Chapter 9: Heaven Leaves No Way Out

Seeing Kou Hong's confession on the table, Li Fan felt somewhat disheartened. Kou Hong hadn't lied to him; he genuinely didn't know how mortals could leave this Immortal-Forbidden Land.

The "Immortal-Forbidden Land"... Five reincarnations, three centuries of anticipation, all now dissolved into an unattainable illusion. His dream of cultivating immortality and achieving longevity shattered, Li Fan seemed to age completely overnight. This was true not only physically, but also psychologically.

"The Immortal-Forbidden Land…" He silently repeated the name, an endless unwillingness swelling within him. "How did I transmigrate and get born in a place like this? If I had transmigrated to the outside cultivation world, with my ability to endlessly simulate reincarnation, I would surely have hope for longevity. It's truly regrettable that it had to be this Immortal-Forbidden Land!"

The information from Kou Hong's confession flashed through Li Fan's mind once more.

The so-called Immortal-Forbidden Land, as its name suggests, is a place where immortals are extinct. Thousands of years ago, the ancient cultivation world underwent a major upheaval. Initially, it was just a plague sweeping across the mortal realm, and no cultivators paid it any mind. However, when a cultivator accidentally contracted this mysterious plague, things spiraled completely out of control. After infecting cultivators, the plague seemed to gain an inexplicable boost, becoming transmissible among cultivators. Its mode of transmission was none other than spiritual energy, which cultivators relied upon for their very existence.

The plague quickly spread throughout the entire cultivation world via the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Cultivators who contracted it would, at best, experience a regression in their cultivation, dropping in realm; at worst, they would lose all their cultivation overnight, becoming indistinguishable from mortals, and would die within a few days, their path returning to the heavens.

As large numbers of cultivators died, a sense of despair began to spread within their community. In their desperation, some cultivators unleashed their fury on the source of it all: mortals. Thus, large-scale massacres began. Facing these lofty immortal masters, mortals had almost no power to resist and could only be slaughtered.

But not long after, these massacres were forcibly halted. It wasn't due to a newfound conscience, but because cultivators horrifyingly discovered that as they slaughtered and vast numbers of mortals died, the plague within these mortals not only didn't disappear with death, but instead spread unconstrained, flowing along with the spiritual energy permeating heaven and earth. Instantly, the concentration of the plague in the cultivation world surged. This, in turn, led to the demise of even more cultivators. Left with no choice, cultivators then abandoned these murderous acts against mortals.

However, passively awaiting death was clearly not the cultivators' style. On one hand, a group of cultivators began developing methods to treat and resist the plague. On the other hand, they proposed the infamous Grand Migration Plan. Although this plan was met with considerable opposition from some cultivators at its inception, most cultivators voted in favor of it for their own survival.

The Grand Migration Plan was based on the following considerations: Mortals could not be killed, and finding a definitive solution to the plague was a distant prospect. If mortals were allowed to proliferate freely, the increasing plague would inevitably make life even harder for cultivators. Furthermore, this strange plague spread through spiritual energy, which naturally led to a proposed solution. All mortals in the cultivation world would be banished to surrounding small worlds, broken grotto-heavens, and similar places that lacked spiritual energy. Array formations would then be used to permanently isolate them, preventing their return. This would, once and for all, resolve the mortal problem, allowing them to then slowly research countermeasures against the plague. In any case, undeveloped small worlds were virtually endless, so there was no concern about not having enough space for these mortals.

Thus, under the unified will and arrangement of the entire cultivation world, all mortals within it began a migration that lasted for centuries. As for how many mortals would die during this centuries-long migration, that was not within the cultivators' consideration. After all, mortals had no room to resist in the face of cultivators' power.

In this manner, after centuries of grand migration, all mortals from the cultivation world were relocated and dispersed into various surrounding small worlds. Nearly a millennium later, the plague concentration in the cultivation world finally dropped to a low level. Over that millennium, cultivators, through continuous research, finally discovered a method to purify the plague. It then took several more millennia for cultivators to completely eliminate the threat of this plague.

However, much to the cultivators' embarrassment, this plague proved to be a persistent entity, lurking within the bloodlines of mortals. Originally, there were no mortals left in the world. However, not every descendant born from the union of cultivators possessed the aptitude for cultivation. Thus, over a long period, many more mortals were born into the world. Within these mortals, the shadow of the plague still existed. Because this plague had a particular destructive power against cultivators, the descendants of mortals who wished to cultivate had to first clear the plague from their bodies. Over time, this plague became synonymous with the distinction between immortals and mortals. Thus, it was named the Immortal-Mortal Miasma.

The initial rampage of the Immortal-Mortal Miasma left a deep psychological scar on all cultivators. To prevent its resurgence, cultivators established a convention to avoid the places where mortals were originally banished. Gradually, these places became known as the Immortal-Forbidden Lands. There were countless Immortal-Forbidden Lands, large and small, but very few cultivators were willing to risk entering them. For Li Fan to encounter two was already an immense stroke of luck.

Now, neither of these cultivators had a method for mortals to leave. How could Li Fan possibly hope for another, higher-cultivation cultivator to trespass into this place? Moreover, as a mortal, his lifespan was limited. Even if he could endlessly simulate reincarnation, it would only be a repetition within the confines of his natural lifespan. He was already seventy this year, and his biological lifespan limit was eighty-six years. Within these sixteen years, the possibility of encountering another cultivator was virtually zero. Given this, how could Li Fan not feel despair?

He had clearly seen the hope of cultivating immortality and seeking longevity, only to realize in the end that it was merely an empty joy. Could it be that he was truly destined to repeat a mortal life, generation after generation? Li Fan was truly unwilling to accept this. The path to longevity was right before his eyes, seemingly within reach, yet simultaneously as distant as the horizon, utterly hopeless. How could Li Fan accept such a fate? Recalling everything he had experienced through several reincarnations, the bitter waiting for nearly three centuries, Li Fan was utterly unwilling to abandon the path to longevity.

Was there truly no way? Suddenly, like a flash of lightning cutting through the fog, Li Fan remembered something he had previously overlooked. Thousands of years ago, how did such a large number of mortals migrate here? Although the small worlds and the cultivation world were adjacent, they were fundamentally not the same world. These mortals surely didn't walk here, did they? There must have been some tools or conveyances to transport them, right? Are these tools still in existence today? If he could find these tools, would he be able to travel to the cultivation world? Even a minuscule possibility ignited hope for cultivation within Li Fan. His mood brightened with excitement, and he immediately headed to the prison where Kou Hong was being held. He intended to ask Kou Hong to verify the feasibility of his idea.