Chapter 1477: The Hunger Immortal's Past
Chapter 1477: The Hunger Immortal's Past
"Once it finds a weakness, it presses the attack relentlessly, never stopping until its target is utterly destroyed."
"If it fails, it temporarily retreats to gather its strength..."
Li Bueren recalled the subtle sensations he experienced during his recent confrontation with the Dao Annihilation tide.
Just as the creatures of the world can sense an approaching storm to varying degrees, the premonition of the Dao Annihilation tide's advance seemed to be buried deep within the instincts of all living things.
It wasn't until long after the tide had receded that Li Bueren felt the strange sensation in his heart completely dissipate.
Slowly coming back to his senses, he looked toward the "heavenly pillar" that now stood erect in the Dark Star Sea.
Unlike the crumbling ramparts formed by the two Primal Bones, the pillar before him was the genuine article, transformed from a being who had attained the rank of a Nameless True Immortal.
With the appearance of this nameless heavenly pillar, the sky itself seemed to become loftier, more distant.
The formless, oppressive weight on his heart vanished, as if he had arrived in the legendary "Immortal Realm."
"Of course, it can't compare to the true Immortal Realm, which can harness the energy of the Infinite Sea. But it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call this an Immortal Domain."
The heavens were high, the earth vast, and the Great Daos manifesting within them had become much clearer. More importantly, this Dark Star Sea within the High Wall had now gathered three supreme entities: Shou Qiu's phantom, the Primal Bones, and the Hunger Immortal's pillar.
While Shou Qiu's phantom acted upon all the experimental spaces within the High Wall, the other two were exclusive to the Dark Star Sea.
The appearance of each one had imperceptibly elevated the "stature" of this star sea.
With all three present, the Dark Star Sea was lifted to a point where it could, for the moment, look down upon the great tide of Dao Annihilation below.
"Those living in this domain would have their inherent potential greatly boosted compared to anywhere else. In short, they would all be prodigies, prime candidates for seeking the path of immortality. And since this place was a land of survivors after the baptism of Dao Annihilation, anyone able to cultivate under these innate conditions would already be a genius of immense talent..."
Li Bueren's eyebrows rose slightly. "The Dark Star Sea is like the sacred lands and dojos of ancient cultivation legends. Regardless of their actual power, anyone who emerged from here would possess world-shaking talent for cultivation."
"If the path to immortality hadn't been severed, and if there were no malevolent officials guarding the Ascension Platforms, it might not even be difficult for this entire realm to ascend."
"What a pity..."
"Now, it can only serve as a high ground, a lone skiff in the world-ending tide."
To gather three powers comparable to Nameless True Immortals in one place was a feat only Li Fan could have orchestrated, using his endless cycles of reincarnation to gather information and formulate a plan.
It was safe to say that the current Dark Star Sea was the most secure region in the entire Primal possibility.
Even if the entire possibility were to be submerged by the Dao Annihilation tide, the Dark Star Sea could hold out as a lone peak for a considerable time.
For Li Fan, who considered the Dark Star Sea his home base, this brought an immense sense of security. It felt like being in an apocalyptic safe house, protected by layers upon layers of impenetrable defenses.
Let blizzards rage for thousands of miles outside, let tumultuous waves crash against the heavens.
Here, I remain, steadfast and unmoving!
While Li Fan's main body savored the feeling of satisfaction, his avatar, Li Bueren, quickly snapped out of the pleasant reverie and got busy calculating the specific gains from the Hunger Immortal's transformation into a pillar.
"Originally, I could unconditionally and without side effects command the power of one and a third of the Primal Bones."
"But after suppressing the Hunger Immortal..."
"The power I've gained isn't equivalent to a complete Nameless True Immortal; I have to subtract the remnant power of the previous Hunger Immortal."
"It's roughly equivalent to two and a half Primal Bones."
He completed a rough, quantified calculation.
The result didn't surprise Li Fan too much.
The Primal Bones were powerful, connected to the primordial Dao at the dawn of creation, but they were ultimately just two fragments, not the complete entity.
The fact that their power was nearly comparable to the Hunger Immortal's at the moment she became Nameless was a testament to how terrifying the original Primal being must have been in its prime.
"Judging from the Hunger Immortal's performance in the battle earlier, she had the strength to contend with Shou Qiu's phantom, to swallow the heavens and drink the seas. Even as a newly ascended one, she was by no means weak among Nameless True Immortals. And now, I can freely wield the power equivalent to about two such powerhouses..."
"In this corner of the cosmos, I truly have no equal."
Although it was all borrowed from Shou Qiu's phantom, the wonderful taste of power was no less sweet to Li Fan.
"The Immortal Realm is shattered, and the immortals have fled. With this kind of strength, I am virtually invincible."
"It's just a shame it's confined to the vicinity of the High Wall."
"Besides, I can replicate this process, luring and suppressing other Nameless True Immortals to further develop the power of Shou Qiu's phantom. The upper limit is harnessing all five of Shou Qiu's phantoms for my own use!"
"That's the kind of power that could resist the cataclysmic Dao Annihilation that destroyed the Immortal Realm..."
A look of profound yearning flickered in Li Fan's eyes.
However, he did not let this unparalleled power cloud his mind.
After all, it was only borrowed for a time, not truly his own.
"But it can still serve as my tool."
The successful suppression of the Nameless Hunger Immortal had proven, in a very real sense, the sheer magnitude of the energy Li Fan could command.
At this level, he no longer needed to be so meticulously cautious.
"The Dark Star Sea, and a few blind spots within the Xuanhuang Realm... I can finally resolve them all at once," Li Fan thought, a sharp glint flashing in his eyes.
Before taking action, however, Li Fan first carefully observed and compared the Primal Bones and the Hunger Immortal's pillar in the starry sky.
Though both were being used as supports against the Dao Annihilation, their behaviors were completely different.
The Primal Bones, already contained within the Nameless Stele and the Southern Immortal Heavenly Pillar, seemed to have long since accepted their fate, or perhaps they had been tamed. They silently endured, their light and strange phenomena all contained within. They looked like nothing more than ordinary, broken stone piers.
But the Hunger Immortal's pillar was bound only by Li Fan's external force.
The Hunger Immortal's consciousness still existed.
Li Fan could not only feel the overwhelming resentment emanating from the pillar but could also clearly hear the vicious curses the Hunger Immortal continuously hurled at him.
Yet Li Fan acted as if he heard nothing, continuing his observation with a faint smile.
He sent a sliver of his divine sense to make contact with the Hunger Immortal's pillar.
Boom!
As his divine sense trembled, the Dao of Hunger—stretching from the heavens to the earth—was laid bare before him, every minute detail exposed.
The Hunger Immortal, sealed within the pillar, froze for a moment, as if all her secrets had been stripped naked for Li Fan to see.
Then came a surge of even more frantic cursing.
However, that was the most she could do.
She was utterly powerless to stop Li Fan's prying gaze.
"Though I can see the Dao, I cannot comprehend a shred of it."
"The Dao of Hunger has already been claimed by another. It is as if it has vanished from this corner of heaven and earth."
"How can one comprehend that which belongs to another?"
Li Fan sighed softly.
His regret was not just for the path of Hunger before him.
It was for the obvious and vast absence of countless Great Daos in the wake of the Immortal Realm's destruction and the flight of its immortals.
"It is like my divine sense projection only reflects a tiny fragment of the Dao Net. What remains in the Primal possibility is nothing but scraps and leftovers..."
"The Great Daos are fragmented, heaven and earth are incomplete."
"Even so, the world I see is this magnificent. I truly cannot imagine what a complete world of Great Daos would look like..."
This was a flight of fancy that no cultivator could avoid, and Li Fan was no exception.
He found himself momentarily lost in thought before the Hunger Immortal's pillar.
After a long while, Li Fan's gaze shifted from yearning to determination.
"One day, I will see a heaven of complete Daos."
"That day will come."
Besides glimpsing the Dao of Hunger, Li Fan could also faintly perceive the Hunger Immortal's past life.
However, because she had attained the rank of Nameless, all her past experiences were subsumed. These images and memories were all shrouded by the Dao of Hunger itself.
It was like hiding under a cloak woven from the Great Dao.
Without destroying the Hunger Immortal's pillar, Li Fan couldn't take it all in at once.
He could only slowly, gradually, lift the veil inch by inch to peek inside.
In addition to contending with the Dao of Hunger, Li Fan's probing also had to wrestle with the Hunger Immortal's own struggling consciousness.
She seemed to resist his gaze with extreme prejudice, her struggle even more ferocious than when she had fought Li Bueren.
"You should have thought of the consequences before you acted!"
Li Fan snorted coldly. Instead of retreating, he pressed forward.
He broke through the protection of the Dao of Hunger.
And glimpsed a fragment of light that once belonged to the Hunger Immortal.
Upon observation, Li Fan realized it seemed to be from the Hunger Immortal's youth, before she had even stepped into the realm of True Immortals.
The Hunger Immortal had not ascended from a lower world. She was born and lived in the Immortal Realm, as an appendage to a certain True Immortal.
Although she was an appendage, an existence known as an Immortal Servant, the Hunger Immortal had never once seen her nominal "master" since birth.
The Immortal Realm had limitless resources, and servants like her were not even required to offer tribute to their master. The Hunger Immortal had heard that her master was not fond of crowds and preferred solitude. Though they were created and bestowed upon him, these Immortal Servants were of no concern to him.
He simply settled them within his own domain.
Having such a "master" was, of course, a dream come true for the Immortal Servants.
They lived in absolute freedom. With a True Immortal master protecting them from above, they had no worries at all.
But such carefree days did not last long.
One day, the young Hunger Immortal witnessed the world-ending Dao Annihilation Calamity.
The domain of her True Immortal master, her home, a place called the Melodious Immortal Domain.
In the face of this terrifying calamity, it was destroyed in an instant.
If her elusive True Immortal master had not appeared at the last moment to save them, the Hunger Immortal would have long since perished in the disaster of that year.
"Non-action and carefree..."
"Hmph!"
The Hunger Immortal only remembered her master casually saving them, then gazing at the annihilation of his distant immortal domain before letting out a cold snort.
Then, his figure faded and vanished.
After that, the Hunger Immortal never saw her master again.
It was only then that she finally learned her master's name.
Wu Wei, the Non-Action Immortal.
...
The moment Li Fan saw those two words in the Hunger Immortal's memory, it was as if he had touched upon some forbidden taboo. He was met with intense resistance from the Hunger Immortal.
Even the Hunger Immortal's pillar trembled slightly, and under the powerful repulsive force, Li Fan's consciousness was ejected outright.
He had plenty of time to deal with her later, so Li Fan didn't press the issue for now, choosing to quit while he was ahead.
He would let the Hunger Immortal cool down first.
"The Non-Action Immortal, Wu Wei..."
His expression was somewhat grave as he recalled what he had seen in the Hunger Immortal's memory.
Though not as composed and effortless as Shou Qiu, and the Dao Annihilation tide he faced was not as vast as the one that would engulf the entire Immortal Realm, it was still the Dao Annihilation Calamity!
Having recently come into contact with it, Li Fan knew very well how terrifying that catastrophe was.
"To be able to save his servants and successfully escape from the Dao Annihilation Calamity, he must have had strength to spare."
"This Non-Action Immortal is by no means weak. It's just that the young Hunger Immortal's memories are a bit hazy. I don't know if he was truly in the Nameless realm."
The reason for Li Fan's doubt was that the Nameless Immortals he had encountered all possessed a peculiar quality. They merged their bodies with the Dao, standing solitary and independent between heaven and earth.
But that Non-Action Immortal did not give Li Fan such a feeling.
Yet if he hadn't achieved the Nameless realm, how could he have resisted the Dao Annihilation Calamity?
"Bestowed by merit... Interesting."
Thinking of the many similar figures throughout the history of the Immortal Realm, who either perished in the great calamity or abandoned their realms and fled far away, Li Fan felt a strange emotion stir within him.
"This is merely a withered age."
It was foreseeable that the possibilities to which the immortals of the past had fled were surely far more splendid and vibrant than the Primal possibility Li Fan currently inhabited.
"Fortunately, it has been confirmed that figures who have vanished from the Primal possibility may still survive in others."
"It's not as if I will never get to see them."
His recent encounters with beings and things like Shou Qiu, the Primal, and Wu Wei had opened Li Fan's eyes to a universe beyond the universe, a person beyond the person. His mind, rarely so stirred, began to race with a spark of excitement.
It was like when he, in his seventies, had already explored the known world of the Great Xuan, only to unexpectedly encounter two cultivators.
It was like playing a game for a long time, only to suddenly discover vast hidden maps and characters. He instinctively felt a desire to explore, a thirst for knowledge.
"Though I am only at the half-immortal stage now, I will surely one day traverse possibilities and witness such wonders."
"Only in a raging sea can a hero's true colors be shown. Only in a world-ending calamity can the world's true heroes emerge."
"The pantheon of immortals in other possibilities might be even more spectacular than what I have glimpsed in the Primal. Hehehe..."
Li Fan thought to himself silently.
Then, his thoughts settled, and he returned his focus to his avatar, Li Bueren.
After a series of calculations and adjustments, he could now control the power of Shou Qiu's phantom with a bit more precision.
The first to face his blade would naturally be the one Li Fan considered a thorn in his side: the Tiandu Grandmaster!
With a single thought, Li Bueren returned from the heart of the star sea to the Xuanhuang Realm, to the Source Dao Province.
The moment he set foot in the province, he felt a power in full, hasty retreat.
"Sorrow... the Dao is extinguished."
A yo-yo voice, seemingly recalling a script, echoed from the Nine Heavens above.
Li Bueren narrowed his eyes, realizing that the large and small figures were trying to escape.
(End of Chapter)
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