Chapter 593: 565: Great and Formless
Li Fan didn’t change his expression but just asked tentatively, “According to our predictions, even if the Alliance of Thousands of Immortals is supported by the ‘Mystic Sky Sealing Spirit Array’, the Five Elders Organization shouldn’t be retreating and showing signs of weakness everywhere, right?”
The other side sighed, “We indeed miscalculated this time. No one expected that the Alliance of Thousands of Immortals would bring back this ancient array so quickly. Moreover, it seems even more aggressive than what was documented.”
The monk from the Five Elders Organization spoke helplessly, “Our countermeasures are not yet fully prepared. Therefore, the situation on the Tianlingzhou battlefield is somewhat awkward at the moment.”
“So, we urgently need to weaken their array.”
Li Fan didn’t respond, his fingers tapping rhythmically on the table, as if he was contemplating deeply.
“Even with our strength, it would come at a great cost to obtain the array diagram of the ‘Mystic Sky Sealing Spirit Array’. Even some of our companions who have infiltrated the Alliance of Thousands of Immortals have to risk their lives for it. And we still can’t guarantee success…”
After a long time, Li Fan finally spoke with a considerable hesitation.
Seeing a glimmer of hope, the monk from the Five Elders Organization quickly pushed, “Friend Zhou, don’t worry. As long as the array diagram is obtained, everything is negotiable!”
Li Fan didn’t respond immediately.
After hesitating for a while, he said in a deep voice, “This matter is highly important and I can’t take decisions hastily. Let’s do this, I will come back here in three days to give you an answer.”
Although the monk from the Five Elders Organization felt impatient, he agreed reluctantly, knowing that Li Fan’s words were reasonable.
“By the way, let’s meet at a different location next time. It’s better to be cautious in these complicated times.” Saying so, he informed Li Fan about the location of another island.
Li Fan bowed, rose into the sky, and returned to Misthaven Elysian City.
“Tianxuan Spirit Locking, Mystic Sky Sealing Spirit.”
“Ancients, Tianxuan Mirror…”
“Mystic Sky Sect, perhaps?”
In the secret room, Li Fan’s eyes flickered as he fell into deep thought.
“The scene of thousands of cultivators falling from the sky to the ground seems somewhat familiar…”
“That’s it, Jiushan Province!”
The nine mountain ranges that stretched across Jiushan Province also had a characteristic that cultivators could not fly over.
In his past life, when Li Fan traveled to Jiushan Province’s Wanfa Commerce to make purchases, he had seen some stubborn cultivators who fell to their death.
“Could there be some relation between these two instances?”
Therefore, Li Fan started recalling various information he had seen in his spirit consciousness.
Suddenly, some previously overlooked information caught Li Fan’s attention.
It was rumored that the nine mountains in Jiushan Province were the remnants of the meridians of an exotic beast that died during ancient times.
The nine mountains were named: Tianchang, Tianshort, Tianxu, Tiancu, Tianjie, Tiandai, Tianlao, Tiandong, Tiansi.
The nine mountains were seemingly divided but subtly formed an array. This resulted in spatial instability in Jiushan Province, making even teleportation arrays unusable.
…
All of this was information that Li Fan had already known before.
At that time, Li Fan had no concrete concept about Demonic Beasts in his spirit consciousness.
He just felt that the story of a Demonic Beast’s death and its internal meridians transforming into mountains fit very well with the character of ancient legends, so he didn’t think anything was odd.
However, after Li Fan personally visited Nanming Mountain, the holy land of Demonic Beasts, in the Fallen Immortal Realm, seeing many infamous beasts from ancient times, he noticed some inconsistencies in this myth.
If the myth were true, then the size of this exotic beast would be ridiculously large.
Li Fan had spent more than half a year traveling within Jiushan Province, a place that allegedly formed from this beast’s internal meridians. How incredibly huge must this beast have been when it was alive?
Compared to beasts like Chi Jiu, Zi Wushou, Qing Shenlong…
They probably weren’t even worth mentioning.
Although size doesn’t necessarily correlate with strength, to insist that the beast that transformed into nine mountains was weak…
Li Fan definitely wouldn’t think so.
“Perhaps from this unknown exotic beast, we can trace the origins of this so-called ‘Mystic Sky Sealing Spirit Array’.”
Even from its name, Li Fan was almost certain that this array was related to the ancient Mystic Sky Sect.
But nothing is absolute, and it might just be a coincidence.
Being rigorous wouldn’t be wrong.
So, Li Fan took “The Exotic Beast that transformed into Jiushan Province” as a keyword and started searching for related information in the Tianxuan Mirror.
As the event was too far in the past, it had become impossible to detect any information.
Opinions varied, and there was no definitive answer.
Li Fan looked at them one by one, but didn’t find anything reliable.
Just when he was about to give up, a painting named “Ancient Nightmare Exotic Creature Map” caught his attention.
This painting was not made in recent times but was a casual sketch made by a disciple from the ancient God Brush Sect.
After the God Brush Sect was swallowed up by the Sect of the Stroke and Glyph, its treasures were scattered in all directions.
This painting was obtained by a wandering cultivator by chance. The cultivator fell during the Great Calamity, and the treasures in his Storage Ring were looted mercilessly, leaving behind what seemed to be worthless objects.
The worthless Storage Ring was discarded like a worn-out shoe and thrown on the roadside.
After being buried in dust for thousands of years, it was discovered by a passing cultivator.
According to this cultivator named Tang Bowen, it was only by comprehending the lingering resentment in the Storage Ring that he came to know about the incidents of the past years.
Of course, these words might be fabricated by Tang Bowen just to raise the price of the painting “Ancient Nightmare Exotic Creature Map”.
Regardless, this painting did indeed come from thousands of years ago.
It depicted more than a hundred different kinds of Demonic Beasts, some of which Li Fan had seen in the Fallen Immortal Realm.
What attracted Li Fan to this painting was, apart from known demonic beasts, it also subtly depicted another exotic beast.
At the very edge of the painting, one could vaguely see that these hundreds of demonic beasts seemed to be standing on the body of a gigantic creature.
However, because its body was too enormous, it couldn’t be portrayed fully. The painter could only use the hundred odd demonic beasts as a contrast.
“Great is the formless, its name is Tian.”
In the corner, there were these words.
This style of blank-left creation attracted many cultivators’ comments.
Those with broad knowledge unveiled the mystery with a single phrase.
“I know this, isn’t this the great beast that turned into the nine mountains of Jiushan Province after being defeated?”
The jesting tone was heavy, but it was far from nonsensical.
It’s indeed the word ‘king’ and ‘ba’ (eight).
Its name is Tian.
Its name is Tian.
“Tian Beast…”
A sharp light flashed in Li Fan’s eyes.