Chapter 1691: Rather Be Idle Than a Saint
Chapter 1691: Rather Be Idle Than a Saint
As the two forces ceased their struggle, the waters of the Fishing Ground slowly calmed.
With Li Fan's power thrown into the breach, the Mountain and Sea Fishing Ground was no longer sealed off. The trajectory of the Mountain and Sea's shadow finally realigned with history.
Everything that had been on the verge of collapse returned to a state of stability.
Only then did Li Fan let out a quiet sigh of relief.
"I nearly made a fool of myself," he admitted with a look of shame from within the Other Shore.
"A true Saint would never appear within a shadow of the Mountain and Sea. However, the memory of the Mountain and Sea will instinctively manifest everything as it originally was. This means that while this Fishing Ground may be an imitation, the pulling force it just unleashed was identical to that of the real one. To hold it at a stalemate for so long with just a sliver of your will is already quite an achievement," Shou Qiu remarked.
"The Mountain and Sea's shadow was likely mimicking the Fishing Old Man. The more the hooked fish struggles, the more delighted he becomes. But if the prey itself is unremarkable, he loses interest and might even let it go," the shadow of Lian Shan added, offering his own explanation.
"From the sound of it, this 'Mountain Sea Angler' seems like a true fisherman. But with the Mountain and Sea already in a state of ruin, how does he have the leisure to fish across the heavens..." the All Knowing Immortal mused, his gaze fixed on the Fishing Ground, his tone unreadable.
The All Knowing Immortal snorted. "If the Mountain and Sea were truly annihilated, this Fishing Ground would cease to exist. Where would he go to fish then?"
"He did mention something about that," Tai Yi said, shaking his head. "The Mountain and Sea Fishing Ground connects all segments of the Mountain and Sea. As long as he can continue to fish without end, it means the overall state of the Mountain and Sea is far from being as dire as it appears. If the day comes when not a single fish can be caught anywhere, then he will naturally take action."
"What kind of twisted logic is that..."
The All Knowing Immortal was about to argue further, but the shadow of Lian Shan cut him off. "Never mind that the Mountain Sea Angler's power is comparable to our own. Even if he were a mere mortal, we have no right to impose our will upon him in the name of salvation. It is just as with you; if you were not attempting that business of connecting to the Star, we would not forcibly interfere, even if you were secretly prying into the secrets of all living things."
"This is what is meant by 'all beings have their own karma.' It cannot be forced."
The All Knowing Immortal's expression froze on his face. He sullenly closed his mouth.
Tai Yi once again stepped in to smooth things over, a warm smile on his face. "Do you still remember the Scripture Grave Great Saint from the Immortal Realm you once inhabited?"
"How could I forget? The man is incredibly petty. Just because I exposed his true form, he had to chase me across the worlds. After I became a Saint, I was so preoccupied with saving the world that I forgot to go back and settle the score with him..." the All Knowing Immortal said, half-joking.
"Back then, Scripture Grave already had the potential to become a Saint. But he was naturally idle and unwilling to bear too much responsibility. Even the affairs of a single realm were more than he could handle. So, for all these years, his cultivation has stagnated. We used to try and persuade him from time to time, but when we saw it was useless, we left him be. If you truly wish to turn the tables and hunt him down, it's not impossible. Perhaps you could even pressure him into taking that final step."
"He's hiding somewhere in the real Mountain and Sea, enjoying a life of quiet pleasure. If you search earnestly, you should be able to find him," Tai Yi said nonchalantly.
"Er... I think I'll pass." Unsure what memory had surfaced, a flicker of apprehension crossed the All Knowing Immortal's eyes as he spoke sullenly.
...
After the brief commotion, the Other Shore fell silent once more.
It turned out that the progress Li Fan had made in mastering the shadow of memory was among the most advanced of all the Saints.
Only after he had stabilized the situation did tangible beams of light begin to emerge one after another from the void realm. These were signs that the other Saints were completing the main memory threads of the Mountain and Sea.
Li Fan's consciousness returned to the simulation.
Within the shadow of the Xuanhuang Realm, his next task was to orchestrate the demise of the Divine Wood Sect.
For Li Fan, who had long since subdued the Divine Wood, this was naturally an effortless undertaking.
"This is the perfect opportunity to move the Divine Wood's power from the light into the shadows, making it completely mine."
"As for the people of the Divine Wood Sect..."
"Those who are meant to die, will die."
With a detached expression, Li Fan had already sealed the fate of a magnificent sect and its million cultivators.
Everything unfolded just as it had in the history of the Mountain and Sea.
News that the Divine Wood had been gravely wounded by the Desolate God and that the Divine Wood Sect was desperately searching for a cure spread through the Xuanhuang Realm like wildfire.
Certain hearts began to stir with ambition.
None more so than Ruomu, the other ancient tree.
As the source of life in the Xuanhuang Realm and the ancestor of all flora, the arrival and growth of the otherworldly Divine Wood posed a direct threat to him first and foremost.
Unfortunately, he hadn't paid it much mind at first. By the time he realized the danger, it was already too late.
After so many years of lying in wait, his chance had finally come.
He no longer hesitated.
Innumerable mountain sprites and wood spirits, dense as a great shadow blotting out the sun, swarmed from every corner of the Xuanhuang Realm, surrounding the Divine Wood Sect.
Hidden among them were many Dao Integration cultivators, lured by Ruomu's promise of "extended lifespan," as well as opportunistic rogue cultivators hoping to profit from the chaos.
The cultivators of the Divine Wood Sect, united against a common enemy, fought with one heart.
Although they lacked top-tier combatants, their total number of cultivators from the Golden Core to the Soul Transformation stage far surpassed that of their attackers.
Moreover, with the Divine Wood at their backs, as long as they weren't killed instantly, they could quickly recover under the nourishment of its endless life force.
For a time, the great battle was evenly matched, a true stalemate.
Seeing no easy advantage to be gained, many cultivators on Ruomu's side began to consider retreating.
"As long as you can uproot the Divine Wood, I will reward you all with the Fruit of Longevity. A single bite of this divine medicine will grant you a lifespan equal to that of heaven and earth," Ruomu declared, manifesting a human form and upping the ante.
The shimmering image of a translucent, crystalline fruit appeared in Ruomu's hand.
At this time, Ruomu had not yet taken on the hunched, terrifying form of his later years. Instead, he appeared as a handsome young nobleman, as graceful as jade.
Dressed in green robes, his features were as if carved by the heavens themselves, flawless in their perfection. Coupled with the crystalline fruit in his hand, which pulsed with the aura of eternal life, his words were irresistible.
The hearts of the Dao Integration cultivators present were stirred, and they proclaimed their willingness to fight with all their might once more.
And so, the final, bloody chapter of the war began.
Because Ruomu had siphoned all the life force from the Xuanhuang Realm to attack the Divine Wood Sect, the rest of the world plunged into a desolate, bitter winter, frozen for tens of thousands of miles.
Even the flow of spiritual energy in the world grew sluggish.
A cultivator's normal flight was affected.
With the harsh weather conditions, cultivators from other sects, aside from those on the Divine Wood Sect's battlefield, mostly chose to remain in seclusion.
They waited for the great war to reach its conclusion.
"My son truly has foresight! By showing such generosity in his daily life, even now, with this endless war raging, no one can say a word against him for not fighting, out of respect for his past deeds," Li Bufan's father remarked with a sigh.
"Not like the children of the other elders, who have stayed in the rear for so long they can no longer hold back. To quell the public anger, they've been forced onto the battlefield. How could they possibly withstand that terrifying meat grinder? It's almost always a one-way trip."
"You can delay for a time, but not forever. No, Old Li, you have to think of something. If this continues, even if Bufan can stay hidden in the back, what if the Divine Wood Sect falls..."
"Silence! Stop with such foolish talk!" Li Bufan's father rudely cut his wife off.
But as he looked at Li Bufan, his eyelids drooped slightly. In his heart, he had already made a decision.
The next day, Li Bufan received a talisman from his father. Following his instructions, he quietly made his way to a cavern deep in the sect's rear mountains.
After presenting the talisman, he was granted entry. Inside, he found that a number of people had already gathered.
They were all familiar faces.
Although most of the Divine Wood Sect's elders were willing to fight to the death, they all wanted to secure a path of survival for their descendants.
It was only human nature.
"Such is the heart of a parent," Li Fan sneered inwardly as his eyes swept over the crowd.
In true history, these second-generation disciples of the Divine Wood Sect had not escaped their pursuers.
In this shadow of memory, Li Fan didn't mind the trouble of sending them on their way.
Once everyone had gathered, the cave entrance was sealed.
Amidst a faint tremor, the roots of the Divine Wood broke through the ground.
The group followed the roots deep underground, quietly leaving the vicinity of the Divine Wood Sect.
"Wait, something's not right. Why haven't the Divine Wood's roots stopped now that we've reached the destination?" the leading cultivator's expression changed drastically.
But it was too late.
Deep beneath the earth, hidden from all, the Divine Wood's roots seemed to take on a will of their own, instantly branching into a million tendrils that plunged deep into the bodies of the Divine Wood Sect disciples.
In that moment, their life force remained, but they were no different from the dead.
Meanwhile, the powerful cultivators of the Divine Wood Sect, sensing that their descendants were moving to safety, no longer had any lingering worries.
They engaged the invading enemies in a battle to the death.
They even began to burn the Divine Wood's very essence for power.
Both sides were fighting for survival; there was no right or wrong.
The stench of blood surged, reaching the highest heavens.
The entire sky of the Xuanhuang Realm was stained crimson by the conflict.
Too many lives had been lost. If this continued, even if a victor emerged, they would likely fall prey to the other sects.
Thus, the thought of retreat began to form in the minds of both sides.
It was at this moment that Li Fan, who had been hiding and watching the show, finally made his move.
With his current cultivation, even without using the power of the Divine Wood disciples from his Mountain Sitting Technique, he could easily suppress the Divine Wood.
Under his manipulation, the Divine Wood suddenly showed signs of decay.
A great wind blew, and countless withered yellow leaves rained down from the sky like a torrential storm.
This scene left both warring factions stunned.
A chill swept through the hearts of the Divine Wood Sect.
But on Ruomu's side, their spirits soared.
Final victory was within their grasp. Like they'd been injected with chicken blood, their eyes turned red as they surged forward in a frenzy.
Under the influence of Li Fan's mysterious hand, the scales of battle had already tipped.
The Divine Wood Sect's defensive line collapsed like an avalanche.
The battlefield transformed from a contest between two sides into a one-sided slaughter.
"Good, good, good!"
Seeing victory at hand, Ruomu's heart surged with excitement, and he repeated the word three times.
Behind him, the phantom of his true form could even be faintly seen.
Beneath the earth's veins, Ruomu's roots advanced from all directions.
They tightly coiled around the Divine Wood, which stood like a solitary mountain.
Then, they pierced its trunk and burrowed deep inside.
"If I can be nourished by this wood, not only will I recover from all past injuries, I might even be able to take another step forward!"
As Ruomu was lost in pleasant thoughts of the future, he failed to notice a strange, treacherous power that had already followed the essence he absorbed from the Divine Wood into his own body.
Finally, with the thunderous collapse of that sky-piercing Divine Wood, which turned to rotten wood and ash, the great war came to an end.
Ruomu did not go back on his word, distributing the Fruits of Longevity to several cultivators.
After that...
Ruomu returned to the space where his true body resided, gleefully taking stock of his gains from absorbing the Divine Wood.
To his horror, he discovered that, at some unknown time...
A figure was sitting on top of his head!
"Since the Divine Wood is gone, you'll have to serve as its replacement," Li Fan said faintly.
"Who are..." Ruomu was about to speak, but he found he couldn't move!
From Ruomu's own trunk, new roots sprouted, piercing through his body and growing with savage abandon.
In the blink of an eye, they had replaced Ruomu entirely.
The Divine Wood Sect was annihilated, and Ruomu once again controlled the spiritual veins of the Xuanhuang Realm.
Another established fact was completed, and the shadow of the Mountain and Sea's memory grew even more stable.
Li Fan sat cross-legged atop Ruomu's head, using its power to command the entire situation.
"The Ruomu of this era is far from the withered tree of later generations."
"It is the hub of life's circulation in the Xuanhuang experimental ground, capable of changing the four seasons of the Xuanhuang Realm with a single thought, even at a fundamental level."
"It's a pity that, whether willingly or not, it gave away too many Fruits of Longevity, leading to its tragic end."
"But no matter."
With a thought, Li Fan sensed the whereabouts of the many fruits Ruomu had bestowed.
"The chance for longevity cannot be so lightly given to others."
"Though I cannot change your fates..."
"You can become my pawns."
Under the saturation of Li Fan's profound power, the fruits that could grant a lifespan equal to heaven and earth were silently transformed into a puppeteering poison.
Those who consumed them remained unaware, yet their every word, every action, and even their innermost thoughts could be influenced by Li Fan.
Before, although Li Fan was powerful, he still needed to personally intervene to manipulate the Xuanhuang Realm.
But with the implantation of these long-lived pawns, no external force was needed.
With just a thought, he could silently alter the state of the Xuanhuang Realm.
With absolute influence, the overall situation was decided.
The game board of the Xuanhuang Realm no longer required Li Fan to personally place the pieces. The game would change according to his will.
It saved him time and effort. Now, there was only one final step.
The most important step.
To reenact the scene where the Fate Pivot captured that unknown divine object.
"Simply replaying the scene isn't difficult. The hard part is recreating the profound fluctuation that occurred when the two forces clashed," Li Fan frowned slightly.
Even the Saints observing from the Other Shore felt its extraordinary nature for a fleeting moment when they witnessed that fluctuation.
"To achieve a level of realism that could fool even the Mountain and Sea itself..."
Li Fan slowly recalled what he had seen.
Simultaneously, outside the void realm, in the Other Shore, his true self cast its gaze once more.
He did not ask the Saints for help, but began to comprehend it on his own.
He thought of the pulling force the Mountain and Sea's shadow had spontaneously simulated from the Fishing Ground.
"It doesn't have to truly exist. It just needs to make the Mountain and Sea believe it exists."
"I can play the part of the Fate Pivot. As for the other one..."
As Li Fan was pondering, a faint ripple stirred in the deepest part of his heart.
It was infinitesimally small, even less than a flicker of his own thoughts.
But it was distinctly not his own.
"Is this... Truth?"
Li Fan's expression remained calm, but he was forcefully suppressing the shock in his heart, trying to guess Truth's intention.
The ripple from Truth vanished as quickly as it came.
But it was by no means random.
"It must have sensed my thoughts just now."
"Just now..."
"I was thinking about perfectly recreating the fluctuation from that moment."
"Does Truth mean to say that doing so is dangerous?"
Comments