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Chapter 1269: The Immortal Folding Array

After being tempered in the Ash Sky world and narrowly escaping obliteration by the 'Return' character, Sun Luyao had indeed grown far more capable.

A faint, ethereal light bloomed, piercing through the surface of the Xuanhuang Realm and delving deep into its very core.

After a thorough search, he did indeed uncover what appeared to be the remnants of a world-protecting grand array.

However, compared to the one in the Ash Sky world, the array lines of the Xuanhuang Realm were far more ancient, their depths more profound.

As Li Fan urged the Immeasurable Mirror to continue its investigation, he simultaneously fed the newly discovered array data into the model previously deduced by the Final Dissociation Disc.

"Most of it aligns perfectly, but at certain critical nodes..." Li Fan's eyes glinted. Grasping the Immeasurable Mirror, he transformed into a streak of light and plunged through the earth, descending to an unimaginable depth far beneath the Xuanhuang Realm's terrestrial veins.

The surroundings were a chaotic void. Under pressure so immense it was difficult to comprehend, matter itself had ceased to exist. Only streams of a dark crimson aura flowed through the emptiness, carrying with them a cryptic sound like faint whispers.

In this extreme environment, Li Fan's consciousness had no choice but to take refuge within the Immeasurable Mirror, relying on the immortal artifact's physical body to survive.

Yet, the Immeasurable Mirror was not having an easy time either. It actively emitted an ethereal glow to shield its body, while Sun Luyao vigilantly surveyed their surroundings.

"I can also sense the aura of the True Immortal Scripts here. It's very strong..."

"Much more intense than before," Sun Luyao stressed.

"Have any of your memories returned since you came into contact with the True Immortal Scripts?" Li Fan asked, his gaze sweeping the area.

After the Immeasurable Mirror had shattered, all the information it held concerning the Immortal Realm had vanished along with it. Even after Li Fan had helped it roughly reassemble itself, the lost records had not returned.

But after its ordeal with the 'Return' character and the remnants of the Immortal Realm, he wondered if something might have changed. Thus, the question.

It seemed like a casual question, but Li Fan was watching Sun Luyao intently, observing his every reaction.

"No." Sun Luyao's demeanor showed no unusual fluctuation as he answered honestly. "After being annihilated by the power of the True Immortal Script, my consciousness was in a state of absolute blankness. As for the parts that vanished, I can no longer sense their existence at all."

"However..."

Sun Luyao's voice trailed off, as if he had fallen into deep thought, wrestling with some uncertainty.

"Hmm?"

"Well... I'm not sure how to describe it, Senior. It was a very strange experience. While it's true that those parts of me are gone, it also felt as if they were instantly transported to another, incredibly distant world. The sensation was so surreal, I can't tell if it was a genuine insight or just an illusion born from the brink of life and death," Sun Luyao said slowly, his tone laced with a dreamlike confusion.

Li Fan's train of thought paused for a moment upon hearing this.

If the Immortal Realm still existed, the 'Return' character would be tantamount to forcibly opening a passage to it, albeit one only accessible to specific targets.

But now that the Immortal Realm is shattered...

The passage still exists, but the destination is gone. Yet, according to the account of the Immeasurable Mirror—one who has experienced it firsthand—it's possible the true location of the Immortal Ruins hasn't vanished. Perhaps it was only a brief stop before being forcibly expelled. In other words, the old laws were simply incompatible!

A sudden impulse surged through Li Fan's mind.

He could use his remaining Source Power Essence to disguise himself as an immortal artifact, harness the power of the 'Return' character, and venture into the true Immortal Ruins to uncover its secrets.

Once the thought took root, it became a surging flood, impossible to restrain. It took the spontaneous activation of the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Mantra to finally quell the desire.

Li Fan instantly understood. This is the yearning of the mortal for the immortal, the fundamental drive of a lower life form to achieve transcendence. It is etched into the very depths of the soul—innate and indelible.

For me, the risk isn't too high. I can send a consciousness to test the waters, while my true self remains fully prepared to use [Truth] at a moment's notice. Hmm... In this life, I'm just sitting on the mountain and watching the tigers fight until the final act, which will take quite some time. I have plenty of time to plan this properly...

As his consciousness mulled over this new plan, Li Fan also found the key to uncovering the hidden, primordial world-protecting array of the Xuanhuang Realm.

To his surprise, the method was identical to the one the Dharma Spreader had once used to hide and seal the Calamity Crossing Book!

It involved the superposition of space across multiple directions. In simpler terms, a single line of the array was hidden across different spatial dimensions. Viewed from any single angle, nothing would be visible. Only by constantly shifting one's perspective and "rotating" all the disparate segments into alignment could the hidden array finally be revealed.

Under Li Fan's guidance, the traces of the array's lines gradually materialized on the Immeasurable Mirror's ancient surface.

They were far clearer than what he had perceived from the surface.

They looked like imprints left by a terrifying behemoth that had mercilessly trampled this place, branding even space itself with a profound sense of ancientness.

While the Immeasurable Mirror seemed unaffected, Li Fan's consciousness began to age at a visible rate, weathering in sync with the ancient array.

This was caused merely by the proximity that came with the act of "seeing" it.

This was the first time Li Fan had laid eyes on a true, immortal-grade array—not a theoretical model, but the real thing.

Though he could only see a few sparse lines, they provided immense insight to Li Fan, an array master who considered himself to be at the pinnacle of the mortal realm's craft.

"So that's how it works."

"This unexpected yet perfectly logical turn at the array node... My previous understanding was far too superficial."

"Marvelous, simply marvelous."

Li Fan murmured in constant amazement, completely engrossed in the remnants of the true immortal-grade array, seemingly oblivious to the danger of his own rapid aging and imminent dissolution.

As for Sun Luyao, the spirit of the Immeasurable Mirror, he seemed too stunned to react. He simply stared blankly, allowing Li Fan's consciousness to weaken rapidly without a single word of warning.

Just as Li Fan's consciousness was on the verge of dissipating completely from old age, a mysterious surge of life force erupted from its core.

The aura of death vanished, like a withered tree blooming in spring. Even the residual presence of the Xuanhuang Realm's protective array could no longer shake the fragile consciousness that had, moments ago, been like a candle flickering in the wind.

This sudden reversal left Sun Luyao, the mirror spirit, utterly dumbfounded.

"S-Senior!"

Li Fan, now able to move freely within the array's oppressive aura, glanced at Sun Luyao and smiled faintly. "What? You want to learn?"

"This is the Life and Death Profound Technique. It reverses life into death, transcending both."

Sun Luyao trembled, not daring to utter a word.

After a long, tense silence, he finally managed to say, "Senior, your divine power truly exceeds this junior's imagination..."

Li Fan couldn't be bothered to settle scores with him just yet. He focused his full attention on studying the primordial world-protecting array of the Xuanhuang Realm.

From the small corner of the array he had glimpsed so far, the scale of the primordial formation was unexpectedly vast.

If he scaled up the details he had discovered and applied them to the model deduced by the Final Dissociation Disc, then theoretically, the scope of the primordial array would be dozens of times larger than the original Xuanhuang Realm!

It completely defied logic!

"Where is the discrepancy?"

Li Fan paused, momentarily stunned. After a brief moment of thought, he urged the Immeasurable Mirror to continue revealing the rest of the array's remnants.

As more data from the actual primordial array was collected and a few crucial nodes were revealed, Li Fan began to modify his deduced model.

He finally understood the reason for the discrepancy between theory and reality.

His previous deduction had assumed the array was a single layer covering the Xuanhuang Realm. In reality, the primordial array was folded upon itself several times in the same location, each layer having a slightly different configuration!

Layer upon layer folded inward, compressing and transforming to form the true protective array of the Xuanhuang Realm!

"By simply folding the layers, the array's potential was magnified several times over. If unfolded, it could instantly unleash power far exceeding its normal limits."

"More importantly, if the Xuanhuang Realm itself were to expand, the array could simply unfold layer by layer, perfectly extending its protection over the new territories. Even if contact with the Immortal Realm were severed, as long as one held control over the primordial array, they could maintain its perfect state indefinitely through this method."

Back in his true body, the Final Dissociation Disc operated at maximum power, helping his consciousness deep within the Xuanhuang Realm comprehend the primordial array.

Coupled with the Immeasurable Mirror's ethereal light, which inherently possessed analytical properties, Li Fan was able to smoothly and progressively assimilate the knowledge from the array's remnants.

During his research, Li Fan discovered that the primordial array made frequent use of this folding technique.

Any seemingly simple structure could conceal thousands, or even tens of thousands, of incredibly complex array units.

To ensure no detail was missed, which could lead to a failure in his analysis, Li Fan had no choice but to slow his pace.

He left no detail unexamined, using the Immeasurable Mirror to thoroughly map everything. This, however, was torture for Sun Luyao. R​ANOB​E​S

Even though he was accustomed to being worked to the point of exhaustion, the sheer intensity of this task was still unbearable.

But having just made a mistake, Sun Luyao had a guilty conscience and could only grit his teeth and endure it.

And Li Fan, for his part, had no intention of letting the Immeasurable Mirror truly fall apart before his analysis was complete. He would precisely gauge the moment just before Sun Luyao's collapse and use a sliver of Source Power Essence to restore him.

Time flowed on, and the analysis of the array was nearing completion.

They had now reached the periphery of its central core.

At this point, however, Li Fan deliberately halted their progress. He had enough Source Power Essence left for the Immeasurable Mirror to finish the job, but here, on the edge of the central core, he could faintly sense a looming danger.

After carefully attuning his senses, Li Fan confirmed that this premonition of danger did not emanate from the primordial array itself, but from something else entirely.

"Is there a restrictive seal here?"

Li Fan narrowed his eyes.

"Sun Luyao!" he commanded with practiced ease.

Sun Luyao answered, rallying his exhausted spirit and once again meticulously scanning the area.

"Senior, aside from the array remnants, I've found nothing unusual!" Sun Luyao reported eagerly after completing his scan.

Li Fan pondered for a moment. "Scan it again."

This time, Li Fan personally guided the Immeasurable Mirror's ethereal light, directing it at the space around the primordial array's core and using the same "folding" detection method to investigate once more.

Just as he suspected! He discovered a perimeter of alarm seals, folded several times upon themselves to completely hide any trace of their existence under normal observation!

The aura of the alarm seals was just as ancient.

But compared to the primordial array, it felt like an empty shell—strong on the outside but hollow within. It had already been broken, its core power was gone, leaving only a husk behind.

Yet even this empty husk still gave Li Fan a premonition of deadly danger.

It must have the same origin as the Xuanhuang primordial array—the work of the upper realm, Li Fan concluded after a careful investigation, making no rash moves.

If this seal were fully intact, I doubt I could have done anything to it, even with the accumulated foundation of more than a dozen lifetimes in the Xuanhuang Realm. Fortunately, this terrifying immortal seal has already been broken by someone before me!

Li Fan had found the flaw in the seal.

To be cautious, he sent a wisp of his consciousness to probe it first. After confirming it wasn't a trap, he finally guided the Immeasurable Mirror through the flaw in the seal and into the central core.

After a brief moment of darkness.

When light returned, what appeared before Li Fan's eyes was no longer an empty void.

Instead, there was a bizarre apparatus.

It was composed of countless concentric rings of varying sizes. They all shared the same core, but the rings themselves were distributed across different spatial orientations.

And to say "countless" was no exaggeration.

The number of rings that made up this strange apparatus truly could not be counted, neither by eye nor by spiritual sense.

Though it had clearly lost its power source and was perfectly still, the number of rings seemed to be in constant flux.

As he focused his attention on the device, the very world before his eyes seemed on the verge of splintering into another branch of reality.

It's not an illusion.

My very existence is being weakened?

Alarm bells screamed in Li Fan's mind. It wasn't just this wisp of consciousness; his true self, hidden away in the space of the Deduction Jade, felt a tangible, terrifying pressure bearing down on it.

With great wisdom, Li Fan's consciousness instantly abandoned its attempt to probe the strange ringed apparatus.

The sense of splintering and the feeling of crisis vanished in an instant.

Li Fan tried to recall the apparatus's appearance in his mind's eye.

He found that while he could conjure the image, the number of rings was fixed. Furthermore, it didn't match the real object he had just seen; there was a distinct yet indefinable difference.

What he found even more unsettling was that each time he recalled the image, the number of rings was different.

Yet, his intuition insisted that every version he recalled was correct.

This bizarre phenomenon reminded Li Fan of something he had heard about before his transmigration: a quantum superposition.

This ringed apparatus must also be a relic from the Immortal Realm.

Li Fan changed his approach. He stopped focusing on the apparatus itself and concentrated instead on what was missing from it.

It was obvious that something was missing from the center of the rings.

This wasn't just conjecture on his part; the surrounding space held mural-like images that depicted the strange apparatus in what must have been its original state.

An endless array of patterns of the ringed apparatus formed the mural. And just like the real thing, the number of rings on each depicted device was different.

However, all the depictions had one thing in common.

In the center of the rings, a single pearl was suspended in the void.

It was a crimson pearl, and on its surface seemed to be engraved the likeness of nine stars.