Ultimately, the cultivation world was governed by strength above all else.
The true crux would still come down to the final confrontation with Chuanfa.
Knowing oneself was true wisdom, and the Sacred Emperor was acutely aware that his current strength still lagged considerably behind Chuanfa's. After all, the man had dominated the Xuanhuang Realm for thousands of years and had comprehended the Dao deep within the Star Sea. He was truly unfathomable.
Although the Sacred Emperor had barely touched the Xuanhuang Realm's ceiling and possessed the miraculous fortune of the Star Sea Origin Dao intent, he had not yet genuinely transformed that fortuitous encounter into personal might.
"I need more time."
A deep sense of urgency cast a shadow over his heart.
"Time waits for no man."
Before venturing into the Star Sea, he had not felt this way. But ever since his return, an obscure premonition had been whispering that the time remaining to him was running dangerously short.
***
At the Sun Clan residence.
Sun Luyuan circulated his spiritual energy to ward off the bone-chilling frost surrounding him, stepping slowly into the room.
Looking at Sun Tianci, who sat cross-legged on the bed—neither weeping nor making a fuss, but merely staring into space in silence—a wave of helplessness welled up within Sun Luyuan's chest.
Every family had its own cross to bear.
Outsiders only knew that Sun Tianci had been born directly into Dao Integration with peerless, domineering presence. None of them realized that, perhaps because he had witnessed his biological mother's death the moment he entered the world, the boy had grown utterly cold toward everyone around him.
His body instinctively released a barrier of extreme cold, making it nearly impossible for anyone to approach. Had he not been born with a Dao Integration cultivation base, he would have starved to death within days for lack of care. Yet no matter how extraordinary he was, he remained a newborn infant who required tending, leaving the Sun Clan's Dao Integration cultivators no choice but to take turns looking after him.
"Ci'er..." Sun Luyuan put on a gentle, grandfatherly smile and produced a prepared draught of premium spirit elixir. "How about eating a little something?"
Sun Tianci merely gave a slight shake of his head, refusing it.
Helplessness gnawed at Sun Luyuan. Then, suddenly remembering something, he softened his voice further and said, "I went to visit your father recently. When he learned of your birth, he created a cultivation method just for you. Take a look..."
With that, Sun Luyuan transmitted Li Fan's creation, *Uplifting the Righteous Dharma*, into Sun Tianci's mind through divine sense.
Upon hearing that it was crafted specifically for him by the father he had never met, the frozen chill enveloping Sun Tianci loosened slightly. Slowly reading through every word of *Uplifting the Righteous Dharma*, he seemed to grasp some profound understanding, and he gently closed his eyes.
Noticing the surrounding temperature returning to normal, Sun Luyuan was overjoyed. More importantly, the innate grief that had clung to Sun Tianci was gradually receding as well.
"What a splendid *Uplifting the Righteous Dharma*!"
"Lu'er truly knows best!"
Knowing the child was in the midst of comprehending the Dao, Sun Luyuan dared not disturb him. He quietly set the spirit elixir aside and slipped out of the room. Only after sealing the chamber with restrictions to prevent outside interference did he breathe a small sigh of relief.
"Perhaps it is for the best that Tianci possesses such a temperament. If he stays indoors and fades from the public eye, the world will forget his existence within a few years. In an era of such monumental upheaval, our Sun Clan should focus primarily on lying low and preserving our strength."
At that thought, Sun Luyuan could not help recalling the mission assigned to him by the Sacred Dynasty.
Ever since defecting to the Sacred Dynasty, his days had been quite leisurely, with the Sacred Dynasty imposing virtually no mandatory assignments on him. An earlier plan to abduct Fairy Kongyou to the Sacred Dynasty to serve as a Dao companion for the Sacred Emperor's disciples had been derailed by Xu Yuanxian's sudden commission; now that he had lost contact with Xu Yuanxian, the matter was shelved indefinitely. This had left Sun Luyuan rather frustrated, as he was eager to render meritorious service and build his standing.
Now an assignment from the Sacred Dynasty had finally arrived, but it was fraught with difficulty, leaving him at a loss for where to begin.
"The Nether Prison... Isn't that where major felons are held? What is the Sacred Dynasty after by meddling there?" Sun Luyuan muttered to himself.
Breaking into the Nether Prison was not hard.
However, infiltrating it while maintaining continuous communication with the outside world was extraordinarily difficult.
"The Nether Prison operates as an independent system within the Alliance, overseen by the Dharma Transmitters in rotation. Intervening there..."
Although the Sacred Dynasty had not stated the consequences of failure, Sun Luyuan knew this was undeniably a test of his worth.
Faces flashed through his mind as he began reviewing everyone who might be able to offer assistance in this affair. After a long while, he still had found no viable lead.
Following habit, he made his way down into the underground secret chamber.
Seeing his grim expression, his younger brother Sun Luyao—now the artifact spirit of the Boundless Mirror—inquired about the cause.
"Brother, I found some information that might be of use."
As Sun Luyuan reviewed the message sent by his brother, his tightly knitted brow smoothed out. "This might actually work. I'll give it a try."
He turned to leave in a hurry, only to hear Sun Luyao ask, "By the way, Brother, you promised earlier to take me out for some fresh air. When can we set off?"
Sun Luyuan paused in his tracks, replying evasively, "Wait a bit longer. Those people still have their eyes fixed on the Sun Clan. If I take you out right now, there's no telling whether we'll face another ambush like the time the Medicine Hall's Chen Clan surrounded us when we searched for fragments. Let us wait until the heat dies down."
Without waiting for Sun Luyao's response, he hurried away.
"Alright, I understand, Brother..."
Before he stepped outside, Sun Luyuan caught those parting words from his brother. The tone sounded rather peculiar, but Sun Luyuan did not think too much of it.
The intelligence Sun Luyao had gleaned from the Heavenly Profound Mirror showed that a major felon of the Alliance was about to be remanded to the Nether Prison.
However, this individual possessed a unique background: he was a direct scion of Dharma Transmitter Sun.
With such a pedigree, he normally should never have been consigned to a place like the Nether Prison. Yet the offense he had committed in the public eye was simply too egregious.
It was widely known that the Alliance was organizing a second launch of the World-Evading Rainbow Light into the depths of the Star Sea, and Lucid Flowing Crystals were an indispensable resource for achieving this goal. After arriving at a tacit compromise to allocate quotas for this rainbow light equally among all Alliance Dao Integration cultivators regardless of faction, the Alliance seized the opportunity to invoke righteousness and reaffirm the extreme scarcity of Lucid Flowing Crystals. They launched a campaign—employing sting operations and other aggressive tactics—to reclaim privately hoarded crystals from prominent clans.
This direct scion of Dharma Transmitter Sun, named Sun Wanyun, had been caught red-handed secretly purchasing vast quantities of Lucid Flowing Crystals.
The cultivators responsible for the arrest knew Sun Wanyun's identity full well, but in front of a staring public, they had to go through the motions and reluctantly took him into custody. They had intended to quietly release him afterward, but an unknown party stirred the pot from the shadows. In less than half a day, news of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals arresting Sun Wanyun with ruthless impartiality had spread far and wide. The masses even heaped praise on Dharma Transmitter Sun for placing the Alliance's laws above all else and sacrificing his own kin for righteousness.
With things having escalated to this point, the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals could hardly turn around and slap its own face. Moreover, Lucid Flowing Crystals were indeed of paramount importance, leaving no choice but to sentence Sun Wanyun to the Nether Prison according to the law.
Still, as a direct scion of a Dharma Transmitter, no one knew when he might be pardoned and released. Naturally, he enjoyed certain privileges within the Nether Prison.
*He should be a suitable point of entry. All I need to do is visit him and hand over the item bestowed by the Sacred Emperor...*
With that in mind, Sun Luyuan arrived at the temporary holding facility at Alliance Headquarters where Sun Wanyun was detained.
One glance left him dumbfounded.
It turned out there were plenty of "clever people" who understood the value of offering timely support in adversity.
The entrance was packed with cultivators coming to pay their respects, bustling with excitement. There was no trace of the grim atmosphere befitting a major Alliance convict about to be cast into the Nether Prison. The spectacle was utterly ironic.
Though they shared the surname Sun, Sun Luyuan possessed no blood tie to Dharma Transmitter Sun or Sun Wanyun; they had met only a handful of times. Thus, despite being the head of the Sun Clan with five Dao Integration cultivators—a family celebrated as immensely prestigious by outsiders—Sun Luyuan could only obediently line up at the door.
***
Meanwhile, in the Sun Clan's underground secret chamber.
Li Fan's divine sense avatar was mocking Sun Luyao without mercy.
"I told you long ago that your brother would never let you out. How about it now?"
"He took you out before only because you were throwing fits from time to time, teetering on the brink of death and risking the mirror spinning out of control."
"Now, under this old man's treatment, the root cause of the Boundless Mirror's rampages—that obliteration wind calamity—is slowly being purged, and your condition has grown increasingly stable."
"You brat are an immortal artifact now, carrying the Sun Clan's hopes of ascension. How could your brother ever let you out casually? If something goes wrong and someone abducts you, what would become of them?"
Sun Luyao remained silent under Li Fan's ridicule, but his spectral form inside the mirror warped intermittently, betraying his turbulent emotions.
"Senior..."
After a prolonged silence, he sensibly spoke up to ask Li Fan for aid.
Sun Luyao understood that this mysterious entity would never utter so many words purely to mock him.
"Hehe. You've grown clever, brat," Li Fan chuckled raspy laughter.
As he spoke, he conjured a pair of massive hands and reached down toward Sun Luyao's crown. Sun Luyao was alarmed, but he gritted his teeth and forced himself not to pull away.
As the shadowy giant hands closed around him, the Boundless Mirror shook violently. An illusory silhouette was wrenched out of Sun Luyao's form by Li Fan.
With a light flick of Li Fan's hand, this phantom floated out of the Boundless Mirror and began merging with a heap of materials that had appeared out of thin air within the chamber.
Before long, an identical "Boundless Mirror" materialized before Sun Luyao.
As the spirit of the Boundless Mirror, Sun Luyao was intimately acquainted with this immortal artifact. Yet even he could not discern any difference between this replica and the immortal artifact he inhabited!
Suspicious and amazed, Sun Luyao flew into the counterfeit, only to discover that it was merely an empty shell. He emerged brimming with excitement.
"Senior's methods are truly supernatural! To replicate an immortal artifact so faithfully!" Sun Luyao flattered eagerly.
"Hmph, merely an empty façade," Li Fan replied with cool indifference. "Sever another strand of your divine sense and conceal it within this mirror. Built upon this old man's craft and bolstered by your presence, it will be more than enough to fool that brother of yours."
Seeing freedom within arm's reach, Sun Luyao hesitated not a moment. Enduring the excruciating agony of having his soul severed, he split off a strand of divine sense.
The moment Sun Luyao's divine sense entered the fake Boundless Mirror, the counterfeit artifact became utterly flawless.
In a sense, it could already be regarded as an avatar of the genuine Boundless Mirror. Though it was only an empty shell, as long as the true Boundless Mirror existed, it could synchronize any intelligence gathered by the original at any time.
"Senior, can we slip away now?" Sun Luyao asked impatiently, looking at the replica Boundless Mirror floating quietly in the air in his place.
"Fool! What do you mean, 'slip away'?"
"This is called: the sea is wide for fish to leap, the sky is high for birds to soar!"
Li Fan's divine sense avatar cackled wildly. Enveloping the Boundless Mirror, he transformed into a streak of black light. Ignoring the layers of protective restrictions Sun Luyuan had personally laid down, he vanished from the Sun Clan grounds in an instant.
Seeing the blue sky above once more, Sun Luyao was exhilarated.
"Senior, where are we heading? To search for the lost immortal artifacts of the Xuanhuang Realm, as discussed before?"
Even without a physical body, Sun Luyao took a deep breath of the air of freedom before asking Li Fan with caution.
"Immortal artifacts... no rush," Li Fan said offhandedly.
Seeing that he would not elaborate, Sun Luyao dared not press further. He could only allow himself to be carried southward across the Xuanhuang Realm at breakneck speed.
Seven days later, sensing surging energy fluctuations ahead, Sun Luyao snapped to attention.
"That is..."
An endless ocean, with rushing currents converging toward a single central point.
Fierce winds howled and crackled.
A raging tempest even tore through space, setting off arcs of lightning.
Beside a colossal maelstrom that seemed to swallow all the waters under heaven stretched a striking island chain resembling a long flood dragon.
This distinct spectacle instantly revealed to Sun Luyao their exact location.
"The Great Realm-Splitting Maelstrom!" he blurted out.
Although he had long learned of this cosmic wonder through the countless records he had perused via the Heavenly Profound Mirror, witnessing it in person was a world apart.
"Such surging, turbulent waters, such ferocious, violent gales... How could mere shadows of recorded information ever capture a fraction of this?"
Trapped in a sunless little mirror since his youth, he had been denied the grandeur of the world for far too long. The magnificent spectacle before him stirred his blood, making him feel as though he had returned to the passionate youth he once was.
"Making such a fuss over nothing—truly narrow-minded."
Li Fan's clicking of the tongue pulled Sun Luyao back from his gasps of wonder.
"Once you are done marveling, get to work."
With a light point toward the Boundless Mirror, Sun Luyao's illusory figure was instantly sucked inside.
A moment later, the mirror's surface uncontrollably released a beam of eerie light, pointing directly at the Great Realm-Splitting Maelstrom nearby.
The Boundless Mirror trembled faintly as countless images cascaded across its surface like a rushing waterfall.
Li Fan merely narrowed his eyes, waiting in silence for the transformation within.
*Boundless, the Hongmeng Square.*
*With that grand array as its core, the Boundless Mirror should, in theory, be capable of deciphering every secret under heaven.*
*Though it is now damaged, using it to pry into the secrets of the Realm-Splitting should pose little difficulty.*
*After all, the power of the Realm-Splitting back then was simply too immense. Even after so much time, the wound it carved into the Xuanhuang Realm has yet to heal...*
As Li Fan pondered, the Boundless Mirror appeared to reach its absolute limit.
Cracks began to spider across its surface.
Chapter 1264