Chapter 1407: Slicing Xuanhuang
“Besides, the Tianfa Realm was destroyed long ago. My own memories of it have grown hazy with time. Yet this man... he can actually restore it...”
“And he claims it was made just for me? Can he truly possess the power to see into a person's heart?”
“The powers of a True Immortal are truly beyond comprehension.”
A cascade of thoughts flooded Tian Yi's mind in an instant.
They all coalesced into a bitter smile. “Senior, why must you jest with me...”
Yet, as if he could truly read Tian Yi's mind, the man opposite him simply raised a hand, cutting him off. “For me to jest with you should be your honor.”
“But...”
“If you dislike it, then I will simply destroy it.”
Tian Yi saw the faint, almost imperceptible smile vanish from the young True Immortal's face in an instant.
It was the true silence of one who saw all creation as nothing more than ants.
It was a coldness several times more profound than Tian Yi's own detachment when facing the mortals of the Xuanhuang Realm.
Any phantom sense of familiarity from their earlier conversation vanished. It was as if Tian Yi saw a bottomless chasm suddenly yawn open between them. On the far side, the ground beneath the young True Immortal surged upward, carrying him high into the clouds.
The young True Immortal, now high above, looked down upon him.
Tian Yi's heart jolted as if he had been targeted by a primordial beast from the dawn of time.
Then, with a wave of the young True Immortal's hand, he watched in horror as his cherished homeland, the Tianfa Realm, disintegrated before his very eyes, turning to ash inch by agonizing inch.
Even knowing this Tianfa Realm was an illusion...
Even knowing he faced a True Immortal...
...the sight of his home being destroyed once more ignited an undeniable urge within Tian Yi—an impulse to fight the True Immortal high above him to the bitter end.
But it was merely an impulse, born of a fleeting surge of passion.
Then, as if once again perceiving his thoughts, the scene in the void changed.
It was now the Xuanhuang Realm.
But unlike the empty vision of the Tianfa Realm, this world teemed with countless figures.
They moved like true living beings, cultivating, working, and living out their lives.
The young True Immortal smiled again, and the chasm between them vanished from Tian Yi's perception as swiftly as it had appeared.
He began to walk across the land of this phantom Xuanhuang Realm, speaking casually to Tian Yi, who had no choice but to follow. “Originally,” the immortal began, “you were not qualified to speak with me.”
“I have no interest in conversing with mortals. Even if you stand at the apex of the lower realms, you are still a mortal until you take that final step.”
Tian Yi's expression flickered. He opened his mouth, as if to offer a rebuttal, but closed it again, his voice filled with resignation. “I am well aware of that.”
The young True Immortal nodded, apparently pleased with his response. He let out a soft sigh, repeating with a touch of melancholy, “Originally.”
“But... during the Great Calamity, far too many True Immortals perished. How many of us survived in this dusty world? It has grown far too lonely.”
“It's not good. Not good at all,” Li Fan lamented, clicking his tongue.
“Therefore, for those of you who have a chance to become my peers, I am willing to adjust my attitude. I might even lend you a hand in shattering the shackles that bind mortals...”
“Perhaps.”
As Li Fan's words hung in the air, Tian Yi's heart began to tremble uncontrollably once more.
Before he could even begin to process whether the young True Immortal was being serious or merely toying with him...
...Li Fan gestured toward the illusory Xuanhuang Realm. “This method of yours is rather clever, for a mortal,” he remarked coolly. “But in my eyes...”
“...it is utterly laughable.”
“Thousands of years of painstaking effort. Had you spent that time on your own cultivation, you might have already ascended. And once you become an immortal, what is there that you cannot achieve?”
Tian Yi looked at the True Immortal's imperious bearing, words catching in his throat.
But remembering the power he faced, he swallowed them all.
The young True Immortal, however, was not about to let the matter drop.
Li Fan's expression grew inscrutable, his voice distant. “Bringing back the dead,” he said slowly, “why should it be such a troublesome affair?”
“Even creating something from nothing is but a whim!”
His white robes billowed as he appeared before Tian Yi like a phantom.
He raised his right hand, hovering it just above Tian Yi's hoary head.
Before Tian Yi's eyes, the vibrant Xuanhuang Realm froze solid. It paused for a heartbeat, then shrank with astonishing speed, collapsing in on itself until it became a palm-sized, ice-like crystal.
He felt as if he were back in the void of the Star Sea, surrounded once more by an endless dark.
Tian Yi could only stare, dumbfounded, at the “Xuanhuang Crystal” before him.
Trembling, he reached out and took the crystal in his hand.
It was barely the size of his palm, yet it felt as if it contained an entire, complete world.
As his fingers brushed against the sacred object, a premonition bloomed in Tian Yi's heart. He didn't need the actual Xuanhuang Realm. With this crystal alone—this sliver of a world—he could bring the Tianfa Realm back from the dead.
“This power...”
Tian Yi's mind was a maelstrom of confusion.
But Li Fan's voice echoed in his ear once more.
“All True Immortals have their own dispositions.”
“The one who stands guard beyond the Xuanhuang Realm...”
“Heh, she is not nearly as friendly as I. In her eyes, it would not matter if she were the last being in existence.”
Tian Yi recalled the True Immortal in the Immortal Ruins, the one who, in her pursuit of enlightenment, would have annihilated the entire Star Sea without a second thought for its inhabitants. He couldn't help but feel a flicker of agreement.
“So, if you truly wish to save your homeland, become a True Immortal!”
“Consider this world-crystal my gift to you.”
Li Fan's voice gradually faded.
The scene before Tian Yi warped and twisted, returning him to the endless expanse of the Realm Fragment Great Wall.
The young True Immortal was long gone.
Only the Xuanhuang crystal clutched in his hand served as proof that the encounter had not been a figment of his imagination.
Tian Yi looked down at the miniature Xuanhuang Realm again. It seemed to be running once more.
The beings within lived on, completely oblivious.
They even ignored the line of large characters floating across their sky.
“By the way, I am not a patient man.”
“You have a thousand days. If, by the end of that time, you show no sign of a breakthrough...”
“Heheheh.”
The young True Immortal's chilling laughter echoed in Tian Yi's mind.
Tian Yi's breath caught in his throat.
It was as if he were once again facing that young True Immortal's utterly indifferent gaze.
Gripping the Xuanhuang crystal tightly, Tian Yi stared at the countdown timer in the sky and felt a pressure heavier than any he had ever known.
From that brief encounter, Tian Yi had learned two things: this young True Immortal was dangerously capricious, and his powers were beyond mortal reckoning.
There was the immortal array that had trapped him in an instant, a prison with no discernible flaw.
And then there was this casual display of power—creating an entire Xuanhuang Realm from thin air only to crystallize it moments later. It was a feat the current Tian Yi could barely comprehend.
“A thousand days to become a True Immortal?” Tian Yi's brow furrowed as he began to search for a way out.
“Perhaps my only hope lies within that formless High Wall...”
Tian Yi's gaze drifted toward a patch of nearby void.
For years, he had studied it, his tireless efforts bringing him to the very brink of understanding its secrets.
But a vague, preternatural warning, coupled with his focus on reviving the Tianfa Realm, had always held him back from dedicating himself completely to the task.
Now, it seemed, he had no other choice.
...
While Tian Yi grappled with his dilemma...
...Li Fan's true self had already appeared before the Dharma Spreader.
He watched as the man, even trapped within a complete immortal-grade illusion array, quickly began to perceive its flaws and tirelessly searched for a way to break free.
Li Fan frowned.
“A Heavenly Demon, as expected. His resistance to illusion arrays is even stronger than Tian Yi's.”
He had, of course, been the one to release Tian Yi from the array's grasp.
There was little point in simply toying with the Star Sea's preeminent figure.
Pushing him to fulfill his potential was a far more desirable outcome.
And just as Li Fan had anticipated, under the combined shock of the immortal array and the crystallized Xuanhuang Realm...
...Tian Yi had been temporarily deceived.
The immortal array was, of course, a creation of the immortal-grade Dissociation Disk.
And the Xuanhuang crystal...
...was a byproduct of the feedback that had erupted within Li Fan's dantian the moment the Xuanhuang Realm ascended to become an Immortal Realm in the previous cycle.
During the ascension, the sheer force of that feedback had been equivalent to dozens of times the total energy of the Xuanhuang Realm at its tipping point.
But once the Xuanhuang Realm had fully become an Immortal Realm...
...a constantly flashing mist, a miniature Xuanhuang nebula, now floated within Li Fan's dantian.
It shimmered like the ever-changing scenes on an Immortal Realm coin.
Light and shadow shifted within the mist, and with every passing instant, it seemed to birth a new Xuanhuang Realm.
Of course, Li Fan knew this was likely a trick of his perception.
The Xuanhuang mist flickered like a revolving lantern because the total amount of feedback was simply too vast. Laid out in sequence, the sheer volume created an illusion of movement from stillness.
The number was immense, but it was still far from touching the concept of [Infinity].
By his own estimate, the energy gathered in his dantian was equivalent to roughly one hundred thousand times the total energy of a normal Xuanhuang Realm.
It was a concentration of power so vast that even Li Fan found it incredible. For a fleeting moment at the beginning, he'd even had the terrifying thought that the nebula might simply detonate within him.
But after the initial shock wore off, Li Fan realized it was no different from the infinite power of the Star Sea—in fact, it was slightly inferior.
A change in quantity could not yet become a change in quality.
Gradually, he stopped paying it much mind.
Slicing off a tiny piece to form the Xuanhuang crystal and giving it to Tian Yi as a small gift...
...was less than effortless for Li Fan.
Besides, to ensure he maintained control over Tian Yi, he had hidden a wisp of the immortal array's residual power within that slice of Xuanhuang.
It could erupt at any moment, trapping Tian Yi once more.
His thoughts shifted from Tian Yi back to the Dharma Spreader trapped in the array. Li Fan did not treat this one so casually.
Based on signs from previous cycles, the Dharma Spreader was likely the reincarnation of the Xuantian King, whose body had then been seized and controlled by a Heavenly Demon.
A Heavenly Demon was a bizarre creature by nature, one that seized the creations of heaven and earth. Its path, that of the inner demon, fused with the Heavenly Dao of a world. Even in the ancient age of cultivation, such a thing was exceptionally rare.
As for the Xuantian King himself...
...Li Fan, being a half-immortal himself, understood better than anyone the profound power of an “Immortal.”
Therefore, he proceeded with the utmost caution.
The Dharma Spreader's bizarre behavior at the end of the last cycle, just after the Xuanhuang Realm's ascension, was still vivid in his memory.
How could he possibly take this being lightly?
This was why he had used a mere phantom of the array on Tian Yi, while he personally oversaw the Dharma Spreader's imprisonment.
Li Fan's expression was grave. To address the Dharma Spreader's unique situation, the immortal-grade Dissociation Disk made subtle adjustments to the array.
The world in the Dharma Spreader's eyes was now split in two.
On the left was the familiar Xuanhuang Realm.
On the right was the Tianfa Realm, the homeland of Tian Yi, Tian Jue, and the other venerables.
The two worlds flickered back and forth, shifting position like lantern shadows in a gale.
Slowly, a look of excruciating pain began to dawn on the Dharma Spreader's perpetually placid face.
It was as if something inside him was struggling to break free.
But the schismatic force was not yet strong enough.
Whatever it was retreated.
Seeing this, Li Fan urged the immortal array to increase the frequency of the shifts between the two worlds.
Meanwhile, he shot out streams of golden thread, which silently pierced the Dharma Spreader's body.
Li Fan had once witnessed the method Tian Yi used to control the Dharma Spreader.
With his current understanding, reversing the process and breaking that control...
...would not be difficult.
It would simply require trial and error.
Besides, with the immortal-grade Dissociation Disk standing guard, there was no fear of his captive escaping.
Under the combined assault of the shifting worlds and the insidious golden threads, the Dharma Spreader let out a heaven-shaking roar.
But he was like a bird trapped in a cage.
No amount of struggle could change his fate.
“There.”
After a long while, Li Fan's eyes lit up.
He gave the golden thread a gentle tug.
From the other end of the connection, a transparent body was slowly being pulled free.
The moment the translucent figure emerged, the Dharma Spreader's physical body collapsed as if its spine had been removed.
It slumped to the ground.
Freed from its host, the legendary Heavenly Demon grew calm.
It floated silently in the air.
It appeared to have fallen into a deep slumber.
But on its own, the Heavenly Demon's resistance to the illusion array was even greater than when it had a host.
The Dissociation Disk whirred to life, analyzing the Heavenly Demon for weaknesses.
No matter how bizarre, it was ultimately a mortal thing.
It would not be long before its defenses were breached.
Li Fan, meanwhile, turned his attention to the Dharma Spreader's body.
“He possesses his own consciousness.”
“But it has been suppressed by the Heavenly Demon for so long that it has grown exceedingly weak. There's no sign of it waking any time soon.”
“While he is weak, let me find out the truth.”
“Let me see the true identity of the Dharma Spreader who has dominated the Xuanhuang Realm for thousands of years!”
With a flicker of anticipation, Li Fan manipulated the illusion array.
The scene within the array began to shift, replaying the Dharma Spreader's own memories.
Smoke curled from chimneys across a vast plain.
“Danny, come home for dinner!”
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