Chapter 599: Inverted Fortune Persists Even In Death

The fisherman and Han Yi stood facing each other.

A violent, oppressive energy descended without warning.

The fisherman's face was placid, his form as immovable as a mountain peak. Even his straw raincoat seemed steeped in the weight of countless millennia, clinging to his body through the storm, utterly undisturbed by the turmoil around him.

By contrast, a torrent of black, baleful energy churned and erupted from Han Yi.

Under the influence of this inexplicable power, Han Yi's expression remained at the exact moment the fisherman's gaze first fell upon him.

Yet now his face appeared sinister and terrifying. His pupils had vanished, and his face was etched with a web of spreading fissures like cracked porcelain. His entire body flickered intermittently, swallowed by the billowing black miasma only to reappear an instant later.

The transformation took a single breath.

After one final glance, the fisherman shouldered his fish basket from the ground and strode purposefully toward the Congyun Sea.

The moment he departed, the churning black energy retracted into Han Yi's body. But Han Yi did not return to normal. He simply stood there, utterly still, like a stone statue that had occupied that very spot since time immemorial. His vacant eyes stared blankly ahead.

An unknown span of time passed. Then an ordinary white bird flew through the sky above Han Yi's petrified form. Without warning, a long-healed wound on the bird's wing tore open anew. It lost its balance instantly, spiraling through the air in ever-tightening circles as it plummeted earthward, and it struck the ground before it could recover its balance. It died, broken, right before the stone statue of Han Yi.

More time flowed past.

A group of mortals from a nearby town came down the path, chatting and laughing. They seemed blind to the statue standing directly in their way. Instead of stepping around it, they walked straight into it. Yet there was no collision; the mortals passed right through, their expressions unchanged, utterly unaware of any anomaly.

Not long after, one man among them suddenly clutched his chest, his face going ashen. Amidst the shocked cries of his companions, he collapsed limply to the ground. He was dead shortly after.

These mortals had been on their way to a nearby mountain to gather medicinal herbs. With this sudden tragedy, all thought of herb-gathering vanished. Sobbing, they lifted the unfortunate victim of the apparent heart failure and carried him home.

Another stretch of time elapsed.

A cultivator in cyan Daoist robes shot through the sky above Han Yi's statue, face bright with excitement.

"After all that hardship, I've finally gathered the last primary ingredient. Combined with the alchemy furnace I purchased earlier, I'm sure to refine the Profound Ice Treasure Pill this time!"

He muttered to himself, eyes brimming with anticipation.

One day later, an unremarkable death phenomenon manifested in the skies above Luoyan Province. Word spread that a certain cultivator had made an error during pill refinement and his furnace had exploded. He had failed to produce the pill and paid for it with his life.

Furnace explosions were exceedingly rare in this era, but not unheard of. The deceased was an insignificant Golden Core cultivator, and people offered only a few words of lament before moving on. It stirred no further ripples.

Yet quiet changes were already taking place in Luoyan Province, unknown to the world beyond it.

***

The fisherman did not ride the wind. He walked upon the earth with solid, unhurried steps, yet his speed was astonishing. Each stride carried him ten thousand li forward, his figure flickering continuously as he pressed on toward the Congyun Sea.

When he reached Yuandao Province, his destination a single step away, a blue figure suddenly blocked his path.

"Fellow Daoist, you should turn back now."

The fisherman frowned, studying the other.

Blue Daoist robes, hair streaked with white, a face deeply lined with wrinkles. The man appeared aged and decrepit, seemingly near the end of his days.

"Have I seen you before?" the fisherman asked, uncertain.

The blue-robed cultivator coughed several times, his voice aged and hoarse. "Fellow Daoist, your memory truly grows worse. Last time we met, you could still recall me. Now you cannot even remember who I am? Let me think, that was only two hundred years ago."

The fisherman lowered his head in silence, as if considering the elder's words. After a moment, he shook his head. "I truly cannot remember."

He paused. "But it matters not. After all, you are about to die."

He seemed to be speaking to himself.

The blue-robed elder went still.

"Yes," the elder said at last, his tone carrying a trace of sorrow. "I am about to die."

"Will you still block me?"

"Duty compels me. I have no choice." Lan Yu's reply held no hesitation.

The fisherman wasted no further words. He extended his right hand and grasped at the air. A web of crisscrossing black lines materialized instantly around the blue-robed elder, like a giant net closing in from all sides.

The elder let out a muffled grunt and his figure vanished, leaving only a single blue feather within the rapidly shrinking net, pulsing with faint light.

In the next moment, the net contracted to nothing and returned to the fisherman's hand.

He looked at the blue feather in his palm. His brow arched slightly in a brief flicker of surprise. Then he gave a slight shake of his head and let the matter go. He placed the feather into the fish basket on his back and continued toward the Congyun Sea.

Not long after he departed, a faint, barely perceptible figure reappeared on the scene.

Why should I care about the floods that rage after I die? Hmph!

He cast a long look at the fisherman's retreating back and vanished.

***

In Qingyun Province, separated from Luoyan Province by two provinces...

The instant his surveillance failed, Li Fan knew something was wrong.

His reaction was immediate. He retrieved a Heavenly Venerable World Manifestation Statue, previously gifted by the Five Elders Council, from his grotto-heaven.

Not the five-faced, ten-handed statue that allowed him to contact the Five Pivot Court, but a statue of Heavenly Venerable Untroubled, with downcast eyes and a compassionate expression.

Its sole function was to protect the sea of consciousness from dissipating should it suffer a fatal blow.

The pain was immediate and brutal. It felt like being clubbed across the skull. Li Fan's mind erupted into a cacophony of ringing noise, and the world before his eyes fractured into a thousand trembling afterimages. He coughed blood, his hands flying up to clutch his head, and the protective charge of Return to Truth dropped by five percent.

Fortunately, it was only a minor injury. His life was not in danger.

Within his internal grotto-heaven domain, the power of the five elements cycled and flowed. In moments, his vital essence was restored.

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