The might of the Mound-Guarding Lord was enough to evoke profound yearning.
Yet as for the restrictions Qingyin had claimed would naturally arise upon obtaining the Mound-Guarding Lord's legacy, Li Fan did not pay them much mind.
First of all, although the Mound-Guarding Lord was ostensibly the strongest known existence thus far, Li Fan still did not believe He could surpass Revert to the True.
Second, the one who had obtained and cultivated the Mound-Guarding Jottings was Li Buren; if worse came to worst, he could simply use Li Buren to settle the debt. It had nothing to do with Li Fan himself.
"There are still a few questionable points in the projection Qingyin left behind.
"For instance, why did Qingyin deliberately leave this recording in the testing ground? That final glance he cast toward the viewer was clearly laden with deeper meaning.
"Sun Piaomiao, the True Immortal once tasked with descending to watch over Xuanhuang, still has an unclear connection to this so-called 'Lanke Dao Sanctuary'..."
Too many secrets had forever lost their chance of verification with the descent of Dao Annihilation and the destruction of the Immortal Realm. Li Fan had no intention of digging to the bottom of every single mystery either.
"Although I cannot plumb all the secrets of the Great Wall, having gained the Mound-Guarding Lord's legacy and Qingyin's acknowledgment, my 'authority' in this testing ground is far higher than that of a mere tourist."
As Qingyin's projection dispersed, Li Buren stood once more in the circular hall, quietly sensing his surroundings.
The myriad objects that had previously been unresponsive to him now seemed, to a certain degree, touchable and operable.
Aside from the terracotta figurine used to summon historical recordings of the testing ground, the object Li Buren found resonating most strongly with him was a dark-red solid wood grand armchair.
Li Buren caressed it gently, sensing from within it a faint wisp of the Mound-Guarding Lord's phantoms' aura.
"The Mound-Guarding Lord seems to have sat in this chair once."
Li Buren also tried sitting squarely upon it.
Boom!
His vision abruptly shifted. In a trance, he drifted out of the circular hall at the core of the testing ground, floating past the star sea of countless monitored cubes.
Surging upward, he arrived outside the testing ground!
Li Buren saw a familiar starry sky.
It was none other than the narrow strip of the Annihilation Lands beyond the Shuo Star Sea. He could even glimpse, from afar, the myriad thriving starlight within the Shuo Star Sea!
Focusing his gaze closer, he could concentrate on a single point to observe in exquisite detail the World-Crossing Mysterious Coffin still resting quietly in the void, as well as the group of newly minted Immortal Hunt members caught in the paradise dreamscape!
Because he had previously peered closely at the World-Crossing Mysterious Coffin from his own perspective, examining it now through another vantage allowed Li Buren to instantly perceive the difference between the two situations.
The first sensation that arose was discomfort and regret—like a creation that ought to have been utterly flawless, marred by a single blemish!
"This is the scratch I inflicted on the World-Crossing Mysterious Coffin using my divine ability, Truth Through Falsehood. Even I was unable to see it clearly, yet under this perspective, that imperfection is revealed down to the tiniest detail..."
Suppressing his discomfort, Li Buren continued scrutinizing the mysterious coffin.
The surrounding starry sky and the Grand Dao of Heaven and Earth seemed to turn into surging, undulating waves. And amidst this boundless ocean, the World-Crossing Mysterious Coffin was like a lone skiff.
Though drifting with the current was unavoidable, it could still weather endless storms and surging tides in safety.
Were it not for that blemish, that is.
"With this flaw I caused, it's like a seam splitting in the ship's hull.
"Seawater seeps slowly through the crack. If one still hopes to cross the ocean with it, the inevitable end is sinking to the bottom of the sea."
His vision seemed to leap across the long river of time to witness the future. This was not based on deduction, but a scene directly presenting itself before Li Buren's eyes.
"This feeling...
"Is this what truly mighty beings see every day?"
By now, Li Buren had come to understand.
What he was seeing at this moment was likely based on the perspective of the Great Wall itself.
Even if other True Immortals had left behind restrictions and formation measures, the most fundamental foundation of the Great Wall remained the five Dao-bearing phantoms left by the Mound-Guarding Lord.
Through the wooden chair the Mound-Guarding Lord had once sat in and the mystical connection to the phantoms, one could, to a certain extent, borrow a portion of the five phantoms' power.
Capable of withstanding the Dao Annihilation Tribulation, capable of shielding against the gaze of the Nameless.
The worth of the phantoms left by the Mound-Guarding Lord required no exaggeration.
Borrowing their might, not only did Li Buren perceive the coffin's imperfection at a single glance, but he also vaguely discerned the principle by which it could cross the world.
Just as Li Fan had previously conjectured.
The material of this skiff, which seemingly had the power to traverse an endless ocean, was not particularly remarkable in itself. Rather, it seemed compounded from countless overlapping shadows.
With every additional layer of shadow, its stability increased by a measure.
Accumulated layer upon layer, it grew increasingly capable of ignoring the wind and waves.
"This... should be the same principle as Black Heavenly Physician and Sinister Su Bai hunting versions of themselves from other possibilities."
Li Buren stared, somewhat entranced, at the myriad overlapping shadows upon the coffin, his sight seemingly tracing along them to peer into other possibilities.
Yet precisely because of the blemish he had inflicted earlier, the coffin before him was deviating from these overlapping shadows.
Originally, the deviation was almost negligible.
Yet Li Buren saw that as it tossed amidst the waves of external forces, the discrepancy grew steadily larger with the passage of time!
His prying vision was twisted and obstructed as a result.
He could not truly peer into other possibilities.
There was not even a speck of light or shadow.
Li Buren inwardly lamented the loss.
"If the World-Crossing Mysterious Coffin were intact, perhaps I could truly have glimpsed the path leading toward other possibilities."
Compared to the coffin itself, the method used to seal it appeared rather crude by contrast.
It was like a few rough ropes crudely binding a flawless white jade wall in disarray.
It was undeniably firm.
Yet aided by the Great Wall—or rather, by the gaze of the Mound-Guarding Lord's Dao-bearing phantoms—Li Buren easily spotted the crucial crux to untying this knot.
"So once one reaches the realm of the Mound-Guarding Lord, all dharmas are mastered. No matter what divine abilities, arts, or methods you employ, looking down from above, I can see through them at a single glance."
Li Buren lingered in fascination for a moment, then an idea suddenly surfaced in his mind.
"I wonder if, beyond just 'seeing,' I can harness even more of the Mound-Guarding Lord's phantoms' power?"
Once the thought arose, it could no longer be suppressed.
He recalled the contents of the Mound-Guarding Jottings preserved in his mind to the best of his ability, sensing the aura left behind by the Mound-Guarding Lord on the grand armchair beneath him.
He seemed once again to see the solitary figure watching the ocean and guarding the mound, standing alone through eternity.
At this instant, Li Buren felt as if he had returned to the core of the Great Wall, where the five phantoms resided!
Standing at the center of the phantoms, gazed upon by all of them at once.
Li Buren felt tremendous pressure.
This time was not an inheritance of a legacy, so the phantoms did not seem to offer any active protection. It was like facing the mountain and the ocean directly, along with the Mound-Guarding Lord atop the mountain and the sea.
Li Buren felt as though his entire body were about to be crushed into the chair beneath him.
Not merely on a physical level, but mentally as well.
Keenly noticing that the five encircling phantoms of the Mound-Guarding Lord seemed to have drawn slightly closer to him, Li Buren decisively sprang up from the grand armchair.
Like plummeting from the clouds into the mortal dust, his boundless vision was compressed back into a tiny square inch.
Li Buren felt a momentary disorientation.
Fortunately, his subjective willpower was not rigid, and he quickly adjusted.
"I can indeed borrow the phantoms' power.
"However, the phantoms are primarily meant to bear Dao Annihilation; they cannot yield much power. Moreover, it is a double-edged sword.
"The gap between myself and the Mound-Guarding Lord's phantoms is simply too vast. Even if the Mound-Guarding Lord harbors no malice, recklessly drawing upon them will inevitably lead to being assimilated."
This was the conclusion Li Buren reached from his analysis.
Meanwhile, Li Fan's true body felt a delight that far exceeded Li Buren's.
"Ever since leaping out of the Pitch-Black Star Sea and witnessing the Dao Net, Immortal Hunt, Nameless True Immortals, and other such existences, I have always walked on thin ice. I acted with utmost caution at every turn, constantly guarding against the possibility that these mighty beings might trace the connections back to the Xuanhuang Realm.
"But now..."
Li Fan's true body rose abruptly and looked toward the Great Wall, overjoyed.
Just now, his true body had not felt the assimilation tendency Li Buren had experienced.
In other words, whatever repercussions using the Mound-Guarding Lord's phantoms might bring, they would not spill over to him.
"The Mound-Guarding Lord could single-handedly hold back the monstrous Dao Annihilation Tribulation. Even the governing Immortal Emperor of the Immortal Realm bowed as a junior before Him...
"The phantoms He left behind are certainly not something an ordinary True Immortal can contend with.
"The more phantom power I can invoke, the stronger I become.
"In other words, in the area near this Great Wall, even if a Nameless arrived in person, I would have nothing to fear!"
It had been a long time since Li Fan had felt this excited.
With Revert to the True, all treasures in the world seemed to hold little value to him.
Theoretically, as long as he wished, no matter how precious or rare something was, he could multiply it infinitely.
Yet these phantoms of the Mound-Guarding Lord were not precious because of quantity.
Rather, like Revert to the True, their very existence was the greatest value!
Like finding a game-breaking item in a game, Li Fan could hardly wait to put it to the test.
His gaze turned to the mysterious coffin floating quietly outside the Great Wall.
"You two have rested long enough.
"I'll have to trouble you to test the true caliber of the Mound-Guarding Lord's phantoms!"
Invoking the Mound-Guarding Lord's phantoms indeed carried tremendous negative consequences.
If invoked too much, it might even trigger the premature arrival of the Dao Annihilation Tribulation.
Yet none of this fell within Li Fan's considerations!
Having received Li Fan's order, Li Buren rested for a brief moment, then sat back down upon the grand armchair.
At the same time, "Ma Tiande," who had been slumbering in the starry void of the Annihilation Lands, suddenly opened his eyes.
The vision of the Mound-Guarding Lord's phantoms slowly overlapped with what this body saw.
The World-Crossing Mysterious Coffin, which previously had no flaws and could not be opened at all, now felt breakable in an instant.
Ma Tiande revealed a meaningful smile and made a light swipe toward the "knot" in his field of vision.
The knot amidst tens of thousands of entanglements was thus unraveled with ease and simplicity.
Amidst a muffled roar, the coffin lid slid aside.
Inside the coffin, Qian Ruochang and Immortal Wu were clearly taken aback by this sudden development.
Then, without the slightest hesitation, they unleashed the full potential of their bodies, seeking to flee the coffin.
The moment they leaped out of the World-Crossing Mysterious Coffin, Li Fan also saw their true forms clearly.
First was Qian Ruochang.
Under normal sight, he was a burly, muscular giant wielding an enormous pillar, imposing and fierce.
Yet in the vision of the Mound-Guarding Lord's phantoms, Qian Ruochang could not be considered a "person" at all.
He was a mass of clouds.
Or rather, an aggregate of the Grand Dao.
Just like the silver skeleton Li Fan had caught a glimpse of earlier, which bore an uncanny resemblance to the Dao Net, Qian Ruochang's entire body was directly aggregated and manifested from threads of the Grand Dao.
Only the inner core controlling this body was a normal human soul.
It was like a miniature Dao Net draped over a human soul.
"No wonder Qian Ruochang felt somewhat strange to me.
"What is this supposed to be? Grand Dao Descent? Or a Dao Net mecha?"
Qian Ruochang's method could indeed allow a mortal body to wield the power of the Grand Dao. Below the Nameless, even True Immortals would find it difficult to rival.
Yet the drawback was equally glaring.
Without connecting to the Boundless Sea, and without truly linking to the Grand Dao of Heaven and Earth, every bit of power expended could not be replenished. Even if the miniature Dao Net could be said to hold infinite might, it could not endure for long.
More crucially, the divine soul bound within the miniature Dao Net was constantly being choked tight by the strings of the Dao. As though suffering a thousand cuts, the intensity of the agony could well be imagined.
This was not something one could simply endure through sheer force of will. Under such pressure, the divine soul being sliced into countless fragments was an inevitable fate.
A strong soul and firm will merely slowed down the process.
"Even with a divine ability akin to my Boundless Waxing and Waning, it would be futile.
"Given the current strength of Qian Ruochang's divine soul, it can only last three hundred-odd years at most.
"For a mortal, that is a long life. But for the realm of True Immortals, it is far too brief."
Li Fan looked toward Immortal Wu.
He was said to have severed all connections with the world.
Yet in Li Fan's eyes right now, that was far from the case.
If every person in the world were a rich, three-dimensional projection of the Grand Dao of Heaven and Earth from a certain angle, then this Immortal Wu had shaved himself down as much as possible into a "skinny bamboo pole," minimizing his intersections with the Grand Dao.
Admittedly, he seemed severed from all other things in heaven and earth.
Yet in essence, it had little to do with "Nonexistence" or "Nothingness."
It was closer to a Dao of "Solitude" or "Isolation."
"When this immortal cultivates to the end, it will not be that profound and enigmatic Dao of Nonexistence. Rather, he transforms himself into a principle of heaven and earth—becoming part of the Grand Dao while simultaneously existing independently outside heaven and earth.
"The moment of great completion is the moment of Minor Transcendence.
"Truly worthy of being a True Immortal who has survived to this day!"
Having seen through Immortal Wu's true foundation at a glance, Li Fan could not help but praise him.
Looking down from above with the aid of the Mound-Guarding Lord's gaze, the advantages went without saying.
Whatever monsters or demons, all had their original forms laid bare in a single glance.
Even as Li Fan was observing, Qian Ruochang and Immortal Wu seemed to have coordinated beforehand. Pushing their escape arts to the absolute limit, they broke into flight in different directions at the same time.
Li Buren increased the power invoked from the phantoms and cast another weighty glance.
The Grand Dao of Heaven and Earth, undulating and shifting incessantly in this region, was instantly frozen.
Qian Ruochang and Immortal Wu were like insects caught in a web.
Unable to move in the slightest!
Chapter 1469