Chapter 222: The Three Aspects of the Divine

That strange, net-like pattern claimed that it had been born with innate knowledge, with the depths of its consciousness encompassing all things under heaven. Judging solely from the heaven-defying methods it had displayed, perhaps its words were not false.

Li Shun calmed his mind and focused his attention, quietly comprehending the profound diagram the other party had manifested upon the wall.

Before long, within the dry and deathly silent depths of his spiritual platform, a faint glimmer of light truly began to emerge.

His divine soul followed that thread of light and abruptly fled into it. When he opened his eyes again, he had astonishingly returned to that familiar place, [Fangcun].

Looking around at everything he knew so well, even with his normally composed state of mind, Li Shun could not help but feel an indescribable sense of having returned from another lifetime.

“I... have finally come back.”

As the master of Fangcun, Li Shun knew with absolute clarity that this was by no means some illusory fantasy woven by the other party.

Lengshan Grass.

The phantom of Shentu Xin.

Threefold Self-Reflection.

The Heavenly Being Codex stone statue.

Everything was here.

Not to mention that absolute sense of control he possessed while inside Fangcun, where his every word became law and everything moved according to his will like an extension of his own limbs. No illusion could possibly imitate such a feeling.

Yet what truly allowed him to anchor himself firmly in reality was that deep, indescribable aura suspended above the dome of Fangcun.

It was the lingering imprint left behind by another indescribable Outer God.

Now that his mind had reconnected with Fangcun, it meant that he had finally reestablished contact with the outside world.

“I don't know how long I was trapped within the ruins of the Heavenly Court, nor do I know what has happened to Great Qian outside.”

“Has the Hundred Schools Grand Gathering already ended? Have the others all returned to reality, or...”

However, after following Fangcun's connection and probing the outside world, Li Shun's heart was suddenly rocked by turbulent waves.

Compared with the long, despairingly endless years he had experienced within the ruins of the Heavenly Court, the outside world, whether Great Qian or that martial arts world, seemed almost to have fallen into a terrifying state of stillness.

It was not true temporal stagnation.

Rather, there existed an astonishingly vast gulf between the flow of time within the ruins of the Heavenly Court and that of the present world.

Even though Li Shun's strand of consciousness had been trapped within the ruins for an immeasurable span of time, to the point where it had nearly decayed...

Outside, not even half a day had passed.

“Such a disparity seems to have surpassed the limits that an ordinary cultivator could achieve when constructing an illusion.”

Li Shun suddenly realized something.

Previously, he had always assumed that these ruins of the Heavenly Court were merely a part of the primordial illusion manifested during the Hundred Schools Grand Gathering.

But now, it seemed the truth might not be so simple.

He abruptly withdrew his consciousness and returned to the ruins of the Heavenly Court.

Looking toward the net-like pattern, Li Shun pointed around him and asked seriously, “Is this place really just an illusion?”

For once, the net-like pattern fell silent.

After a very long time, several lines of text once again flickered across the mottled wall like ghostly light.

“Yes.”

“But not entirely.”

“With your current insignificant cultivation, you are still incapable of truly seeing through the truth of this place.”

“Although I likewise possess no memories of what kind of catastrophe this place endured in the distant past, I was born capable of seeing through the essence of things. And the truth of this place is...”

“The ancient Heavenly Court truly has been reduced to ashes.”

“In the reality where you exist, there is most likely not even a single physical brick or tile of it remaining.”

“But it has not truly died.”

“As long as concepts related to it still exist in the world, they can serve as anchors, forcibly dredging its existence back out from the river of time and allowing it to briefly reappear.”

Seeing the puzzled expression on Li Shun's face, the net-like pattern continued explaining:

“You can simply regard it as an ancient deity that has fallen.”

“Although it has been completely annihilated in the dimension of reality, as long as any concept clearly pointing toward it is activated, you can once again glimpse its phantom.”

“However, because it has long since died, what you can see at most is its enormous corpse, or perhaps an empty imprint of its death left behind within space and time.”

“That is why I said this place is still the primordial illusion you speak of. It is merely that the manifested Buzhou Heavenly Gate pointed extremely clearly, on a conceptual level, toward the ancient Heavenly Court. It therefore inadvertently triggered some mysterious and unseen force, causing this long-lost ruin to be projected and manifested in reality in such a strange form.”

...

The words on the wall flickered repeatedly, leaping like ghostly flames.

Yet Li Shun gradually understood what it meant.

It was much like the Formless Suspended Skull he had once confronted.

Although he had clearly been inside an illusion, the mental erosion brought about by that Outer God had been utterly real and impossible to avoid.

At its core, this was because beyond the heavens of Great Qian in the real world, there truly existed a terrifying deity known as the Formless Suspended Skull.

As long as mortal beings developed a definite conceptual connection and recognition of it, its indescribable might could ignore the boundary between truth and illusion and descend into manifestation with overwhelming force.

The ruins of the Heavenly Court were the same.

“Yet the Heavenly Court has already fallen and ceased to exist, and it can still rely upon its conceptual imprint from the past to radiate such terrifying residual power capable of interfering with reality.”

“Compared with it, that Metal God, Ru Shou, whom I encountered on Mount Buzhou...”

Li Shun's eyes flickered as understanding dawned upon him.

“It seems the death of a deity is completely different from what ordinary mortals call death and the destruction of one's Dao.”

“Although the Heavenly Court has collapsed, the supreme imprint it left behind can still cast reflections into reality and interfere with all things.”

“But that Metal God, Ru Shou, was unable to stir even the slightest residual conceptual power within this illusion...”

“He probably died completely, with both body and form utterly annihilated.”

Just as Li Shun was pondering this inwardly, perhaps to further dispel his doubts and gain his trust, the net-like pattern once again rapidly manifested line after line of secret knowledge.

“Your comprehension is excellent. According to the innate memories I possessed from birth, the divine beings within Chaos can, according to their state, broadly be divided into three categories.”

“The first are those who remain at the height of their glory, still existing above the world. The source of my existence, [Ancient Net Across Past and Present], as well as the [Formless Suspended Skull] you have encountered, both belong to this category.”

“The second are those who are dead yet still alive.”

“Although their divine bodies have already dispersed, their indestructible source imprints still remain engraved within the infinite Chaos. Their residual might can often be triggered and manifested under certain extremely stringent conditions.”

“Although the hope of such beings ever fully recovering is exceedingly slim, no one can say with certainty that there will never come a day when they once again reappear within Chaos.”

“As for the third category...”

“They are those who have undergone absolute annihilation in the truest sense.”

“They may once have existed in incomparably glorious fashion, but now, even their divine titles, deeds, and the slightest trace of their concepts have been completely erased from this Chaos.”

“No one knows their names. No trace of their words or deeds can be found anywhere in the world.”

“It is as though... they had never appeared within these vast rivers of time at all.”

The speed at which the characters manifested had clearly slowed.

Yet as Li Shun looked at those successive lines of text, he inexplicably felt a deep sense of melancholy, as though he shared in their fate.