One was a man clad in Daoist robes, and the other was a white-robed cultivator dressed like a scholar. Li Fan had long since seen the illusory phantoms of these two before; they were Heavenly Venerable Truth and Heavenly Venerable Rendao.
Within the Kingdom of Truth, no falsehoods could exist. And in the Heavenly Realm of Humanity, regardless of cultivation, anyone with utmost sincerity of heart and character could transform Heaven and Earth.
As for the last one, he was a young man who appeared no more than in his twenties, possessing an otherworldly and transcendent bearing.
Although Li Fan had never seen him in reality, he had crossed paths with him once during the trial of the Fallen Immortal Illusion.
Ji Wangxian!
Ten thousand years ago, he had single-handedly built the World Commerce Guild, which spanned the entire Xuanhuang Realm, and used spirit stones to construct an incomparably luxurious celestial city in the sky.
"To think that the cunning, unscrupulous ancestor of the Ji Clan of the past would transform himself into the embodiment of contracts."
"Still, back then, the entire Ji Clan and even the World Commerce Guild were said to be mere cultivation tools for Ji Wangxian. After the great upheaval of Heaven and Earth, it makes sense that he would switch to the new method to maintain his longevity."
At the same time, Li Fan instantly understood the true situation regarding the Wanfa Commerce Guild, whose headquarters was located in Jiushan Province, sandwiched between the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals and the Five Elders Association.
"The Wanfa Commerce Guild is a remnant of the old World Commerce Guild. After Ji Wangxian attained Longevity, the guild became useless to him. Even so, it was once the direct force of one of the Five Heavenly Venerables. As long as it behaves itself, neither the Five Elders Association nor the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals will actively cause trouble for it. It can also serve as a neutral ground facilitating private transactions between the two sides.
"Yet that is all it is. Before true power, the so-called Wanfa Commerce Guild is no different from any other ant in the world. Back then, beneath a single palm strike from Chuanfa, it was reduced to flying ash along with all living beings in Jiushan Province."
His thoughts raced as Li Fan's gaze swept across the three newly arrived Longevity Heavenly Venerables one by one.
Evidently, they had already learned of Li Fan's unfathomable cultivation in advance from Wuyou. Although their expressions appeared normal and they still maintained the poise of top powerhouses of Xuanhuang, Li Fan could faintly discern their underlying stiffness and unease.
"Hehehe, do not be nervous.
"Heavenly Venerable Chuanfa has already been suppressed by me."
Li Fan spoke these words breezily, yet they caused the five Heavenly Venerables present to break out in goosebumps, their hairs standing on end.
And when they saw Chuanfa himself trapped within endless illusions in Li Fan's palm, neither asleep nor awake, their faces inevitably turned pale, and they bowed their heads one after another, not daring to look Li Fan in the eye.
Wuyou, in particular, could not stop trembling once more, seized with lingering dread over her previous rude and foolish probing.
Before this, although the Five Heavenly Venerables knew that this senior who had suddenly descended—suspected to be a True Immortal—was exceedingly powerful, they had lacked a concrete, quantifiable sense of just how strong he was.
Now, however, they knew.
Heavenly Venerable Chuanfa, who had dominated Xuanhuang for an era and forced the five of them to submit even when joined together, had been casually suppressed with a mere flip of this man's hand.
How could such terrifying might fail to fill them with horror?
Li Fan, however, seemed to disregard their inner turmoil, continuing in an indifferent tone, "The immortal and mortal realms are separated. I will not excessively interfere with you. However, there are some matters where I require a bit of your assistance."
"Senior, please give your command!" Wuyou was the first to speak.
Such eagerness was a stark contrast to her past aloofness from worldly affairs, causing the other four Heavenly Venerables to look sideways at her. Yet, having achieved Longevity in the Xuanhuang Realm, how could any of them be fools? They all hastened to chime in and voice their compliance.
"In truth, I came here for an item: the Soul-Grinding Disk."
When Li Fan uttered these words, Wuyou and the others turned their gazes toward the man in Daoist robes.
Heavenly Venerable Truth's cheek twitched. Cupping his hands, he retrieved an object shaped like a stone millstone and offered it over.
Li Fan saw that this Soul-Grinding Disk seemed to be turning slightly and ceaselessly. Beneath it, one could faintly hear the miserable wails and shrieks of countless souls being crushed beneath the massive millstone.
And from Trueness, faint ripples of reaction indeed stirred.
Within the Soul-Grinding Disk were fifty-six remnant souls and one hundred and three skeletal remains. Yet the aura of these remnant souls and bones seemed mightier than that of hundreds of millions of wandering ghosts.
Upon careful inspection, Li Fan saw through the mystery behind it.
The Soul-Grinding Disk acted like a colossal stone millstone, grinding these remnant souls and bones without ceasing. Theoretically, no matter how extraordinary they were, they could not endure such torment; in a little over a decade at most, they would be obliterated into ashes.
Yet they had endured from ancient times to the present day. This was because at every moment, streams of pure energy welled up from the Soul-Grinding Disk to nourish these remnant souls.
Their life force was kept from extinguishing, only for them to suffer another round of agony beneath the grinding wheel.
Cycling over and over, it was as if they were trapped in the Avici Purgatory, endless and without reprieve.
Li Fan finally understood how this existence suspected of being an Eternal Lingering Thought had come to be formed.
"A fine method," Li Fan remarked casually.
Heavenly Venerable Truth lowered his head, not daring to answer.
Li Fan applied a slight pressure with his hand, and the giant millstone dissipated into smoke in an instant.
The remnant souls and skeletal remains were liberated and absorbed by Trueness.
And the trace of pure energy remaining in the millstone felt somewhat familiar to Li Fan.
It was identical to the pure cultivation produced after dissolving one's arts using the Cultivation Dissolution Chapter of the Taishang Primordial True Scripture.
"Taishang Sect remnant."
Li Fan glanced at Heavenly Venerable Truth, deep in thought.
When using the Primordial True Scripture to convert cultivation, not all of it would be inherited; a small portion would vanish into thin air, its whereabouts unknown. Now it seemed it had flowed straight into the pockets of the Taishang Sect.
"What do the lives of the world's cultivators have to do with me? That truly fits the Taishang persona."
Back when the great calamity befell the Xuanhuang Realm, each of the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao had a faction that fled in advance. People like Yixin and Truth might prove remarkably useful in the process of exploring beyond the High Wall.
Li Fan paid them no heed for now, focusing intently on sensing the changes within Trueness.
Compared to its previous greedy, ecstatic urge to devour, Trueness's reaction this time was somewhat strange.
It was as if it had eaten something terribly difficult to swallow and wanted to vomit it back out, yet forced itself to choke it down mouthful by mouthful.
Li Fan's expression turned subtle.
Standing motionless, he inspected the notification conveyed from Trueness.
Meanwhile, the Longevity Venerables of the Five Elders Association stood waiting in attendance around him, not daring to move.
Perhaps because this Eternal Lingering Thought was not distilled from a single individual, but formed from numerous remnant souls, Li Fan did not undergo the trial of an illusory test; Trueness directly succeeded in absorbing it.
"Avici Samsara feature unlocked."
Not even a poetic verse appeared; it merely offered this single, perfunctory line.
"Avici Samsara..."
Nevertheless, those words immediately piqued Li Fan's interest.
"Using a past lifetime experienced by the host as a template, create a span of time with a beginning and an end."
"Any living being without the ability to resist may be cast into this span of time."
"If an identity corresponding to the cast being exists in this timeline, they will possess it. If not, they will possess a random entity."
"The identity possessed by the cast being may be designated."
"The cast being will lose memories concerning anything outside the samsara."
"Throughout the entire Avici Samsara, only the cast being's memories will be retained across cycles."
"Time cycles ceaselessly from beginning to end, with the events of the fixed template acting as linear constraints to ensure the Avici Samsara does not deviate from its original trajectory."
"The Avici Samsara exists dependent upon me. Each time Trueness is activated to return to the initial anchor point, the created samsara will vanish and must be recreated. Alternatively, a certain price may be paid to retain it."
"The flow of time within the Avici Samsara is one thousand times that of the normal space-time experienced by me. It may also be accelerated significantly according to my needs..."
The explanation for the Avici Samsara function was far more intricate than those for Avatar and Dao Source.
Yet in truth, it was quite straightforward.
It was simply a continuously repeating segment of history that Li Fan had lived through.
One had to know that every time Li Fan had been forced to trigger Trueness, great terror had descended. This meant that within the Avici Samsara, every few decades, a devastating tribulation of ruin would arrive.
Moreover, due to Trueness's active constraints, any being enduring the samsara would be unable to advance little by little each cycle like Li Fan to ultimately alter their destiny against the heavens.
"I can also monitor the state of the being cast into the samsara at any time...
"Interesting. Highly interesting."
As if having discovered some novel toy, a surge of curiosity welled up in Li Fan's heart.
"Qiao Sidao managed to escape the myriad cycles of the Era.
"Can anyone escape the Avici Samsara created by Trueness?"
According to Trueness's explanation, this Avici Samsara would only come to a halt if a complete divergence occurred at the cycle's ending.
Even then, the cast being would still be unable to break free.
The timeline of that samsara would merely hang in a void between truth and illusion, waiting for Li Fan to issue his next command—whether to release the cast being or create a new Avici Samsara.
"Truly worthy of the name Avici!"
Li Fan could scarcely contain his admiration. Turning his head abruptly toward Heavenly Venerable Truth, he revealed a meaningful smile and tapped a finger gently in his direction.
One of the rare Longevity Heavenly Venerables of the Xuanhuang Realm thus vanished into thin air before everyone's eyes, without a sound.
Alive or dead, none could tell.
The remaining figures, including Wuyou, were terrified out of their wits.
Yet none harbored the slightest thought of avenging Heavenly Venerable Truth; they could only pray in secret that this senior True Immortal would spare their lives.
Throughout the True Immortal's suppression of Heavenly Venerable Truth, not the slightest ripple of energy had appeared. In a manner utterly beyond their comprehension, he had simply disappeared.
Let alone resisting, they could not even make sense of what had happened. The disparity was so immense that they lacked even the courage to resist.
By this time, Li Fan's attention was already focused on the Avici Samsara he had activated.
He had chosen the historical segment where, as the Sacred Embryo riding inside the Medicine King Cauldron, he charged toward the Immortal Ruins—
provoking the Hunger Immortal to annihilate the world with a single gaze.
Chapter 1427