Chapter 1517: The Remnant Will's Original Dao Boat
Beyond the mortal world, something seemed to meet Ziyi's gaze.
After a brief silence, a tempestuous wave erupted!
It was much like the great Mountain and Sea tide that had previously shattered the Shuo Xinghai, but its commotion was dozens of times greater.
It was as if Ziyi's profoundly indifferent expression had enraged the unknown existence within the Dao Annihilation. It vowed to unleash a cataclysmic surge to swallow the mortal world where Ziyi stood.
The Guangwu Xinghai teetered on the brink of collapse.
Even the celestial pillar of purple qi, formed from the union of countless immortals, could barely withstand the cataclysm. Li Fan suspected that if Ziyi were not standing there, the Guangwu Xinghai—and indeed, the entire lingering remnant of the Primal Possibility—would have been utterly annihilated by this power.
"Over there... what in the world is that? Could it be the so-called remains of a powerful being that the Guangwu Xinghai fished out of the Dao Annihilation?" Li Fan and Cheng Dao exchanged a look, each seeing the same shock and uncertainty in the other's eyes.
Yet Ziyi regarded this world-shaking spectacle as nothing remarkable. He seemed to have discovered something, for a faint, happy smile touched the corners of his lips.
"You two juniors, watch closely."
The next moment, the turbulence in the star sea abruptly ceased!
It wasn't that the source of the chaos had been subdued. Rather, at that very same moment, an even greater maelstrom had risen. Like an absolute monarch, it drew all the lesser tempests of the star sea into itself.
Li Fan scanned his surroundings. The starry sky was silent; Ziyi was nowhere to be found. The point where the tempests clashed was shockingly beyond the Primal Possibility itself!
A fine line, like a road to the heavens, suddenly appeared overhead.
Through this fissure, Li Fan felt as though he was in a trance, gazing upon a magnificent scene of boundless mountains and seas interconnected.
This distant observation was completely different from his experience of sneaking into the Infinite Sea through the Immortal Realm's Ascension Platform.
Within the Infinite Sea, the immense pressure from every drop of water—condensed from countless eons of time—had made it impossible for Li Fan to truly perceive its landscape. Later, even under the protection of [Fantasy Becomes Truth], as he roamed freely, he had only glimpsed endless fragments within the sea, never the Mountain and Sea itself.
Now, however, through the thread Ziyi had created, Li Fan was finally able to witness the spectacle of the Mountain and Sea as seen through the eyes of a Transcendent being.
It was merely a glimpse of a corner, yet it left Li Fan stunned and breathless.
Even after more than a hundred lifetimes of reincarnation, even possessing the supreme treasure [Truth], even having personally ventured into the Infinite Sea, Li Fan could not suppress the feeling of his own insignificance in the face of this continuous vista of mountains and seas.
"So this is it... the Infinite Sea and the Upper Mountain, beyond the mortal world?" Li Fan murmured to himself.
He couldn't even begin to comprehend anything from it. His entire mind was utterly captivated by the magnificent spectacle, a sight too grand for words, leaving no room for any other thought.
In contrast to Li Fan, however, a strange phenomenon was manifesting around Cheng Dao. His body radiated a crystalline white light, and behind him, the faint phantom of a stubborn rock appeared. Cheng Dao gazed up at the sky, as if he had returned to the time when he was a mound keeper watching over the sea.
Mysterious and profound fluctuations emanated from the spirit stone born by the edge of the Mountain and Sea, seeming to resonate with the vista beyond the celestial curtain.
These fluctuations jolted Li Fan from his state of awe.
After carefully savoring them, a bitter feeling arose in his heart. "We're both witnessing the same corner of the Mountain and Sea, yet I can't grasp anything from it while Cheng Dao is having one epiphany after another. The gap between us..."
Li Fan's mind was clear now, but his thoughts remained a blank slate after gazing upon the Mountain and Sea. The chasm between himself and that realm was simply too vast. For an ant to behold the Mountain and Sea was no different from not seeing it at all.
Had it been a lesser Dao of the mortal world, he would never have had such a reaction.
"It seems that with my current level of cultivation, traversing the mortal realms is no great issue. But to cross the Mountain and Sea... I still have a long way to go."
"Fortunately, my senior brother here isn't stingy. He doesn't intend to keep his insights to himself," Li Fan mused, observing the waves of enlightenment radiating from Cheng Dao.
At this moment, the spirit stone from the edge of the Mountain and Sea was like a mirror, reflecting the spectacle that Li Fan was incapable of perceiving directly, allowing him to comprehend the Dao through it.
After the thread tore through the celestial curtain and the true form of the Mountain and Sea was revealed, the great commotion from the Dao Annihilation paradoxically vanished.
While comprehending the Dao, Li Fan tried to search for the figures of Ziyi and his opponent amidst the Mountain and Sea.
But given the boundless, infinite nature of the Mountain and Sea, even a being as powerful as Ziyi would be no different from an ant once plunged within its depths, his trail impossible to find.
"He told us two juniors to watch closely..."
"Watch what, exactly?"
"Is it just this vision of the Mountain and Sea?"
Li Fan had a premonition that there was more to it.
But alas, his power was insufficient; he could not see what Ziyi wanted him to see.
Cheng Dao, on the other hand, seemed to have discovered something, and the waves of enlightenment emanating from him grew increasingly intense.
"Junior Brother, focus your will here!"
The deep bond Li Fan had painstakingly cultivated with Cheng Dao over this period proved its worth at the critical moment.
Ultimately unwilling to let his junior brother miss this grand opportunity, Cheng Dao, though immersed in his own enlightenment, still spoke out to guide him.
Overjoyed, Li Fan looked in the direction Cheng Dao indicated.
In an instant, his vision seemed to pass through the fine line in the celestial curtain, leaping beyond the mortal world and arriving within the Mountain and Sea.
He could vaguely make out Ziyi's indistinct figure standing there.
Before Ziyi was an oblate spheroid, formed by countless fine threads radiating from its front and rear, converging at its center.
A power identical to that of the road to the heavens enveloped both Ziyi and the spheroid. The threads on the sphere strained to break free and scatter, but Ziyi held them firmly in check.
He could faintly discern the spheroid's former human shape, but it had now decayed, dissolving into countless strands of thread.
"The remains of a being who crossed the Mountain and Sea..."
What caught Li Fan's attention was not the struggle between the two.
It was what gradually became visible inside the remains as they were suppressed and broken down.
In the approximate location of its original head, a multitude of fleeting images and shadows slowly came into view.
To Li Fan's utter astonishment, the light and shadows hidden within the brain of these powerful remains were a complete image of the Mountain and Sea!
Even though its body had decayed and its soul had dispersed, this image of the Mountain and Sea remained intact.
"Perhaps this is the fundamental reason why the remains could drift through the Mountain and Sea," Li Fan realized.
But then, a scene he glimpsed within this miniature Mountain and Sea vista shook him to his core once more.
The Mountain and Sea within the remains' mind seemed no different from the one Li Fan was currently witnessing.
But upon closer inspection, he could see a solitary sail, suspended in the void, crossing between the mountains and the seas!
Even the endless, ancient, and vast will of the Mountain and Sea had only caused the solitary sail to fade slightly; it had not consumed it entirely.
Li Fan understood in a flash. "It's not the image of the Mountain and Sea that granted the remains their immortality. It's this solitary sail!"
"This is..."
"The Transcendent Dao of the being before its death?!"
Li Fan stared intently at the solitary sail within the Mountain and Sea, and for some reason, a sense of familiarity surfaced in his mind.
At the same time, [Truth], which had long been dormant, finally sent out the faintest wisps of an intentional fluctuation, further convincing Li Fan of his judgment.
"An Eternal Remnant Will?!"
Li Fan's heart hammered in his chest.
To be more precise, that solitary sail crossing the Mountain and Sea was perhaps, in its most fundamental nature, the same as the various forms of eternity Li Fan had encountered before.
But without a doubt, it was far, far more powerful than any he had previously absorbed. Even if it ultimately failed to cross the Mountain and Sea, the fact that it could protect the remains for millions of years within the great tide of the converging Mountain and Sea was proof enough of its extraordinariness.
In comparison, the remnant wills of figures like Tianyang and Su Bai seemed almost trivial.
"But their essence is the same."
"It's not just a simple projection of the Great Dao, but a resonance of one's own will. This is the most fundamental support for crossing the Mountain and Sea..."
"The Mountain and Sea are boundless; only I can be the vessel!"
Ziyi's earlier words reappeared in Li Fan's mind at the perfect moment, like a bolt of lightning that split the fog and illuminated the answer.
"If Tianyang had been fortunate enough to reach the realm of Transcendence, his method of crossing would have been to use 'Being Second to None' as his vessel. If it were Su Bai, it would have been a bitter crossing on the Dao of 'Compassion and True Love.'"
"In short, these cultivators who can condense an [Eternal Remnant Will] after death have, in fact, already taken half a step onto their own unique path. They are the seeds of Transcendent beings! This path has nothing to do with one's cultivation realm; it seems to be related only to one's own heart and will."
"But to achieve Transcendence, one's own path and one's cultivation realm are both indispensable!"
"If your cultivation is sufficient but you cannot form a vessel, you can only gaze at the ocean and sigh. And even if you have formed a crossing vessel, if your own strength is lacking, entering the Mountain and Sea rashly is a path to certain death."
Li Fan's heart trembled.
This was truly a great opportunity.
Using the remains of this powerful being, Ziyi had all but illuminated the path to Transcendence for both Cheng Dao and Li Fan.
Perhaps Li Fan could have eventually unraveled this mystery on his own through countless attempts with [Truth], but Ziyi's guidance had undoubtedly saved him several lifetimes' worth of reincarnations!
"The Dao of crossing the Mountain and Sea. No wonder even [Truth] sends out waves of desire every time it encounters one."
"Does [Truth] absorb these to simulate and deduce a way to contend with the Mountain and Sea?" A bold thought surfaced in Li Fan's mind.
As if sensing Ziyi's presence nearby, [Truth] fell silent again soon after emitting those faint fluctuations, offering no response to Li Fan's speculation.
Beyond the mortal world, Ziyi had extracted all the threads from around the solitary sail. However, he did not absorb them himself, but cast them into the Mountain and Sea.
Without the support of the transcendent remnant will, these threads were like ice dropped into water; they were swallowed by the Mountain and Sea without so much as a ripple.
And Ziyi, who had maintained the demeanor of a Transcendent being ever since his appearance, now faced the solitary sail with an extremely rare look of solemnity, mingled with a trace of sincere admiration.
The slightly yellowed solitary sail, as if sensing Ziyi's intent, responded by emitting waves of seven-colored mystic light.
Within the Mountain and Sea, Ziyi once again displayed his heaven-piercing Dao. A fine thread instantly took shape, spanning the mountains and seas, reaching toward an unknown shore.
The solitary sail, shrouded in seven-colored light, set off along this path.
Ziyi watched the solitary sail depart. Only when it had vanished completely from his sight did he retract the heaven-piercing Dao.
Maintaining the existence of this passage within the Mountain and Sea was clearly a considerable burden even for Ziyi. His magnificent robes fluttered as if caught in a wind. It was only when the blood-red mole between his brows, like a radiant pearl, pulsed with red light that he stabilized.
After dealing with the solitary sail, Ziyi did not return from the Mountain and Sea.
Before the heaven-piercing thread closed, his voice traveled from afar: "My business here is finished. I will extend this crossing path for you for three days. Make the most of it."
Then, as abruptly as he had arrived, he vanished without a trace.
As for the countless purple talismans of True Immortals still drifting in the Guangwu Xinghai, he paid their fate no mind at all.
He left only Li Fan and Cheng Dao, still yet to recover from the shock, standing silently in the starry sky.
A long time passed.
Only when the fine thread beyond the celestial curtain began to fade and the vision of the Mountain and Sea disappeared with it did Cheng Dao reluctantly avert his gaze.
As the fluctuations of his enlightenment ceased, Li Fan's clever method of observation by reflection also became ineffective.
"Senior Brother, where do you think that solitary sail's final destination was...?"
"The Other Shore?" Li Fan asked softly, replaying the recent events in his mind.
Cheng Dao's expression was grave, and he remained silent for a long while.
Finally, however, he nodded. "It must be."
"That solitary sail seemed to be the true will of crossing the Mountain and Sea, condensed by the being before its death. I just don't know why that senior in purple went to such great lengths to guide it to the Other Shore."
Li Fan could only sigh. "I never thought that simply taking the Dao Sword and Dao Saber back then would trigger such a long chain of events."
"Junior Brother, there's no need to blame yourself. This is fate. If not for your casual act, how could you and I have received such a great fortune?"
The fortune Cheng Dao spoke of referred not only to the path to Transcendence that Ziyi had pointed out.
But also to the Guangwu Xinghai, which Ziyi had swept clean.
Cheng Dao surveyed the vast ruins. "That purple celestial pillar should not be touched rashly. As for the other purple talismans of the True Immortals, there's no harm in taking them."
"But we must be quick. The three days mentioned by the senior in purple may not be the same as our concept of three days."
It had to be said, Cheng Dao's intuition was remarkably sharp.
After only a single day, the crossing path connecting the Shuo Xinghai and the Guangwu Xinghai had already faded and vanished.
Fortunately, Li Fan and Cheng Dao, having scavenged nearly everything they could, felt no need to linger and had already returned to the Shuo Xinghai one step ahead.
Watching the passage disappear and the dark, starless void of the Dao Annihilation reappear, the two felt as if they had just woken from a dream.
"Thanks to our Master's protection, otherwise our fate would likely have been no better than that of these True Immortals-turned-characters," Cheng Dao said in a low, somber voice.
Li Fan deeply agreed, nodding to himself.
Then, the two laid out their haul from this venture, arranging it in a line across the starry void.
The fused form of the thirteen alien Daos, and the characters transformed from the True Immortals of the Guangwu Xinghai. A total of three hundred and seventy-five sheets.
One supreme treasure: a Dao Chronicle Projection Pearl.
As for the various other scattered immortal treasures, they were not worth mentioning.
"With so many materials in hand, our little corner of the cosmos should be safe for a while," Li Fan spoke first.
His gaze, however, remained fixed on the Dao Chronicle Projection Pearl.
Ever since Ziyi's departure, this supreme treasure, which had been compressed into a single, infinitesimal point of light, was now showing signs of expanding outward once more.
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