"You must be Lu Yang?" Immortal Ying Tian asked placidly.
"Senior Ying Tian, you know me too?" Lu Yang was flattered; he had not even introduced himself yet.
"I was watching from the heavens the whole time while you changed your name to fool the lightning tribulation just now."
"..."
"To think that you learned Defying Heaven to Change Fate while only in the Nascent Soul stage. Truly, the youth are formidable."
Lu Yang had no idea how to respond to that—whether he should play along with Immortal Ying Tian's words, or correct him and explain that what he had learned was merely Defying Heaven to Change Name.
Fortunately, the Immortal Fairy stepped in to rescue him.
"So after this fairy fell, what happened afterward?" the Immortal Fairy asked.
This thought of Immortal Ying Tian had lasted from ancient times to this day, so he surely knew more than Ao Ling and Lianyi did.
"From the moment the four of us learned that you would fall in the future, we took precautions through all kinds of methods. For instance, Suiyue frequently used the Suiyue Dao fruit to observe the future; my true body split me off and hid me within the lightning tribulation to monitor your movements; and Jiu Zhong, Qilin, and the others searched for the 'Sixth Immortal.'
"Just one day before your downfall, Immortal Suiyue observed your future once again, but what he saw was a future where nothing happened at all.
"Yet on the very day of your downfall, I watched you enter your cave dwelling. After about half an hour, your aura suddenly fluctuated violently, and then it abruptly vanished. Your physical body, soul, Dao fruit—everything disappeared, and all living beings forgot your existence."
The Immortal Fairy furrowed her brows. She had no recollection of this at all. It seemed her state back then had indeed been abnormal.
"My true body, along with Suiyue and the other two, sensed the anomaly with you and hurried to the North Star, sealing it off.
"Moreover, they soon discovered an unknown immortal in a corner of the North Star.
"No one knew how that immortal had made a move inside your cave dwelling, causing you to die so silently without leaving even a trace of battle, nor did anyone know how that immortal had slipped away right beneath my eyes.
"An earth-shattering immortal battle soon broke out. That immortal was powerful beyond our expectations, able to take on the four of us at once without being driven into a disadvantage.
"No, rather, only someone with that level of combat prowess could possibly have killed you.
"That immortal did not fight us to the bitter end, constantly fleeing throughout the battle—and in the end, he truly managed to get away.
"To prevent that immortal from escaping, the four of us refined the star into a continent and laid down the Four Immortals Seal at its bottom. Only if you, Immortal, were revived, combined with the power of the four of us, could that seal be broken."
This was done to force that immortal to revive the Immortal Fairy.
Evidently, that immortal did not buy into it, preferring to remain trapped in the box world rather than revive her.
"That immortal's refusal to revive you was within our expectations, so we chose our original method—the power of faith.
"Do you remember the Buddhism we fabricated? That was a research experiment on the power of faith.
"Although you did not pay much attention to Buddhism's affairs, Qing He took it very seriously. After all, Buddhism was full of stories about you.
"Qing He researched the power of faith thoroughly—even better than the four of us did.
"According to Qing He's view, the power of faith could coalesce into a physical body—that is, your body, Immortal.
"To gather the power of faith, my true body, Suiyue, and the others founded the Xinhuo Dynasty.
"Ten thousand years after the founding of the Xinhuo Dynasty, a genius was born to the Shi Huang clan. Taking the Insight Dao fruit as his foundation, he attained immortal Dao fruition and took the Daoist title 'Zuo Shi.' The world called him 'Immortal Zuo Shi.'
"The Insight Dao fruit possessed the power to perceive the past, present, future, and the entire cosmos. My true body had him observe the murder, but he saw nothing at all."
"Xiao Ling told me about this."
"Immortal, you have met Ao Ling? That saves some trouble then. She must have told you about the 'Heavenly Court' and the 'Netherworld'?
"Namely, shaping your immortal body through the faith of the Heavenly Court, calling upon the Immortal Dao fruit through the Netherworld faith system, or using the Netherworld faith system to coalesce a Reincarnation Dao fruit, using its power to reverse life and death and revive you."
"Wait a minute, you're saying the Netherworld system could coalesce a Reincarnation Dao fruit?" The Immortal Fairy interrupted Immortal Ying Tian; back then, Ao Ling had never mentioned this.
"Ao Ling didn't tell you? Oh, right. She entered slumber twenty thousand years after the founding of the Xinhuo Dynasty. At that time, the Netherworld had not yet been fully established, and the concept of the Reincarnation Dao fruit had not yet emerged, so it is only natural that she didn't know.
"It is just that in the end, the Netherworld did not coalesce a true Reincarnation Dao fruit either; what coalesced was a rudimentary Reincarnation Dao fruit."
Immortal Ying Tian shook his head and sighed, regretting his true body's decision to establish the Netherworld on its behalf. "And it was this rudimentary Reincarnation Dao fruit that caused a huge problem."
"It couldn't revive the dead?" the Immortal Fairy asked curiously.
Immortal Ying Tian continued to shake his head with a remorseful expression. "The rudimentary Reincarnation Dao fruit truly could revive the dead, and the one it revived truly was you.
"However, the one revived was not you during your immortal period, but you during your half-immortal period."
Lu Yang's pupils gradually constricted. He seemed to realize where Gray Doudou had come from.
The Immortal Fairy had two half-immortal periods: one was the half-immortal period with the rudimentary Extinction Dao fruit, and the other was the half-immortal period with the rudimentary Immortal Dao fruit.
"The one you revived was Gray Doudou?!"
Immortal Ying Tian gave Lu Yang a baffled look. "Who is Gray Doudou?"
Immortal Ying Tian still did not know the Immortal Fairy's real name.
"Nothing, Senior Ying Tian. Please continue."
"Didn't you achieve half-immortal status using the rudimentary Extinction Dao fruit back then? Later, Suiyue advised you that becoming an immortal that way would not make you the strongest, and that it would be best to return to simplicity and attain immortality through the way of nature.
"You severed yourself with a single strike, stripping away and slaying the version of yourself that possessed the rudimentary Extinction Dao fruit. Afterward, you returned to the Tribulation Transcendence stage and coalesced a rudimentary Dao fruit anew.
"What the Netherworld revived was the you that you had once slain—the one possessing the rudimentary Extinction Dao fruit!"
Lu Yang roughly understood where Gray Doudou had come from, but there were still some things he had not figured out. He raised his hand cautiously. "May I chime in and ask a question?"
"Ask away."
Toward the little cultivator who had revived the Immortal Fairy, Immortal Ying Tian's attitude was very friendly.
"That fairy who possessed the rudimentary Extinction Dao fruit—she was the Lord of the Heavenly Court of the Xinhuo Dynasty, right?" Lu Yang first confirmed whether the two were the same person.
"Yes."
"We met this person in the East Sea. Her personality, how should I put it... isn't quite like the fairy's now. She was icy cold. Did something go wrong during the revival?"
From their brief contact in the East Sea, that Gray Doudou was decisive, calm, collected, and ruthlessly cold, completely unlike the current Immortal Fairy.
Immortal Ying Tian did not quite understand what Lu Yang meant.
"Isn't it completely normal for her to be icy cold?"
"That's just how she used to be."
"Huh?"
Chapter 968