Or to be precise, it was the small figure seeking to sweep along the chanting Dao phantom, which was still reciting scriptures endlessly, hoping to flee before Li Buren.
"A thousand strides move the soul, a hundred turns shift the spirit."
"Infinite, boundless, without fault."
...
Surrounded by the resonating mystical sounds, Li Buren actually noticed the two figures showed a gradual tendency to fade, poised to evade the torrential calamity he brought.
It gave Li Buren an utterly bizarre sensation. Clearly, the two were right before his eyes, yet the desire to hunt and capture them in his heart was far less intense than before.
He even felt a sense of apathy toward his quarry, as if their capture no longer mattered.
Evidently, not even Li Buren's Dao Net body could withstand the influence of the phantom's recitation.
Fortunately, while this mystical sound had the miraculous effect of averting calamity, it was no all-powerful wishing machine.
Channeling just a fraction of the Mound-Guarding phantom's power, Li Buren instantly detached himself from the chanting's encirclement.
It was no longer ethereal voices drifting from the horizon to pierce his soul, but merely a buzz like that of a mosquito, ignorable at any moment.
Li Buren reached out with an empty grasp. The Dao child phantom—the so-called Archmage Tiandu—was like a rooster seized by the throat, instantly choked of sound.
Yet to Li Buren's slight surprise, the chanting phantom beside the Archmage was barely affected. It merely rippled like water, swayed slightly, and continued reciting as before.
And influenced by the surrounding mystical sound, Li Buren keenly noticed that the Archmage clutched firmly in his grip was slowly slipping through his fingers.
This escape had nothing to do with the magnitude of strength.
Rather, it represented a tendency.
Like a conceptual law: calamity aversion, freedom from blame.
Li Buren had a feeling in his heart that with the power equivalent to a little more than two Nameless True Immortals at his command, he still could not disregard this conceptualized tendency.
Perhaps... only if the power of all five Mound-Guarding phantoms erupted together could he give it a try.
Had Li Buren exerted all his power from the very start, he might truly have allowed the Archmage to slip out of his grasp bit by bit.
Fortunately, in his eyes, the Archmage was merely at the half-immortal realm, so when he initially struck, he had channeled only an infinitesimal portion. Upon realizing he could not reverse the tendency of his prey slipping from his grasp, he gradually increased his gripping force.
Not to suppress directly with raw power,
but to counter a tendency with a tendency!
There was an upper limit to the power Li Buren could mobilize. One day, the Archmage would surely make a successful escape with the aid of the scripture-reciting phantom.
Yet before that day came, he stood frozen on the spot as though struck by an immobilization spell,
unable to budge!
Li Buren drew near at a leisurely pace. Having shielded himself from the influence of the mystical recitation, he finally saw clearly the renowned Archmage Tiandu of Xuanhuang Realm's history.
He truly resembled a Dao boy serving beneath a sage: simply clad, tender-faced, looking just like a child. Yet those eyes were jet-black and profound, seeming to have witnessed all the world's principles, triumphs, and falls. His whole being exuded an aura of calm detachment; even as Li Buren bore down on him, his expression did not shift in the slightest.
He even seemed completely oblivious to Li Buren's presence.
Li Buren ignored him for the moment, turning his gaze first toward the source of the chanting mystical sound beside the Archmage.
Having witnessed the Dao Net, the Mound-Guarding Lord, Yuanshi, and the like, his perspective was far beyond what it once was.
Observing it at such close quarters, he could naturally see through what this phantom truly was.
"A remnant left behind after transcendence..."
"Only, this remnant was never used as a pillar to stave off Dao Annihilation; instead, it continues along its original Dao path."
"No wonder the Archmage turned a deaf ear no matter what happened, refusing to part ways with this phantom."
A peculiar glint flashed through Li Buren's eyes.
"After a Nameless achieves minor transcendence, the Dao they integrated should have vanished from the world forever. But if a remnant remains, then countless years later, a new version of this Dao might evolve between heaven and earth."
"It's like regrowing from infancy—countless times faster than evolving from absolute nothingness!"
Li Buren stared intently at the phantom, attempting to penetrate the chanting mystical sound to perceive its inner essence.
"Where there is calamity, it averts calamity."
"Where someone seeks a master, it transmits scriptures."
Recalling the various legends in the Xuanhuang Realm regarding Archmage Tiandu, a thought slowly surfaced in Li Buren's mind.
"It is not that it grants every request, but that it evolves itself according to external changes."
"Adapting to circumstances, exhausting all transformations."
"This is..."
"The Dao of Illusory Life!"
This was a Dao path that had long vanished from the Primordial possibility, leaving only this nascent remnant within the phantom.
The Dao path of Illusory Life was evidently not inferior to Yuanshi, Wuwei, or the others. A mere glimpse had already yielded Li Buren immense gains.
It was only then that he realized an entirely new Dao path represented far more than a single path alone. Along with it came faint glimpses of a whole series of related Dao shadows!
Even though the vast majority of these Dao paths no longer existed in this world,
they were, after all, part of the Three Thousand Great Daos. Relying on one's comprehension of the Dao, one could reconstruct these "departed Daos" in the mind to a certain degree!
"The Archmage was truly fortunate. Even in the Immortal Realm, this Dao Phantom of Illusory Life would be a supreme treasure contested by the immortals. Yet with mere half-immortal flesh, he managed to occupy it for ten thousand years," Li Buren could not help marveling.
And as for why the Archmage had hidden above the Dao source all this time, refusing to leave or emerge...
The root cause was simply that he could not control the movements of the Dao Phantom of Illusory Life. Before refining and mastering it completely, he could only follow it step by step!
"So I made a mistake earlier. Knowing how extraordinary this chanting mystical sound was, I subconsciously wasted extra effort on it. I shouldn't target the Dao Phantom of Illusory Life; I only need to capture the Archmage alone."
"If it senses no threat or calamity, it naturally won't evolve methods to avert calamity."
With a shift of thought, Li Buren adjusted the allocation of his binding power. He transferred the full force of his bonds entirely onto the Archmage in child form.
The Archmage's expression, unruffled like an ancient well for so long, finally shifted.
"Sitting idly before the Dao Phantom of Illusory Life for so many years did have some use after all." Li Buren noticed that there truly existed a faint, tenuous connection between the Archmage and the Dao Phantom of Illusory Life.
The restraints imposed on the Archmage inevitably rippled into the Dao phantom.
However, the calamity-averting power manifested as a result was far weaker than before.
In other words, Li Buren had plenty of time to slowly deal with Archmage Tiandu.
Yet no matter what secrets the Archmage harbored, they could not compare to this Dao Phantom of Illusory Life. Thus, Li Buren was in no hurry to interrogate him, keeping his attention firmly focused on the Dao phantom.
After a long while...
"The Dao of Illusory Life, in short, is taking the phrase 'survival of the fittest' to its absolute extreme."
"Transforming everything unfavorable into something favorable to oneself. Theoretically, it might even evolve countermeasures against the Dao Annihilation Tribulation."
"Yet that remains theoretical. The prerequisite is not being swallowed by Dao Annihilation before those traits can evolve."
As Li Buren pondered this, he suddenly thought of Mo Sha in the Xuanhuang Realm.
"There are countless tangled ties between Mo Sha and Dao Annihilation."
"Perhaps it was an attempt by the testing ground to resolve Dao Annihilation once and for all. Yet Dao Annihilation destroys all things; nothing related to it was supposed to exist in the world..."
Connecting this to why the Dao Phantom of Illusory Life had come to the Xuanhuang Realm of all places,
Li Buren looked away, turning his gaze toward Daoyuan Province below.
"The successful shaping of the Heaven-and-Earth Essence Mo Sha likely involved an infusion of Illusory Life's power."
"This infused trace of power did not even disappear when the Nameless of Illusory Life achieved transcendence and departed. It still exists within the Xuanhuang Realm."
"Thus, it became the only other power of Illusory Life in the Primordial possibility aside from the Dao Phantom of Illusory Life itself. It is precisely because of this connection that the Dao phantom came here."
Li Buren's thoughts raced. His Dao Net divine sense swept across the land of Daoyuan Province and into the deep subterranean depths.
Ever since ten years of his life had been mysteriously swallowed away, Li Fan had never set foot in Daoyuan Province again. Even after ascending to the half-immortal realm and mastering the Wuyou Dreamscape, he had avoided this province out of wariness toward the Archmage.
Hence, for him, this place was an absolute blind spot.
Now, empowered by the Mound-Guarding phantom, the shadows obscuring this blind spot were finally swept clean.
Thirty-three thousand zhang beneath Daoyuan Province.
In an enigmatic space seemingly detached from the Xuanhuang Realm,
an inky shadow resembling a heart pulsed continuously.
Every beat of it was bizarre in the extreme.
Rather than a smooth, continuous motion, it seemed as though frames had been dropped, composed of disjointed, intermittent images.
The closer Li Buren's divine sense drew, the more a sense of familiarity arose.
This was brought about by the true body having integrated the Dao with the Heaven and Earth Immortal Soul of Mo Sha.
Li Buren moved with great caution, continuing his approach without disturbing it.
He already knew what the object before him truly was.
"Though Mo Sha is a Heaven-and-Earth Essence, it is not something native or original to the Xuanhuang Realm."
"Rather, it was modified and created after the fact."
"Unlike other Heaven-and-Earth Essences, the laws of Mo Sha were never integrated into heaven and earth of the Xuanhuang Realm."
"This subterranean region beneath Daoyuan Province is the solitary source from which Mo Sha originates."
The inky shadow seemed exceedingly vigilant against foreign intrusions. Upon discovering Li Buren, it grew visibly agitated.
Amidst intermittently shifting frames resembling photographs, the inky shadow churned.
Li Buren sensed that if he approached any closer, he might come under its attack.
Though he had no fear of it, doing so might disrupt his investigation into the mystery behind Mo Sha's origins.
Thus, Li Buren decisively halted.
"This matter must be left to the true body."
Li Buren turned back swiftly, resuming his confrontation with the Archmage.
Meanwhile, Li Fan's true body condensed the power of the Immortal Soul of Mo Sha within him and split off a figure.
Plunging downward, it shot straight into the depths beneath Daoyuan Province.
In an instant, he arrived at the location Li Buren had previously scouted and saw the inky shadow.
Compared to its vigilance toward Li Buren, the shadow clearly regarded Li Fan as "one of its own."
It merely took him for the Heaven-and-Earth Essence of Mo Sha returning after carrying out a task for the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao.
Even so, Li Fan could feel countless faint, curious gazes of intent probing him,
as if questioning what made Li Fan "different."
Though it had ascended into an Immortal Soul, its essence was still the power of Mo Sha.
In the end, Li Fan safely blended into this churning mass of inky shadow.
This was an observation even closer than the one of the Illusory Life phantom just now.
Surrounded above, below, and on all sides by boundless ink, Li Fan stood immersed in an ocean of black.
Free of sorrow or joy, he simply observed in silence.
"Hmm... the Dao of Ruin stemming from Dao Annihilation."
"The power of alteration from the Dao Phantom of Illusory Life."
"And besides these two, there is also..."
Like savoring a sip of fine tea, Li Fan tasted it with meticulous care.
Evidently, this was yet another Dao path that had vanished from the current possibility.
Although Li Fan had never encountered or understood it before,
its intense correlation with the Dao of Illusory Life meant that among the shadows of departed Daos he had glimpsed earlier, he had caught faint traces of it.
"If the Dao of Illusory Life takes 'change' to its absolute extreme,"
"then this Dao is its exact opposite."
"Eternal order..."
Li Fan stared intently at the center of the churning inky sea.
As a creation capable of ruining and devouring everything, what on earth maintained Mo Sha's own existence?
Amid the entanglement of destructive and altering forces, it was precisely because an eternally unchanging force served as a connecting bond that Mo Sha could exist in the world.
"Change, and the unchanging."
"Two completely diametric and opposing forces brought together."
"To bind the destructive origin born of Dao Annihilation."
A flash of amazement crossed Li Fan's eyes. "Illusory Life and Eternity."
"These two Daos are not inferior to Yuanshi. They once joined hands to conduct an experiment..."
With Eternity as the cornerstone of existence and Illusory Life supporting evolution,
after untold eras of evolution within this inky shadow, today's Mo Sha had come to be.
Had this testing ground remained in a normal state, Mo Sha might have become even more miraculous and closer to the goal the testing ground sought to achieve.
Yet the testing ground had long been abandoned for unknown reasons. Furthermore, due to various circumstances, the Xuanhuang Realm—the womb for Mo Sha's evolution—had been struggling to survive for countless years.
It could not support Mo Sha in taking the next step of evolution.
Only when Li Fan pushed Xuanhuang to ascend into an Immortal Domain in his previous life did he introduce a new variable into this long-stagnant experiment.
After a period of observation and hesitation, the surrounding ink seemed to acknowledge Li Fan's "superiority." As if boiling over, they spontaneously began to imitate him,
yearning to become like Li Fan.
Yet this was a transformation brought about by elevating an entire realm; how could the surrounding ink imitate it so easily?
Like a flock of rowdy children, they churned ceaselessly, yet could never find the proper way.
Watching this scene, Li Fan felt a sudden realization.
"The accumulation is already sufficient."
"All that is missing is energy."
And energy was something Li Fan did not lack in the slightest.
With a slight stir of his mind, the vast feedback energy gained from elevating Xuanhuang in his previous life was channeled through his Mo Sha avatar and poured into this mass of ink.
Although from an outside perspective the shape and size of the ink mass remained unchanged,
only Li Fan, situated inside, could clearly see the earth-shaking metamorphosis taking place.
It bypassed the entire intermediate process of Xuanhuang ascending to an Immortal Domain.
Now that Li Fan had presented them with the final result, they could imitate it directly!
Chapter 1478