Chaos the Nameless's decision drew a bout of laughter from the immortals of the Shuo Star Sea. Yet Chaos had always acted with great caution, and the immortals were well accustomed to it.
Stroking the black cat on his shoulder, the white-robed man teased, "Rest assured, Brother Chaos. Once we take down that Hidden Emperor playing divine charades, a palace beneath the firmament of the Primordial Immortal Realm will certainly be yours. After all, Brother, even if you have no great merit to claim, you've at least put in the bitter toil."
The other immortals chimed in one after another.
Chaos, however, took no offense.
Though Shanhua's words sounded somewhat harsh, since he had spoken publicly, he would never go back on them. Thus, for Chaos, there were a hundred benefits and not a single drawback.
If he truly was mistaken and that Hidden Emperor was utterly fragile, then by virtue of past merits, Chaos could still secure a place for himself within the Primordial Immortal Realm.
And if they were gravely mistaken...
Chaos the Nameless had already begun to make his own secret calculations.
"It's a pity that Ni isn't here right now; otherwise, there would be no need for such vacillation." Chaos cast a glance at the black cat on Shanhua's shoulder and snorted coldly in his heart.
...
Of everything unfolding in the Shuo Star Sea, Li Fan was currently unaware.
Ever since that day when he enfeoffed the five Celestial Emperors of the Primordial Immortal Realm, a brand-new enlightenment had welled up within him that he had never experienced before.
Treating it as letting out a long line to catch a big fish, he had cast Chaos the Nameless and the others aside to cool their heels, wholly concentrating on investigating these transformations.
The origin of this enlightenment was none other than the Heaven-Sitting Formula.
This method of reaping what others sowed—Li Fan had assumed it would lose its efficacy once he attained the rank of half-immortal. Reality had seemed to confirm his suspicion: no matter how many cultivators' cultivation had grown under his direct or indirect assistance, he had not received the slightest fraction of feedback.
Until this recent conferment.
Only after the five Celestial Emperors were established did the Primordial Immortal Realm thoroughly stabilize from its nascent state of creation. It was no longer merely a forged continent mimicking the Immortal Realm, but had truly become an immortal domain.
Standing tall atop Mount Shangfang.
And Li Fan, having brought all this to fruition, felt as though the clouds had parted in an instant. It was as if a stepping stone had appeared beneath his feet, elevating him slightly higher. What lay before his eyes changed in a flash, bursting with myriad grand sights.
"So it isn't that the Heaven-Sitting Formula lost its efficacy. Rather, upon attaining the immortal path, ordinary feedback can no longer drive my progress. Only the birth of an immortal domain from nothingness barely suffices." Comprehension dawned upon Li Fan.
Clearly, his raw power had not changed at all, yet simply because of this tiny "elevation," the way he viewed the phantom of the Mound-Guarding Lord within the Great Wall, the Hunger Immortal, the Wuji Heavenly Pillars, and the rest felt distinctly different from before.
Looking down from above, executing with effortless ease. These words surfaced unbidden in Li Fan's mind.
Pondering it briefly, Li Fan soon deduced where this sensation came from.
Whether it was the phantom of the Mound-Guarding Lord or the array of Heavenly Pillars, Li Fan had spent over a century in secluded contemplation over them. Even if he could not claim complete mastery, he was thoroughly familiar with them.
The feedback from the Heaven-Sitting Formula operated upon this foundational familiarity. Under the feedback from establishing the Primordial Immortal Realm, that foundational familiarity was doubled outright.
It had spared Li Fan a century of time.
Li Fan's eyes narrowed slightly.
Instantly surveying his entire being, he discovered that it wasn't just his comprehension of the Mound-Guarding Lord's phantom and the Heavenly Pillars. Everything he had learned and known had nearly doubled with this slight "ascent" upward.
Even including the Mo Sha Myriad Phenomena Dao Net.
Such a terrifying degree of progress left even Li Fan somewhat incredulous. Only after verifying it repeatedly was he forced to accept the reality.
"An inch higher on Mount Shangfang is heaven overturning and earth upturning!"
"The boost in power does not increase evenly as one ascends; rather, the higher one stands, cultivation multiplies thousands, even tens of thousands of times over!"
"No wonder the gap between True Immortals—even Nameless True Immortals—and beings standing at the pinnacle of the Immortal Realm like Mound-Guarding Lord and the Four Sacred Sovereigns is so immense."
"It is even greater than the disparity between cultivators of the lower realms."
"Given hundreds of millions of Dao Integration cultivators, by sheer numbers alone, I could besiege and slay Supreme experts of the Longevity realm or even the Heavenly Physician. But..."
"Likewise, hundreds of millions of True Immortals combined might not be a match for any single one of the Four Sacred Sovereigns."
Li Fan looked back at himself before this realization.
If external aids were excluded and only his own standalone combat strength were counted, the current Li Fan could easily suppress his past self prior to creating the Primordial Immortal Realm.
"The unique nature of Mount Shangfang leads to unimaginable chasms even between True Immortals and True Immortals, Nameless and Nameless, within the very same great cultivation realm."
"After all, in theory, transcendent figures also fall within the ranks of Nameless True Immortals."
Only by ascending in person can one know the height of the mountain.
This was the first advancement of Li Fan's personal strength since attaining the rank of half-immortal, and it already allowed him to glimpse a corner of this magnificent, unfathomable Mount Shangfang.
"It is truly unimaginable just how formidable those Sacred Sovereigns towering above all immortals really are."
"And as for the Sea of Infinity and Mount Shangfang themselves..." Li Fan could not help feeling a sense of distant awe and longing.
After musing for a while, his thoughts returned to reality.
Li Fan looked down at the Primordial Immortal Realm he had forged with his own hands. He could faintly sense that, as he continuously nourished it day and night with infinite immortal power, it had already become part of the Mountain and Sea.
Even if he severed the connection between the Primordial Immortal Realm and the Sea of Infinity, he could not alter that reality.
"So this is the price."
"Everything in the mortal domain was never on an equal tier with the Sea of Infinity and Mount Shangfang. One may certainly find clever ways to borrow their power, but the consequence is being eroded by the forces of the Mountain and Sea, becoming part of them."
"Such was the Immortal Realm; such are True Immortals."
"When the day arrives that the Mountain and Sea merge, it will be time to repay the debt under Dao Annihilation."
Everything he had witnessed in past cycles of reincarnation now played out scene by scene before Li Fan's eyes. The so-called Dao Annihilation, the so-called tribulations—none could escape this underlying law.
"This is an understanding that welled up in my heart only after truly founding an immortal domain."
"Though I pride myself on having exceptional comprehension, the past Celestial Emperors of the Immortal Realm and even the Four Sacred Sovereigns certainly possessed talent no less than mine."
"If even I can grasp this, how could they have failed to see it?"
"Standing higher, they naturally saw even farther."
...
Li Fan could not help tilting his head slightly, gazing "upward."
"Thus, they knew all along that this day would come. That is why they had to climb higher, and higher still, before the Mountain and Sea merged."
"The lifespan counter on the Revert to the True panel represents the lifespan of the entire mortal domain. It might not fully reflect the lifespan of the Sea of Infinity and Mount Shangfang."
"The merging of the Mountain and Sea may be an inevitable trend, but every trend must eventually reach an end."
A bolt of lightning seemed to cleave through the fog in Li Fan's mind.
In an instant, he felt as if he had leaped beyond the mortal domain, with only the endless Mountain and Sea before his eyes.
As the Mountain and Sea merged, the myriad beings of the mortal domain at the foot of the mountain vanished like smoke and dispersed like mist amid this convergence.
The Great Tide of Dao Annihilation continued to press upward along the mountain.
The peerless figures upon the mountainside all climbed upward.
"So long as one climbs high enough, one might escape the catastrophe of the Mountain and Sea merging!"
Li Fan felt as though he had arrived at the peak of Mount Shangfang, looking down upon the churning, muddy waves below. His heart trembled violently as this thought arose irresistibly.
Yet immediately afterward, he could not help but wonder: "Just how high must one stand to avoid the fate of the Mountain and Sea merging?"
"Mound-Guarding Lord? The Four Sacred Sovereigns?"
"Or..."
"Revert to the True?!"
In a flash of inspiration, Li Fan suddenly thought of this wondrous treasure that had accompanied him for so long.
This time, however, the response Revert to the True gave was exceedingly peculiar.
It neither affirmed nor denied.
Its emotion was merely somewhat dejected.
And even this slight hint of negative emotion revealed by Revert to the True exerted an immense impact on Li Fan.
"Perhaps no matter how high one climbs, one cannot escape the fate of destruction."
"Every step taken ascending Mount Shangfang is simply too difficult. Having missed the opportunity when Mount Shangfang was first opened, to try and catch up now..."
"In the past, when cultivating in the Xuanhuang Realm, I always had boundless confidence thanks to the advantage of Revert to the True. As long as I had sufficient time across reincarnations, I could grow stronger step by step—from Qi Refining to Foundation Establishment, then to Golden Core and Nascent Soul, ultimately trampling even cultivators of the Longevity realm underfoot. But now..."
"Mount Shangfang has stood for ages; where can one begin to surpass them now?"
"The phantom left behind by Mound-Guarding Lord is already so terrifyingly powerful. What must Mound-Guarding Lord's true strength be like? And if Mound-Guarding Lord is already like this, what of the Four Sages of the Immortal Realm?"
"What could I possibly rely on to surpass them?"
Li Fan's eyes grew hazy, gradually losing their focus.
Just as Li Fan was sinking into despair, fortunately Revert to the True sensed the abnormality in time and completely reined in its emotional fluctuations.
Free from the influence of Revert to the True, Li Fan slowly broke away from this inner demon.
Even having traversed a hundred reincarnations, he broke into a cold sweat in that moment.
Li Fan was by no means such a pessimistic person.
He firmly believed all along that as long as Revert to the True was in his hands, he would one day achieve complete transcendence and freedom.
Yet the emotional stir from Revert to the True was merely a trigger. The root cause was the daze and slight despair born from Li Fan finally beholding the scenery atop Mount Shangfang.
The disparity between him and those powerhouses standing at the pinnacle of the Mountain and Sea was simply too vast—so vast that even with the power of infinite reincarnation, Li Fan lacked absolute confidence in bridging it.
Especially as Li Fan's strength grew and he drew closer to these figures, the risks he had to bear were bound to increase, while the external aid he could leverage grew scarcer.
Only so few experts remained between the Mountain and Sea. All around were barren cliff faces with nowhere left to gain purchase or borrow strength.
With what could one cross that chasm, to catch up to or even surpass them?
In the past, as long as he held the greatest trump card underpinning his confidence—the transformation of true and false—he would never have been swayed by such negativity.
Yet the situation now was exceedingly unusual.
Because first and foremost, even Revert to the True itself had been affected by this pessimistic mood, dragging Li Fan down with it.
After suppressing its emotions, Revert to the True fell completely silent. Everything that had transpired seemed like nothing more than an illusion.
Yet Li Fan's faintly trembling body proved that the experience had been no figment of his imagination.
It took a long time and tremendous willpower for Li Fan to temporarily shake free from that emotion. But Li Fan knew deep down that the shadow had not been completely wiped away.
It lingered in a corner of his heart, ready to erupt at any moment in the future.
Li Fan closed his eyes, brushing aside the haze within before reopening them.
What truly concerned him was not his temporary lapse in mental composure; after all, that had happened more than once or twice before.
It was genuinely that the emotional fluctuation of Revert to the True had exceeded his expectations.
"Having beheld the Mountain and Sea, have I finally glimpsed the limit of Revert to the True?"
Li Fan was momentarily stunned, boundless sentiment welling in his heart.
Once upon a time, he had always believed Revert to the True was omnipotent. So long as he held this wondrous treasure, he could press forward without fear.
Now, it seemed the time was fast approaching when he would have to walk on his own.
Li Fan's expression was as deep and somber as still water.
He knew that this so-called "fast approaching" still spanned a very long time. Yet after all, it was now within his line of sight.
It was no longer impossibly distant.
Faced with Li Fan's thoughts, Revert to the True seemed to have returned to the state when Li Fan first began cultivating, giving off not the slightest emotional fluctuation.
Li Fan stood quietly like a clay statue.
Until faint ripples from beyond the Great Wall disturbed him.
The commotion was immense, churning so violently that even the road constructed by Li Buren could barely maintain itself.
Li Fan cast a cold glance over.
He saw that the newcomers were none other than the immortals of the Shuo Star Sea.
Led by Immortal Wu, a host of True Immortals and Nameless True Immortals had arrived outside the Great Wall in force.
"We heard that Senior has reestablished the Celestial Court of the Immortal Realm with supreme divine ability. Having seen this, our hearts yearned for it. Hence we come uninvited, wishing to behold its wonders," the white-robed figure called out loudly.
This voice seemed to carry boundless enchantment; when it fell upon Li Fan's ears, the various emotions stirred by the incident with Revert to the True vanished without a trace in an instant.
For a moment, an inexplicable feeling of delight even arose in Li Fan.
As though an old friend unseen for many years had come to pay a visit.
Filled with great joy, Li Fan was about to wave his hand and usher in the immortals of the Shuo Star Sea.
Suddenly, his heart jolted, breaking free from the illusion.
"Hmm?"
"Just now, that was..."
"Shanhua?"
Li Fan narrowed his eyes, a dangerous glint flashing within.
"As expected of a Nameless who attained the Dao long ago. Even I nearly fell for his trick."
"Unfortunately for him, I have Wuji at my side. Whatever divine ability any Great Dao in the heavens may possess, it can all be ignored."
Having regained his senses, Li Fan did not change his actions.
As if bewitched by the power of Shanhua, showing not the slightest irritation at their uninvited arrival, he let out a hearty laugh and ushered the immortals of the Shuo Star Sea straight inside.
Li Fan keenly noticed that among these visitors, there seemed to be a few unfamiliar faces.
Moreover, that Nameless Chaos was not among them.
Li Fan instantly saw right through their scheme.
"It just so happens that this Primordial Immortal Realm of mine was newly opened and still seems rather empty."
Having suffered the disturbance with Revert to the True, Li Fan's mood could hardly be called good.
And as luck would have it, the Shuo Star Sea contingent came knocking on his door of their own accord.
In the dark workings of fate, their miserable end was already sealed.
Of course, at this moment, the True Immortals remained oblivious.
They were still immersed in the shock of first setting foot into the immortal domain.
Chapter 1496