Li Fan pondered for a mont, then added another layer of seven-colored divine light as a seal outside his storage ring.
With three layers of restriction in place, the faint sense of crisis lingering in his heart finally began to fade away.
"......"
"It seems that it may not just be the Xuanhuang Realm that has suffered calamity."
"With the severance of the Immortal Path, great catastrophes have arrived everywhere."
Casually, he placed the dangerous sealed object into his personal Cave-Heaven for suppression.
Then, turning to Tianyang, he asked, "How do you feel now?"
Tianyang flew beside Li Fan, sensed for a mont, then nodded. "That gnawing sensation has indeed weakened, though it hasn't completely disappeared."
Li Fan crouched down and touched the gray soil beneath him.
A scorching pain imdiately shot through his hand, and in re monts, his palm turned blackened and charred.
Before the blackened spots could spread further, Li Fan skillfully severed his own palm.
The severed hand fell to the ground and disintegrated into ashes.
Even though the culprit had been suppressed by Li Fan, the eerie state of the Soul Shade Realm remained unchanged.
"This is..."
"Has the fundantal law of this world been completely altered?"
After a mont of thought, Li Fan suddenly felt a chill.
"If the Immortal-Mortal Miasma specifically targets cultivators, then this gray blight is ant to corrupt the world itself."
"The current state of the Soul Shade Realm—it’s like the corpse of a world."
"What kind of person would be so utterly insane as to develop sothing like this?"
A flicker of interest flashed through Li Fan's eyes.
"In the 115th lifeti, from this mont until the Immortal Alliance expedition team arrived, only about twenty years passed. What could have happened in that short ti to create ghost-like soul entities in this dead land?"
"Hmm, no... Sothing is off."
Li Fan suddenly froze.
The previous investigative team had concluded that the countless soul bodies in the Soul Shade Realm nourished the imnse Rift-Whale swarms seen outside.
But now, no soul bodies had appeared.
So where did all those Rift-Whales co from?
Unraveling this mystery wouldn't be difficult.
Li Fan and Tianyang remained in the Soul Shade Realm for three more months, concealing their presence and waiting in the shadows.
They wanted to determine whether Rift-Whales had the habit of coming to the Soul Shade Realm to "feed."
Their patience paid off.
One day, just as Li Fan was growing slightly impatient, distant, resonant cries echoed through the void.
Around a dozen Rift-Whales descended from the sky and arrived above the Soul Shade Realm.
Compared to typical Rift-Whales, these were noticeably larger.
Perhaps sensing the dangers of this place, the whales did not act as freely as they did in the void beyond.
Instead, they moved cautiously, swimming through the air in a structured manner, heading toward a particular location within the Soul Shade Realm.
Li Fan and Tianyang silently followed.
At the edge of the Soul Shade Realm, in a location the two had previously examined without detecting anything unusual, the Rift-Whales suddenly stopped.
One whale, seemingly more experienced, took the lead.
It aid at a specific spot on the gray soil and dove headfirst into it.
In an instant, the leading Rift-Whales vanished without a trace.
The rest followed suit, mimicking the motion.
However, the passage they were using did not seem particularly wide. Out of the ten whales, three miscalculated their positioning and collided directly with the gray soil.
There was no loud crash.
The black spots rapidly devoured them, turning them into gray dust that scattered across the land.
Li Fan arrived at the spot where the Rift-Whales had disappeared, hesitating slightly.
"Senior Brother, let go first," Tianyang volunteered.
Li Fan nodded. Without hesitation, Tianyang flew forward and entered.
Li Fan, however, did not rush in and patiently waited outside the entrance.
Before long, Tianyang returned.
His usually expressionless face now displayed a rare look of shock.
As Tianyang transmitted what he had seen, Li Fan finally understood what lay within.
It was a vast, yellow river, surging endlessly, winding in a circular loop.
Countless souls floated atop the yellow waters—young and old alike.
They still wore different types of clothing, but all of them had their eyes tightly shut, as if trapped in an eternal slumber.
No one knew how long they had been imrsed in this yellow river, but their souls had undergone eerie transformations.
Their lower halves were no longer human; instead of legs, they had grown countless tendrils.
These tendrils plunged deep into the river, as if anchoring them there to resist being washed away by the currents.
The Rift-Whales that had snuck in appeared as if they had entered a paradise of indulgence.
They were ecstatic, feasting greedily.
With each deep inhale, they swallowed thousands upon thousands of souls.
After devouring these souls, which had been steeped in the yellow river, the Rift-Whales underwent dramatic transformations.
Almost instantly, their bodies expanded, as though sothing was being nurtured within them.
In the vast yellow river, countless billions of souls floated densely packed.
Even with all seven Rift-Whales gorging themselves to the brim, they had only consud a minuscule fraction of the total.
Once the creatures departed, content with their feast, Li Fan, protected by a radiant seven-colored divine light, entered the yellow river.
Even though he had previously seen countless frozen corpses drifting in the Reversal Life-and-Death Formation,
The sight of these billions of eerie, humanoid souls still sent chills down his spine.
Especially unsettling were their tendrils—so entwined and coiled together so densely that clusters of closed-eyed faces were pressed against one another.
They ford grotesque spheres of countless human faces, twisted and horrific.
"Senior Brother, this place..."
Tianyang's transmitted voice carried a trace of unease.
Li Fan drifted through the yellow waters, brushing past the endless souls.
Protected by his seven-colored divine light, he felt nothing more than mild disgust—no real discomfort.
This yellow river was far larger than the entire Soul Shade Realm itself.
After scanning the area, Li Fan gradually discerned the cause of this strange phenonon.
"The Heavenly Dao of the Soul Shade Realm has mutated due to the erosion of the gray blight."
"Fire burns like ice, and life withers like death."
"But here, new life is erging—because this place was originally the realm of death within the Soul Shade Realm."
Li Fan observed that as the yellow river flowed in a complete loop,
So mysterious particles within the water gradually accumulated, forming vague humanoid shapes.
As the current continued to churn, these soul figures beca more distinct—
Until finally, they took on the form of complete human beings.
"In the normal cycle of the Great Dao, these newly ford souls would be reincarnated into the mortal world."
"But the Soul Shade Realm has already perished, and the cycle of life and death no longer exists."
"For countless years, these newly created souls have continuously erged and piled up in this place."
Having previously witnessed the entirety of the Reversal Life-and-Death Formation and gained so insights into the laws of life and death, Li Fan comprehended the root cause of this bizarre phenonon.
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