Chapter 1086: The Secret Treasury of the Heavenly Pivot Sect
Knowing the avaricious nature of the Xuanhuang Realm's cultivators, it was certain that even if an immortal artifact was unusable, they would never simply hand it over to another.
Instead, they would seal it away in the deepest recesses of their sect's treasury, guarding it with extreme prejudice, all in the hope that one day, they might find a way to reawaken its power.
"Let's see... where is the nearest immortal artifact?"
"The Desolate God Seal. At the Heavenly Pivot Sect."
The Desolate God Seal was the supreme treasure of the long-extinct Desolate God Sect. Its wielder could communicate with the Immortal Realm, summoning the ancient Desolate Gods to manifest in the mortal world.
Within the memories of the Xuanhuang Realm's Heavenly Dao, which Mr. Bai had inherited, Li Fan witnessed the terrifying spectacle of a Desolate God's descent.
A colossal vortex tore open the sky, and from its depths, a single golden eye emerged.
Under the Desolate God's gaze, the very land of the Xuanhuang Realm fractured, spiderwebbing with cracks before dissolving into nothingness.
The Desolate God Sect had once summoned twelve different Desolate Gods, annihilating countless rival sects and casting a shadow of terror over the ancient Xuanhuang Realm.
Unfortunately, as time passed, fewer and fewer Desolate Gods answered their call, until one day, the summons were met with only silence.
Without the terrifying descent of the Desolate Gods to act as a deterrent, the Desolate God Sect was quickly besieged by its enemies and brutally annihilated.
As for the Heavenly Pivot Sect, it was one of the fabled Ten Great Immortal Sects of old.
Yet, precious little information about them had survived the ages. Li Fan only knew that they were the immortal sect with the closest ties to the Tiandu Grandmaster.
Its disciples were said to carry themselves as the true inheritors of the Immortal Dao, their arrogance legendary.
Having absorbed this scant information, Li Fan—now in his guise as the Xuanhuang Great Heavenly Venerate—willed it, and in an instant, he appeared within the Heavenly Pivot Courtyard, the very heart of the sect.
In the blink of an eye, he had crossed an immeasurable distance, bypassing the sect's myriad formations and wards as if they were nothing, arriving directly in its most secret, central sanctum.
"So this is the power of the Xuanhuang Great Heavenly Venerate," he mused.
Li Fan gazed down at his hands, a thrill surging through him.
He could feel spiritual energy coursing through him, a boundless, inexhaustible ocean. He could unleash any divine ability without feeling the slightest drain on his power.
Furthermore, any technique he used within the Xuanhuang Realm would be naturally amplified to the absolute limits of what heaven and earth could sustain.
Any technique in the world, so long as its source was the Xuanhuang Realm...
...could be shattered with a single glance. Nothing here could pose a threat to him.
"This surpasses my control over the Spirit Wood Realm by a fair margin!"
"But that's to be expected. One world cooperates willingly, while this one was forced into submission."
With a quiet sense of awe, Li Fan gradually familiarized himself with the full extent of the Xuanhuang Great Heavenly Venerate's authority.
He then began to walk through the Heavenly Pivot Courtyard, his steps leading him toward a shrine-like structure at its very center.
The place was shrouded in a peculiar energy, creating the only "blind spot" in the entire sect that was hidden from the Xuanhuang Great Heavenly Venerate's omnipresent gaze.
The Heavenly Pivot Sect cultivators guarding the shrine were completely oblivious to his presence.
He could have walked right in front of them, and they would have seen nothing.
"What is this...?"
Before the shrine, Li Fan paused.
He sensed a quality to the energy that felt strangely familiar.
It wasn't a familiarity felt by Mr. Bai's body, but one that resonated with Li Fan's true self.
"The Tiandu Grandmaster."
A wave of instinctive revulsion rose within him.
It was the same sickening feeling as discovering cockroaches in one's kitchen. Li Fan's brow furrowed in disgust.
He quickly composed himself, however.
His form flowed like water, passing through the invisible barrier and into the shrine's interior.
Within the shrine stood two stone statues, one large and one small.
The larger statue was of a figure with closed eyes, its head slightly bowed and its expression solemn.
The smaller was of a young acolyte, standing respectfully behind the first.
"The large statue must be the figure from the Heavenly Capital, the one who preaches the Dao of its own accord. However, from the intelligence I've gathered, it's highly likely that the acolyte standing behind it is the true Tiandu Grandmaster." Li Fan's gaze fell upon the smaller statue.
For a fleeting moment, it felt as though he had traversed countless voids to arrive in a magnificent city suspended high among the clouds.
His mind jolted, and the vision vanished.
When he looked at the acolyte's statue again, a faint, stinging pain pricked his eyes.
"Hmph." Li Fan grunted, forcefully suppressing the urge to shatter the statue into a thousand pieces. He began searching for the hidden treasury instead.
It didn't take long to discover a hidden ward behind the two statues.
Breaking through the ward, Li Fan gained entry to the Heavenly Pivot Sect's secret treasury.
Unlike the dazzling trove of treasures he had envisioned, the treasury of the Heavenly Pivot Sect was sparse, almost spartan. For a moment, Li Fan wondered if he had come to the wrong place.
On a long, crimson table sat just three items: a stone seal, a wooden box, and a scroll.
Beyond them, nothing.
The stone seal, of course, was his target: the immortal artifact known as the Desolate God Seal.
Even in its sealed state, he could feel a faint, heart-stopping aura emanating from it—an ancient, primordial presence.
The fact that the wooden box and the scroll were placed alongside an immortal artifact like the Desolate God Seal was proof enough of their extraordinary nature.
Had it been Mr. Bai, he would have simply taken the Desolate God Seal and departed without a second glance.
But Li Fan had never been one to leave a mountain of treasure empty-handed.
Even if this was merely an illusion within the Fallen Immortal Realm and he couldn't take the treasures back to the physical world...
...it was still worth the experience, a chance to broaden his horizons.
Li Fan first turned his attention to the wooden box. His senses told him that something living was imprisoned within. It was vibrating, a faint, constant tremor of minuscule frequency and amplitude. With each vibration, an aura inadvertently pulsed outwards, one that made even Li Fan, in his current state as the Xuanhuang Great Heavenly Venerate, feel a prickle of danger.
More unsettling still, the creature inside the box seemed to have sensed his presence as well.
The vibrations grew more frantic.
It felt as if it were tempting him, urging him to open the lid.
A faint, inexplicable rustling whispered at the edge of his hearing, and phantoms flickered at the corners of his vision.
Li Fan hesitated for a long moment before, with immense willpower, he forcibly suppressed the impulse rising within him.
It was only then that Li Fan realized with a jolt that the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Mantra, which always activated automatically upon his awakening in the Fallen Immortal Realm, had somehow failed.
Without the mantra's protection, he had to rely solely on his own willpower to resist the temptation.
Fortunately, his countless reincarnations had forged an iron will and granted him vast experience.
Otherwise, he might have lost control and opened the box on the spot.
Li Fan forced his gaze away, focusing instead on the scroll.
Instantly, the whispers and phantoms receded.
"That box is dangerous," he thought. "I wonder if it still exists in the present-day Xuanhuang Realm."
In stark contrast to the box's insidious nature, the scroll radiated an aura of absolute sanctity—the pure, orthodox presence of the Immortal Dao.
It gave no sense of alarm; instead, it inspired an instinctive feeling of closeness and trust.
"Hmm? I feel like I've seen this scroll somewhere before..."
Li Fan delved into Mr. Bai's fragmented memories.
He was in luck. A hazy image surfaced, flashing through his mind.
Comments