Chapter 872: The Infinite Method's Debut
Chapter 872: The Infinite Method's Debut
With a thunderous roar from Li Fan, a giant materialized in the deep, dark void—a figure dozens of times larger than the Tianyang puppet he had once faced.
This was his Nascent Soul Avatar, conjured from the virtually inexhaustible source power of the Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven!
Had it appeared in the Xuanhuang Realm, this titan would have stood tall enough to touch the heavens, capturing the attention of every cultivator in the world.
Behind the giant's head, the faint phantoms of the five great cave-heavens shimmered into view, resembling five interconnected rings that cast a divine, sacred aura upon Li Fan's avatar.
Compared to this colossal figure, Tianyang was no larger than an ant.
"Suppress!"
The giant looked down, its right index finger descending upon Tianyang with crushing force.
The finger blotted out the void above, a cataclysmic weight like the sky itself falling. Its swirling whorls resembled circles of binding sigils, poised to crush Tianyang in an instant.
His clothes stirred without a breath of wind, and the space immediately around him began to warp in a peculiar way.
The spatial distortions rippled outward from Tianyang like waves on a pond.
With each ripple, his form grew increasingly indistinct.
A moment later, he had vanished completely!
Li Fan's finger slammed down, only to strike empty void!
"Interesting! Even with the power of the Five Elements and a space-locking array, I still couldn't stop you from escaping..."
The avatar's voice boomed as its eyes scanned the surroundings.
It searched for any trace of Tianyang.
But he had vanished as if he had never existed, leaving not a single ripple of energy behind.
"Junior Brother, don't—"
Before Li Fan could finish his sentence, Tianyang reappeared without warning, materializing like a phantom directly in front of the avatar's face!
From thin air, he aimed a single finger at the space between the avatar's brows.
Like a droplet hitting the still surface of a pond, the avatar's head rippled with a bizarre distortion.
Then, it exploded!
Tianyang was just about to withdraw his hand.
But the headless avatar's movements were utterly unimpeded.
Its hands swiftly clasped together, fingers intertwining to form a cage.
The scattered fragments of its head, as if possessing a will of their own, converged with incredible speed.
In an instant, they reformed outside the cage of fingers, coalescing into a complex array!
Tianyang froze for a moment.
He found that within this array, not only could he no longer shatter space to escape, but even his Space Folding technique had been rendered completely useless!
It had worked perfectly just moments ago, yet in the instant after their exchange, Li Fan had already devised an array to counter it!
What terrifying genius!
Before Tianyang could process it, layer after layer of spectral arrays materialized outside the finger cage, appearing one after another without pause.
There seemed to be no limit. In the space of a few breaths, the cumulative power of these stacked formations had swelled to a magnitude that would make even a Dao Integration master like Tianyang wary.
The cost, of course, was that Li Fan's Nascent Soul Avatar rapidly deflated like a punctured balloon.
He could feel a crisis brewing around him, ready to explode at any moment.
Tianyang didn't dare to move.
Li Fan's figure appeared a short distance away, a smug grin on his face. "So, Junior Brother? Had enough?"
Tianyang nodded sullenly.
"Haha." Li Fan didn't press him further. A blue light flashed in his eyes.
With a light flick of his finger toward Tianyang, the colossal, impossibly complex array was casually dispelled!
"I wasn't even getting serious, you know. It wouldn't do to actually hurt you," Li Fan added, noticing Tianyang's resentful expression.
"I... wasn't either," Tianyang managed to force out the words.
He looked at Li Fan again and requested another match.
"Ah, no!" Li Fan simply waved his hand, refusing.
"A spar is just a spar; we know when to stop. We're brothers. You don't really want us to fight to the death, do you?"
"No more fighting, no more fighting!" Li Fan said with a cheerful laugh.
Tianyang was frustrated, but he couldn't force the issue.
"By the way, Junior Brother, your powers are related to space. Not far from here, there's a small world filled with a unique kind of spiritual body. It might be helpful for you." Li Fan then told Tianyang about the Soul Shade Realm.
Although Tianyang had reached the Dao Integration realm, his knowledge—apart from the power of the laws contained within the Earthly Spirit—was not much different from that of a Foundation Establishment cultivator from the Body Transformation Dao a thousand years ago.
He was naturally baffled by such strange phenomena.
However, he had always trusted Li Fan's words.
And so, the two of them continued deeper into the spatial passage.
They were now far from the Xuanhuang Realm, and Li Fan no longer felt the need to hold back.
A seven-colored divine light streaked across the void, covering thousands of miles in a flash.
Tianyang, a master of spatial power, could shrink the distance with each step, easily keeping pace.
Even at their incredible speed, the length of the spatial passage still exceeded their expectations.
By Li Fan's calculations, they traveled for nearly a full month before they faintly sensed the swarm of Split Boundary Whales ahead.
Li Fan halted.
Gazing into the distance, he saw innumerable Split Boundary Whales, a veritable ocean of them, traveling in great pods as they carved a path through the nothingness.
And that was only what was visible on the surface.
Countless more were likely hidden within the pitch-black void.
The immense collective aura radiating from the swarm was enough to make even Li Fan's expression shift slightly.
"This is the very definition of quantity becoming quality."
"How could there be so many?"
Li Fan couldn't help but turn his gaze toward the Soul Shade Realm, hidden nearby.
"Let's go."
Transforming into a streak of rainbow light, Li Fan descended into the small world moments later.
A sharp hiss escaped his lips.
The moment he landed, Li Fan's brow furrowed.
This place was unbearably cold.
Even the spiritual energy within his body felt as if it were on the verge of freezing solid.
Circulating the power of the Five Elements, Li Fan tried to counter the bitter chill by converting his spiritual energy to the fire attribute.
But the instant he did so, a terrifying, icy power erupted from within his body for no apparent reason.
He was instantly encased in ice, becoming a frozen statue. Then, as a spectral wind swept past from some unknown source, the statue shattered into countless ice particles that scattered across the ground.
A moment later, a ripple disturbed the air, and Li Fan's body reappeared.
"Strange."
A look of fascination crossed his face.
Just now, what had accompanied the fire-attribute energy within him was not intense heat.
It was extreme, piercing cold.
This cold did not originate from the environment; it was an inherent characteristic of the fire attribute *in this place*.
"Senior Brother, something is wrong here."
For once, Tianyang spoke a full, coherent sentence.
His expression was grave.
"It feels as if something around us is gnawing at my power."
"But I can't find them."
Tianyang continued via spiritual transmission, explaining what he had discovered.
(End of this chapter)
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