Chapter 1588: The Other Shore Shines Brightly

Angry Squid: ............

Even with strength approaching that of a transcendent being, Li Fan was not in a hurry to go to the Other Shore. After all, what he needed to guard against was a Saint, like Lord Shouqiu, who could traverse the Eternal Void.

He would only truly take this step after completing his plan to spread the fires of true spirits.

Although he had not yet officially entered the Other Shore, Li Fan had already gained a preliminary understanding of it through countless explorations by the Xuanhuang Immortal Ship over the years.

Most of this knowledge came from rumors about the Other Shore found across various possibilities, with some derived from Li Fan's own investigations.

"As I had previously surmised, once one enters the Other Shore, they transcend the river of time, able to freely travel to the past, present, and future. Of course, this is limited to the time nodes of the current Mountain and Sea Tree."

"But it is not without cost."

"When traveling, one can easily reach any possibility or time node by utilizing the divine characteristics of the Other Shore. However, returning to the Other Shore from the mortal realm is not as simple."

Before Li Fan, a section of broken wood appeared, representing the panoramic view of the Mountains and Seas in his deduction.

At the center of the broken wood, a sphere of light flickered.

Its warm, incandescent glow illuminated every corner of the broken wood.

"I previously speculated that the Other Shore was constructed by hollowing out the Mountain and Sea Tree, creating a miraculous structure from its spatiotemporal framework that allowed for convenient access to any corner of the Mountains and Seas."

"However, after personally traversing the Dao Annihilation over these years, I realized the vastness of the Mountains and Seas. It is simply impossible to create an entity of the same scale and structure as the Mountains and Seas. Even if the Immortals of the Other Shore possessed such power, they wouldn't choose such a laborious and thankless method."

"The true Other Shore is precisely like this sphere of light. Although it is as small as a grain of rice compared to the Mountains and Seas, its radiant power can cover all mortal realms within them. Transcendent beings who haven't comprehended the 'Reverse' Dao, travel smoothly to different possibilities and time nodes by means of these 'rays' radiated from the Other Shore."

"And therein lies the problem..."

With a thought from Li Fan, the image of the Mountain and Sea Tree was instantly magnified tens of thousands of times.

Because of this, it became apparent that even corners seemingly bathed in light within the Mountains and Seas still showed varying degrees of brightness and darkness.

"The light of the Other Shore, after all, cannot illuminate every single place. Although I don't know where the Other Shore is anchored, it's almost certain that the further away a place is from it, the harder it is to reach."

"There's even a risk of transcendent beings traveling there and never returning."

A glint flashed in Li Fan's eyes, and information about one of the possibilities reached by the Xuanhuang Immortal Ship appeared before him.

This particular possibility was almost the most "remote" discovered by the various apostles so far. Its historical trajectory bore almost no resemblance to Li Fan's original reality.

The Three Sages were only vaguely mentioned in ancient legends as the creators of the Immortal Realm. The Immortals of this realm had almost entirely forgotten them. This possibility didn't even have a ruling Immortal Emperor; throughout its long history, it had been plagued by incessant conflict.

Because of its distance from the Other Shore, transcendence was almost hopeless.

Consequently, the Immortals of this realm dedicated most of their energy and talents to war.

They divided and united, then united and divided. Tens of thousands of immortal dynasties, varying in size, emerged and fragmented. Yet, no peerless powerful being ever emerged to unify the Immortal Realm.

The closest to achieving the unification of the Immortal Realm was the renowned Sage Immortal Emperor from this possibility's history.

The Sage Immortal Emperor rose suddenly, sweeping across the entire Immortal Realm in just three hundred units of time. Powerful, cold-blooded, and ruthless—that was the impression he left on the Immortals of the world.

However, just as the Sage Immortal Emperor was on the verge of unifying the Immortal Realm, he inexplicably vanished.

He disappeared as quietly as he had appeared.

Without the overwhelming suppression of the Sage Immortal Emperor, the soon-to-be unified immortal dynasty quickly disintegrated, plunging back into chaos.

The disappearance of the Sage Immortal Emperor became the greatest unsolved mystery in the history of that possibility, leading to widespread speculation.

Perhaps only Li Fan, as another outsider, could deduce the truth.

"Judging by the Sage Immortal Emperor's overwhelming power, he was undoubtedly a transcendent being. For unknown reasons, he arrived in this possibility. So-called Immortal Emperors were naturally insignificant to him, discardable at any time. His campaign to unify was, in fact, merely a means to return to the Other Shore."

Records showed that the Sage Immortal Emperor had many strange habits, such as collecting enemy corpses to forge into weapons. Throughout his campaign, he slaughtered nearly ten thousand nameless True Immortals.

"This was how he forged a 'Boat of Salvation' from nameless True Immortals. Although he possessed transcendent power, he still needed external objects to resist the Dao Annihilation. This was likely because that possibility was too remote, and he needed to increase his chances of successfully returning to the Other Shore. Once his preparations were complete, he naturally departed."

Li Fan was so certain for two reasons: first, the Sage Immortal Emperor's actions were too obvious; second, before arriving at this possibility, the Xuanhuang Immortal Ship had encountered a strange black banner in the Dao Annihilation.

The black banner was filled with immense malevolent energy and covered in bleached bones. Although it had been extensively corroded by the Dao Annihilation, it was still clear that it had been crafted from countless nameless True Immortals.

It was precisely an artifact personally refined by the Sage Immortal Emperor back then.

"Such a treasure, still relatively intact, was casually discarded by him. This indicates it had become useless to him."

"He had already reached the radiation range of the Other Shore's light, allowing him to return at any time."

Li Fan had now re-refined this black banner to further reinforce the Xuanhuang Immortal Ship. During its assimilation, the terrifying figure occasionally glimpsed from the nameless remains also served to confirm the identity of its former owner.

"The light of the Other Shore does not fully illuminate the Mountains and Seas."

"For me, this is actually good news."

"The common goal of those in the Other Shore is to traverse the Eternal Void and journey to more ancient Mountains and Seas, to find a method to completely resolve the calamity of the Mountains and Seas merging. To facilitate salvation, they should presumably align themselves closer to the past on the longitudinal timeline."

"I just don't know what the upper limit of time for this section of the Mountains and Seas to retrace is. Is it the very end that Emperor Taitian encountered in the river of time?"

"Oh?" Just as Li Fan was deep in thought, a vision sensed by one of his Xuanhuang Immortal Ships immediately caught his attention.

"Myriad Forms Dao Net? This is..."

A moment later, Li Fan understood.

With a shift of his divine sense, Li Fan's illusory figure on the Xuanhuang Immortal Ship instantly traversed the Dao Annihilation and entered this neighboring possibility.

Under a gloomy, dim sky, boundless mountains of garbage piled up, stretching endlessly out of sight. A colossal black, octopus-like liquid beast lay amidst these garbage mountains.

Wielding countless tentacles, it freely enjoyed and devoured everything between heaven and earth.

Although there were no other living beings here, the black behemoth lived an exceptionally carefree and joyful existence.

The black behemoth was, of course, the Myriad Forms Dao Net, transformed from the power of Ink Kill.

And this place was one of the many possibilities that the Lord of Xuanshang had explored in the past.

Previously, Li Fan had extended a portion of the Myriad Forms Dao Net's power here through his senses. Although the connection was quickly severed due to the barrier of Dao Annihilation, the Myriad Forms Dao Net's power still successfully took root and spread.

Even though it had transformed into a colossal beast, it obediently returned upon the arrival of its true master, Li Fan.

Originally, the illusory immortal ship residing here was merely a portion of Li Fan's distributed power.

But after absorbing the Myriad Forms Dao Net from this place, Li Fan's illusory figure instantly solidified from ethereal to almost indistinguishable from reality!

"Hmm? Such immense power... No wonder you were so content here."

Even Li Fan himself was momentarily surprised.

"And this is only after consuming a small fraction of these boundless garbage mountains."

Li Fan's interest was immediately piqued.

He carefully pondered the Myriad Forms Dao Net's gains from this garbage heap.

Though called garbage, they were in fact the remains of buildings, magic artifacts, and corpses. Li Fan attempted to reconstruct the events that had transpired in this possibility using these countless fragments.

However, a mysterious, inexplicable force seemed to constantly cling to these fragments.

This prevented Li Fan from discerning their complete appearance, even after piecing together the fragments.

"Despite these vast garbage mountains, not a single complete item could be reassembled."

"But one thing is certain: the entity that destroyed this possibility's civilization and created these endless mountains of garbage was singular."

While Li Fan had also caused considerable destruction, his actions were always purposeful, either to gather resources or to increase the efficiency of his plans.

The entity that destroyed this possibility, however, seemed to act merely for the sake of "destruction."

"The entire essence of a possibility still remained perfectly preserved here."

"From the garbage fragments devoured by Ink Kill, one could faintly infer and reconstruct a glimpse of this place's past. It was no worse than the original possibility; in fact, it might even have surpassed it. Yet, despite this, it was instantly reduced to ruins..."

"And it seems to have happened all at once."

Li Fan narrowed his eyes, making another deduction in his mind.

"Even if I were to use all my reserve power and project countless epochs, I doubt I could achieve such an effect."

"More critically, such an outburst would lead to absolute annihilation, not these scattered fragments of debris."

"This indicates that the other party still had power to spare."

"Indeed, powerful beings in the Mountains and Seas are countless. While strong, I don't fear those like Shouqiu who adhere to some moral conscience. What I must avoid most are figures of such madness and chaos."

Li Fan quietly reminded himself.

Since he was here, he would make the most of it.

The illusory immortal ship remained anchored outside.

Li Fan released the Myriad Forms Dao Net once more, allowing it to freely devour the remaining endless garbage mountains.

The fragmented remnants of an entire possibility, even for the current Li Fan, were certainly a hearty meal.

It took a full fifty years to completely devour them.

After the area was sufficiently cleared, Li Fan discovered an extraterrestrial object amidst the boundless garbage that did not belong to this possibility.

It was a black fragment, shimmering with an eerie metallic luster.

It appeared to have broken off from somewhere.

"To remain completely unmoved even by Ink Kill's devouring..."

Li Fan was extremely cautious and did not directly touch it.

Instead, he sent Dao Yi Insects to investigate.

Unexpectedly, the moment the Dao Yi Insects approached the black fragment, they all simultaneously fell into a state of chaos.

They began to fight each other.

Even with Li Fan's forceful manipulation, he could only slightly curb the chaos, unable to completely reverse the slaughter.

Li Fan decisively chose to abandon this batch of Dao Yi Insects.

The self-slaughter of the swarm only ended when just one remained.

However, the sole victor did not stop there.

It began to frantically devour itself until it self-destructed, and only then did the grotesque spectacle finally end.

The black fragment lay silently, witnessing the scene, seemingly mocking without a sound.

"It must be the madness emanating from this black fragment that affected the Dao Yi Insects."

Li Fan remained expressionless and continued to send out new swarms of insects.

As expected, this new batch of insects was once again dominated by chaos, engaging in uncontrolled self-slaughter.

However, the greatest characteristic of the Dao Yi Insects was their ability to adapt and evolve.

Li Fan keenly noticed that, after the sacrifice of the previous swarm, the Dao Yi Insects' overall resistance to this chaos had subtly increased.

Although the degree was minuscule, the increase was undeniably real.

"What I fear least is attrition."

"Anyway, I have plenty of time."

Li Fan scoffed inwardly, as batch after batch of Dao Yi Insects began to gather.

There was no concept of time within the Dao Annihilation.

Increasing like a chain reaction, the number of apostles under Li Fan's command had grown to tens of millions.

As a result, contact between them and the Other Shore and Sacred Dynasty became inevitable.

Fortunately, these two major powers were aloof; even if the Xuanhuang Immortal Ship had acted to destroy possibilities, they would not interfere excessively as long as it did not endanger the Mountains and Seas.

Li Fan was also extremely cautious, willing to forgo this opportunity to implant the true spirit fires rather than allow transcendent beings to discover his secrets.

The plan to spread the fires of true spirits was proceeding exceptionally smoothly.

"With approximately the same amount of time, I should be able to achieve my goal."

On this day, Li Fan suddenly had a premonition.

Meanwhile, the Dao Yi Insects' erosion of the black fragment finally underwent a qualitative change.

While the influence of the black fragment's maddening chaos still couldn't be entirely avoided, under the manipulation of Li Fan's dominant consciousness, the Dao Yi Insects were now able to forcibly suppress this frenzied instinct for extended periods, appearing in a state akin to calm.

"The black fragment brings more than just madness."

"It also brings..."

Li Fan's divine sense merged with the Dao Yi Insect, which was emitting a strange aura.

In an instant, his perception shifted dramatically.

His gaze passed directly through the Xuanhuang Immortal Ship and plunged into the Mountains and Seas.

The continuous scenery of the Mountains and Seas, as seen from his main body's perspective, vanished, replaced by soaring, twisted black bands of light.

Faintly, he could perceive the fluctuations of countless thoughts within these light bands.

They seemed to originate from the same source as the black fragment, mostly filled with madness and chaos.

Merely peeking from afar, Li Fan felt as if his own mind had been invaded.

Independent consciousnesses suddenly emerged, whispering to Li Fan, enticing and inciting him.

Related