Vigorous spiritual energy surged continuously into the body of the avatar, Li Qing.
Yet the flesh that should have healed swiftly was repeatedly torn and fractured anew even as it regenerated.
It was an agony akin to scraping bone and tearing away the soul.
Feeling the sheer pain transmitted from his avatar, even Li Fan could not help but frown slightly.
An exceedingly bizarre force seemed to linger around the wounds, preventing them from closing.
This power did not dissipate with the destruction of flesh; instead, like maggots gnawing at bone, it seeped steadily toward the cultivator's Dao Foundation.
Li Fan felt a premonition that if left unchecked, it was very likely that even the avatar's "wonder of Heaven" grotto-heaven would be corrupted.
"The Sky-Patrolling Arrows didn't seem this formidable before. It's almost as if they were designed specifically to target new method cultivators."
"Not only have their numbers multiplied several times over, but has their lethality been amplified as well...?"
Recalling the ever-increasing number of Sky-Patrolling Arrows filling the skies of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals, Li Fan felt a rare stirring of unease in his heart.
In his view, while these Sky-Patrolling Arrows were individual entities, there was no reason they couldn't form an enormous formation spanning the entirety of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals.
Using points to cover the whole expanse, weaving a colossal net that veiled the heavens.
Just like the Profound Net Li Fan had once encountered.
In a daze of contemplation, Li Fan activated the capabilities of the Terminal Dissociation Disc and began deducing.
After a few breaths, the Dissociation Disc's calculations confirmed the feasibility of his conjecture.
Li Fan then thought of the brand-new defensive formation his avatar had encountered on his return.
It was almost certain that the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals was brewing something huge lately. It was only a matter of when it would be unveiled to give the Five Elders Association a surprise.
"Perhaps this has something to do with Mo Rubin, who supplanted the Dharma Transmitter."
Li Fan narrowed his eyes, myriad thoughts flashing through his mind.
After a moment, he decided to set it aside for now.
The most pressing matter was healing his avatar first.
A Dao Foundation forged from a wonder of Heaven was hard-won. It would truly be a pity if it were ruined so easily.
While the avatar was away in the Five Elders Association, Li Fan had remained secluded in a secret cultivation chamber within the Spirit Wood Realm, painstakingly studying the Mending the Heavens Record.
Combined with the Heavenly Physician Immortal Scripture and various records gathered across multiple cycles of reincarnation,
Li Fan could now be said to have grasped the fundamentals of the Dao of Healing.
Furthermore, "grasping the fundamentals" was only in comparison to the Heavenly Physician.
Compared to ordinary healers commonly seen in the Xuanhuang Realm, Li Fan operated on a vastly superior level—a near-total overwhelming disparity.
After all, with the Heavenly Physician's lifelong insights serving as a theoretical foundation, becoming an incompetent physician would actually have been difficult.
"When the spirit suffers collapse, one must first weaken the soul, then mend through injury..."
Recalling the contents of the Mending the Heavens Record, Li Fan assumed a solemn expression.
He separated a wisp of divine soul force and enveloped it in pure spiritual energy, shaping it into several silver needles.
With a gentle flick of his sleeve, the silver needles pierced into the battered body of the avatar Li Qing and vanished within.
The avatar, who had been writhing and fighting the excruciating pain, instantly fell into a deep slumber.
He could no longer feel any pain, appearing as if he were already dead.
Holding his breath, Li Fan waited a moment, then commanded with a thought: "Swift!"
In an instant, the silver needles flew back out.
They lined up in a row before Li Fan.
The originally silver-white needles had turned completely dull and gray in that brief span.
It was as if some form of toxin had been drawn up through the needle tips.
Li Fan sensed his own divine soul power within the needles.
He discovered that upon contact with this grayish toxin, the soul power had seemed to be directly transformed and rapidly fell inert.
"Quite potent."
"However, compared to the 'illness' I previously saw on Han Zhong, it's still more than a notch weaker."
"After all, this grayish power merely extinguishes the divine soul. With my Limitless Waxing and Waning Method, even if my divine soul is depleted, it can be quickly replenished."
"That extra-realm illness, on the other hand, directly degrades the soul's upper limit."
With these thoughts in mind, Li Fan did not pause his movements.
Needle after needle flew into Li Qing's body, drawing out the continuously encroaching grayish power.
As the culprit was extracted, Li Qing's complexion gradually improved.
As for the drawn-out grayish power, Li Fan sealed and preserved it entirely with the Seven-Colored Divine Light for the time being.
Studying it later might yield pleasant surprises.
The treatment took a full stick of incense of time.
Only when he confirmed that the very last trace of grayish power had been expelled did Li Fan finally let out a long breath of relief.
"The Mending the Heavens Record is truly extraordinary. Just testing the waters was enough to neutralize a lethal weapon the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals is still experimenting with."
The principle behind this treatment was actually quite simple.
It was merely suppressing the vitality of avatar Li Qing's soul, then using silver needles to inject his own divine soul power as bait to draw out the noxious substance.
Of course, accomplishing this without inflicting soul damage on the patient required the physician to possess immense mastery over the soul.
Had the patient not been his own avatar—someone Li Fan knew inside and out—and had he not possessed the Limitless Waxing and Waning Method to endlessly replenish his soul, treating it would never have been so easy.
After a while, Li Qing slowly came to.
His first words were: "The Sky-Patrolling Arrow locking onto me wasn't bad luck. Something must have marked me when I broke through the defensive grand formation."
"That's why I was attacked by the Sky-Patrolling Arrow."
Li Fan nodded slightly. "I thought of that as well."
"That new formation indeed has some tricks. Although it didn't seem particularly difficult to crack, looking back, its flaws were exposed intentionally."
"Like bait. When a formation master follows the apparent flaws and seemingly breaks the formation, they actually trigger a covert marker."
"Using this marker in conjunction with the ubiquitous Sky-Patrolling Arrows currently across Alliance territory is enough to carry out an assassination after the fact."
"It seems Lu Xichan's return was of some use after all. A formation that appears defensive on the surface but is actually a trap—without genuine skill, one could never design such a thing," Li Fan said slowly.
Li Qing sighed as well. "Fortunately, my Dao Foundation was formed from a wonder of Heaven, melding my flesh and blood with the law of the sword. Even if blood was left behind, I don't fear being tracked. For ordinary cultivators, even if they survived the Sky-Patrolling Arrow, the Alliance could track them across thousands of miles using the blood left on the arrowhead."
"In any case, it's best to lie low for a while. The Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals has prepared so many trump cards; it looks like they're gearing up for a major move. We need only wait and see," Li Fan cautioned.
Li Qing nodded in agreement.
Then, tapping his glabella, a sliver of silver light containing the Profound Heaven Sect's cultivation techniques flew out from his mind.
Li Fan was exceedingly cautious and did not examine it directly with his true body.
Instead, as the avatar read through it, Li Fan recorded the contents piece by piece into his true body's mind via cognitive synchronization.
The sheer vastness of each Profound Heaven Sect technique far exceeded any of the cultivation methods currently existing in the Xuanhuang Realm.
Chapter 928