Chapter 1552: The Fallen Immortal Devours Taiyuan
Chapter 1552: The Fallen Immortal Devours Taiyuan
The insights from Shou Qiu Gong's "Sit Mountain View Sea," the profound echoes of the Xuantian King's retrospection, and even this Dao of paper folding—all could be considered stepping stones on Li Fan's path forward.
To comprehend them, to learn from them, then to feel them and internalize them.
And then, step by step, he could begin to grasp the ineffable True False Transformation.
With his course set, Li Fan flicked his finger against the surface of the Heavenly Profound Mirror. The nascent artifact spirit, only half-formed, instantly disintegrated into dust.
Seeing this, the mirror spirit let out a long sigh of relief.
Only a moment later, however, as it felt Li Fan’s hand stroking its surface again and again, a terrible premonition suddenly welled up within its core.
It was no mere illusion.
From the Splitting Immortal Seed beside them, which emanated an inscrutable aura, a gushing power quietly emerged. It coiled around the Heavenly Profound Mirror like tentacles, binding it fast. Once the mirror was completely restrained, countless finer tendrils branched out from the points of contact. At Li Fan’s command, they began to brazenly sweep across every inch of the Heavenly Profound Mirror's surface.
“I’m taking Xuantian with me.”
For some reason, the words that the Xuantian King’s childhood love had once spoken to it echoed in its mind once more.
“Could it be...?”
The Heavenly Profound Mirror shuddered instinctively, and the power of the Splitting Immortal Seed enveloping it trembled even more violently. It was like boiling sludge, with bubbles churning endlessly to the surface.
The mirror spirit resisted with all its might, but it was utterly powerless to fight back.
It could only watch, helpless, as another version of itself slowly took form within that churning "sludge"!
A third mirror, a counterpart to the original and Xuantian, came into being.
But after Li Fan took the new mirror and examined it, he simply shook his head in disapproval.
“It has the form, but none of the spirit or soul. Useless!”
His voice was ice-cold as he applied a bit of pressure. With a sickening crunch, the newborn Heavenly Profound Mirror instantly crumbled to dust, its essence reabsorbed by the Splitting Immortal Seed.
The mirror spirit could even faintly hear the wretched wail of its other self as it was destroyed.
Breaking out in a cold sweat, the mirror spirit no longer dwelled on the bizarre sensation of being used as a test subject for replication. Under Li Fan’s scrutinizing gaze, it quickly pointed out all the differences it had noticed between itself and the copy during the imprinting process, desperate to prove its own value.
“I see. Well done,” Li Fan nodded, offering a rare word of praise.
Learning from the previous attempt, Li Fan quickly began a second experiment.
The resulting creation was certainly better than the first, but there was still a significant gap between it and the true Heavenly Profound Mirror.
“It seems this paper-folding imprinting art is truly a profound and unfathomable technique. I won't be able to master it in a short time just by studying its lingering traces. It will require repeated practice.”
Li Fan had anticipated this and wasn't concerned.
With both the Splitting Immortal Seed and the Heavenly Profound Mirror in his possession, he had all the time in the world to practice.
The only thing to be mindful of was that the “paper folding” power condensed within the Splitting Immortal Seed would be consumed with each use. Every attempt diminished the supply.
If it were merely immortal spiritual energy, Li Fan could easily replenish it. But this Dao of paper folding could only be generated out of thin air through his "Fantasy Becomes Truth" divine ability.
The process was slow, especially now that [Truth] was dormant and he had to rely solely on his own comprehension.
“Still, it can be replenished, so I won't just be draining a finite resource. At the same time, this will also deepen my understanding of the True False Transformation,” Li Fan mused, taking a calm and unhurried view of the matter.
Yet, as he researched and experimented, the image of Cat Treasure would occasionally flash through his mind.
“I wonder if Cat Treasure's replication ability is related to this Dao of paper folding.”
“Indeed, nothing in this world exists without reason or logic. Things that seem impossible are merely a result of limited knowledge and shallow understanding.”
“Cat Treasure's triple transformation: item replication, life-form simulation, and essence cleansing. As for the other two abilities...”
Li Fan frowned in thought.
An idea suddenly sprouted in his mind. If he could completely master its underlying Dao, then perhaps he could replicate Cat Treasure itself.
...
While Li Fan's true self focused on comprehending the Dao, the Great Heavenly Venerate's Immortal Puppet was not idle.
A suitable successor for the title of Xuanhuang Great Heavenly Venerate had not yet emerged, so Li Fan had to bear the responsibility of maintaining order in the Xuanhuang Realm.
This was not due to some shackle imposed by the Immortal Realm, but for his own sake.
The first thing he did was to begin remodeling the Xuanhuang Realm from the inside out. From his current perspective, the realm was still far too fragile.
Forget the Dao Annihilation Calamity; even a slight shift from the Hunger Immortal in the Immortal Ruins could plunge the Xuanhuang Realm into an irrecoverable catastrophe.
Fortunately, Li Fan had ample experience with such renovations.
And this time, his plan was even more ambitious than before. His goal was to transform the Xuanhuang Realm into an immortal ark, one that could drift on for a time to find new hope, even if the Primal Possibility was devoured by the Dao Annihilation!
In addition to enhancements like sublimating the immortal domain and reinforcing the pillars of the Great Dao, Li Fan also set his sights on integrating the Fallen Immortal Realm.
At this point in time, the Fallen Immortal Realm was still a closed-off space, not yet open to the denizens of the Xuanhuang Realm.
Only with the permission of the Xuanhuang Great Heavenly Venerate could a living being's consciousness enter.
Li Fan conducted a macroscopic observation of the Fallen Immortal Realm and discovered that its current scale was much smaller than it would be ten thousand years later.
It was little more than a projection of the normal Xuanhuang Realm, with a few different worlds generated after several years of evolution.
It seemed to still be in its infancy, and many of the spacetimes that would exist in the future had not yet been born.
However, Li Fan noticed something interesting.
A vast new expanse of spacetime had clearly just been born within the Fallen Immortal Realm. Based on its time of origin, it seemed to correspond exactly with the brutal war between the Xuanhuang Realm and the Taiyuan Realm.
“Could it be...”
A thought stirred in Li Fan's mind, and he sent his divine sense on a tour through these newborn spacetimes.
When he returned, his expression was inscrutable. “Just as I thought. As the Taiyuan Realm and the Xuanhuang Realm became fully connected, the Fallen Immortal Realm seems to have invaded the Taiyuan Realm as well.”
That bloody battlefield between the two realms had quietly appeared within the Fallen Immortal Realm.
The one thing that set Li Fan's mind at ease was that within this new spacetime, there was no sign of him, the "Xuanhuang True Immortal."
“Otherwise, I wouldn't be thinking about how to remodel the Xuanhuang Realm right now; I'd be planning my escape.”
As he pondered, the Great Heavenly Venerate's Immortal Puppet made another trip to the Taiyuan Realm.
Sure enough, hovering above this realm, he found that extremely faint, dreamlike cloud of shadow.
“It's not just a reflection of that single glance into their world. It can also grow on its own over time.”
“In the original timeline, the Xuanhuang Realm was always struggling to survive on the edge of the Immortal Ruins, with no opportunity to grow. Things are different now.”
“The Taiyuan Realm, and even...”
Li Fan's gaze shifted to the space surrounding the Taiyuan Realm.
The Ten Great Immortal Sects were enthusiastically exploring the unknown starry sky nearby.
Li Fan could also sense the life within the distant star sea.
At the same time, he could almost see the shadowy cloud of the Fallen Immortal Realm, like a phantom, tailing the Ten Sects' every step.
“It seems some restrictions are in order.”
A deep-seated premonition told Li Fan that simply watching it grow unchecked was not a wise course of action.
“Though illusory, it is real. It needs no foundation in reality. It can float upon the Dao Annihilation like a wooden boat.”
The previous generation's assessment of the Fallen Immortal Realm was still fresh in his mind, and Li Fan dared not be careless.
Using the True False Transformation, he mimicked the power of Ink Death's immortal soul. Like an iron chain stretched across a great river, he temporarily sealed the star paths around the Taiyuan Realm.
Of course, this blockade was aimed only at the shadowy cloud of the Fallen Immortal Realm, not at ordinary travelers.
The expanding Fallen Immortal Realm immediately sensed the change in its surroundings.
Unlike a living being, it showed no emotion.
Instead, it mechanically and immediately adapted.
Under Li Fan's watch, the shadowy cloud seemed to abandon its expansionist efforts. It simply hovered silently over the Taiyuan Realm, strengthening itself.
The number of shifting spacetimes within the Taiyuan section of the Fallen Immortal Realm began to increase at a visible rate.
The source of the Fallen Immortal Realm wasn't just the Xuanhuang cultivators currently active in the Taiyuan Realm. It even included the native beings of the Taiyuan Realm that Li Fan had sealed and suppressed!
Even the two immortal servants responsible for guarding the Taiyuan Rebirth Grand Array were reflected within this new region of the Fallen Immortal Realm!
This was the first time the Fallen Immortal Realm had actively "reflected" something. The reflected beings were completely unaware, but Li Fan, the observer, felt a chill creep into his heart.
After a moment of contemplation, Li Fan dispatched a wisp of his consciousness into the newly born Taiyuan section of the Fallen Immortal Realm.
His goal was to see whether the immortal array and immortal servants here were connected to the Infinite Sea and possessed its infinite nature.
[Truth]'s Unending Samsara function could also create spacetime out of thin air, much like the Fallen Immortal Realm.
But the Unending Samsara was a completely closed system. It did not connect to the Mountain and Sea.
But this Fallen Immortal illusion...
Li Fan's expression grew grim as he felt the pressure emanating from the Infinite Sea. A flicker of dread crossed his face.
“It's actually connected to the Mountain and Sea?”
Amidst his shock, Li Fan was also filled with confusion.
By connecting to the Mountain and Sea, it possessed the essential prerequisite for creating immortals. In other words, it was truly possible for a “True Immortal” to emerge from the seemingly illusory spacetimes within the Fallen Immortal Realm.
“This...”
Theoretically, that was true.
But Li Fan still had a faint feeling that the Taiyuan immortal array and the two immortal servants in the Fallen Immortal Realm were slightly different from their real-world counterparts.
And this difference was absolutely crucial.
“Only the Infinite Sea, but not the Upper Mountain?”
Staring at the illusory Taiyuan Realm before him for a long time, Li Fan finally had an epiphany and found the answer.
To verify his guess, Li Fan teleported to the location of the two immortal servants within the Fallen Immortal Realm.
He deliberately revealed the “presence” unique to a True Immortal.
In reality, upon meeting a True Immortal, an immortal servant was required to pay tribute. This was an ironclad rule etched into the core of every servant. But here in the Fallen Immortal Realm, these two servants completely ignored the aura Li Fan was emanating.
They even launched a simultaneous attack on the sudden intruder.
“As I thought.” Li Fan calmly blocked their attacks, understanding dawning in his mind.
“They only possess infinite power, but lack the ‘presence’ of the Upper Mountain.”
“One cannot know the height of the heavens without climbing a high mountain. Without being on the Upper Mountain, one cannot know what it truly means to be an immortal.”
They possessed power with an infinite attribute, but without the support of the “presence” to elevate its energy level, its effectiveness was greatly diminished.
Compared to the real immortal servants, they had barely a tenth of the strength.
This discovery allowed Li Fan to breathe a sigh of relief.
After suppressing the two immortal servants who were unworthy of the name and casually destroying that patch of Fallen Immortal spacetime, Li Fan quietly withdrew from the Taiyuan Fallen Immortal Realm.
For the Fallen Immortal Realm itself, the existence or destruction of individual spacetimes had little impact.
In the blink of an eye, the spacetime Li Fan had destroyed regenerated itself.
Li Fan watched this silently. “The Fallen Immortal Realm may be illusory, but it is built upon reality. Unless reality itself is devoured by the Dao Annihilation and all life ceases to exist, the Fallen Immortal Realm can always regenerate.”
“And even if reality is consumed by the Dao Annihilation, the Fallen Immortal Realm can still survive for a time.”
Thinking of this, for a moment Li Fan couldn't tell which was the more “advanced” existence: reality or the Fallen Immortal Realm.
“Since the Fallen Immortal Realm can connect to the Infinite Sea, then theoretically, it should also be able to connect to the Upper Mountain. But it doesn't...”
“So, was this done intentionally?”
In the fables of the Mountain and Sea, the calamities of the living world began when the sea connected to the mountain. For the Fallen Immortal Realm to abandon the mountain and return to the sea... it might be a way of avoiding calamity.
“If that's the case, is there also a path that belongs entirely to the mountain?”
Li Fan wondered naturally.
“To have only the presence of an immortal but lack the infinite attribute... it's hard to say which is superior.”
“But perhaps that is what immortals were like in the beginning.”
The sealed Taiyuan Fallen Immortal Realm showed no signs of continuing to grow or clashing with the restrictions Li Fan had set.
It merely hovered silently above the Taiyuan and Xuanhuang Realms, constantly evolving and growing.
For the Fallen Immortal Realm, the size of the physical space it occupied was not the key factor limiting its growth. As long as living beings existed within its area of coverage, it could endlessly propagate itself.
Its previous expansion toward the starry sky beyond the Taiyuan Realm was simply a result of its instinct to grow stronger.
Now that its growth had been thwarted by Li Fan's restrictions, it instinctively contracted again.
It continued to reproduce and grow within its original territory.
Li Fan looked at this strange creation, hesitating for a moment.
The Fallen Immortal Realm as a whole didn't seem to possess a subjective consciousness like the Heavenly Dao of the Xuanhuang Realm. It operated on purely “mechanistic” instinct.
But it was, after all, the legacy of a fallen powerhouse from the Immortal Realm.
It was not impossible that it could become a breeding ground for its master's resurrection.
Especially its ability to drift upon the Dao Annihilation, which reminded Li Fan of the immortal coffins he had seen before.
However, the Fallen Immortal Realm was clearly far more sophisticated than an immortal coffin, which simply used the durability of its Dao laws to resist the Dao Annihilation.
Li Fan cursed silently.
Choosing the Xuanhuang Realm to build his anchor point truly had its pros and cons.
His knowledge of the Xuanhuang Realm's past certainly allowed him to establish a foundation quickly. But the realm held countless secrets, and even at his current level of power, he had to tread carefully.
Otherwise, a single moment of carelessness could lead to disaster.
“In any case, how can I allow another to sleep beside my own bed?” A cold glint flashed in Li Fan's eyes.
In the past, Li Fan had the protection of [Truth] and could choose to restart at any time.
He could afford to avoid such threats.
But now, Li Fan had nowhere to retreat.
The Fallen Immortal Realm was bizarre, but to expect him to simply hand over the foundation of his anchor point...
They would have to fight for it first!
(End of this chapter)
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