As for how Kou Hong and Dao Xuanzi would react upon returning to the cultivation world and discovering they practiced the exact same technique, Li Fan no longer cared.
By now, he had settled all his affairs. Piloting the Taiyan Boat, he arrived above the Ruins Abyss.
Under normal circumstances, one was supposed to wait for the clearing of the white mist, an event that occurred once every fifteen years, before exploring this abyss.
Yet Li Fan was already seventy-one years old. To wait for the next dispersion of mist would take another fourteen years.
By then, he would be eighty-five. With his lifespan near its limit, he would struggle even to walk, let alone pilot the Taiyan Boat.
He might as well test the realities of the Immortal Severing Formation sooner rather than later.
In any case, he had nothing left to linger for in this life and could begin the next at any moment.
Steering the Taiyan Boat, Li Fan descended slowly toward the depths of the Ruins Abyss.
Without divine sense to scout ahead, he could only rely on his eyes to discern direction.
Shrouded in dense fog, everything around him was a vast expanse of white, giving Li Fan an overwhelming sense of unreality.
His surroundings were dead silent; only his own breathing could be heard.
With his concentration pushed to its peak, he continued flying downward.
Suddenly, as if crashing into something, the hull of the Taiyan Boat began to shake violently.
Li Fan tensed at once.
As though squeezed by an invisible, colossal force, sounds resembling grinding metal continuously rang out from outside the vessel.
Fortunately, the defensive formation activated in time, draping the Taiyan Boat in a faint curtain of golden light.
The hull gradually steadied, and the hair-raising, eerie noises faded away.
Only the protective light barrier, constantly twisting and warping, testified to the terrifying pressure outside.
"Once past the Astral Wind layer, the Illusory Light layer lies below," Li Fan recalled Kou Hong's prior description of the Immortal Severing Formation.
The Immortal Severing Formation existed primarily to prevent banished mortals from returning to the cultivation world.
The Astral Wind layer was filled with violent gales.
Its wind blades could easily tear a mortal's flesh to shreds, and even Foundation Establishment cultivators had to protect themselves with spiritual energy and proceed with caution.
Beneath the Astral Wind layer lay the Illusory Light layer.
Ribbons of seven-colored radiance flowed through that tier of the abyss.
Any mortal who looked upon them would sink into endless illusions.
Below the Illusory Light layer was the Inversion layer.
Upon entering, heaven and earth seemed to flip, making it impossible to tell up from down or left from right.
Compounded by the all-encompassing white mist, anyone lacking divine sense to navigate was bound to lose their way.
After the Inversion layer came the Flowing Fire layer.
Tens of thousands of shooting meteors and streaming flames flew at erratic, blistering speeds across that space, smashing anything in their path to dust.
Concealed by thick white fog, they were exceedingly difficult to guard against.
Beneath the Flowing Fire layer was the Mysterious Ice layer.
Starting from this tier, the dense fog gradually thinned.
The Mysterious Ice layer held nothing else, only unimaginably frigid temperatures.
Without appropriate protective measures, one would likely freeze solid the moment they entered.
Below the Mysterious Ice layer lay the Thunderstorm layer.
Ten thousand bolts of lightning exuding an aura of destruction roared unceasingly through this tier of the abyss.
Finally, there was an empty space several times larger than the previous six layers combined.
According to Kou Hong, this final layer held no real danger, only total darkness—yet it inevitably filled one with dread.
Passing through the Darkness layer would lead out of the Immortal Severing Formation and into the cultivation world.
Li Fan steered the Taiyan Boat with utmost care. It took him half an hour to finally traverse the Astral Wind layer.
The moment he entered the Illusory Light layer, bathed in dazzling, flowing radiance, Li Fan fell into layer upon layer of illusions.
In the illusion, he successfully escaped the Immortal Severing Formation. Upon reaching the cultivation world, he chanced upon a peerless manual. In a mere hundred years, he formed a Golden Core.
Thereafter, his cultivation journey was smooth sailing. A thousand years later, he attained the Dao and ascended.
Upon reaching the Immortal Realm, Li Fan started from the lowest rank of immortal clerk and climbed step by step, ultimately becoming an Immortal Emperor looking down upon the entire Immortal Realm.
After that, Li Fan shattered the spatial barriers of the Immortal Realm and ascended to the Divine Realm.
Starting out as a humble miner in the Divine Realm, after ten thousand years, Li Fan cultivated to the God King Realm and became the mightiest entity in the divine world.
Later, enduring countless hardships, Li Fan ascended to the Primordial Divine Realm, where he became a lowly gatekeeper.
Once again, he toiled and started from scratch.
Layer after layer, nested like endless Russian dolls...
At long last, the illusion collapsed.
Li Fan regained his senses. His previous experiences receded swiftly like an ebbing tide, leaving behind only faint traces in his mind.
Somewhat speechless at what he had just undergone in the illusion, Li Fan composed himself and continued downward.
A bout of dizziness seized his mind, and he instantly lost his sense of direction. Li Fan knew he had entered the Inversion layer.
Engulfed by boundless white fog, the Taiyan Boat was like a drop of water in an ocean, unable to tell up from down or where it ought to go.
Just as he thought his exploratory voyage in this life would end right here, Li Fan was surprised to find an inexplicable intuition welling up from within the Taiyan Boat, signaling which direction he should steer.
Following the vessel's guidance, Li Fan left the Inversion layer before long.
Having tasted success, Li Fan stopped trying to steer deliberately. He merely supplied power and let the Taiyan Boat fly through the Immortal Severing Formation on its own.
Flowing fire, mysterious ice, thunderstorms...
These regions appeared perilous in the extreme, yet the Taiyan Boat flew at an unhurried pace, grazing past one crisis of annihilation after another every single time.
With no real danger along the way, Li Fan smoothly reached the final tier—the Darkness layer.
*Of course. A thousand years ago, the Taiyan Boat was specifically used to relocate mortals. The Great Migration era lasted for centuries; this flying boat certainly didn't make just a single trip. Judging by its wear and tear, its relocation duties might not have stopped for a hundred years. The cultivators in charge must have found it tedious to steer manually every time, so they built a backdoor into the boat allowing it to traverse the Immortal Severing Formation automatically...* Even amid his delight, Li Fan suddenly understood why this voyage had gone so unexpectedly well.
The Taiyan Boat slipped quietly through the pitch-black void.
At the thought that the cultivation world he had yearned for across centuries lay just ahead, even a man of Li Fan's composure could not help feeling a surge of excitement.
Suddenly, out of the dead silence of the dark, a desolate, ancient, distant, and profound cry resonated out of nowhere.
In an instant, this bizarre sound swept across the entire Darkness layer, echoing relentlessly throughout.
Li Fan's heart stopped. As though encountering some natural predator, the blood throughout his body ran cold in an instant.
The cry drew closer and closer, seeming to engulf the small Taiyan Boat in the blink of an eye, echoing from every direction.
Then, abruptly, the sound vanished.
Silence returned.
His surroundings remained pitch-black, yet it felt distinctly different from the darkness before.
A chill ran down Li Fan's spine.
He knew the Taiyan Boat had been swallowed by some entity.
*Crack! Boom!*
The defensive light barrier of the Taiyan Boat shattered in an instant, and the hull began to disintegrate immediately after.
In that single breath, his recharge progress plummeted.
Casting one last deep look at the darkness outside, Li Fan silently recited,
"True Reversion!"
Chapter 18