"A counteroffensive against the cultivation world, you say..."
Sima Changkong narrowed his eyes slightly, appearing lost in recollection.
After a brief silence, he spoke slowly. "Whenever that event is brought up nowadays, most cultivators dismiss it as a farce. But in truth, the scale of the pocket world allied forces was far more than some simple farce."
"If it were just that, why would even the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals and the Five Elders Association—bitter enemies by nature—have joined hands?"
A faint, almost imperceptible gleam flashed through Li Fan's eyes. Leaning in, he asked in an ambiguous tone, "An alliance? Just to deal with the pocket world allied forces?"
"Fellow Daoist Sima, could you be misremembering? Aren't those within the pocket worlds merely mortals who were exiled?"
"How could dealing with such an ant-like rabble take so much effort for our fellow cultivators? Besides, we also have the Longevity Heavenly Venerables towering over the world. Could they really have won against us?"
Seeing Li Fan's sheer skepticism, Sima Changkong took no offense.
Instead, he smiled faintly and flicked his finger, sending a drop of blood flying into the space between them.
The blood droplet seemed alive, hovering in midair before wriggling and expanding outward in all directions.
It transformed into a canvas woven of bloody mist.
Upon the canvas, a sequence of breathtaking, thrilling scenes unfolded one after another.
One side of the battle was evidently the cultivators of the Xuanhuang Realm.
Yet the other side was likewise capable of soaring through the skies and burrowing through the earth; clearly, they were no ordinary mortals.
Though their combat methods varied wildly, they fought the cultivators on equal footing, trading blows back and forth.
Some relied purely on flesh and blood, shrugging off cultivators' flying swords and Daoist techniques. Closing the distance, they tore cultivators to pieces with their bare hands.
Others remained in the rear, manipulating uncanny streaks of energy from afar that plummeted from the sky, locking onto cultivators and executing pinpoint strikes.
Still others did not even have human forms, resembling only translucent white human skins that drifted and glided across the center of the battlefield. Whenever they came upon the gravely wounded, they plastered themselves entirely over them.
Those people who had been on the verge of death and unable to move sprang back to full vigor in the blink of an eye.
Even if missing arms or legs, once covered by the white skins, their severed limbs would regenerate, restoring their fighting capacity.
Li Fan stared at the ever-shifting scenes within the blood screen, his expression gradually turning grave.
"Where were our Xuanhuang Realm's high-tier cultivators? Did the experts of the Dao Integration and Longevity realms simply look on as we slaughtered and were slaughtered without lifting a finger?" Li Fan's tone carried a hint of indignation.
Sima Changkong shook his head slightly. "Not at all, not at all. Naturally, they had opponents of their own."
"Although my ancestor could not witness the battles between those supreme experts firsthand due to his limited realm at the time, rumor has it that our Xuanhuang Realm suffered grievous losses as well."
Sima Changkong sighed wistfully. "So much so that for the past five hundred years, neither side has been willing to reignite the conflict, choosing instead to rest and recuperate."
Li Fan could not help but marvel. "Were they really that strong? Did those people truly come from the pocket worlds?"
"Yes, and no." Sima Changkong summoned a mermaid beast seed to refill their cups.
Only then did he continue, "They were nothing more than pawns controlled by others."
"The true mastermind behind the scenes was someone else entirely."
Li Fan's heart jolted, his interest piqued. "How so?"
"Their origins seem to trace back to when the ancient catastrophe first descended. As for the specifics, my ancestor left no records."
"However, according to fragmented post-war accounts, they appeared to be a group of people who 'departed and then returned.'"
A look of perplexity crossed Sima Changkong's face as he spoke slowly.
"Not only did the Xuanhuang Realm's Dao Integration cultivators fighting them call them traitors, but even the cultivators who had no knowledge of their identities felt an overwhelming hatred spontaneously surge in their hearts the instant they laid eyes on them."
"During the battles, heavenly thunder even crashed down from the sky, striking specifically at those people."
"They seemed to be despised by the entire Xuanhuang Realm."
"'Departed and then returned'... 'traitors'..." Li Fan fell into deep thought at those words.
Synthesizing the scene Sima Changkong described with what he had witnessed in Senior Sister Zhao's illusion, Li Fan could not help forming some conjectures.
Back when calamities such as 'dharmas cannot be cultivated concurrently' and the immortal-mortal miasma struck all at once, the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao had originally planned to unite and weather the crisis together.
Yet the situation deteriorated far too quickly. The sects struggled just to look after themselves, let alone aid one another.
With the great disaster looming, each met a different fate.
Some completely vanished into the river of history because their disciples slaughtered one another.
Others sealed off their mountain gates, withdrawing from the world to eke out a meager survival.
Still others, like Nanming Demonic Beast Mountain and the Heavenly Sword Sect, chose simply to flee the Xuanhuang Realm altogether.
"Just as Di Yi said, individuals within a race each have their own choices. Without an absolute leader, acting with a single unified will is impossible."
"It only stands to reason that cultivators made their own choices."
"When those people fled, perhaps they took something away with them—so much so that even the Xuanhuang Realm itself came to harbor resentment against them."
"What remains unknown is why they departed only to return later. Still, being able to return safely despite the powerful gravitational pull of the Immortal Ruins means their strength is certainly nothing to scoff at."
Li Fan's thoughts gradually settled, and the gaze he turned toward Sima Changkong grew even more fervent.
Truly worthy of being a historian of the cultivation world.
Over the past millennium, most of the sealed and forgotten events in the Xuanhuang Realm's history could find answers here with Sima Changkong.
Ever since Li Fan returned from Tianling Province, he had taken shelter in Sima Changkong's seabed crystal cave dwelling to avoid the fallout of the war.
Relying on his avatar's prior familiarity with Sima Changkong, combined with Li Fan's own profound erudition and effortless grasp of countless esoteric secrets, he quickly won the man's favor.
The two drank and chatted merrily each day, speaking freely of the Xuanhuang Realm's past affairs in utter delight.
To ensure they would not be disturbed by outsiders and to pry more information from Sima Changkong, Li Fan even took the initiative to help him lay down concealment and defensive arrays around the crystal cave dwelling.
Seeing how warmhearted and eager to help he was, Sima Changkong felt all the more that Li Fan was a friend worth keeping.
Their relationship naturally grew increasingly harmonious.
"Peace is temporary, while war is history's eternal theme," Sima Changkong suddenly lamented after a long silence. He set down the wine cup he had already raised, his enthusiasm waning.
"Why does Fellow Daoist say that..." Li Fan suddenly realized. "Has the war between the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals and the Five Elders Association officially begun?"
Sima Changkong nodded with a heavy expression. "Who knows how many cultivators will perish on the battlefield."
"Such is the natural order of heaven and earth. We are not Longevity Heavenly Venerables, so how could we resist it? Drink, drink!" Li Fan took the initiative to pour another cup for Sima Changkong, offering consoling words.
"Fellow Daoist speaks the truth." Sima Changkong drained the cup in one gulp, swallowing the fine vintage along with his melancholy.
Li Fan then steered the conversation elsewhere.
...
Time slipped by, and in the blink of an eye, a year had passed.
The war between the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals and the Five Elders Association had reached a fever pitch, yet Li Fan had settled completely into Sima Changkong's residence, having not taken a single step outside for an entire year.
Chapter 560