Every True Immortal, immortal artifact, immortal array... and even immortal servant possessed their own unique imprint connecting them to the Sea of Infinity.
It was likely a method used by successive Ruling Immortal Emperors to control the immortal populace.
Barring outliers like Li Fan who could smuggle themselves into the Sea of Infinity, the vast majority of entities in the Immortal Realm could not escape this rule. Because he bore Revert to the True and had once undergone the fusion of the Three Daos, Li Fan had no desire to court death by rashly connecting to the Sea of Infinity before recovering his Illusion is Real protective divine ability. Thus, he needed to resort to alternative means.
As Li Fan modified the Taiyuan Ancient Immortal Array, wisps of silver-white light began to emerge from the Indeterminate Ring.
"Immortal spiritual energy. Such a familiar, wonderful scent."
Li Fan narrowed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Since he was still in a mortal body, he cautiously channeled all the immortal spiritual power drawn and generated by the immortal array into a "storage array" he had modified.
Though in terms of ownership the immortal spiritual power in this reservoir did not belong to him, he could deploy it without hindrance through the array. Just as in his previous life, when Li Fan had borrowed the immortal power inside the immortal skin given to him by the Lord of the City of Ultimate Bliss.
Compared to power purely his own, mobilizing it felt somewhat obstructed, not entirely at will.
Yet the overall effect was minimal.
In less than half a day, Li Fan had smoothly accumulated and circulated the immortal power through his body with practiced ease.
At the same time, circumstances beyond Li Fan's expectations arose.
It was undeniably a good thing, not a bad one.
Perhaps because of his experience with the fusion of the Three Daos, Li Fan had instinctively bound the immortal power of the Mountains and Seas together with the impression of Revert to the True's infinite reach and the Great Dao of Longevity.
When he tasted the sensation of immortal spiritual power once more, his mind seemed naturally to touch upon the other two as well.
However, Li Fan did not let momentary greed cloud his judgment. After pondering for a moment, he decided to temporarily set aside the Great Dao of Longevity.
He would take only the transformation of true and false represented by Revert to the True.
As the immortal power slowly returned, Li Fan's insights into the transformation of true and false—once washed away during the fusion of the Mountains and Seas—gradually revived.
Yet Li Fan felt little joy; his expression grew increasingly grave instead.
"It seems the effects of the fusion of the Three Daos on me have not completely faded."
"They are clearly three entirely different Great Daos, yet within me, they seem bound together, inextricably intertwined..."
Even though Li Fan had deliberately cast aside the Great Dao of Longevity, as the other two Daos rose with the tide, Li Fan keenly sensed that the lifespan of this body was growing longer beyond his control.
Though he was no True Immortal, his lifespan had already outstripped that of an immortal.
Like a calm, slowly rising water level that had already crept past the knees, it was truly terrifying.
Seeing this, Li Fan had no choice but to halt his progress in comprehending the other two Daos for now.
Helpless, he could only console himself, "At the very least, compared to being consumed without any struggle in my previous life, I now have a discernible sign that can be barely visualized."
"As long as I control the speed at which my comprehension of the Three Daos ascends, it should be fine for the time being."
Li Fan knew that he had to completely resolve the latent danger of the Three Daos' fusion, but currently, he had no clue where to start.
He could not even consult anyone else.
To attain one of the Daos of the Mountains and Seas was already an immense stroke of heaven's fortune.
To attain two made one a figure like the Duke of Shouqiu.
And to attain three...
Unprecedented throughout eternity!
Even Revert to the True itself had suffered severe trauma during the fusion of the Three Daos.
Li Fan could only grope his own path to survival.
"Perhaps at the source of this long river of time, in the primordial Mountains and Seas before the Immortal Realm was born, there will be an answer."
"Or perhaps, at the end of the river, in that final era where everything converges, it will be easier to find a result."
Standing at a single node in the surging river of time, Li Fan looked back toward the past and gazed out toward the future. For a moment, he fell into confusion, unsure of where he should turn next.
He remained immersed in thought for several days before finally pulling himself free from the countless illusions and reveries.
"Dwelling on it achieves nothing. I should handle the matters at this time node first."
Having barely restored the greater part of his abilities, Li Fan did not actually care much about the present Xuanhuang Realm.
"One step at a time."
Li Fan took a step forward, and in the next instant, he followed the Sky-Crossing Golden Lock and returned from the Taiyuan Realm to the Xuanhuang Realm.
Sensing their "master's" departure, the Taiyuan Watcher and the Repair Officer slowly rose to their feet.
Turning a blind eye to the Taiyuan cultivators still wailing in agony below, they joined hands to erect a statue of Li Fan, intending it as an eternal reminder and monument.
This was not done on Li Fan's instructions; rather, it was driven by their innate instinct as "servants."
Upon returning to the Xuanhuang Realm, Li Fan did not immediately seek out the Great Heavenly Venerable Xuanhuang.
Instead, he first returned to Changqing Valley.
As compensation for slaying Baili Shan, Jiang Yinyue, acting in her capacity as the Taishang Sect's chief disciple, had provided material aid to Changqing Valley. Although Changqing Valley's sect master, Zou Yunhao, was deeply pained by the death of the disciple he had practically raised with his own hands, he could not bring himself to defy the Taishang Sect directly and endanger the lives of everyone else in the valley. Thus, he could only endure it in silence.
Though they had lost a peerless genius, the sect's fortunes flourished all the more with the support of the Taishang Sect. An air of prosperity took hold, showing signs of ascending toward the rank of a first-rate sect.
"Truly, fortune and misfortune depend on each other, ever unpredictable."
"Yet it is precisely because of weakness that one can only drift with the current, at the mercy of blessing and calamity."
"If the sect master of Changqing Valley had strength like mine, whether it was a blessing or a curse would be his own decision."
"The same truth applies to me. Though the fusion of the Three Daos is a monumental disaster, it is also a supreme opportunity. Everything depends on how strong I truly am."
Having personally experienced the turmoil in Changqing Valley and witnessed the shifts before and after, Li Fan felt a wave of realization surge in his heart.
Detecting the thought of revenge buried deep within Zou Yunhao's heart, Li Fan smiled faintly and sent an object flying out.
Afterward, he slipped quietly into Changqing Valley's sect treasury.
Zou Yunhao was gazing at Baili Shan's relics, mourning the deceased and nursing his grief, when suddenly something pricked his hand with a sharp pain. Looking down, he saw a sliver radiating a mysterious aura that he had never noticed before.
"Su... preme... Dao..." Zou Yunhao barely made out the characters on the sliver, and his expression shifted violently.
He instinctively stowed the sliver away, glancing around with vigilant eyes.
Several drops of cold sweat rolled from his forehead.
Inside the treasury of Changqing Valley, Li Fan swept his divine sense outward and indeed found his objective.
"I almost forgot about this."
With a light beckoning motion, he drew a yellowed book into his grasp.
Flipping through the first few pages, it was no different from what Li Fan had seen ten thousand years later.
It was none other than the Mountains and Seas Fables, left behind by Sun Piaomiao of the Medicine King Sect!
Earlier, outside the Great Wall in the Ten Sects' migration sanctuary known as the Qiandu Dao Field, Li Fan had found this copy of the fables confiscated by the Taishang Sect. But several crucial pages had been missing from the middle.
Therefore, Li Fan wanted to see whether this copy of the Mountains and Seas Fables still lacked those pages at this time node.
"Mm... It is actually complete."
"Interesting. Then who on earth tore them out?"
Li Fan's heart stirred, and several suspicious candidates flashed through his mind.
Setting that aside for the moment, he carefully read the missing chapters of the fables.
They were composed of several short tales.
The first one resolved a question Li Fan had harbored when reading the fables before.
Long ago, new living creatures were born in the sea. The sea even shared its infinite lifespan with these fragile lives, quarreling with the mountain because of it.
Yet in the later chapters, these creatures were never mentioned again. Between the Mountains and Seas, there remained only the mountain and the sea.
With keen interest, Li Fan read the fate of these creatures as recorded in the fables.
After the creatures of the sea were born, the mountain and the sea did not speak to each other for many years.
Yet the mountain and the sea leaned against each other as always, never parting by a single step.
One day, a creature followed the surging waves of the sea, crossed the boundary, and arrived upon the mountain.
Fearing that the mountain would be enraged, the sea broke the long silence and took the initiative to say, "O mountain, you need not be angry. What ill intent could these little ones possibly have?"
"O sea, is that truly how you see me? Since they can live in the sea, they can exist upon the mountain. Let them be!"
The sea was overjoyed, thinking the mountain had finally accepted these living creatures.
Thus, it willingly raised waves, sending even more creatures up onto the mountain.
The mountain merely looked on in silence, offering no objection.
Creatures spread between the mountain and the sea.
Like a bond linking the mountain and the sea, they covered the slopes and filled the waters.
Years passed in this manner.
Then one day, the calm tide surged, suddenly soaring straight upward.
Caught completely unprepared, countless living creatures between the mountain and the sea were swallowed up.
The sea was utterly shocked, but the mountain found it entirely expected.
"O mountain, they were born of the sea, so why have they drowned in the sea instead?"
The sea was filled with grief, yet it was powerless to help the creatures that had sunk to the seabed.
The mountain sighed. "Our fusion requires slow grinding and adaptation. How could they possibly endure such power?"
"Had they remained in the sea, they might have lived alongside you forever."
"Alas, they mistakenly climbed the mountain."
The waves surged endlessly, not subsiding for a long time. "It was I who harmed them."
"Without you, they would never have existed in the first place. How can you say you harmed them?"
The sea answered no more.
Thereafter, no living creatures existed between the mountain and the sea.
...
Li Fan read this first story carefully dozens of times.
In the end, his expression grew peculiar. "Do these creatures of the sea—or rather, the creatures of the Mountains and Seas—refer to all existence in the mortal realm aside from the mountain and the sea itself?"
"The fusion of the Mountains and Seas is an inevitable trend. It is the fundamental cause of the Dao Annihilation Tribulation's birth."
"Those unable to withstand the fusion of the Mountains and Seas will be entirely annihilated within them."
"In that case..."
Li Fan pondered, arriving at a rather absurd conclusion in his heart.
It seemed that most of what was recorded in this fable took place before the birth of mortal civilization, and... after its destruction.
In Li Fan's eyes, an unimaginably vast span of years amounted to nothing more than two of the most insignificant chapters in this fable.
"Dao annihilation is the ending of the mortal realm, but not the ending of the Mountains and Seas."
"The stars appear, and the Mountains and Seas are seen no more. That, along with what is not recorded in the fables, is the true ending."
With a sense of inexplicable loss, Li Fan carefully browsed through the book again.
In the end, he confirmed the judgment in his heart.
At the same time, more questions inevitably welled up. "Just who was the author of these fables?"
"If my guess is correct, recording the phenomena of the Mountains and Seas from a perspective after the mortal realm's total annihilation... That..."
Li Fan suddenly recalled what Heavenly Emperor Tai had mentioned about traveling upstream from the end of time, crossing through time and space to unite with past cultivators in order to save the mortal realm.
"Could this have been left behind by an expert from the future, from the end of time?"
"And what role did Sun Piaomiao play in this?"
Too many questions could not be answered, so Li Fan could only set them aside for now.
He continued reading the remaining chapters of the fables.
Most were ambiguous records of interactions between the mountain and the sea.
One chapter caught Li Fan's attention in particular.
One day, the mountain was gloomy and unhappy. When the sea asked, it gave no reply.
Upon being asked again, faint rumbles of thunder rolled within the mountain.
The sea was pleasantly surprised. "O mountain, have you also undergone a change? That is a good thing; why are you unhappy instead?"
The mountain sighed. "O sea, for you and me, change is hardly something to rejoice over."
"Have you forgotten the result brought about by our very first change?"
The sea countered, "Did it not also create who you and I are today? O mountain, do not resist. Try to accept it."
The mountain answered with silence.
Thereafter, the thunder within the mountain grew louder and louder.
Finally, one day, the mountain and the sea trembled.
The sound of thunder died away.
...
"The changes of the Mountains and Seas." Li Fan faintly sensed something from this fable, yet could not articulate it.
It was as if an indelible white veil hung between him and the truth, an agonizing sensation.
"These torn-out passages all seem to represent certain major events that once occurred between the mountain and the sea."
"The demise of mortal civilization occupies merely a small portion of the chapters. Then what does this change of the Mountains and Seas refer to? Could it be that beings akin to today's mortal civilization were once born within the mountain and the sea respectively, only for all of them to perish one after another?" Li Fan could not help his imagination from running wild.
Aside from that, there was another chapter that Li Fan found deeply intriguing, tinged with a slight dread, and... utterly bizarre.
If the entire book of fables was a record of matters concerning the mountain and the sea, this chapter seemed somewhat out of place.
It felt as if it had been forcefully inserted.
It recounted how that very first creature to cross from the sea to the mountain had discovered the mountain's existence from within the sea.
The Mountains and Seas were vast; living within them, one could not discern their true form.
Living there, it was carefree, devoid of calamity or misfortune. Yet one day, a creature reached the edge of the sea and suddenly looked up.
It seemed to glimpse the mountain's silhouette.
That form, just as boundless as the sea, filled its heart and soul, causing it to tremble instinctively with fear, curiosity, and excitement...
Afterward, it exhausted every possible means and finally succeeded in using the sea's winds and waves to cross over onto the great mountain.
Born of the sea, standing upon the mountain.
Its vision instantly expanded to unimaginable heights.
And then...
Its gaze went beyond the Mountains and Seas.
It looked outside the Mountains and Seas.
Chapter 1543