It was as though an organ of the human body had been shrunk down into a single cell.
Now, the Crossing Adversity Sect lay concealed within the void of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals' Goumang Province, unseen and unknowable to ordinary mortals.
Following the coordinates provided by the Heavenly Profound Mirror's avatar, Li Fan arrived thirty-six thousand zhang above Goumang Province.
The entrance to the Crossing Adversity Sect was right here.
Shrunk by a factor of one hundred thousand, the Crossing Adversity Sect had originally been like a speck of dust, compounded further by the effects of Chuanfa's restriction. Thus, even with Li Fan's current perceptive power, and even when searching with prior knowledge of the answer, he still could not discern the slightest trace of the sect.
After pondering for a moment, Li Fan silently circulated the Limitless Waxing and Waning Method and severed a small portion of his divine soul. Once the soul fragment left his body, it took on the form of a miniature Li Fan, transformed into a wisp of white light, and slipped into the tiny expanse of void ahead.
As everything around him continuously magnified thousands of times over, the space surrounding Li Fan's soul clone rapidly expanded as well. The soul clone streaked through the boundless void, searching for any trace of the nearby entrance to the Crossing Adversity Sect.
To enter the Crossing Adversity Sect, locating the entrance was the first step.
"It's not just a matter of shrinking down; even space itself is a superposition of multiple directions here."
Before long, sensing the familiar aura of Chuanfa's restriction, Li Fan's figure ground to an abrupt halt. Examining his surroundings closely, he discovered an area of the void not far away that seemed embedded with a mirror pane, carrying a subtle touch of discordance. An ordinary person would find it nearly impossible to notice, but having deduced and dismantled Chuanfa's restriction countless times within the Dissociation Disc, Li Fan was naturally intimately familiar with it.
Without hesitation, he flew toward that "mirror pane."
Like suddenly popping through an invisible bubble, Li Fan felt the space around him invert repeatedly in an instant—up, down, left, and right. A slight wave of dizziness washed over him, and Li Fan knew he had entered the second layer of space.
Once inside the inner space, aside from the correct passage, numerous "forks" had been set in place. The moment one stepped into one, one would be teleported into another deceptive void labyrinth. There was no exit, only microscopic planes magnifying endlessly. Never mind returning to resume the search for the Crossing Adversity Sect—even merely avoiding losing oneself was an extraordinarily difficult feat.
Fortunately, equipped with the correct answer, Li Fan proceeded with utmost caution. After delving seventy-two layers deep into the space, he finally caught sight of a distant mountain floating in the nothingness ahead.
Seventy-two layers of space, shrunk a hundred thousand times.
The void was no longer pitch-black in the conventional sense, but an eerie, pale violet. Along the borders illuminated by the violet light, slender streaks flashed past at blistering speed from time to time, leaving only faint traces before quickly vanishing without a sign. They moved so fast that even Li Fan could not track them.
Stranger still, at irregular intervals within this space, variable numbers of violet orbs of light flared to life. Resembling suns yet also clusters of stars, they illuminated the expanse for a brief moment before swiftly disappearing.
...
Framed by these eerie scenes, the distant Crossing Adversity Sect took on an even more bizarre and sinister air.
Li Fan's soul clone slowly approached the mountain. After passing through a layer of protective warding, he formally entered the interior of the Crossing Adversity Sect.
It seemed to be an independent space, for sound finally reached Li Fan's ears once more. There was no distinct noise, merely the presence of sound—unlike the journey through the seventy-two layers of space, where absolute silence had reigned.
Li Fan was currently at the foot of the mountain. Looking at the lone stone stairway winding upward, he attempted to fly straight up the mountain. Before he had flown far, his vision blurred, and he found himself back at his starting point.
*Is this due to Chuanfa's restriction, or was it originally one of the Crossing Adversity Sect's own mountain-protecting measures?*
Musing to himself, Li Fan abandoned flight and began ascending the mountain path step by step.
"Hmm?"
After only a few paces, his feet suddenly paused.
*Was that an illusion?*
Just now, a figure seemed to have darted past him, heading straight up the mountain. Li Fan had not "seen" any figure, yet he had tangibly felt it.
"Playing tricks..."
Li Fan gave a cold snort and continued forward.
Sure enough, each time he climbed a short distance, he felt the ghostly figures appear. Some, like him, were ascending the mountain; others were rushing down from above. They appeared with increasing frequency, and moreover...
"Every time they appear, the sensation they bring grows more pronounced."
A solemn expression surfaced on Li Fan's face. At first, it had been like a gentle breeze. By now, whenever a silhouette brushed past him, he could clearly feel a clammy, sticky chill. So much so that this soul clone felt like a mortal running long-distance in the dog days of summer, its body drenched in sweat...
"Sweat?"
Li Fan snapped to attention, instantly realizing something was amiss. Sweeping his divine sense across himself revealed nothing abnormal. He cast the Water Mirror Technique and looked into the reflective surface.
In an instant, Li Fan's scalp went numb.
It turned out the dark shadows that had brushed past him earlier had not vanished at all. Instead, stacked and overlapping one upon another, they were all clinging to his back. What frightened him even more was that, had the mirror not reflected them, Li Fan would have remained completely oblivious!
As though catching Li Fan's gaze in the mirror's reflection, the faces of those previously indistinct shadows actually began to emerge. Pale, overlapping faces shifted incessantly, and their voices rang out in Li Fan's ears in disjointed murmurs:
"Go up the mountain, go up the mountain..."
"Run! Run!"
"Fellow Daoist, give me a ride. This mountain path is far too hard to walk."
"So tired. So tired. We should be close to the exit, right?"
...
And the moment these voices arose, Li Fan was horrified to discover that his body began acting out different movements corresponding to their conflicting words. It wanted to climb the mountain, yet desperately wanted to flee this place. Neither side would yield.
*Rrrrip—*
In this diametric contradiction, as though pulled forcefully from both front and back by countless hands, Li Fan's body was instantly torn in two down the middle.
"That's more like it! That's more like it!"
Having each seized a piece for themselves, both sides erupted into jubilant cheers. Then, each bearing half of the body, the figures parted ways. One half heading down, the other heading up, they moved swiftly along the mountain path in opposite directions.
As though tainted by these shadows, Li Fan's two severed halves were also draped in thick gloom. Amid the shifting erosion of time, the two separated halves quietly regenerated into two complete bodies once more.
Outside the Crossing Adversity Sect, within the normal space of the Xuanhuang Realm, Li Fan sensed the visions transmitted simultaneously by his two soul clones, and a look of keen interest crossed his face.
One to the left, one to the right; one going up, one going down.
Two scenes presented themselves at once.
Chapter 1038