Li Fan's divine clone stared intently at the bizarre mirror not far away.
"Not only is its appearance identical, even its aura..."
Possessing a strand of the Heavenly Profound Mirror's origin, Li Fan was intimately familiar with the mirror.
Yet at this moment, the eerie small mirror gave him the feeling of being the Heavenly Profound Mirror's twin brother!
Li Fan's mind shook as thoughts raced through his head.
"The Heavenly Profound Mirror was once named the Profound Heaven Mirror. It was an artifact left over from the Immortal Realm, obtained by the King of Profound Heaven from the Ascension Passage during the era of the Profound Heaven Sect."
"Then what is this mirror before me?"
For a moment, Li Fan could not help feeling the urge to step forward and investigate.
After a moment's contemplation, however, he held back.
This black Heavenly Profound Mirror gave him an inexplicable sense of unease.
Li Fan decided to watch quietly and see how things developed.
Drip, drop. Blood fell ceaselessly upon the mirror's surface. Sun Luyuan's face had already turned somewhat pale, yet he still showed no intention of stopping.
Li Fan could even see terror in his eyes, as well as a slight trembling in his arm as if he wanted to pull it back.
Yet for some reason, he could not control his own actions.
Not until a strange wave of energy erupted from the mirror and the black light converged inward did Sun Luyuan collapse limply to the ground, utterly exhausted.
He retrieved several pills, swallowed them, and regulated his breathing for a while before his complexion returned to normal.
Sun Luyuan looked at the small mirror before him, which faintly glimmered with an eerie light. A flicker of greed and a trace of terror flitted across his eyes.
It was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
After quite a while, his stiff body finally began to move again.
From inside his robes, he produced another small mirror.
He adjusted the angle so that the two small mirrors faced each other.
The newly retrieved mirror was naturally a Lesser Heavenly Profound Mirror.
Li Fan clearly saw wisps of green light being drawn from the surface of the Lesser Heavenly Profound Mirror and pouring into the black mirror.
After devouring this essence, the black mirror seemed to resemble the Heavenly Profound Mirror even more closely.
Sun Luyuan appeared to be counting the time.
After a while, while the black mirror was still greedily consuming the light, his expression changed slightly. He hurriedly formed a hand seal and put the Lesser Heavenly Profound Mirror away.
How could the black mirror, in the middle of gorging itself, be willing to let go?
A cloud of black mist suddenly surged from the mirror's surface, coalescing into a humanoid silhouette that roared at Sun Luyuan, "Not enough!"
"I want to eat more!"
A tyrannical surge of power erupted from the figure on the black mirror, sweeping through the secret chamber like a tempest.
Gritting his teeth, Sun Luyuan held fast and put the Lesser Heavenly Profound Mirror away.
At the same time, he called out to the shadowy figure, "Little Brother, control your core mind! Devouring too fast at once will alert the Heavenly Profound Mirror, and everything we've worked for will be ruined!"
Upon hearing Sun Luyuan's words, the figure in the black mirror seemed to regain a shred of reason.
Its form swayed constantly, as if locked in an internal struggle.
Only after a prolonged effort did it finally suppress its inner desires.
"Brother, it hurts so much..."
"Brother, I can't hold on."
"Brother, let me out!"
Weeping, pleading, resentment...
All manner of emotions cycled through the dark silhouette.
Yet regardless of its mood, every sentence began with the word "Brother."
Sun Luyuan seemed equally tormented by these repeated cries.
In the end, he could only shut his eyes and offer his own essence blood once more to pacify the silhouette's resentment.
Having received the essence blood, the black mirror grew calm again.
Sun Luyuan sank limply to the ground, sighing in relief. He showed none of the dignified bearing befitting a Dao Integration powerhouse.
It took him nearly half a day to recover.
Standing before the black mirror once more, he silently chanted an incantation.
Under Sun Luyuan's manipulation, a radiant beam of light bloomed from the black mirror.
Countless characters and scenes flickered rapidly within it.
Starved for information, Sun Luyuan watched with rapt attention, terrified of missing a single detail.
Not until the brightness of the projections gradually dimmed and finally faded did Sun Luyuan reluctantly withdraw his gaze.
"This harvest will be enough for our Sun Clan to weather this crisis."
"Once Lu'er emerges from the Protector Hall and takes up an important post in the Alliance, our clan will boast four Dao Integration cultivators. Only then can our Sun Clan be said to have truly secured a firm foothold."
Sun Luyuan muttered to himself.
Meanwhile, Li Fan's divine clone, who had watched the entire process from the sidelines, managed to glean a few clues.
"It isn't an immortal artifact of the same caliber? Instead, it uses a human soul as its foundation, employing some secret art to erode the Heavenly Profound Mirror and siphon massive amounts of information unattainable through ordinary means?"
"Even if it isn't a true immortal artifact, being able to breach the Heavenly Profound Mirror is extraordinary in itself."
Li Fan looked at Sun Luyuan, who appeared severely depleted of vitality.
While nursing his injuries, the man seemed to have his eyes closed, digesting the information he had just obtained from the black mirror.
"With just a single divine clone of mine, trying to control him..."
"I have no certainty of success. Especially with that bizarre black mirror by his side."
After careful consideration, Li Fan's clone decided against making a move immediately.
Instead, he resolved to remain hidden for now.
He would wait until Sun Luyuan parted from the black mirror before proceeding with his plans step by step.
Another seven days passed.
When Sun Luyuan opened his eyes, the first thing he did was rapidly cast several hand seals to temporarily seal the black mirror inside the secret chamber.
Sensing Sun Luyuan's actions, the misty humanoid silhouette inside the black mirror struggled to emerge again.
However, it was firmly sealed within the mirror's surface, unable to break free.
Once all the commotion subsided, Sun Luyuan breathed a sigh of relief.
He unsealed the multiple layers of restrictions and departed from the secret chamber.
A moment later.
Li Fan's divine clone drifted quietly to the side of the black mirror.
"The material of this mirror's body..."
"It doesn't seem to be a creation of the Xuanhuang Realm."
"It appears my guess about it being an immortal artifact wasn't entirely wrong after all."
"It's just that the source power of the immortal path has long departed, leaving behind an empty shell that has been occupied by that soul."
With Li Fan's current breadth of knowledge, a careful inspection indeed yielded discoveries.
To verify his speculations, the clone began studying the seal Sun Luyuan had left behind.
"Hmm? It bears traces of an Immortal-grade array. Though it's far too crude."
His true body deployed the Terminal Dissociation Disc to provide assistance, and before long, he had unraveled it.
Afterward, Li Fan's clone did not destroy the seal directly; instead, he gradually modified it upon its existing foundation.
"Brother, why are you back so soon this time?"
"Did you run into another difficult problem? Hehehe..."
A slightly deranged voice drifted out from inside the mirror.
Li Fan did not answer at all, continuing to alter the array seal.
After talking to itself for a while, the dark figure finally sensed something amiss.
"You aren't Brother?"
"Who are you?"
The voice was filled with rage and terror.
"Disgusting thing, get away from me!"
The dark figure shrieked, and the black mirror trembled violently along with it.
"Clamorous!" Li Fan gave a cold snort.
A silver thunderbolt coalesced out of thin air and struck violently against the black mirror.
The mirror body, forged from unknown materials, actually developed a faint scorch mark.
The dark figure's shrieks were abruptly cut off by a scream of agony.
After a period of silence, the dark figure seemed to recover its wits.
"You..."
Just as it was about to lash out again, another bolt of lightning struck.
Chapter 1158