Chapter 557: The Mysterious Web Descends Again

"It's just that I was worried you might delay your cultivation by spending all day drinking with me, which is why I wanted to caution you earlier. However, I observe that you are also a perceptive person and must surely know your own mind. So, I decided not to say anything more."

Sima Changkong rested for a while and recovered some of his energy before speaking again.

Li Fan's eyes flickered slightly, but he didn't say much. He just feigned a look of remorse, saying, "Brother Sima, such heartfelt words truly shame me!"

Sima Changkong chuckled. "If you continue to act this way, fellow Daoist, then you're truly treating me as an outsider!" he said, feigning anger.

Li Fan could only sigh again and remain silent.

After a heartfelt exchange, the bond between the two deepened considerably once more.

After another short while, Li Fan brought the conversation back to the Tianlingzhou battlefield.

"What exactly did you see on the battlefield, Brother Sima?" he asked, frowning. "You have surveyed the history of the Xuanhuang Realm; for you to say something is extraordinary, it must surely be an extremely terrifying existence."

Sima Changkong sighed. "You flatter me, fellow Daoist. However, the latter part of what you said isn't wrong. What the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance deployed this time was truly a massive weapon."

As he spoke, he activated a drop of blood within his body, intending to form a blood-screen as before to show Li Fan.

Indeed, a scene appeared on the blood-screen.

But immediately after, Sima Changkong's expression changed.

"How could this be?!" he exclaimed involuntarily, his face filled with bewilderment.

Li Fan, meanwhile, stared at the scene on the blood-screen.

He saw dense crowds of Five Elders Society cultivators filling the heavens and earth, forming a formation that surrounded a group of Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance cultivators in the center.

On the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance side, although they were surrounded and numbered only about a hundred, there was no trace of fear on their faces; each of them was incredibly brave.

As if boosted by some power, they charged at enemies who outnumbered them a hundredfold.

This battle, which seemed to have no suspense and whose outcome was already decided, suddenly underwent a drastic change.

He saw that in the center of the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance cultivators, someone suddenly held something aloft.

Then...

Large numbers of Five Elders Society cultivators, without the slightest warning, began falling from the sky.

They fell, their bodies mangled, lying on the ground wailing and unable to move.

The Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance cultivators seemed to have already anticipated this scene.

They swiftly and mercilessly reaped the lives of their enemies.

For a moment, in the sky, the falling abnormalities overlapped, blending into a bizarre image.

"How could this be?" Sima Changkong watched the scene recorded in the blood-screen in disbelief, his expression somewhat dazed.

Seeing Sima Changkong's strange reaction, Li Fan suddenly thought of something and asked aloud, "Is the scene recorded in this blood-screen different from what you personally witnessed, Brother?"

"Precisely!" Sima Changkong immediately nodded. "What I saw was that this cultivator clearly held aloft a small, square mirror. And in the sky, tens of thousands of green threads simultaneously descended. It was precisely because of the presence of these mysterious green threads that the Five Elders Society cultivators instantly lost their ability to resist. But why..."

After Sima Changkong explained, he still appeared unable to accept it.

For Sima Changkong, who took it upon himself to faithfully record historical events, the occurrence of something unrecordable was clearly a major blow.

"'Unrecordable... green energy...' Li Fan's eyes narrowed slightly. 'So it's the Profound Net. I had previously speculated that the Profound Net had already descended into the world. Indeed, once the war entered its climactic phase, the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance couldn't help but bring it out and use it. However, the Profound Net in this current era is different from the Heaven-Profound Spirit Locking Formation I saw in my previous life. To think it can be summoned merely by a small, portable square mirror. Is it a semi-finished product, or...'"

Li Fan also, for a moment, fell into deep thought.

"'No, I must find a way to record it,' Sima Changkong murmured to himself, still reeling from the shock and appearing somewhat obsessed."

"'Brother Sima, you're thinking about it the wrong way,' Li Fan prompted him then. 'Even if it can't be directly recorded with images or words, you can still use indirect descriptive methods to record its existence.'"

Sima Changkong was stunned for a moment.

Then, with great joy, he said, "I was being foolish!"

He slapped his head and forced out a few more drops of blood, merging them into the blood-screen.

This formed several lines of distorted text, which integrated with the blood-screen.

"'The Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance and the Five Elders Society battled in northeastern Tianling... There was green light like threads, suddenly descending from the sky... Those who were struck all lost their immortal power and fell to the ground.'"

Just as those characters gradually stabilized and were about to merge with the blood-screen.

Suddenly, a trace of green thread emerged from the distorted blood characters.

"Not good!"

Sima Changkong's face instantly turned pale, he exclaimed.

Before he could finish speaking, the green thread had already transformed into surging green light.

After thoroughly distorting the scene recorded in the blood-screen, it suddenly retracted, condensing into a single point of light.

Silence fell for a moment.

The green point exploded violently.

'Huán—'

The moment the green thread appeared, even before Sima Changkong's warning could be uttered, Li Fan had already pushed his Purple Heaven Divine Thunder Escape to its limit.

At the same time, two bone wings protruded from his back, and the Peng Flight technique was also activated on him.

He used the fastest speed he had achieved since entering the cultivation world's cycle of reincarnation and fled towards the distance.

But Li Fan clearly hadn't expected the Profound Net's reaction to be so intense this time.

It was even more violent than what had surged forth earlier in the Ten Thousand Immortals Island Training Hall.

The green point exploded, and the light waves swept outwards in an instant.

Just as the green light was about to touch his body, though he felt somewhat unwilling, Li Fan still uttered 'Huán Zhēn'.

But soon, he swallowed the remaining character, 'Zhēn'.

Because he discovered that the charge level of 'Huán Zhēn', used for body protection, had not changed at all.

"Huh? So it was a false alarm?"

Li Fan immediately stopped his escape and hovered in the air.

After waiting for a moment, still nothing unusual happened, and the surroundings were calm and clear.

After pondering for a moment, Li Fan decided to go back and check.

Inside the Crystal Palace, everything was as it had been before.

Only it was eerily quiet.

Sima Changkong remained where he was, his horrified expression frozen on his face, his body motionless.

"Brother Sima?"

Li Fan called out from a distance.

There was no response.

After a moment, Li Fan cautiously approached closer: "Brother Sima?"

Although he could still faintly sense the 'life' aura on the other person, for some unknown reason, Sima Changkong remained completely unresponsive.

Moreover...

That life force also seemed to have solidified.

Li Fan had a bad feeling and slowly retreated.

"Poof!"

Just then, Sima Changkong's entire body suddenly burst open from within.

What splattered everywhere was not fresh red blood and flesh, but rather pools of viscous green liquid.

splashing all over the floor of the Crystal Palace.

Li Fan barely managed to dodge the green liquid's attack.

Just looking at Sima Changkong, who had been reduced to nothing, his face twitched.