Chapter 1401: The Tian Beast's Miraculous Feat
The ancient stone slab, enshrined at the heart of the formation, was just like the Nine Stars Red Pearl Li Fan had previously seen in the ruins of the Xuanhuang world-protecting immortal array.
There was, however, one key difference: the Nine Stars Red Pearl was long gone, but this ancient stone slab remained, standing proudly in its place.
Li Fan narrowed his eyes, trying to decipher the contents engraved on the formation and the slab itself.
The stone slab stood motionless, yet the lines upon it seemed to be in a state of constant flux, shimmering and indistinct.
The sight instantly brought to mind the bronze coin from the Northern Rin Immortal Realm he had seen before.
“It seems to be a recording method unique to the Immortal Realm. But the contents engraved on this slab...”
“They’re far more complex!”
A thought stirred in Li Fan’s mind, but he didn’t rush to get a closer look. He keenly perceived that the formation before him seemed to possess a certain deceptive quality. What one saw through the array was not necessarily the truth.
“There’s no immortal spiritual energy. It appears that for the sake of stealth, even the most basic spiritual energy is absent. What, then, has powered this formation for so many years?” As his research deepened, Li Fan’s interest was thoroughly piqued.
Li Fan’s current mastery of formations was, without a doubt, at the level of a grandmaster. He could even fuse and derive immortal arrays according to his own needs. Yet, he had never before encountered a formation of this type.
“It’s not that the formation’s consumption is so minuscule that a single item could sustain it. The power of this array...” Li Fan murmured to himself, then tentatively conjured a small bird from his spiritual energy, intending for it to fly into the array.
It met no resistance.
But the very instant it crossed the formation’s boundary, the spiritual bird vanished without a trace, utterly annihilated.
Li Fan’s pupils contracted sharply.
He was completely unable to sense how the bird under his control had disappeared.
Li Fan snapped his fingers, and a swarm of a thousand more birds, a dark cloud of them, surged toward the formation.
Under his masterful control, the total amount of spiritual energy in each bird was minuscule, kept below a certain threshold to ensure they wouldn't trigger a more powerful defensive response from the array.
Their fate was no different from the first.
Li Fan carefully savored the process of their disappearance.
“The spiritual energy wasn’t *consumed*. Instead, the very foundation that sustained its existence was drained away...”
As the last of the flock vanished, Li Fan felt a faint glimmer of understanding.
The formation gave him a strangely familiar feeling.
Next, Li Fan experimented with physical objects.
Stones, artifacts, even plants and birds.
The results were largely the same.
Upon entering the array, everything, without exception, was reduced to dust and scattered to the winds.
Li Fan’s expression grew increasingly solemn. “Everything I’ve tested so far has been a ‘mortal’ object. What if I use something related to the ‘Immortal’?”
A sliver of golden source power essence transformed into a tiny, serpentine dragon and charged the formation. The air seemed to warp as if scorched by flame. Then, the golden light faded, and the outcome was the same.
After that, Li Fan produced a piece of True Immortal flesh. Golden threads shot out, piercing the lump of meat. The True Immortal flesh, now like a marionette, lurched forward and slowly walked into the array.
The golden threads Li Fan used for control snapped at the boundary. Inside the array, however, the True Immortal flesh underwent a change unlike any of the mortal objects before it.
The patterns on the slab, which had been flickering erratically, suddenly froze for a split second.
In that instant, Li Fan faintly saw what looked like a bolt of lightning flash across the slab, striking down at the invading piece of flesh.
The strange, mysterious aura of the True Immortal flesh abruptly vanished. It was no longer of the immortal Host, but in an instant, had been reduced to a mortal substance.
And then, it dissipated within the formation.
This entire sequence occurred in a single moment. At a glance, it looked as though the True Immortal flesh, like all the mortal objects before it, couldn't last a second within the array.
But Li Fan had perceived the subtle difference.
He repeated the process, continuously probing with more True Immortal flesh, hoping to seize that fleeting opportunity to see the flash of lightning clearly.
“That light from the slab... it seems to be one of the patterns that was imprinted by the Xuanhuang Heaven in the Ascension Platform of old? It can actually turn the immortal mortal?”
Li Fan was inwardly shaken.
He also understood that what he was using for his tests wasn’t a true Immortal, but merely unconscious flesh resurrected from an Immortal’s remains.
It couldn’t be compared to a genuine True Immortal.
But regardless, the terrifying regenerative and defensive capabilities of the True Immortal flesh had already been proven with the Tianyang Immortal Puppet. It was impervious to almost all mortal attacks and could even resist the influence of True Immortal Scripts to a certain degree.
Yet, this transcendent, terrifying substance had no power to resist the lightning pattern from that stone slab.
“If it can turn the immortal mortal, why can’t it turn the mortal immortal?”
“The Ascension Platform, the Ascension Platform...”
A previous guess seemed to have found some validation. Li Fan gazed at the nearby stone slab, his heart beginning to pound with excitement.
After some time, having consumed nearly a tenth of his stock of True Immortal flesh with no further gains, he reluctantly abandoned the brute-force approach.
The lightning-like pattern on the slab appeared for too brief a moment. What’s more, the view through the formation was distorted. Trying to see it clearly this way was nothing short of a fool’s errand.
“I’ve destroyed the world several times before, reducing the Xuanhuang Realm to nothingness. Yet I never detected the existence of this formation and slab.”
“This formation must not be fixed in this location. It’s like a living thing... if it encounters an unbeatable situation, it can make a strategic retreat...”
“It requires no power source, and it can relocate itself in an emergency. This formation is truly a work of divine craftsmanship!” Li Fan exclaimed in admiration.
“Brute force won’t work. It seems it’s time for the little beast to take the stage.”
At Li Fan’s thought, a blue light flashed beside him.
Taishang Qiushui appeared next to him, holding the little Tian Beast by the scruff of its neck.
“Greetings, Great Master,” Qiushui said with her usual deep respect.
Seeing the little Tian Beast bare its teeth at Li Fan, she immediately smacked it on the head.
A surge of energy followed the blow; this was no mere tap on the wrist, but a full-powered strike.
The little Tian Beast was knocked completely senseless.
In its normal state, even as a being manifested from an immortal realm jade pendant, such a blow would have resulted in serious injury.
But in this life, the little Tian Beast had already devoured four Immortal Realm chess pieces. Infused with the laws of the Immortal Realm, its physique had grown to an unimaginable degree.
It let out a pathetic squeak and had already recovered.
Under Qiushui’s stern gaze, it ducked its head toward Li Fan in a gesture of respect.
“It just goes to show, every creature has its master,” Li Fan noted to himself with a nod.
Perhaps because they were both beings manifested from inanimate objects, after spending so much time together, the little Tian Beast had come to see the acolyte Qiushui as a parental figure.
Qiushui’s actions—constantly feeding it Immortal Realm chess pieces under Li Fan’s orders and taking it on trips across the Star Sea in the hopes its keen intuition would yield some discovery—only solidified this “parental” role.
Thus, the little Tian Beast was almost completely obedient to Qiushui.
With a flicker of his will, Li Fan, through Qiushui, directed the little Tian Beast to crawl toward the stone slab surrounded by the formation.
Before this array, the Tian Beast’s keen intuition seemed to have been rendered useless.
It was as if it were blind, having not even noticed the bizarre formation’s presence until now.
Only as it slowly crawled to the very boundary of the formation did it suddenly become alert and halt.
It stared ahead with bewilderment, its eyes filled with caution.
The little Tian Beast was unwilling to proceed, but Qiushui urged it on relentlessly.
After a moment’s hesitation, the little Tian Beast’s eyes began to emit a mysterious, silver starlight.
After a long, careful observation, the little Tian Beast reluctantly continued its advance.
“Just as I thought. The little Tian Beast is itself a manifestation of an Immortal Realm artifact. It has some resistance to this formation. And having devoured four Immortal Realm chess pieces, its body has undergone a qualitative change. It should be able to withstand this formation’s assault!” Li Fan’s eyes flashed.
The little Tian Beast crawled very slowly.
It stared at the stone slab not far ahead, and a flicker of confusion crossed its eyes, as if it found the slab inexplicably familiar.
This only increased its reluctance.
It was Qiushui who finally broke the stalemate, appealing to its reason and tempting it with rewards, which at last convinced the little Tian Beast to move forward.
Li Fan waited quietly for the little Tian Beast to retrieve the slab.
Meanwhile, he continued to study the bizarre formation.
After so much time, he was beginning to recall where that sense of familiarity came from.
It came from the formation’s mechanism—the way it stripped away the very foundation of an object’s existence.
The crevices and basins scattered across the Dark Star Sea held flowing rivers of life force, shrouded by a power that siphoned away vitality. This power, which severed the foundation of life’s existence, was precisely why life force gathered in those crevices. The corrosive green aura that clung to the Thousand-Eyed Desolate God of the Xuanxian Boat also devoured the very mechanism of existence of whatever it touched.
And even...
The invisible high wall that confined the Dark Star Sea.
It could also be seen as erasing the very foundation of the concept of "forward."
“All of these can be seen as the absence of an element of existence.”
“It’s the same principle as the formation before me!”
Li Fan’s eyes glinted as a storm of thoughts raged in his mind, connecting countless dots in an instant.
“They must all be techniques from the former Immortal Realm.”
“It’s even possible that those beyond the high wall have also mastered this kind of power.”
“From the clues I’ve gathered, the Xuantian King was likely still only a half-immortal when he set up these hidden measures. Without immortal spiritual energy, how did he accomplish all of this?”
The little Tian Beast remained within the array.
Under constant stimulation, the formation’s operation became clearer to Li Fan.
Even the symbols on the central stone slab were revealed in greater numbers.
Among the ever-increasing number of flashing patterns, Li Fan suddenly caught sight of one that was remarkably similar to the A Thousand Miles in a Moment Array!
“The view is distorted because I’m looking through the formation, so it doesn’t match perfectly. But it further confirms my suspicions!”
“This replica slab made by the Xuantian King truly holds the complete engravings of the Immortal Realm’s Ascension Platform.”
“These engravings are practically all-encompassing. Each one corresponds to a power that originally belonged to the Immortal Realm.”
“Like ‘A thousand miles in a moment.’ And, like turning the immortal mortal, and the mortal immortal!”
Li Fan’s heart surged. As the little Tian Beast advanced, the pressure upon it seemed to grow, its movements becoming slower and slower until it almost stopped completely.
It was now just a single step away from the slab, but the little Tian Beast rolled its eyes and simply gave up!
No matter how Qiushui urged it on now, the little Tian Beast refused to budge.
Looking through the formation at the flickering patterns on the slab, which were now almost constantly visible, Li Fan knew it wasn't the little Tian Beast playing hard to get or holding out for a better offer.
It had truly reached the limit of what it could endure.
Muffled explosions seemed to emanate from the little Tian Beast's body, and small bits of its flesh were being stripped away by the formation’s power.
A flash of fear appeared in the Tian Beast's eyes. It wanted to give up, to retreat.
Even Qiushui was helpless, her promises of three more Immortal Realm chess pieces falling on deaf ears.
At that moment, Li Fan’s hands formed a mudra.
The little Tian Beast, which was about to retreat, froze mid-motion.
Then, against its will, it began to crawl forward again!
A primal, bestial ferocity flashed in the little Tian Beast's eyes. It let out a continuous low growl, expressing its profound rage.
But it was utterly unable to break free from the hold of Li Fan’s mudra.
This technique was one Li Fan had stolen from Mo Rubin’s method of controlling the Tian Beast’s Eye.
Whether it was the guardian beast of the ancient Xuantian Sect or the newly born little beast before him, their true forms were both manifestations of the jade pendant the Xuantian King had brought down from the Immortal Realm.
In truth, they could be considered the same creature.
A control method that worked on the Xuantian Sect’s Tian Beast would naturally work on the little beast here.
Li Fan had already tested this in secret before.
Otherwise, he would never have allowed the little beast to devour four Immortal Realm chess pieces so freely.
Under Li Fan’s relentless compulsion, the little Tian Beast ignored its worsening injuries and finally reached the stone slab.
With its comparatively frail body, it heaved the slab onto its back.
Hoisting it, the beast let out a low roar and began the slow retreat.
Countless patterns shifted and changed on the slab’s surface.
The little Tian Beast’s flesh was stripped away inch by inch, disappearing into nothingness.
In the end, only an empty shell remained, along with the Tian Beast’s eye, protected by a silver starlight.
Carrying the stone slab, it moved slowly but with unwavering determination.
An unknown amount of time passed before it finally crawled out of the area enveloped by the bizarre formation.
The moment it left the array, the little Tian Beast, utterly exhausted, could no longer move.
Qiushui rushed forward to assist it.
Li Fan’s gaze was fixed on the stone slab on the Tian Beast’s back. The patterns on it had all gone dark. The sacred, solemn aura had vanished along with them.
It now looked like a common, unremarkable object.
Li Fan casually tossed an Immortal Realm chess piece to the little Tian Beast, which had performed a great service but was now on the verge of death.
He himself levitated the stone slab into the air and began to examine it closely.
Tomorrow, Dao Integration.
(End of this chapter)
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