Bearing the Weight of the Immortal Realm

Just as the Xuan Celestial Vessel had previously guessed, every gray Go stone was forged from an entire world. Looking at the four Go stones spinning before him, Li Fan was instantly inundated by countless visions. They were scenes of those four dead worlds before their transformation: a land of ice stretching for hundreds of millions of li; endless plains upon which dynasties founded by different immortal cultivators stood proudly; a terrifying sword slash cleaving straight through an entire world, surrounded by a scattering of sword sects contemplating the Dao; a vast azure ocean covering a whole realm, where terrifying storms raged year-round, kicking up waves thousands of zhang high and obliterating everything on the surface, leaving living beings able to survive only on the seafloor... The names of the four worlds surfaced in Li Fan's mind alongside these visions. "Jingji, Baiqiu, Jianhe, Yuanhai." Though their landscapes varied, all four worlds had once teemed with vibrant life. Yet at a certain moment, an unimaginably terrifying power had descended. Everything in creation froze into stillness. Boom! Boom! Boom! Amid unending crashes like the pounding of a heavy hammer, all life was annihilated in an instant. Only the worlds themselves survived the catastrophic blows. Like lumps of iron heated into liquid, then cooled, beaten, and forged into swords, the four vastly different worlds gradually underwent a mysterious change in form and essence amidst the deafening roars. The chaotic visions faded, ultimately condensing back into the four endlessly spinning gray Go stones. "Saint Teacher, this..." Li Fan was not the only one to sense how extraordinary the gray Go stones were. The accelerating swirl of black and white in Master Yin's gray eyes showed just how turbulent his inner state was. "Forging Go stones out of worlds. The might of a True Immortal is truly beyond extraordinary," Li Fan murmured in admiration after casting a cool glance at Master Yin. "A True Immortal? Go stones?" Catching the two keywords, Master Yin trembled slightly. He immediately said, "My premonition was correct after all. The Yin-Yang Beads I absorbed earlier might also be connected to a True Immortal!" Li Fan looked at Master Yin, waiting for him to continue. Master Yin paused, seeming to organize his thoughts, before saying with forced composure, "The moment I saw these four stones, a sense of familiarity welled up in my heart. It wasn't that I had seen them before, but rather a familiarity of belonging to the same kind. Just like when I see the specters of those dead worlds..." Li Fan's eyes flickered. After pondering for a moment, he nodded. "The immense deathly aura and vitality contained within the Yin-Yang Beads were likely beyond what cultivators of our level could control." Master Yin continued, "Yet with these... Go stones, alongside that familiarity, an instinctive dread welled up within me. It felt like an unbridgeable gulf of strict hierarchy, looking down from high above! "I also sensed that even though the power of life and death is completely absent from these worlds, they still hold an immense attraction for me. It feels as if swallowing them would bring me unimaginable benefits—far greater than those of the Yin-Yang Beads!" Master Yin's tone gradually grew dazed, and just before the greed in his eyes spiraled out of control, he closed them in time. Only after a long while did the temptation, like the whispers of a heavenly demon, fade from his ears. He slowly returned to normal, yet he no longer dared to stare at the four stones. Li Fan naturally knew the source of the dread and temptation the gray Go stones provoked in Master Yin. *Fragmented laws originating from the Immortal Realm...* Silently channeling his altered version of the Record of Mending the Heavens, Li Fan saw the four stones transform once more into crisscrossing lines within his vision. Those were the principles of the worlds after their construction and remodeling. Li Fan compared their similarities and differences. Tens of thousands of years had passed, and the sea of stars had perished and revived. Yet the grand Dao principles serving as the cornerstones of world creation had not changed much. Through endless cycles of reincarnation, Li Fan had acquired a profound understanding of the principles of Heaven and Earth in cultivation worlds. After several rounds of observation and comparison, he indeed spotted the components within these four stone worlds that did not belong to the "lower realm." They appeared no different from the lines representing ordinary principles of Heaven and Earth. In truth, however, they were higher-level replacements for lower-realm laws—a rebirth born of sublimation and metamorphosis. Though merely fragmented laws used for construction, in Li Fan's eyes they shone like the most dazzling gems in the universe. If the lower realm's principles of Heaven and Earth were a modest hill barely a hundred meters high, then the parts in these four stones originating from the Immortal Realm were a majestic mountain range stretching for hundreds of li—all-encompassing and bursting with boundless vitality. The two simply could not be compared in the same breath. Moreover, whether by coincidence or design, the fragmented laws of the Immortal Realm contained within the four stones were entirely distinct from one another. *The laws contained in each stone are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Once fully fused, they might form a complete picture.* *There are twelve gray Go stones in total, which should correspond to the twelve beacon coordinates Sun Piaomiao left behind back then.* *In that case...* *Actually, there should be thirteen. The Medicine King Cauldron handed down since ancient times in the Medicine King Sect of the Xuanhuang Realm wasn't within range of my senses.* At this thought, Li Fan could not help looking outside the Xuanhuang Realm. The Medicine King Cauldron of the Medicine King Sect was still struggling near the Immortal Ruins, having not yet returned to Xuanhuang. *At any rate, the day it falls back isn't far off. I can just wait; there's no need to take the risk of fishing it out from the Immortal Ruins.* Thinking this, Li Fan reached out and drew one of the Go stones to his hand. Sure enough, a peculiar sensation immediately welled up in his mind. Through an unseen connection, he sensed the approximate positions of the other gray Go stones scattered across the sea of stars. *Four are right here.* *One is with the Xuan Celestial Vessel.* *There are four more within the sprawling Great Wall of Remnant Worlds.* *That leaves three. One of them should be in the Sea of Relics.* *And the remaining two...* A strange glint flashed through Li Fan's eyes. He realized that the other two gray Go stones were actually inside the Xuanhuang Realm! *The worlds they originally belonged to must have been used by the Heavenly Physician and Chuanfa to patch Xuanhuang.* "Keep watch here. I'll be back shortly," he instructed Master Yin and Baihua. Ignoring their astonishment, the phantom of his wooden sword flickered, and Li Fan followed the approximate direction conveyed by his senses, arriving first at one of the locations. It was none other than the bottomless Abyss of Cangwu. The Abyss of Cangwu sat in the southwestern corner of the Xuanhuang Realm, like a colossal gash across the world. The depth explored so far had reached three hundred thousand zhang. Distributed across its layers were many bizarre landscapes, events, and objects. A perilous natural barrier of the past could now barely pose any threat to Li Fan, who could roam the sea of stars at will. Following his senses, he traveled all the way down. Watching the sights continuously drifting upward into the sky within his field of vision, Li Fan suddenly had a feeling: *The various things in the Abyss of Cangwu likely come from different destroyed cultivation realms. Being piled here makes this place look like a temporary storage ground for materials during the mending of the Xuanhuang Realm.* *If anything is missing while repairing the world, it can be retrieved from here at any time. One day, this Abyss of Cangwu will be filled completely. By then, however, Xuanhuang may have already been reborn.* Li Fan observed the myriad bizarre phenomena within the abyss with keen interest. The closer the abyss was to Xuanhuang's surface, the more it was influenced by Xuanhuang's aura of life, giving rise to unique blended landscapes such as the Forest of Spirit Whispers, the Puppet Gorge, and the Lost Labyrinth City. Yet the deeper one descended, the closer the floating world fragments were to their original forms. After a world's destruction, nothing remained but dead silence. Some world remnants even bore traces of residual True Immortal power. *It can practically be considered a miniature Great Wall of Remnant Worlds.* *However, its stability isn't nearly as high as that of the true Great Wall. From time to time, the accumulated residual True Immortal power still erupts...* *No wonder this is a forbidden zone for cultivators.* When the sword shadow plunged five hundred and thirty thousand zhang beneath the earth, Li Fan once again sensed the presence of the Immortal-Suppressing Force within the abyss. *This Immortal-Suppressing Force must be the pressure exerted upon trespassing cultivators after the Heavenly Physician imitated the Great Wall of Remnant Worlds to construct the Abyss of Cangwu.* *To be precise, the potential of the Abyss of Cangwu rises step by step from top to bottom. Although the elevation is extremely limited and does not exceed Xuanhuang by much overall, to cultivators inside the abyss, the sensation is exceptionally pronounced.* *Only by reaching a corresponding cultivation level can one survive safely within an abyssal stratum of the corresponding potential. Otherwise, like a mortal stumbling into the Immortal Realm and reaching a height where they do not belong, being crushed is the only outcome.* Having seen through the mysteries of the Abyss of Cangwu, Li Fan now pinpointed the general location of the gray Go stone drifting here. Amidst a scattered ruin of buildings that looked as if they had been chopped to pieces by tens of thousands of blade strikes, Li Fan found the fifth gray Go stone. It was a majestic stone statue of a qilin, quietly lying half-fallen upon the ground just as it had upon the realm's destruction ten thousand years ago. The statue was one of a pair, but when Li Fan examined the other, it proved to be ordinary stone. "Concealed quite well." Li Fan crushed the statue, restoring it to the form of a Go stone, and surveyed his surroundings. From the appearance of the surrounding ruins, Li Fan reconstructed the world to which it had originally belonged. *The Seven Fiends Realm. Within the realm, seven kinds of malevolent qi soared to the heavens, permeating every corner and even manifesting into shapes to harm people. Because of this, all architecture in that realm had various large and small exotic beasts arranged around it to absorb and suppress the qi.* *It was a sizable cultivation realm back then. Cultivators of the Seven Fiends Realm were tainted by the malevolent qi from birth, each move and style carrying the traits of the Seven Fiends. The peerless geniuses among them even commanded all seven...* *What a pity that with the turning of time, everything has long come to naught.* Li Fan sighed, shook his head slightly, and departed. The other gray Go stone remaining in the Xuanhuang Realm was buried beneath Tianyun Province. No unusual phenomena occurred where it lay. *As the fusion process of the Xuanhuang Realm progressed, what originally resided in the remnant of another world has now fully entered Xuanhuang.* *Just like those fragments from the Tianfa Realm under the seabed of the Congyun Sea. Under normal circumstances, with the course of evolution, they would be buried deep beneath Mount Congyun.* Without alarming anyone, Li Fan smoothly retrieved it. With that, Li Fan had gathered six gray Go stones in his hands. Returning to the Sermon Platform of Great Qi, he placed the six stones together. With their numbers approaching half, the influence between the stones seemed to grow stronger. They circled one another at ever-increasing speeds. Li Fan watched as, amidst the high-speed rotation, the lines representing the principles of the worlds attracted one another and slowly merged. Meanwhile, the fragmented laws of the Immortal Realm drew together gradually, completing the puzzle. Even though it was only six-thirteenths of the whole, it was enough to spark a qualitative change. The puzzle of Immortal Realm laws was like a sudden void opening in the middle of the sea. The worlds frozen in stillness were like the calm seawater. The instant the void appeared, the water surged into it uncontrollably. The six worlds were drawn into the puzzle of Immortal Realm law fragments like liquefied sheets of damp, distorted paintings. Following the blueprint long since designed by the puzzle, an entirely new world presented itself. Blue sky, white clouds, and rolling grasslands. It appeared to be a mortal prairie scene of the most ordinary kind. Yet from it, Li Fan felt a vastness of Heaven and Earth unlike anything he had ever known. The tender green grass growing vigorously on the ground also held an unimaginably thriving vitality! *The Immortal Realm?!* Catching sight of the scene within the fused stones, Li Fan was profoundly shaken. *No, it's merely a former fragment of the Immortal Realm. Perhaps calling it an immortal domain would be more appropriate.* *And this immortal domain is still incomplete.* Between the grassland and the sky of the Immortal Realm, something else clearly ought to exist. Yet because the remaining seven gray Go stones were missing, it could not be fully displayed. Li Fan stared blankly at the scene before him, a sudden wave of regret welling up in his chest. An uncontrollable impulse to repair it—as if he had personally shattered a peerless treasure—burrowed out from every corner of his mind. Had Li Fan not possessed the Immortal Heart Incantation to guard himself, along with extensive experience in similar situations, he might have lost control right then and rushed off to chase down the remaining stones. Now, however, Li Fan disregarded the temptation. With the fusion complete, only a single Go stone remained in the area. It was no longer the previous gray, but flashed with a multicolored radiance from time to time, and it had even swollen noticeably larger. Li Fan reached out and solemnly stowed away the six-in-one stone. "Hm?" To Li Fan's surprise, the moment he drew the stone into his body, it felt as though countless great mountains were pressing down upon him. Caught off guard, his figure dropped several inches. Fortunately, he reacted swiftly; the power of the Xuanhuang World-Extinguishing Transformation revived and circulated, providing a ceaseless flow of strength that allowed him to barely endure it. *Is this... the weight of the Immortal Realm?* *Just bearing an incomplete fragment of an immortal domain strains me this much?* *Once all thirteen fragments are gathered and fused into a true immortal domain, with my current cultivation, I won't be able to bear it at all!* Once again, Li Fan felt the terrifying gulf between immortal and mortal. At the same time, however, his surprise turned into delight. *I was just worrying that after the Xuanhuang Realm sublimates and ascends, I wouldn't be able to find an anchor capable of supporting that state.* *Now it seems that if I merge this immortal domain into Xuanhuang, it will definitely adapt and won't easily fall back down.* *With this immortal domain as its core, Xuanhuang might even be able to climb even higher!* *Truly, Heaven is helping me!* Li Fan could not help feeling a surge of excitement. Soon, however, he instinctively grew suspicious of the origin of these immortal domain fragments.