"If you want to pry into my secrets, you had better be mentally prepared to pay a horrific price."
Setting aside that "As Me" ability, which caught anyone encountering it for the first time completely off guard, Dharma Transmitter Jiang's actual combat prowess was not as formidable as Li Fan had imagined.
At the very least, without even resorting to his many remaining hidden cards, Li Fan had easily shattered him relying solely on the collective divine thoughts of those million gods and demons!
"Even if he isn't dead, he is heavily wounded!"
Even more critical was the speck of gray mold sent into his opponent's divine thoughts!
That small, divided patch of mold—cultivated by Li Fan using the flesh and blood of strange beasts and sealed with the Seven-Colored Divine Light—had finally been deployed by him as a world-ending weapon.
Indeed, earlier Li Fan truly had fallen into the trap without realizing it!
He had genuinely regarded himself as that Dharma Transmitter.
Fortunately, he had always favored speaking evasively, veiling his words in clouds and mist. Thus, while being drawn into revealing information, he had indeed exposed many of his secrets—
—yet not overly so.
He had exposed the fact that he was in the Spirit Wood Realm. However, "Spirit Wood Realm" was merely a name Li Fan had coined for this pocket world, unknown to the outside world.
Countless pocket worlds surrounded Xuanhuang; which one was the Spirit Wood Realm?
As for the million gods and demons, though brought forth through cultivating the Bright Spirit Method of Three Disasters and a Hundred Tribulations deduced by the Yanfa Jade, that was merely a superficial variation. Its fundamental archetype remained the Record of the Three Perils, Ghosts, Gods, and the Netherworld. Calling it a Profound Heaven secret art and an inheritance from the Immortal Realm was not incorrect.
He had exposed the fact that Mo Rubin had infiltrated the high ranks of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals, but the other party only knew the name Mo Rubin.
As for who Mo Rubin was...
In any case, with so many people at the Alliance headquarters, they could guess one by one.
He had exposed his knowledge of the Immortal "Hunger" dwelling within the Immortal Ruins, and that he possessed the power to drag the Xuanhuang Realm down into the grave with him...
This was actually not a bad thing. On the contrary, it served as an invisible deterrent.
What was truly fatal was that Li Fan had exposed the existence of True Reversion.
This was precisely why, the moment Li Fan snapped awake, he immediately unleashed the long-sealed gray mold in retaliation.
As for why he had not immediately executed a True Reversion...
Li Fan carefully replayed Jiang's reaction at that moment.
"He was mostly puzzled, showing no shock or pleasant surprise."
"He only knows I possess 'True Reversion,' not what it actually does."
"Of course, I cannot rule out the possibility that he might realize its significance in the near future."
"Provided he manages to stay alive."
Li Fan pondered for a long while before deciding to wait and see how matters unfolded in the Xuanhuang Realm.
After all, his mind was now united with the heaven and earth of the Spirit Wood Realm. Even if a formidable enemy truly came knocking, he would have ample time to initiate True Reversion at his leisure.
"As for those million thought god-demons, I truly cannot keep them."
Facing this immensely powerful force, Li Fan did not hesitate in the slightest and issued the recall order.
From the countless god-demons across his sea of consciousness, silver threads flew out one after another. They represented the conscious intent and energy used to govern and control these entities.
Once Li Fan drew them out, all that remained were empty husks.
Though they still possessed combat prowess roughly on par with Soul Formation, they were devoid of consciousness, operating purely on instinct, and no longer bore Li Fan's commands to expand and multiply.
For the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals to suppress them would still require considerable effort, but the price to pay would no longer be nearly as steep.
At the final moment, Li Fan informed Mo Rubin of his decision.
Then, he severed all connections with these god-demons once and for all.
"Using the seas of consciousness of a million cultivators as an incubator, the strength of my divine sense has actually nearly doubled in such a short time."
After inspecting himself upon reclaiming the conscious energy, Li Fan could not help but marvel softly.
"Truly a supreme method, though a pity it cannot be used often."
"Next, let me see how the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals responds to the surviving god-demons and that lethal gray mold."
"I hope they can hold out for a few more years."
Li Fan remained seated motionlessly in the Spirit Wood Realm, closely monitoring the developments in the Xuanhuang Realm through the believers of the Compassionate True Immortal of the Mortal Realm.
***
Alliance headquarters, the Guixu Realm.
Dharma Transmitter Jiang, who had been crushed by Li Fan, manifested his form once more.
His appearance at this moment was drastically different from his earlier youthful look.
Across his face ran fissure after fissure, like parched, cracked earth.
His hair had turned completely grizzled and white.
Even more horrifying, portions of his flesh had grown indistinct and blurred.
Squirming and writhing, they simply vanished from the world into thin air.
Even though he fought with all his might to endure, Dharma Transmitter Jiang was left practically riddled with gaping wounds.
Yet Dharma Transmitter Jiang sought no help from the other Dharma Transmitters.
For he knew that the gray mold causing all of this was extraordinarily virulent and infectious.
Were he not acting as a living cage, barely containing it with the full extent of his power, and were this not the Guixu Realm, where absolute nothingness surrounded him with no one else around—meaning the gray mold had no medium through which to spread...
...then by now, the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals, and perhaps the entire Xuanhuang Realm, would have already been plunged into catastrophic devastation.
As his life drew near its end, for some reason not a trace of fear appeared on Dharma Transmitter Jiang's face.
He remained exceedingly calm as he analyzed, "Immortal seal script, with a structure remarkably similar to that 'Chaos' formula. They should share the same origin and lineage..."
"Could the ancient catastrophe have been related to the Profound Heaven Sect? That shouldn't be possible..."
Too many questions and doubts lingered on Dharma Transmitter Jiang's face.
Not long after, Dharma Transmitter Jiang was finally devoured entirely by the gray mold.
All that remained was a large, writhing, grayish-yellow shadow, striving to expand into its surroundings.
Yet in the Guixu Realm, there was only absolute void.
Thus, the gray mold remained trapped within this tiny domain.
Unable to advance.
An unknown amount of time passed.
A formidable pulse swept across the Guixu Realm at a constant speed.
As if sensing something, the gray mold churned like boiling water.
Then, it surged rapidly outward in all directions.
It was as though a colossal sheet of grayish-yellow paper had formed, seeking to claim the entire Guixu Realm.
Yet a bizarre anomaly occurred.
Wherever that pulse swept past, the gray mold of unknown origin—which seemed capable of destroying an entire cultivation world and struck profound dread even into Li Fan—vanished inch by inch in an instant!
The Guixu Realm accordingly returned to its prior state of pure nothingness.
No...
Aside from absolute void, another presence remained in the Guixu Realm.
Without any warning, Dharma Transmitter Jiang, who ought to have been dead, reappeared once again within the Guixu Realm!
Dharma Transmitter Jiang seemed completely unfazed by his resurrection from the dead.
He merely looked around, a faint trace of surprise appearing on his face. "This Reversion to Origin... left no information behind at all?"
"Just what did I encounter?"
"Could it even contaminate information itself?"
As Dharma Transmitter Jiang murmured to himself, the many events currently and previously recorded within the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals all surfaced in his mind.
"Failed to hunt down the culprit and got killed instead."
"Fascinating."
Chapter 971