The Hunger Immortal's Past

"The moment a flaw appears, it pursues and strikes relentlessly, never resting until death. "If it fails, it temporarily withdraws to build up strength..." Li Buren recalled the subtle sensations he had felt when confronting the Dao Annihilation Tide moments ago. Just as all living creatures sense in varying degrees the approach of a torrential storm, a foreboding premonition of the Dao Annihilation Tide seemed buried deep within the instincts of all living beings. Only long after the great tide receded did the strange unease in Li Buren's heart completely dissipate. Slowly collecting himself, he looked toward the "Heavenly Pillar" now standing erect within the Pitch-Black Star Sea. Unlike the ruined rampart formed by the overlapping of the two Origin Bones, the pillar before him was genuinely formed by an existence who had attested to Nameless. With the appearance of this nameless Heavenly Pillar, the heavens seemed to become loftier and more distant. At the same time, it felt far more "secure." The intangible oppression within his heart vanished, making it feel as if he had arrived in the legendary "Immortal Realm." "Naturally, it still cannot compare to the true Immortal Realm capable of tapping into the energy of the Infinite Sea. But calling it an Immortal Domain in its own right is not an exaggeration." The sky was lofty and the earth vast; the Great Dao manifest between heaven and earth grew even clearer. More importantly, the Pitch-Black Star Sea within the Great Wall had now gathered three things in succession: the Mound-Guarding Lord's phantom, the Origin Bone, and the Hunger Immortal Heavenly Pillar. Aside from the Mound-Guarding phantom, which acted across all the experimental spaces within the Great Wall, the other two were held exclusively by the Pitch-Black Star Sea. The appearance of each raised the "momentum" of this star sea intangibly. With all three gathered, they lifted the Pitch-Black Star Sea to a height where it could temporarily look down upon the Dao Annihilation Tide below. "Those living within this domain possess a momentum far surpassing those elsewhere. In short, all are exceptionally gifted, fine seedlings for seeking immortality and pursuing the Dao. On top of that, this was originally a sanctuary surviving the baptism of Dao Annihilation. Those who can cultivate under such innate conditions are already brilliant prodigies..." Li Buren raised his eyebrows slightly. "The Pitch-Black Star Sea is like the sacred grounds and Daoist sanctuaries spoken of in primeval cultivation legends. Setting their current strength aside, every single person who walks out of here will surely possess earth-shattering talent for cultivation. "If the immortal path had not been severed, and if the duty immortal officials at the Immortal Ascension Platform weren't causing trouble, lifting the entire realm in ascension wouldn't even be difficult. "What a pity... "Now, it can only serve as a lone high ground, a solitary leaf of a skiff amidst the apocalyptic tide." Three powers comparable to Nameless True Immortals had converged in one place—a plan that only Li Fan, through constant cycles of samsara and information gathering, could have brought to fruition. It was safe to say that the present Pitch-Black Star Sea could be called the safest region in the entire Primordial possibility. Even if the entire possibility were submerged by the Dao Annihilation Tide, the Pitch-Black Star Sea could serve as high ground and hold out for some time. Viewing the Pitch-Black Star Sea as his home base, Li Fan naturally felt ever more at ease. It felt like standing inside an apocalyptic safehouse guarded by layers of tight protection. Let the world outside be frozen for ten thousand li and the murky waves surge to the heavens. I remain unmoved! While Li Fan's true body felt thoroughly refreshed, his avatar Li Buren quickly broke away from this sense of satisfaction, busy calculating the specific gains brought by the Hunger Immortal's transformation into a pillar. "Originally, what I could draw upon unconditionally and without side effects was the power of one and a third Origin Bones. "And after suppressing the Hunger Immortal... "What I obtained was not equivalent to the full power of a Nameless True Immortal, but rather required subtracting the previous Hunger Immortal's remnants. "It comes to approximately two and a half Origin Bones." He completed a rough quantitative calculation. This outcome did not greatly exceed Li Fan's expectations. Though the Origin Bone was powerful and touched upon the initial Great Dao at the origin of all things in heaven and earth, only two remnant bones remained, after all, rather than a complete body. Under such circumstances, it could still nearly equal the power of the Hunger Immortal when she first attested to Nameless. That was enough to demonstrate how terrifying it had been in its prime. "Judging from the Hunger Immortal's performance in the previous battle, she still had the combat strength to swallow the sky and drink the seas even when facing the Mound-Guarding phantom. Even as a newly attested one, she was definitely not among the weak of the Nameless True Immortals. And now, I can freely deploy power roughly equivalent to two Nameless True Immortals... "In this starry void, there is truly almost no rival left." Though this power was entirely borrowed from the Mound-Guarding phantom, that did not detract from Li Fan's immense satisfaction. "The Immortal Realm collapsed, and the immortals fled. Such strength virtually means invincibility. "A pity it is restricted to the vicinity of the Great Wall. "Moreover, I can follow the same method to lure and suppress other Nameless True Immortals, further tapping into the Mound-Guarding phantom's power. The upper limit would be putting all five Mound-Guarding phantoms entirely at my disposal! "That is power capable of withstanding the monstrous Dao Annihilation from when the Immortal Realm collapsed..." A trace of yearning flashed through Li Fan's eyes. Yet he did not allow this incomparable power to bewitch his mind. After all, it was only temporarily borrowed, not power that truly belonged to him. "Still, that doesn't stop it from serving as my tool." Successfully suppressing the Nameless Hunger Immortal had verified, on a factual level, just how vast the energy at his disposal truly was. Having reached this stage, there was no longer any need to tread so cautiously. "The Pitch-Black Star Sea, and those few blind spots in the Xuanhuang Realm—I can finally resolve them all in one go." A sharp light glinted in Li Fan's eyes. Before taking action, however, Li Fan carefully observed and compared the Origin Bone and the Hunger Immortal Heavenly Pillar in the starry void. Although both served as pillars holding back the Dao Annihilation, their behavior was entirely different. The Origin Bone had originally been housed within the Wordless Stele and the Southern Immortal Heavenly Pillar. It seemed to have resigned itself to its fate long ago, or perhaps had already been tamed. It simply endured in silence, all light, shadows, and anomalies completely reined in. It looked plain and unremarkable, like a broken stone plinth. The Hunger Immortal Heavenly Pillar, on the other hand, had merely been forcibly bound by Li Fan's external power. The Hunger Immortal's self-awareness still persisted. Not only could Li Fan sense the monstrous resentment surrounding the Heavenly Pillar, but he could also clearly hear the venomous curses constantly issuing from her. Li Fan acted as if he heard nothing at all, observing her with a faint smile. Sending out a strand of divine sense, he made contact with the Hunger Immortal Heavenly Pillar. *Boom!* Amidst the tremors of his divine sense, the Dao of [Hunger] stood before Li Fan's eyes, stretching from top to bottom across heaven and earth, revealed down to the finest detail. It was as if all her secrets had been thoroughly laid bare before him. Sealed inside the Heavenly Pillar, the Hunger Immortal froze for a brief moment. Then, an even more frenzied torrent of curses erupted. Yet that was all she could do. She could not stop Li Fan's prying in the slightest. "Though the Dao can be seen, not an inkling of it can be comprehended. "The Dao of Hunger has already been attested by someone else. It is as if it has vanished from this realm. "How can one comprehend what belongs to another?" Li Fan sighed softly. What he lamented was by no means just this single path of Hunger before him. Rather, against the backdrop of the Immortal Realm's collapse and the flight of all the immortals, an untold number of missing Great Daos was plain to see. "Just like the projection of my divine sense, which mirrors only a small section of the Dao Net. What remains in the Primordial possibility is nothing more than scraps and leftovers... "The Great Dao is fractured, and the world incomplete. "Even so, the world I see is so magnificent. It is truly hard to imagine what a truly complete heaven and earth of the Great Dao would look like..." This was a reverie unavoidable for any cultivator, and Li Fan was no exception. Before the Hunger Immortal Heavenly Pillar, he lost himself in thought for a time. After a long while, Li Fan's gaze shifted from yearning to determination. "One day, I will behold a heaven where the Dao is complete. "That day will come." In addition to catching a glimpse of the Dao of Hunger within the Heavenly Pillar, Li Fan could faintly see the Hunger Immortal's past life. However, because she had attested to Nameless and converged all her past, these recorded memories were entirely shrouded beneath the Dao of Hunger. It was like hiding beneath a cloak woven from the Great Dao. Without dismantling the Hunger Immortal Heavenly Pillar, Li Fan could not take it all in at once. He could only peel it back inch by inch, slowly and steadily. In addition to resisting the Dao of Hunger, Li Fan's prying had to contend with the struggling will of the Hunger Immortal herself. She seemed intensely averse to Li Fan's gaze, resisting so fiercely that it surpassed even her earlier battle against Li Buren. "If you knew this would happen, why act as you did before!" Li Fan gave a cold snort. Instead of holding back, he pushed further. Breaking through the protection of the Dao of Hunger, he caught a glimpse of a scene from her past. Under Li Fan's observation, it appeared to be the Hunger Immortal's youth, before she had stepped into the realm of True Immortal. The Hunger Immortal had not ascended from a lower realm. Rather, she had lived in the Immortal Realm since birth as an appendage to a certain True Immortal. Though called an appendage, an existence known as an immortal servant, the Hunger Immortal had never once seen her titular "master" from the day of her birth. The Immortal Realm possessed limitless resources, so servants like them had no need to pay tribute to their master. The Hunger Immortal had heard that the master was naturally averse to noise and bustle, desiring only solitude. Though immortal servants like them had been created and bestowed upon the master, the master had never once inquired about them, merely settling them within his own fief. Having such a "master" was naturally a blessing every immortal servant could only dream of. The immortal servants lived in supreme freedom. Sheltered by their True Immortal master from above, they had nothing to worry about. Yet such carefree days did not last long. On that day, the young Hunger Immortal witnessed with her own eyes the apocalyptic Dao Annihilation Tribulation. Her True Immortal master's territory, her homeland—a place called the [Youming Immortal Domain]— was destroyed in an instant before this terrifying catastrophe. Had the never-before-seen True Immortal master not appeared at the final moment to rescue them, the Hunger Immortal would likely have perished in that disaster long ago. "Wuwei, carefree and unfettered..." "Hmph!" The Hunger Immortal only remembered that after casually rescuing them, her master had looked toward the distant sight of the immortal domain's annihilation and uttered a cold snort. Then his figure faded, vanishing without a trace. After that, the Hunger Immortal never saw her master again. It was only afterward that she finally learned her master's name: [Wuwei]. ... The moment Li Fan glimpsed these two words from the Hunger Immortal's memories, it was as if he had touched a forbidden taboo he should not have. He met with fierce resistance from the Hunger Immortal. Even the Hunger Immortal Heavenly Pillar trembled slightly, and under the powerful repulsion, Li Fan's consciousness was ejected directly. Since he would have plenty of time to deal with her in the future, Li Fan did not press the matter for now, quitting while he was ahead. He would let the Hunger Immortal calm down first. "The Wuwei Immortal, is it..." His expression grew somewhat grave as he recalled what he had seen in the Hunger Immortal's memories. Though not as leisurely and composed as the Mound-Guarding Lord, and though the Dao Annihilation Tide he faced had not been vast enough to engulf the entire Immortal Realm, it was still the Dao Annihilation Tribulation! Having come into contact with it not long ago, Li Fan understood all too clearly how terrifying that calamity was. "To still have the spare strength to rescue his servants and successfully escape under the Dao Annihilation Tribulation... "The strength of this Wuwei Immortal is certainly not weak either. It's just that the young Hunger Immortal's memories are still somewhat hazy. I wonder whether he was in the Nameless realm." The reason Li Fan had this question was that the Nameless existences he had seen all possessed a peculiar trait: they integrated with the Dao, standing solitary and independent between heaven and earth. Yet that Wuwei Immortal had not given Li Fan such an impression. And yet, without attesting to Nameless, how could one contend with the Dao Annihilation Tribulation? "Enfeoffed for meritorious service, was he... Interesting." Thinking of how many similar figures across the generations of the Immortal Realm had either perished in the great tribulation of Dao Annihilation or abandoned the realm to flee afar, strange emotions welled up in Li Fan's heart. "It is merely a withered age, after all." It was foreseeable that the possibilities to which the immortals had fled back then were bound to be far more splendid and magnificent than the Primordial possibility Li Fan currently inhabited. "Fortunately, it has already been proven that figures who have vanished in the Primordial possibility may still survive in other possibilities. "I will not be denied the chance to see them forever." The things and people he had come into contact with recently—such as Mound-Guarding, Origin, Wuwei, and so forth— made Li Fan feel as though he had glimpsed heavens beyond heavens and people beyond people. His mind stirred with rare vitality, sparking a flicker of excitement. It was just like when, at seventy years of age, having already explored all of Great Xuan, he had unexpectedly encountered two cultivators. It was like playing a game for a long time, only for vast tracts of hidden maps and characters to suddenly appear. He instinctively felt a craving, a desire to explore. "Though I am currently only in the half-immortal realm, one day I will surely cross possibilities to witness all these splendors. "Only when the vast sea surges does a hero show their true colors. Only when calamity destroys the world do true heroes emerge. "The grand spectacle of the immortals in other possibilities might be even more brilliant than what I have glimpsed in the Primordial. Hehehe..." Li Fan thought to himself. Then he settled his thoughts and returned to his avatar, Li Buren. After a round of calculations and fine-tuning, he could now manipulate the Mound-Guarding phantom's power with a degree of precision. The first one to take the brunt of it would naturally be Archmage Tiandu, who had long been a thorn in Li Fan's side! With a single thought, Li Buren returned from the center of the star sea to Daoyuan Province in the Xuanhuang Realm. The instant he stepped into the province, he felt a force retreating violently. "Grief and bitterness... the Dao perishes." A mournful chant of the Dao suddenly echoed from high above the nine heavens. Li Buren narrowed his eyes and saw the two figures, one large and one small, seemingly trying to flee.