Chapter 1483: Realizing the Nature of the Infinite
The slash of [Truth] left behind an unnerving silence.
The Tiandu Grandmaster seemed frozen in time, his expression locked in place. He never had the chance to cry out the words "Save me." His entire form was veiled in a layer of gray, its vibrancy fading away.
Li Fan's clone, "Li Buren," did not let down his guard; the Grandmaster's life signs hadn't vanished completely. After a long moment of observation, however, he finally determined that the being was no longer capable of movement.
His spirituality whittled down to almost nothing, the Grandmaster hadn't died. Instead, he had transformed into something akin to a stone statue.
The space surrounding the statue remained a forbidden zone for all Great Daos.
The effect of "Dao dispersion" was no less potent than when the Grandmaster was conscious. The only difference was that it no longer targeted anyone specifically, instead radiating its properties naturally into the surroundings. This allowed Li Buren to just barely keep his form from dissolving.
He stared at the statue, observing it intently. After a long while, he finally began to understand its nature.
"It seems the Grandmaster wasn't lying," he mused.
"He truly is deeply connected to the Primordial Infinite that existed before creation. He might even be a direct manifestation of a Great Dao, much like the [Primordial Dao Form] of the Beast Race."
Recalling the Grandmaster's earlier words and his surprisingly naive demeanor despite living for eons, Li Buren surmised that the Grandmaster's manifestation probably hadn't been achieved on his own.
He must have been guided by someone else.
"After the Primordial Infinite, heaven and earth were born. The Grandmaster's connection to the [Infinite] is undoubtedly real. The only beings qualified to guide such a primordial entity would be the four Sage Lords of the Immortal Realm."
"Lian Shan, the Connecting Mountains Saint; Gui Hai, the Returning to Sea Saint..."
"The four Sage Lords can be traced back to the very dawn of the Immortal Realm. They even created the entire immortal cultivation system. The Grandmaster, being a remnant of the Dao of the Infinite left over after the world's creation, must have been discovered and guided into a sentient form by them."
As Li Buren pondered, he slowly pieced together the Grandmaster's history.
"The Infinite," he murmured, contemplating the strange power surging from the statue before him.
If the Sage Lords had granted the Grandmaster life, then Li Fan had just stripped that "life" away, slash by slash.
He had returned him to his original, primal state.
Devoid of desire and thought, he was now nothing but pure [Infinity].
The Infinite and the world born from the Great Daos were fundamentally incompatible. When the Grandmaster was conscious, he could restrain his power, but now that his consciousness was gone, the force of the Infinite was unchained. It began to steadily expand into its surroundings.
It was an inexorable process.
Like the birth and death, the ebb and flow of the Dao, it was part of the fundamental "fate" of the world's Great Daos—an unstoppable force of nature.
"If I let this spread," Li Fan thought, "the [Primal Possibility] will begin to unravel, returning to earth, fire, water, and wind, with the Xuanhuang Realm at its epicenter."
"But this kind of destruction is vastly different from the Dao Annihilation Calamity. This is a natural evolution of the world, a unique cosmic cycle. Even if everything returns to the Infinite, in some distant future, the world will be born anew. But to be consumed by the Dao Annihilation Calamity..."
"...is to face eternal oblivion."
Instead of being forced back by the power of the Infinite, Li Buren drew upon more of the power of Shou Qiu's phantom, doing his utmost to contain its spread.
Dealing with the Grandmaster had been troublesome, but since he had guessed that Li Fan possessed [Truth], letting him live was out of the question.
Moreover, in his final moments, the Grandmaster had already begun to cry for help.
Had he managed to call out to his last surviving Sage Lord "uncle," even with the protection of Shou Qiu's phantom, Li Fan would have been forced to make a desperate retreat via [Truth].
"This turn of events is entirely because I underestimated the Grandmaster's origins. But I wasn't being careless—who could have imagined that the Tiandu Grandmaster, who fought the Xuantian King to a standstill, would have such an extraordinary background? Not only connected to the Immortal Realm, but a primordial being..." Li Fan's true self ordered the clone, Li Buren, to stand guard over the petrified Grandmaster. Meanwhile, he observed and comprehended the [Infinite] through his clone's eyes, a sense of wonder filling him.
Even after taking down a being whose origins and background were arguably unparalleled in the entire [Primal Possibility], Li Fan felt not a flicker of apprehension.
Having truly grasped the power of [Truth], and understanding that he was useful to it—and that it would likely intervene to save him in a critical moment—he no longer felt the same fear, not even for the four Sage Lords of the Immortal Realm.
"The state of the Infinite before the world's birth is still contained within the concept of 'possibility.' [Truth], with a single thought, can construct possibilities from nothingness. It can even return to a point in time before the universe began..."
"This means that even the [Infinite] falls under the domain of the True-False Transformation."
The [Infinite] repelled all worldly Daos, but for an existence that transcended the mortal plane, this repulsive property was significantly diminished.
With the aid of Shou Qiu's phantom, Li Buren could just barely hold his ground and contain it.
But Li Fan, empowered by [Truth], could do more: he could comprehend it. He could even make its power his own.
This was the conclusion Li Fan reached after a long period of observing the petrified Grandmaster.
"I can use the True-False Transformation to simulate the [Infinite]."
Perhaps because he had been steeped in the countless memories of the mortal world during the thought-storms of [Truth], Li Fan felt his own powers of comprehension had grown substantially.
Even the [Infinite] felt strangely familiar to him, as if he had encountered it before. This wasn't a familiarity with the Grandmaster, of course.
It was as if Li Fan himself had become a primordial being who, from an outsider's perspective, had witnessed the [Infinite] before the world was ever born.
This inherent advantage allowed him to master the basics of wielding the Infinite's power with a terrifying speed that defied all logic.
Or rather, to "simulate" it.
A speck of gray light materialized at Li Fan's fingertip.
The stable Great Daos of the world instantly fell into disarray. Wherever the gray light touched, the Daos recoiled, leaving behind an absolute void inhabited only by that single point of gray.
The effect lasted for a mere three breaths, yet it consumed the entire power of one of his Xuanhuang Realm phantoms. This rapid energy drain caused a momentary stagnation in his power flow, a clear sign that Li Fan himself did not possess the trait of "infinity."
He only tested the power briefly before quickly dispersing the gray light at his fingertip.
Along with the immense energy consumption came an overwhelming mental exhaustion.
It far surpassed the fatigue from using [Fantasy Becomes Truth] to create the Transformation Dao Stone Mother; in those few moments, Li Fan felt as if he had lived through several cycles of reincarnation.
"It seems I can't afford to forcefully simulate this power too often for now."
"But in a critical moment, it will be an unparalleled tool for survival."
"As long as my opponent hasn't transcended to the level of the Mountain and Sea, as long as they are still bound by the system of the Great Dao, I can largely ignore them..."
"No matter how high their cultivation, the result will be the same. This is the fundamental suppression of the primordial over the created."
Witnessing the power as a bystander was one thing; wielding it personally was an entirely different experience.
Though Li Fan had seemingly dispatched the Grandmaster's consciousness with ease, making the Sage Lord's acolyte appear pitifully weak...
...it was only now, having grasped a measure of the [Infinite]'s power himself, that Li Fan truly understood how formidable it was.
"It's an attack that all but ignores cultivation level."
"No wonder the Grandmaster always seemed so aloof. Even after eons, he had little cunning. Shielded by the power of the Infinite, he was untouched by most of the world's affairs. He had no need for schemes or deep thought. In a way, his innate power... was a kind of restraint."
"Perhaps he really is best suited to being an acolyte in the service of some great personage."
At this thought, Li Fan's eyes narrowed. An idea began to form.
It was only a preliminary concept, however.
He would have to wait for future lives to put it into practice.
With his true self's assistance, Li Buren managed to just barely contain the spreading power of the Infinite.
The cost, however, was having to divert a small portion of his power to the task.
The surplus power gained from suppressing the Hunger Immortal was nearly halved as a result.
Still, Li Fan considered it an absolutely worthwhile trade.
Leaving aside the power of the Infinite he had gleaned, the information the Grandmaster had revealed was itself of immense value to Li Fan.
The details about the Sage Lords of the Immortal Realm were one thing.
What concerned Li Fan most was the hint that the treasure, [Truth], was known even at the dawn of the Immortal Realm.
"The more ancient the being, the more likely they are to know the truth about [Truth]. The elaborate lies I've constructed to hide its existence would be meaningless before such entities. They'd see through me in an instant..."
For now, Li Fan had no counter-strategy. But simply knowing this fact meant he wouldn't be caught completely off guard.
Once freed from the Grandmaster's body, the thousands of Dao aspects reconnected with the world. The parts that had dissipated were replenished.
Countless different faces of Dao Annihilation, like a teeming crowd of mortals, lay hidden within the vast black aura of the Ink Death immortal soul.
In Shuo Xinghai, Li Fan had acquired a body tempering technique called the [Great Dao Befalling Body Art].
The technique involved embodying the Great Dao itself; in theory, one who mastered it would become a microcosm of the entire world.
But for a mortal body to bear the weight of the Great Dao required an unimaginable amount of tempering.
"In comparison, it's far easier for the Ink Death immortal soul to devour and accommodate different Dao principles."
"Perhaps I can first acclimate a physical body to the properties of Ink Death."
Feeling the Ink Death within him, which now seemed to possess a flicker of "life," Li Fan found his mind racing with possibilities.
Naturally, he wouldn't rashly experiment on himself.
Instead, he once again tasked Li Buren with the experiment.
Li Buren's physical body had been destroyed, leaving only the projected form of the Dao Net. It was the perfect test subject for the transformed Ink Death immortal soul.
Li Fan flicked a drop of his essence blood over to Li Buren.
After the clone absorbed the blood, flesh began to squirm and knit together within the silvery light of the Dao Net.
Just like that, Li Buren's "physical body" was crudely brought into being.
With no rare materials or treasures added to its creation, this fleshly vessel was exceptionally fragile.
But as a wisp of Ink Death's black aura was infused into it, the body immediately became something altogether different.
Before, with the pure power of the Ink Death immortal soul, even Li Fan, having integrated with it, couldn't have fused such a destructive force with a body of flesh and blood.
But now, Ink Death was no longer pure annihilation. It had integrated a multitude of the world's Dao paths.
The first to be tested was the most fundamental Dao of the Five Elements.
Five wisps of black aura, similar yet distinct, swirled and merged continuously.
Li Fan was all too familiar with the process of integrating the Five Elements into a body, so he smoothly transplanted the black vortex into Li Buren.
The fragile body, true to Ink Death's destructive nature, began to slowly dissipate. In the blink of an eye, it was riddled with holes, tattered and broken.
It was a horrifying sight.
Yet a small portion of it held on, sustained by the Five Elements properties within the Ink Death aura. Using this as a foundation, it slowly began to regenerate the body, making it whole once more.
Li Buren flexed his new limbs, conducting various tests.
Several hours later, he reached a conclusion.
This newly forged body not only possessed an exceptionally high capacity for bearing the laws of the Great Dao, but it also had a remarkable resistance to Dao Annihilation.
When Li Fan forcefully drew upon the entirety of Shou Qiu's phantom power, leaving only the Ancestral Bone and the Hunger Immortal's pillar to struggle on their own...
...the instinctive fear Li Buren felt in the face of the impending, overwhelming Dao Annihilation Calamity was far less intense than before.
"It's like being caught in a world-ending flood, but at least now I can swim. I'll still be swallowed eventually, but now I can hold on for a little longer," Li Fan thought, pleased.
To survive the Dao Annihilation Calamity was a feat only transcendent experts could achieve.
And yet, by relying on the "Ink Death immortal soul," Li Fan had found a roundabout way to achieve nearly the same effect.
More importantly, Li Buren's current body had only integrated the Five-Element aspect of the Ink Death power.
In the future, once he had integrated all the myriad Great Daos into his body...
...perhaps he could face the tide of Dao Annihilation without flinching.
But that was destined to be a long and arduous process.
For now, Li Fan left this grueling task to Li Buren.
He intended to resolve all the hidden dangers of the Xuanhuang Realm in one decisive push.
A silver radiance spread over Li Fan's body like a cloak, forming a protective barrier around him.
This silver light was the power of the Infinite.
This time, Li Fan's destination was the Gloomy Sea of Darkness, located deep within the Xuanhuang Realm.
The all-consuming darkness recoiled before the silvery radiance of the Infinite, keeping a wide berth.
Like a great sphere of light, he illuminated a region that had been shrouded in darkness since time immemorial.
Li Fan strolled through it as if taking a walk in his own courtyard.
The terror he had felt in previous cycles was completely absent.
He explored the shallower regions of the Gloomy Sea of Darkness but found nothing out of the ordinary.
Li Fan headed deeper, toward the place where the True Immortal's will to survive resided.
He had no need to break the restrictions left behind by the Xuantian King and the Dharma Spreader.
Bathed in the silver light, they simply dissolved on their own, offering no resistance whatsoever.
Once more, he beheld the vast "potential" that had been accumulating for tens of thousands of years in the depths of the Gloomy Sea of Darkness.
Confronted by the coalesced energy, which took on countless strange shapes like clouds in the sky, Li Fan couldn't help but pause.
He was now a demi-immortal; he no longer looked up at this congregation of power.
Instead, it was as if he stood on a mountain peak, gazing out at it as an equal.
"The reason immortals first became immortals... was because of the [Connecting Mountains]."
"Only with the mountain did the concept of the immortal come into being."
"The potential of the immortal..."
Looking at the mountain-like peaks before him, Li Fan could almost see the immortals of the bygone Immortal Realm.
"Return, O immortals!"
He extended his right hand and made a grasping motion.
In an instant, the Gloomy Sea of Darkness erupted into turmoil.
The gloomy power, accumulated over tens of thousands of years, surged toward Li Fan's palm like a tidal wave.
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