Chapter 1461: Truth Realization Stands upon the Infinite Sea
The projection of the Dao Net in Li Buren’s mind seemed to grow increasingly clear.
This rapid, brute-force consumption hadn't caused any indigestion. The insights from the Fallen Immortals, combined with the formidable resilience of Li Buren’s unique body, allowed him to absorb the True Immortal enlightenment of this place almost entirely without loss.
“This space contains only these transparent statues. Moreover, its boundary has no concept of ‘forward.’ There is no path ahead, much like the High Wall in the Star Sea.”
Li Buren repeated the process, shattering the remaining transparent statues one by one and devouring them whole. With that done, he prepared to break free from the confines of this space once more.
Before crossing the threshold and departing, Li Buren sensed that the eighteen statues here had not truly vanished.
Even though it seemed he had consumed them all, the source of the True Immortal enlightenment that had generated the statues still existed.
“Given enough time, they should be able to reform.”
“But it would take at least tens of thousands of years.”
He looked around—up, down, left, and right. All directions were filled with countless similar, small, cube-like spaces.
They seemed to be within arm’s reach, yet also as distant as the horizon. The vast majority of these cubic spaces were deathly still. The rest flickered erratically between light and dark, an exceedingly bizarre sight. Only a tiny fraction of the cubes emanated a faint, stable glow.
Gazing at the scene before him, Li Buren was momentarily lost in thought.
“These cubic spaces... they bear a certain resemblance to the cages deep within the Shuo Xinghai’s Dao Net, the ones used to imprison True Immortals.”
“So this is why it appears as pure darkness when viewed from the outside...”
Li Buren turned his attention to a flickering point of light for comparison.
A moment later, he nodded slightly. “All life force has been utterly extinguished. A dead zone. There’s no need to observe it further.”
“And as for those regions that flicker in and out of existence...”
He reached out a hand, attempting to touch and perceive it. After a long moment, despite his self-awareness being suppressed to an extreme low, Li Buren’s brow furrowed slightly. “The original system of observation has been destroyed. It’s presenting a false state. And the culprit behind this observational failure...”
“The Dao Annihilation Calamity!”
Li Buren pulled his hand back. Even though he had only touched it from a distance, across the boundary of the cubic space, his finger looked as if it had been scorched, taking on the grotesque appearance of charred remains.
In that place of utter blackness, the principles of the Dao were annihilated; the Dao ceased to be the Dao.
With a faint exertion of force, the blackened fingertip crumbled into fine ash, drifting upward and vanishing within the space.
“Just by getting close to the Dao Annihilation Calamity, my Immortal Realm body uncontrollably disintegrates into dust.”
“...”
“And yet, that square boundary acts like a dam, firmly holding back the erosion of the Dao Annihilation Calamity, at least for now.”
As he pondered, the disintegrated finger regrew. Li Buren stared intently at the boundary of the cubic space, trying to peer into its mysteries.
But he had little success.
He then turned his attention to the dozen or so faintly glowing regions within this vast expanse.
After a period of observation, Li Buren came to a conclusion. “These are star seas where life is not flourishing. Their predicament is much the same as the Darkest Star Sea...”
“They are even still ravaged by the True Immortal script left behind by the 'What Matter' Immortal.”
Li Buren carefully examined every single point of light.
“None of them are the Darkest Star Sea, the home of the Xuanhuang Realm. They are all unfamiliar starscapes...”
Li Buren could not help but look down at his own location.
Or rather, at the small cube he occupied, identical to the thousands upon thousands of others surrounding him.
“I broke through the High Wall and shattered the eighteen True Immortal statues. Only then did I pierce the veil of the Dao and arrive here.”
“But what I see before me is not from the perspective of a so-called ‘observer.’ I am still trapped within a cage.”
“So, the star sea that holds the Xuanhuang Realm... is merely one among these thousands of cubic cages?”
Looking at the countless cubes that ought to have been shimmering with the light of life, Li Buren was, for a fleeting moment, utterly stupefied.
But his sense of self was faint, and he quickly recovered from the mental shock and began to analyze the situation.
“In that case, the High Wall does not seal just a single starscape.”
“It’s just that all these star seas exist in a parallel, side-by-side configuration, invisible to one another...”
The memory of Qian Ruochang discovering another Ascension Platform in the ruins just outside the High Wall flashed through Li Buren’s mind.
“No wonder there were two sets of Ascension Platform ruins so close to each other.”
“It’s because this entire expanse of space has been segmented, overlapped, and bound completely within the High Wall!”
“This is truly a feat unimaginable by mortals. Even I would have to expend immense effort to destroy all these starscapes, let alone gather them together so exquisitely, like a collection of cubes.”
Li Buren was not awed by the miraculous sight before him. Instead, he analyzed it with perfect composure.
“Such a monumental effort, using entire starscapes as an experimental site.”
“...What exactly are they experimenting on?”
“And how does one reach the true core area?”
“I am not the first to cross the High Wall. Before me, the Mysterious Immortal Boat, the Heavenly Sword Sect, and others all successfully escaped. How did they break free from this cage?”
“I can find no trace of them.”
“Or perhaps... they never arrived in this space at all?”
Li Buren looked down at his own Immortal Realm body.
“Perhaps it is precisely because of this special body that I was able to enter this region. Different people, with different methods of crossing, arrive at different destinations...”
The square boundaries of this experimental site, capable of temporarily withstanding even the Dao Annihilation Calamity, were far beyond what Li Buren could currently break.
He did not persist, instead turning back the way he came.
He returned to the narrow space that had housed the eighteen statues.
Once there, he began to search again, meticulously.
“In the Xuanhuang Realm, when mortals were afflicted by the Immortal-Mortal Miasma, cultivators moved them to small worlds and grotto-heavens, sealing them off with the Immortal-Forbidden Array. The trials within the array were designed to be impossible for mortals to overcome. To ensure the subjects of this experiment remain contained, a similar impossible task must be in place. This guarantees that only the conductors of the experiment—the Immortals—can reach the true core.”
Though his search remained fruitless, a suspicion began to form in Li Buren’s mind.
“What separates Immortals from mortals is, one, power, and two, infinity.”
“My Immortal Realm body already satisfies the requirement of power. That is why I could so easily tear the veil of the Dao and witness the truth of this experiment. But without fulfilling the property of infinity, I can never enter the core area...”
“The Infinite Sea.”
Having grasped the critical point, Li Buren wasted no more time. He temporarily charged back out from within the High Wall.
He arrived in the Xuanhuang Realm and took the Dao Key slate—a relic left by the former Xuantian King, replicated from the Immortal Realm’s Ascension Platform.
Then, in an instant, he returned.
“A single slate is not enough.”
“To connect to the Infinite Sea, three conditions must be met.”
“The unique immortal spiritual power of a True Immortal. The Ascension Platform, an access point from the Immortal Realm. And the top-secret script known only to the attending Immortal Officials.”
“This slate is a replica of the Ascension Platform made by the Xuantian King.”
“In Shuo Xinghai, Qian Ruochang posed as an Immortal Official to lure the Faceless Immortal. I have since mastered that True Immortal script.”
“The only thing missing now is immortal spiritual power. Unowned immortal spiritual power.”
...
As Li Buren’s thoughts churned, his original body back in the Xuanhuang Realm had already completed its preparations.
“If Lord Zhu Xueshi hadn’t been so generous before, this would likely have been far more complicated.”
Not far outside the High Wall lay the place where the Transcendent World Coffin and the members of the Immortal Hunt slumbered.
On the equally sound-asleep Ma Tiande, his fingertip was suddenly covered by a patch of skin that was not his own.
It lasted for only a fleeting moment before vanishing without a trace.
But a wisp of immortal spiritual energy traveled through the invisible Dao Net, traversing space and arriving upon Li Buren’s body.
At the same time, the two Immortals trapped within the coffin seemed to sense something. The long-silent sarcophagus emitted a series of faint, obscure ripples, but they ultimately faded. The two Immortals remained quiet.
Back inside the High Wall, in the space where the eighteen statues had once stood.
The appearance of the immortal spiritual energy seemed to trigger a reaction.
The surrounding wall-like boundaries began to ripple like the surface of water. Something hidden behind them was about to be revealed.
But perhaps because it was only a single wisp of energy and not the presence of a True Immortal’s main body, the continuous ripples were unable to completely pull back the curtain.
Li Buren knew he had to act. Without further hesitation, he seized the fleeting opportunity while the immortal energy remained and began to write furiously upon the Dao Key slate.
It was as if he were possessed by Qian Ruochang.
Even the movement and timing of each and every stroke were identical.
Soon, using the immortal spiritual energy as ink, the mysterious symbol began to shine on the surface of the slate.
There were no spectacular visions of radiant light or auspicious beasts.
But an inexplicable power erupted from the slate. To say the power came from the slate itself would be inaccurate; the slate merely opened a channel.
A path to the Infinite Sea.
Caught completely off guard, his spiritual soul was sucked into a massive, raging vortex. Every droplet of spray beside him seemed to contain an endless, resplendent cosmos.
Countless visions flashed before his eyes, as if he were living through trillions of years in a single instant.
Such a colossal volume of information, even if only a brief, forced taste, was a devastating catastrophe for any being immersed within it.
Fortunately, the one connecting to the Infinite Sea this time was a clone puppet, its self-awareness completely suppressed. Had Li Fan’s true self rashly plunged in and been baptized by these droplets from the Infinite Sea, even with the advantage of [Truth], the catastrophic damage to his spiritual soul would have been impossible to mend in a short time.
Qiao Sidao had been trapped within the “Era” device, experiencing hundreds of thousands of reincarnations.
And yet, the sum of all his experiences would not be enough to form a single droplet in this Infinite Sea.
“My consciousness is attached to the Dao Net, so I can barely hold on. But not for much longer.”
“This is completely different from entering the Infinite Sea while wearing the skin of a True Immortal!”
“After all, this is just one slate from the Ascension Platform, not the entire structure. These torrents are not something a newly ascended Immortal could withstand. It must be missing the necessary protective components...” The image of Qian Ruochang using the Ascension Platform to achieve immortality flashed through Li Buren’s mind.
Tainted by the light and shadow data of the Infinite Sea, the miniature Dao Net that supported his consciousness began to buckle under the strain.
As if struck by the Dao Annihilation Calamity, the periphery of the Dao Net was submerged by endless waves and ceased to exist.
The Dao Net began to collapse.
The Infinite Sea was about to drown him.
But Li Buren felt not a flicker of retreat.
He was created for the sole purpose of exploring the secrets within the High Wall. And to do that, he first had to connect to the Infinite Sea and attain the body of a True Immortal.
To achieve this goal, life and death were of no consequence.
“This scene... the Infinite Sea swallowing the Dao Net...”
“Why is it so similar to the Dao Annihilation Calamity, which arrives suddenly and consumes everything?”
As his consciousness began to fade, a question abruptly surfaced in Li Buren’s mind.
In a flash of insight, the power of the Ink Death Immortal Soul from his original body arrived, belatedly, through the last faint glimmer of the Dao Net.
Once the last point of light was enveloped by the power of the Ink Death Immortal Soul, the monstrous waves of the Infinite Sea suddenly grew calm.
It was as if they had lost their target.
The vortex subsided, transforming into a boundless ocean.
Once again, Li Fan beheld the legendary Infinite Sea.
But this time, it was not through the guise of a True Immortal’s skin. He had personally crossed the vortex with his own clone puppet and descended!
Upon the boundless expanse of the Infinite Sea, it seemed a long, long time had passed since a new True Immortal had paid a visit.
It was terrifyingly placid.
Only occasionally would a vortex materialize on the surface for no apparent reason, stirring a few splashes of water.
Li Buren—or rather, Li Fan.
In the droplets thrown up by these splashes, he saw, as if in a trance, countless phantoms of light and shadow.
They represented an accumulation of ages far longer than the trillions of years he had experienced in the vortex.
And these were merely a few insignificant droplets in the great ocean.
Li Fan looked around. The Infinite Sea was without end.
He could not begin to imagine how much history, how many living beings, were converged here.
Words could not describe a ten-thousandth of its magnificence. Li Fan drifted within it, utterly lost in a daze.
Individuals, True Immortals, the Nameless—even powerhouses who transcended possibilities.
Before such a creation, their very existence seemed to lose all meaning.
Time seemed to freeze, and his thoughts felt as if they had been turned to ice.
An unknown amount of time passed.
A ripple from [Truth] within Li Fan’s true body startled him awake.
It was a profoundly strange emotion.
It felt like surprise.
It felt like reminiscence.
There was sorrow, too.
And indignation.
A thousand emotions swirled together, making it impossible for Li Fan to discern whether [Truth] was feeling joy, anger, grief, or fear.
And the tranquility of the Infinite Sea was silently shattered.
From beneath the water, a gargantuan beast of the unfathomable deep seemed to be slowly awakening.
The entire surface of the sea began to roil.
As if coming to a boil, it started to churn with countless waves.
The terrifying power unleashed by the colliding droplets was so immense that even the concealment of the Ink Death Immortal Soul began to fail.
It was like wearing a flimsy life jacket in a raging tempest with colossal waves—utterly useless for survival.
The Dao Net to which his consciousness was attached was on the verge of collapse.
It was about to dissipate completely.
The next moment...
Li Buren found himself inexplicably ejected from the Infinite Sea.
Everything he had just witnessed felt like an illusion.
Except...
Li Buren extended his right hand.
Though he summoned no immortal spiritual power, he knew that, should he wish it, he could connect to the Infinite Sea at any moment and call upon its endless power.
But he didn’t dare.
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