Chapter 1478: The Origin of Ink Death
Or more accurately, the smaller figure was trying to flee from Li Bueren, pulling the ceaselessly chanting phantom along with it.
"A thousand soul-shifts, a hundred spirit-turns."
"Infinite, boundless, without fault."
...
As the profound sounds echoed around him, Li Bueren was surprised to find that the two figures were indeed beginning to fade, as if they might actually escape the cataclysm he represented.
The sensation was utterly bizarre. The two were right before him, yet his urge to capture them was nowhere near as intense as it had been moments ago.
He even felt a wave of indifference, a sense that catching his targets was of little consequence.
It was clear that even his Dao Net body could not completely resist the influence of the phantom's chanting.
Unfortunately for them, while the mystical sounds possessed an uncanny ability to evade disaster, they weren't a magical wish-granting machine.
The sound was no longer a profound resonance that seemed to drift from the heavens and bore into his very soul. Instead, it was like the buzzing of an insect, easily ignored.
Li Bueren made a grasping motion with his hand, and the phantom of the young acolyte—the so-called Tiandu Grandmaster—was silenced in an instant, like a rooster being choked.
To Li Bueren's surprise, however, the chanting phantom beside the Grandmaster was almost completely unaffected. It merely shimmered like a ripple on water before continuing its recitation.
Influenced by the profound sounds, Li Bueren keenly sensed that the Grandmaster, held fast in his grip, was also slowly slipping through his fingers.
This escape had nothing to do with physical strength.
It represented a kind of inevitability.
It was like a conceptual law in action: disaster avoidance, without fault.
Li Bueren had a feeling that even with the power of the two-plus Nameless True Immortals he commanded, he could not simply ignore such a conceptual force.
In fact...
Perhaps if he unleashed the full power of all five Shou Qiu phantoms, he might stand a chance.
If Li Bueren had used his full strength from the very beginning, the Grandmaster might have actually managed to slowly slip away.
Fortunately, he had initially judged the Grandmaster to be merely at the half-immortal stage and had used only a fraction of his power. When he realized he couldn't stop the inevitable trend of his prey slipping away, he gradually increased the force of his grip.
He wasn't trying to suppress it with brute force.
Instead, he was countering one inevitability with another!
There was a limit to the power Li Bueren could summon. Eventually, the Grandmaster would succeed in his escape with the phantom's aid.
But until that moment, he was frozen in place, as if struck by a petrifying spell.
Immobilized!
Li Bueren slowly approached. Having shielded himself from the influence of the chanting, he finally got a clear look at the legendary Tiandu Grandmaster of the Xuanhuang Realm.
He truly looked like a sage's young acolyte, dressed in simple robes with a face as tender as a child's. But his eyes were dark and profound, as if they had witnessed all the world's principles, its cycles of prosperity and decay. An aura of serene detachment surrounded him, and even as Li Bueren closed in, his expression remained unchanged.
In fact, he seemed completely unaware of Li Bueren's presence.
Li Bueren ignored him for the moment, turning his gaze instead to the source of the chanting beside the Grandmaster.
After having witnessed the Dao Net, Shou Qiu, and the Primal Dao, his perspective had been broadened immeasurably.
Observing it from such a close distance, he could naturally discern the true nature of this phantom.
"A remnant, left behind after transcendence..."
"But this remnant wasn't used as a pillar to support the Dao Annihilation. Instead, it continues to follow its original path."
"No wonder the Grandmaster ignores everything else, refusing to part from this phantom."
A strange light flickered in Li Bueren's eyes.
"After a Nameless being transcends, the Dao they embodied should vanish from the world. But if a remnant is left behind, a new version of that Dao may evolve in the heavens and earth after many years."
"It's like starting its growth anew from infancy, and it's immeasurably faster than a Dao evolving from nothing!"
Li Bueren stared intently at the phantom, trying to pierce through the chanting and see its inner essence.
"When there is peril, it evades peril."
"When one seeks a master, it transmits scriptures."
Recalling the various legends about the Tiandu Grandmaster in the Xuanhuang Realm, a thought slowly took shape in Li Bueren's mind.
"It doesn't simply grant requests. Rather, it evolves itself in response to external changes."
"Guiding circumstances, exhausting all possibilities of change."
"This is..."
"The Dao of Phantom Genesis!"
This was a path that had long vanished from the Primal Possibility, with only this nascent remnant within the phantom remaining.
The Dao of Phantom Genesis was clearly no less profound than the Dao of the Primal or Wu Wei. Just a few cursory glances had already yielded Li Bueren great insights.
It was only then that he discovered that a completely new path represented far more than just a single Dao. It allowed him to faintly perceive a whole series of related Dao paths, like shadows in its wake!
Even though the vast majority of these paths no longer existed in this corner of heaven and earth.
They were still part of the three thousand Great Daos. By relying on his comprehension of the Dao, he could, to a certain extent, mentally reconstruct the nature of these "departed Daos"!
"The Grandmaster is truly fortunate. This Phantom Genesis Dao Shadow would be a treasure fought over by all the immortals, even in the Immortal Realm. Yet he, with the cultivation of a mere half-immortal, has possessed it for ten thousand years," Li Bueren mused.
The reason the Grandmaster had been hiding above Source Dao Province, unwilling to leave or emerge, was simple.
He could not control the comings and goings of the Phantom Genesis Dao Shadow. Until he had completely refined and mastered it, he could only follow its every move!
"So I was wrong before. I knew this chanting was extraordinary, so I instinctively focused more effort on it. I shouldn't have targeted the Phantom Genesis Dao Shadow; I only needed to capture the Grandmaster."
"If it feels no threat, no disaster, it naturally won't manifest the means to evade disaster."
With a shift in his thoughts, Li Bueren adjusted the distribution of his restraining power. The full force of the lock was transferred onto the acolyte-like Grandmaster.
The Grandmaster's perpetually placid expression finally broke.
"All those years sitting before the Phantom Genesis Dao Shadow weren't for nothing, after all." Li Bueren noticed that a faint, almost imperceptible connection had indeed formed between the Grandmaster and the phantom.
The pressure applied to the Grandmaster still inevitably affected the Dao Shadow.
However, the disaster-evading power it manifested was far weaker than before.
This meant Li Bueren had much more time to slowly deal with the Tiandu Grandmaster.
Yet, no matter what secrets the Grandmaster concealed, they could not compare to the Phantom Genesis Dao Shadow. Therefore, Li Bueren was in no hurry to question him, his attention remaining fixed on the phantom.
A long while later...
"The Dao of Phantom Genesis, in short, is the principle of 'survival of the fittest' evolved to its absolute extreme."
"It transforms everything unfavorable into something advantageous. In theory, it could even evolve a countermeasure for the Dao Annihilation."
"But that's just a theory. The premise is that it wouldn't be devoured by the Dao Annihilation before it could evolve that trait."
As Li Bueren pondered this, he suddenly thought of the Ink Death in the Xuanhuang Realm.
"Ink Death and the Dao Annihilation are inextricably linked."
"Perhaps it was some attempt by the experimental site to completely resolve the Dao Annihilation. However, the Dao Annihilation consumes all things; nothing related to it should exist in this world..."
Thinking again about why this Phantom Genesis Dao Shadow had come specifically to the Xuanhuang Realm, an idea dawned on him.
Li Bueren shifted his gaze, looking down at Source Dao Province below.
"The successful creation of Ink Death, the Spirit of Heaven and Earth, must have involved a slight infusion of the power of Phantom Genesis."
"This sliver of power didn't even vanish when the Nameless being of Phantom Genesis transcended. It remained within the Xuanhuang Realm."
"And so, it became the only trace of Phantom Genesis power in the Primal Possibility, aside from the Dao Shadow itself. It was because of this connection that the Dao Shadow was drawn here."
Li Bueren's thoughts raced as his Dao Net divine sense swept across the land of Source Dao Province, and deep beneath it.
Ever since that decade of his life was mysteriously devoured, Li Fan had never set foot in Source Dao Province again. Even after reaching the half-immortal realm and mastering the Carefree Dreamscape, he remained wary of the Grandmaster's presence and avoided the province.
Thus, this place was a complete blind spot for him.
Now, bolstered by the power of the Shou Qiu phantoms, the shadows of that blind spot were finally swept away.
Tens of thousands of meters beneath Source Dao Province.
There was an enigmatic space that seemed to exist independently of the Xuanhuang Realm.
A mass of ink, shaped like a heart, pulsed faintly.
Each beat was strangely disjointed.
It wasn't a continuous, fluid motion, but rather a series of staggered images, as if frames were being skipped.
The closer Li Bueren's divine sense got, the more a sense of familiarity washed over him.
This was a connection brought about by his main body having achieved the Dao through Ink Death, the Spirit of Heaven and Earth.
Li Bueren proceeded with extreme caution, not wishing to disturb it as he drew closer.
He already knew what this thing before him was.
"Although Ink Death is a Spirit of Heaven and Earth, it is not an intrinsic, original part of the Xuanhuang Realm."
"It was modified, created artificially."
"Unlike the other Spirits of Heaven and Earth, the law of Ink Death was never integrated into the Xuanhuang Realm itself."
"This region beneath Source Dao Province is the sole, independent source from which Ink Death is generated."
The inky shadow seemed extremely wary of foreign objects. Upon detecting Li Bueren, it immediately grew agitated.
In the series of intermittently changing images, the ink shadow churned violently.
Li Bueren had a feeling that if he got any closer, he would be attacked.
Though he was not afraid, it might hinder his subsequent investigation into the origins of Ink Death.
Thus, Li Bueren decisively halted his advance.
"This is a matter for my main body."
Li Bueren abruptly pulled back, continuing his standoff with the Grandmaster.
Meanwhile, Li Fan's main body gathered the power of the Ink Death celestial soul within him and manifested an avatar from it.
It plunged downward, straight into the depths beneath Source Dao Province.
In an instant, it had arrived at the place Li Bueren had previously scouted, laying eyes on the inky, heart-like shadow.
Compared to its wariness of Li Bueren, the shadow clearly treated Li Fan as "one of its own."
It probably assumed he was just the Ink Death Spirit of Heaven and Earth, returning from a mission for the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao.
Even so, Li Fan could still feel countless faint, curious threads of awareness probing him.
They seemed to be questioning the "uniqueness" about him.
Although it had been elevated to a celestial soul, its essence was still the power of Ink Death.
Ultimately, Li Fan safely blended into the mass of ink.
He was observing it at an even closer range than he had the Phantom Genesis Shadow.
Li Fan was surrounded in all directions by endless ink, adrift in a dark ocean.
His heart was calm, devoid of joy or sorrow, as he simply observed.
"Hmm... The Dao of Ruin, originating from the Dao Annihilation."
"The power of change from the Phantom Genesis Dao Shadow."
"Besides these two, there is also..."
Like savoring a fine tea, Li Fan tasted the essence with meticulous care.
It was clearly another Dao path that had vanished from the current possibility.
However, though Li Fan had never encountered it before...
Because it was so strongly related to the Dao of Phantom Genesis, he had caught a fleeting glimpse of its shadow among the vanished Daos he had perceived earlier.
"If the Dao of Phantom Genesis is the evolution of 'change' to its extreme..."
"Then this Dao is its opposite."
"Eternal order..."
Li Fan stared intently at the center of the churning sea of ink.
As a creation capable of annihilating and devouring everything, what was it that maintained Ink Death's own existence?
Amidst the entanglement of destructive and adaptive powers, it was precisely because there was a force of eternal immutability acting as a connecting thread that 'Ink Death' could exist in this world.
"Change. And permanence."
"Two completely opposite, contradictory forces, brought together."
"To bind the destructive source that originates from the Dao Annihilation."
A flash of astonishment crossed Li Fan's eyes. "Phantom Genesis and Eternal Order."
"These two Daos are no less profound than the Primal. They once collaborated on an experiment..."
Eternal Order served as the foundation of existence, while Phantom Genesis supported its evolution.
After an unknown period of evolution within this inky shadow, the Ink Death of today was born.
If this experimental site were still in its normal state, perhaps Ink Death could have become even more miraculous, closer to the goal its creators intended.
But the experimental site had long been abandoned for unknown reasons. Furthermore, due to various circumstances, the Xuanhuang Realm, which served as the cradle for Ink Death's evolution, had been in a state of self-preservation for many years.
It simply couldn't support the next stage of Ink Death's evolution.
Only when Li Fan, in his previous life, pushed the Xuanhuang Realm to ascend, did he introduce a new variable into this long-stagnant experiment.
After a period of observation and hesitation, the ink surrounding Li Fan seemed to recognize the "advanced" nature of his power. It began to boil, attempting to spontaneously emulate him.
It wanted to become like him.
But this change was the result of elevating an entire world. How could the surrounding ink replicate it so easily?
Like a crowd of clamoring children, they thrashed about endlessly but could never grasp the method.
Observing this scene, Li Fan had a sudden insight.
"The accumulation is sufficient."
"All that's lacking is energy."
And that was something Li Fan had in abundance.
With a subtle shift of his will, a vast amount of feedback power from elevating the Xuanhuang Realm in his past life was channeled through his Ink Death avatar and infused into the mass of ink.
From an external perspective, the ink mass remained unchanged in shape and size.
But only Li Fan, who was inside, could clearly see the earth-shattering transformation taking place within.
It was directly skipping the intermediate process of the Xuanhuang Realm's ascension.
Now that Li Fan had shown them the final result, they could imitate it directly!
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