"Strange, where is he?" As their injuries slowly healed, the four searched the surrounding area, but could find no trace of Li Fan.
"Could his strength have run dry, and realizing he couldn't win, he beat a retreat?"
A flicker of doubt crossed the faces of the black-robed Five Elders Association cultivators.
"Judging by the sheer terror of that palm strike, it is very possible. A single blow nearly shattered all four of our grotto-heaven domains. Unleashing such a divine ability, no matter how formidable he is, ought to inflict considerable backlash..."
"Not necessarily. Ancient cultivators were renowned for their combat prowess, and this Li Fan was clearly holding back earlier."
"Regardless, caution is paramount. First, break this formation!"
The four exchanged glances and joined forces to attack the Light-Splitting Dragon-Trapping Formation that Li Fan had laid down.
Without a cultivator maintaining it, the originally impregnable defense seemed to turn utterly fragile.
The colossal golden bowl wavered precariously in an instant.
Filled with relief, the four hastened their attacks.
The very moment the Dragon-Trapping Formation shattered completely under their assault, golden light drifted down like rain across the sky.
It enveloped all four of them, refracting dazzling rays of brilliance.
Under the radiant golden glow, they could not help but squint slightly.
"Look out!"
Right then, the leading cultivator shouted a sudden warning.
Before his voice had even faded, a deafening boom rang out as several of the golden lights drifting around them abruptly detonated.
Terrifying energy surged from the core of the explosions, sweeping in all directions.
There were as many as sixteen or seventeen of these explosive sources disguised as golden light.
Surrounding them on all sides, they completely boxed in the Five Elders Association cultivators.
"Void-Tearing Gilded Thunders?!"
Amid furious, horrified cries, the motes of gilded thunder instantly expanded into halos of light, swallowing them whole.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Earth-shattering blasts echoed ceaselessly over this stretch of the sea.
After who knew how long, the smoke and dust finally cleared.
Within their battered, broken grotto-heaven domains, the writhing flesh of the four men slowly and agonizingly knitted back together.
"How despicable..."
"I knew he hadn't gone far!"
Their faces pale with lingering terror, they swept their gazes around, yet still found no sign of where Li Fan was hiding.
"Don't tangle with him any longer. We withdraw!" the leader growled through gritted teeth.
Retracting the anomalies of their grotto-heavens, the men paid heed to nothing else and sped off toward Yongliang Province on the border of the Congyun Sea.
They flew for a long time. The coastline of Yongliang Province was already visible in the distance, and Li Fan still had not reappeared.
It was as if he had abandoned his pursuit of them.
The four finally breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Yet, looking back on that narrow brush with death, they vaguely felt something was amiss.
"Bing Liu, why do I feel like this Li Fan was deliberately toying with us?"
"..."
The black-robed cultivator codenamed Bing Liu fell silent for a moment before speaking in a low voice. "Much as I loathe to admit it, looking at how things unfolded, it really is rather strange.
"He clearly could have ended our lives with those gilded thunders right after that palm strike. Yet he waited until we had recovered our strength before striking again.
"It felt almost as if he were purposely giving us room to catch our breath."
At this, another black-robed cultivator chimed in, "We were grievously wounded just now. A single casual attack would have finished us off. Yet he didn't do it; he let us go instead...
"What on earth does he want?"
The four exchanged puzzled glances.
"This Li Fan is an ancient cultivator who slept for thousands of years and only recently awakened. It is quite obvious that a man like him would hardly feel much allegiance to the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals," Bing Liu said after a moment's contemplation.
"You mean..." The eyes of the other three lit up.
"He guessed our identities as Five Elders Association cultivators and wanted to forge a good relationship, so he deliberately spared our lives?"
"Very likely."
"So that's how it is!"
"Doesn't that mean we could turn him and recruit him into our Five Elders Association?" Bing Liu added, struck by sudden inspiration.
"According to the intelligence we gathered, he was the very one who first deduced the prophetic words, 'Heavenly Profound Spirit Lock, Xuanhuang unified.' If we could recruit such a person, not only would the punishment for this mission's failure be wiped clean, but we would also achieve immense merit."
At these words, everyone felt a stir of temptation.
In the end, however, reason prevailed over desire.
The leading cultivator said, "Let us return and report his situation first."
"The man is strange from head to toe. We must remain on guard," another black-robed cultivator agreed with a nod.
Bing Liu felt a pang of regret. "His movements are unpredictable and elusive. Tracking him down will be truly difficult."
Another replied, "Indeed. Had we not happened upon him slinking about while out on this mission, we might never have had any way to catch him."
"He is, after all, a cultivator of the Heavenly Mechanism Sect, skilled in the art of deduction. It is only natural that he can counter and ward off divination arts."
Talking back and forth, they watched Yongliang Province draw closer and closer.
Yet gradually, they noticed something unnatural about their surroundings.
Even though the land appeared right before their eyes, no matter how far they flew, they remained over the azure waters of the Congyun Sea.
There was always a sliver of distance keeping them from actually reaching Yongliang Province.
What alarmed them even more was that, looking closely, the distant landscape of Yongliang Province seemed somewhat blurry.
It was as though it were not real, but an illusion.
The four halted their flight, their expressions darkening as they stared ahead.
Moments later, the leading black-robed cultivator cried out in horror, "No! An illusion!"
"What?" The others froze in shock, but as realization struck, they looked around in dread.
Clouds, wind, crashing waves...
Everything in their surroundings froze in an instant.
Then, like cracks spreading across a sheet of glass, the world shattered with a crash.
The faint echoes of the Void-Tearing Gilded Thunder explosions could still be heard in their ears. The four men's grotto-heavens were in ruins, and their bodies remained mangled and bloody, having never regenerated at all!
Time had remained frozen at the very moment Li Fan ambushed them with the gilded thunders.
"The moment our grotto-heaven domains were shaken and our minds were reeling, he dragged us into an illusion!" Bing Liu blurted out, finally understanding.
"Deduction, formations, illusions..."
"He is truly worthy of being an ancient cultivator," the leader coughed, sighing through gritted teeth.
He attempted to channel his grotto-heaven to draw in surrounding spiritual energy, only to discover with despair that at some point, their foe had erected a formation, turning the area into a spiritual vacuum.
He had thoroughly eliminated any possibility of a Nascent Soul cultivator using the power of their grotto-heaven to rapidly reconstruct their body.
"Impressive methods!" He glared into midair.
There, Li Fan's figure slowly emerged.
"A coincidence, was it...?" Li Fan murmured, his brow slightly furrowed.
With his capabilities, he could have slaughtered these four Five Elders Association cultivators long ago.
The only reason he had gone to such trouble was to use the Cloud Water Illusory Dream Technique to pull the reason behind how his trip had been discovered straight from their minds.
Yet he had never expected that the answer he received would be so absurd.
Without further hesitation, he unleashed the Five Elements Annihilation Sword repeatedly.
After only brief resistance, the four already grievously wounded Five Elders Association cultivators died miserable deaths beneath Li Fan's blade.
The phenomena of fallen cultivators manifested overhead, but Li Fan had no heart to watch.
He noticed that just as he was tangled in combat with the Five Elders Association cultivators, the massive whirlpool on the seabed had suddenly erupted with a suction force, swallowing Han Yi—who was pinned by Insect Binding—into the deep cavern within the ruins.
"Fortune..."
Standing before the whirlpool, Li Fan lapsed into deep thought.
Chapter 475