Chapter 1528 Cross-Spacetime Anchors

Although his upper body had already become a mass of flesh and blood, Li Fan could still 'sense' that the Reverse Flowing Wooden Boat bestowed upon him by Emperor Taitian remained quietly present within his 'mind'.

At this moment, as Li Fan's desire to travel against the flow of time reached its extreme, a crystalline, gentle white light began to emanate from around the Reverse Flowing Boat. Threads of green seemed to accompany the white radiance.

The scenery of the real world began to dissolve and distort, like a painting being splashed with water.

An almost unbearable pain immediately emerged within Li Fan's mind. It felt as though billions upon billions of chains were simultaneously piercing his head. Then, as they spun at tremendous speed, these countless chains churned violently within his mind, turning everything upside down.

"Ahhhhh!"

Even though he no longer had a head, the remaining flesh and blood tissues of Li Fan began to convulse and tremble under this indescribable agony.

Although Emperor Taitian had imparted all his insights into the Dao of Reverse, he had never mentioned that activating the Reverse Flowing Boat would come with such terrifying side effects.

Li Fan vaguely remembered that in his previous simulations, he had also endured all kinds of painful torments. Yet none of them had amounted to even one ten-thousandth of the agony he was experiencing now.

The pain spread simultaneously through his flesh and blood, soul, will, and memories.

It seemed to reach the very depths of Li Fan's true being.

Gradually, the faint sounds of wind and rain began to echo around him. Countless 'raindrops' struck him head-on.

Each drop was like the sharpest blade in existence, slicing into Li Fan.

Consequently, his agony grew even more intense.

However, the invisible and immense force originating from his memories had already completely crushed what remained of his physical body. With his flesh and blood gone, Li Fan, who desperately wanted to survive, had no path of retreat left.

Amid boundless agony, he barely managed to maintain a sliver of consciousness, continuing to sustain the power of the Reverse Flowing Boat without allowing it to dissipate.

The sound of wind and rain grew louder and louder.

The raindrops striking him were no longer isolated. They connected one after another, forming continuous streams.

Amid the constant collisions, the Reverse Flowing Boat let out successive thunderous booms. It seemed as though it could break apart at any moment.

Fortunately, at this critical juncture, the concealed green light immediately blossomed, rapidly repairing the damage to the boat.

After enduring for nine breaths, the countless streams of raindrops finally converged into a river.

In an instant, Li Fan plunged into it. All the pain he had experienced vanished completely at that very moment.

It was as though he had detached himself from the entire world.

His perspective rose from the Great Xuan Small World and the Xuanhuang Realm. After remaining slightly still for a brief moment, it began moving backward.

Li Fan looked back and saw the scene of himself entering the sealed village beneath the Mountains and Seas Fishing Grounds. He saw himself subduing and taking control of the Xuanhuang Ruomu. He saw himself serving as the Grand Preceptor, commanding the world with his overwhelming authority. He saw himself just after recovering his memories, being forced to drink that disgusting talisman water...

The mighty River of Time surged onward, while the wooden boat traveling against its current trembled precariously.

It seemed that the slightest mistake could cause it to capsize.

However, precisely because he had personally experienced these events throughout his past, they served as anchors. With each stretch of time he traveled backward, Li Fan could draw upon the strength of these anchors to steady himself within the great river.

But when Li Fan had returned to the anchored year of 1 and attempted to continue traveling upstream, something changed.

The instant he crossed this crucial temporal boundary, the turbulence of the River of Time suddenly became hundreds or even thousands of times more violent.

It was as though he had left a relatively clear but rapidly flowing river channel and entered an even murkier, more turbulent region. Li Fan could no longer see any scenery within the River of Time.

All around him were surging lines of countless colors blending together, obscuring the perception of Li Fan, the traveler moving against the current.

The terrifying force that suddenly erupted within the river nearly destroyed the Reverse Flowing Boat before he could react. Compared with the surging River of Time, the white light surrounding the wooden boat was pitifully weak. It was not even comparable to a single drop of the river water. Nevertheless, it desperately maintained its radiance, preventing the boat from being swept away and crushed on the spot.

Li Fan understood what failure would mean.

It was not as simple as merely returning to the real world once again.

He would disappear from history entirely. Not a single trace of his former existence would remain in this world.

Li Fan struggled desperately to alter his fate.

But a tiny individual like him was simply too insignificant compared with the vast and boundless River of Time. Even though he had mastered the Dao of Reverse, now that he was within the river, he could only surrender control of his fate and leave everything to chance.

It seemed he had already reached a dead end.

Nevertheless, Li Fan had not given up on surviving. He continued adhering to the Dao of Reverse, doing everything in his power to control the Reverse Flowing Boat.

While struggling for his life, Li Fan's mind was also filled with countless questions.

According to Emperor Taitian's inheritance, the journey against the flow of time should not have been this difficult. At the very least, when traveling back within a thousand-year range, even a severely damaged Reverse Flowing Boat on the verge of disintegration should have been more than capable of withstanding the waves within the great river.

Yet now, Li Fan had traveled upstream for barely fifty years, and the waves that suddenly surged within the river already possessed a force comparable to what one would encounter after traveling back ten thousand years!

One had to understand that, according to Emperor Taitian's experience, the farther one traveled into the past, the greater the pressure one had to endure. It increased almost exponentially.

Yet Li Fan had barely even begun, and he was already facing such tremendous resistance...

It was difficult to imagine just how violent the waves would become when he traveled back ten thousand or even thirty thousand years!

"How could this be?!"

Li Fan was filled with shock and bewilderment.

Suddenly, he recalled the images of his own past experiences that he had glimpsed earlier within the great river.

While those images had been present, the river's behavior had remained within normal limits. But the moment they disappeared, the river had erupted into violent waves, seemingly intent on devouring him!

'Could it be because I never actually experienced this period of time? Without anchors to support me, the resistance has increased by countless times?'

An idea suddenly struck Li Fan, as though enlightenment had come to him.

However, even after understanding the reason behind the river's sudden eruption, Li Fan was already in an impossible predicament.

The River of Time was now completely murky, making it impossible to distinguish up from down or east from west. Its tremendous turbulent force was constantly 'slicing' into Li Fan.

This made it virtually impossible for him to locate a safe temporal point at which to land.

Amid the raging waves, the light of the Reverse Flowing Boat grew increasingly dim. It was on the verge of sinking.

It seemed that in the very next moment, the boat would capsize and its passenger perish.

Just as this critical moment arrived, countless streams of green light suddenly emerged from nowhere.

They were like a supreme Wind-Calming Pearl, temporarily suppressing the storm within the great river.

This green light seemed to originate from within Li Fan's body. Yet throughout the boundless River of Time, countless tiny green points of light were simultaneously shining, stretching from remote antiquity all the way to the present.

They resembled towering lighthouses, illuminating the path ahead for Li Fan.

Although their effectiveness seemed somewhat inferior to that of his own temporal anchors, there was no doubt that they were his only lifeline.

Following the direction indicated by the green lights, the Reverse Flowing Boat continued forward.

One hundred years, three hundred years, five hundred years.

Until one thousand years, five thousand years...

The green light surrounding Li Fan had already begun to run out.

The green lighthouses within the great river also grew dim once again, gradually disappearing into the surging currents of history.

Yet Li Fan still could not find a safe landing point beyond the protection of the green light.

'If I forcibly leave the River of Time now and return to reality, there may be two possible outcomes.'

'The first is that I fail to land safely and perish beneath the erosion of time, leaving not even a corpse behind, becoming nothing more than dust in history.'

'The second is that I somehow manage to land safely...'

'Let's wait a little longer.'

Although most of Li Fan's experience with reverse traversal through time came from the inheritance of the Emperor Taitian, their respective experiences within the River of Time had been vastly different.

Li Fan had certainly encountered far more turbulent waves. Yet, in contrast, he had felt very little of the erosion and stripping away by the River of Time, something that had been a source of great apprehension for the Emperor Taitian.

One had to understand that during his first attempt at traveling backward through time, the Emperor Taitian had barely managed to last three thousand years before feeling that he was about to dissolve completely into the River of Time. He had been forced to return to reality.

Yet now, on his very first attempt, Li Fan had already traveled back several thousand years. Moreover, he had felt almost none of the so-called pressure of being stripped away.

If not for the lack of the Longevity Great Dao's protection and guidance, and the excessively violent turbulence within the river that made sailing against its current so difficult, Li Fan even felt that he could continue traveling backward indefinitely.

Although the pressure of erosion was relatively slight, the further back Li Fan traveled, the greater the pressure he faced.

When he had traveled back approximately eight thousand years, the waves within the river surged toward the heavens. The conditions for navigation had completely deteriorated.

Li Fan was swept into the turbulence, to the point that he could barely distinguish the direction in which time was flowing.

He carefully observed every detail within the River of Time, striving to find even the slightest chance of survival at this final moment.

However, he was ultimately no exceptionally fortunate individual.

Bang!

The Reverse Flowing Boat had begun to disintegrate.

Without the protection of the immortal boat, Li Fan, now directly exposed to the River of Time, instantly found himself facing pressure multiplied countless times over.

At last, Li Fan experienced the very sensation of dissolution that the Emperor Taitian had described.

With every surge of the river, Li Fan lost a portion of himself.

Cultivation, divine abilities, insights into the Dao...

All these things seemed like external attachments. Under the repeated washing of the river, they gradually peeled away from him.

Only his innermost core continued struggling to hold on.

When even his true inner core began to suffer damage, Li Fan instinctively sensed an extremely fatal threat.

He knew that he could no longer afford to delay. Even making a reckless landing at this point offered a greater chance of survival than perishing within the River of Time.

Controlling the severely damaged Reverse Flowing Boat, Li Fan gradually withdrew from his comprehension of the Dao of Reverse.

The scenery of the River of Time slowly faded from his field of vision. In its place appeared a torrential downpour stretching across the heavens.

In an instant, Li Fan nearly lost his sense of direction.

He had become trapped in a predicament between advancing and retreating, at the boundary separating the River of Time from reality.

If he recklessly moved forward, he might plunge straight back into the River of Time. Yet if he continued lingering here, he would remain within the range of its turbulent currents, allowing his innermost core to suffer continuous erosion. That, too, would lead to certain death.

Just as Li Fan hesitated for a brief moment, he suddenly spotted a familiar glimmer of light amid the torrential rain before him.

This perhaps meant that, at a point in time eight thousand years in the future, he had once come into contact with this particular light.

Although it did not exist in the past, that prior contact had allowed it to form an anchor point spanning across time and space.

Li Fan knew just how difficult it was to find something connected to himself amid the endless wind and rain of eight thousand years in the past.

He could not afford to miss this opportunity. Without further hesitation, he immediately controlled the battered Reverse Flowing Boat and flew toward the fleeting glimmer of light.

With the anchor point guiding him, Li Fan finally passed through the storm of the River of Time before the Reverse Flowing Boat completely disintegrated.

He had returned to the world of reality.

The Xuanhuang Realm.

Eight thousand six hundred and forty-three years before the Initial Anchor Point!

"That streak of light... It's the Medicine King Sect! How dare they run away?"

"Quick, go notify the elders!"

"Wait! Although the Medicine King Sect isn't a particularly large sect, they are still quite wealthy. Since they fled in such a hurry, there's no way they could have taken all their treasures with them..."

"Hurry! Don't let someone else get there first!"

"Wait, what's that? Why is there another streak of light?"

"Could it be that the Medicine King Sect had some disagreement among themselves and decided not to flee after all?"

"Let's go take a look first!"

...

By the time Li Fan regained consciousness, he had already been completely surrounded.

"Hm?"

Still somewhat dazed, Li Fan had yet to fully regain his bearings. He merely noticed the cultivators around him counting their spoils while occasionally casting glances in his direction.

"You brat, you've finally woken up."

"Speak! What exactly happened to the Medicine King Sect? Tell us everything honestly, and we might spare your life. Otherwise..."

"Stop wasting your breath. Just search his soul!"

"You idiot! Those two streaks of light were so conspicuous. There's no way we can keep this hidden. What are we supposed to tell the elders when they come asking questions?"

The group whispered among themselves, completely ignoring Li Fan, who remained tightly restrained.

Li Fan temporarily paid them no attention and first examined his current condition.

Although his physical body had almost completely disappeared within the River of Time, upon returning to reality, the Longevity Great Dao within him had once again reconstructed a new body.

However, what Li Fan found somewhat regrettable was that the Longevity Great Dao seemed to have suffered tremendous damage during this journey.

Moreover, this damage appeared to be irreversible.

At least for the time being, it seemed impossible to recover within a short period.

'After all, it never truly belonged to me. It was merely a gift from Lord Hill Guardian.' Li Fan chuckled self-deprecatingly.

"Hm?"

"Lord Hill Guardian?"

Only after a brief moment did Li Fan finally react.

Eight thousand years of reverse traversal through the River of Time.

Although the journey had washed away his entire cultivation, divine abilities, and even the Longevity Great Dao, all the memories he had lost had also been restored.

The various events of these two lifetimes unfolded one after another before Li Fan's eyes, causing him to let out a faint sigh.

'An impulse born from a moment of greed has brought about endless variables.'

'The consequences of merging the three Great Daos of Mountains and Seas, Longevity, and [Truth] are indeed far beyond what my current self can withstand.'

'Fortunately, my fortune is not too bad. Even while suffering from amnesia, I still managed to discover an extraordinary opportunity.'

'The Dao of Reverse...'

Li Fan lowered his head, recalling everything he had experienced within the River of Time. A peculiar light flickered in his eyes.

'[Truth].'

After some deliberation, Li Fan first called out to [Truth] within his mind.

The repeated failures of [Truth] had filled Li Fan with an extreme sense of unease.

Still, there was no response.

However, after carefully sensing its presence, Li Fan finally confirmed that [Truth] was still within him.

It seemed that, for some unknown reason, it had fallen into a deep slumber.