The barrier between the Immortal Realm and the lower realms, governed by the laws of the universe, was a forbidden taboo. Even as the Immortal Realm was being consumed by darkness and its laws destabilized, the barrier remained formidable. Breaking through it, even for the Immortal Emperor, would come at an unimaginable cost.
It was possible that the Immortal Emperor might perish before the darkness could consume him, expending his life force to send Xuanwei to the lower realms and crossing this forbidden boundary.
The Immortal Emperor had clearly anticipated all of this. Rather than being consumed by the darkness, he chose to sacrifice himself to give Xuanwei a chance at survival.
Realizing this, Xiao Fan felt a pang of sadness but knew he was powerless to change the outcome. He had a more important mission to fulfill.
Now that he had gained control over the heavenly laws, he understood that he couldn't assist the Immortal Emperor directly. As he had come with the darkness, using the power of the laws to help the Immortal Emperor break through the barrier would cause the darkness to spill into the lower realms through the breach.
The only thing Xiao Fan could do was use his control over the laws to hold back the darkness, buying the Immortal Emperor time. Once the Immortal Emperor succeeded in sending Xuanwei to the lower realms and the barrier repaired itself, Xiao Fan would need to immediately reinforce the barrier with the heavenly laws, completely severing the Immortal Realm from the lower realms to prevent the darkness from spreading.
Time was of the essence, and the Immortal Emperor knew his own time was short. He expended all of his life force to resist the corrosive power of the taboo, struggling to tear open a breach in the barrier between the Immortal Realm and the lower realms.
In an instant, the Immortal Emperor's appearance began to age rapidly. His temples turned white, his vitality drained, and his body withered like a desiccated tree.
In the blink of an eye, the Immortal Emperor had transformed into a frail old man with snow-white hair. But his face bore a smile of satisfaction—he had successfully sent the sealed Xuanwei to the lower realms.
Even though Xuanwei had been protected by numerous layers of seals, she still suffered the effects of the taboo as she passed through the barrier. Her memories of the Immortal Realm were sealed away to ensure that no knowledge of the Immortal Realm would reach the lower realms.
Having completed his task, the Immortal Emperor looked on with a sense of peace as the Immortal Realm continued to be consumed by darkness. As the first immortal to ascend, he felt no regrets in sharing the fate of the Immortal Realm's destruction.
Outside the Haotian Mirror.
Watching the now elderly Immortal Emperor, Xuanwei was already in tears. She was filled with regret—regret that she had never realized how much the Immortal Emperor cared for her, regret for how poorly she had treated him, and regret for all the missed opportunities.
"Old man, I'm sorry..."
Within the Haotian Mirror.
Xiao Fan was fully focused on strengthening the barrier between the Immortal Realm and the lower realms with the power of the heavenly laws. Even though he had learned how to control these laws, the task was far more difficult than he had imagined.
To completely separate the Immortal Realm from the lower realms and prevent the darkness from spreading was no easy feat. Originally, he was meant to witness the destruction of this epoch along with the darkness, but now he was going against the natural order of the transition between epochs.
Ordinarily, after the darkness consumed the Immortal Realm, it would then move on to the lower realms before everything converged into a singularity. But what Xiao Fan was attempting was to isolate the Immortal Realm from the lower realms, turning them into two independent entities—a transgression against a greater taboo.
One misstep, and his consciousness might cease to exist entirely.
At the brink of his consciousness collapsing, Xiao Fan managed to just barely sever the connection between the Immortal Realm and the lower realms, preventing the spread of darkness. The next step would be to sever the final link—the Immortal Path—completely isolating the two realms and ensuring the darkness could not touch the lower realms.
However, this did not mean the lower realms were entirely safe. The energy from the Immortal Realm would take thousands of years to fully converge into a singularity and infuse the lower realms. The lower realms couldn't wait that long. Once the lower realms' energy was exhausted, decay would set in, and darkness would begin to grow, leading to a similar irreversible fate as the Immortal Realm.
Xiao Fan still had much to do. He needed to find a way to delay the decay of the lower realms until the energy from the Immortal Realm could be transferred.
But his consciousness was on the verge of collapse. He urgently needed a physical body to stabilize his consciousness, or he risked it dissipating entirely.
The lower realms, however, were not like the Immortal Realm. He couldn't simply create a body from lotus roots and mud, as Xuanwei had done before. The best option was to reincarnate in the lower realms, thereby gaining a new body. But this came with a risk—reincarnation would erase all his memories due to the mystery of birth.
Of course, if he awakened his past life memories, he could recall everything. But there was no guarantee he would awaken these memories, nor could anyone predict how long it would take.
How much longer could the lower realms hold out? Ten years? Twenty years?
This was a gamble, but it was the only choice left to him.
With his consciousness on the brink of collapse, Xiao Fan used the power of the laws to send his consciousness to the lower realms.
…
"You're awake?"
A stern-looking middle-aged man, holding a jade-green bottle in his hand, looked gravely at Xiao Fan.
Xiao Fan blinked in confusion, staring at his adult hands, puzzled.
Had he awakened his past life memories?
He could recall everything—his mission, his purpose. But why was his memory of his reincarnation blank?
Not only was Xiao Fan confused, but those watching outside the Haotian Mirror were equally baffled. They didn't know Xiao Fan had intended to reincarnate in the lower realms. But they could clearly see that something was missing—a large part of Xiao Fan's journey to regain a body.
The person most agitated by this was the Empress of the Jade Pool. She fixated on the jade-green bottle in the middle-aged man's hand displayed in the Haotian Mirror.
The middle-aged man was her father, the Heavenly Emperor, and the jade-green bottle was the Soul Nourishing Bottle that held her husband's soul—a bottle she had seen before.
She didn't care about the missing memories in Xiao Fan's journey. The less revealed, the better—it spared her from facing the scene of her husband being killed by Xiao Fan. Her sole focus was on the whereabouts of the Soul Nourishing Bottle.
To read the manga version, please click the YouTube link https://youtu.be/GnU613H6xm8