The minor worlds and the Xuanhuang World were not situated within the same spacetime?
While the woman in green studied Li Fan with a faint, inscrutable smile, his thoughts were already racing.
Was this true or false?
A test, or a carefully crafted lie meant to serve as a bargaining chip?
In the span of a single breath, Li Fan ran through countless possibilities.
If she had already seen through his identity as a fraud, she would not waste time explaining such matters. The rational choice would be a direct withdrawal or setting of a trap to capture and interrogate him.
Which meant that, most likely, she still harbored doubts about his identity.
After all, in the long history of the Xuanhuang World, there had indeed been precedents of minor worlds banding together to attack the cultivation world. And whether the minor worlds shared the same spacetime as the Xuanhuang World was something a true envoy of the Myriad Worlds Coalition would know.
Given that this concerned the Empire’s very survival, this Holy Master would not risk fabricating a lie so easily exposed.
Therefore, what she said was most likely true.
At the very least, she believed it to be true.
But that only gave rise to a deeper question.
If the minor worlds and the Xuanhuang World did not exist within the same spacetime, then when confronted with the Immortal Ruins, why hadn’t the cultivators of the Xuanhuang World fled through the Immortal-Severing Passageways into the minor worlds—and then severed the connection behind them?
Certainly, Nascent Soul, Spirit Transformation, and Dao Unity cultivators might be restricted by the scarcity of spiritual qi in the minor worlds. But for an Eternal Heavenly Venerable, such limitations should be negligible.
So why hadn’t the Eternal Heavenly Venerables escaped?
The answer narrowed to three possibilities: they were unafraid, unwilling, or unable.
Unafraid?
In his previous life, Heavenly Venerable One Mind had chosen retreat when faced with the threat of mutual destruction using the Spirit-Locking Array. That alone proved that even an Eternal Life powerhouse could not guarantee their safety when facing the Immortal Ruins.
This possibility could be dismissed.
Unwilling?
Bound by lofty ideals, they refused to abandon their homeland even at the cost of annihilation, choosing to sink alongside the Xuanhuang World into the Immortal Ruins?
Judging by the current path to Dao attainment for the cultivators of this world, this was absolutely not a choice the present Eternal Heavenly Venerables would make.
That left only one conclusion.
The Eternal Heavenly Venerables... were unable to leave the Xuanhuang World.
The moment the thought formed, Li Fan almost laughed at its absurdity.
Beings at the Eternal Life realm, existences standing at the very apex of the cultivation world, unable to leave?
How could that possibly be—
He suddenly froze.
What if... it were true?
A long-standing question resurfaced in his mind.
Why did defying the principles of heaven and earth lead to eternal life?
All living beings possessed finite lifespans. Even the so-called eternalkind merely lived somewhat longer than others.
If anything in the Xuanhuang World deserved to be called eternal, it was heaven and earth.
So why did defying heaven and earth allow cultivators to undergo such a metamorphosis, allowing their bodies to share the same lifespan as heaven and earth?
The principles of heaven and earth.
Defying the principles of heaven and earth.
At that moment, a memory surfaced.
In his previous life, when confronted by Senior Sister Zhao’s overwhelming pressure, Ji Hongdao had once said:
.....
“After a Heavenly Venerable establishes their Axiom, they should no longer involve themselves in mundane disputes.”
.....
Axiom.
The word struck like a bolt of lightning, cleaving through the fog that had long clouded Li Fan’s thoughts.
It forced him to confront something he had overlooked for far too long.
All living beings in this world must forget their sorrows and find joy.
All living beings must revere and cultivate the Dao of the Heavenly Venerable Dao Teacher.
These absurd, almost tyrannical rules, once unimaginable, now truly existed as part of heaven and earth itself.
Which meant... after overturning the original principles of heaven and earth, the Heavenly Venerables had replaced them with their own.
Their Axioms had become the new laws of the world.
And that was why the Heavenly Venerables gained lifespans as vast as heaven and earth.