Can They Really Pull It Off?

As scenes from the memories of the previous Hunger Immortal—or rather, the Dao Devourer from another possibility—flashed through Li Fan's mind one after another, the skeletal remains transformed into streaks of flowing light, condensing into another Heavenly Pillar. Though it too was only half of what was needed to support the heavens, compared to what Li Fan had obtained before, it undoubtedly represented a purer condensation of the Primordial Great Dao of Hunger. Li Fan did not uproot this Heavenly Pillar from the soil of the Immortal Ruins. Instead, he buried the other half, the one sealing the Hunger Immortal, right beside it. He could sense that because they both comprehended the Great Dao of Hunger, even though the cores of the two Heavenly Pillars did not belong to the same being, they still showed a clear tendency to merge together. "You couldn't attain the Nameless realm in life, but in death, you still have a chance. Consider it your wish fulfilled," Li Fan mused with an inward nod. Having settled the two Heavenly Pillars for the time being, Li Fan reflected upon what he had just seen. Though the previous Hunger Immortal's memories were brief, three aspects had caught Li Fan's profound attention. The first was the path of Dao Devouring. The domineering craving to swallow mountains and drink down seas hidden within the Great Dao of Hunger was no illusion of Li Fan's; it was the exact manifestation of Dao Devouring. An existence capable of devouring every Great Dao across an entire possibility to fuel its own growth was undeniably terrifying. "Yet he overestimated his strength and picked the wrong foe. Devouring a single possibility was well within his power, but when facing the Mountains and Seas..." Li Fan sneered inwardly. Without beholding the Sea of Infinity and Mount Shangfang with one's own eyes, one could never fathom their boundless magnificence. Even the mortal world, encompassing all possibilities, was merely a tiny corner before the Mountains and Seas. The previous Hunger Immortal had paid dearly for his arrogance. After drifting through the Dao Annihilation for ages, he had stumbled into the Primordial possibility in a wretched state, barely managing to survive. Yet with the Primordial Three Sages watching over everything, he had not dared act recklessly, and was forced to disguise himself, replacing Dao Devouring with Hunger. Although the two paths shared similarities, in terms of sheer power, they were worlds apart. In the end, he was effortlessly refined by another into a pillar to support the heavens. The second point Li Fan noted was the Disaster-Crossing Immortal Coffin, which had sustained the Hunger Immortal throughout his prolonged drift through Dao Annihilation. The memories left by the Hunger Immortal were sparse, yet this immortal coffin was mentioned repeatedly. Evidently, the loss of the Disaster-Crossing Immortal Coffin weighed heavily on the Hunger Immortal's mind. And for a ruthless figure capable of devouring an entire possibility to care so deeply about a treasure, the coffin had to possess extraordinary mysteries. "I wonder who stole that Disaster-Crossing Immortal Coffin. Now that the Immortal Realm is destroyed, if it still exists, it must be somewhere in the lower star seas." Although Li Fan had personally witnessed the destruction of the Primordial, he had not yet explored all of its surviving territories. To this day, his footsteps had only reached the Great Wall, Shuoxing, and Guangwu. As for the reasons, first, the Dao Annihilation blocked the paths, making travel exceedingly arduous. Second, any faction capable of surviving the collapse of the Immortal Realm was by no means simple. In his previous life, the Dao Swords, Dao Sabers, and Dao Era Projection Beads unleashed by the Guangwu Star Sea all possessed world-ending might. If the Guangwu Star Sea was like that, the other star seas were surely no different. Under the overarching backdrop of Dao Annihilation, these star seas were bound to be exceptionally hostile toward outsiders. Exploring every single star sea of the Primordial was by no means an easy feat. Of course, the primary reason was that it was simply unnecessary. Li Fan's principal destinations for future exploration were the Mountains and Seas beyond the Primordial, and even the Eternal Silence Void Realm reached by traveling upstream. To Li Fan, the Great Wall, Shuoxing, and Guangwu held no fundamental difference. As for the final matter that Li Fan found deeply concerning—and even held in extreme wariness—it was that Moral True Immortal. From what he had glimpsed in the Hunger Immortal's memories, this Moral True Immortal was not only supremely powerful, but also fundamentally distinct from all the supreme figures Li Fan had encountered in the past. The Mound-Guarding Lord, Emperor Taitian, Ziyi, the Three Sages, and others were formidable, but they all possessed, to varying degrees, the demeanor of the truly powerful, abiding by certain codes of conduct. Yet this Moral True Immortal, despite bearing the name "Moral," acted with no morals whatsoever! He habitually took the moral high ground to manipulate and control others. The lives and deaths of anyone else meant nothing to him. Anything that could bring him benefits had to be seized at all costs; anything that threatened him had to be ruthlessly destroyed... This manner of conduct was all too familiar to Li Fan! Though they had not even met, Li Fan already harbored a faint premonition: this Moral True Immortal was bound to become a great enemy of his in the future! "Interesting. Then let us see who is truly more 'moral.'" The First Generation Immortal Puppet stepped lightly onto the earth of the Immortal Ruins. Under the sweeping surge of Dao Devouring power, the ruins of the former Immortal Realm were instantly shattered into countless minuscule particles and rapidly devoured by the First Generation Immortal Puppet. From then on, the Immortal Ruins ceased to exist, leaving behind only two Hunger Immortal Heavenly Pillars, one new and one old, supporting the collapsing heavens here. Through the body of the First Generation Immortal Puppet, Li Fan carefully savored the taste of the Immortal Realm's ruins. The entire Immortal Realm had been carved out atop Mount Shangfang. As he slowly digested it, scenes of vast, rolling mountain ranges involuntarily surfaced before Li Fan's eyes. "By gazing from afar through this method, one can indeed comprehend some of the Principles of the Mountain. But compared to actually setting foot in the Mountains and Seas, it falls far short. It cannot even begin to compare to the Mound-Guarding Lord's Dao of Sitting upon the Mountain and Beholding the Sea." Li Fan was not surprised by this; after all, he had merely devoured a single ruin of the Immortal Realm. "It is like trekking toward the mountain. The more I devour, the closer I draw to it." With the Immortal Realm destroyed, few ruins remained. Li Fan naturally turned his gaze toward the Immortal Territory chess pieces left behind by Sun Piaomiao. At this temporal juncture ten thousand years in the past, the positions of the chess pieces were slightly different from those ten thousand years later. However, they were all confined within the Great Wall, and during the three years spent setting the trap to hunt the Hunger Immortal, Li Fan had already gathered them all. Thinking they had escaped the Immortal Ruins and gained a new lease on life, the members of the Medicine King Sect had excitedly inquired about the situation from cultivators up ahead, only to discover in horror that they had returned to the Xuanhuang Realm. Fortunately, under the offensive of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals, the Ten Sects were currently overwhelmed and had no time to settle scores with them. After much deliberation, completely bewildered and terrified by the inexplicable turn of events, the Medicine King Sect gritted their teeth and defected straight to the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals. They had assumed that with their medical and healing arts, they could flourish anywhere. Yet cultivators of the new cultivation method possessed bodies that would not die, divine souls that would not perish, and grotto-heavens that would not shatter unless destroyed outright, rendering many of the Medicine King Sect's supreme arts utterly useless. Instead, certain bizarre pills that had once been dismissed as unseemly hobbies became their foundation for survival. Li Fan cared little for any of this. Simply casting the entire Medicine King Sect aside rather than devouring them in passing had already been an act of mercy out of past sentiment. After unfolding the immortal domains and swallowing them whole with the Dao Devouring method, the First Generation Immortal Puppet temporarily reached its limit. Although the faint imagery of Mount Shangfang grew somewhat clearer, the immense pressure of encroaching mountain peaks fell upon the puppet like a clinging shadow. An immortal was, by definition, a creation that bridged the mountain and the sea. The infinity of the sea and the towering momentum of the mountain: the balance between the two brought forth a True Immortal. Now that the First Generation Immortal Puppet had devoured an entire immortal domain using the Dao Devouring method, the mountain within it had begun to overpower the sea. Li Fan vaguely sensed that certain unfathomable changes were taking place within the puppet, though he could not yet determine whether these changes were for better or worse. Decisively halting any further devouring, Li Fan attempted to channel the power of infinity, using the sea to resist the mountain. Amidst surging echoes of ocean tides, the intangible oppression cast by the shadow of Mount Shangfang finally began to recede, and the First Generation Immortal Puppet barely regained its ability to move. "That sensation just now, of being swallowed by the shadows of rolling mountains... was strikingly similar to what I felt during the convergence of the three Daos?" As the First Generation Immortal Puppet sat cross-legged to adjust its breath, Li Fan pondered the experience closely. Only after a long time did he confirm his deduction. "When the three Daos converged, I was on the verge of dissolving into an unknown collection of mysterious forces. "Whereas what the First Generation Immortal Puppet just experienced was merely being submerged by Mount Shangfang..." Li Fan could not help thinking of the Fallen Immortal Realm. Within the Fallen Immortal Realm, there was only the Sea of Infinity, and no Mount Shangfang. "If I pushed the Dao Devouring method to its absolute limit regardless of the consequences, could I forge a counterpart to it—a Fallen Immortal Realm established upon Mount Shangfang?" Li Fan narrowed his eyes. Drawing on his firsthand experience of the three Daos converging, he rapidly deduced the possibilities. If one could maintain their sanity while submerged by the shadow of Mount Shangfang, one should be able to clearly see this reciprocal Fallen Immortal Realm. The Immortal Ruins, the chess piece domains, and all the soil of the Immortal Realm he had devoured re-emerged completely intact—not in the form they took in reality, but as they had originally existed on Mount Shangfang! Scattered like starlight across the endless ranges, they resembled a canopy of stars in the dark. "Far removed from where mountain and sea converge, in a certain sense, it could likewise evade the Tribulation of Dao Annihilation. But the price..." Like a specter, Li Fan looked around. Upon Mount Shangfang, absolute silence reigned. There were no ocean tides symbolizing life, only majestic, towering peaks. "Absolute order and hierarchy. "Life holds no meaning here." Li Fan suddenly understood why, in the mountain and sea fables left behind by Sun Piaomiao, all living beings were born from the sea. Because Mount Shangfang was, in its very essence, antithetical to life. "Even if a True Immortal can borrow the mountain's momentum, that does not mean they merge into the peaks. They merely stand atop them. Even the Three Sages of the Immortal Realm did no more than that. "And the consequence of merging into the mountains..." The shadows of the peaks closed in from every direction. The scattered points of light he had devoured quickly vanished amidst the endless ranges. Li Fan jolted awake from his meditative deduction, a cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. It was not born of fear, but of the instinctual reverence that living beings felt toward Mount Shangfang. Moreover, vast shadows now shrouded the First Generation Immortal Puppet's body. "Swallowing mountains and devouring seas is no empty boast. Yet one must simultaneously withstand the backlash of both mountain and sea. "In devouring the mountain and sea, one is also devoured by them." Having gained this insight, Li Fan helped the First Generation Immortal Puppet connect with the Sea of Infinity to alleviate the oppressive mountain shadows. It took more than half a year to completely wash away the darkness clinging to the puppet. Li Fan could not help sighing in admiration. "The two holy sovereigns, Guihai and Lianshan, were truly peerless geniuses. If either had been absent, the ultimate fate of cultivating the so-called immortal dao would have been grim. "The only outcome would have been dissolving into the mountain or the sea, assimilated by them. "Yet precisely because of the heroic feat of the two sages in bridging mountain and sea, a foothold for immortals was created in their mutual counterbalance. "Even so, by taking a foothold amidst the mountain and the sea, one must also share in the tribulations of the mountain and the sea themselves. The convergence of mountain and sea, the Tribulation of Dao Annihilation..." The Great Daos of the world were nothing more than the principles of mountain and sea. Through the method of Dao Devouring, Li Fan bypassed the slow process of comprehension by directly consuming the ruins of the Immortal Realm, allowing him to confront the Mountains and Seas head-on. Though his cultivation progressed at astonishing speed, the side effects were beyond what ordinary men could endure. Fortunately, with the aid of Trueness, Li Fan had previously survived the catastrophe of the three Daos converging and emerged intact. Only because of that could he remain stable when facing this lower-level "sinking." "All things dissolve into mountain and sea, while mountain and sea converge into something higher. "Even Longevity and Trueness, which share the same tier as mountain and sea, are part of this sequence of convergence..." Li Fan was once again reminded of the legend of the Creation God. "That legend subtly hints at the greatest truth between the Mountains and Seas. "The so-called Creation God unfolded the Mountains and Seas and brought forth all things in the mortal realm. Yet ultimately, everything in the world must return to the beginning. "The receding of the mortal world, the convergence of mountain and sea—this is the overarching trend, the inexorable fate that all living beings between the Mountains and Seas must face." In Li Fan's mind, that chilling image that once struck fear into the Mountains and Seas quietly resurfaced: A lone star hung aloft like the solitary eye of a god, looking down from above. "Are the True Immortals who crossed space and time to pass down the spark of cultivation fighting against such a fate?" Li Fan stood within the gloomy starry void, gazing out beyond the Primordial in silence. "Even with my limited ability, I can discern this truth. How much more so those transcendent powerhouses, or even the Three Sages? "Even so, they showed not the slightest hesitation or despair... "Truly remarkable!" Li Fan praised from the bottom of his heart. If something guided the convergence of mountain and sea from the unseen depths, it was perhaps the will of that vanished "Creation God." Seeking to save the mortal world and reverse the overarching tide of mountain-sea convergence was, in truth, contending against the Creation God. Ants between the Mountains and Seas raising their antennae high, attempting to resist the lone star suspended far beyond them—it was an inconceivable endeavor to begin with. "When the sky falls, the tall ones hold it up. Since they can still hold out, let them shoulder it a bit longer..." Li Fan muttered, suppressing the unease in his heart. Half of Li Fan's unease stemmed from apprehension after glimpsing the truth of the Mountains and Seas; the other half came from distrust. Li Fan had never been one to entrust his life to others. Even if those others were Ziyi, Shouqiu, the Three Sages, or beings whose strength far surpassed his own. When his own life was at stake, Li Fan could not help questioning in his heart: "Can these people really pull it off?" Until the overarching trend of mountain-sea convergence was completely overturned, this doubt would never dissipate. "In the end, I'll probably have to step forward myself before I can rest easy." Li Fan's eyes grew deep and distant, his gaze seeming to pierce through the fractured river of time and space, reaching straight to the origin of all things.