"If my eyes do not deceive me, someone has actually succeeded in inverting the principles of life and death?"
"The Xuanhuang Realm was hiding a figure like this? And you never informed me of such vital intelligence beforehand?"
Li Fan's voice held a tinge of anger.
"With the Manor of Rebirth around, no matter how many cultivators die, I'm afraid it won't pose any threat to the Xuanhuang Realm anymore."
"It seems our plan to force Dharma Transmitter Jiang into the open is going to fail." Li Fan let out a long sigh.
A look of perplexity appeared on Dharma Transmitter Zhou's face.
"You might not believe it, but we Dharma Transmitters know nothing about this new Longevity Heavenly Venerable either."
"And I don't just mean the three of us who were exiled. Even those currently sitting in the Council of Dharma Transmitters are completely in the dark!" Dharma Transmitter Zhou stated with absolute certainty.
With that, she eyed Li Fan suspiciously. "Is this Longevity Heavenly Venerable truly not someone from your Myriad Realms Association?"
"My very first reaction back then was..."
"How could that be possible!" Li Fan shook his head flatly in denial.
The two exchanged glances, each seeing the shock and suspicion in the other's eyes.
"It seems after all these years of expansion, the waters of the Xuanhuang Realm run even deeper than I imagined." Dharma Transmitter Wei's eyes grew profound, his brow furrowing tightly. "This new Heavenly Venerable likely slipped into the Xuanhuang Realm at some unknown time and settled down here."
"Judging by his style of conduct, however, he has quietly cultivated for all these years and never meddled in worldly affairs. As long as we don't provoke him, it shouldn't be much of a problem."
Li Fan suddenly recalled the countless frozen corpses sealed within the Grand Formation of Inverting Life and Death.
He fell silent.
"The sudden emergence of Heavenly Venerable Rebirth was indeed impossible to foresee. But saying our plan has failed might be premature." At this point, Dharma Transmitter Huang, who had remained silent the entire time, spoke up.
Li Fan and the others turned their eyes to Huang at once.
"In fact, we are only one step away from forcing Jiang out."
"The spiritual energy of the Xuanhuang Realm has mutated, and cultivators have become inherently bloodthirsty. This is a monumental event that profoundly alters the landscape of the realm."
"Bearing the heavy burden of maintaining stability in Xuanhuang, the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals will definitely investigate and resolve this matter. As long as we eliminate every Alliance member sent to investigate, the day will come when Jiang is forced to step forward himself."
"In any case, the death phenomena of falling cultivators no longer appear, so even if we strike, we won't expose ourselves," Huang said as though it were the most natural conclusion.
Hearing this, both Dharma Transmitters Zhou and Wei wore peculiar expressions.
Li Fan gave a slight nod of approval.
"That is indeed a viable method."
"Then I will leave the trouble to you."
"However, we cannot place all our hopes on Jiang taking the initiative to move. Once I return, I will submit an application to the Federation to see whether we can activate a new world-destruction plan."
Saying this, Li Fan cut the connection with the three Dharma Transmitters without waiting for their response.
"Now that the Manor of Rebirth has appeared, the lives of cultivators can no longer be used as leverage."
"I still have to target the Xuanhuang Realm itself."
He had already used the "Mo" Formula once before against Dharma Transmitter Jiang.
Although Dharma Transmitter Jiang seemed to have retained no relevant memories of it after Reversion to Origin, this time Li Fan only needed to force him to show himself and deal with Mo Rubin through him, rather than become true enemies with him.
Therefore, it was best not to resort to the "Mo" Formula.
After pondering for a moment, Li Fan shifted his attention back to the mutated Daoyi bugs.
After multiplying for a time, the Daoyi bugs releasing murderous spiritual energy had quietly taken over vast, contiguous areas beneath the Xuanhuang Realm.
Under Li Fan's deliberate restraint, however, aside from normal reproduction and releasing spiritual energy, they had not committed any other outrages.
Otherwise, given their present scale, unleashing another Great Xuanhuang Rancid Stench would have been effortless.
After careful consideration, Li Fan changed his operational strategy.
His hostile target shifted from the cultivators of the Xuanhuang Realm to the Xuanhuang Realm itself.
To prevent drawing the resentment of heaven and earth, which might trigger unforeseen accidents when falsely extorting the Heavenly Dao and absorbing Xuanhuang nascent changes later on, the subsequent manipulation of the swarm was entirely carried out by Immortal Puppet Li Fan in his stead.
Upon receiving the command from the mother bug, the mutated Daoyi bugs instantly stirred into frantic motion.
Rather than flying toward the surface, they burrowed even deeper into the earth.
Following the flow of the earth vein spiritual energy, they began gnawing away at the branches of the Earth Vein Ancient Tree rooted within.
Li Fan had not forgotten how this Earth Vein Ancient Tree had repeatedly tried to incite Lin Ling to rebel against him in secret.
Although Lin Ling had been awed by the strength he displayed and ultimately chose to abandon darkness for light, that did not mean the matter was settled.
Lin Ling was currently performing hard labor in the Federation to atone for her misdeeds.
Now, it was time to settle accounts with this Earth Vein Ancient Tree as well.
The Earth Vein Ancient Tree was deeply rooted beneath the soil, its roots spanning all across Xuanhuang.
Yet in the end, its true form was merely an unusually colossal tree.
Though it was tough to chew, before the countless, boundless mutated Daoyi bugs, there was no tree that could not be devoured.
The Daoyi bugs underground threw themselves forward like madmen, chewing through the ancient tree's roots scattered throughout the earth veins with utter disregard for their own lives.
The Earth Vein Ancient Tree had long since merged into one with the earth veins.
When the ancient roots in a given region were entirely obliterated, the direct consequence was...
Subsidence.
A terrifying, land-devouring subsidence capable of leveling mountains and filling seas.
Without warning, massive ground collapses began occurring in several regions across the Xuanhuang Realm.
Even though cultivators mostly lived in floating Heavenly Cities and were largely unaffected, the matter still immediately drew immense concern from the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals.
Acting far faster than before, on the second day after the subsidence incidents erupted, investigation teams were dispatched everywhere to look into the matter.
Li Fan transmitted a message to the three Dharma Transmitters, instructing them to cooperate in secret.
While marveling at the endless stream of methods at the Federation's disposal, the three Dharma Transmitters cooperated willingly, each displaying their own divine abilities to quietly capture all of the Alliance's investigation teams.
When the entire first wave of personnel vanished without a trace, the Alliance abruptly realized something was wrong.
Thus, the ones sent to lead the inspection on the second attempt were none other than two Dharma Transmitters.
Receiving the transmission, Li Fan donned the Tianyang Immortal Armor and arrived at the standoff between the Dharma Transmitters as the decisive combat force.
"No aura of Profound Heaven Sect techniques has been detected. It seems they haven't been possessed by that Dharma King," Dharma Transmitter Zhou secretly transmitted.
"What should we do?"
"Appeal to reason and emotion. If that truly fails, we can only temporarily suppress them first and release them once everything returns to the right track," Dharma Transmitter Wei made a swift decision.
While the four were conferring, the two Dharma Transmitters on the opposite side looked at the sudden appearance of Zhou, Wei, and the others, their expressions shifting to shock and fury.
"To think that you were the ones pulling strings from the shadows!"
"Back then, it was you who volunteered to leave the Council of Dharma Transmitters. Even if you harbor resentment now, you shouldn't commit such an atrocity!"
The Dharma Transmitter named Chu said with a face full of disappointment.
Chapter 1069