Chapter 876: The Immortal Elect Show Their Might
"Golden chains shattering the sky?" Tianyang looked puzzled for a moment before understanding dawned.
"I think I saw a glimpse of that," he admitted. "But I didn't understand what it meant, so I didn't pay it much mind."
Tianyang was more focused on harnessing the spatial power contained within the Yellow Springs spirit bodies.
Li Fan, on the other hand, knew little about spatial abilities and had concentrated entirely on the ancient secrets hidden within.
It was like the blind men and the elephant; each perceived a different part of the whole.
Li Fan's gaze returned to the waters of the Yellow Springs.
"This great river is practically the river of creation for the Soul Yin World," he mused. "But the cycle of life and death has been shattered. No matter how much power it possesses, its endless generation of spirit bodies is destined to run it dry one day."
"When the Yellow Springs runs dry, trillions of spirit bodies will be set adrift..."
"Normally, that process would take thousands, even tens of thousands of years. The fact that it happened prematurely in my 115th life was likely because that three-eyed skull was somehow brought into the Yellow Springs."
Combining the insights from his past life with his investigation in this one, Li Fan pieced together the probable truth of what had transpired in this remote pocket world of the Xuanhuang Realm.
After a long moment of contemplation, Li Fan decided not to disturb the still-teeming waters of the Yellow Springs.
Before departing with Tianyang, a thought quietly formed in Li Fan’s mind. *If I ever attempt to escape the Xuanhuang Realm in this lifetime, the Soul Yin World might be the perfect testing ground.*
After traversing the long spatial tunnel, a journey that took nearly a month, Li Fan and Tianyang finally returned to the Xuanhuang Realm.
Six months had passed, and the flames of war between the Five Elders Council and the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance had been fully kindled.
What Li Fan hadn't expected, however, was that the aggressor this time was the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance—the very faction that had been on the losing end until now.
Their first move caught the Five Elders Council completely off guard, and in one fell swoop, they even reclaimed all the lost territory in the Nine Mountains Prefecture!
The bulwarks the Five Elders Council had painstakingly constructed atop the nine mountain ranges were rendered an utter joke.
Despite such a monumental victory, the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance, in a break from tradition, did not publicize it widely.
The Alliance's members only knew that a steady stream of victory reports was arriving from the front lines. As for how the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance had achieved such an incredible feat, speculation was rampant, but no definitive answer emerged.
The prevailing theory, however, was that it was connected to the recent "Thirty-Three Immortal Elect" initiative.
During those six months, his clone, Ji Shaoli, who was stationed on Haixuan Island, had visited the fishing pond by the small temple, hoping to learn the truth of that battle from the stone slab entity.
But the entity seemed completely engrossed in comprehending the Dao of "Fishing" and paid him no heed whatsoever.
Meanwhile, reeling from their defeat on the front lines, the Five Elders Council seemed to have grown wary of the "Federation of All Worlds."
His attempts to contact them and uncover the inside story of the war had all gone unanswered.
Ji Shaoli had no choice but to let the matter rest for the time being.
Lin Ling, meanwhile, had gradually grown close to Liuli.
Despite her Dao Integration cultivation, Lin Ling had been born only recently and possessed a child's disposition. She never put on the airs of a senior.
She was always the one to seek out Liuli to play.
Gradually, the little Daoist child, who looked adorably dazed but was actually quite wary, began to lower his guard.
After spending all her time with Liuli, when Li Fan saw Lin Ling again, he made a sharp observation.
The once-naive nature spirit seemed to have... awakened.
Or perhaps, she had become more "human."
Li Fan watched the little Daoist child hiding behind Lin Ling, a thoughtful expression on his face.
For the moment, however, he let it be, simply instructing Lin Ling, "Come with me to the border of the Nine Mountains Prefecture."
In the past, Lin Ling would have simply nodded in agreement without a single question.
This time, however, a flicker of doubt crossed Lin Ling's eyes, and she seemed to hesitate, as if wanting to speak but holding back.
Li Fan's eyes glinted, but he offered a simple explanation. "I was away for six months and made some new discoveries. They might be helpful to the Five Elders Council in their current predicament."
Only then did Lin Ling bid farewell to Liuli.
Then, with Li Fan in tow, she traversed the rushing currents of the earth veins.
Before long, the pair arrived at a remote location in the Nine Mountains Prefecture.
They first scouted the area, and after confirming there were no cultivators lying in ambush, they emerged silently from the ground.
As their divine senses swept across the land, both Li Fan and Lin Ling were momentarily stunned by the sight of the familiar yet utterly alien landscape of the "Nine Mountains Prefecture."
"I suppose the Nine Mountains Prefecture will need a new name now," Li Fan remarked with a faint sigh after recovering from his surprise.
Across the vast expanse of the prefecture, the nine majestic mountain ranges that had once dominated the skyline had been completely sheared away by some unimaginable force.
The once-treacherous terrain had been transformed into a vast, flat plain.
However, this region, formed from the corpse of the beast Tian, had always been spatially unstable.
After enduring such a cataclysmic battle, that instability had become even more pronounced.
Black spatial rifts scarred the sky, visible everywhere.
They flickered in and out of existence like flashes of lightning.
*Once Tianyang finishes his seclusion and masters his new insights, I should bring him here for a look,* the thought flashed through Li Fan's mind.
"Master, there's a remnant of some terrifying aura here," Lin Ling's focus was different from Li Fan's.
she said with a shudder, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.
"An aura that can terrify even a Dao Integration cultivator... it must have been a Longevity-stage power. That, and the horrifying sight of nine mountains razed to the ground..."
"Could the Dharma Spreader have made a move?"
But Li Fan quickly dismissed the idea.
"Unless the safety of the Xuanhuang Realm itself is at stake, the Dharma Spreader should remain indifferent to a conflict of this level."
"But besides the Dharma Spreader, who else in the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance possesses Longevity-stage power?"
"Dongji, who exists only in historical records? Or Di Sanmo, the director of the Museum of Divine Treasures?"
Li Fan then recalled the rumors circulating among the Alliance's populace.
*"Could it really be the 'Thirty-Three Immortal Elect' initiative?"*
Li Fan's eyes narrowed.
He had given a sliver of the Final Dissociation Disc to Wei Qizheng, one of the Immortal Elect.
While it lacked a real-time communication function, it could meticulously record nearly everything Wei Qizheng experienced.
The moment he saw Wei Qizheng again, or if Wei Qizheng were to fall in battle and the disc was destroyed, all the stored information would be transmitted to Li Fan.
Although he was curious about the Alliance's methods, Li Fan knew it wasn't yet time to harvest the fruits of his labor.
The longer he left this particular nail in place, the more secrets he would uncover.
*"I'll just have to wait a while longer."*
Pushing the thought aside, Li Fan sent out the unique vibrational signal used to contact the Five Elders Council.
He waited for a long time, but there was no reply.
But Li Fan didn't give up.
He sent the signal again and again.
After repeating the process seven times, a faint response finally came from a location within the Nine Mountains Prefecture.
When Li Fan arrived at the source, he found that the echo emanated from nothing more than a stone, as smooth as a mirror.
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