In the Nether Prison, time seemed to lose all meaning.
Every day brought nothing but the same unchanging gloom and the ceaseless groans and shrieks of agony echoing by his ears.
The black fog wardens did not seem particularly intelligent. Confronted with Li Fan, an extra prisoner who had suddenly appeared, they merely uttered sinister cackles and mechanically activated the formations within the pillar-cage, attempting to torture him.
Naturally, Li Fan neutralized every attempt with ease.
Still, he cooperatively mimicked agonizing screams of his own, tricking the black fog wardens into leaving in smug satisfaction.
Aside from these low-level wardens that regularly haunted the Nether Prison, patrolling cultivators from the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals could occasionally be seen.
There were three in total, coming in rotation. When inspecting the prison, they generally just went through the motions. After all, the Nether Prison had been tranquil for thousands of years without ever experiencing a single disturbance.
Yet after a period of observation, Li Fan also noticed that the area where he was currently hiding was merely the outermost layer of the prison. The Alliance did not truly care much about the inmates held here. Li Fan even witnessed one of his neighbors succumbing completely to the agony of the formations, his soul scattering into oblivion. Even long after that, no one came to check on the cell.
It was only when the black fog wardens conducted their routine patrol that they finally discovered it. They then activated a cleansing formation, scoured the black pillar clean, and awaited the arrival of the next prisoner.
This state of affairs in the Nether Prison pleased Li Fan immensely.
The chances of being discovered were minimal, and under normal circumstances, no one disturbed him.
Content to enjoy the peace and quiet, Li Fan prepared for his ultimate world extinction plan while observing the situation in the Spirit Wood Realm through his sacred infant.
For a long time after Li Fan issued the order for total war readiness and fled on his own, the outside world remained calm and tranquil. There was not the slightest sign that the Alliance was about to wage war.
It went on so long that murmurs arose among the people, and doubts began to fester regarding Li Fan's judgment.
Yet, intimidated by the might of the Red Dust Compassionate Immortal, none dared to voice their skepticism openly.
Li Fan, however, knew that this was merely the calm before the storm.
Events proved his prediction correct.
On this day, the sealing formation at the entrance to the Spirit Wood Realm silently showed faint ripples of disturbance.
Sacred Embryo Li Fan noticed the anomaly immediately.
Focusing his mind to observe for a moment, Li Fan let out a cold snort. "They do have some skill after all. It seems they've thoroughly analyzed the formations I handed over to the Alliance. Compared to before, their formation mastery has advanced by at least a century. What a pity..."
"They are still behind me by more than an entire era!"
"At their snail's pace, they shouldn't dream of cracking this formation in under three months—and that is assuming I wouldn't repair it. Then again, from the Alliance's perspective, they probably won't have that kind of patience. If breaking the array fails, they will likely launch a brute-force assault..."
Li Fan did not believe that a mere formation alone could hold back the army of the Alliance.
"Better to expose an opening, let an initial batch in, and trap the turtles in a jar!" Thoughts raced through Li Fan's mind, and a plan formed instantly.
Although his true self had slipped away for the sake of safety, Li Fan had no intention of abandoning resistance entirely under the Alliance's pressure.
No matter what, building up his foundation in the Spirit Wood Realm during this lifetime had been no easy feat, costing immense effort and energy.
Now that the Alliance was attacking, he naturally had to push back.
"This is a perfect opportunity to test the Alliance's true mettle."
"To see whether they truly deserve the title of one of the Xuanhuang Realm's two dominant factions."
Sacred Embryo Li Fan instructed the defenders of the Spirit Wood Realm to prepare for battle. At the same time, coordinating with the Alliance's methods of breaking the formation, he gradually relaxed the barrier's defenses.
To all appearances, it looked as though the formation were truly being dismantled.
The flaw grew wider and wider until a fissure finally split open at the Spirit Wood Realm's entrance passage.
The Alliance's vanguard assault force instantly slipped through these fractures and entered the Spirit Wood Realm.
The moment they came face-to-face, both sides froze slightly.
On the Alliance's side, they were surprised that the inhabitants of the Spirit Wood Realm seemed to have detected their subtle moves long ago and were already in battle array, fully prepared.
On Li Fan's side, the surprise was that the Alliance's supposed vanguard was not an elite suicide squad.
Instead, it was over a hundred arrows glinting with cold light.
"Sky-Patrolling Arrows?!" Li Fan was taken aback.
The Sky-Patrolling Arrow was a lethal weapon developed by the Alliance in this lifetime. Exceedingly swift, it could patrol an entire province in just a few breaths. Its power was equally staggering, roughly equivalent to a strike from an ordinary Dao Integration cultivator.
Yet that was not its most terrifying feature. Where the Sky-Patrolling Arrows truly excelled was in their ability to combine into a unique formation, casting an immense net that could even distort and affect the principles of Heaven and Earth.
During the previous war between the Alliance and the Five Elders Association, the Alliance had used Sky-Patrolling Arrows to disrupt the principles of Heaven and Earth across a vast area, rendering the Longevity Heavenly Venerables of the Five Elders Association unable to intervene in the battle.
"It seems the Alliance intends to carry out decapitation tactics. One hundred and sixty-eight Sky-Patrolling Arrows... In an ordinary pocket world, this move alone would probably wipe out all living defenders entirely. However..."
Li Fan sneered, reacting with remarkable speed.
First, through the grand array enveloping the Spirit Wood Realm, he interfered with the Sky-Patrolling Arrows, preventing them from assembling into their formation. Then he dispatched Tianyang, who used overwhelming might to seize and suppress them one by one before the arrows could scatter and unleash devastation.
Swift as the Sky-Patrolling Arrows were, Tianyang was even faster!
Tianyang transformed into a streak of azure light, crisscrossing back and forth across the sky.
In merely the blink of an eye, he had brought every last one of them under control.
"Take a few to study and see if these things can be turned to our own use," Sacred Embryo Li Fan said to Layman Qiaogong.
Layman Qiaogong excitedly took the Sky-Patrolling Arrows and rushed off without delay to dismantle and analyze them.
Meanwhile, on the Alliance's side, the inexplicable loss of contact with over a hundred Sky-Patrolling Arrows seemed to catch them completely off guard.
Stunned for a long while, they delayed launching their next wave of attack.
Seeing this, Li Fan's eyes flicked as he feigned channeling power to repair the sealing formation at the entrance.
Seeing that the fissure in the formation, breached with "such immense difficulty," showed signs of slowly mending, the Alliance predictably grew impatient and swiftly launched another assault.
This time, passing through the entrance fissure and appearing before the defenders of the Spirit Wood Realm was a squad of cultivators clad entirely in golden armor.
Shrouded in golden radiance, their features could not be discerned; even their precise positions seemed impossible to pin down. Upon arriving in the Spirit Wood Realm, the gold-armored cultivators rapidly scattered.
Their speed was astonishingly rapid, a notch faster even than the Sky-Patrolling Arrows.
What proved most troublesome was that they left behind trails of afterimages along their flight paths.
Chapter 1114