This rather young-looking You man trembled as he explained to Li Fan, glancing up from time to time to read Li Fan's expression.
Yet how could a crude wretch like him gaze clearly upon the countenance of the Destiny Holy Emperor?
Growing ever more terrified, he recounted everything he had discovered during this time. "May the Holy Emperor see clearly: since surrendering, this lowly one has harbored no double-mindedness whatsoever. However, praying to the gloom has become an instinct as natural as breathing. Thus, during this period, while praying to Your Majesty the Holy Emperor, it was inevitable that I would also naturally beseech the Gloomy Darkness.
"The Gloomy Darkness answered me, just as it always has..."
At these words, all of the dozen or so You people in the secret chamber fell to their knees in utter terror.
Evidently, this phenomenon had occurred with every single one of them.
With a gentle wave of his hand, Li Fan helped them all to their feet.
As for these You people serving two masters at once, Li Fan in this lifetime did not actually care much.
For in his designs, they were merely tools for researching the "power of faith" during the brief window of time before he activated True Reversion.
Once he initiated True Reversion shortly, everything in the Xuanhuang Realm would be annihilated.
To say nothing of these You people.
What he wanted to know more was why "the Gloomy Darkness" would also permit such two-faced behavior to occur.
If believers of the Faceless True Immortal dared to serve two masters, they likely would have been torn to shreds by the immortal's power long ago.
"Either the sovereign of the power behind the Gloomy Darkness is noble to an appalling degree, tolerating even this from its believers...
"Or else..."
Waves surged through Li Fan's mind instantly. "It harbors another purpose. It wants to use the betrayal of its believers to infect an entity of equal standing."
At this thought, Li Fan immediately grew vigilant.
He had never hesitated to ascribe the utmost malice to the mighty beings of this world.
He carefully examined the crimson power within his body, which, though faint and slight, was exceptionally formidable.
Yet after repeated confirmations, he indeed found no sign of any connection to the gloomy dark power.
"Could I be overthinking this?"
After a brief deliberation, Li Fan nonetheless reached a decision.
He would not permit any variable to disrupt the progress of True Reversion in this life.
First, he praised the You people verbally for their candor.
Yet upon leaving the underground secret chamber, Li Fan ordered Wang Xuanba to grant them peaceful slumber.
Not as a euphemism, but deep sleep in the literal sense.
Li Fan was unwilling to taint himself any further with this impure power of faith, yet he also worried that outright slaughtering the You people might instead draw the attention of the master of the Gloomy Darkness.
So he simply reduced them to a living-dead state.
"It seems I will need to find a way to solve the low fertility of the You race. Cultivating believers must begin with a fresh generation."
Wang Xuanba soon completed the task and returned to report to Li Fan.
Having continuously devoured and integrated the tissues of strange beasts over these years, combined with cultivating the enhanced version of the *Creation Furnace Technique*, Wang Xuanba had instead shrunk from a thirty-foot giant down to the size of a normal man.
He merely looked somewhat burly and muscular.
Gathering the abilities of numerous strange beasts into a single body, coupled with an extraordinarily terrifying rate of physical self-healing, even Sun Erlang at peak Golden Core would be no match for Wang Xuanba in a fight to the death.
"Xuanba, have you encountered any confusion or doubts in your cultivation lately?" Li Fan asked.
This was to resolve Wang Xuanba's doubts, but also to understand his physical condition with an eye toward refining the Creation Furnace Technique.
"Master. Lately my body has indeed grown stronger and stronger, and at every moment I feel as if I have boundless energy. But..."
Wang Xuanba gathered his thoughts and scratched his head. "Two sensations have slowly arisen in my heart. The first is an unprompted sense of crisis, as if some natural predator exists between heaven and earth. This feeling is especially intense whenever I pass near the Xuanhuang Realm proper.
"The second is a whispering sound that crops up from time to time. I can't make out what it's saying, yet it gives me a strange feeling of familiarity and kinship."
Having listened, Li Fan said placidly, "Though your body has become like a furnace, your intent has not. The stray thoughts of those strange beasts you devoured still linger in your mind. Refrain from cultivating for now; go rest and recuperate."
Li Fan naturally knew the reason behind the anomaly in Wang Xuanba's body, but he did not speak of it openly.
He simply told him to recuperate quietly in the pocket world of Great Xuan.
With the deadline for True Reversion's full charge drawing ever closer, Li Fan needed to eliminate every unstable factor.
Consequently, by his will, Great Xuan's campaign to conquer the various realms ground to a halt.
Under the high-sounding pretext of "repose and recuperation, preparing for the enemy."
The soldiers and civilians of Great Xuan praised the Destiny Holy Emperor's greatness and benevolence, and time flew by.
At the end of Anchor Year 8, Li Fan looked at the charge progress bar, now at one hundred percent, and resolutely rose from the throne of the Holy Emperor in Xuanjing.
Disturbing no one else, he slipped quietly down into the underground chamber.
He awakened the slumbering You people and opened the passage leading to the You Realm.
In the depths of the sea of gloomy darkness.
Li Fan brought up the True Reversion panel.
[You may select one of the following options to retain:
1. One item currently in your possession during this simulation.
2. Your cultivation realm from this simulation.
3. The simulated memories of an individual closely associated with you during this simulation. These memories may be inherited by that individual.
4. Forgo the above choices to accelerate the charge progress.]
...
The constantly flashing runes of light had already existed for eight years.
"Inherit cultivation base."
Li Fan recited silently in his mind, his vigilance raised to its peak.
At the same time, across the skies of the pocket worlds conquered over these years—Great Xuan, the Li Realm, Beast Seed—crisscrossing fine silver lines suddenly blazed to life.
Like a colossal net, it shrouded all living beings within.
Few within the net could sense the mortal crisis about to fall; some even looked up at the sky in wonder.
Only those "experts" with some measure of cultivation felt a faint unease rise in their hearts.
The eternally unchanging sea of gloomy darkness seemed suddenly to churn with an invisible swell.
Gale-like ripples descended upon Li Fan, stirring up a violent tempest around him.
Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul...
An earth-shattering transformation erupted within Li Fan.
Li Fan watched as his misty True Reversion Dao Foundation transformed into a Golden Core in an instant.
Then, in an explosion that swallowed all light, it evolved into the Five Elements Grotto-Heavens.
In a mere instant, the grotto-heavens completed an evolution that would have taken tens of millions of years.
The towering Five Elements presented a magnificent spectacle.
Then, the boundaries between the Five Elements began to blur.
A dazzling array of changes played out across the grotto-heavens too quickly for the eye to follow.
"The Xuanhuang World-Annihilation Transformation."
The Five Elements converged into one; every transformation within the newly born grotto-heaven was designed to withstand a world-annihilating crisis that did not exist in this era.
The towering giant tree that had stood in the Wood-attribute grotto-heaven shed its leaves until only bare branches remained.
Yet its substance gradually hardened like bronze and iron.
Chapter 1134