Chapter 1508: I am One with All Worlds
Chapter 1508: I am One with All Worlds
"An immortal from the Other Shore?" Li Fan's pupils contracted, and he instinctively leaned closer.
"Is it *the* Other Shore you mean?" he asked in a low voice.
"Yes, and no." Cheng Dao seemed to drift into his memories, his expression growing distant.
After a long while, he seemed to awaken, gently tapping the wisp of green smoke before Li Fan.
Within the curling green smoke, a multitude of images appeared.
These were Cheng Dao's memories from his time as a spirit stone on the edge of the Mountain and Sea.
"The legendary Other Shore is indeed a place all beings in the Immortal Realm yearn for. Even my master, after he transcended, went there. However, the words 'Other Shore' don't exclusively refer to that one sacred land."
"Any place that lies beyond the possibilities of a known realm can be called an Other Shore."
As Li Fan listened, he couldn't help but think of the previous Hunger Immortal, whose Dao aura had clearly originated from beyond the Primal Possibility.
"It seems," he mused, "that he was likely one of those coffin-bound immortals."
"Unable to cross between possibilities on their own power, they can only drift in these coffins. Their strength isn't at the level of transcendence, yet to be able to survive the tides of the Dao Annihilation and successfully reach another possibility... such power must be considered top-tier among the Nameless," Li Fan thought, his mind racing.
But a question quickly followed.
"This... what exactly are these immortal coffins? How can they shelter the Nameless from the corrosion of the Dao Annihilation? If one could gather enough of them, couldn't they build an unsinkable vessel that could float upon the tides of Dao Annihilation forever?" Li Fan asked aloud.
Cheng Dao chuckled dismissively. "There's no such thing as forever. That would be a stopgap measure at best. In reality, those coffins are the final, condensed remnants of the Great Dao from within a given possibility."
"They still can't stop the Dao Annihilation, but a special method of compression and condensation allows them to slow the rate of erosion as much as possible. It's unknown who first created this method, but it seems to be universal across all heavens. And it is indeed remarkably effective, buying the coffin-bound immortals a significant amount of time to drift."
"I remember Master once witnessed and salvaged one such coffin. Unfortunately, the Nameless inside had long since decayed and perished. Taking pity on their fate, Master smelted the remains and the coffin into a stubborn stone, similar to me, and cast it beyond the Mountain and Sea, hoping that one day, it might regain its life..."
Li Fan stared at the stubborn stone in Cheng Dao's memory, and for some reason, a feeling of familiarity washed over him.
Yet a search through his memories yielded no source for this feeling.
Not until Cheng Dao waved his hand, shattering the image. The stubborn stone dissolved into thousands of points of light, and Li Fan was suddenly jolted with realization.
Every tiny fragment that evolved from the stone looked exactly like a medicinal pill!
"The Medicine King Sect... the square stone?"
The Medicine King Scripture of Refining the Dao, passed down by Sun Piao Miao. It came from a giant square stone he used to sit on while concocting pills.
By any other means of identification, the square stone was nothing more than a simple, ordinary rock. Only by believing it to be a pill and then consuming it would one hear the faint, ethereal voice of the legacy.
This pattern—indistinguishable when whole, yet revealing the Dao when divided—was something Li Fan had only ever seen in Sun Piao Miao's legacy. Now, he was seeing it again in Cheng Dao's memory.
"Could it be that Sun Piao Miao was transformed from that stubborn stone?"
"Drifting through the Mountain and Sea for countless ages, even an immortal's body would decay. He certainly would have had the opportunity to glimpse the secrets of the Mountain and Sea."
"And..."
Li Fan then recalled something Sun Piao Miao had once said in Liu Ruchen's memories.
"Birth, old age, sickness, and death—this is the eternal principle of the Great Dao. Not even this starry sky can escape it. What chance do you have?"
Li Fan's thoughts sharpened. "Those are indeed the words of someone who has truly experienced the birth and death of a Dao. Moreover, the method of concentrating and folding True Immortal Scripts into chess pieces to form an immortal domain bears some resemblance to the concept of the immortal coffins."
"If he really is the reincarnation of a coffin-bound immortal..."
Cheng Dao, seemingly unaware of the turmoil in Li Fan's mind, dispersed the image of the stone and continued speaking about the coffin-bound immortals.
"You mentioned before that the Dao Sword and Dao Saber artifacts used by the Guangwu Xinghai came from another possibility. This shows they have the means to connect with other possibilities. While they might not be able to cross over themselves, they should at least be capable of salvaging and capturing things."
Cheng Dao smiled. "Junior Brother, it seems you've met a formidable foe this time. Are you afraid?"
Li Fan played along with a carefree laugh. "With you by my side, Senior Brother, I wouldn't fear a mere coffin-bound immortal. I'd dare to fight even a transcendent expert!"
Greatly pleased by Li Fan's bravado, Cheng Dao let his smile fade. "Confidence is good, but you must not be careless, Junior Brother. After all, for these coffin-bound immortals to survive the Dao Annihilation Calamity that destroyed their own possibilities, their strength must be anything but weak."
"Furthermore, the Guangwu Xinghai released that coffin in direct response to your method of subduing the Dao Sword and Dao Saber. I fear it wasn't just a randomly chosen coffin..."
"Speaking of which, Junior Brother, how exactly did you subdue that pair of blades? I'm afraid even I would have found it difficult," Cheng Dao asked suddenly, staring at Li Fan with a cheerful smile.
Li Fan was, of course, long prepared for this question.
Without a hint of hesitation, he took out the Dao Sword and Dao Saber and, right in front of Cheng Dao, unleashed his Myriad Forms Dao Net.
Cheng Dao was no stranger to this divine ability, as Li Fan had used it in their previous exchanges. But the next moment, a violet-black aura surged from the Dao Net, and Cheng Dao's expression changed.
"This Dao Sword and Dao Saber do indeed come from another possibility. Not even the Infinite Dao can move them in the slightest. But ultimately, they are still within the Mountain and Sea, not yet transcendent. The core of my Myriad Forms Dao Net, the soul of Ink Death, is a power akin to Dao Annihilation itself. It can naturally suppress them!" Li Fan declared with a proud look.
As he spoke, a spectral image of Ink Death's soul, wreathed in violet-black energy, floated out from the Myriad Forms Dao Net and stood before Cheng Dao.
Having been nurtured as a spirit stone on the border of the Mountain and Sea, Cheng Dao was naturally familiar with the aura of their convergence.
Upon seeing the phantom of Ink Death's soul, he instinctively stood up, a look of tension on his face.
"There is no need to worry, Senior Brother. This power is entirely under my control," Li Fan said calmly, retracting the soul of Ink Death.
"This... where did it come from?" A flicker of confusion and uncertainty crossed Cheng Dao's eyes.
Li Fan saw it clearly and thus did not lie. "Senior Brother, since you and I both hail from the Rotten Axe Dojo, you must be aware of the many strange wonders within this experimental space."
Seeing Cheng Dao nod slightly, Li Fan continued, "In the world I inhabit, there are beings known as the Spirits of Heaven and Earth. They are, for the most part, personifications of the world's laws."
"Ink Death is one of them. I stumbled upon its wondrous properties and found a way to tame it..."
Li Fan spun his tale, mixing truth with falsehood, narrating it smoothly.
The soul of Ink Death was one of Li Fan's most crucial secrets. To suddenly reveal it now was bound to shake even Cheng Dao.
The brilliance of this lie lay in the fact that the Myriad Forms Dao Net's ability to suppress the Dao Sword and Dao Saber had only developed *after* he had subdued them.
But no one except the master of Ink Death's soul could possibly know the inner details. What Cheng Dao saw with his own eyes was the Myriad Forms Dao Net, empowered by the soul of Ink Death, effortlessly suppressing the Dao Sword and Dao Saber.
Cheng Dao was filled with amazement. "Junior Brother, you are truly fortunate. If I'm not mistaken, this must have been one of the goals the Immortal Realm was trying to achieve with its experiments."
"The power of the Mountain and Sea's convergence."
"In the starry expanse where I gained sentience, there was a similar creation. It was the spring that fed the rushing stream..."
"But compared to your Ink Death, Junior Brother, it was inferior by more than a single measure." Though there was a hint of envy in his voice, it was only that. Having been enlightened by Shou Qiu, Cheng Dao had no thoughts of taking his junior brother's treasure for himself.
"By the way, Senior Brother, do you know why the Immortal Realm suddenly abandoned this experimental dojo? They didn't even care about Master's legacy. Based on my observations, they might have been close to finding a true solution to the Dao Annihilation," Li Fan said, his face a mask of confusion.
In his words, Li Fan did not reveal that he knew the experiment's original purpose was to capture a so-called "Salvation Supreme Treasure."
He merely guided the conversation toward the topic of resisting the Dao Annihilation Calamity.
Cheng Dao fell silent for a moment.
Suddenly, he looked at Li Fan, his expression strange. "How do you know they didn't?"
"Hm?" Li Fan was perplexed.
"This dojo was built by the Immortal Realm at great effort and expense. The possibility of it being suddenly abandoned doesn't exist."
"The fact that it is now empty perhaps means they achieved their goal."
"But the Immortal Realm was ultimately destroyed, and the Dao Annihilation Calamity still descended, didn't it?" Li Fan was stunned.
Cheng Dao sighed. "Junior Brother, you are a bit too naive. Even a man with a heart as vast as Master's had no intention of defending to the death, of resisting the Dao Annihilation to save a single realm. Otherwise, he wouldn't have departed so serenely just as the calamity's tide began to rise. What hope is there for others?"
"From beginning to end, what the immortals of the Immortal Realm—including the ruling Immortal Emperor—sought was a method to ensure the survival of the *majority* of True Immortals."
"If the Immortal Realm is gone, they can simply build another on the Upper Mountain."
"Ultimately, the Other Shore is the only place everyone truly believes can solve the calamity of the Mountain and Sea's convergence."
"Everything else..."
"...is irrelevant to the grand scheme."
Li Fan was stunned into silence by these words.
"Then what about the fall of the Immortal Realm, and all the True Immortals who perished like ants...?"
Cheng Dao smiled. "Those who died in the cataclysm were never part of the 'majority.' The ones who left—*they* were the true representatives of the Immortal Realm."
"As for the so-called three treasures of world evasion, they are nothing but the desperate self-rescue attempts of the abandoned."
...
Li Fan faintly felt that something was wrong with this line of reasoning.
"Then what about the Four Sage Lords of the Immortal Realm? Three of the four perished. Were they not part of the true Immortal Realm?"
Cheng Dao let out a soft sigh. "Lian Shan, Gui Hai, and Saint Tai Yi... those three Sage Lords chose not to live. Look at the Scripture Grave Great Saint, isn't he still alive and well? Do you think his power surpassed the other three?"
"Besides, their so-called 'deaths' may not have been true deaths at all."
"It was merely a selective abandonment."
Perhaps because Li Fan had revealed his secret of Ink Death's soul, earning his complete trust...
...Cheng Dao's explanation this time was exceptionally detailed.
Li Fan slowly recovered from his shock, mulling over the meaning behind Cheng Dao's words.
"Senior Brother, are you saying that the three Sage Lords—Lian Shan, Gui Hai, and Saint Tai Yi—who searched the breadth of the Mountain and Sea... were all just one person?"
"Perhaps not before. But ever since they opened up the Upper Mountain and connected to the Infinite Spring, that has been the case."
(End of Chapter)
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