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Chapter 1328: Gloomy Darkness, Gathering Peaks

Chapter 1328: Gloomy Darkness, Gathering Peaks

"There's a world of difference between immortals and mortals. It's impossible for us to reach that height on our own, of course. That's why we must rely on an 'external force.' It was true for the Shang Immortal Boat back then, and it's true for our Mysterious Immortal Boat now!" Zhong Daogong offered a faint, enigmatic smile, his words deliberately vague.

"An external force? The True Immortal Scripts? Is that why you want to ally with my Great Qi?" Li Fan asked, cutting straight to the point.

"Yes... and no," Zhong Daogong replied, his expression inscrutable.

"Very well. Now that you have seen the weak point in the High Wall, our sincerity should be clear. Shall we return to safety and discuss this further? This is no place to linger..."

Before Zhong Daogong could finish his sentence, the high perch on the Realm Fragment Great Wall where they stood began to tremble.

Their gazes instinctively dropped "downward."

Far below, in the Darkest Star Sea beneath the peaks, ripples inexplicably began to spread.

They rolled through the star sea like endless waves in an ocean of clouds.

"This eruption is massive. It's not likely to subside quickly. We should leave at once," Zhong Daogong urged, his tone grave.

Li Fan gazed into the distance. Though the distorted perspective prevented him from discerning any specifics within the star sea, he could faintly sense the source of the erupting Echoing Star Power.

The Realm Fragment Great Wall acted like a massive breakwater, but the disappearance of one realm fragment had created a breach. A portion of the residual True Immortal power that had accumulated beneath the High Wall had found an escape route, pouring through the gap in a mighty torrent.

This had happened in his previous life as well.

Back then, it was because his Sacred Embryo incarnation had annihilated the numerous realm fragments implanted by the Heavenly Doctor in the Xuanhuang Realm's Abyss of Roars, forcing the entity to seize new realms as replacements.

But in this lifetime, that trigger had never been pulled. So why was the Realm Fragment Great Wall in turmoil now?

"Could it be Master Yin and the others?"

"But they wouldn't be so reckless..." A flicker of doubt crossed Li Fan's mind.

While he was lost in thought, the Immortal Boat elders had already guided him down, plunging from the "heights" of the star sea.

The scenery shifted in a blur. The boundless Darkest Sea vanished, and the Realm Fragment Great Wall once again stood imposing and solid before them. The "ascended view" they had just experienced felt like a fleeting illusion.

Clearly, this ascension was no simple feat, even for the elders of the Immortal Boat. In just a few moments, their auras had grown disordered, and beads of sweat glistened on their foreheads.

Zhong Daogong's expression was grave as he peered toward the distant source of the turmoil along the Great Wall. In the end, however, he decided against investigating, instead gathering the others and urging them to leave.

On the journey back to the Immortal Boat, Li Fan once again conjured the golden sword phantom to lead the way. This time, the elders truly experienced its breathtaking speed.

By the time they arrived at the Mysterious Immortal Boat's location, the waves of Echoing Star Power had yet to catch up.

The elders now looked at Li Fan with a new level of astonishment.

"Friend, why don't we board the Immortal Boat and discuss our future cooperation?" Jian Daosheng suggested with a grin, gesturing toward the open portal.

To their surprise, Li Fan decisively shook his head. "I think not. I'm afraid I must return to the Great Qi."

The expressions on the elders' faces instantly grew strained.

Li Fan remained undaunted, a look of haughty confidence on his face. "Is there a problem? You all seem to have objections."

"This wasn't part of our agreement. You now know our most classified secrets, and you intend to simply walk away...?"

Zhong Daogong's expression soured, and the other elders fixed their gazes on Li Fan, their auras locking onto him like a vise.

"Hmph, I'd save your energy if I were you," Li Fan said calmly. "You've all witnessed my immortal-slaying sword. If I were to use it now, which of you could possibly stop me?"

The elders fell silent. It was true. His speed surpassed even the spreading torrent of residual True Immortal power. He could even carry multiple people with him...

An escape art of that caliber was truly beyond their comprehension.

And yet, they could not possibly let him leave so easily.

As the tension mounted, Li Fan was the one to break the stalemate. "Why all the hostility? I am merely leaving for a short while. I understand your concerns—you fear I will reveal the location of the High Wall's weak point. But you have no reason to worry."

"I intend to return and try to persuade the Great Qi to reconsider. Having witnessed this weakness in the High Wall with my own eyes, my words will carry far more weight. If my master and the others still refuse to take the risk, I certainly won't expose your secret. And if, by some chance, I do convince them..."

"...then we will be allies in the end, and the secret will be shared regardless."

"My end is near," Li Fan said, his tone earnest and heavy with meaning. "Now, on the verge of death, I have finally seen the one and only opportunity to cross the High Wall. How could I possibly let it go?"

With that, he offered a brief salute. Then, right in the midst of the encircling elders, he mounted the sword phantom and vanished into the void.

He moved so quickly that not even Zhong Daogong had time to react.

His figure was gone in an instant.

"That young man... he's a real handful," Jian Daosheng muttered, stroking his beard with a frown.

"There's little we can do. He possesses the True Immortal Scripts, his mastery of formations is otherworldly, and his escape art is simply untraceable. Worse, his time is short, so he has no fear of death... A man like that is best not made into an enemy."

"It's fortunate he doesn't have much time left. Otherwise, our Immortal Boat might never know peace."

"I, for one, believe he spoke the truth," another elder mused. "If the Great Qi refuses to join us because their world-protecting immortal artifact foretells disaster, then we are his only hope. It's simply not realistic for him to cross the High Wall alone..."

While the Immortal Boat elders were still debating, Li Fan had already returned to the edge of the Realm Fragment Great Wall.

The storm of Echoing Star Power was growing more violent by the moment.

The wooden sword phantom he had left behind was flickering like a candle in the wind, on the verge of being extinguished.

He sent out a beam of golden light to stabilize it. Then, he searched the area for any sign of his companions, but they were nowhere to be found.

The secret markers they had agreed to leave as they searched for suitable realm fragments had all been swept away by the Echoing Star Power.

"I've lost contact with all of them?" Li Fan was taken aback.

"Fortunately, the A Thousand Miles in a Moment Array isn't badly damaged."

Li Fan drifted over to the array, reinforced it once more, and then abandoned his plan to search for them.

"I can only hope they look after themselves."

"Given their fortune, they shouldn't perish from a mere blast of Echoing Star Power."

"Once the storm subsides, they should return on their own if they're unharmed."

Passing through the grand array, he returned to the Xuanhuang Realm. As he expected, some of the residual True Immortal power had leaked through. He quickly wove a net of Source Power Essence on the Xuanhuang side, creating a double seal that finally quelled the vibrations from the distant storm.

"Of all of them," Li Fan mused, "Master Yin is the most likely to have caused this disturbance in the star sea."

He recalled the peculiar expression on Master Yin's face when they first arrived at the Realm Fragment Great Wall.

"He must have seen something from the memories of the World Ghosts he once absorbed."

"But Master Yin is no fool. That alone wouldn't be enough to make him recklessly tamper with the realm fragments..."

"The secret behind this will have to wait for his return." Li Fan had a faint premonition that Master Yin was still alive, hidden somewhere along the vast expanse of the Great Wall.

He might even have stumbled upon a great fortune.

"Perhaps," Li Fan mused, "it has something to do with how the Realm Fragment Great Wall was formed."

In the Darkest Star Sea, the origin of the High Wall was a mystery. So too was the formation of the great chain of realm fragments that lay at its feet.

The countless cultivation worlds destroyed in the star sea long ago had not drifted toward the Immortal Ruins as one might expect.

Instead, they had piled up at the foot of the High Wall, coalescing into a single, massive structure.

In Li Fan's eyes, the force holding the Great Wall together was no less potent than the residual power of a True Immortal, yet it was something entirely outside his understanding.

And Li Fan's knowledge was already far beyond that of any ordinary cultivator.

His numerous reincarnations had allowed him to explore without fear or consequence. There were few blind spots left for him in the Xuanhuang Realm or the Darkest Star Sea.

This great power holding the Realm Fragment Great Wall together was one.

The deepest reaches of the Gloomy Sea of Darkness were another.

Back in the Great Xuan Kingdom, Li Fan dispatched a wisp of his divine sense to possess the body of a robust member of the You Clan.

He then summoned the other You Clan members, initiated the ritual to enter the Gloomy Sea of Darkness, and strode into its depths.

The Gloomy Sea of Darkness was a realm of endless black.

For any normal cultivator, it was a deathtrap, fraught with peril. But Li Fan had trod this path countless times. He moved with practiced ease, encountering no trouble along the way.

He paid no mind to the corpse of an ancient Longevity cultivator from the Xuanhuang Realm lying on the ground, his focus fixed solely on the path ahead.

He soon reached the central core of the Spirit Gathering Immortal Ascension Array. From this transparent-like observation deck, he could look down upon the entire Gloomy Sea of Darkness and the faint outline of the True Immortal's corpse within.

He finally halted his steps, venturing no deeper to confront the True Immortal's hidden, desperate will to survive.

Before him stood clouds of an ancient storm, accumulated over countless years. They loomed like monstrous, primeval beasts.

As he looked down upon these swirling masses of power, Li Fan felt a flicker of familiarity.

"Just as I thought. My feeling was right!"

A sharp glint appeared in Li Fan's eyes. The vision he had perceived earlier, when he stood on that high peak and looked down upon the star sea, now superimposed itself over the scene before him.

The two images—the view from the peak and the storms of the Gloomy Sea—gradually merged into one.

It wasn't that the scenery itself was similar.

It was that the convergence of energy here had also created an abrupt elevation, a peak within the Gloomy Sea of Darkness.

"These must be the mountain peaks I saw from that high vantage point."

"The energy converged here is 'higher' than the Xuanhuang Realm itself. It's even higher than the perch I reached at the foot of the High Wall, aided by the Realm Fragment Great Wall!"

Li Fan's gaze flickered as his thoughts raced. "It's not just that the Spirit Gathering Immortal Ascension Array is built upon the remains of a True Immortal."

"It's also because nearly ten thousand years have passed since this grand array was first laid!"

"The Xuantian King established this array to carry the entire Xuanhuang Realm across the High Wall. But due to some unforeseen accident, he vanished without a trace, and the plan was abandoned."

"But the array in the Gloomy Sea of Darkness never stopped accumulating energy. It has continued its work for nearly ten thousand years."

"Over these millennia, the star sea has undergone tremendous changes. But the 'height' of the High Wall itself has not changed. Which means..."

Li Fan's gaze swept over the Gloomy Sea of Darkness below him once more.

In his perception, the swirling storm clouds transformed into towering peaks.

Each one floated high above the Darkest Star Sea.

Facing the distant High Wall.

"The vantage point the Immortal Boat people considered a treasure, one they could only reach with external aid, is a common sight here in the Xuanhuang Realm."

"From here, crossing the High Wall would be infinitely easier than from any other location."

"The only concern is that it might provoke the True Immortal's will to survive..."

"But with enough caution, that shouldn't be a problem."

Maintaining that elevated perspective was strenuous. Li Fan took a long breath and allowed his senses to return to normal.

He began to ponder how best to use this incredible inheritance the Xuantian King had left him.

"Simply using these peaks as a launchpad won't be enough. I need more data. I need to see it tested in practice..."

"The Immortal Boat would make for excellent cannon fodder."

"The Spirit Gathering Immortal Ascension Array is one component of the Floating Starry Sky Grand Formation, which was designed to cross the High Wall. The same goes for the Heavenly Beast's Eye. It seems the eye does more than just navigation and targeting..."

"Perhaps what it sees is the 'height of the wall' itself—the same higher-dimensional perspective I just witnessed," Li Fan realized.

Controlling the body of the You Clan member, Li Fan remained within the central hub of the Spirit Gathering Immortal Ascension Array for seven full days.

He only stopped when the body could no longer withstand the concentrated power of the Gloomy Sea and was utterly consumed by it, severing his connection.

In the Great Xuan Kingdom, Li Fan slowly opened his eyes.

His divine sense swept across the land. After becoming accustomed to that higher-dimensional perspective, returning to a normal view of reality felt strangely disorienting.

"In ancient times, if one could break through the limits of height, they could achieve immortality and ascend."

"Later, the path to immortality was severed, and in its place stood the High Wall..."

"But perhaps the principle behind them both is similar."

Gazing down at the teeming masses of the Great Xuan, a wave of understanding washed over him.

"The only difference is that the height of the Wall is perhaps even greater than the height required for ascension. After all, the Xuantian King could ascend the immortal path, yet he could not cross the High Wall."

"Looking at it another way... if one could cross the High Wall now, then perhaps in the past, they could have achieved true ascension."

At this thought, Li Fan was momentarily lost.

"Immortal..."

Ten thousand years had passed. Times had changed. It was the same realm of power, yet one path led to ascension, while the other led to being trapped beneath a wall.

And even if one could cross it, they would still have to face the unknown dangers on the other side.

"The Great Dao has changed. An immortal is no longer an immortal."

Li Fan could only sigh at the thought.

"If my guess is correct, and the means used to build this wall are the same as the shackles that once governed ascension... then things are about to get very interesting."