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Chapter 1437: The Ghost City Shrouded in Ethereal Sound

"And not just an ordinary True Immortal."

"He was likely once a Nameless True Immortal!"

Li Fan lowered his head, concealing the thoughts swirling in his eyes. He quickened his pace, heading toward his residence.

"Care for some company, sir?"

"Brother Ma, long time no see! Come, have a drink with us!"

"You rascal, I've finally caught you again! Don't run!"

...

As he walked through the City of Extreme Bliss, a succession of different voices called out to him. And with each rising and falling cry, a corresponding memory surfaced in his mind.

The owners of these voices were old flames from days spent in pleasure houses, sworn brothers who had faced death alongside him, or even bitter enemies he had once crossed.

Yet Li Fan paid them no heed, keeping his head down and walking at a steady, unhurried pace toward his destination.

He had only just "possessed" Ma Tiande. Li Fan was certain that these memories had not existed in Ma Tiande's mind before. They were being imprinted on his consciousness only as he heard the words spoken.

"This wasn't some simple illusion."

"It was as if these events had truly happened here, within the City of Extreme Bliss."

Even as Li Fan walked away and the voices faded, the newly branded memories did not vanish. Instead, they grew deeper, more profound.

With every step he took, "Ma Tiande" was forcibly burdened with more and more experiences.

Each memory spanned years of a life.

Fine lines crept across the corners of his eyes. A subtle weariness, the look of a man weathered by time, settled upon Ma Tiande's face.

These physical changes did not escape Li Fan's notice. He deliberately slowed his pace, making it seem as if every step was an immense effort.

After crossing a district of the City of Extreme Bliss, "Ma Tiande" finally reached his residence.

The moment the dark door shut behind him, all the clamor from the outside world vanished, swallowed by the darkness within.

Following Ma Tiande's old routines, he took care of a few matters.

Then, he sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and appeared to be meditating on the "patterns of the Dao Net."

In reality, however, Li Fan was still contemplating the changes his host's body had undergone on the walk here.

"Using a false past to influence the real present."

"This method... is it the demonic chanting of the Xuantian King?"

The supreme Dao Transformation Stone in his divine sense began to operate, assisting Li Fan in his analysis.

"If Ma Tiande had failed to resist the temptation, had been lured in by any one of those voices and taken part..."

"...then all the 'past events' mentioned in their conversation would have become his reality..."

In the deduced scenarios playing out in his mind, Li Fan vaguely saw Ma Tiande aging at a terrifying rate during a banquet. In the blink of an eye, he turned to dust and bones, yet he continued to chat and laugh with those beside him.

When the revelry finally ended, his decayed bones crumbled to ash, and Ma Tiande's consciousness was left behind forever in the City of Extreme Bliss, becoming just another one of the countless minds trapped within.

"Lad, when you get to the City of Extreme Bliss, do nothing but what Zhu Xueshi tells you. Don't do a single other thing. Keep your head down for three years, and you might have a chance of coming back."

The memory of a senior from the Shuo Xinghai Administrative Council giving him this earnest advice before he came to the City of Extreme Bliss flashed through his mind.

"Shuo Xinghai's ability to hunt Immortals as mortals relies on the help of beings like Zhu Xueshi—those who have descended from immortality into the mortal coil."

"Though they have fallen to the mortal plane, the power these former True Immortals wield is not to be underestimated."

"Whether to appease them or to give their twisted hearts an outlet, the Administrative Council has prepared special 'playgrounds' for them. This City of Extreme Bliss is the one that belongs exclusively to Zhu Xueshi."

"All the countless beings you see in the city are long dead. It is a ghost city in the truest sense. They only maintain their physical forms through the support of a strange energy. Even through three years of cyclical days and nights, of endless mutual slaughter, no one truly dies. They are merely reborn when the next cycle begins."

"However, the final victor in the slaughter..."

Li Fan smacked his lips, savoring the memory of the red soup he had just consumed.

They were all ghostly remnant wills, so of course, there was no real taste of flesh and blood.

What Li Fan had consumed at Zhu Xueshi's residence was the flavor of sentient will, refined a thousand times and meticulously simmered!

"It was like an Enduring Will!"

"No wonder it was so delicious."

With a single bowl of red soup, one could bypass all the experiences the being within had suffered, yet directly reap the rewards of that lifetime.

And the entire City of Extreme Bliss could be seen as a much larger bowl of that same red soup.

Except the methods used to simmer the beings in the City of Extreme Bliss were far more exquisite.

Li Fan's thoughts raced as the supreme Dao Transformation Stone operated at full capacity.

He pierced through the veil of bustling prosperity he had just witnessed, seeing the horrifying truth that lay beneath.

"Under the influence of the omnipresent demonic chanting, the experiences of the remnant wills in the city are constantly growing. The life story of any single inhabitant is likely hundreds, even thousands of times richer than that of an ordinary being!"

"First, any will that can endure having these complex experiences forced upon it has already undergone a qualitative transformation, far surpassing the ordinary."

"Second, it's like brewing a tonic; the potency of a hundred-year-old ginseng naturally can't compare to that of a ten-thousand-year-old one."

"Shrouded by this ethereal sound, the 'simmering' efficiency of the City of Extreme Bliss has been increased by an unknown magnitude."

Although he didn't know if an Enduring Will was what the Lord of the City of Extreme Bliss ultimately sought...

...what he saw in the city made Li Fan, who once had similar plans, feel just how crude his own methods had been.

"I once thought that cultivating an Enduring Will in a fabricated dream paradise was the pinnacle of refinement."

"But this former True Immortal has taught me a lesson."

"Truly worthy of someone who survived the great calamity that shattered the Immortal Realm. His methods of torment are unlike anything I've ever heard of. Worthy of study."

"Three years to blossom, three years to bear fruit. The cycle repeats endlessly..."

"The so-called [Grand Ceremony] must be the time to enjoy these fruits."

For three years, these beings indulge their every whim in the City of Extreme Bliss. Their desires endlessly swell and climb.

Until the moment they reach their peak, like oil on a blazing fire, they erupt.

"The slaughter during the day is surely not as simple as it appears on the surface."

"If the demonic chanting still envelops the city, then what the survivors must endure is likely far greater than one can imagine. And to be the last one standing under such conditions..."

Even Li Fan felt a flicker of temptation at the thought of how vibrant such a "fruit" must be.

"In thirty days, perhaps I'll get to see it for myself."

"One can imagine that this fruit of remnant will would be of great benefit to cultivators. And yet, Zhu Xueshi has only invited [Knife Island]?"

Although Ma Tiande was a newcomer, he had heard that the City of Extreme Bliss usually hosted guests from all quarters.

"This time, something must have changed."

In Shuo Xinghai, Knife Island and the Sword Domain were two colossal, pillar-like powers. The Sword Domain was formed around the core of the former Heavenly Sword Sect from the Xuanhuang Realm, gathering a host of sword cultivators that numbered in the millions.

Knife Island, however, had only ever had eighteen members. Anyone who wished to set foot on the island first had to challenge one of its cultivators. The loser would die; the winner would join Knife Island. This rule was said to have been established by the very first cultivator to found and set foot on the island. The number eighteen was, in fact, an increase; originally, only five peerless blade masters lived there.

In the past, when Shuo Xinghai was vibrant and blade cultivators were numerous, a ceaseless stream of challengers made their way to Knife Island. Although none ever returned, more always followed.

The reason was simple: on Knife Island stood the [Dao of the Blade].

It was not some mystical phenomenon, but the literal, physical manifestation of the [Dao of the Blade] itself.

To gaze upon it was to face the Great Dao directly. A single moment of enlightenment was worth dying for.

The Great Dao is formless, yet it had manifested on Knife Island. There was, of course, a reason for this.

However, there was no consensus, only endless speculation. Even the Shuo Xinghai Administrative Council had never given a direct answer.

Of all the related rumors, the most convincing was that the leader of Knife Island had also once been a Nameless True Immortal. And the Dao he had merged with was precisely the Dao of the [Blade].

When he descended from immortality to the mortal world, his Dao returned to heaven and earth. Yet, by some unknown method, he solidified it, making it manifest. From then on, the formless, profound Great Dao could be perceived by mortal eyes.

"Perhaps the master of Knife Island and Zhu Xueshi of the City of Extreme Bliss are old acquaintances."

Nameless True Immortals. In the Darkest Star Sea, they had been beings of ancient legend. Yet upon his arrival in Shuo Xinghai, he had already encountered two potential candidates.

"It's not a matter of luck," Li Fan sneered inwardly. "Rather, with the great calamity of the Immortal Realm's destruction having progressed this far, the immortals of old have no choice but to eke out an existence under the same sky as mortals."

Li Fan had no interest in the mindset of these immortals-turned-mortal.

What truly intrigued him was how a Nameless True Immortal could become mortal again and still survive.

He had seen True Immortals become mortal in the Xuanhuang Realm before; that in itself was not surprising.

But the state of being Nameless meant one's body had merged with the Dao itself.

To become one with the Great Dao, to return to the fabric of heaven and earth—how could one so easily escape such a state?

Recalling Zhu Xueshi's appearance—neither human nor ghost—Li Fan was certain that for a Nameless True Immortal to become mortal, they must have paid a terrible price.

"Those who can achieve the Nameless state must be geniuses of antiquity. Yet even such beings have had to abandon their Dao paths..."

"Was it a desperate act of self-preservation in the face of the Dao Annihilation Calamity? Or was it for the noble ideal of returning the Dao to the heavens to save the world?" Li Fan's expression turned wry.

It was just like the Xuanhuang Realm after the birth of the Dharma Spreading New Method.

Cultivators devoured the Great Dao of heaven and earth to cultivate, and when they died, everything within them returned to the world. A Nameless Immortal's body was one with the Dao.

If the Nameless one perished, but the Dao did not, then the Dao would naturally return to heaven and earth.

But this presented a natural contradiction.

Since a Nameless True Immortal was already one with the Dao, how could a situation where the Nameless one perishes but the Dao does not even occur?

"Perhaps it can be compared to the situation in the Xuanhuang Realm."

"Those Dao Integration cultivators, though merged with the Spirit of Heaven and Earth, could be forcibly separated from it if I captured them, given my current methods and understanding of the Xuanhuang Realm's Heavenly Dao..."

"It wouldn't be difficult!"

"Although the power of a Nameless True Immortal is far beyond that of a Dao Integration cultivator from the Xuanhuang Realm, the underlying principle is the same."

"Perhaps the answer lies within the [Dao Net]."

A glint appeared in Li Fan's eyes.

As Shuo Xinghai's ultimate weapon for resisting and hunting True Immortals, the Dao Net naturally had to extend its coverage to former True Immortals like Zhu Xueshi.

And Ma Tiande was precisely the kind of person responsible for maintaining and connecting to that Dao Net.

In truth, Ma Tiande's life or death was inconsequential. Even if he angered Zhu Xueshi and was turned into an eternally sinking remnant will in the endless purgatory of the City of Extreme Bliss...

...the Administrative Council would simply send a new replacement the very next day.

In Ma Tiande's own eyes, he was a high-level asset to Shuo Xinghai. To run errands for an immortal-turned-mortal like Zhu Xueshi was an insult to his talents, a gross misuse of his abilities.

But an outsider like Li Fan saw the truth clearly.

He was nothing more than a consumable.

And consumables are never in short supply.

Unfazed by this realization, Li Fan began to study the Dao Net-related information in Ma Tiande's mind.

"Just as I expected. The key to using the Dao Net is the Dao Origin symbols!"

"I have already mastered the earliest of those Dao Origin symbols. Using Ma Tiande's body to access the Dao Net should be no problem..."

But Li Fan quickly discovered he was gravely mistaken.

Compared to the era of Qin Zhuang, the complexity of the Dao Origin had increased tens of thousands of times over!

Every single command required the coordinated operation of hundreds of thousands of Dao Origin symbols. The slightest error would be recorded and transmitted back to the Administrative Council.

"Every person who passes the assessment has already mastered the use of the Dao Origin."

"The Administrative Council might allow for one or two mistakes. But any more than that will certainly arouse suspicion."

His possession technique could only observe and inherit memories. To perfectly replicate complex and subtle operations like the application of Dao Origin symbols was another matter entirely.

This was especially true since Li Fan was not here in his entirety, but merely as a splinter of his divine sense, which made the task even more difficult.

"If only I had the Azure Nether Pearl with me now."

"It would allow me to inherit Ma Tiande's knowledge flawlessly."

Li Fan shook his head slightly, pushing aside the unrealistic fantasy.

He had infiltrated Shuo Xinghai alone; there was no way to get help from the Azure Nether Pearl.

"In thirty days, the Grand Ceremony will require coordination with the Dao Net."

"It seems that learning it myself is the best course of action."

"Fortunately, I have the supreme Dao Transformation Stone to help me. What Ma Tiande could do, I should be able to replicate with ease."

Li Fan began to study the knowledge of Dao Origin symbols in Ma Tiande's mind from scratch.

The [Thirty Lectures on the Basics of Dao Origin] he had learned from Qin Zhuang's memories was completely outdated. The meanings of many symbols had changed entirely.

Li Fan had no choice but to discard his prior understanding and start over.

But the path to mastering the Dao Origin symbols was not as easy as Li Fan had imagined. The biggest reason was that the process of how Ma Tiande had learned them had vanished from his memory.

Ma Tiande had no recollection of how he had come to master the Dao Origin. He only knew that he had mastered the skill after a period of arduous study.

There was only the result, not the cause.

Li Fan could only work backward from the result.

If not for the Dao Transformation Stone, he would have been stuck at the very first step.

(End of Chapter)