Chapter 1630: The Birth of a Saint
Chapter 1630: The Birth of a Saint
Far from showing any intention of reprimanding him for the attack, Li Fan's expression was alight with excitement.
"After roaming the length and breadth of the Mountain and Sea, I have finally found a kindred spirit!"
As he spoke, Li Fan casually unleashed a radiant flame.
The fire blazed fiercely, instantly igniting the last remnants of this pocket of possibility.
The He Gan Immortal, who had just been radiating malice, was suddenly stunned.
"I wish to overturn the Mountain and Sea. Friend, are you willing to join me?"
Li Fan's inquiry was filled with an almost tangible sincerity.
The final vestiges of possibility burned away to nothing in the flames of the True Spirit.
Above Li Fan's head, a solitary sail hung suspended, warding off the tide's consuming force.
He Gan Xian's situation, however, was rather peculiar.
An invisible vortex seemed to exist around him. As the Dao Annihilation tide flowed in to corrode him, it was caught in a current, spun around, and redirected to other regions of the Mountain and Sea.
Naturally, innocent possibilities were afflicted by this disaster, but having been shaken from his state of enlightenment, He Gan Xian felt not a shred of guilt in his heart.
Within the turbulent currents of Dao Annihilation, Li Fan and He Gan Xian stood facing each other.
"Overturn the Mountain and Sea?" He Gan Xian savored the words.
"The great tide of Dao Annihilation is vast and mighty. To follow it is to prosper; to resist it is to perish! The Other Shore, the Sacred Dynasty—they are fools striking a rock with an egg. Their hopeless struggles only invite ridicule!"
"Why not follow the grand trend, extinguish the Mountain and Sea, and return to the Divine Star? When order is one day re-established, you and I might be canonized as Saints for our service!"
"What do you say, my friend?" Li Fan declared with feverish passion.
The Mountain and Sea seemed to fall into a deathly silence.
Only the surging tide of Dao Annihilation silently devoted the innocent possibilities that had been inexplicably caught in its path.
"What garbage..."
After staring silently at Li Fan for a long moment, He Gan Xian unexpectedly uttered this assessment.
"Die!"
As if he couldn't be bothered to waste any more words, He Gan Xian reached out a hand toward Li Fan from across the void.
It wasn't just the surrounding tide of Dao Annihilation or the True Spirit flames Li Fan had released that were affected, forming a vortex-like shackle. In that instant, images of all his past deeds flashed through Li Fan's own mind.
Annihilating the Xuanhuang Realm, destroying the Darkest Star Sea, shattering the High Wall, extinguishing Shuo Xinghai, razing the Primal Possibility, igniting the Mountain and Sea...
The scale of the calamities he had wrought grew progressively larger.
The number of lives lost in those disasters grew exponentially with them.
What had once been a mere string of numbers now manifested as distinct faces, roaring with fury, surging up from the depths of his heart.
It was like a procession of vengeful spirits demanding retribution!
Faced with the countless souls he had slain, if Li Fan's heart held even a sliver of guilt, he would have been affected. His mind would have wavered, perhaps even collapsed, and he would have been devoured by these manifested specters.
But...
From beginning to end, Li Fan watched the sudden emergence of these countless vengeful spirits with cold detachment. His heart remained utterly unmoved.
There was even a hint of a question in his eyes.
It was as if these souls who had lost their lives had absolutely nothing to do with him!
If He Gan Xian's mantra of "What does it matter to me" was born from a violent conflict between his lingering conscience and his self, then Li Fan's "What does it matter to me" was a simple, rhetorical question, devoid of any emotional color.
He Gan Xian still had a conscience.
Li Fan, on the other hand...
Facing this man who seemed more like the "What Matter" Immortal than he himself was, He Gan Xian felt an unwarranted fear rise in his heart, an instinctual urge to flee.
Yet, before he could move, tendrils of True Spirit fire rose up, blocking his path.
"Where are you going, my friend? Could it be that you believe the Mountain and Sea can be saved?" Li Fan demanded, his voice shaking the void.
Everything he had done before was for this very sentence.
His voice was like a clap of thunder in He Gan Xian's heart, making his body tremble violently.
"Can the Mountain and Sea be saved?"
Li Fan pressed on, relentless.
The True Spirit flames and the Dao Annihilation tide reflected each other's destructive light.
Drowned by the tide, incinerated by the flames—a terrifying wave of extinction spread through the Mountain and Sea. Though it began by touching only insignificant droplets of possibility...
With each of Li Fan's thunderous questions, this horrifying calamity spread at an unimaginable speed.
It was quickly becoming an unstoppable force!
Surrounded by the True Spirit flames and the Dao Annihilation tide, after several failed attempts to escape, He Gan Xian watched the disaster spread across the boundless expanse. Under the constant barrage of questions, he finally began to break.
He roared in a choked voice, "Of course the Mountain and Sea can be saved! The one to save it is none other than me, the Moral True Immortal!"
He had finally been forced to scream out his innermost thoughts.
But Li Fan remained relentless. "The Moral True Immortal? Who are you, really?"
"Do you possess Dao? Do you possess Virtue?"
He Gan Xian, furious, did not answer. He watched the Mountain and Sea gradually being consumed by water and fire, his heart growing ever more anxious.
He lunged left and right, trying to break through Li Fan's blockade.
However, his strength was already a notch below Li Fan's. Moreover, the True Spirit flames and the Dao Annihilation tide were forces capable of devouring the Mountain and Sea itself.
Li Fan wasn't confronting him directly; he was merely using the power of this conflagration to trap him.
Despite his myriad powers, He Gan Xian found himself helpless for a moment, like a caged beast, letting out pained, wounded howls.
"Do you possess Dao? Do you possess Virtue?"
Li Fan's interrogation never ceased.
Each word was like a sharp sword piercing He Gan Xian's heart.
He Gan Xian's eyes turned crimson, and tears of blood began to stream down his face. "I am saving the Mountain and Sea! How could I lack Virtue? I am saving the Mountain and Sea! How could I lack Dao?"
The first "I am saving the Mountain and Sea" was an idea, a conviction.
The second was a concrete action, a method.
Hearing He Gan Xian finally roar out these words, he nodded in satisfaction.
Then, a cold light flashed in his eyes. With a great wave of his hand, the True Spirit flames burned even more ferociously.
More possibilities were caught in the inferno. The flames surged to the heavens, completely obscuring He Gan Xian's vision.
He could no longer see the Mountain and Sea. He saw only an endless ocean of fire.
From He Gan Xian's perspective, it was as if Li Fan were incinerating the Mountain and Sea right before his eyes.
Not only that, but Li Fan's voice boomed with a final, severe question: "The Mountain and Sea burns to ash before your very eyes. And you claim to save it?"
"How can you possibly possess Dao?"
A final, definitive blow.
He Gan Xian froze as if struck by lightning, his body rigid and unmoving.
"Do I possess Dao? Do I possess Dao? Do I possess Dao..."
He muttered the words over and over.
Finally, the flames dancing in his pupils gave him the answer.
"The Mountain and Sea is burned to ash. I have no Dao."
"I have Virtue, but no Dao."
"I have Virtue, but no Dao..."
The moment he uttered these words, He Gan Xian's body instantly became transparent.
And behind Li Fan, another figure quietly appeared.
Yet Li Fan seemed to have anticipated his arrival all along!
"He lost his face because he was without Virtue."
"Your lack of Virtue was not a consequence of He Gan Xian's actions. It is because you truly have no Virtue!"
"He Gan Xian appeared to lack Virtue, but in truth, he possessed it. For all his sins were committed for the sake of saving the Mountain and Sea. If the Mountain and Sea is saved, all sins are naturally absolved."
"Moral True Immortal, Moral True Immortal. He Gan Xian is the Virtue, and you..."
"You are the Dao!"
Clap. Clap. Clap.
A very rhythmic applause came from the figure behind Li Fan.
His face was a blank slate—it was the Faceless Immortal!
"A brilliant deduction!"
"I never thought you'd see through to the essence of us both. I was only hoping to use your power to slow him down a little. I never imagined you would do so much better than I'd hoped."
"You even managed to define him completely."
"Truly remarkable!"
The Faceless Immortal took a deep, enjoyable breath in the direction of the fading He Gan Xian.
The spectral form of He Gan Xian offered no resistance at all as it was inhaled into the Faceless Immortal's body.
After a moment of stillness, the aura emanating from the Faceless Immortal began to swell by a factor of thousands, even millions!
It was like a mortal attaining the Dao in a single day and ascending in broad daylight!
The Faceless Immortal, who had been pathetically weak and merely at the True Immortal level, now seemed not only to have inherited He Gan Xian's realm and power, but his cultivation had undergone some kind of qualitative transformation.
From the realm of Transcendent, he was now stepping onto the path of Sainthood!
The two had become one.
The figure of He Gan Xian, or rather, the [Moral True Immortal], grew more solid.
His voice also changed. At first, it was two voices overlapping. Slowly, they merged completely, becoming indistinguishable.
"Separated for a hundred thousand years, today I am finally whole."
"My thanks, friend, for your assistance!"
The Moral True Immortal, having completed his path to apotheosis, actually bowed to Li Fan!
"But there is one thing you were mistaken about."
"I am not the Dao, and he is not the Virtue."
"Morality splits, yet Morality does not split."
"He was the same."
On the Moral True Immortal's originally blank visage, a face slowly began to form.
He gazed at Li Fan and said with a smile, "Before we were ultimately [defined], I was the Dao, and I was also the Virtue. He was the Virtue, and he was also the Dao."
"We simply chose different paths of evolution."
"I abandoned Virtue; he held fast to it."
"However, the path I chose did not bring me the power I expected."
"But his Virtue—saving the Mountain and Sea by any means necessary—allowed his strength to advance by leaps and bounds."
"I had fallen behind, on the verge of losing this race."
"I never, ever expected this..."
The Moral True Immortal spoke with immense feeling.
"Moral True Immortal, Moral True Immortal. The Dao gives birth to Virtue, and Virtue transforms into Dao. Morality is indivisible!"
"This is our foundation. Even as we evolved in different directions, this fact never disappeared. If one were to completely lose their Dao, or completely lose their Virtue..."
"The very basis of their existence would vanish. And the consequence..."
The Moral True Immortal's smile instantly vanished. "Is to return to one."
Faced with this seemingly unexpected turn of events, Li Fan showed no panic.
Instead, he sized up the newly successful Moral True Immortal with great interest. "So, right now, are you more Dao or more Virtue? Did you achieve apotheosis through Virtue, or through Dao?"
The Moral True Immortal shook his head. "Whether it is Dao or Virtue is not important. What's important is who can truly reach the end."
"The last one standing is the true victor."
"And the victor... becomes a Saint."
A vast and mighty aura rose from the Moral True Immortal.
Like a heaven-sweeping wind, it instantly pushed back the still-raging True Spirit flames and the Dao Annihilation tide.
Even while they had been speaking, the Moral True Immortal's aura had been expanding without pause.
Now, as if breaking through some unseen barrier, the intensity of his expanding aura suddenly increased by several hundred times more.
The radiant flames and the Dao Annihilation tide, forces capable of devouring the Mountain and Sea, were suppressed by this aura of Sainthood.
A world-shaking brilliance shot up from this corner of possibility, soaring high into the sky.
It shook the Mountain and Sea to its very core!
"Although you have done me the service of helping me attain my apotheosis, however..."
The newly minted Saint, [Moral], now looked at Li Fan with a strange expression in his eyes.
Without another word, his left palm descended, a crushing weight like the heavens themselves collapsing.
He didn't even finish his sentence, giving Li Fan no time to react!
At the same time, as if sensing the birth of a new Saint, the Other Shore, the Sacred Dynasty, and another region somewhere within the Mountain and Sea...
All cast their gazes of concern in this direction.
[Moral] paid them no heed. His eyes were fixed solely on Li Fan.
"This is why..."
"You Saints are so very tiresome."
A hazy, curtain-like mist enveloped Li Fan.
As if existing at the intersection of reality and illusion, Moral's heaven-toppling palm passed straight through Li Fan's body.
It had no effect on him whatsoever!
Moral, however, seemed to have expected this. With a look of surprise, he stared at the watery mist surrounding Li Fan.
His mouth opened, as if to say something.
But in the end, no words came out.
Instead, he began a solemn chant.
Trapped within Moral's palm, the Mountain and Sea seemed to vanish from Li Fan's sight.
The situation was just as it had been for He Gan Xian, sealed within the True Spirit flames and the Dao Annihilation tide.
What a perfect cycle!
In Li Fan's eyes, the world was a swirling chaos.
Black and white energies emerged from all directions.
They slowly formed a vortex around Li Fan.
As the vortex spun, the curtain of mist rippled violently!
"So this... is the power of a Saint?"
"It's not all that impressive!"
Li Fan managed a strained smile.
Under the cover of the misty curtain, his body had become nine-tenths transparent.
Bai Shuyue had cycled through nearly thirty lives, and Li Fan had not been idle during that time.
With every return to truth, his understanding of the Transformation of Truth and Falsehood deepened.
"When the true is made false, the false becomes true."
Li Fan had already achieved a minor mastery of these words.
With the accumulation of those twenty-eight lifetimes, he had finally reached the threshold of a qualitative breakthrough.
This watery curtain of mist around him was a defense he had woven from the Transformation of Truth and Falsehood.
Shrouded by the mist, he existed in a state between truth and falsehood, reality and illusion.
Even a Saint could not harm him in the slightest!
Originally, Li Fan hadn't been able to deduce this divine ability to such a degree; the misty curtain could only last for three breaths.
But after personally witnessing [Moral]'s ascension to Sainthood, inspiration exploded in Li Fan's mind like countless fireworks being lit at once.
He was particularly enlightened by the sight of He Gan Xian and the Faceless Immortal, both existing in an undefined state between Dao and Virtue.
Truth and Falsehood, Dao and Virtue.
In the unseen depths of reality, there was a certain similarity.
Li Fan drew parallels and had a sudden epiphany, which allowed him to weave this misty cloak.
And it was because of this divine ability that Li Fan could witness the birth of a Saint without immediately panicking and returning to truth.
Before the nine phantom Saints, Li Fan had possessed no power to resist.
Having personally experienced the magnificent power of the Saints of the Other Shore, Li Fan was certain that this newly minted Saint, [Moral], was somewhat weaker than those true Saints.
But he was undoubtedly an existence of the same rank.
If not for the protection of the power of Truth and Falsehood, Li Fan's Transcendent strength would have been no more than an ant before him.
There would have been no room for resistance.
But now...
Even though the price of activating the power of Truth and Falsehood was devastating...
His very existence was gradually fading away.
He had, after all, truly withstood [Moral]'s suppression!
Until the protective mist around him dissipated, Li Fan's situation, which seemed so precarious...
was in fact, as steady as a mountain!
From the depths of the Mountain and Sea, it seemed that several rays of light were rushing over.
Their auras seemed no weaker than the newly ordained [Moral].
The protective mist of Truth and Falsehood around him was also about to be completely exhausted.
"Return to Truth!"
Li Fan looked up at [Moral] beyond the massive black-and-white vortex and silently recited the words in his heart.
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