As time passed, this broken stone seemed to have lost its original might.
Li Fan paused for a moment, then held his breath and slowly drew near.
He did not feel any changes in himself even after walking right up to the stone fragment.
Even so, Li Fan remained vigilant.
This Lost Domain was rife with all manner of bizarre phenomena, and he could by no means let his guard down.
Without touching the broken stone, he simply kept his distance and examined it closely once more.
The lower portion of the stone was wedged into the soil, its overall shape roughly square, about the span of a man's outstretched arms in length and width.
Along its edges were obvious fracture marks.
It was as though it had been severed from a single, complete slab.
Before and after the character "Chaos," there should have been other carved characters.
Regrettably, the character "Chaos" had been split off completely on its own, leaving not the slightest stroke or trace of any preceding or following characters.
"From the looks of this broken stone, it doesn't seem like a natural fracture. Rather, it looks deliberately cut away by someone."
"Chaos."
"Could the bizarre phenomena in the area centered around this colossal circular crater—the spatial disorientation, and even the grotesque mutations of human bodies—be related to this character?"
"If a single character truly triggered so many anomalies..."
"What does this Chaos Character Stone have to do with the Heavenly Physician?"
Li Fan pondered for a moment and decided to set it aside for now, checking the surroundings instead to see if there were any signs of an exit.
Unfortunately, at the bottom of the colossal circular crater, aside from the sticky, paste-like unknown substance coating the ground, there was only this Chaos Character Stone.
"The inverted monster operates purely on instinct now; it shouldn't be deceiving me."
After some thought, Li Fan returned to the broken stone, channeled his spiritual energy, and lifted it from the ground.
It was nothing like a heavenly treasure, weighing no more than an ordinary boulder.
Moreover, after he pulled it free, no suppressed exit revealed itself beneath the stone as he had hoped.
Nothing unusual occurred.
"Strange..."
Li Fan set the Chaos Character Stone down and stroked his chin.
With little time remaining, Li Fan did not bother searching for other possibilities.
Instead, he stared intently at the stone before him, pondering where the exit could be concealed.
With no time to waste, after a brief moment, Li Fan extended a finger and casually flicked a beam of black light at it.
Backing away, he observed what changes would occur upon the collision between the Oblivion Sword and the Chaos Character Stone.
The black sword light flew before the stone in an instant.
Just an instant before it collided, the black light suddenly twisted slightly.
Under Li Fan's watchful gaze, three clusters of energy all too familiar to him resolved out from the black light.
Madness, pitch-black, swirling vortices...
These were precisely the three forces comprising the Great Five Elements Oblivion Sword: Heaven Fiend, Mo Sha, and the power of the Five Elements.
Under the influence of the Chaos Character Stone, the black light gradually faded.
Then, these energies that were supposed to be under Li Fan's control turned on one another, locked in mutual conflict.
At the same time, an inexplicable ripple abruptly burst forth from the Chaos Character Stone, sweeping outward beyond the colossal circular crater.
Caught off guard, Li Fan had no time to dodge before it passed straight through him.
His expression changed drastically, thinking he had been ambushed.
Yet to his surprise, this ripple was all thunder and no rain.
He merely felt a tingling itch throughout his body like ants crawling over him, but after his spiritual energy circulated once, it was quickly suppressed.
Li Fan stared blankly for a second, then looked at the Chaos Character Stone thoughtfully.
"The character 'Chaos' has dissipated; it holds the shape but lacks the spirit."
"Even so, it can still affect my Five Elements Oblivion Sword."
"..."
Li Fan glanced toward where the three forces had tangled together.
In the wake of that ripple, they had already annihilated each other in their infighting.
The light of the final Black Death Talisman worn on his person had grown so faint it was barely visible.
It seemed ready to collapse completely at any second.
Anyone else in such dire straits would surely have been in utter turmoil, unable to think calmly.
Yet with True Reversion as his foundation, Li Fan was not panicked in the least.
With no need to worry about his own peril, Li Fan's thoughts raced as he pondered on.
After testing many different methods, the Black Death Talisman finally shattered completely.
With nothing left to restrain it, the ubiquitous white mist began devouring Li Fan's lifespan.
In just a few breaths, the physiological age on Li Fan's True Reversion panel jumped from 51 to 52.
Though that was partly because most of age 51 had already passed, it still demonstrated the horrifying speed at which the Essence-Devouring White Mist consumed life.
His life draining away at a pace visible to the naked eye did not panic Li Fan; instead, it made his mind clearer and calmer.
By the time Li Fan's age reached one hundred, a sudden flash of inspiration struck, and Li Fan's eyes abruptly lit up.
He leaped before the broken stone and used his hand as a brush, tracing the carved grooves of the character "Chaos" on the rock.
Stroke by stroke, he wrote.
Swift as soaring dragons and darting serpents, the calligraphy was finished in an instant.
A faint golden glow flashed and faded.
The character "Chaos" on the stone fragment seemed to regain a touch of its former luster.
And to Li Fan's shock, the moment the character reappeared, the spiritual energy inside his body was instantly drained empty.
Had his Nine-Method Golden Core not sensed danger and whirled into motion in an instant, transforming the power of the Five Elements into an endless stream of spiritual energy to replenish his depleted body, he might have been sucked dry on the spot.
Even so, Li Fan's vision went dark, and he nearly collapsed to the ground.
Fortunately, after absorbing all of Li Fan's spiritual energy, an inexplicable change took place within the Chaos Character Stone.
The character seemed to come alive, naturally radiating a presence that sent shivers through the soul.
The entire stone grew ethereal, emanating an illusory, dreamlike radiance.
Even the Essence-Devouring White Mist was repelled by the radiance from the Chaos Character Stone, leaving behind a circular vacuum.
Seeing this, Li Fan quickly slipped inside to avoid losing any more lifespan.
Perhaps because this activation of the Chaos Character Stone had drawn upon Li Fan's own spiritual energy, he did not feel any detrimental effect upon drawing near it.
Yet creaking and grinding sounds continuously echoed all around, and the viscous substance spread across the ground began writhing and slithering unnervingly, as if it had attained life.
Li Fan also keenly noticed that the mutated corpses standing motionless within the circular stone crater were trembling faintly, as though they might spring back to life at any moment.
As the instigator of all this, even Li Fan felt the hairs on his neck stand on end.
"This is no place to linger."
Studying the Chaos Character Stone shimmering between illusion and reality, Li Fan developed a vague intuition.
It seemed like a doorway, one he could step through at any time.
His spiritual perception detected no danger ahead; on the contrary, his sole chance of survival lay within.
Li Fan hesitated no longer, leaping and throwing himself toward it.
Just as Li Fan had anticipated, the stone seemed nonexistent.
Li Fan passed straight through it.
His vision blurred, and endless white mist filled his sight.
Li Fan had finally escaped that peril-laden, uncanny Lost Domain and returned inside the normal White Mist Barrier.
Chapter 359