This stone was quite similar to the tool Li Fan had previously seen Zhou Qing'ang use to contact his superiors.
Li Fan pondered for a moment, then placed both hands over it.
Channeling the Five Elders Association's secret art from his memory, he activated it.
It worked indeed. As ripples spread across the stone's surface, a blurred human face appeared upon it.
After discerning the situation on this end, the other side was momentarily stunned.
Then the image shifted, seemingly switching to a different contact.
The newcomer glanced at Li Fan, and after a moment, snorted coldly. "You even know the reception art we changed not long ago..."
"It seems your Myriad Realms Association has indeed planted spies among us."
Li Fan smiled. "Nothing of the sort. I merely gave it a shot on a whim; it was just a coincidence."
A loud bang echoed from the other end, the speaker clearly furious at Li Fan's attitude.
Yet he did not cut off the transmission, asking instead, "Why are you contacting us this time?"
"Last time, we were utterly screwed over by you lot. Babbling about some world-suppressing supreme artifact, the Sky-Splitting Cannon."
"We prepared a whole set of countermeasures, planning to achieve victory by springing a surprise attack. Who would have thought..."
"Hmph! Because of your faulty intelligence, we misjudged our strategic direction. We suffered catastrophic losses!"
The face on the stone's mirror-like surface suddenly swelled, appearing somewhat sinister in tandem with his tone.
Li Fan narrowed his eyes and did not answer immediately.
After thinking for a moment, he shook his head and sighed. "It wasn't that I deliberately provided false intelligence. The Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals put on an act so convincing that even we were fooled."
"Who could have imagined that a world-suppressing supreme artifact of such immense power would turn out to be nothing more than a smokescreen?"
"Then again, you're hardly blameless either, are you?"
Li Fan suddenly shifted tone. "How could the dignified Five Elders Association establish a major strategic direction based solely on our words?"
"You must have uncovered supporting clues yourselves before finally settling on it."
"If even you fell into it, how could we have avoided it? One can only say that the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals played their hand brilliantly."
The face from the Five Elders Association darkened.
"We originally thought the heavily publicized Thirty-Three Immortal Chosen program was merely a front on the surface, and that the real killing move was concealed in the dark. Who could have thought the Alliance would be so arrogant as to hide nothing at all?"
"To lay their trump card bare in plain sight..."
The face's tone brimmed with the frustration of gathering all one's strength only to punch empty air.
Li Fan seized the opportunity to ask, "What exactly happened on the battlefield of Jiushan Province?"
"You were defeated far too quickly. When we received word, we had to come to the scene in person to confirm it before we dared believe it was true."
The Five Elders Association's face turned grim, keeping his mouth shut.
Seeing this, Li Fan played his trump card directly.
"Immortal Venerable Ziqiong, at the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals' Martial Practice Hall headquarters—he is actually your man, isn't he?"
The face froze instantly.
Evidently, his rank was not high enough to be privy to such matters.
"Go confirm with your superiors. This person..."
"Has problems. He cannot be fully trusted," Li Fan said with a solemn expression.
The face lost all its previous composure, hastily withdrawing and vanishing.
Li Fan waited calmly, composed and relaxed.
Beside him, Lin Ling quietly observed Li Fan, unable to suppress the curiosity in her eyes.
The Five Elders Association responded swiftly.
Before long, a figure reemerged on the smooth stone surface.
"My friend, what you said earlier..."
"What did you mean by saying Immortal Venerable Ziqiong cannot be fully trusted?"
The speaker was no longer the previous individual, sounding instead like an older man brimming with vitality.
"If our intelligence is correct, Immortal Venerable Ziqiong is a 'fixated cultivator.' His true loyalty lies neither with your Five Elders Association nor with the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals."
"It lies solely with the Dharma-Transmitting Heavenly Venerable alone," Li Fan said in a low voice.
"At times, his intelligence is genuine. But under certain circumstances..."
"I fear truth is mixed with falsehood, making it impossible to tell them apart," Li Fan remarked meaningfully.
Though the explanation was delivered with intentional vagueness, the other end of the line fell into a long, heavy silence.
"So that's how it is..." From the man's murmur, it was not difficult to hear how profoundly shaken he was.
After all, Immortal Venerable Ziqiong was the Five Elders Association's deepest and most vital spy.
Much critical intelligence had come from him.
This was an absolute secret. Within the Five Elders Association, only a mere handful had known about it.
Yet this cultivator from the Myriad Realms Association before him already knew Ziqiong's true identity.
Coupled with their recent catastrophic defeat caused by intelligence errors...
The implications plunged the middle-aged man into chilling dread.
Yet his fortitude was extraordinary after all, and he swiftly recovered.
Taking a deep breath, he offered Li Fan his thanks: "We will thoroughly investigate this matter. Many thanks for the warning, my friend."
Li Fan cut straight to the chase: "We need to know what actually happened in Jiushan Province back then. Also due to a misjudgment, our attention was not on the Jiushan battlefield at the time."
"Although we gathered some information from within the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals, it was too shocking, so we need to verify it with you."
"Actually, after a bit more time, He would have been able to appear regularly... I will transmit the imagery of what happened back then to you. See for yourself." Seemingly eager to verify the truth of Li Fan's disclosure, the middle-aged man took his leave after sending across a packet of information.
The smooth broken stone fractured on its own, rendering it permanently unusable.
Meanwhile, Li Fan watched the scenes unfolding in his mind, his soul shaken to its core.
Beneath the clear, azure expanse of Jiushan Province's sky, where light clouds drifted lazily,
a face suddenly emerged.
He wore a tall crown and had a long beard.
His expression was solemn, his eyes downcast.
He seemed to hold compassion for all living beings, yet harbored boundless baleful aura beneath.
No cultivator of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals would find this face unfamiliar.
For in the Heavenly City of every province, and even throughout every corner of the Alliance's territory,
statues of this existence could be seen from time to time.
He was the creator of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals, the pioneer of the new method defying the principles of Heaven and Earth, and the one who had reigned supreme over Xuanhuang for millennia—the Dharma-Transmitting Heavenly Venerable!
Following the emergence of Chuanfa's face, an ethereal, semi-translucent body swiftly materialized across the sky.
By now, the Five Elders Association cultivators within Jiushan Province had noticed the anomaly in the heavens.
They mobilized rapidly, bracing themselves in full battle array.
But the Dharma-Transmitting Heavenly Venerable gave them little time to prepare before striking.
Chuanfa, whose eyes had remained downcast and closed, suddenly opened them.
Immediately, an unimaginably terrifying colossal force descended upon Jiushan Province.
Countless cultivators were crushed into pulp before they could even scream, blood washing the earth.
Under this immense pressure, the nine mountain ranges rumbled ceaselessly.
The massifs collapsed, fracturing stratum after stratum.
From top to bottom, they disintegrated continuously.
As long as Chuanfa did not look away, the terrifying pressure bearing down on Jiushan Province did not cease.
Inch by inch, the nine mountain ranges were leveled to the ground.
Chapter 875