The waxy outer skin slowly dissolved, gradually absorbed by the unfamiliar cultivator inside the corpse.
Faced with this bizarre scene, Zhang Qianmo did not slay him right away. Instead, he waited and watched closely with great interest.
A moment later, Li Chen's physical shell was entirely absorbed by the Xuanhuang Heart-Refining Incantation.
Li Fan also revealed his original appearance.
Smiling faintly at Zhang Qianmo, Li Fan cupped his hands in greeting. "Greetings, Senior Brother!"
Zhang Qianmo's eyes narrowed slightly, the purple lightning mark on his forehead standing out prominently.
"What on earth are you?"
"An evil fiend? An otherworldly demon?"
Confronted by Zhang Qianmo's questioning, Li Fan's expression remained calm. "Senior Brother Zhang, have you failed to recognize me just because I changed skins?"
Before his voice had even faded, a streak of blue light flared between heaven and earth.
The Single Sword of Congyun and the Heaven-Overturning Palm arrived one after the other.
A look of surprise crossed Zhang Qianmo's face.
The halberd thrust out like a dragon, purple lightning roaring as it clashed against the Congyun sword.
Blue and purple light devoured each other.
In the end, the purple lightning held the upper hand.
"Splendid sword technique!" Zhang Qianmo praised.
Facing the invisible palm descending from the sky immediately afterward, Zhang Qianmo neither dodged nor evaded, throwing a punch straight up toward the heavens.
Fist and palm collided.
A surge of majestic energy erupted, expanding outward in a violent wave centered on where the two stood.
The shockwave swept across Ningyuan City below, completely reducing the already battered settlement—where barely any mortals remained alive—into a desolate wasteland of ruins.
Only the Genesis Longevity Tree in the center, shielded by the barrier, remained vibrant with life.
Zhang Qianmo cared nothing for the lives or deaths of mortals.
He merely stared at Li Fan with a solemn expression.
"Who exactly are you? Why have you secretly infiltrated my Purple Cloud Sect? Seeing this palm and sword of yours, full of grandeur and myriad wonders, you do not seem like some unorthodox rogue cultivator."
Li Fan avoided answering and asked in return, "Senior Brother, what kind of method is that of yours? You clearly have only Foundation Establishment cultivation, yet you condensed a Golden Core within your body? And to slay enemies across an entire major realm with such effortless ease?"
Zhang Qianmo snorted coldly. Seeing that Li Fan had no intention of answering, the murderous intent in his heart deepened.
He showed no further mercy.
Sweeping and thrusting with his halberd, every motion brought down purple heavenly lightning from the sky to aid his assault.
This was also the first time in Li Fan's life that he had encountered an opponent so evenly matched in strength.
Pushing his movement technique to its limit, he formed a sword array with the Sea-Calming Divine Swords, intercepting the dragon-like halberd.
As he attacked and evaded, he wove in the Congyun sword and the Heaven-Overturning Palm from time to time.
Yet, having rarely fought life-or-death battles with others, he had only a limited repertoire of techniques that he repeated over and over.
Zhang Qianmo, on the other hand, possessed an endless array of moves and Daoist arts.
The body born from his Golden Core also seemed almost impervious to myriad arts.
Even when Li Fan's attacks occasionally landed on him, they left only minor wounds.
They quickly healed back to normal.
In contrast, as bolt after bolt of purple lightning bombarded him relentlessly, the injuries sustained by Li Fan's divine sense avatar grew increasingly severe.
The whispers in his ears began to echo once more, inevitably rattling his state of mind.
As one waxed while the other waned,
after more than twenty exchanges, Li Fan's divine sense avatar was ultimately sliced in two by Zhang Qianmo's halberd.
There was no bloody scene of gore; the body merely disintegrated into countless particles and dispersed with the wind.
"This person's cultivation techniques were profound and wondrous, his sword and palm both possessing endless subtleties; he must have hailed from a major sect. Yet his actual combat ability was exceedingly mediocre, even absurdly weak.
"How strange."
Zhang Qianmo shook his head, baffled.
...
Inside the Heavenly Profound Mirror.
Li Fan slowly regained consciousness. He felt none of the weakness Chen Ying had mentioned; in fact, he even sensed that his divine sense had grown marginally stronger.
Recalling his experiences in the Fallen Immortal Realm, Li Fan fell into deep thought.
"It must be due to the Xuanhuang Heart-Refining Incantation.
"I just wonder why the Xuanhuang Heart-Refining Incantation would have such an effect within the Fallen Immortal Realm.
"Generally speaking, after the identity one inhabits dies, one would be returned directly to the real world.
"Yet I devoured the remains and reconstituted myself, forming a new divine sense avatar. That is equivalent to having two lives inside the Fallen Immortal Realm.
"I wonder if anyone else can do the same.
"Although this first exploration yielded no material gains, my divine sense did receive a noticeable boost."
...
Feeling a touch of joy and no exhaustion whatsoever, Li Fan immediately prepared to perform the ritual once more to see if he could re-enter the Fallen Immortal Realm.
Unfortunately, he received no response.
Li Fan could only give up with regret.
"According to Chen Ying, it generally takes three months to half a year before one can enter again. What a pity.
"If only one could enter without limits..."
He shook his head, casting aside that unrealistic notion.
Checking the time, less than half a day had passed since he entered the Fallen Immortal Realm.
"In the Fallen Immortal Realm this time, I witnessed the cultivation world before the Great Calamity arrived and before the immortal-mortal miasma appeared.
"It also exposed several of my current shortcomings. Although I possess divine abilities, my actual combat performance is rather underwhelming.
"Without laying an ambush with arrays in advance, I can still put up a fight against ordinary Golden Core cultivators. But against genuine prodigies, I find myself hard-pressed.
"However, rather than calling it my own deficiency, it would be more accurate to call it the divide between two eras.
"In the era Zhang Qianmo lived in, sect disciples could freely study and cultivate all manner of techniques and secret arts without restriction. They could also easily find fellow disciples to spar with.
"Nowadays, exchanging for cultivation techniques is fraught with difficulty. For techniques with slightly greater power, aside from relying on one's own comprehension, one must take office in the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals and trade merits and contribution points for them.
"Furthermore, these days, finding someone to spar with is exceedingly difficult.
"Inside the Heavenly Profound Mirror, all sorts of environments can be simulated, with the sole exception of combat against other cultivators. This is likely another method the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals uses to constrain the combat power of ordinary cultivators.
"However, with the existence of the Fallen Immortal Realm, I can temper and elevate my actual combat prowess within it.
"Of course, what matters even more is advancing my realm."
Li Fan glanced at his contribution points: over thirty-seven thousand.
Enough to cultivate in the Spirit Enlightenment state for quite a while.
"I'll cultivate until peak Foundation Establishment first."
Thereupon, Li Fan took out the exquisite liuli pearl and entered secluded cultivation.
Time flowed by, and who knew how long had passed.
Li Fan was awakened by a transmission from a communication talisman.
He checked; it was the communication talisman from He Zhenghao.
Instead of checking it immediately, Li Fan first examined the gains from his secluded cultivation.
Having cultivated with assistance for nearly two months, he had spent half of his contribution points.
As for the gains...
Li Fan sighed.
It was equivalent to three years of bitter cultivation under normal conditions.
Yet it was still far from peak Foundation Establishment.
Still, Li Fan knew he could not be impatient.
From the Foundation Establishment stage onward, cultivators of mediocre talent required several decades to break through every minor stage.
"I still need the Mountain-Sitting Art!"
Li Fan lamented in his heart and checked He Zhenghao's message.
"Fellow Daoist Li Fan! Good news—it worked!
"After great effort on my part in pulling strings and lobbying, the position of array repairer under Zhang Zhiliang has been secured!"
Chapter 178