Chapter 1592: The Annual Rings of the Mountain and Sea
Chapter 1592: The Annual Rings of the Mountain and Sea
Perhaps it was the uncanny resemblance between Ink Death and the Dao Annihilation that triggered the defense mechanisms of both the transcendent remains and the black box. A strange transformation immediately began to unfold upon them.
Numerous protrusions suddenly erupted on the black box's once-smooth surface, twisting into what looked like hideous, tormented faces. As if provoked, they writhed wildly, trying to burrow into the head of the remains.
The transcendent remains, however, seemed entirely oblivious to the black box's intrusion, reacting only to the assault of Ink Death.
With a piercing whistle of wind from an unknown source, a solitary sail unfurled, catching the breeze and rising into view.
The clouds of Ink Death were instantly thrown back by an unfathomable, isolating force. If before, the assault felt like gnawing on a steel plate, the appearance of the solitary sail erected an insurmountable barrier between it and the remains. Previously, it could slowly chew away, trading eight thousand of its own for a hundred of the enemy's.
But now, it was utterly powerless against its foe.
The Guangwu Xinghai, which had been teetering on the brink of turmoil and collapse after the sudden demise of the immortals, abruptly returned to a state of tranquility with the appearance of the solitary sail.
It was as if the sail had drawn all the gales and tempests of the Mountain and Sea to itself. Within the star sea, only the sound of its fabric rustling in the wind could be heard; everywhere else was utterly silent.
This was the second time Li Fan had witnessed its existence.
Having personally weathered the Dao Annihilation, Li Fan's insight into the solitary sail was far deeper this time.
"However, this sail is clearly much newer than the one I saw in my past life," he noted.
"Logically, the Dao of Transcendence shouldn't have corroded so quickly in a mere ten thousand years." Li Fan’s gaze narrowed as he turned his attention back to the black box latched onto the remains' head.
As the clouds of Ink Death closed in, the myriad writhing faces on the black box acted like countless woodworms, attempting to bore into the solitary sail.
Capable of traversing the Mountain and Sea and withstanding the Dao Annihilation, the sail's defenses were far beyond what these woodworms could breach.
But these were not the remains of a truly transcendent being. Though it still possessed transcendent power, it was now just a corpse. It could block the attacks of a billion woodworms, but it couldn't completely ward off every trace of their corrosive influence.
And if just one of those woodworms managed to slip inside the solitary sail...
Li Fan could see clusters of those hideous faces gathering within the tiny holes pocking the sail's surface.
"This black box can actually corrode another's Dao of Transcendence," Li Fan thought, inwardly alarmed.
"Perhaps the black box lacks the power to traverse the Mountain and Sea on its own, but by latching onto these transcendent remains like a parasite, it can survive the Dao Annihilation all the same."
To Li Fan, this solitary sail was a priceless asset for his Xuanhuang Immortal Boat's journey across the Mountain and Sea. How could he stand by and let these woodworms devour it?
"Since Ink Death isn't working..."
"...I'll use the Dao One Worms!"
The thought flashed through his mind, and the clouds of Ink Death receded like the tide. In their place, a boundless, transparent, and invisible swarm of Dao One Worms surged forward.
This time, the situation was reversed.
No longer sensing the threat of Dao Annihilation, the solitary sail within the remains began to fade. The black box, however, seemed to perceive the countless Dao One Worms surrounding it.
The hideous faces let out an unending series of snarls and roars, as if trying to intimidate the newcomers.
The Dao One Worms were, of course, impossible to frighten. They launched a death-defying charge at the black box, submerging it in a tide of their bodies in an instant.
Li Fan saw with perfect clarity that the moment the worms touched the faces on the black box, vast numbers of them vanished into thin air, as if they had evaporated.
And in their place, a few new faces appeared on the black box's surface!
"It can even absorb and convert the Dao One Worms... This black box..."
Li Fan's eyes narrowed. Under his command, a ceaseless stream of Dao One Worms poured forth from the Xuanhuang Immortal Realm.
"You like to devour, do you? Then I'll let you eat until you burst!"
Unlike the nascent power of Ink Death, which required time to recover its strength after being depleted, the Dao One Worms could multiply exponentially as long as Li Fan willed it and provided enough energy. The losses inflicted by a mere wooden box were utterly negligible to the swarm!
Like moths drawn to a flame, the Dao One Worms launched a continuous, suicidal assault on the black box.
The principle was the same as the black box's assault on the solitary sail.
Even if the box could repel the vast majority of the swarm, the moment a single Dao One Worm broke through its defenses and made contact with its surface, the swarm's offensive efficiency would increase exponentially.
And with the phantoms of the Xuanhuang Immortal Realm in Li Fan's palm to sustain them, the Dao One Worms had no need to worry about their losses.
As its defenses were worn down and the assault intensified, the black box gradually began to falter.
Every one of its surfaces was now covered with countless grotesque faces. There was no more room for new ones to form. The black box began to tremble violently, as if struck by a powerful blow, and it felt as though something was struggling to break free from within.
Vmm...
When the box's high-frequency vibrations reached a certain threshold, they abruptly ceased. A spectral light flashed, and all the faces that had appeared on its surface vanished, as if they had been purified.
The few Dao One Worms that had managed to break through were also completely annihilated in this purge.
The black box returned to its original state, and it seemed all their efforts had been for nothing.
Moreover, the very nature of the black box seemed to have inexplicably changed.
The Dao One Worms' fluid assault faltered. It was like facing a completely different substance, one that would require sacrificing vast numbers of their 'bodies' just to probe its new properties.
But if there was one thing Li Fan did not fear, it was a battle of attrition.
As long as Li Fan's will remained unchanged, the Dao One Worms' assault would not weaken in the slightest.
Slowly, the surface of the black box was once again overrun with countless hideous faces.
The familiar scene replayed: a flash of spectral light, and everything returned to its original state. The black box had transformed once more.
Yet, a faint smile touched Li Fan's lips.
His observation of these two cycles had convinced him of one thing: the spectral light that purified the box and altered its nature consumed some of its energy with every use.
"In that case," he thought, "let's see whose reserves run deeper."
Li Fan gave a cold snort and instantly crushed several phantoms of the Xuanhuang Immortal Realm.
Empowered by the surge of energy, the Dao One Worms' assault grew even more ferocious.
The spectral light flared from the black box with increasing frequency.
Li Fan watched from the sidelines, observing the two forces locked in battle.
"I wonder what the true nature of this black box is. Its reserves seem even deeper than those of my Xuanhuang Immortal Boat."
"If not for the power of the phantoms granted by my Sitting Heaven Technique, I fear I might actually lose this war of attrition."
Li Fan frowned slightly as a tiny sliver of wood floated to his fingertip.
It was a tiny piece the Dao One Worms had successfully gnawed from the black box through their relentless efforts.
From the outside, the box was a spectral black. But this sliver, viewed on its own, was the color of a clear azure sky.
"Interesting."
Li Fan tossed the azure sliver into the Xuanhuang Immortal Realm and began to slowly refine it with his Dao-refining arts.
As wisps of azure energy rose from the wood and were absorbed by the world, the very distance between the heavens and the earth in the Xuanhuang Immortal Realm expanded slightly.
"The power of world growth?"
The Heavenly Dao of the Xuanhuang Realm, which had long since submitted to Li Fan's overwhelming power and hadn't dared to express its own consciousness for some time, now sent him a plea—the first in a long while.
It seemed this azure energy was an incredibly rare and potent tonic for it.
Its restorative properties were comparable to the many treasures he had used during the realm's initial ascension.
Since absorbing the azure energy was beneficial to the Xuanhuang Immortal Boat, he had no reason to refuse.
He tossed the entire piece of azure wood into a furnace, and the refining flames flared instantly.
After a period of refinement, wisps of azure energy reappeared, drifting between the Xuanhuang Realm's heaven and earth.
This time, no living being in the Xuanhuang Realm benefited from it.
Only the world itself absorbed the energy, growing freely.
Before Li Fan's eyes, the deck and hull of the Xuanhuang Immortal Boat gradually took on an azure hue.
As the very material of the immortal boat changed, the durability of its hull rose to a new level.
"And that was just from a tiny sliver of the black box."
Li Fan's heart leaped as he stared at the rest of the black box.
"If I could refine and absorb the whole thing..."
But Li Fan was well aware that haste makes waste.
Even if he could refine the entire box, it would be unwise to feed it all to the Xuanhuang Immortal Realm at once. A stronger immortal boat was a good thing, but the process had to be gradual. A sudden, massive surge in power carried the risk of losing control.
Furthermore, given the box's miraculous nature, it might have the ability to resurrect itself. He needed to remain vigilant and run more tests.
Next, Li Fan directed the azure energy absorbed by the Dao One Worms into one of the Xuanhuang Immortal Realm phantoms in his palm.
Infused with the azure energy, the phantom began to slowly solidify.
Everything within it became vivid and lifelike, like a miniature sculpture indistinguishable from the real world.
The clouds of Ink Death, which had retreated after their earlier setback, now quietly reappeared at Li Fan's side.
Li Fan fed this azure, wood-like carving of the Xuanhuang Realm to Ink Death.
He hoped that by using Ink Death's powers of consumption and analysis, he could uncover the secrets of the black box.
The complete black box might have been able to resist Ink Death to some degree, but this isolated sliver was no match for it.
The clouds of Ink Death engulfed the wooden carving without any trouble.
After a brief silence, the clouds began to churn violently, rapidly swelling in size.
As if it had just feasted, feedback from Ink Death finally arrived.
A series of blurry images flashed through Li Fan's mind.
They depicted the birth of a possibility from within the Mountain and Sea.
Countless possibilities exist within the Mountain and Sea.
But as the Mountain and Sea merge, these possibilities are fading away.
In the past, however, countless possibilities had sprung from nothing, evolving out of the Mountain and Sea itself.
Indeed, the Mountain and Sea itself was always growing and changing.
The possibilities that evolved during different stages of its existence were markedly different.
Like the annual rings of a great tree, they reflected the state of the Mountain and Sea at that particular time.
"'This azure energy,' he realized, 'originates from a possibility that evolved during the Mountain and Sea's primordial, savage growth.'"
"'In that era, there was no Immortal Realm. There were not even animals or humans.'"
"'As far as the eye could see, there was only the most primitive form of life: a world covered in green algae.'"
"'Yet the sheer vigor of their life force was no less than that of an ordinary True Immortal...'"
Li Fan watched as, with the growth of the Mountain and Sea, this ancient possibility was extinguished.
The green algae that blanketed the world, however, did not disappear with it.
Instead, it settled, compressed in the depths of the Mountain and Sea, where it merged with other possibilities.
Like an undying specter, it survived tenaciously, witnessing the birth and destruction of one possibility after another.
In every possibility it endured, any existence that shared its vigorous life force would be absorbed, becoming a part of it.
Thus, it evolved from simple green algae into something far more complex.
Ultimately, however, it was not the true Dao of Longevity.
After an unimaginably long time, its power began to wane.
The destruction of each possibility it inhabited dealt it a devastating blow.
And then the Mountain and Sea began to merge. It could survive the world's natural evolution, but it could not escape the calamity of Dao Annihilation.
Powerless on its own, and driven by an instinct for survival honed over eons, it began to search for a being that could endure such a catastrophe.
A transcendent expert of the Mountain and Sea.
But a being capable of withstanding the Dao Annihilation was far beyond what an ancient relic like itself could hope to overcome.
So it settled for the next best thing: the transcendent remains drifting through the Mountain and Sea.
The solitary sail was not the first host it had latched onto.
It had already made use of seven other drifting remains. The newly discovered solitary sail was the strongest and most suitable host it had ever found.
Everything had been proceeding smoothly.
Until Li Fan forcibly dragged the remains of the solitary sail out of the Dao Annihilation.
...
"Azure at its apex becomes black... An ancient relic of the Mountain and Sea?"
The life form of this algae was far less complex than that of a human; it was difficult to say it possessed true reason, only a simple consciousness.
As a result, its memories were fragmented.
Still, Li Fan could glean a glimpse into the primordial age of the Mountain and Sea from these shattered images.
"If I'm not mistaken, this stage of the Mountain and Sea's development must have been right after it absorbed the so-called 'Creator God'..."
"Truly creating something from nothing, turning the decayed into the miraculous."
"It used every possibility extending into the infinite future as fuel for its own growth and transformation. A method of cultivation utterly different from that of ordinary beings, and one that we cultivators can hardly emulate."
Li Fan could almost see it: the birth and death of each possibility was like another annual ring forming within the Mountain and Sea.
Countless rings, overlapping and accumulating one by one.
Finally evolved into the boundless Mountain and Sea of today.
"But just as a tree has its limits, so too does the Mountain and Sea."
"When the Mountain and Sea itself grew to a point it could no longer sustain..."
"...the great calamity of Dao Annihilation, the merging of the Mountain and Sea, began."
Before Li Fan's eyes, countless possibilities—the annual rings of the Mountain and Sea—were crushed into dust and annihilated.
The Mountain and Sea itself shattered into segments.
"In the dimension of time, the Mountain and Sea was once a continuous whole."
"But the calamity of Dao Annihilation shattered it."
"And the shattered fragments between the segments... are what is known as the Eternal Silent Void Realm."
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