"Hmph, keeping secrets from me..." Fang Zaiji muttered under his breath as he followed Li Fan into the spatial passage.
"Hiss!"
Dizziness blurred his vision. The moment he stepped into this pocket world, Fang Zaiji saw dozens of green-winged flying serpents baring their fangs and lunging at him.
"Even you beasts dare cross me?!" Fang Zaiji's face darkened with fury. With a violent sweep of his wide sleeve, the space ahead trembled, and the ferocious strange beasts instantly disintegrated into dust, leaving not even bones behind.
The entrance happened to be at the bottom of a deep ravine. Amid swirling mists, faint traces of leaking spiritual energy could be detected. The commotion of Li Fan and Fang Zaiji barging in drew countless strange beasts from above.
Like rolling waves, they surged forward relentlessly, showing no fear of death.
"Sir, please protect me while I work," Li Fan said with a smile. Although these strange beasts were numerous, the strongest among them was merely at the Foundation Establishment stage. Before Fang Zaiji, who was in the Dao Integration realm, they posed no threat whatsoever. Li Fan then produced another Star-Stealing Constellation-Shifting Slip and pressed it over the entrance of the passage.
Before long, having completed the transcription of this spatial node, Li Fan passed the Star-Stealing Constellation-Shifting Slip back into the hands of Liu San, who was waiting in the Valley of Longevity.
"Young Master, constructing the spatial passage will take around thirty-some days. Will you return first, or...?" Liu San's voice drifted faintly through the portal.
"No rush. Mister Fang and I will scout the area first to see what is here. With him around, Elder Liu, you need not worry about my safety," Li Fan replied.
"Hmph, it's precisely because you're with him that I can't rest easy."
"What did you say?!" Fang Zaiji, who was busy clearing away the beasts, whipped his head around upon hearing this.
Just as he was about to argue with Liu San, he discovered that the connection had already been severed. Frustrated and annoyed, Fang Zaiji had no choice but to vent his rage upon these reckless strange beasts.
Before long, these strange beasts, who had reproduced in the deep ravine for heaven knows how long, were almost entirely wiped out.
Flying out from the bottom of the ravine, they arrived above a desolate plain. Li Fan took a deep breath and closed his eyes to sense his surroundings. The Feather of the Profound Bird within his body emitted a dark, eerie luster. In an instant, Li Fan detected the drifting heavenly fortune omnipresent in this pocket world.
Like a mighty whale gulping down water, or fallen leaves returning to their roots, the drifting heavenly fortune spanning several hundred li surged into Li Fan's body of its own accord with almost no effort on his part.
Or rather, returning into the Feather of the Profound Bird.
As he absorbed more and more heavenly fortune, a sensation welled up in Li Fan's heart. With a gentle point of his finger and a slight shift of intent, the earth split open with a tremendous roar, tearing a colossal fissure across the ground.
Countless plants and strange beasts were swallowed into the rift, while the survivors let out terrified low growls. No longer paying any mind to the foreign intruder who had barged in, they fled for their lives.
Watching the retreating figures of the beasts, Li Fan let his thoughts shift, and violent, ominous winds suddenly whipped up between heaven and earth.
Swirling sand and flying pebbles rose in a tempest, howling as it swept the beasts into the sky before dumping them back where they had started.
The strange beasts, low in intelligence to begin with, were frightened into trembling fits by such bizarre turns of events and collapsed limply onto the ground.
Li Fan then withdrew his divine ability.
"My fortune is heavenly fortune; my destiny is heavenly destiny. In every word and deed lies the majesty of heaven and earth."
"Marvelous!" Li Fan marveled inwardly.
"Sect Master, was that your doing just now?" Fang Zaiji looked at Li Fan in shock.
After all, even with his Dao Integration cultivation, he could hardly split the earth or summon such gale-force winds with such effortless ease.
Li Fan merely smiled without answering.
Over the following period, escorted by Fang Zaiji, Li Fan gathered the drifting heavenly fortune of this pocket world while advancing toward the deepest reaches of the wilderness.
Judging by the faint, elusive guidance from the Feather of the Profound Bird inside him, Xiao Hei's remains ought to be there.
During this process, Li Fan discovered an intriguing phenomenon.
The closer they got to Xiao Hei's remains, the fewer human physical traits the various strange beasts exhibited—and the stronger they were.
"The strange beast species in this pocket world belong to the 'beast seed' branch, which fused humans and strange beasts. Yet after thousands of years and countless generations of reproduction, the beast bloodline was not diluted; rather, an atavistic regression seems to have occurred."
"Fascinating."
As Fang Zaiji cleared a path forward, Li Fan also noticed that some strange beasts had actually mastered various 'spells' that utilized drifting heavenly fortune in combat.
This slightly impeded Li Fan's rate of absorbing heavenly fortune. But it was merely a minor nuisance.
Whatever divine abilities or strange arts these beasts possessed, in the face of an absolute disparity in power, all were futile and thoroughly crushed.
Fang Zaiji steamrolled their way through, while Li Fan trailed behind him, leisurely reaping the spoils.
"Hold back a little, Mister Fang, and leave some alive. This place would make a fine ranch for our Medicine King Sect in the future," Li Fan instructed as he turned a blue crystal core over in his hand, inspecting it closely.
"Whatever you say, Sect Master." Prolonged slaughter had left Fang Zaiji rather impatient. Now that Li Fan had spoken, he had a legitimate excuse to slack off, so he agreed without hesitation.
This blue crystal core was something Li Fan had recovered from the carcass of a dead strange beast at the Golden Core stage.
It was identical to the strange beast crystal cores that Li Chenfeng had described as the foundation of cultivation for cultivators in the Empire.
Li Fan crushed the crystal core, and energy as scalding as boiling water surged forth immediately. After drawing it into his body, Li Fan discovered that a portion of this scorching, unknown energy transformed into spiritual energy, coursing through his meridians. Another small portion dispersed in specks throughout his physical body, strengthening the toughness of his flesh and blood.
"Not bad. Good stuff," Li Fan mused.
By this time, Fang Zaiji had noticed Li Fan's actions as well. He casually slaughtered a strange beast, extracted its crystal core, and absorbed it.
"Interesting. Back in our day, cultivators couldn't absorb these demon cores. Who would have thought that thousands of years later, our kind could actually make use of them!" After a moment, Fang Zaiji remarked with feeling.
"The heavens and earth have changed over these millennia!" Li Fan chimed in with a smile.
"Perhaps this is precisely the result of bloodline fusion between demon beasts and humans over thousands of years," Li Fan thought to himself, recalling those beast seeds that bore an extreme resemblance to humans.
Continuing onward, a three-legged black tower loomed on the distant earth. Atop the tower, a giant black bird seemed to stand alone, spreading its wings.
"It really is him." A sharp glint flashed in Li Fan's eyes. The black bird's appearance was utterly identical to the Xiao Hei he had seen in the Fallen Immortal Realm.
Seeming to realize that Fang Zaiji's might was unstoppable, no strange beasts came to obstruct them once they reached this area.
All Li Fan saw was tens of thousands of strange beasts kneeling beneath the three-legged black tower, kowtowing and pleading toward the black bird.
Chapter 665