"Judging by the harvest this time, the master of the Ningyuan City residual thought spacetime was undoubtedly Mr. Bai."
"Now that his lingering obsession has been thoroughly resolved, I'm afraid that the next time I enter the Fallen Immortal Realm, I'll find myself somewhere else."
"I wonder what kind of encounters await me then."
Looking back now, being trapped in the same spacetime within the Fallen Immortal Realm was actually a rare blessing.
If there had been only one attempt, without the ability to repeatedly strategize and uncover the various hidden clues within that spacetime, it would have been near impossible to reap so many gains.
Of course, the prerequisite was being able to escape the trap of infinite cycles.
As for what lay in store, he would find out the next time he entered.
Sensing faintly within his mind, Li Fan frowned.
Perhaps because he had obtained two rewards this time, the cooldown restricting his entry had nearly doubled.
He estimated it would take about a year before the restriction lifted.
"Good things never come easy; I'll just have to wait patiently," Li Fan mused to himself.
***
On the desolate island.
Ever since Su Xiaomei and Zhang Haobo left, Xiao Heng seemed to have been spurred on, cultivating with ever-increasing diligence.
Not long ago, the bottleneck that had plagued him for so long finally dissipated, leaving him ready to advance to the Golden Core stage at any moment.
Guided by intuition, he had headed to the central waters of the Congyun Sea to seek out his own serendipity.
Meanwhile, the Yin sisters had simultaneously reached the perfection of Qi Condensation. From the White Bone Vanguard Realm, each obtained a superior wonder of Man—the Treasure Concealing Gauze and the Divine Escape Needle—and embarked on their secluded cultivation to achieve Foundation Establishment.
On the desolate island, the only one who had still not reached Foundation Establishment was Su Changyu.
Yet he had only just broken through to the late Qi Condensation stage.
Reaching Foundation Establishment was still far out of sight.
For a time, steady and composed as Su Changyu was, he could not help but feel utterly lost.
"When Xiaomei and Xiao Heng return, they'll probably both have stepped into the Golden Core stage."
"While I'm still lingering in the Qi Condensation stage."
"As time goes on, the gap between us will only grow wider."
Standing on the beach and watching the rising and falling tides, Su Changyu felt a twinge of bitterness in his heart.
He was no saint.
Those around him were all exceptionally gifted talents. Spending every day with them, how could he not feel the pressure?
It was just that in the past, he had always buried this distress deep in his heart, never speaking of it to anyone.
Now, the familiar figures around him had suddenly vanished.
Even the two little sisters who had joined the island later were stepping into Foundation Establishment ahead of him.
Su Changyu's emotional defenses finally began to crack.
At the end of the day, he was nothing more than an ordinary young man.
Disheartened and restless, he couldn't even summon the drive to cultivate.
For the first time, Su Changyu took flight and left the desolate island, wandering aimlessly.
Whenever he encountered other cultivators along the way, he subconsciously veered away to avoid them.
He drifted like this for who knew how long until, snapping back to his senses, he found himself near a bleak and desolate island.
The island was not large, with scarcely any vegetation.
Only a stark, square black-stone building stood upright upon it.
Seeing that the island appeared to be inhabited, Su Changyu prepared to steer well clear of it to avoid any misunderstanding.
Just as he was about to depart, flames suddenly flared from within the black-stone building on the island.
Faint cries and pleas for help drifted out with them.
After hesitating for a moment, Su Changyu ultimately descended and rushed into the square building.
Inside the building, transparent cages were laid out one after another.
Within them were bizarre, hair-raising creatures:
A two-headed giant python, a sheep-headed sea turtle, giant coiled water maggots, an uncanny monstrosity made of six heads and hands, and more.
For reasons unknown, every one of these creatures had already lost all signs of life.
Only lifeless corpses lay quietly within the cages.
Su Changyu's expression grew solemn. Raising his guard, he pressed deeper inside.
Following the corridor inward, he arrived before a massive rectangular transparent cage.
Four smaller cages flanked it on each side, connected directly to this central rectangular cage.
These cages held several ragged mortals.
Some were already dead, while others were still barely clinging to life.
Fierce flames were spreading outward from the central giant cage toward the surroundings.
The desperate cries for help Su Changyu had heard earlier came from these very mortals.
At the sight, Su Changyu formed an incantation gesture for the Water-Controlling Art, attempting to extinguish the blaze.
To his surprise, the fire was no ordinary flame.
Upon meeting water, far from dying down, it flared up even more fiercely.
Su Changyu's expression changed. While manipulating the flow of water, he channeled the spiritual energy within his body into it.
Only then did he manage to hold back the churning flames slightly.
Yet, he still could not extinguish them.
Before long, Su Changyu began to buckle under the strain.
The spiritual energy he channeled grew weaker and weaker, while the fire burned ever more vigorously.
Seeing an immortal master trying to save them, hope of survival rekindled within the mortals in the cages, and they began kowtowing frantically to Su Changyu.
Su Changyu gritted his teeth and held on.
Just before his spiritual energy was completely depleted, two bizarre voices rang out at the exact same time:
"Why? Why would an immortal cultivator like you try to save these mortals?"
"Why? Why would an immortal cultivator like you try to save these mortals?"
...
Su Changyu jumped in fright. Looking toward the voices, he saw a cultivator with snow-white hair and an aged appearance standing behind him, having arrived without him noticing.
Staring at Su Changyu with a somewhat deranged fixation, the man murmured his question once more.
For a moment, Su Changyu had no idea how to reply.
It had only been a dozen or so years since he left Great Li and stepped away from mortal life.
Throughout that time, he had stayed on the desolate island living alongside his family and friends.
He had never developed any concept of a deep divide between immortals and mortals.
Seeing someone cry for help and stepping in to lend a hand was purely an instinctive reaction.
Seeing Su Changyu's awkward, flustered look, the man gave a derisive snort.
With a casual wave of his hand, the raging inferno vanished in an instant.
Su Changyu let out a deep breath of relief.
"Follow me."
"Follow me."
Once again, two voices sounded in unison.
A doorway to the side swung wide open, and Su Changyu followed him inside.
The chaotic sight inside took him by surprise.
As if deliberately wrecked, the ground was strewn with broken bones and corpses.
Some belonged to humans, others to bizarre beasts.
In the middle of the corridor, there was even a grotesque little dog whose limbs were human hands and whose belly was covered in eyes.
The white-haired cultivator paid it little heed.
He casually swept the gruesome debris aside to clear a path.
Su Changyu followed cautiously behind.
At the end of the passage was a flight of stairs leading downward.
The man looked back at Su Changyu, gave an inscrutable smile as if bidding him to follow, and then walked down at an unhurried pace.
The entire place was steeped in an eerie, uncanny atmosphere. Su Changyu drew a deep breath and, after a moment's hesitation, chose to follow down the stairs.
Once his eyes adjusted to the darkness below and took in the surroundings, a chill instantly rushed up his spine.
Though the space was not particularly spacious, it was densely packed with hundreds of corpses.
Most of them were shattered beyond recognition, looking like torn rag dolls.
Severed body parts were scattered haphazardly across the floor, in a scene so horrifying it resembled a living purgatory.
Chapter 286