Li Fan recalled the various anecdotes about Lost Domains that Huangfu Qi had previously recounted.
"Some are merely boundless, empty expanses where nothing else exists."
"Yet others are like the Chizha Abyss, harboring countless bizarre and deadly perils."
"Still, everything remains concealed within the vast white mist. Cultivators who wander in are essentially blind, utterly unable to perceive the full picture."
"The supplies I brought can last me about fifteen more days. Whether I can traverse this Lost Domain will depend on my fortune in this life."
Steeling his resolve, Li Fan did not continue toward where he sensed the Eternal Immortal Bastion to be.
Instead, he marked that direction as "forward" and flew toward the relative "downward" direction.
In an ordinary White Mist Barrier, land did exist.
However, it was merely flat ground steeped in absolute silence, devoid of any other living creatures or traces of structures.
Even natural slopes and ripples in the terrain were rare.
It was said that walking upon it would suppress one's primal instinct to survive, inducing all manner of urges to end one's own life.
A Lost Domain, however, was an independent, entirely new space.
Whether it had a "bottom" depended on the domain's specific nature.
The Chizha Abyss was bottomless.
As for this Lost Domain, Li Fan would have to explore it himself to find out.
As for why he went "down" instead of "up" to fly straight out of the domain's expanse...
That was because Huangfu Song had previously mentioned that straying into a Lost Domain was equivalent to entering a grotto-heaven with no boundaries.
Once trapped inside, it was practically impossible to escape simply by flying.
Only by locating the junction where the Lost Domain met normal space—the so-called "exit"—could one leave.
Taking the Chizha Abyss as an example again:
The severed azure stone palm perpetually suppressed the outer rim of the Chizha Abyss. If a member of the Qingxuan Army accidentally fell into the abyss, the moment they entered its boundary, they might appear to be right at its edge—separated from the Eternal Immortal Bastion by only a hair's breadth, seemingly able to step right back.
Yet across that tiny distance, because the two were not within the same space, one could fly until death without ever crossing over.
Ever since the founding of Broken Palm Immortal City, not a single cultivator who had inadvertently tumbled into the Chizha Abyss had ever returned alive.
A Lost Domain's exit connected two different spaces.
Consequently, its scenery would generally contrast with that of the domain itself. As long as one drew close, one could perceive it even through the concealing white mist.
This was where Li Fan's hope of escape lay.
Circulating the Purple Empyrean Escape technique with all his might, Li Fan continued descending. Roughly more than half a day went by.
As he flew, his expression suddenly shifted.
His divine sense detected something obstructing the path just ahead, practically within arm's reach.
Inside the Essence-Devouring White Mist, however, the perception range of divine sense was drastically reduced.
By the time he realized it, it was already too late to dodge, and he was on the verge of crashing headlong into it.
Two beams of pitch-black light shot from Li Fan's eyes.
Several times faster than the purple light of his fleeing form, they annihilated the shadow concealed in the white mist ahead.
Before the Great Five Elements Oblivion Sword, any obstacle was reduced to nothingness.
This also spared Li Fan the fate of being battered senseless by a collision.
Only then did Li Fan manage to slow down, raising his guard as he cautiously approached.
When he saw what had blocked him, he could not help but let out a sigh of relief.
It was not some grotesque creature, but a collapsed, tilted section of a building.
A large hole had been pierced through its center by the Oblivion Sword, yet its original shape remained faintly discernible.
It was a monolithic high-rise hollowed out from a single massive boulder, its carvings and doorways still clearly visible.
Li Fan did not recklessly enter the fallen tower. Instead, he continued flying downward.
Before long, he landed on the ground.
With a crunch, his foot seemed to step on something.
Sweeping his divine sense across, Li Fan's heart instantly tightened.
For it was startlingly a living person!
The person's eyes glared in fury, their expression hideous and terrifying, glaring fixatedly at Li Fan!
*How could there be a living person in a Lost Domain?* The thought flashed through his mind in a split second, and Li Fan's body reacted instinctively.
He recoiled sharply, the Five Elements Oblivion Sword unsheathed once more.
Yet just as he braced for a formidable foe, something utterly bewildering occurred.
The "living person" he had just touched did not move at all under Li Fan's gaze.
Instead, their body instantly crumbled into gray particles, scattering across the ground.
In just a single breath, the living human had turned to flying ash.
"Hm? Not alive—dead long ago?"
Li Fan frowned slightly.
Having once had extensive experience with tomb raiding, Li Fan was no stranger to such a sight.
Ancient relics sealed away for thousands of years would look lifelike one moment, yet the instant they made contact with the outside world, they would immediately lose their original form and decay into ruin.
The situation here in the Lost Domain was even more extreme.
It had directly disintegrated into dust, vanishing completely.
"What on earth is this place...?"
Without lowering his guard, Li Fan carefully searched the surroundings.
The sight before him sent a chill down the spine of even someone as accustomed to bloodshed as Li Fan.
Within a hundred-zhang radius, collapsed and damaged architectural ruins were scattered everywhere.
And in every corner of the ruins lay numerous corpses strewn about in disarray.
They still retained the attire and facial expressions from when they were alive.
It was as if they had witnessed something they hated and feared to the extreme; their faces were filled with utter despair and malice.
Time had frozen at the very moment of their deaths.
It was as though a catastrophe had suddenly descended, causing everyone in the ruins to lose their lives at the exact same instant.
There were no wounds, no bloodstains.
Yet they had simply died.
Just like the corpse Li Fan had stepped on earlier, the moment they came into contact with an outsider like him, they would instantly disintegrate into flying ash and disperse into nothingness.
What alarmed Li Fan even more was that these people clearly were not mortals.
The storage rings adorning their bodies, as well as the various dharma treasures they had just drawn into their hands before they even had time to use them, all testified to their identity as cultivators.
Yet before that unknown existence, they could only await death as helplessly as mortals.
Li Fan walked up to a corpse, attempting to remove the storage ring from its hand to see if he could find any clues regarding these mysteriously deceased cultivators.
Unfortunately, the ring was no different from the bodies.
The moment Li Fan brushed against it, it likewise dissolved into smoke and dust.
He tried several more times, but the result was always the same.
Li Fan had no choice but to give up.
Suppressing the chill in his heart, he continued exploring outward.
The landscape did not change.
The continuous ruins were effectively a colossal graveyard, burying countless corpses that had perished an unknowable amount of time ago.
Eventually, Li Fan grew somewhat numb to the sight.
Quickening his flying speed, he dashed out of the ruins' perimeter.
"This seems to have been a gathering point. The garments on these cultivators are identical in some cases and different in others."
"Did different sects gather here for some reason?"
Chapter 356