Chapter 833: Reversing the Logic of Heaven and Earth
A short while later.
Li Fan and his two companions located their quarry's hiding place: a cave at the bottom of a deep valley.
A formation concealed its entrance, and a secret art masked their auras.
An ordinary cultivator, even one searching with intent, would have struggled to find the entrance.
But to Li Fan, armed with the [Final Dissociation Disc], and Lin Ling, for whom every tree in the mountains served as an eye and an ear, the defenses were riddled with openings.
Yet, to Li Fan's surprise...
The cave was, once again, empty!
Just like before, they had fled only moments ago; their auras still lingered in the air!
"This is..."
"Are they avoiding me?"
"How could they know in advance that I was coming for them?"
"Is it prophecy, or perhaps..."
Li Fan was suddenly reminded of how Reviving Mountain had collapsed, only to reappear whole once more.
"Time reversal?"
At the mere thought of this possibility, Li Fan's heart hammered against his ribs.
But he had seen too much to be rattled for long, and he quickly regained his composure.
"It's just a theory for now. Nothing certain."
"I'll get my answers once I have that father and son in my grasp."
A thrill he hadn't felt in a long time spurred him on, and he turned again to Lin Ling.
Lin Ling, however, glanced around for a moment before shaking her head. "They didn't leave this cave."
Hearing this, Li Fan examined their surroundings again. "No signs of spatial travel, either. Could it be..."
Li Fan and Lin Ling's gazes simultaneously dropped to the ground.
A faint smile touched his lips. Li Fan ordered with deceptive casualness, "We follow."
Lin Ling nodded, and, enveloped in a green glow, sank into the earth below.
Normally, the disorienting darkness underground would make tracking impossible, an easy place to shake off pursuit.
But Li Fan's party had Lin Ling, who could communicate with the ancient trees rooted deep within the earth's veins.
The subterranean world, vast as it was, was entirely the domain of these ancient trees.
Not a single movement could escape their notice.
With her guidance, Li Fan's group quickly picked up their trail.
At the same time, however, Li Fan discovered that they had only traveled underground for a short distance before hastily returning to the surface.
"They realized we were following them again."
"Annoyingly persistent."
With that thought, he returned to the surface.
This time, Lin Ling sensed that Ou Daozi and his son had taken to the sky.
But any flight technique was bound to leave a trail of spiritual energy fluctuations.
Soon, Lin Ling found the direction of their escape.
Leading Li Fan, she followed close behind.
No matter how they twisted and turned, or what false trails they laid, Ou Daozi and his son could not shake Lin Ling.
At last, they seemed to abandon the chase and stopped fleeing.
They stood waiting among the clouds ahead.
"This kid, Lin Ling, is incredibly useful," Li Fan mused, finally catching up and spotting the two figures—one large, one small—ahead.
"Senior, may I ask why you have pursued us so relentlessly?" Ou Daozi asked. Facing the trio that now surrounded them, his posture was neither servile nor defiant as he cupped his fist in a formal gesture.
"At first, I was just breaking ground on a new building and wanted to ask for your help. I never expected such an... unexpected discovery." Li Fan’s eyes narrowed, his gaze flicking between the two of them.
Ou Daozi's son looked to be no more than eight or nine years old. He wasn't particularly handsome, but as he faced Li Fan, who was now emanating a faint, menacing aura, the boy showed no fear. He possessed a composure far beyond his years.
What was more, his eyes were fixed on Li Fan with a searing intensity, as if he were staring down a mortal enemy.
They had never met before, yet the boy looked at him this way...
This only seemed to reinforce Li Fan's growing suspicion.
Ou Daozi noticed his son's strange behavior, and his expression shifted. He pulled the boy behind him protectively. "I don't know what you're talking about!"
Li Fan snorted coldly. "Reviving Mountain collapsed, and then reappeared. That was your son's work, wasn't it?"
"What exactly is his ability? Could it truly be the legendary art of time reversal?"
Although Li Fan appeared to be a mere Golden Core cultivator, he was clearly the leader of the group, which included Lin Ling at the Dao Integration realm and Tianyang at the Soul Transformation realm.
Ou Daozi couldn't guess Li Fan's true cultivation level. He simply said, "Senior, please don't joke. How could there be such a thing as time reversal in this world?"
"As for my son's divine ability..."
Ou Daozi lowered his voice as he spoke, then abruptly trailed off into silence.
As if he were waiting for something!
Alarm bells instantly rang in Li Fan's mind. "Insect Binding!"
His target was not Ou Daozi, but his son!
The child instantly lost control of his body, but his eyes showed no panic.
It was as if everything was unfolding just as he expected.
He even shot Li Fan a look laced with faint mockery.
At the same time, Tianyang's body swelled in an instant, forming a black-and-red sphere that enveloped Li Fan at its core.
"BOOM!"
A thunderous roar erupted as something unseen slammed into them.
Li Fan felt a wave of dizziness wash over him, while cracks spiderwebbed across Tianyang's puppet body.
Thankfully, Lin Ling intervened just in time, her power flowing out to prevent him from shattering completely.
"What the hell was that!"
Li Fan cursed under his breath. A quick glance at the [Truth] panel showed his protective energy reserves were untouched.
He was instantly reassured.
The blue light of the Dao Transformation Stone flickered in his mind, replaying the recorded scene in extreme slow motion.
Only then did he see the culprit behind the sudden attack.
And everything that had transpired in that split second.
The attacker, so fast that neither Lin Ling nor Tianyang had time to react, was an arrow.
Ou Daozi and his son seemed to have predicted its flight path long ago.
They had deliberately lingered in this spot.
Luring Li Fan and the others directly into the arrow's trajectory.
While stalling for time, they waited for the exact moment the arrow would strike.
A yellow light flared from Ou Daozi's son.
It seemed to ignore the arrow's speed, locking onto it with perfect accuracy.
Then, in that instant, the arrow—without ever changing its forward direction—
bizarrely shot back the way it came!
Carried by the yellow light and propelled by the arrow's incredible speed, Ou Daozi and his son escaped the trio's encirclement in a flash!
"Master, they're gone," Lin Ling reported, her voice tinged with guilt. "They're too far now. I can't sense their auras anymore."
Tianyang shook his head, a flicker of guilt in his own eyes.
Li Fan simply waved his hand, unconcerned.
Playing back the recent events in his mind, Li Fan began to grasp the true nature of their ability.
It wasn't the time reversal he had imagined...
Or rather, it was related.
It reversed an object's state to a point in its past!
To be outmaneuvered by a mere child of seven or eight... instead of being annoyed, Li Fan was delighted.
For this was the first cultivator he'd encountered since his cycles began who had any connection to the Dao of Time.
"Run? You think you can get away?"
"You can run for now, but you can't hide forever!"
"Once I'm after you, there is no escape!"
As Li Fan's eyes glinted, dozens of plans to counter them had already formed in his mind.
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