"I have traversed a hundred cycles of samsara, yet my spirituality remains undiminished. Even a Nameless True Immortal probably cannot compare to me." Having comprehended his own uniqueness, Li Fan could not help feeling waves of joy welling up in his heart.
He wished to communicate further with Revert to the True, but it was like dropping a stone into the boundless ocean—he received no response whatsoever.
Only after a long while did Li Fan calm down from his agitated emotions.
Naturally, an even greater question could not help surfacing in his mind.
"The richness of my spirituality is perhaps extraordinarily rare—or even one of a kind—across the entire mortal world. What could be the cause behind such a trait...?"
Quite directly, Li Fan thought of his identity as a "transmigrator."
But was that truly the reason? And why would a "transmigrator's" spirituality be so unique? If there were other "transmigrators," would they exhibit the same traits as him...?
Furthermore, there were even deeper questions.
What was Revert to the True's "purpose" in attaching itself to Li Fan in the first place?
All these questions were far beyond what Li Fan could explore right now.
Suppressing the surging thoughts deep down, Li Fan thought to himself, "At the very least, my relationship with Revert to the True appears to have grown somewhat closer on the surface. Ever since it returned from the Sea of Infinity, it has become much more 'lively.' That is a good thing. If it can guide me once, there can be a second time. And Revert to the True's guidance..."
"Is far superior to comprehending the Grand Dao face-to-face!"
While his true body had gained a qualitative breakthrough, his avatar puppet Li Buren showed no emotional fluctuations from these discoveries.
His mission was to investigate and uncover the truth behind the Great Wall. It remained shrouded in thick fog, so how could he relax?
"Based on the current clues, it can be concluded that this place originally belonged to a facility within the Immortal Realm's testing ground. The purpose of the experiment was to find a way to counter Dao Annihilation. Naturally, this testing ground possessed certain means to defend against Dao Annihilation."
"Although abandoned for reasons unknown, when the Dao Annihilation Tribulation erupted, it still transformed into the Great Wall, shielding the countless star seas within the testing ground from facing total annihilation."
"Likewise, the mission of the testing ground dictated that it had to possess an extremely concealed nature. Internal containment only needed to trap the living beings within the experimental star seas; restrictions at the True Immortal realm were sufficient."
"Externally, however, it had to account for prying eyes from powerhouses above True Immortals—those in the Nameless realm. No wonder Qian Ruochang of the Shuo Star Sea and that [Wuxian] were so close to the Great Wall yet seemed utterly blind to it. It wasn't that they wouldn't look, but that they truly couldn't. It could even shield itself to a degree from gazes outside other possibilities..."
The exact meaning of the message Sun Piaomiao left behind was still unclear. Li Buren simply chose to ignore it for now.
"The reason I discovered the Great Wall's peculiarity in the first place was because an Immortal Domain chess piece was captured by the Great Wall and vanished into thin air. If so, why not return to the root of the matter and track down where that piece is now...?"
The Immortal Domain chess pieces Sun Piaomiao left behind could sense one another. But across the Great Wall, this resonance was severed.
Even though Li Buren's body was forged from an Immortal Domain chess piece, inside this laboratory, he still could not sense the presence of his "kin."
After pondering for a moment, Li Buren simply returned to the Pitch-Black Star Sea first. He left only the Medicine King Cauldron piece in the Xuanhuang Realm to prevent the fragments from assembling and bringing the Immortal Domain into the world again.
Then, extending faint silver limbs from his body that resembled a net or arms, he used the power of the Dao Network projection to roughly bind and tie all the remaining chess pieces to himself.
Then, he crashed headlong into the Great Wall once more.
The instant he entered the Great Wall, Li Buren felt an enormous pull from outside. The Immortal Domain chess piece within his body flew uncontrollably at high speed toward the source of the suction.
Li Buren did not resist this force. He even reverted his body to its original chess piece form, flying alongside his "brothers" toward the unknown.
"As expected, this is different from entering as an intruder. This time, I am traveling along a different pathway."
Li Buren seemed to flash at extreme speed above countless cubic star seas within the testing ground, then traversed the Great Void that served as the boundary for all the star seas.
He arrived in a space that felt both familiar and alien.
Familiar, because it seemed to be the same location as the cylindrical hall Li Buren had visited earlier—only situated at the very top of the cylinder, an unseen vantage point from the bottom.
Upon arriving here, the pull exerted on the Immortal Domain chess pieces vanished.
In chess piece form, Li Buren observed his surroundings.
He discovered that, including the one that had abruptly vanished earlier and the ones he brought this time, a total of eleven chess pieces floated quietly in formation.
Six among them had inexplicably merged into one, displaying a seven-colored appearance just as Li Fan had seen in the past. The other five clustered tightly together, waiting for Li Buren, the final piece, to join them.
From the nearby pieces, Li Buren felt an urge to merge and return. But perhaps because the most crucial piece—the True Medicine King Cauldron—was missing, or perhaps because this was the true core area of the testing ground and had some unknown restriction,
Li Buren felt that the pull of the chess pieces on him had not reached an uncontrollable level.
Maintaining his stability, he surveyed his surroundings.
With this sweep of his gaze, he was startled to discover that five blurry figures stood silently around him.
Li Buren's nerves instantly tightened. He fell back sharply, shifting into a combat posture.
Yet he found that no matter how rapidly he moved, those five figures remained circled around him, keeping him in the center.
They could neither be approached nor outrun. To Li Buren, the five phantoms were like the azure heavens to living beings walking upon the earth.
Between them, an eternal, indeterminate distance was constantly maintained.
Fortunately, these phantoms did not appear aggressive. Like mere inanimate objects, they made no reaction whatsoever to Li Buren, an intruder.
Li Buren first drew all the Immortal Domain chess pieces to himself, then observed the five phantoms, confirming there was no immediate danger.
"They faintly surpass my perception, which is why I didn't spot them at first."
"Only when truly looking and focusing upon them can their existence be discerned."
"..."
The words "Nameless True Immortal" leaped into Li Buren's mind in an instant. How similar this scene was to what Li Fan had previously witnessed in the Shuo Star Sea, where Nameless True Immortals were used as living foundation stakes to build the Dao Network!
And the Immortal Heavenly Pillars of the Immortal Realm were forged using the thigh bones of Nameless True Immortals as materials. They likewise possessed a certain property of resisting Dao Annihilation. Having Nameless True Immortals as building materials within the Great Wall did not seem like anything unbelievable either.
Yet Li Buren instinctively felt a difference here from both the Dao Network and the Southern Immortal Heavenly Pillar.
"Using Dao as pillars—that is indeed the power exhibited by these five phantoms; there can be no mistake."
"The crux lies in..."
Li Buren frowned slightly. "Could they be of the very same Grand Dao?"
For a True Immortal to ascend to the Nameless realm, they must integrate their body with the Dao.
And in heaven and earth, the three thousand Grand Daos were all distinct, never repeating.
Therefore, it was utterly impossible in this world for two Nameless True Immortals to have attained the Dao through the exact same path.
Not even two could exist.
Much less five all at once!
"Do they hail from different possibilities?" Li Buren was startled, but he quickly dismissed this conclusion.
He had personally witnessed the aura of powerhouses capable of traversing possibilities.
Though the five phantoms before him were powerful, they were far from that.
"Then there is only one answer."
"These five phantoms were manifested by the same Nameless True Immortal."
"Not flesh and blood like the thigh bone in the Southern Immortal Heavenly Pillar, but merely phantoms of themselves."
Li Buren's heart shook.
"To transform into a wall and prop up against the Dao Annihilation Tribulation with just five phantoms?"
"What realm of cultivation is this?"
The five phantoms circled Li Buren like stars. Their facial features were indiscernible, impossible even to tell if they were male or female. Yet like deities out of myth, they inspired solemn awe and worship.
That was an emotion that welled up instinctively in body and mind when a lower being beheld a higher entity.
"I once speculated that beneath the earth of the Immortal Ruins lay a martyred Nameless, using their own self as a pillar to plug the tribulation of Dao Annihilation coming from the Immortal Realm."
"Yet the Nameless before my eyes had no need for self-sacrifice. Simply by projecting five phantoms, they could accomplish the same feat..."
The shock in Li Buren's heart was beyond words.
Clearly, whoever left behind these five phantoms ranked among the very strongest even among all Nameless True Immortals.
This form of strength was different from being able to traverse possibilities. Li Buren could not distinguish which was superior.
Yet he knew well that both manifestations were equally soul-shaking.
"In Su Bai's memories, faced with the catastrophic Dao Annihilation Tribulation, even Evil Su Bai could only flee in disarray."
"Yet in this [Primordial] possibility where I reside, there is a peerless powerhouse who could withstand Dao Annihilation with merely their own phantoms."
"Perhaps they chose to walk in a different direction?"
"Where is this powerhouse now? Was he the one originally in charge of this laboratory project?"
All manner of questions rose in Li Buren's mind.
"If only there were more powerhouses like this. Then the Dao Annihilation Tribulation might not be so insurmountable after all."
Gazing at the five phantoms before him, Li Buren could not help entertaining such a thought.
Able to become immortal pillars and withstand the Dao Annihilation Tribulation, the phantoms left behind by a Nameless True Immortal ought to be infinitely close to the Dao itself.
Yet though they were right before his eyes, Li Buren could neither glimpse nor comprehend the Grand Dao they represented.
It was as if this Dao did not exist within the Grand Daos of heaven and earth that Li Buren currently knew and had encountered!
Seen yet unseen, heard yet unheard, known yet unknowable!
"Either this being hails from another possibility, and the Dao they integrated with does not exist in the [Primordial] possibility—remaining an entirely foreign existence to me, which is why I cannot comprehend or pry into it at all."
"Or..."
"This being's realm of cultivation has already reached the pinnacle of perfection, leaping beyond the shackles of this heaven and earth alongside the Dao they integrated with, walking solitary and transcendent!"
Li Fan had previously conjectured that because Nameless True Immortals integrated their bodies with the Dao and then drifted away, they drew out the Grand Daos that originally served as pillars of heaven and earth—like knocking down the load-bearing walls of a building—which subsequently brought about the Dao Annihilation Tribulation.
Later, however, after encountering numerous powerhouses of the Nameless True Immortal realm, and having had the fortune to enter the Sea of Infinity and discover the fact that the Sea of Infinity and the Dao Annihilation Tribulation faintly shared the same source, he grew skeptical of this conjecture.
Yet at this moment, facing these five phantoms, he truly beheld a Nameless True Immortal powerhouse who had "leaped beyond the Three Realms and walked outside the Five Elements."
"The likelihood of hailing from another possibility yet sacrificing oneself to help resist the Dao Annihilation Tribulation is slim. They could easily have fled alone."
"This person should be a native of the [Primordial] possibility."
While observing, Li Buren attempted to use his divine sense to reflect the Grand Dao represented by these five phantoms.
Yet that mirror of the mind, capable of reflecting the Grand Daos of heaven and earth, remained completely blank when turned toward these five phantoms.
"I wonder if this person is still within our present possibility?"
"If he has already departed, and yet the phantoms he left behind still possess such power..."
"Then that is truly terrifying."
Among everything Li Fan had witnessed thus far, only Dao Annihilation and the Sea of Infinity inspired the deepest dread.
And those capable of contending against them had previously only been Revert to the True.
Now, an unknown powerhouse had been added to that list.
Although still weaker compared to Revert to the True,
it nevertheless showed Li Fan the absolute ceiling of what a "cultivator" could achieve.
After his fruitless attempts at reflection, Li Buren ceased wasting effort.
"These five phantoms must be the core of the Great Wall."
"There must be a reason why such an important area drew the Immortal Domain chess pieces here. It's just that I haven't found the method to trigger it yet."
Remaining here, Li Buren could only manifest in the form of an Immortal Domain chess piece. Otherwise, he would quickly be expelled.
"Could the lack of change be because the Immortal Domain chess pieces are not yet complete?" Soon, another thought surfaced in Li Buren's mind.
After transmitting this thought to his true body,
Li Fan in the Xuanhuang Realm weighed the options and ultimately handed the Medicine King Cauldron over to his avatar puppet.
In this lifetime, the True Medicine King Cauldron had long been collected by Li Fan without alerting the Hunger Immortal. Naturally, the members of the Medicine King Sect inside the cauldron had all been cast into Carefree Paradise to contribute to the construction of the dreamscape.
The True Medicine King Cauldron transformed back into its original form: a simple, unadorned white chess piece.
It was brought back into the center of the Great Wall by Li Buren, where the five phantoms stood.
Li Fan's true body was vigilant to the utmost, ready at any second to Revert to the True.
Li Buren was likewise prepared for his body to recombine and evolve into an Immortal Domain.
Yet the development of events slightly exceeded Li Fan's expectations.
Even with all the pieces gathered, the Immortal Domain did not unfold in the space where the five phantoms stood.
Instead, an unseen force in the surroundings suppressed the formation of the Immortal Domain.
However, just as Li Buren had anticipated, once all the Immortal Domain chess pieces were brought together here, an anomaly occurred in the surroundings.
As if a foreign object had fallen into water, ripples spread outwards.
Through these ripples, the faces of the five phantoms twisted and grew somewhat clearer.
Their gazes turned unanimously toward the chess pieces at the center.
It felt as if the entire weight of heaven and earth bore down upon him.
For a moment, Li Buren's body, formed from the Immortal Domain chess piece, felt as though it could barely bear the load.
"This is..."
"With the chess pieces assembled, bearing the gravitas of a Nameless True Immortal, they have finally caught the discerning eyes of the five phantoms!"
Chapter 1466