Chapter 1116: Still in front of the immortal

Chapter 1: Jiushan State

“What a great day this is,” Zhao Xian exclaimed, his laughter echoing cheerfully as he signed his name on the golden contract before him. A wisp of golden light flew into his body, signifying the contract's establishment.

The Five Elders Association delegation in the shop put away the contract, their faces alight with joy as they echoed his sentiments.

For the rest of the day, Zhao Xian engaged in more detailed negotiations with the Five Elders Association regarding the trade agreement. It wasn't until he had seen them off to their guest residences within the city that he finally let out a long sigh of relief.

Instead of returning to his own residence, he turned back to his shop and entered the underground secret chamber. Gazing at the faceless stone statue hidden in the darkness, Zhao Xian's expression was complex, his mind racing with a myriad of thoughts.

Ever since the Myriad Realms Alliance was eradicated by the Myriad Immortals Alliance and placed on their permanent hunt list, Zhao Xian, as the Alliance's covert agent in Jiushan State, had lived in constant fear. Every day, his mind was restless, and he often experienced hallucinations of the Myriad Immortals Alliance coming to his door and suddenly arresting him.

Without the Alliance supplying goods, his shop's inventory had been severely affected. Customer traffic declined daily, and the business was on the verge of collapse. He had to plead and beg everywhere, exhausting all his accumulated savings over the years, just to barely rebuild his supply chain.

"Fortunately, it's all over now," Zhao Xian mused. The turmoil surrounding the Alliance had subsided. Even during the Myriad Immortals Alliance's most rigorous hunts, they had failed to uncover Zhao Xian's true identity. There should be no further danger in the future.

After years of meticulous management, his shop's business was back on track. Recently, he had even secured a trade agreement with a merchant caravan from the Five Elders Association. The fixed annual value of the traded goods alone amounted to tens of millions of contribution points.

"Though I no longer receive True Immortal rewards, the shop's profits alone are enough to support my cultivation all the way to the Soul Transformation stage," he thought. "With the Alliance gone, I don't have to surrender profits; they all go into my own pocket. My life is even more comfortable than before..." Zhao Xian reflected with a hint of satisfaction. "Indeed, misfortune and fortune are intertwined; the world is full of impermanence."

After a final glance at the faceless stone statue, Zhao Xian decided to permanently seal this underground chamber. From now on, no one would ever know the secret of his past as a member of the Myriad Realms Alliance.

"The True Immortal is merciful; I believe he won't blame me," Zhao Xian humbly offered a final bow before sealing the chamber shut.

After completing all this, Zhao Xian felt immense relief, as if reborn. However, on his way back to his residence, as he gazed at the azure sky of the Xuanhuang Realm, an inexplicable unease suddenly welled up within him.

Zhao Xian had always trusted his instincts, so he immediately paused. He carefully reflected on every detail of his recent life, but after much thought, Zhao Xian found nothing amiss. "Strange..."

The unsettling feeling intensified, and Zhao Xian suddenly felt a premonition, turning his gaze towards the people around him. What he saw made cold sweat instantly trickle down his back. It wasn't just him.

In Jiushan State's Free Trade City, all the cultivators strolling the streets seemed to faintly sense that something was wrong. Their minds were in turmoil, and their expressions were tense. Some even had cold sweat beading on their foreheads, their steps faltering.

"This..." Zhao Xian's mind suddenly conjured the image of ants relocating en masse before a heavy rain. "Could a great catastrophe be about to strike?"

Zhao Xian inexplicably recalled the origin of Jiushan Trade State. Originally, this place was a chaotic region, a mix of good and bad, with nine mountains standing side by side. During a conflict between the Myriad Immortals Alliance and the Five Elders Association, the Heavenly Venerate's Dharma Idol transformed the mountains into plains with a single glance. This was how the prosperous Jiushan State came to be.

"Could what happened that day be about to repeat itself?" The thought sent a shiver down Zhao Xian's spine. Although logic told him that neither the Myriad Immortals Alliance nor the Five Elders Association would resume hostilities in Jiushan State, given their mutual interests, the current strange phenomenon made him certain that a disaster was imminent!

"Escape!"

In just a few moments, Zhao Xian made his decision. Yes, he loved wealth. He also wished to become a Soul Transformation cultivator, capable of dominating a region. But all of this was contingent on preserving his own life. With the skills he had honed over his years in Jiushan State, even if he were to lose everything and start from scratch, he could rise again elsewhere. Furthermore, the most valuable items in his shop were always kept personally by Zhao Xian.

With this thought, Zhao Xian immediately changed direction, disregarding the city's prohibitions, and swiftly flew towards the border of Jiushan State. His unusual behavior naturally attracted the attention of cultivators within Jiushan City. As if triggering a chain reaction, they, too, began to flee without apparent reason, like wild beasts instinctively struggling after sensing a life-or-death crisis.

And indeed, these cultivators' premonitions proved correct. They hadn't fled far when a terrifying wave descended from behind them. The sky instantly turned dark. Countless cultivators were swallowed by an unknown, terrifying presence before they could even let out a scream.

Feeling the instantaneous disappearance of thousands of auras behind him, extreme terror seized his mind. At that moment, his mind raced with unprecedented speed. "Some terrible catastrophe must have descended upon Jiushan State," he thought. "My strength is clearly insufficient to survive this disaster. There's still a long way to go to the Jiushan State border; there isn't enough time to reach a safe place. Jiushan State lacks teleportation arrays because its spatial structure is extremely unstable. Activating a teleportation array here arbitrarily wouldn't lead to the intended destination; instead, it would randomly send me elsewhere, or even cause me to get lost in the void... But there's still a glimmer of hope for survival..."

Zhao Xian's thoughts spun rapidly, and his body instinctively reacted. He immediately activated the random teleportation array diagram within his storage ring. The surrounding scenery twisted and blurred.

After a brief dizziness, Zhao Xian had escaped Jiushan State and arrived in an unfamiliar place. But the scene before his eyes offered no joy of escaping death. Instead, it plunged him into an icy abyss, leaving his mind blank.

He seemed to be floating high above, looking down upon the Xuanhuang Realm. Across the land, thousands of black spots had appeared, like dark abysses, devouring everything around them. The entire world appeared to be tearing apart into curled pieces of shattered paper by these black spots. Cultivators on the ground, no matter how they struggled, could not last even a moment within these dark domains, transforming into twisted streaks of light and vanishing into the black spots.

"So the catastrophe isn't confined to Jiushan State?" "What is this?" "Has the apocalypse arrived? Is the world going to be destroyed?" Zhao Xian stood dumbfounded.

But soon, his attention was drawn to another wondrous sight, complementing the apocalyptic scene. Above the Xuanhuang Realm, which had been instantly torn into thousands of twisted fragments, a picture suddenly appeared, as if countless pigments had been splattered across the sky. On this ink-splashed painting, countless scenes rapidly shifted and changed every moment. And before this strange painting, a figure stood with hands clasped behind his back.

As if sensing Zhao Xian's distant gaze, the figure turned its head. Before Zhao Xian could even make out the figure's face, his body and soul, unable to withstand the immense pressure, exploded into countless fragments, leaving nothing but dust.

"Hmm?" A moment later, Li Fan understood why this unlucky soul had arrived here. He shook his head slightly, no longer paying attention to him, and instead focused on the myriad changes of heaven and earth gushing forth from the Xuanhuang Realm before him.

Those countless black spots were naturally the power of the Immortals from the Immortal Ruins, drawn forth as his bait puppets flew towards the Immortal Ruins after he initiated his world-ending plan. The Immortals' power, guided by the senses connected to the puppets, transmitted into the Xuanhuang Realm, causing boundless apocalyptic destruction.

As Li Fan expected, the moment the Immortal Ruins' immortal power appeared, it triggered a spontaneous reaction from the Faceless True Immortal statues placed by Li Fan next to the bait puppets. These Faceless True Immortal statues had no physical form; they were purely condensed from the essence of the Faceless True Immortal's original power. When the world-destroying power from the Immortal Ruins surged towards them, an indescribable force inexplicably emerged from the essence of original power. Like a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon, or a fruit appearing after a flower falls, the essence of original power melted away like snow, directly disappearing. Only a power incomprehensible to mortals remained, taking its place and colliding with the immortal power from the Immortal Ruins, like two massive waves crashing into each other, stirring up countless splashes.

In an instant, the Xuanhuang Realm was torn into thousands of fragments. Yet, it seemed that precisely because of the struggle between these two forces, the already battered Xuanhuang Realm did not immediately perish. "It seems my worries were unnecessary," Li Fan thought. "The Faceless True Immortal doesn't seem to have detected my presence."

"Extract the essence of heaven and earth to gain its spirit." He murmured incantations, drawing the strange ink-splashed painting before him entirely into the ethereal projection of the Five Elements Grand Cave Heaven behind him.

Before Li Fan's eyes, scenes of the Xuanhuang Realm's past, present, and the events that would occur in its original future trajectory played out one after another, like a rapidly spinning kaleidoscope. Additionally, Li Fan sensed an incredibly strong desire to survive, a powerful unwillingness to yield. The scenes spun rapidly like a whirlpool, as if something was about to be birthed from within. Upon careful scrutiny, Li Fan actually perceived the Xuanhuang Realm's intention to cooperate.

"A dying world is no different from a dying person," he thought. "It has clearly detected me deceiving the Heavenly Dao, yet for a slim chance of survival, it not only doesn't blame me but is even willing to cooperate with me... This is something I hadn't anticipated."

Li Fan scoffed, neither agreeing to the Xuanhuang Realm's request nor outright refusing it. Instead, he accelerated the rate at which he extracted the essence of heaven and earth. As countless nascent transformations merged into his body, the Five Elements Grand Cave Heaven also began undergoing earth-shattering changes. The five elements flowed and tended towards fusion. Metal, wood, water, fire, and earth became one, and the once very distinct barriers within each cave heaven slowly ceased to exist. A brand new world, brimming with infinite vitality, was forming. Yet, at this moment, Li Fan, who was on the verge of successfully advancing to the Soul Transformation stage, inexplicably felt a hint of danger.

A beam of light instantly arrived from beyond the void.

"No!" A furious roar erupted after the figure clearly saw the current state of the Xuanhuang Realm. In an instant, it traversed vast spatial distances and locked onto Li Fan.

Their eyes met, and both faces showed surprise. Li Fan was surprised because he had expected it to be the Law Transmitter returning. He never imagined that the figure appearing in this lifetime would be... the Heavenly Doctor. The Heavenly Doctor, in turn, was surprised that Li Fan, nominally the last successor of the Heavenly Law Realm, was inexplicably here, and ruthlessly extracting the essence of heaven and earth from the Xuanhuang Realm.

"He returned so quickly," Li Fan sighed inwardly.

"Return to True." Li Fan didn't hesitate, immediately chanting the words silently in his mind. Under the influence of the Immortal Ruins' immortal power, Li Fan sensed that the True Immortal's net's restraint on him had loosened. The Heavenly Doctor had also detected him. Thus, no longer greedy, he immediately activated "Return to True."

The surrounding scenery suddenly became ethereal. At that moment, Li Fan clearly saw the shock on the Heavenly Doctor's face, and the light that burst forth from his murky eyes. "What did he discover?" Li Fan's heart tightened. But the surrounding scenery had almost come to a standstill. Even a powerful being like the Heavenly Doctor, his movements appeared incredibly slow to Li Fan. Thick mist enveloped everything. All things in the world were about to turn from true to false, from solid to ethereal.

Just then... From the thousands of black spots in the Xuanhuang Realm, a brilliant light suddenly erupted. The Immortal Ruins' immortal power, which could easily tear the Xuanhuang Realm apart, was actually suppressed at this very moment. Among all the frozen scenes, only this glimmering light was least affected. Even to Li Fan, it still appeared in slow motion, yet it surged towards him at an incredibly fast pace.

"Faceless True Immortal!" Li Fan's heart felt instantly clutched by a hand. The Heavenly Doctor's threat was instantly forgotten. "He finally found me after all..."

"All beings of heaven and earth, refine the spirit of all living things!" A colossal blood-red net unfurled around Li Fan, layer upon layer, densely packed, clearly formed by countless grotesque human faces. The red net originated from Li Fan and expanded furiously outwards. Billions, trillions of beings trapped within the net simultaneously wailed their death throes.

The brilliant light ignored the red net, steadfastly moving towards Li Fan. Li Fan had never felt the activation time of "Return to True" to be so agonizingly slow. As the dazzling white light was about to engulf him, his body involuntarily stiffened and grew cold. Even his thoughts began to freeze.

Fortunately, the red net offered at least a slight delaying effect. In the instant before the brilliant light locked onto Li Fan, he successfully activated "Return to True." All surrounding sights became illusory, yet only that brilliant white light remained dazzling.

Anchored to one year. On the summit of Jieli Mountain.

Li Fan, having narrowly escaped death, was soaked in sweat, panting heavily. "Is this the power of a True Immortal?" "Billions of living beings' collective will are so utterly powerless before it."

As Li Fan was thinking this, he suddenly felt something abnormal about his body. He wasn't seeing with his eyes at that moment, because... Li Fan reached up and touched his face, his body trembling slightly. His face was gone.