"A golden chain tearing through the void?" Tianyang was momentarily taken aback, but caught on a moment later. "It seems there was indeed such a scene. But I didn't quite understand what it meant, so I didn't pay it much mind."
Tianyang placed far more importance on applying the spatial powers contained within the Yellow Springs spirit bodies. Li Fan, who knew little about spatial abilities to begin with, focused his attention entirely on those ancient secrets.
Like blind men feeling an elephant, each perceived something different.
Li Fan turned his gaze back to the waters of the Yellow Springs before him.
"This great river could be considered the creation river of the Hunyin Realm. But the cycle of life, death, and samsara has already collapsed. No matter how much mighty power is concentrated within it, this continuous generation of spirit bodies is doomed to run it dry one day."
"The Yellow Springs drying up, trillions of spirit bodies drifting out..."
"Under normal circumstances, that process might take thousands or tens of thousands of years. For it to happen early in the 115th life, it is very likely that the three-eyed skull was brought into the Yellow Springs for some reason."
"To revive itself, that skull must have drained every bit of power from the Yellow Springs."
Between the knowledge from his previous life and his firsthand investigation in this one, Li Fan deduced the probable truth behind what had occurred in this most remote affiliated pocket world of Xuanhuang.
After pondering for a long while, Li Fan left the endlessly flowing waters of the Yellow Springs untouched.
Before departing with Tianyang, Li Fan thought quietly to himself, *If an attempt is made to escape the Xuanhuang Realm in this life, perhaps this Hunyin Realm will be an ideal testing ground.*
Passing through the lengthy spatial corridor and traveling for nearly another month, Li Fan and Tianyang finally returned to the Xuanhuang Realm.
Half a year had elapsed, and the flames of war between the Five Elders Association and the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals had been ignited completely.
Yet even Li Fan had not expected that the one to take the initiative in stirring up conflict would be the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals, which had previously remained at a disadvantage.
With a single strike, they caught the Five Elders Association entirely off guard and even reclaimed all the lost territory of Jiushan Province in one fell swoop!
The fortifications that the Five Elders Association had spent immense effort constructing across the nine mountain ranges were reduced to a complete laughingstock!
Despite securing such an astounding victory, the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals uncharacteristically refrained from making grand public fanfare of it.
The populace of the Alliance only knew that continuous reports of victory kept pouring in from the front lines, but as to how the Alliance had achieved such an unbelievable triumph, theories abounded without any solid conclusion.
Everyone merely speculated that it might be connected to the earlier Thirty-Three Immortal Chosen program.
During this half year, the clone Ji Shaoli presiding over Haixuan Island had also visited the fishing pond by the small temple, attempting to learn the truth of that battle from Senior Stone Slab.
However, the senior seemed utterly immersed in comprehending the Dao of "fishing" and paid him no heed whatsoever.
Moreover, due to the defeat on the front lines, the Five Elders Association appeared to have grown somewhat distrustful of the Myriad Realms Association.
Several proactive attempts to establish contact and understand the inside story of the war went completely unanswered.
Ji Shaoli had no choice but to set the matter aside for the time being.
Meanwhile, Lin Ling had gradually grown close to Liuli over this period.
Although Lin Ling possessed Dao Integration cultivation, she had been born not long ago and still possessed the temperament of a child, never putting on the airs of a senior. She took the initiative to play with Liuli every time.
Little by little, she caused this little Dao child—who appeared adorably dazed on the outside but was actually quite shrewd—to let down her guard.
And after she spent every day keeping company with Liuli, when Li Fan saw Lin Ling again, he keenly noticed something new.
This naturally born spirit, who had previously been somewhat naive and ignorant, seemed to have "woken up" a bit.
Or rather, she had become more "human."
Li Fan looked at the little Dao child hiding behind Lin Ling, lost in thought.
He did not pay her any mind for the moment, however, merely instructing Lin Ling, "Come with me to the border of Jiushan Province."
In the past, Lin Ling certainly would have agreed with a nod without asking a single thing.
This time, however, a flicker of doubt crossed Lin Ling's eyes, and she hesitated as if wanting to speak.
Li Fan's eyes flickered, but he still explained simply, "I was away for half a year and made some new discoveries. They may be of some help to the Five Elders Association's current situation."
Only then did Lin Ling bid farewell to Liuli.
She then guided Li Fan, traveling through the surging earth veins.
Before long, the two arrived at a remote spot in Jiushan Province.
After first scouting around to confirm there were no cultivators lying in ambush, they quietly emerged from underground.
Sweeping his divine sense across the surroundings and beholding this both familiar and thoroughly foreign "Jiushan Province," Li Fan and Lin Ling were both dazed for a brief moment.
"I'm afraid Jiushan Province will have to change its name from now on," Li Fan sighed softly after recovering his senses.
Across the expanse of Jiushan Province, the nine majestic mountain ranges that had once stretched across the land had been completely sheared away by some unknown might.
What had originally been a province of treacherous, towering terrain had abruptly turned into a vast, flat plain.
However, this territory, formed from the corpse of the strange beast Tian, had inherently unstable space to begin with.
Having now suffered such an earth-shattering battle, this instability had grown increasingly pronounced.
Across the sky, black spatial rifts could be seen everywhere, flickering into existence and vanishing incessantly like bolts of lightning.
*Once Tianyang completes his closed-door cultivation and finishes his comprehension, perhaps I can bring him here to look around,* the thought crossed Li Fan's mind unbidden.
"Master, there seems to be some terrifying aura lingering here."
Lin Ling's focus differed from Li Fan's.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and spoke with lingering trepidation.
"To strike dread into even a Dao Integration cultivator, this is definitely power at the Longevity realm. Add to that this horrifying scene of the nine mountains flattened to the ground..."
"Could Chuanfa have intervened?"
Yet Li Fan quickly dismissed that suspicion.
"As long as it doesn't concern the safety of the Xuanhuang Realm itself, Chuanfa should remain indifferent to a dispute at this level."
"Yet other than Chuanfa, what other Longevity realm combatant does the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals possess?"
"Dongji, who exists only in the records of ancient texts? Or Di Sanmo, curator of the Museum of Divine Archives?"
Li Fan then thought back to the rumors circulating among the Alliance populace.
"Could it really be that Thirty-Three Immortal Chosen program?"
Li Fan narrowed his eyes.
To Wei Qizheng, one of the Immortal Chosen, Li Fan had once gifted a sliced-off fragment of the Terminal Dissociation Disc.
Although it lacked the function for real-time communication, it could record in meticulous detail nearly everything Wei Qizheng experienced.
The moment he met Wei Qizheng again, or the instant Wei Qizheng perished and the Dissociation Disc was destroyed, all the preserved information would be synchronized to Li Fan.
Though curious about the methods of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals, Li Fan knew it was not yet time to reap the harvest.
The longer this nail remained buried, the more hidden secrets he would come to know.
"I shall wait a while longer."
Suppressing the thought, Li Fan first triggered the special fluctuations used to establish contact with the Five Elders Association.
He waited for a long time, but still no one replied.
Yet Li Fan did not give up.
He triggered the pulse repeatedly, one after another.
After repeating this a full seven times, a faint response finally arrived from a certain location in Jiushan Province.
When Li Fan made his way there, he found that what was echoing the fluctuations was merely a stone as smooth as a mirror.
Chapter 874