Seeing the bizarre reaction of the You people before him, Li Fan remained impassive. Ignoring the sheer terror they displayed, he forced them to complete their induction oaths before the Faceless True Immortal stone statue.
Only after they finally calmed down did Li Fan inquire into why they were so terrified.
His body trembling, the You leader took a long while before he managed to explain, "We had never had the fortune of seeing the True Immortal statue before. But the instant we laid eyes on it, our people instinctively felt boundless terror.
"We live year-round in gloomy darkness, and our bodies have adapted to that environment. Under ordinary sunlight, we can still hold out for a while, but before the True Immortal statue...
"...it was as if, amidst pitch-black obscurity, a light source thousands of times brighter than the sun in the sky suddenly appeared."
The You leader's words came out haltingly, but Li Fan understood his meaning.
Just as mortals feel dread when standing at the edge of an abyss, the You people felt utter terror upon seeing the Faceless True Immortal stone statue because they sensed a lethal threat.
Yet the True Immortal's web was formless and immaterial. Even Li Fan, were he not the agent of the Faceless True Immortal in the Xuanhuang Realm, likely wouldn't have detected its presence.
In contrast, among these You people, even the newborn infants without exception could sense the True Immortal's power.
*It seems this is inextricably tied to the gloomy dark power they wield.*
Next, Li Fan learned of their understanding of the gloomy darkness from the You leader.
The You people had originally been human as well.
In the ancient legends passed down among their tribe, back in antiquity, their world still had blue skies, white clouds, and bright sunshine.
Yet one day, after the sun went down, it never rose again.
People begged in despair within the darkness, but no miracle arrived.
The vast majority vanished forever into the dark.
And those who survived had, without exception, been favored by the gloomy dark power.
Under the corrosion and remolding of this gloomy dark power, their physical forms gradually changed.
They turned into terrifying forms with no heads, their facial features crammed onto their chests.
In truth, the You people didn't understand the essence of this gloomy dark power. They merely treated it as their sole lifesaver, worshipping and praying to it as a terrifying evil god that had brought ruin to the normal world.
Yet this gloomy dark power seemed capable of understanding their words. It actually responded to them and allowed itself to be used by them.
The You people did not view themselves as masters of the gloomy dark power, but rather as recipients of the great Gloomy Dark God's grace.
...
What the You leader said differed from Dharma Transmitter Zhou's account.
The You people were clearly native inhabitants of the You Realm, yet Dharma Transmitter Zhou had claimed they were merely a distinct ethnic group that had discovered the You Realm's power and harnessed it.
In such a minor matter, Dharma Transmitter Zhou should have had no reason to deceive him.
*It seems the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals' discovery of the You Realm wasn't as simple as he made it sound.*
A cold glint flashed in Li Fan's eyes.
Next, he pondered the manifestations of this gloomy dark power.
*Pray, and wait for a response?*
*No wonder opening the passage to the You Realm entrance also relies on a singing and dancing ritual.*
Li Fan's eyes flickered.
Li Fan was no stranger to power possessing the trait of responding to a cultivator's inner stirrings.
The golden Source Power Essence was the remnant power cast aside by a True Immortal in their pursuit of the Dao Root—an entity known as the Dao Flower.
*Given that they can resonate with each other, there might be a connection between the two.*
According to the You leader's explanation, although gloomy dark power only manifested tangibly in their homeland, it was actually omnipresent throughout the Xuanhuang Realm. It simply had not condensed into a concrete form, making it difficult for ordinary people to detect. However, by praying and calling upon it through special methods, one could bridge the barrier between pocket worlds and invoke its power.
Before Li Fan's eyes, the You leader took on a devout expression and chanted under his breath.
He launched an attack at a ferocious beast ahead that resembled a lion-tiger hybrid.
This lion-tiger beast was a new breed recently cultivated by the Empire, its flesh as hard as steel. Even a full-force strike from an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator could hardly scratch it.
Yet an extremely eerie sight unfolded.
Without warning, the previously imposing lion-tiger beast suddenly went limp in all four limbs and collapsed to the ground.
Its eyes filled with panic as it struggled helplessly to get back up.
Yet beneath it, as though an invisible quagmire had opened up, countless hands seemed to be dragging it down.
Under Li Fan's gaze, the lion-tiger beast was slowly swallowed by the gloomy darkness.
Not even bones remained.
From beginning to end, Li Fan never "saw" the presence of the gloomy darkness.
Yet the beast had indeed vanished right before his eyes.
Li Fan carefully inspected the ground where the gloomy darkness had descended; there was no residual power whatsoever.
"Coming and going without a trace, impossible to guard against." Li Fan stroked his chin, lost in thought.
Meanwhile, the group of You people once again closed their eyes and prayed devoutly in unison.
*It seems only they can elicit a response from the gloomy darkness through this kind of prayer. Ordinary humans, even if made to look identical, cannot trigger the gloomy dark power.*
*That is easy enough to understand. Only after joining our Myriad Realms Association, taking the oath before the True Immortal statue, and becoming part of the True Immortal's web can one's prayers be sensed by me. In all likelihood, a similar invisible web exists for this gloomy dark power.*
Li Fan mused to himself, *So the crux lies in how to join this web without being consumed by the gloomy darkness.*
In the You Realm, the bizarre state of Mo Rubin's corpse was still fresh in his memory. Merely having physical contact with it had resulted in such an outcome. It was hard to imagine that anyone plunging both body and divine soul into the gloomy darkness could emerge unscathed.
And the subsequent test, in which Li Fan ordered his deathsworn agents to attempt communing with the gloomy darkness, proved his hypothesis.
Silently, they were swallowed by the gloomy darkness. Gone without a trace, leaving behind neither body nor bone.
Furthermore, frequently invoking the gloomy dark power in a short span of time seemed to trigger subtle changes.
As the master of the Spirit Wood Realm, Li Fan faintly sensed the entire world dimming for an instant.
After confirming with the You leader, Li Fan knew this was no illusion.
Rather, the gloomy darkness truly showed a tendency to flow toward this place.
Li Fan decisively called a temporary halt to the experiments.
After questioning various members of the You race for a long time, Li Fan finally pieced together the current state of the gloomy dark power across the Xuanhuang Realm.
It was like an ocean of gloomy darkness gathered at the "back" of Xuanhuang.
Although held in place by some unknown, mysterious power, the pervasive nature of the gloomy darkness itself meant that it would sometimes seep along any possible fissure to invade Xuanhuang and even various pocket worlds.
Invading, and ultimately returning to the You Realm.
Ebbing and flowing in an endless cycle, it formed something akin to a "tide."
Chapter 1098