Chapter 1375: A First Glimpse Beyond the High Wall
Chapter 1375: A First Glimpse Beyond the High Wall
"So that's why the consciousness of the Star Sea had barely reacted to the defiance of the Mysterious Immortal Boat, and had even actively accepted their Jun Tian Ritual..."
"Beyond the novelty of a mortal's perspective, which certainly piqued Its interest, the more crucial reason was that the Jun Tian Ritual was utterly incapable of affecting the Star Sea in the first place!"
"True infinity!"
Anything finite, no matter how vast, would be significantly diminished if divided, even with just one other being. It could never remain as indifferent to its own loss as the consciousness of the Star Sea was now.
"How could this be?" Li Fan's mind reeled in disbelief.
The very concept of "infinity" was completely beyond his comprehension.
The Darkest Star Sea was vast, true, but Li Fan could now traverse it with ease. That was a matter of scale.
The Star Sea had been ravaged by the power of the True Immortal Scripts, its order annihilated and its life force driven into hiding. That was a matter of nature.
Yet, as the ritual concluded and the violet-gold vortex sealed itself shut, he watched the eighteen surviving elders of the Mysterious Immortal Boat transform into eighteen colossal, luminous giants that spanned the cosmos. He could feel a power radiating from them—a power so immense and boundless it was nearly identical to that of the Star Sea itself.
And in that moment, Li Fan couldn't help but believe in the infinity of the Star Sea's power.
In that instant, he recalled a secret of the Immortal World that Mo Rubin had once shared—something he had heard from the Xuantian King.
"'It is said,' he remembered, 'that the Immortal World is a wondrous, sacred realm of infinite resources.'"
The words struck him like a thunderclap, echoing relentlessly through his mind.
Before, Li Fan had dismissed it as hyperbole, a beautiful lie spun by the Xuantian King. But now, it seemed frighteningly plausible that he had been telling the truth.
If the Star Sea itself could be infinite, what then of the Immortal World, which stood magnificent above it?
If he accepted this as fact, the next question was simple: why?
Setting aside the Immortal World for a moment...
...how was this Darkest Star Sea before him connected to infinity?
The violet-gold vortex vanished completely. As Li Fan faced the eighteen stellar giants, his thoughts raced.
"'The High Wall only serves to seal away living beings like us,' he mused. 'But for the Star Sea itself, it doesn't create a complete separation.'"
"'The Darkest Star Sea inside the wall and the greater Star Sea outside are, in truth, still one and the same. The only difference is that this sealed region has developed a consciousness of its own.'"
"'That's one possibility.'"
"'But... if that's the case...'"
Li Fan gazed at the stellar giants before him, trying to gauge their power.
Perhaps because they were newly born, they stood bewildered amidst the stars, seemingly contemplating their next move.
The aura surrounding them began to recede.
Their hazy forms sharpened, and faces eerily familiar to Li Fan began to emerge.
Their radiant, starlit bodies temporarily dimmed.
They eventually became translucent, tinged with a faint blue light.
Within their forms, one could faintly discern a skeletal framework and a network of veins composed of innumerable stars and worlds.
"'These stellar giants are to the Star Sea what the Heavenly Spirits are to the Xuanhuang Realm.'"
"'They've lost all the traits of a cultivator, retaining only a sliver of their former consciousness. They have been completely assimilated by the Star Sea...'"
"'Perhaps they could be called Star Spirits.'"
He quietly deployed an immortal formation to conceal his presence, secretly observing these strange new life forms.
"'In the Xuanhuang Realm, the Heavenly Spirits vary in strength according to their duties, but their power generally falls somewhere between the Soul Transformation and Longevity stages.'"
"'But these Star Spirits before me...'"
"'By virtue of the infinite power of the Star Sea they can command, they could crush any cultivator below the True Immortal stage. The only limit to their power is the Star Sea itself. They could be called... Supreme!' Li Fan recalled the memory he had glimpsed of the Heavenly Doctor within the illusion formation."
Though he categorized these Star Spirits as being in the same "Supreme" realm as the Heavenly Doctor, Li Fan didn't believe for a second that they could fight him on equal terms.
"'If it came to a real fight, forget the Heavenly Doctor—even I have countless ways to deal with them!'"
"'But winning or losing is utterly meaningless!'"
"'The Star Sea is infinite, which means these Star Spirits cannot be killed by any ordinary means.'"
"'Even the True Immortal Scripts that brought calamity upon this Star Sea only caused its vitality to wither temporarily. On the timescale of the Star Sea, tens of thousands of years are but a fleeting moment. Its life force would eventually be restored in full.'"
"'Perhaps only something like the Dao Annihilation Calamity, which shattered even the Immortal World...'"
Li Fan's thoughts turned again to the strange phenomena that had frequently appeared in the Star Sea during ancient times.
"'The part is the whole. If the Star Sea's power is truly infinite, then when a Star Spirit or a celestial phenomenon erupts with its full strength, it can be considered an act of the Star Sea itself!'"
"'An endless supply of Supreme-level power... No wonder it's said that even True Immortals had to give those terrifying phenomena a wide berth.'"
A True Immortal might be a transcendent being, but if faced with an infinite number of entities on the level of the Heavenly Doctor, even they could be gravely wounded, perhaps even captured.
A thousand thoughts flashed through Li Fan's mind in an instant.
While he was lost in thought, the eighteen Star Spirits finally stirred.
Some turned their gaze toward the hidden Mysterious Immortal Boat nearby, others toward the High Wall at the edge of the cosmos. A few simply let their sight sweep across the entire expanse of the Star Sea.
"'If the consciousness of the Star Sea previously needed to borrow the power of cultivators to restore itself, now it can do so directly through these Star Spirits.'"
"'The Star Spirits may retain the obsessions of their former lives, but now, they must act according to the will of the Star Sea.'"
...
Li Fan hadn't forgotten his reasons for infiltrating the Mysterious Immortal Boat in this lifetime.
Beyond coveting the countless treasures in its secret vaults, his main goal was to use the boat as a vanguard, to have it probe the mysteries beyond the High Wall.
Now that the elders had become Star Spirits, wielding power on par with the Star Sea itself, they were more than capable of carrying out the original plan: to follow the example of the Shang Immortal Boat and ram the High Wall.
Seeing that the Star Spirits were about to be compelled by the Star Sea's consciousness to disperse across the cosmos, how could Li Fan possibly waste such a perfect opportunity?
Taijia Divine Art, the perfected version derived by the Mysterious Immortal Boat—manifest!
In moments, the divine art for communicating with the Star Sea manifested once more.
This time, however, Li Fan's target was not the primordial will of the Star Sea, but the eighteen Star Spirits before him.
Compared to the Star Sea itself, the Star Spirits—entities born from cultivators—were far easier to communicate with.
The moment the light of the Taijia Divine Art flared, it caught the attention of the Star Spirits.
In that same instant, his consciousness connected with theirs.
Had the Star Spirits still been human, seeing Li Fan—the man who performed the ritual alongside them—not only alive but completely unchanged would have undoubtedly provoked rage, suspicion, and a torrent of other emotions.
Communication would have been impossible; a direct attack would have been the most likely outcome.
But as it was, Li Fan felt not a single flicker of emotion from the eighteen Star Spirits.
"'Mysterious Immortal Boat. Beyond the High Wall.'"
"'Comrades... sacrifice.'"
"'Do not forget!'"
Li Fan, having already grasped the basics of communicating in this manner, kept his words concise and direct.
His words seemed to stir their mortal memories, and for a fleeting moment, their human faces grew much clearer.
They froze, their gazes turning to Li Fan, filled with hesitation.
"'To stop now would make your sacrifice meaningless!'"
"'With the power of the Star Sea to aid you, crossing the High Wall would be a simple matter!'"
Under Li Fan's persuasion, the lingering obsessions and ideals of the Star Spirits began to slowly reawaken.
Sensing the shift in their thoughts, Li Fan pressed on.
"'Even if the Star Sea recovers, it will take millennia. By then, you elders will be fully integrated as Star Spirits, unable to protect the boat. What will become of your people then?! Will you simply watch them perish?'"
The Star Spirit that was once Zhong Daogong was finally moved.
A series of fragmented thoughts came from it.
The communication was entirely different from speaking with a living cultivator.
The Star Spirit of Zhong Daogong conveyed the facts without a trace of emotion.
With the passage of time, their original consciousness would inevitably fade. Eventually, they would become nothing more than extensions of the Star Sea. Though a fragment of their subjective will remained for now, they could not defy the Star Sea's intent; their actions were no longer their own.
However, the consciousness of the Star Sea might not object to them using its power to help the Mysterious Immortal Boat cross the High Wall.
The consciousness of the Star Sea despised the True Immortal Scripts, so the Star Spirits could no longer wield their power.
To succeed with the plan, they would need Li Fan to direct the process.
...
More and more of the Star Spirits temporarily regained their former will.
They reached a consensus with Li Fan.
Using what remained of his consciousness, the Star Spirit Zhong Daogong entrusted the boat's most secret plan for crossing the High Wall entirely to Li Fan.
The eighteen Star Spirits escorted the Mysterious Immortal Boat, towing it to the residual traces left behind when the Shang Immortal Boat had made its own passage.
"'Our time is running out. We must begin.'"
Li Fan nodded slightly, his gaze falling upon dozens of sheets of white paper that suddenly drifted out from the Mysterious Immortal Boat.
They appeared blank, but upon closer inspection, one could faintly discern the imprints of characters that seemed to have been written and rewritten millions of times.
These were the fruits of the elders' painstaking labor over countless years.
Through endless copying, contemplation, and debate, they had worked to restore every known True Immortal Script to its most primordial form.
"'The abilities of these old foxes are not to be underestimated!'"
"'To think that after receiving my guidance, they quietly advanced their research on the True Immortal Scripts this much in such a short time!'"
"'This iteration of the Mysterious Immortal Boat is far stronger than the one that perished so hastily in my formation during the last timeline.'"
"'Not only is their foundation deeper, but their capacity for learning and progress is truly terrifying.'"
Li Fan stared at the characters, both familiar and alien, his heart pounding.
The imprints on the paper were like templates, forged through the elders' tireless efforts. Li Fan didn't need to practice or even know the characters; he only needed to channel his energy along the grooves, and the True Immortal Scripts would manifest on their own.
"'This must be the failsafe the elders left behind,' he realized. 'With these imprints, even if the entire council were wiped out, the legacy of the Mysterious Immortal Boat wouldn't be lost. Given enough time, they could one day return to their former glory...'"
With that thought, spiritual energy surged from his body like a torrent of dragons, each stream pouring into one of the character templates.
Only someone with Li Fan's profound reserves of power could accomplish such a feat. With the Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven and the Xuanhuang World-Ending Transformation, he alone was comparable to an entire world of cultivators.
Any other cultivator would have been drained of their spiritual energy in an instant, their power completely consumed by the True Immortal Script imprints. Even a Supreme being of the Star Sea like the Heavenly Doctor might not have been able to withstand such a drain!
The immense power within Li Fan's body became the driving force that brought the True Immortal Scripts into being.
At the same time, the eighteen Star Spirits began to act.
They let out a continuous, resounding cry, one picking up where the other left off. Like a chorus building in intensity, they raised the boat's momentum, lifting it higher and higher, step by step.
It was not a true sound, but a vibration—a colossal wave imbued with the power of infinity itself.
When Li Fan had previously performed his own ascent, he had needed the flesh and blood of a True Immortal as a catalyst. Yet now, these eighteen Star Spirits were forcibly elevating the Mysterious Immortal Boat using nothing but the boundless power of the Star Sea.
And throughout the process, the aura emanating from the Star Spirits remained perfectly stable, as if the energy required for this feat was utterly insignificant to them.
Retaining the memory of the Shang Immortal Boat's point of impact, the Star Spirits raised the Xuanxian Ark until its momentum reached a specific threshold, and then they ascended no further.
They simply continued their unending cry, maintaining the boat's elevated state.
At the same time, their cry was like a series of hammer blows against Li Fan's very soul, urging him to take the next step.
This was the first time Li Fan had directly faced the true might of the Star Sea. A tremor of awe ran through him, and he had to forcefully calm the roiling energy within his own body.
"'What a shame,' he thought. 'After this, its fate will be unknown. All the treasures still inside the boat will be obliterated in the impact.'"
Despite the thought, his hands moved without hesitation. He looked at the sheets of paper, now fully charged but still sealed, and made a sharp grasping motion in the air.
He compressed them all, crushing them into a single "wad" of paper.
Then, he hurled it toward the Mysterious Immortal Boat, which was still surrounded by the eighteen Star Spirits.
A chaotic and terrifying power, the very essence of a True Immortal, hurtled toward the Xuanxian Ark.
"'Detonate!'"
Li Fan roared the command in his mind as his body shot backward.
A storm of True Immortal Scripts erupted beneath the boat with a deafening roar.
The blast, powerful enough to temporarily extinguish all life in the Star Sea, caused the blue forms of the eighteen Star Spirits to flicker violently. Yet their actions remained perfectly steady. Replenished by the infinite, unending power of the Star Sea, they were indestructible, even in the face of such a storm.
Under their guidance, the erupting power of the True Immortal Scripts did not destroy the Xuanxian Ark, but instead became the final push it needed for its ascent.
In that single moment, a goal that should have been impossible for any being within the Star Sea was achieved!
"'A power that truly transcends the mortal coil, a power to rival a True Immortal! A supreme power sufficient to cross the High Wall!'"
As one of the architects of this event, Li Fan watched from a distance as the storm erupted against the High Wall, and as the Xuanxian Ark soared straight up from its heart.
An irrepressible thrill surged within him.
After countless cycles, he had finally reached this point.
The chance to glimpse what lay beyond the High Wall was at hand.
Long ago, while helping to rebuild the boat's defensive systems, Li Fan had secretly laid his own preparations.
Whatever the boat saw, he would see.
Everything was in place.
The Mysterious Immortal Boat was about to collide with the High Wall.
And just at that moment...
The eighteen Star Spirits, the former elders of the boat, seemed to sense something utterly terrifying.
The very beings who should have been the least likely to flee, vanished without a trace in an instant.
The Mysterious Immortal Boat, however, continued its inexorable course toward the invisible wall.
And then it, too, vanished from the Darkest Star Sea.
Leaving Li Fan alone, a look of utter bewilderment on his face.
He had witnessed the entire process of the boat crashing into the wall, yet he hadn't sensed the slightest hint of danger.
And what's more...
The measures he had planted within the boat had failed to activate.
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