Chapter 1748: Lord of the Void Realm
Chapter 1748: Lord of the Void Realm
The [Mountain Sea Variation Outline] was the grand compendium of all data on the Mountain Sea recorded by [Truth].
The [Star Radiance Rhythm Summary], on the other hand, was [Truth]'s observation of the [Star] lurking behind the curtain of reality.
At the final moments of every cycle, the lone Star would invariably descend and devour all existence. Then, [Truth] would turn the tide, reversing everything.
This pattern had never changed.
But did each reset by [Truth] also completely affect the Star?
Was it constantly returned to its starting point, or was its advance merely delayed, still undergoing substantive changes with each cycle?
That much remained unknown.
However, if even the silver radiance hidden at the bottom of the Infinite Sea could retain some faint intuition, then it went without saying that the lone Star was likely far more aware.
"The [Mountain Sea Variation Outline] is the capital for establishing one's Dao and cultivation. The [Star Radiance Rhythm Summary], however, serves more as a precautionary warning."
In Li Fan's view, no change within the Mountain Sea, not even the birth of a new god, was to be feared. Only that lone Star could pose a genuine threat to him, the wielder of the power to turn fantasy into truth.
For now, [Truth] could still reverse everything. But one day, if [Truth] could no longer sway the lone Star...
That would be the end, a doom from which there was no recovery.
As thoughts surged through his mind, Li Fan tried to discern something from the pulsating starlight before him.
But unlike the clear and comprehensible data of the [Mountain Sea Variation Outline], this record of [Truth]'s observations on the Star was filled with an indescribable, eerie strangeness.
As the starlight seeped into his consciousness, Li Fan began to hear faint, inexplicable whispers at the edge of his hearing.
The sky of the Xuanhuang Realm seemed to come alive.
It opened eyes, one after another, marbled with jaundiced yellow and abyssal black.
Li Fan observed them as a matter of course.
The instant his gaze met one of them, they all seemed to discover his existence. In a flash, every other eye in the sky swiveled to stare directly at him.
And then, more and more eyes began to open across the celestial canopy.
They bloomed open, a dense, writhing mass that nearly blotted out the heavens.
All of them were fixed, dead-set, on Li Fan.
The rhythm of the starlight's pulsation grew increasingly erratic and unpredictable.
The sounds in his ears began to be punctuated by piercing, miserable screams.
And strangely, Li Fan felt a sliver of familiarity in these sounds.
They were identical to the echoes from the mad Heavenly Dao of Xuanhuang, the one that had once been sealed by Su Bai and borne by Xu Ke.
Li Fan couldn't help but listen more closely.
"Hey! It's you!"
"You look... familiar!"
"A mere Dao Integration cultivator, yet you make me feel an instinctual dread? Where does this feeling come from?"
"You should be dead! You really, really should be dead!"
"Why did you have to harm me! Why did you have to appear here!"
"Aaaah, save me, please save me..."
"No, wait... I... am no longer me!"
...
It was a chorus of chaos, madness, and bewildering oddity.
Li Fan frowned slightly, then suddenly realized something and withdrew from his contemplation of the [Star Radiance Rhythm Summary].
The pulsating starlight projected onto the backdrop of the Xuanhuang Realm vanished.
But...
The dense cluster of eyes covering the heavens did not disappear with it!
They all remained, staring straight at Li Fan, their gazes burning with crazed hatred!
"Oh?"
A tremor of shock ran through Li Fan's heart, not because he feared the maddened Xuanhuang Realm.
Even with his current Dao Integration cultivation, he could crush this Heavenly Dao with a single thought.
What astonished him was that the mere act of "seeing" the pulsating starlight during his meditation could have a tangible effect on the real Mountain Sea.
"The record of the Star, simply by being observed by the outside world, can alter and warp reality."
"This kind of power..."
Li Fan frowned, his gaze piercing through the Xuanhuang Realm to look upon the entire Primal Possibility.
Perhaps because the observation had occurred within the Xuanhuang Realm, the Star's contamination outside was significantly weaker. But once it appeared, it did not fade. Instead, it spread rapidly, like some terrifying plague.
The Primal Possibility, already teetering on the brink under the threat of Dao Annihilation, now looked like a photograph fading with age, becoming mottled and decayed.
And in his ears, the low whispers of the Xuanhuang Realm continued unabated.
"I'll kill you! Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!"
"Kill me! Please, I'm begging you, kill me!"
"No! Don't listen to them! Save me, please, I'm begging you! Father!"
"Mommy, save me! It hurts so much!"
...
A man's despairing roars, a little girl's heartbroken sobs, a young boy's weak moans.
A thousand voices converged, echoing one another.
This was not just meaningless madness; it was as if it had been stained with memories from past cycles.
"Such noise!"
Faced with this cacophony, a cold light flashed in Li Fan's eyes.
Without any regard for past affiliations, his divine sense instantly enveloped the Xuanhuang Realm and every place within the Primal Possibility that had been tainted by the starlight.
It even extended to dozens of surrounding possibilities.
Then, the power of turning fantasy into truth was unleashed.
The cries of the Xuanhuang Realm ceased abruptly. A profound silence fell upon Li Fan's ears.
Everything his eyes could see returned to the proper colors of the Mountain Sea.
Surrounded by the void, with the Dao Annihilation tide surging around him, Li Fan felt an unprecedented sense of peace.
Compared to that bizarre, pulsating starlight, even the Dao Annihilation seemed almost charming.
The demise of dozens of possibilities was but a fading ripple in the vast ocean of the Mountain Sea. But with the Saints arrayed in the Armillary Ring, surveying all of existence, such an anomaly naturally did not escape their notice.
Fortunately, under the protection of his power, Li Fan had instantly hidden himself away in other possibilities.
The erasure of traces was absolute and thorough.
The divine senses of the Saints scoured the area but found no clues, forcing them to withdraw in frustration.
"To think that merely reading the records of the Star would be so dangerous."
"Although I reacted quickly and excised the Star's contamination, still..."
"I'm afraid its influence hasn't been completely erased. A new variable has been introduced into this life."
Li Fan frowned and tried to deduce where this new variable might lie.
But no matter how he tried, he could find no answer.
He had no choice but to give up for the time being.
"The starlight..."
"It seems I'll need a more opportune moment to fully decipher [Truth]'s records."
For now, he refrained from attempting to analyze the star-rhythm summary again, focusing instead on restoring his cultivation.
Naturally, he once again chose the Zhouhui Dao, the Dao of Cycle Return.
But the moment he began to cultivate, Li Fan sensed a strangeness within his own body.
"This feeling..."
After a moment of contemplation and introspection, Li Fan gave a cold snort and decided to ignore it for the time being, continuing his meditation.
Ten years later.
The familiar sensation washed over him once more.
If he wished it, he could take one more step and ascend to the realm of the Saints again.
"In my previous life, it took me nearly three hundred years to recultivate from a mortal to a Zhouhui Saint. This time, it only took ten years?"
He recalled how, long ago, it had taken him a similar amount of time just to shed his mortal miasma.
And now, he could ascend from mortal to Saint in a mere decade.
Such speed sent a shiver down his spine, even with all his inherited memories.
"This is definitely not due to an increase in my own talent."
"It's because..."
"...of the influence of the starlight contamination."
"Besides the Xuanhuang Realm and the Primal Possibility, have I, to some extent, also become... diseased?"
"No wonder I couldn't calculate where the variable was. It turned out to be me."
Li Fan quietly observed himself but detected no signs of "fading."
However, he was now more or less certain that he had been contaminated by the starlight.
He had excised the disease from the Xuanhuang Realm and its surroundings without a moment's hesitation.
But when the source of the affliction was himself...
Li Fan, naturally, would not choose to operate on himself.
"Interesting. I've never experienced anything like this."
Li Fan felt no panic. He could sense that the starlight contamination was not particularly severe.
Even the descent of the lone Star itself could be reversed by [Truth].
A mere aberration caused by its recorded light was hardly a cause for alarm.
"My cultivation talent has undergone such a drastic change because, in a sense, I am now a member of the [Star]'s camp. But I am operating from within the Mountain Sea."
"The stronger I become, the more it benefits the Star's consumption of the Mountain Sea."
"It's as if I'm a spy planted by the Star within the Mountain Sea."
"The enhancement of my cultivation talent is the support provided by the Star. While it might not be a conscious act on the Star's part, it is an inherent result of this change."
Li Fan was beginning to understand.
This led him to another thought: the Dao Annihilation Void Realm was also a pawn of the Star.
"In that case..."
An idea sparked in Li Fan's mind. He pulled back from the step that would have made him a Saint.
With a light step, he leaped into the Void Realm.
No protective power shielded him; he simply allowed his physical body to fall into the infinite Dao Annihilation.
Theoretically, he should have been devoured by the Dao Annihilation in moments, his body and bones turned to dust, forcing another reset.
But then, a bizarre scene unfolded.
The Dao Annihilation energy, capable of devouring mountains and seas, seemed to recoil as if it had encountered something terrifying the moment it touched Li Fan's body.
Not only did it not attempt to consume him, but it actively avoided him.
The tide of Dao Annihilation was a million layers deep, like an army of millions.
Yet Li Fan could stroll through it leisurely, as if in a garden courtyard.
Not a single one dared to block his path, or to question his presence!
Li Fan's suspicion was confirmed.
It was all because of the faint aura of starlight clinging to him.
"So it seems I cannot become a Saint in this life."
"The moment I enter the sight of the Three Saints, they will likely join forces to kill me without a second thought," Li Fan said with a sneer.
This outcome was something he had never anticipated when he inherited the [Star Radiance Rhythm Summary].
"I still underestimated the Star's power."
"Granted, the Star's contamination on me can be slowly cleansed with my power. However, for one, it's far too much trouble. It would be easier to just start over."
"And for another..." Li Fan stood within the Void Realm, gazing at the Mountain Sea ahead.
"After so many cycles, this is a perspective I've never experienced before. Perhaps..."
Thinking back to the birth of the new god in the previous life, Li Fan's thoughts turned, and an idea began to take shape in his mind.
With a single thought, the Dao Annihilation within the Void Realm stirred, raising a colossal wave hundreds of millions of feet high without warning.
It crashed violently toward the Mountain Sea.
His command was absolute, his control effortless.
The Dao Annihilation showed not the slightest resistance to Li Fan's manipulation. On the contrary, it seemed ecstatic.
Like soldiers before their emperor, who had come to lead them in person.
It unleashed a destructive power several times greater than usual.
Roaring, it swept forward and slammed into the Mountain Sea.
The Saints on the Other Shore were caught somewhat off guard by this sudden assault.
However, having accumulated a wealth of experience over years of defense, the Armillary Ring bloomed with white light, shielding the entirety of the Mountain Sea.
Though the Dao Annihilation had Li Fan's personal enhancement, it wasn't enough to cause a qualitative change.
For the time being, it could do nothing against the rock-solid defense of the Mountain Sea.
"I could... summon more Dao Annihilation forces from elsewhere. I might even be able to command the Saints' Void Realm avatars."
"However..."
Li Fan sat enthroned amidst the Dao Annihilation, his eyes narrowed. He did not act rashly.
Although he could currently control the Dao Annihilation forces, it was only because, as an emissary of the Star, he had bypassed the master behind the Void Realm and could directly command the frontline soldiers.
This did not mean the master of the Void Realm had lost control.
His current skirmishes in one small segment of the Mountain Sea were minor enough that the master might not even notice. It was just a small force.
But if he forcefully conscripted troops from other regions, it might immediately draw the gaze of the Void Realm's true ruler.
And Li Fan was not yet ready to make contact.
"The starlight on me is not yet that strong."
"I shall wait a while longer."
The Void Realm was the vanguard of the Star. Before the lone Star, the Void Realm had no room for resistance.
Even after toiling for the Star for so long, its ultimate fate was still to be devoured along with everything else.
But Li Fan was not the Star; he was merely an "aberration" tainted by a sliver of its radiance.
He might be able to fool the Dao Annihilation, but he could never deceive the master behind the Void Realm.
Of course, this was only based on his current level of contamination.
If the changes within him were to progress further...
Then it would be a different story.
"My actions may seem reckless. But with [Truth] as my safety net..."
"...it's not as dangerous as it appears."
"As long as I can ensure that [Truth] can completely eliminate the starlight contamination."
"I might just be able to venture into the dragon's den!"
"As for how far to take this, that is something I, and only I, can personally control."
Though it was somewhat regrettable, it was now clear that he would be unable to add Shou Qiu and Moral to his alliance in this lifetime.
Even with the effect of shared heart and virtue, Li Fan couldn't guarantee that Shou Qiu would be willing to follow him, to side with the Star, and become a "traitor to the Mountain Sea."
Shou Qiu's moral character was simply too high.
Li Fan knew this from deep experience.
If he were to forcibly drag him into the Star's camp, it might lead to infighting at a critical moment.
"In this life, let us be opponents."
Li Fan looked at the seated figure of Shou Qiu within the Armillary Ring and smiled softly.
"Although I can now manipulate the Dao Annihilation, the true reins of power are still held by the master of the Void Realm."
"But... there might be a way to counter it." A gleam flickered in Li Fan's eyes.
"Ink Death!"
"Dao One Worm!"
At his thought, two writhing shadows materialized before him.
The Void Realm did not tolerate foreign objects; the Dao Annihilation devoured all.
The moment Ink Death and the Dao One Worm appeared, the Dao Annihilation began to churn instinctively.
However, for one, Ink Death shared a faint origin with the Dao Annihilation. And for another, with Li Fan present, the tide ultimately controlled itself and did not truly attempt to devour them.
"Condense!"
Li Fan raised his hand and pointed. Ink Death and the Dao One Worm merged into one.
Both their figures vanished simultaneously.
In their place, countless writhing black dots appeared.
"Go!"
With another point from Li Fan, a small stream of Dao Annihilation energy, like ferocious soldiers, charged toward the newly born Dao One Worms.
In an instant, only one in a hundred of the black dots remained.
But the one that was left, had, after all, survived the first wave of the Dao Annihilation's assault.
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