Chapter 912: A Startling Encounter with the Heavenly Doctor
Chapter 912: A Startling Encounter with the Heavenly Doctor
The object connected to the golden chains was shrouded in a hazy radiance.
Its details were impossible to make out.
But the ball of light was, without a doubt, a colossal object.
Judging by its size in comparison to the Dharma Spreader, it was nearly as large as half a province in the Xuanhuang Realm!
Yet, the Dharma Spreader seemed to feel no pressure at all as he dragged the massive thing behind him.
His expression was completely devoid of emotion, like ice that had been frozen for ten thousand years.
Towing the enormous ball of light, the Dharma Spreader shot through the void like a comet flying in reverse.
He sped through the endless, dark void.
...
The image from the Water Mirror Technique ended there, but Han Zhong did not stop his account.
"What I just showed you was only one of the scenes I witnessed during my long years of confinement."
"In fact, I saw the venerable Dharma Spreader more than once."
As Han Zhong spoke, he cast the Water Mirror Technique several more times.
In an instant, a dozen or so screens of light materialized before Li Fan.
The scenes displayed on each screen were very similar, yet subtly different.
Each showed the Dharma Spreader using golden chains to pull a ball of light behind him.
The only difference was the size of the light balls, which varied.
"These images... they're all so alike."
"So much so that I even started to wonder if my desperation was making me see things."
Han Zhong stared at the scenes he had conjured, his own face filled with doubt.
Li Fan, however, knew for certain that these were no illusions.
The Dharma Spreader himself could be imagined based on the statues he had seen before.
But the golden chains trailing behind him...
With Han Zhong's mere Golden Core cultivation and limited knowledge, it would have been absolutely impossible for him to conjure such an image from thin air unless he had seen it with his own eyes!
Because Li Fan had seen those chains before as well.
They were the golden chains of the Floating Starry Sky Grand Formation, from the memories of the Xuantian Sect's Dharma King, Ji Yuzhen!
The Floating Starry Sky Grand Formation could use these golden chains to capture grotto-heavens and small worlds.
Therefore, a logical conclusion naturally formed in Li Fan's mind.
"Is he dragging other worlds behind him?"
"Did he leave the Xuanhuang Realm and travel through the Darkest Star Sea just to collect any surviving cultivation worlds?"
In that moment, a multitude of thoughts raced through Li Fan's mind.
"What is his purpose in doing this?"
"And where are these cultivation worlds now?"
"Could it be..."
"That controlling the Xuanhuang Realm isn't enough for him? That he wants to devour even more cultivation worlds to advance further?"
"To break through to the True Immortal realm?!"
Combining this with the information he had recently gathered on the Xuantian Sect, Li Fan arrived at what seemed to be the most plausible conclusion.
While Li Fan stood in silent contemplation, lost in his thoughts.
Han Zhong noticed Li Fan's silence and assumed he also believed the visions were mere hallucinations born from prolonged despair.
He hesitated for a moment before adding, "Actually, besides the venerable Dharma Spreader, I saw someone else."
"A person I had never seen before. And they only appeared once..."
"This is why I believe that everything I saw might not have been a figment of my imagination."
With that, Han Zhong cast the Water Mirror Technique once more.
The image that appeared on it sent a violent shock through Li Fan's heart!
Because darting through the void was none other than one of the lingering shadows from Li Fan's past.
The Heavenly Doctor!
The Heavenly Doctor flew through the darkness, his body enveloped in a pure, white radiance.
Unlike the Dharma Spreader, he wasn't dragging anything behind him with golden chains.
He simply flew in bursts, pausing intermittently to pinch his fingers as if performing some kind of calculation.
After successfully determining his direction, he would hurry off again.
"The Heavenly Doctor can also escape the pull of the Immortal Ruins?"
"How is that possible?"
The moment Li Fan saw the Heavenly Doctor, that thought surged through his mind.
Stunned, he quickly glanced at Han Zhong.
He even began to suspect that this might be a fabrication, a plot specifically targeting him.
Although the Heavenly Doctor's true strength remained unknown, Li Fan had never dared to underestimate him.
Even now, when he was virtually unbeatable below the Longevity realm, he couldn't confidently say he would gain any advantage in a confrontation with the Heavenly Doctor.
The Heavenly Doctor's identity was an utter mystery.
He could issue missions through the Heavenly Profound Mirror.
But aside from the mission involving the Cloud Water Map Record, Li Fan had never found a single trace of him within the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance at any other point in his reincarnations.
It was as if, while he was part of the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance, his situation was different from that of an ordinary cultivator.
He was more like Emperor Sanmo, holding a position akin to a "guest elder," and rarely ever showed himself.
And the Heavenly Doctor's abilities were nothing to scoff at either.
That diagnostic art of "observing, listening, questioning, and feeling"—a secret technique that could peer into the depths of a cultivator's heart—was something Li Fan had never seen in any other cultivator.
But even after estimating the Heavenly Doctor's true cultivation as highly as possible, Li Fan had never imagined that he, like the Dharma Spreader, could ignore the restraints of the Immortal Ruins.
To leave the Xuanhuang Realm and wander the Darkest Star Sea!
"To be able to do something that even Longevity realm experts cannot..."
"Just what..."
Li Fan's heart trembled.
But he quickly calmed himself.
"No. This doesn't necessarily mean the Heavenly Doctor's strength has surpassed the Longevity realm."
"The Longevity realm is powerful, but the price is being deeply bound to the Xuanhuang Realm."
"Unless one achieves transcendence like the Dharma Spreader, they can never leave the Xuanhuang Realm in their entire lives."
"This would be true even without the Immortal Ruins."
"And it doesn't mean Longevity realm cultivators can't resist the pull of the Immortal Ruins either."
"As for the Heavenly Doctor, he hasn't sought the path of Longevity. Perhaps that is precisely why he is able to leave the Xuanhuang Realm and come and go as he pleases."
...
Slowly sorting through his thoughts, Li Fan's mind gradually settled.
But Han Zhong, who had been observing his expression the whole time, could not perceive the changes within Li Fan's heart.
Li Fan's unchanging expression gave him nothing to speculate on.
He continued his story with a hint of regret, "Aside from the scenes I've just described, I never saw anything else."
"I don't know how long I was in that invisible bubble. Most of the time, all I faced was absolute darkness."
"I'm almost impressed with myself for not going mad."
"What's more, I discovered that inside the bubble, I showed no signs of aging."
"I had originally thought that if I were to suffer such confinement forever, it would be better to just end my own life."
"But not long ago, for some reason, the bubble seemed to encounter something."
"It kept vibrating and shrinking..."
"I thought I was a dead man," Han Zhong said with a measure of relief. "But I never expected that just before the bubble completely collapsed, with a loud pop, I was back in the Xuanhuang Realm."
"Of course, when I saw the boundless plain, I didn't know it was the Nine Mountains Prefecture. It was only after meeting some cultivators from the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance and asking around that I figured it out."
Han Zhong recounted his extraordinary experience from beginning to end.
Just as Li Fan was still pondering, he suddenly heard Han Zhong's voice, filled with utter shock, say, "You are..."
But he wasn't speaking to him.
Jolted with alarm, Li Fan whipped his head around and saw that a figure had, at some unknown point, silently appeared inside the room!
It was...
The Heavenly Doctor!
(End of this chapter)
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