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Chapter 1551: Folding Paper, Splitting Immortals

Chapter 1551: Folding Paper, Splitting Immortals

Xuanyuan Tuo had initially believed the man before him to be a True Immortal of this age, simply because in his worldview, "True Immortal" was the title for the most powerful beings in existence. But Li Fan had just pulled back the curtain on a world far more vast and magnificent than he could have ever imagined.

In this new reality, True Immortals were no more than ants. There were beings who had transcended, those who could swim against the river of time, and even some who could stand as equals to the Mountain and Sea itself.

The revelations left Xuanyuan Tuo utterly dazzled, his mind reeling and his spirit shaken to its core.

Fortunately, Xuanyuan Tuo was no ordinary man. For anyone else, such a brutal infusion of reality-shattering concepts, revealing the immense chasm between his world and the truth, might have crushed their spirit, leaving them unable to ever recover.

Struggling to steady his thoughts, he pulled himself away from the overwhelming flood of information. "What was the purpose of Ancestor Xuanyuan's mystic message?" he asked, his tone now somewhat reserved. "For the ancestor to cross the Mountain and Sea just to reach us, his descendants, it must concern something of supreme importance..."

Only moments ago, Xuanyuan Tuo had been meticulously plotting how to exploit a period of negligence from the Ten Great Immortal Sects of the Xuanhuang Realm to expand the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance. But now, having glimpsed the true nature of the world...

...Xuanyuan Tuo found that all his ambitions within the Xuanhuang Realm had turned to ash in his mouth.

It was a classic case of "what good is the fur if the hide is gone?" If the entire mortal world was doomed to annihilation, then everything he had ever striven for in the Xuanhuang Realm would be utterly meaningless.

Li Fan observed the shifting expressions on Xuanyuan Tuo's face and nodded to himself. "You're not wrong," he said. "Xuanyuan Hong's only concern was the continued existence of all life within the Mountain and Sea. The reason he sent this message was undoubtedly tied to that very cause. What he never anticipated were the drastic changes that would sweep through the Xuanhuang Realm after his departure—changes so profound that even his own descendants would find it a luxury to simply comprehend his words." RA:nOBes

His words left Xuanyuan Tuo feeling a pang of shame. "Even with your guidance, Senior, now that I am aware of the truth... I'm afraid my power is far too insignificant," he couldn't help but admit. "As much as I wish to follow in my ancestor's footsteps, I am powerless to do so."

Li Fan waved a dismissive hand, cutting him off with an air of absolute confidence. "With me here, what is there to fear?"

Xuanyuan Tuo couldn't help but feel a surge of hopeful surprise at this. However, Li Fan's next words sent a chill down his spine.

"But you are indeed too weak right now—not only in your cultivation but also in your temperament. You are sorely lacking and must be thoroughly tempered. Otherwise, even if you could traverse the river of time, you would be unfit for any great responsibility and useless as an aide to Xuanyuan Hong."

"Your instruction is wise," Xuanyuan Tuo replied, his expression wavering for a moment as if he wanted to say more. In the end, however, he held his tongue and simply let the words hang in the air.

Li Fan went on, "The Ten Sects seized the Xuanhuang Realm from Xuanyuan Hong's grasp. Your first task is to follow your ancestor's example and sweep them from this world. If you cannot even pass this first trial, any loftier ambitions you might harbor will be nothing but a fool's errand, leading only to your death."

Xuanyuan Tuo's expression grew solemn. "I will not fail your command."

But Li Fan corrected him. "You must understand one thing: this is your task, not mine. It has nothing to do with me. Naturally, you are free to prove yourself through other means. I will not force your hand. The ultimate goal is for you to forge a path of power, just as Xuanyuan did in his time. You are but a mere Dao Integration cultivator now. Where you go from here—that is entirely up to you."

A flicker of understanding crossed Xuanyuan Tuo's face.

He recalled the legends he had heard of Xuanyuan Hong, and the passion for his mission in the Xuanhuang Realm ignited within him once more.

"The Ten Great Immortal Sects..." he muttered, a cold glint flashing in his eyes.

"Xuanyuan Hong's mystic sound is more than a simple message," Li Fan declared. "It has the power to interfere with the future from the past, to alter reality from illusion. Watch closely!"

As Li Fan spoke these words, a wave of dizziness washed over Xuanyuan Tuo.

A moment later, he was stunned to find that his own memories had subtly shifted.

Those last words—Li Fan had spoken them the very moment he first appeared.

At the time, he had naturally been confused.

Only now, as the timeline formed a closed loop, did the full realization strike him.

"Is this... the ancestor's divine power?"

Xuanyuan Tuo's mind reeled. Compared to this mystic sound that could reverse time itself, all the so-called 'new methods' he had created seemed like nothing more than child's play.

"The Great Dao is about mastery, not multiplicity. If you can grasp the mysteries of this mystic sound, sweeping away the Ten Sects will be as simple as snapping your fingers." Li Fan's form began to fade, leaving behind only a thin plate hovering in the air.

"Once your task is done," his voice echoed, "hold this [Supreme Dao Scripture] and call my name in your heart. I will appear."

The voice faded into silence. Holding the plate, Xuanyuan Tuo saw before him the vision of a magnificent, brilliant cosmos—the starry sky of the Great Dao.

"The Supreme Dao Scripture," he murmured. "It seems..."

Xuanyuan Tuo's eyes narrowed as he connected this to the rumors he had heard about the True Immortal of the Xuanhuang Realm.

"So it was true after all. I was always puzzled by the emergence of that so-called True Immortal. Now I see. With the aid of a being like him, even achieving the rank of True Immortal is a simple matter."

His own future now seemed boundless, filled with promise. Xuanyuan Tuo's mind was already racing, plotting how he would bring the Ten Sects to their knees.

Suddenly, a thought struck him. His expression shifted as he stared at the spot where Li Fan had vanished.

"My Heavenly Profound Mirror..."

Clutching the Supreme Dao Scripture, Xuanyuan Tuo's face went through several shades of conflict. In the end, he couldn't muster the courage to summon Li Fan and demand the return of his Heavenly Profound Mirror.

"So be it," he sighed. "It is, after all, only an immortal artifact. True power must come from within—that is the only proper path." He took a deep breath, trying to calm the turmoil in his heart.

Little did Xuanyuan Tuo know that at this very moment, the spirit of the Heavenly Profound Mirror, Jing Xuan, was crying out in terror, "Great Immortal, spare my life!"

Jing Xuan had thought that losing all the progress he had accumulated while descending from an immortal to a mortal state was the height of misfortune. But now, in Li Fan's grasp, he realized his suffering had only just begun.

His captor seemed to know the Heavenly Profound Mirror better than he, its own spirit, did. The internal restrictions were utterly useless, bypassed in an instant as Li Fan plunged directly into its core. And there, a new figure materialized before Jing Xuan's eyes—a being that looked almost identical to himself, yet lacked that vital spark of life.

In that same instant, Jing Xuan understood Li Fan's intent with chilling clarity. He was creating a new artifact spirit to replace him!

A sense of crisis more intense than any he had ever known washed over him. He knew his time was running out. Once this new spirit was fully formed, destruction would be his only fate.

Before that could happen, he had to prove his worth—a unique value that this newborn spirit could never offer!

Jing Xuan's thoughts raced. Recalling that the great immortal had sought out Xuanyuan Tuo, he instantly knew what he had to do.

"Spare my life, Great Immortal!" he pleaded. "I can help you find the former companion of the Xuantian King!"

He sensed the creation process of the new spirit pause, and he let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief.

Li Fan's cold voice echoed within the mirror. "Why his companion, and not Xuanyuan Hong himself?"

Jing Xuan scrambled to explain. "The Xuantian King's departure was far too abrupt. I truly do not know his whereabouts. His companion, however..."

"Before she left, she used a divine power to split off a part of me, creating another, identical mirror artifact. She named it the 'Xuantian Mirror' and renamed me the 'Tianxuan Mirror.'"

Jing Xuan's tone was laced with resentment. "Although they have long since departed for some unknown destination, I can still use our connection to faintly sense their location in the void."

"I can feel it... the other me has grown far stronger than I. If I was once a dim star, she is now a brilliant moon. The sheer disparity terrified me, which is why I hastened my own descent from an immortal state. I knew that if I fully shed my immortal nature, we would no longer be a single entity, and I would lose any chance of ever competing with her again."

It seemed Jing Xuan's resentment for his other half surpassed even his fear of Li Fan. As he spoke, he descended into a nearly obsessive state, his words tumbling out in an unending stream.

Li Fan had not expected that the mirror spirit could track Xuanyuan Hong's childhood sweetheart.

He halted the process of creating the new spirit for the time being, instead turning his full attention to observing the Heavenly Profound Mirror as it existed in this specific node of time.

The traces were incredibly faint, but as Li Fan examined it with profound focus, he could still discern the subtle marks of an 'imprinting' technique left upon the immortal artifact.

"Even for me, as I am now, perfectly replicating the Heavenly Profound Mirror and creating another spirit nearly identical to the original would be no simple task."

"Xuanyuan Hong's foundation truly runs deep," Li Fan mused. "His methods are endless."

This childhood sweetheart of his, whose name remained unknown, likely had no complex background; she was probably just a mortal. To wield such a divine power must have been a gift from Xuanyuan Hong himself.

"Knowing Xuanyuan Hong's character, he would never have allowed her to accompany him into danger. It's highly probable, then, that the two of them are not in the same place."

Truthfully, Li Fan had little interest in tracking down someone else's partner. But the imprinting power she had used? That, he found quite intriguing.

The Heavenly Profound Mirror was one of the more unique immortal artifacts in existence. For a mere mortal to replicate it so easily...

The technique bore a striking resemblance to the [True False Transformation] that Li Fan himself commanded.

Li Fan scrutinized the traces left within the Heavenly Profound Mirror.

Since this version had not yet undergone its descent to a mortal state, the traces of past events remained preserved upon it. They were minuscule, but they could not escape Li Fan's ability to track and restore them.

A vision seemed to form before Li Fan's eyes.

A blank sheet of paper drifted down from the heavens, slowly settling over the mirror that was once called Xuantian.

Slender, jade-like hands pressed down gently upon the paper.

And from that white sheet, an imprint of the mirror was born, slowly manifesting into the world.

"This is a world beyond the First Great Heavenly Venerate's technique of splitting immortal from mortal."

"It's rather like that immortal artifact the Ten Sects once spoke of... the [Splitting Immortal Seed]?"

He had paid little mind to the remnant immortal artifacts held by the Ten Sects before. But now, with the possibility that this was connected to a technique left by the Xuantian King, his interest was piqued.

His figure flickered. A moment later, Li Fan had already retrieved the [Splitting Immortal Seed] from under the watchful eyes of the Ten Great Immortal Sects.

He placed it beside the Heavenly Profound Mirror, comparing the two.

"Eh? This thing..." Jing Xuan's voice echoed, filled with surprise and uncertainty, which only served to confirm Li Fan's suspicions.

According to the Ten Sects, the [Splitting Immortal Seed] had been seized during a war against the 'Dual Heaven Realm.' The realm itself was not large, but its landscape was bizarre.

It did not have the usual structure of heaven and earth, but rather a configuration of heaven, earth, and then another heaven. At the world's center, it was as if a great mirror divided everything in two. Not only the landscape, but every living creature in that world existed in a perfectly matched pair.

They were aware of their counterparts' existence, and their fates—even their very lives—were intertwined.

In times of mortal danger, they could achieve a temporary 'fusion' that would multiply their strength, allowing them to survive calamities. The side effects, however, were severe. They would find themselves uncontrollably drawn toward their other half, their own individual existence slowly fading away.

The reason for the Dual Heaven Realm's unique nature was the [Splitting Immortal Seed] itself. Legend had it that in the distant past, the realm was just like any other, with a normal sky and earth. But one day, the world was suddenly turned upside down, as if it had been forcefully folded in half.

Countless died in the cataclysm. When the survivors came to their senses, they were horrified to discover that beyond their earth lay another sky, and in it, another version of themselves.

From that day forward, the ultimate fate of every living being in the Dual Heaven Realm was to gravitate toward their twin, merge into one, and then be drawn into the [Splitting Immortal Seed] that hung between the worlds.

The Dual Heaven Realm was shattered after its conquest by the Xuanhuang forces, but the Splitting Immortal Seed was seized by the Ten Sects and kept as a trump card.

The ability to create a duplicate of oneself greatly reduced the risk involved in making critical decisions.

Li Fan gazed at the immortal seed floating silently before him.

If the marks left on the Heavenly Profound Mirror were from an imprinting, then this immortal seed was covered in the creases of a cosmic fold.

"To use the Great Dao of heaven and earth as paper..."

"And to reshape it with a single hand... What audacity. What incredible skill."

Even Li Fan, with his ability to reverse the flow of time, could not help but marvel at such a divine 'paper-folding' art. It was truly remarkable.

This Dao of 'Paper-Folding' was clearly not among the remnants of the Primal possibility. In all his past cycles, Li Fan had never encountered it.

Only now, by traveling back against the current to a time ten thousand years prior, had he finally caught a glimpse of its traces.

"In that case," Li Fan mused, rubbing his chin, "the Xuantian King's childhood sweetheart was no mere mortal after all."

"But I can't draw any firm conclusions just yet."

For Li Fan, the path to further advancement lay in forging his own, pure Dao.

But such a path was not easily walked.

Whether it was horizontally transcending possibilities, vertically swimming against the river of time, or even the [True False Transformation] that turned illusion into reality, all seemed like viable paths forward.

Yet each one was fraught with unimaginable difficulty.

He felt as though he had arrived at a crossroads, uncertain of which path to take.

Rationally, the path of True False Transformation was the most suitable and the most powerful. It was, after all, a Dao that could stand on par with the Mountain and Sea itself.

But [Truth] had fallen into a deep slumber. Without the repeated epiphanies that came from its activation, comprehending the True False Transformation had become extraordinarily difficult.

It was like trying to build a castle in the sky upon a crumbling foundation.

If Li Fan wanted to reach for it again, let alone continue his ascent, he would need stepping stones to bridge the gap.