Chapter 1476: The Way Beyond the Dao

Before becoming a Half-Immortal, Li Fan had already used the Faceless Stone Statue multiple times to summon this dark power. He was, therefore, very familiar with it.

Now, as a Half-Immortal, seizing the energy accumulated for years within the Sea of Darkness was effortless for him.

Li Fan was not the master of the dark power, so it showed great resistance during its capture. However, Li Fan was far more powerful now; under his overwhelming strength, the dark power's resistance proved futile. All of it obediently gathered in Li Fan's palm.

As a "near-immortal power" born from the remains of a True Immortal, it surprisingly possessed qualities akin to the "infinite" nature of immortal power. As it gathered in Li Fan's palm, it seemed to compress endlessly. When the entire Sea of Darkness was absorbed by Li Fan, losing its obscurity, his palm held nothing more than a small, dark, yet faintly glittering, spherical bead.

Once the long-settled darkness finally dispersed, Li Fan was able to clearly see the True Immortal's remains in this place—or rather, the remnants of the remains. The True Immortal's corpse had been completely drained by the Spirit Gathering and Immortal Ascension Array, used as nourishment. Only a few faint traces, thinner than shadows, remained. Had Li Fan not observed with the discerning eye and commanding presence of a True Immortal, he might not have noticed the last vestiges left by the fallen True Immortal.

"The Immortal has departed," Li Fan mused.

He gazed at the residual shadow of the remains for a long time. The traces were too faint and fragile to yield any useful information. He gently blew, causing them to completely dissipate. It wasn't that Li Fan suddenly felt charitable and wanted to help the deceased True Immortal find peace. Rather, he wanted to use the clearing of these traces as an opportunity to observe whether there were any other True Immortal remnants within the Sea of Darkness.

The result was as expected. Apart from a few faint roars from the True Immortal's Will to Survive below, there were no other resonant fluctuations within the vast Sea of Darkness, or even across the entire Xuanhuang Realm and the countless star-filled skies of the experimental field.

"It seems this True Immortal is truly dead," Li Fan concluded.

The original purpose of the Spirit Gathering and Immortal Ascension Array within the Sea of Darkness was to serve as the power source for the Xuanhuang Realm to escape the Immortal Ruins. Now, Li Fan could single-handedly pull the Xuanhuang Realm out of the Immortal Ruins' gravitational pull. The power he could display, even if partially aided by the illusory form of Shouqiu, still vastly surpassed that of the entire Sea of Darkness. The process of subjugation was smooth and part of a broader cleansing.

Li Fan then turned his gaze to the last remaining element here: the True Immortal's Will to Survive. It resembled the shadow of a withered branch or a hunched figure. Upon sensing Li Fan's presence, it displayed both fear and longing. It was like a wild beast in the forest spotting a hunter: observing from the shadows, wavering between escape and greed.

Li Fan, as if feeding a pet, offered a wisp of his own energy to the True Immortal's Will to Survive. After circling a few times, the True Immortal's Will to Survive, as if fearing the food would escape, enveloped it, chewed, and swallowed it. Seeing this, a faint smile touched Li Fan's lips.

"It truly is a foolish thing, with only its primal will to survive remaining," he thought. "The Ink-Slaying Immortal Soul, moreover, is a version integrated with the Grand Dao of Heaven and Earth. How could you possibly digest it so easily?"

The True Immortal's Will to Survive tried to consume the "food," but no matter what, it couldn't diminish it in the slightest. Furthermore, the "food" within its belly began to devour *it* from the inside! The True Immortal's Will to Survive let out terrifying roars, like an ancient beast. Yet, no matter how it struggled, it couldn't contend with the power of the Ink-Slaying Immortal Soul. Helplessly, it thrashed and writhed in the deepest part of the Sea of Darkness.

After the dust settled, the True Immortal's Will to Survive had transformed into one of the countless forms of the Ink-Slaying Immortal Soul. Li Fan had hoped to find some past memories within this lingering wisp of the True Immortal's will. However, after a thorough search, he found only instinctive thoughts of consumption and rebirth.

"What a pity," he murmured. "I couldn't ascertain the true identity of this True Immortal buried at the bottom of the Sea of Darkness. But at most, it was just an ordinary True Immortal. It's irrelevant now." Being able to suppress an unnamed realm with a mere wave of his hand, Li Fan was now qualified to say such things.

He surveyed the empty Sea of Darkness, pondering how to utilize such a vast vacant space in the future. Suddenly, however, he detected the generation of some mysterious energy from this very location. "Hmm?" He had already collected all the energy sources from this place, so where was this new energy coming from? Li Fan was surprised but not flustered.

A mental scan revealed that these minuscule energies, like countless faint specks of light, originated from various parts of the Xuanhuang Realm. These specks of light were even more subtle than the remnants of the True Immortal's corpse. Had they not suddenly appeared in the completely drained Sea of Darkness, Li Fan would have subconsciously overlooked them.

Li Fan captured the specks of light, only to find that they burst and vanished like bubbles the moment he touched them. They didn't seem to exist within Li Fan's body either, disappearing to an unknown destination.

After a moment of contemplation, Li Fan drew all the specks of light into his hand, coalescing them into a sphere of light for careful observation. Only when the quantity reached a certain level did Li Fan feel an inexplicable familiarity. "This is..." "Spirituality?" "No, that's not right. It doesn't involve the True level; it's much lower." "Still, to a certain extent, it's a convergence of cultivation talent."

He then placed the sphere of light alongside the black sphere formed from the Sea of Darkness. Li Fan seemed to have understood what was going on. "In the original design, the beings of the Xuanhuang Realm were merely pawns on a chessboard. From their creation, all their attributes—height, appearance, talent, disposition—were predetermined."

"These spheres of light are the power that the Xuanhuang Realm naturally bestows upon its inhabitants as talent. The Sea of Darkness absorbed them because the True Immortal's Will to Survive sensed this power and instinctively wanted to seize it..."

Li Fan frowned. "Although the countless beings of Xuanhuang are pawns, they are pawns of the Immortal Realm's high echelons. A mere wisp of a will to survive..." He looked up at the existences within the Xuanhuang Realm, wanting to try and emulate the process, plundering the talents of all beings. But clearly, it wasn't something he could do.

"The True Immortal's Will to Survive has been eliminated by me, yet this precipitation of talent still persists." Li Fan suddenly recalled a topic he had discussed earlier with Baihua, Qiaogong, and others. During the Great Calamity of Destruction, many cultivators had personally witnessed from afar their hometowns falling into the Immortal Ruins, everything disintegrating to form a surreal, twisted halo of light. As the cultivation world completely vanished into the Immortal Ruins, vast amounts of matter also seemed to gush out in the opposite direction. This substance was undetectable by both physical eyes and divine sense, yet it undeniably existed.

The former Immortal Puppet Ancestor of the Heavenly Machine Realm had also eventually decayed due to the constant loss of something caused by its proximity to the Immortal Ruins. At the time, Qiaogong had even used his own "dumbing down" as an excuse.

"The Hunger Immortal has been suppressed by me. The Immortal Ruins are no longer there..." Li Fan teleported to the space outside the Xuanhuang Realm. He took out half of the specks of light. Here, they showed no tendency to flow. They merely floated quietly in the void, seemingly unable to persist for long, quickly dimming. Before they completely dissipated, Li Fan collected them again. Though it was just this small cluster of light, if wholly bestowed upon a single person, the cultivator thus created would likely be no weaker in talent than individuals like Zhang Haobo or Xiao Fan.

"It seems the Xuanhuang Realm stayed beside the Immortal Ruins for too long, and the world itself developed this characteristic." "The spiritual talents of all beings precipitate in the opposite direction of the Immortal Ruins' pull. Even if the Immortal Ruins no longer exist, this trend cannot be completely reversed immediately."

After conducting comparative experiments in several locations within the Darkest Star Sea, Li Fan drew a preliminary conclusion. "As long as no malevolent entity is at play," he first breathed a sigh of relief. Naturally, however, Li Fan grew curious about the reason for this phenomenon. His comprehension of the Hunger Art was arguably unparalleled within the primal possibility, second only to the Hunger Immortal itself. He naturally knew that when one comprehended the Hunger Art, a devouring suction force would emanate from one's body. However, he had never noticed anything that wasn't attracted by this suction, but instead actively repelled.

Verifying this wasn't difficult. In the center of the Darkest Star Sea, Li Fan cast the Hunger Art towards a nearby area. Though not as grand as a regenerated Immortal Ruin, a massive vortex still abruptly appeared. The star sea became turbulent once more.

Li Fan stood steadfast amidst the surging waves and took a group of Ghost Clan members who had fallen into his sight, having wailed in despair at the disappearance of the Sea of Darkness. He threw them into the vortex one by one. Although the Ghost Clan members were physically robust and could contend with cultivators, they were no match for the power of the Hunger Art. They couldn't even let out a struggle, all turning into dust within the massive vortex. With no change in expression, Li Fan continued to throw them in and observe.

He had never paid special attention before, so it was normal to have overlooked the spiritual substance. However, under Li Fan's meticulous observation this time, he indeed discovered this intangible matter. Furthermore, because the Ghost Clan members were all descendants of the Xuanhuang's First Great Heavenly Venerable, a considerable amount of spiritual substance precipitated from the vortex. Li Fan, like a gold panner, collected all the spirituality.

"Interesting. Why does comprehending the Hunger Art produce such a phenomenon?" he wondered. "Perhaps it's related to the path of Hunger itself."

Li Fan recalled the scene when he had suppressed the Hunger Immortal not long ago. Even in the face of the illusory form of Grandfather Shouqiu, the Hunger Immortal, though outmatched, did not simply accept its fate. Instead, it fought back fiercely. The Hunger Immortal's struggles were futile, but what intrigued Li Fan was the eerie, profound voice, "Hungry, I'm so hungry," like that of a specter. It sounded less like it came from the Hunger Immortal itself, and more like a mysterious entity from beyond the Grand Dao, as if it wanted to swallow mountains and drain seas, turning everything in the world into its own sustenance.

Suddenly, Li Fan looked once more at the Hunger Immortal Heavenly Pillar. "This path of Hunger seems to have a problem." "It's not an inherent path of the primal possibility? Rather, it's a cuckoo occupying the nest after consumption?" Li Fan couldn't be 100% certain. But from all current indications, it was highly probable.

"Spiritual substance is closely related to the creation of living beings. It implicitly involves the cornerstone of possibility evolution. While this outsider, the path of Hunger, superficially occupies the Dao, it fundamentally hasn't integrated." "Therefore, when it devours all things, this phenomenon of precipitation occurs." The method to prove Li Fan's hypothesis lay within the Hunger Immortal's memories. The Hunger Immortal had transformed into a Heavenly Pillar, its past life open for Li Fan to peruse. The unraveling of the final mystery wouldn't be far off.

"Since the exotic beast race could flee from other possibilities, it's not surprising that there are other outsiders." "However, from the perspective of a later observer, one would find the irony of the situation." "These outsiders are just like those so-called transcendent True Immortals who fled from the primal possibility. After enduring countless hardships, they believed they had found a safe haven. Yet, unexpectedly, they ultimately couldn't escape the fate of death."

"Or perhaps..." Li Fan narrowed his eyes, and light and shadows flickered within his sea of consciousness as countless scenarios of possibility emerged. With his current deduction ability, even without knowing the specific identities of those involved, he could, to a certain extent, reverse-engineer past events based on their outcomes. "These fleeing outsiders never considered this place their final refuge. They merely regarded it as a temporary stopping point. If they could escape once, they could escape a second time, a third time..." "At the very least, that's what they must have thought. If the Calamity of Dao Annihilation struck again, they would simply flee again."

"To resist calamity, besides opportune timing, the most crucial element is unity. But if among the people, there were such inherent escapees..." Li Fan had served as Grand Tutor for decades, so he naturally understood the harm of such black sheep. If they merely fled passively themselves, it would be one thing. The most terrifying aspect was their unseen ability to infect, alter, and shake the resolve of those around them. Spreading like a plague, the consequences would be unimaginable.

"This isn't mere speculation on my part." "At that time, such individuals truly existed in the Immortal Realm." Suddenly, a figure appeared before Li Fan's eyes. "Sun Piaomiao." "And the group who created the Immortal Domain pawns." "Also, Qing Yin and the True Immortal surnamed Ling, who oversaw this Immortal Realm experimental field before resolutely departing." "This is just the tip of the iceberg. One can imagine how many similar figures existed among the Immortals of that era."

"Working with such individuals, Emperor Tianluo, despite his grand ambitions, was destined to fail. If it were me, I would first use a 'fishing' method to gather all these escapees in one place. Then, I would execute them all!" "While solidifying people's morale, I would also gain a batch of consumables to resist the Calamity of Dao Annihilation..." As Li Fan mused, a fierce glint flashed in his eyes.

It wasn't that Li Fan genuinely harbored ambitions of becoming a savior Heavenly Emperor. It was merely a period of hypothetical reflection as he deduced past events. All that was past had become an illusion. Now, the primal possibility was nothing more than crumbling ruins barely holding on. All Li Fan could do was, like those who had fled, move to another world.