mirror wasn't lying. This was indeed an aspect I was missing."
"However..."
Li Fan's fleeting excitement quickly subsided. "This is merely icing on the cake, not the crucial ingredient I need."
"No matter how much the Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven is strengthened, it has its limits. To confront a Longevity cultivator head-on, I still need a breakthrough to a higher realm."
The Tianxuan Mirror's avatar considered this for a moment. "The Immortal Alliance's internal Spirit Sealing plan has been drafted," it said. "However, based on past experience, there's always a considerable delay between drafting a plan and officially implementing it."
"Unless, of course, an unexpected incident were to... expedite things."
With that, the avatar secretly relayed a message to him via spiritual transmission.
After listening, Li Fan couldn't help but offer the Tianxuan Mirror's avatar a silent thumbs-up of admiration.
"I'll have my men get on it right away," he declared. "We'll be sure to give the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance a very big surprise."
Eager to set things in motion, Li Fan transformed into a streak of light and vanished.
Time, which had been frozen within the city, resumed its flow. Moments later, evocative moans echoed from within the room, leaving much to the imagination.
After visiting Mo Rubin in his hidden grotto-heaven and relaying the avatar's strategy, Li Fan finally returned to the Spirit Wood Realm.
In the secret chamber beneath the ground, one of his soul avatars was solemnly suppressing the Book of Salvation.
The soul avatar's power alone was, of course, insufficient for the task.
However, with the aid of the new restrictive formations he had laid and the collective power of the Spirit Wood Realm's grand array, he could keep the book firmly suppressed.
"The Salvation Sect..."
Li Fan gazed at the book, its pages flashing with silhouettes of the Xuanhuang Realm. He sent another wisp of his spiritual sense drifting into the Book of Salvation.
This time, thanks to the completed restrictive formations, he did not find himself on the stone steps leading up the mountain to that strange courtyard.
Instead, he was surrounded by yellowed pages, hanging in the air around him like countless ethereal screens.
On these screens, he could vaguely make out hazy, fleeting images.
He could grasp the general scene, but the details remained blurred.
"It seems I'll need the Salvation Sect's true legacy to see more," he thought.
Li Fan shook his head slightly and withdrew his consciousness from the Book of Salvation.
In truth, with the Heaven Measuring Ruler at his disposal in this life, the surveillance function of the Book of Salvation's paper figures was of little use to him.
However, the Book of Salvation offered one advantage that even the Tianxuan Mirror couldn't match.
Namely, that the Salvation Sect's paper figures were genuinely rooted in the Xuanhuang Realm, woven deep into the very fabric of the world.
Previously, when facing Dharma Transmitter Jiang, Li Fan had tested the power of the "Submerge" character.
He had expected it to unleash a wave of catastrophic destruction across the Xuanhuang Realm, but Dharma Transmitter Jiang had quelled it with ease.
He later learned this was due to the "Return to Origin" power of the Return to Ruins, which could continuously reverse time to dilute the effects of the "Submerge" character until they were completely erased.
From that defeat, Li Fan learned the proper way to use the "Submerge" character. He had to first let its influence silently corrupt as much of the Xuanhuang Realm as possible before triggering it all at once. Only then would the world be like a patient with an illness deep in their vitals—beyond all hope of a cure.
However, secretly spreading the influence of the "Submerge" character throughout the Xuanhuang Realm was undeniably risky. A powerful expert could emerge from any corner of the world to put a stop to his mad scheme.
But with the Book of Salvation, the countless paper figures spread throughout every corner of the Xuanhuang Realm became the perfect vectors for this infection!
"I only need to corrupt the Book of Salvation itself," Li Fan thought, "and a grey corruption could spread through the countless paper figures, infecting most of the Xuanhuang Realm in an instant. By then, even a True Immortal would be powerless to turn the tide!"
A sharp glint flashed in Li Fan's eyes.
If the Xuanhuang Realm were a giant, then the Salvation Sect's paper figures were like an artificial nervous system, implanted after its birth and reaching into every part of its body.
And the "Submerge" character was a deadly toxin that could use this network to spread rapidly throughout the entire system.
While he might not actually resort to such a measure, he had now mastered another method of world annihilation, aside from luring the immortals from the Immortal Ruins.
"Moreover, this method of annihilation isn't instantaneous like the glance of a True Immortal. It's a slow, creeping death," he mused. "In their desperation to save themselves, the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance and the Five Elders Council might be forced to reveal all their hidden trump cards—as would all those hidden figures who secretly care for the fate of the Xuanhuang Realm."
As these thoughts churned, Li Fan's cold, emotionless eyes fell upon the Book of Salvation. "The Salvation Sect..."
"...you've done well!"
Having understood the ultimate use of the Book of Salvation, Li Fan did not leave the secret underground chamber.
Instead, he continued his study of the Salvation Sect's sole remaining legacy.
...
While Li Fan was deep in secluded research, a quiet storm began to brew within the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance, sending shockwaves through its highest echelons.
The affair began when a Golden Core cultivator died mysteriously within the Tianxuan Mirror.
The man had been cultivating in a state of spiritual enlightenment within the Tianxuan Mirror's space until his contribution points ran out and he was automatically ejected.
Only then was his body discovered.
He had been dead for some time, so the celestial phenomenon that typically accompanies a cultivator's demise—and reveals its cause—never appeared.
After a brief investigation, the cause was hastily ruled as "cultivation deviation," and the matter was quietly closed.
But this was only the beginning. Over the next two months, reports flooded in from all corners of the Alliance about cultivators suffering all manner of accidents while training within the Tianxuan Mirror.
Some were plagued by hallucinations, forcing them to halt their cultivation and leaving them severely injured.
Others simply dropped dead.
The Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance could have perhaps stomached the deaths of a few cultivators.
But the subsequent anomalies with the Tianxuan Mirror itself sent the entire organization into a full-blown panic.
It seemed the Tianxuan Mirror's transaction functions were also malfunctioning.
It wasn't just that contribution point settlements were occasionally inaccurate during transactions; cultivators' entire contribution balances could be wiped out by a single faulty calculation.
The chaos spread as, one by one, all of the Tianxuan Mirror's functions seemed to be slowly succumbing to the strange affliction.
After a thorough investigation, the Alliance finally determined that these anomalies were the result of an attack on the Tianxuan Mirror by some nefarious party.
However, the Tianxuan Mirror was an immortal artifact, after all, and possessed powerful self-repair capabilities.
Given enough time, all this chaos would eventually resolve itself.
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