Chapter 1488: Really the limit

Chaos Wuming's decision drew a round of laughter from the immortals of Shuoxing Sea. However, Chaos always acted with caution, and the immortals were accustomed to it.

The white-robed man gently stroked the black cat on his shoulder and teased, "Don't worry, Daoist Brother Chaos. Once we capture that impostor, the Hidden Emperor, there will definitely be a palace for you in the Great Desolation Immortal Realm. After all, Daoist Brother, even if you don't have credit, you've put in hard work."

The other immortals chimed in agreement.

Chaos, however, was not annoyed.

Although Shanhua's words were a bit harsh, since he had spoken publicly, he would never go back on his word. This would be entirely beneficial to him, with no drawbacks.

If he had truly miscalculated, and the Hidden Emperor was easily defeated, he could still secure a place in the Great Desolation Immortal Realm based on his past merits.

But if they were gravely mistaken...

Chaos Wuming had already begun to scheme in his heart.

"It's a pity Ni isn't here right now; otherwise, it wouldn't be so complicated," Chaos thought, glancing at the black cat on Shanhua's shoulder with a cold snort in his heart.

Li Fan was currently unaware of everything happening in Shuoxing Sea.

Since the day he enfeoffed the five Heavenly Emperors of the Great Desolation Immortal Realm, a new enlightenment, never before experienced, had suddenly surged within him.

Taking it as casting a long line to catch a big fish, he simply set Chaos Wuming and the others aside. He focused intently on studying these changes.

The origin of this enlightenment came from the Heaven-Sitting Art.

Li Fan had believed that this method of reaping benefits would likely become ineffective after he ascended to the Half-Immortal stage. And indeed, it seemed as he had thought: no matter how much he helped cultivators increase their cultivation, whether directly or indirectly, he received not the slightest bit of feedback.

Until this enfeoffment.

After the five Heavenly Emperors were established, the Great Desolation Immortal Realm finally stabilized completely from its genesis. It was no longer a continent created by imitating the Immortal Realm, but had truly become an Immortal Domain.

Standing tall on Shangfang Mountain.

Li Fan, who had brought all this about, felt as if a veil had been lifted the moment it was accomplished. It was as if a stepping stone had appeared beneath his feet, allowing him to ascend a little further. What he saw before him changed in an instant, revealing a myriad of new phenomena.

"So, it wasn't that the Heaven-Sitting Art became ineffective," Li Fan realized in his heart. "Rather, after attaining the Dao of Immortality, ordinary feedback was no longer sufficient to propel my progress. Only the creation of an Immortal Domain from nothing could barely be useful."

Although his strength hadn't changed, it was precisely this slight "elevation" that made him perceive the Guardian of the Mound phantom within the high wall, the Hunger Immortal, and the Wuji Heavenly Pillars differently. He felt a distinct difference compared to before.

"Commanding from above, effortless and familiar," these words involuntarily appeared in Li Fan's mind.

After a brief period of contemplation, Li Fan understood where this feeling came from.

Whether it was the Guardian of the Mound phantom or the various Heavenly Pillars, Li Fan had been in secluded meditation comprehending them for over a hundred years. While not knowing them like the back of his hand, he was certainly very familiar with them.

The feedback from the Heaven-Sitting Art was based on this fundamental familiarity. The feedback from the creation of the Great Desolation Immortal Realm directly doubled this basic familiarity.

This saved Li Fan a century of time.

Li Fan's eyes couldn't help but narrow.

Instantly, he examined himself thoroughly, discovering that it wasn't just his comprehension of the Guardian of the Mound phantom and the Heavenly Pillars that had been affected. Everything he had learned and known had nearly doubled with this slight "ascension."

This even included the Myriad Illusions Dao Net of Ink Annihilation.

This terrifying rate of progress left Li Fan himself somewhat incredulous. Only after triple-checking did he have to accept this fact.

"An inch higher on Shangfang Mountain means heaven and earth overturned!"

"The increase in strength doesn't rise uniformly with upward progression, but rather, the higher one stands, the cultivation increases thousands, even tens of thousands of times!"

"No wonder there's such a vast gap between True Immortals, even Nameless True Immortals, and beings like Patriarch Shouqiu and the Four Sages who stand at the pinnacle of the Immortal Realm."

"The difference is even greater than that between cultivators in the lower realms."

"Give me hundreds of millions of Dao-Integrating cultivators, and by sheer numbers alone, I could encircle and kill Supreme powerful beings like Longevity and Heavenly Physician. But..."

"Even with hundreds of millions of True Immortals, they might collectively be no match for any one of the Four Sages."

Li Fan looked back at his former self, before this enlightenment.

Excluding external forces, and only considering the strength he could exert himself, the current Li Fan could easily suppress his former self from before the creation of the Great Desolation Immortal Realm.

"The unique nature of Shangfang Mountain leads to unimaginable disparities even within the same grand realm, such as between True Immortals and other True Immortals, or between Nameless and other Nameless Immortals."

"After all, theoretically speaking, so-called transcendent powerful beings are actually categorized as Nameless True Immortals."

Only by personally ascending can one truly know the height of the mountain.

This was Li Fan's first personal strength advancement since ascending to the Half-Immortal stage, and he could already glimpse a corner of the grand and unfathomable Shangfang Mountain.

"It's truly hard to imagine just how powerful the Sages are, standing atop all other immortals."

"And the Infinite Sea and Shangfang Mountain themselves..." Li Fan couldn't help but feel a yearning in his heart.

After a period of contemplation, his thoughts returned to reality.

Li Fan looked at the Great Desolation Immortal Realm he had personally forged below. He could vaguely sense that, as he continuously nourished it day and night with Infinite Immortal Power, it had already become a part of the Mountain and the Sea.

Even if he cut off the passage between the Great Desolation Immortal Realm and the Infinite Sea, he couldn't change this fact.

"So, this is the price."

"Everything in the mortal world is inherently not on the same level as the Infinite Sea and Shangfang Mountain. While one can cleverly borrow power, the result is being eroded by the power of the Mountain and the Sea, becoming a part of them."

"The Immortal Realm is like this. True Immortals are also like this."

"When the Mountain and Sea merge, that will be the time for the Dao's demise and the repayment of debts."

Everything he had seen in past reincarnations now played out scene by scene before Li Fan's eyes. The so-called Dao demise and calamities all followed this pattern.

"This is the enlightenment that surged in my heart after I truly established an Immortal Domain."

"Although I consider my comprehension abilities to be extraordinary, the successive Immortal Emperors of the former Immortal Realm, and even the Four Sages, their talents are certainly not beneath mine."

"If I can understand these things, how could they not?"

"They stand higher, so naturally, they just see further."

Li Fan couldn't help but subtly raise his head, looking "upward."

"So, they knew this day would come. That's why they had to climb higher and higher before the Mountain and Sea merged."

"The lifespan displayed on the 'Reversion' panel represents the lifespan of the entire mortal world. It may not fully reflect the lifespan of the Infinite Sea and Shangfang Mountain."

"The merging of the Mountain and Sea, though a trend, will eventually cease one day."

A bolt of lightning sliced through the fog in Li Fan's mind.

In an instant, it was as if he had transcended the mortal world, with only the endless Mountain and Sea before his eyes.

As the Mountain and Sea merged, all living beings in the mortal world below the mountain vanished into thin air with this integration.

The Great Tide of Dao Annihilation continued to approach the mountain.

The peerless experts on the mountainside ascended higher.

"As long as one climbs high enough, one might escape the catastrophe of the Mountain and Sea merging!"

It was as if Li Fan had already reached the summit of Shangfang Mountain, looking down at the churning, muddy waves below. His heart trembled, and this thought surged uncontrollably.

But then, he couldn't help but wonder, "Just how high must one stand to avoid the ultimate merging of the Mountain and Sea?"

"Patriarch Shouqiu, the Four Sages?"

"Or..."

"Reversion?!"

As if divinely inspired, Li Fan suddenly recalled the unusual treasure that had accompanied him for so long.

This time, however, Reversion's response was extremely strange.

It neither confirmed nor denied anything.

Its emotions were merely a little low.

Yet, the mere expression of slightly negative emotions by Reversion had an extremely profound impact on Li Fan.

"Perhaps no matter how high one climbs, one cannot escape the fate of destruction."

"Ascending Shangfang Mountain, every step is incredibly difficult. Having missed the opportunity of Shangfang Mountain's initial opening, trying to catch up now..."

"In the past, when I cultivated in the Xuanhuang Realm, relying on the benefits of Reversion, I always had absolute confidence. As long as I had enough reincarnation time, I could always grow stronger step by step, from Qi Refinement to Foundation Establishment, then to Golden Core and Nascent Soul. Eventually, I would step on all the Longevity Realm experts. But now..."

"Shangfang Mountain has stood for a thousand years; how can I surpass it now?"

"The phantoms left behind by Patriarch Shouqiu are already so powerful. What then is Patriarch Shouqiu's true strength? If Patriarch Shouqiu is like this, what about the Four Sages of the Immortal Realm?"

"And by what means can I truly surpass them?"

Li Fan's gaze gradually became distant, and he slowly lost himself in thought.

Just as Li Fan was sinking deeper, fortunately, Reversion sensed something amiss in time. It completely reined in its emotional fluctuations.

Without Reversion's influence, Li Fan gradually extricated himself from this "inner demon."

Even though he had experienced hundreds of reincarnations, he couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat for a moment.

Li Fan was by no means a negative person.

He always firmly believed that as long as he had Reversion, he would one day achieve complete transcendence and freedom.

But Reversion's emotional stirring was actually just a catalyst. The most fundamental reason was the daze and slight despair Li Fan experienced after finally seeing the scenery on Shangfang Mountain.

The gap between him and those powerful beings standing at the peak of the Mountain and Sea was simply too vast. It was so great that even with his infinite reincarnation ability, Li Fan didn't have complete confidence in bridging it.

Especially as Li Fan's strength progressed and he drew closer to these powerful beings, the risks he undertook were bound to become higher and higher. And the external forces he could leverage became increasingly scarce.

Among the powerful beings of the Mountain and Sea, only those few remained. All around were bare cliffs, with nowhere left to borrow strength.

What then could he use to cross that chasm, to catch up to or even surpass them?

In the past, as long as his greatest trump card, the "Transformation of Truth and Illusion," which sustained his confidence, was present, he would not have been affected by such negative emotions.

But now the situation was extremely special.

Firstly, even Reversion itself was affected by this pessimistic emotion, and consequently, Li Fan was implicated.

After Reversion suppressed its emotions, it vanished without a trace. Everything that had happened before seemed like an illusion.

But Li Fan's slightly trembling body indicated that his recent experience was not a figment of his imagination.

It took him a long time and immense willpower for Li Fan to temporarily extricate himself from that emotion. However, Li Fan knew well that the shadow had not been completely erased.

It still lingered in a corner of his heart, ready to erupt at any time in the future.

Li Fan closed his eyes, and only after dispelling the gloom within did he open them again.

What truly concerned him was not his momentary loss of self-control, as this was not the first or second time it had happened.

It was Reversion's emotional fluctuations that were truly beyond his expectations.

"After witnessing the entirety of the Mountain and Sea, have I finally glimpsed Reversion's limits?"

Li Fan paused, lost in thought, an infinite wave of emotion surging in his heart.

Once upon a time, he had always believed Reversion was omnipotent. As long as he held the strange treasure, he could advance unimpeded.

Now, it seemed the time was finally approaching when he would have to rely on himself.

Li Fan's expression was as deep as water.

He knew that "approaching" still meant a long time. But after all, it was already within his "sight."

It was no longer distant.

In response to Li Fan's myriad thoughts, Reversion seemed to return to its state from when Li Fan first began cultivating, no longer exhibiting any emotional fluctuations.

Li Fan stood quietly, like a clay statue.

Until subtle fluctuations from beyond the high wall disturbed him.

The commotion was immense, even making the path constructed by Li Buren almost impossible to maintain.

Li Fan cast a cold glance.

He saw that the arrivals were precisely the group of immortals from Shuoxing Sea.

With Wuxian leading, a group of True Immortals and Nameless True Immortals had all arrived outside the high wall.

"We've heard that Senior, with your great divine abilities, has re-established the Immortal Court of the Immortal Realm. Upon hearing this, our hearts yearned for it. Thus, we have come uninvited, wishing to witness its wonders," the white-robed figure proclaimed in a clear voice.

This voice seemed to possess endless magical power; upon reaching Li Fan's ears, all the emotions that had arisen due to Reversion's unexpected behavior instantly dissipated into nothingness.

Li Fan even inexplicably felt a surge of joy for a moment.

As if an old friend, unseen for years, had come to visit.

With his heart greatly delighted, Li Fan was about to wave his hand, inviting the immortals of Shuoxing Sea inside.

Suddenly, his heart jolted, and he broke free from the recent illusion.

"Hmm?"

"Just now, that was..."

"Shanhua?"

Li Fan's eyes narrowed, a dangerous glint flashing within them.

"As expected of a Nameless Immortal who has long since attained the Dao. Even I nearly fell for his path."

"It's a pity I have Wuji protecting me. Any divine ability from any Great Dao of the heavens can be ignored."

The now clear-headed Li Fan, however, did not change his actions.

As if still enchanted by Shanhua's power, he showed no anger at their uninvited arrival. Instead, he laughed loudly and directly welcomed the immortals of Shuoxing Sea inside.

Li Fan keenly noticed that there seemed to be some unfamiliar faces among this group of visitors.

Furthermore, Chaos Wuming was not among them.

Li Fan instantly understood their scheme.

"It just so happens that this Great Desolation Immortal Realm of mine is newly opened and still feels quite empty."

Li Fan, having just experienced the sudden change with Reversion, was truly not in a good mood at this moment.

And coincidentally, Shuoxing Sea and the others came looking for him.

In the unseen, their tragic fate had already been sealed.

Of course, this group of True Immortals was unaware of it at the time.

They were still in awe of their first arrival in an Immortal Domain.