They spoke back and forth like this as Yongliang Province seemed to draw closer and closer.
Then, gradually, something about their surroundings began to feel wrong.
The coastline looked close enough to touch, yet no matter how long they flew, they remained suspended over the azure expanse of the Congyun Sea. Yongliang Province never came any nearer.
What chilled them further was that the distant shoreline, when they looked more carefully, appeared faintly blurred, less like a real place and more like... an illusion.
One by one, they slowed to a halt, their expressions darkening.
Then the lead cultivator's face drained of color. "This is bad. It's an illusion!"
"What?" The others froze, then cast frantic gazes around them.
The clouds, the wind, the sea—all of it had gone perfectly still. Then, like cracks spiderwebbing across a mirror, the world shattered with a roar.
And in their ears, they could still faintly hear the echoes of explosions. Their grotto-heavens were in a pitiful state. Their bodies were a bloody, mangled ruin, never having recovered at all!
Time had never moved. They were still locked in the instant Li Fan had struck them with the Sky-Rending Gilded Thunder.
"He took advantage of the moment our grotto-heaven domains were hit, when our spirits were dazed, and pulled us into the illusion!"
C6 finally understood, his voice dropping in stunned realization.
"Mastery of divinations, arrays, illusions...
"Truly worthy of an ancient cultivator."
The leader coughed roughly, jaw tight.
He tried to activate his grotto-heaven and draw in the surrounding spiritual qi. Despair hit him immediately. Their opponent had already laid down an array that reduced the entire area to a vacuum, stripped clean of spiritual qi. Every chance the Nascent Soul cultivators had to restore their bodies by drawing on their grotto-heavens had been cut off entirely.
"Impressive technique," he growled, glaring upward.
There, Li Fan was slowly taking shape in the air above them.
Truly a coincidence? Li Fan's brow furrowed faintly as he considered it.
With his abilities, he could have killed these four from the Five Elders Council long ago. The entire elaborate sequence had served one purpose: to use the Cloudwater Dream Illusion Art to extract the reason they had found him from their minds.
And the answer he had received was this seemingly absurd one.
He hesitated no longer. The Five Elements Annihilation Swords swept out in rapid succession. Grievously wounded as they were, the four Five Elders Council cultivators held on for only a moment before falling, one after another, dying beneath Li Fan's blades.
Above, the phenomena marking the deaths of cultivators manifested briefly, but Li Fan paid them no attention.
In the short time he had been occupied with the Five Elders Council cultivators, a powerful suction force had erupted without warning from the massive whirlpool on the seafloor. It had drawn Han Yi, still immobilized by the Insect Binding technique, down into the deep hole within the ruins below.
Providence...
Li Fan stood before the whirlpool, his gaze thoughtful.