Chapter 1611: The Scheme Unravels, and Truth Returns
Chapter 1611: The Scheme Unravels, and Truth Returns
When he uttered those words, Li Fan had, in his heart, truly braced himself for the possibility of becoming an infinite spirituality extractor.
If his theory proved wrong, if this was not a simulation but reality itself, then the Saints, who had spared him out of a fleeting moment of compassion, would surely not do so again after such a defiant speech.
But if he was right...
Within the halo, an incredibly eerie atmosphere gradually descended. The Saints remained silent, yet beneath this deathly stillness, a terrifying storm seemed to be brewing.
As if battered by surging tides, thousands of ripples appeared across the towering figures of the nine Saints.
The space housing the Saints also fell into violent turmoil. Cracks, like wounds, spread across it in an instant. Even the halo enveloping Li Fan began to warp, looking as if it might disintegrate at any moment.
A crack appeared in the force restraining Li Fan, allowing him to pull himself together from the state of countless shattered fragments.
"It's working!" Seeing the Saints' space on the verge of collapse, Li Fan rejoiced inwardly.
"Very well. We shall accommodate you."
"In the future, when the Mountain and Sea is restored and the Dao Annihilation is no more, we will grant you release and credit you with a share of the merit for saving the world!"
The frigid words of the nine Saints shattered the long silence.
As if a basin of ice water had been dumped over his head, Li Fan's breath caught, his face a mask of incredulous shock.
"Wait—"
Before he could finish, however, the already warped ring of light around him shattered as if crushed by an immeasurable force, exploding into thousands of points of light, like a sky full of drifting snow.
Utterly terrified, Li Fan was now completely exposed before the nine Saints.
The pressure he felt increased a hundredfold!
Li Fan had originally thought the halo in the Saints' space was a tool they used to analyze and observe cultivators who entered.
Now, after the halo shattered, Li Fan finally understood.
The halo was meant to protect the cultivators who came here!
It was because of the halo's barrier that the Saints' figures appeared indistinct, allowing cultivators to stand before them with composure.
But without the ring's protection...
Before Li Fan's eyes, the figures of the nine Saints swelled at a terrifying rate. In the span of a breath, they transformed from beings of his own size into nine colossal giants, too vast to be comprehended.
Even the phrase "touching the heavens and standing on the earth" could not begin to describe a fraction of their scale.
The nine Saints stood together, as vast as mountains, as deep as the sea.
They transcended the very limits of Li Fan's ability to "see"!
Just as one naturally knows the name of the Mountain and Sea when within it, standing surrounded by the Saints, their names spontaneously appeared in Li Fan's mind!
Lian Shan!
Gui Hai!
Tai Yi!
Shou Qiu!
Star Raft!
Karma Judge!
Stealing Opportunity!
...
With every Saint that entered his vision, Li Fan felt as if he were reliving the agony of having Truth Realization torn from him.
He could not even make out all of their faces before his vision went black, and he lost consciousness completely.
"Is this... my final end?"
In his hazy state, Li Fan seemed to see countless phantoms. It was as if he were experiencing infinite different endings for the Mountain and Sea: he witnessed the collapse of the Other Shore, the shattering of the Mountain and Sea, the temporary retreat of the Dao Annihilation...
The visions went on and on.
They were like dreams, yet felt like reality, making it impossible to distinguish one from the other.
But in all these versions of the Mountain and Sea, there was no trace of him, Li Fan. He did not exist, not even as an ant. He was purely and completely an observer.
Or perhaps...
Fuel for the restart of the Mountain and Sea?
Trapped in such a hopeless situation, Li Fan's heart was surprisingly calm.
There was no fear, no regret, and no resentment.
Beyond the influence of his peculiar observer nature, the more significant reason was that in every scene he witnessed, the ultimate fate of the Mountain and Sea was always destruction.
Without a single exception.
Cycle after cycle of restarts were nothing but futile struggles.
Li Fan even felt a strange mix of pity and relief.
He had not been drawn into such a despairing cycle himself.
The cycles of the Mountain and Sea, endless and unceasing, a river of a billion visions, flowing endlessly, swallowed Li Fan whole.
...
An unknown amount of time passed before a voice, one Li Fan knew intimately, sounded in the darkness.
"*This simulation has ended.*"
Like a pebble dropped into still water.
A thousand ripples spread out, gradually thawing Li Fan's frozen consciousness.
"This voice... it's so familiar."
"It's..."
"What was it again?"
"*Do you wish to overwrite the current Mountain and Sea with the results of this simulation?*"
The voice did not answer Li Fan's confusion, continuing with extreme indifference.
These further words were like a cascade of tiny pebbles hitting the water, not just creating ripples but sending up a spray of countless droplets!
Finally, they awakened Li Fan's long-dormant memories.
"Truth Realization! Yes, that's the voice of Truth Realization!"
As if breaking free from a frozen state, an extreme joy, like a warm flame, surged through his heart and awakened him.
He savored the taste of this rediscovered feeling, eagerly mulling over every single word Truth Realization had spoken.
After a long while, Li Fan finally collected himself.
"Over... The simulation is over?"
Like a bolt of lightning, it split the darkness and illuminated his surroundings.
Li Fan felt as if he had just burst forth from the bottom of the sea, finally able to breathe freely again.
"What exactly happened at the end of that last life? My plan seemed to fail. And then... I think I really was turned into a machine for extracting infinite spirituality..." Li Fan couldn't help but shiver.
"But why did I manage to escape the simulation?" Although he was safe, a thick fog of confusion still enveloped Li Fan's mind.
"*Do you wish to overwrite the current Mountain and Sea with the results of this simulation?*"
The cold voice of Truth Realization chimed in at the right moment, interrupting Li Fan's confusion.
"Hmm?"
Hearing this, Li Fan was once again stunned.
"Overwrite the current Mountain and Sea with the results of this simulation?"
He carefully contemplated the meaning of this sentence.
Unlike any choice that had ever appeared after a regression, the option now before him was something entirely new.
Its meaning wasn't particularly hard to understand.
But it was so utterly incredible that for a moment, Li Fan found it hard to believe.
So, he instinctively sought confirmation from Truth Realization.
"Truth and falsehood, decided in a thought."
"The Mountain and Sea, though boundless, can be overwritten in an instant."
That was Truth Realization's only reply.
After receiving this affirmative response, Li Fan's thoughts froze, deeply shaken. It was only then that he realized the strangeness of his current state.
In the past, when he activated Truth Realization, he would choose an anchor point. After the regression, he would awaken back in the chosen time and place.
But now...
Darkness surrounded him; the space seemed to contain nothing but himself.
"Only after I make a choice will anything change."
"And here, I am completely safe."
Having figured this out, Li Fan no longer felt rushed to make a decision.
He ignored the periodic prompts from Truth Realization and began to ponder deeply.
"The results of this simulation..."
"That must refer to everything I experienced in the last life."
Recalling the end where the nine Saints turned him into an infinite spirituality extractor, Li Fan couldn't help but shudder.
"Overwriting the current Mountain and Sea should mean taking my experiences from the simulation and turning them from illusion into reality."
Li Fan repeated the words, "Truth and falsehood, decided in a thought," his expression pensive.
When truth becomes fiction, fiction can also become truth.
Li Fan knew a thing or two about this transformation between the real and the illusory.
If the old function of Truth Realization was to "turn truth into falsehood"—rendering his experiences void and returning him to a set anchor point—
then this time, its function was to "turn falsehood into truth"!
It was merely a simulation, yet Truth Realization could wield an immeasurable power to transform illusion into reality!
"I myself can create things from nothing using the art of turning falsehood into truth. How could Truth Realization not be able to do the same?"
"I should have realized this sooner!"
But this was followed by an irrepressible doubt.
"Overwrite the current Mountain and Sea with the simulation's results. Does this 'Mountain and Sea' include the Other Shore? Or, to be more specific, would the Saints within the Mountain and Sea be affected? Would they notice?"
"If it can't affect the Saints, then the moment Truth Realization overwrites reality, they will detect it. But if... if Truth Realization can deceive even the Saints..."
In an instant, Li Fan's mind was in turmoil.
"Truth Realization may possess great power, but the Saints' strength is at the apex of the Mountain and Sea. Most critically, the nine of them working together were able to forcibly extract it from my body."
"Once I lose Truth Realization, I'll have no more chances to turn the tables."
Having suffered such a setback in the simulation, Li Fan now had a very clear understanding of himself. Without the help of Truth Realization, the Transcendent realm was his limit.
Advancing further to become a Saint would be fundamentally hopeless.
Not to mention the tragic fate of becoming an infinite spirituality extractor that would accompany Truth Realization falling into others' hands.
His thoughts churned for a long time before he finally calmed down.
He tried asking Truth Realization but received no response.
"No matter what, the outcome of this simulation was simply too terrible. Even if Truth Realization's power could affect the Saints, extrapolating from the simulation's events, they would inevitably become aware of it and my infinite spirituality."
"I absolutely have to discard the results of this simulation."
With this in mind, Li Fan took a deep breath and looked at the line of glowing text pulsing before him.
He decisively chose "No."
The glowing characters shattered with a rumble, transforming into a water-like curtain that was all too familiar to Li Fan.
Beyond the dark space, a faint light began to glow.
The light grew brighter and brighter, until reality completely engulfed the space.
A moment later, Li Fan was back in his mortal residence in the Great Xuan of the Xuanhuang Realm.
Everything he had just experienced felt like a fleeting dream.
So much time had passed that even Li Fan felt dazed for a moment. It took him the better part of half a day to readjust.
"This time, although it was a simulation, it was no different from a real experience."
Li Fan stretched his limbs, the frailty of his mortal body feeling quite unfamiliar.
"The current time is Anchor Point 1. Truth Realization had finished charging once, but my amnesiac self activated it to run a simulation."
"Instead of resetting the Mountain and Sea and returning to a set anchor point."
"Now, the simulation is over. Since I chose not to overwrite the Mountain and Sea with the results, you could say I gained nothing and wasted a use of Truth Realization."
"No, that's not right. Strictly speaking, the gains from this simulation were immense. Not only did I successfully verify my own path to transcendence, but I also scouted out the details and risks of the Other Shore."
"If not for this simulation, I would have recklessly charged into the Other Shore, and the result would have been the same as in the simulation—a state of eternal damnation. The fact that my amnesiac self initiated this simulation was a stroke of incredible luck."
"Or perhaps... it was intentional on Truth Realization's part."
At this thought, Li Fan called out to Truth Realization in his mind.
The Truth Realization interface, which he hadn't seen for a long time, flickered into existence before him once more.
After the tribulation of the three merging Daos, the information on the interface seemed to have been wiped clean; it was completely empty.
Anchor points, bound items, and everything else had vanished without a trace.
Only the basic information about Li Fan and the abilities of Truth Realization remained.
Li Fan felt little regret. Staring at the sparse-looking interface, he gradually began to understand.
"The set anchor points were wiped out by the tribulation of the three merging Daos, so when Truth Realization was activated, it had no specific target. That's why it conducted a true 'simulation' for the first time."
"No..."
"There were other factors at play as well."
Li Fan suddenly noticed the specific condition of his current mortal body.
"The power of the Great Dao of Longevity that it once held has completely vanished."
"Was it consumed as fuel for the simulation?" Li Fan was beginning to understand.
"If I were to activate a simulation without the support of an energy source on par with the Mountain and Sea, like the power of the Great Dao of Longevity, what would happen then?"
"I'll know the answer once Truth Realization finishes charging."
Unhurried, Li Fan sat down cross-legged and waited patiently.
Though he was in a mortal body, the current Li Fan was not much weaker than his True Immortal self.
Setting aside his insights into the transformation of truth and falsehood, his mastery over the true meaning of transcendence alone was enough for him to suppress an ordinary True Immortal with ease.
Therefore, even in an environment with no safeguards, Li Fan's state of mind remained perfectly steady.
Until Truth Realization had finished charging.
Li Fan attempted to activate it again.
He could clearly feel the message coming from Truth Realization.
"It must have sent the same message before, but in my amnesiac state, I didn't notice."
"There are two choices. The first is to return to the original anchor point: Anchor Point 1."
"As for the second, it is to run another simulation."
"However, without sufficient energy to power it, the effectiveness of this simulation will be nowhere near the last one."
"My last experience was indistinguishable from reality; it could even overwrite reality with the simulation's outcome. But this time, if I force a simulation..."
"Not only will the simulated experience deviate from what would happen in reality, but more importantly, the results won't be able to affect reality."
"The key is still the energy required for the simulation."
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