Given the rapacious nature of cultivators in the Xuanhuang Realm, they would never surrender an immortal artifact willingly, even if they could not wield it.
Instead, they would seal it away in the deepest recesses of their sect's vault under heavy guard, hoping that one day they might awaken its power.
"Let's see where the nearest immortal artifact is..."
"The Desolate God Seal. The Tianshu Sect."
The Desolate God Seal was the supreme treasure of the long-extinct Desolate God Sect. Whoever controlled the divine seal could reach the Immortal Realm and summon an ancient Desolate God into being.
Within the Xuanhuang Realm's Heavenly Dao memories inherited by Mr. Bai, Li Fan witnessed the terrifying scene of a Desolate God's past descent.
From a massive vortex in the sky, a golden eyeball suddenly peered down.
Beneath the Desolate God's gaze, the lands of the Xuanhuang Realm cracked inch by inch before dissolving into nothingness.
It bore a distinct resemblance to the Immortal of the Immortal Ruins destroying a world with a single glance.
The Desolate God Sect had once summoned twelve different Desolate Gods, obliterating countless rival sects and striking awe across the primordial Xuanhuang Realm.
Unfortunately, fewer and fewer Desolate Gods answered their calls as time went on, until at last there was no response whatsoever.
Without the deterrent of a descending Desolate God, the Desolate God Sect was soon besieged by its enemies and wiped out entirely.
As for the Tianshu Sect, it had once been one of the Ten Great Immortal Sects.
Yet exceedingly little information about it had survived down the ages. Li Fan only knew in broad strokes that it had been the immortal sect closest to Archmage Tiandu.
Its disciples largely viewed themselves as the true scions of the immortal path and were steeped in immense pride.
Having grasped the relevant background, Li Fan—now the Great Heavenly Venerable Xuanhuang—shifted his thought and arrived inside the Tianshu Courtyard, a vital precinct of the Tianshu Sect, in a single instant.
In the blink of an eye, he had crossed hundreds of thousands of li, bypassing every one of the Tianshu Sect's formations and restrictions to appear directly within its core sanctum.
"Is this the power of the Great Heavenly Venerable Xuanhuang?"
Li Fan looked down at his hands, his heart stirring with quiet excitement.
He felt the spiritual energy within him to be virtually inexhaustible; no matter what divine ability he cast, it would not diminish by the slightest fraction.
Furthermore, once a divine ability materialized within the Xuanhuang Realm, it was naturally amplified to the absolute limit that heaven and earth could sustain.
Any worldly art, so long as it originated from the Xuanhuang Realm, could be unraveled with a single glance, utterly incapable of posing a threat to him.
"This surpasses even my control over the Spirit Wood Realm!"
"After all, one is willing cooperation, while the other is forced compliance."
Amid these quiet reflections, Li Fan gradually acclimated to the authority of the Great Heavenly Venerable Xuanhuang.
He then strolled through the Tianshu Courtyard, heading toward an ancestral-shrine-like structure at the center of its depths.
That place was cloaked in an inexplicable energy—the sole blind spot in the entire Tianshu Sect to the senses of the Heavenly Venerable Xuanhuang.
The Tianshu Sect cultivators guarding the shrine could not perceive Li Fan at all.
Even as he walked right past them, they noticed nothing.
"This is..."
Before the shrine, Li Fan's footsteps paused slightly.
He detected a familiar quality to the energy.
It was not familiar to Mr. Bai's body, but to Li Fan himself.
"Archmage Tiandu."
A visceral disgust surged abruptly from within his heart.
It felt just as sickening as discovering roaches in one's kitchen, and Li Fan frowned deeply.
Yet he soon composed himself.
His form turned fluid as water, passing through the invisible barrier into the interior of the shrine.
Enshrined within were two stone statues, one large and one small.
The larger statue had its eyes half-closed, bearing a solemn expression.
The smaller statue was a boy standing deferentially behind it.
"That large statue is the figure in Tiandu who preached the dao of its own accord. Yet according to the clues I gathered previously, the boy standing behind him is very likely the true Archmage Tiandu." Li Fan's gaze drifted toward the boy's statue.
In a daze, he seemed to traverse countless spaces, arriving within a majestic metropolis suspended high in the heavens.
A jolt went through his mind, and the hallucination vanished.
When he looked back at the boy's statue, a sharp prickling pain flared in his eyes.
"Hmph." Li Fan gave a cold snort, suppressing the urge to smash the statue to powder, and began searching around for the hidden vault.
Without much effort, he discovered a concealed ward behind the two stone statues.
Breaching it, Li Fan stepped into the Tianshu Sect's treasury.
Contrary to the expected spectacle of dazzling treasures, the sect's vault was rather Spartan—so much so that Li Fan briefly wondered if he had wandered into the wrong place.
Upon a purplish-red long table lay three items side by side: a stone seal, a wooden box, and a scroll.
There was nothing else.
The stone seal was naturally his target this time, the immortal artifact known as the Desolate God Seal.
Even in its sealed state, Li Fan could still faintly sense a heart-stopping primordial aura radiating from it.
And that the wooden box and scroll were placed alongside the Desolate God Seal was proof enough of their extraordinary nature.
Had this been Mr. Bai, he would naturally have taken only the Desolate God Seal and departed swiftly.
Yet how could Li Fan ever walk away from a treasure mountain empty-handed?
Even if this was an illusion realm within the Fallen Immortal Realm, meaning he could not bring these relics back to reality, it was still worthwhile to broaden his horizons and feast his eyes.
Li Fan first examined the wooden box closely. He keenly detected that a living creature seemed to be imprisoned inside. It was trembling continuously at a minute frequency and amplitude. With every tremor, the faint aura it inadvertently leaked outward gave even Li Fan, in his current state as the Great Heavenly Venerable Xuanhuang, a subtle sense of danger.
More bizarrely, the creature inside the box seemed to have sensed Li Fan's presence outside as well.
Its vibrations grew noticeably more urgent.
It was as though it were enticing and urging Li Fan to open the box.
Faint, rustling whispers drifted by his ears, while various illusions flickered before his eyes.
Li Fan pondered for a long time, ultimately relying on immense willpower to forcibly suppress the impulse in his mind.
Only then did he realize with a start that the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Incantation—which had always operated automatically once his consciousness awoke, even within the Fallen Immortal Realm—had somehow ceased to function!
Without the aid of the Immortal Heart Incantation, resisting the temptation rested entirely upon Li Fan's own willpower.
It was fortunate that having lived through numerous cycles, his vast experience and extraordinary mental fortitude saw him through.
Otherwise, he might well have lost control on the spot and opened the box.
Li Fan forcibly shifted his gaze toward the scroll.
The auditory and visual illusions brought on by the wooden box subsided at once.
"This wooden box is truly sinister. I wonder if it still exists in the Xuanhuang Realm today."
In stark contrast to the box's eerie nature, the scroll radiated an aura of pure sanctity and orthodox immortal dao.
Not only did it trigger no warning, but it also inspired an instinctive feeling of affinity.
"Hm? Have I seen this scroll somewhere before?"
Li Fan searched through Mr. Bai's fragmented memories.
Fortunately, luck was on his side, and a somewhat blurry image flashed instantly across his mind.
Chapter 1086