Chapter 1601: The Light of the Other Shore
Chapter 1601: The Light of the Other Shore
Despite possessing power nearly rivaling a Transcendent expert, Li Fan felt no urgency to journey to the Other Shore. After all, the beings he had to prepare for were Saints on par with Shou Qiu, capable of traversing the Eternal Silent Void Realm.
He would only take that final step after completing his grand plan of scattering the True Spirit Fire.
Though he had yet to formally set foot on the Other Shore, years of countless explorations by the Xuanhuang Immortal Boats had granted Li Fan a preliminary understanding of the place.
Most of his knowledge was pieced together from rumors gathered across numerous possibilities, supplemented by his own probings.
"It's just as I suspected," Li Fan mused. "Once you enter the Other Shore, you transcend the river of time, free to journey to the past, present, or future. Of course, this freedom is confined to the current time node of the Mountain and Sea Tree."
"However, it's not without a cost."
"Departing is simple. Leveraging the sacred nature of the Other Shore, one can easily travel to any possibility, any point in time. But returning from the mortal worlds to the Other Shore is another matter entirely."
An image materialized before Li Fan: a segment of a broken tree, representing the entire panorama of the Mountain and Sea as he had deduced it.
Its incandescent, gentle warmth illuminated every corner of the wood.
"I once speculated that the Other Shore was constructed by hollowing out the Mountain and Sea Tree, creating a miraculous spatiotemporal structure that granted convenient access to any corner of the Mountain and Sea."
"But in these recent years, having personally navigated the Dao Annihilation, I've come to appreciate the true vastness of the Mountain and Sea. To build something on the same structural scale is fundamentally impossible. Even if the immortals of the Other Shore possessed such power, they would never choose such a thankless, strenuous method."
"The true Other Shore is like this sphere of light. Though merely the size of a grain of rice compared to the Mountain and Sea, its radiant power can blanket all its mortal worlds. Those Transcendent experts who haven't mastered the Dao of 'Reverse' rely on these 'rays' of light from the Other Shore to travel smoothly between different possibilities and time nodes."
"And that is precisely where the problem lies..."
With a single thought, Li Fan magnified the image of the Mountain and Sea Tree tens of thousands of times.
Now, it was clear that even the corners of the Mountain and Sea that seemed bathed in light actually had varying degrees of brightness and shadow.
"The light of the Other Shore cannot, after all, reach every corner. I don't know where it's anchored, but one thing is almost certain: the farther a place is from the Other Shore, the more difficult it is to reach."
"It might even lead to a situation where a Transcendent expert leaves... and never returns."
A sharp glint flashed in Li Fan’s eyes as information flooded his mind, detailing one of the possibilities the Xuanhuang Immortal Boats had reached.
This was perhaps the most "remote" possibility his apostles had discovered, one whose historical trajectory bore almost no resemblance to his own Primal Possibility.
The Three Saints were only vaguely mentioned in ancient legends as the creators of the Immortal Realm, and most of its inhabitants had long forgotten them. This possibility lacked even a ruling Immortal Emperor, its long history defined by ceaseless conflict.
Its distance from the Other Shore made transcendence nearly impossible.
Consequently, the immortals of this realm poured the vast majority of their energy and talent into the art of war.
Kingdoms rose and fell, empires fractured and reformed. Over ten thousand warring immortal dynasties of varying sizes had come and gone, yet no peerless expert ever emerged to unite the Immortal Realm.
The closest anyone ever came to this achievement was a figure renowned in this possibility's history: the Sage Venerable Immortal Emperor.
The Sage Venerable Immortal Emperor had risen like a tempest, sweeping across the entire Immortal Realm in a mere three hundred years. Powerful, cold-blooded, and merciless—that was the impression he left upon the world's immortals.
Yet, just as the Sage Venerable Immortal Emperor was on the brink of unifying the Immortal Realm, he vanished without a trace.
As silently and suddenly as he had first appeared.
Without his overwhelming power to hold it together, the nascent unified dynasty quickly crumbled, plunging the realm back into turmoil.
The emperor's disappearance became the greatest unsolved mystery in this possibility's history, sparking endless debate and speculation.
Perhaps only another outsider, like Li Fan, could guess the truth.
"Given the overwhelming power he demonstrated, this Sage Venerable Immortal Emperor was undoubtedly a Transcendent expert. He arrived in this possibility for some unknown reason. The title of Immortal Emperor would have been meaningless to him, something to be discarded at will. His entire campaign of conquest was simply a means to an end: returning to the Other Shore."
The records mentioned the emperor had many strange habits, such as collecting the corpses of his enemies and forging them into weapons. On his bloody campaign, he slaughtered nearly ten thousand Nameless True Immortals.
"He was building a Transcendent World Coffin from the remains of Nameless True Immortals. Despite his own transcendent power, he still needed an external vessel to withstand the Dao Annihilation. This possibility must be so remote that he needed to increase his odds of a successful return. Once his preparations were complete, he simply departed."
Li Fan was so certain for two reasons. First, the Sage Venerable Immortal Emperor's actions were too transparent. Second, before arriving in this possibility, his Xuanhuang Immortal Boat had encountered a strange black banner adrift in the Dao Annihilation.
The banner radiated a monstrous, baleful energy, its surface a grim tapestry of white bone. Though tattered and corroded by the Dao Annihilation, it was still visibly crafted from the remains of countless Nameless True Immortals.
It was the very artifact the Sage Venerable Immortal Emperor had personally forged all those years ago.
"To casually discard such a powerful treasure, still largely intact, meant it had served its purpose."
"He had reached the sphere of the Other Shore's light and could return whenever he pleased."
Li Fan had since re-refined the black banner to further strengthen his Xuanhuang Immortal Boat. During this process of assimilation, the terrifying figure he occasionally glimpsed within the nameless remains served to confirm the identity of its former owner.
"The light of the Other Shore does not, in fact, illuminate the whole of the Mountain and Sea."
"For me, this is actually good news."
"The inhabitants of the Other Shore share a common goal: to cross the Eternal Silent Void Realm, reach an older Mountain and Sea, and find a definitive solution to the calamity of cosmic fusion. To facilitate this salvation, their position on the temporal axis is likely closer to the past."
"The question is, what is the temporal limit for this segment of the Mountain and Sea? Is it the same end that Mount Tai Emperor encountered in the river of time?"
"Hmm?" As Li Fan was deep in thought, a scene relayed by one of his Xuanhuang Immortal Boats suddenly captured his attention.
"The Myriad Forms Dao Net? This place is..."
A moment later, understanding dawned on him.
With a flicker of his divine sense, the phantom of Li Fan aboard the Xuanhuang Immortal Boat instantly traversed the Dao Annihilation and entered the nearby possibility.
The sky was a gloomy, oppressive dark. Mountains of endless refuse stretched to the horizon, a boundless, desolate landscape. Sprawled amidst these garbage heaps was a colossal, black, octopus-like creature of liquid form.
It waved countless tentacles, reveling in the act of devouring everything in its path.
Though there were no other living beings here, the black behemoth seemed utterly content, reveling in its solitary existence.
This black behemoth was, of course, the Myriad Forms Dao Net, formed from the power of Ink Death.
And this place was one of the many possibilities that the master of the Xuan Shang Immortal Boat had once explored.
Li Fan had previously extended a portion of the Myriad Forms Dao Net's power here through his senses. Though the gulf of the Dao Annihilation had quickly severed the connection, the Dao Net's power had successfully taken root and flourished.
Even though it had grown into a monstrous beast, it meekly returned to its master upon Li Fan's arrival.
The phantom on the immortal boat had originally been just a fraction of Li Fan's divided power.
But after absorbing the local Myriad Forms Dao Net, the phantom solidified in an instant, becoming almost indistinguishable from his true self!
"Hmm? Such immense power... no wonder you were so content you forgot all about returning."
Even Li Fan himself was momentarily taken aback.
"And this is only from devouring a fraction of this boundless mountain range of trash."
Li Fan's interest was immediately piqued.
He began to carefully sift through the gains the Myriad Forms Dao Net had acquired from the refuse.
It was called garbage, but it was actually the wreckage of buildings, artifacts, and corpses. Sifting through these innumerable fragments, Li Fan attempted to reconstruct the events that had transpired in this possibility.
However, a mysterious, inexplicable power seemed to cling to every shard.
Even when he managed to piece them together, this force prevented him from seeing the complete picture.
"A mountain of refuse this vast, and yet not a single complete object can be assembled."
"But one thing is certain: the entity that destroyed this possibility's civilization and created this endless mountain of debris was a single being."
Li Fan had committed his fair share of destruction, but his actions were always purposeful—either to gather resources or to advance his plans more efficiently.
The entity that destroyed this possibility, however, seemed to have done so simply for the sake of destruction itself.
"The entire essence of a whole possibility remains here, perfectly preserved."
"From the fragments devoured by the Dao Net, I can vaguely reconstruct a glimpse of this world's past. It was no less advanced than the Primal Possibility—perhaps even more so. And yet, it was reduced to ruin in an instant..."
"And it seems to have happened all at once."
Li Fan narrowed his eyes, his mind racing with further deductions.
"Even if I were to deploy all my reserve forces, unleashing countless Dao Chronicle Projections, I doubt I could achieve such an effect."
"More importantly, an outburst of that magnitude would lead to complete annihilation, not this... shredded debris."
"This means the attacker still had power to spare."
"The Mountain and Sea is truly teeming with experts. Power is one thing; I don't fear beings like Shou Qiu, who seem to abide by some moral code. The ones to truly avoid are these mad, chaotic figures."
Li Fan made a mental note.
Since he was here, he might as well settle in.
The phantom immortal boat remained moored in the void.
Li Fan released the Myriad Forms Dao Net once more, letting it freely devour the remaining mountains of debris.
The fragmented remains of an entire possibility constituted a veritable feast, even for Li Fan at his current level.
It took a full fifty years to devour it completely.
After the area was thoroughly cleansed, Li Fan discovered a foreign object amidst the endless debris, something that did not belong to this possibility.
It was a black fragment, shimmering with an eerie metallic luster.
It looked as if it had splintered off from something larger.
"To remain completely unscathed by the Dao Net's devouring..."
Li Fan was extremely cautious and avoided direct contact.
Instead, he sent his Dao One worms to investigate.
He had not expected that the moment the Dao One worms approached the black fragment, they would all descend into chaos.
They turned on one another in a frenzy of self-slaughter.
Even with Li Fan's forceful intervention, he could only slightly curb the chaos, unable to completely halt the carnage.
Li Fan decisively abandoned the entire batch of Dao One worms.
The swarm's self-destruction only ceased when a single worm remained.
Yet, the lone survivor did not stop there.
It began to frantically devour itself, destroying itself completely before the bizarre spectacle finally ended.
The black fragment lay there silently, its presence a seeming mockery of the scene it had just witnessed.
"It must be the madness emanating from this fragment that affected the Dao One worms."
Expressionless, Li Fan sent forth another swarm.
As expected, this new swarm was also consumed by chaos, uncontrollably turning on itself.
But the greatest strength of the Dao One worms was their capacity for adaptation and evolution.
Li Fan keenly sensed that after the sacrifice of the previous swarm, the worms' overall resistance to this chaotic influence had increased, albeit minutely.
The increase was infinitesimal, but it was real.
"Attrition is the one thing I do not fear."
"After all, I have all the time in the world."
Li Fan scoffed inwardly as batch after batch of Dao One worms began to assemble.
Time had little meaning in the Dao Annihilation.
In what felt like a chain reaction, the number of apostles under Li Fan's command swelled into the tens of millions.
Inevitably, this led to contact with both the Other Shore and the Sage Dynasty.
Fortunately, both powers were transcendent and detached. Even though the Xuanhuang Immortal Boats had a history of destroying possibilities, they would not intervene as long as the greater Mountain and Sea was not endangered.
Li Fan, for his part, was extremely cautious. He would sooner forgo an opportunity to plant a True Spirit Fire than risk a Transcendent expert discovering his secrets.
The plan to scatter the True Spirit Fire proceeded with exceptional smoothness.
"With about the same amount of time again," he calculated, "I should be able to complete my objective."
Then one day, a premonition suddenly struck Li Fan.
At the same time, the Dao One worms' assault on the black fragment finally yielded a qualitative change.
While they still couldn't completely avoid the fragment's maddening influence, the Dao One worms, under the control of Li Fan's dominant consciousness, could now forcibly suppress their frenzied instincts for extended periods, maintaining a semblance of calm.
"This black fragment brings more than just madness."
"It also brings..."
Li Fan's divine sense merged with one of the worms, which now radiated a peculiar aura.
Instantly, his perception of reality shifted.
His vision pierced through the Xuanhuang Immortal Boat and leaped into the heart of the Mountain and Sea.
The familiar panorama of the Mountain and Sea from his main body's perspective vanished, replaced by towering, twisted ribbons of black light that soared into the heavens.
He could vaguely sense the fluctuations of countless thoughts within these ribbons of light.
They shared the same origin as the black fragment, most of them seething with madness and chaos.
Merely observing them from a distance, Li Fan felt as if his own mind was being invaded.
An independent consciousness suddenly bloomed within him, whispering temptations and incitements into his ear.
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