Although death is against fate

Fisherman and Han Yi stood facing each other.

A violent energy suddenly descended.

Fisherman's face was calm, and his body was as unmoving as a mountain.

Even the straw cape on his body seemed to have been settled for millions of years, remaining tightly against Fisherman's body in this storm, unaffected by any external influence.

As for Han Yi, from within him, monstrous black Qi surged and appeared.

Under the shroud of this inexplicable energy, the expression on Han Yi's face remained frozen at the moment he was just looked at by Fisherman.

He looked indescribably sinister and terrifying.

His pupils disappeared, and his face, like shattered porcelain, showed cracks.

His entire body flickered from time to time, disappearing into the rolling black Qi.

In the blink of an eye, he quietly reappeared.

The change happened in just a short moment.

After a glance, Fisherman re-shouldered the fish basket he had placed on the ground and strode towards Congyun Sea.

As for Han Yi…

The constantly surging black Qi suddenly retracted into his body after Old Fisherman left.

But he did not return to normal.

He just stood quietly in place, with no other movements afterward.

He was like a stone statue that had been there from beginning to end.

With hollow eyes, he stared blankly ahead.

After an unknown period, when an ordinary white bird flew over Han Yi's stone statue.

Something strange happened.

Without any warning, the previously healed wound on the white bird's wing suddenly reopened.

This caused it to suddenly lose balance, spinning several times in the air while constantly falling downwards.

It failed to recover until it reached the ground.

It fell directly to its death in front of Han Yi's stone statue.

And then, an unknown amount of time passed again.

In a nearby small town, a group of Mortals walked by, chatting and laughing.

As if they couldn't see Han Yi's statue, they paid no attention to him standing in the middle of the road.

They didn't even avoid him, walking straight through him.

Even more mysteriously, Han Yi's statue seemed to be illusory.

No collision occurred.

The Mortals walked directly through him.

They remained composed, noticing nothing unusual.

However, after walking a short distance further, one person in the Mortal group suddenly clutched his chest, his face pale.

Amidst everyone's exclamations, he fell to the ground weakly.

Not long after, he passed away.

These Mortals had originally planned to go to the nearby mountains to gather some medicinal herbs.

Now that such an incident had occurred, they naturally no longer had the heart to gather herbs.

Amidst sobs, they carried the unfortunate victim, who had suffered a heart attack, back.

More time passed.

A Cultivator dressed in a green Daoist robe flew over Han Yi's statue, his face full of excitement.

"After all this trouble, I've finally gathered the last main ingredient. Plus the Pill Furnace I bought earlier…"

"This time, the 'Profound Ice Treasure Pill' is almost guaranteed to succeed!"

He muttered to himself, his eyes full of anticipation.

A day later, a subtle anomaly of a Cultivator's demise appeared above Luoyan Province.

The general idea was that a Cultivator had caused an explosion of his Pill Furnace due to an operational error during Alchemy.

He didn't succeed in refining the Medicinal Pill; instead, he lost his own life.

In this era, while it was extremely rare for someone to unfortunately perish due to a Pill Furnace explosion during Alchemy, it wasn't impossible.

Since the one who died was just an inconspicuous Golden Core cultivator, people only sighed a few times.

And then it caused no further ripples.

However, some changes were quietly happening in Luoyan Province.

For now, they remained unknown to outsiders.

…

The perspective returns to Old Fisherman.

Although he did not fly on the wind, he walked steadily on the ground.

But his speed was extremely fast.

With one step, he was already ten thousand miles away in the next.

His figure flickered continuously, advancing towards Congyun Sea.

When he reached Source Dao Province, only a step away from his destination.

Suddenly, a blue figure blocked his path.

"Fellow Daoist, please return…"

Fisherman frowned, sizing up the other party.

Dressed in a blue Daoist robe, with white hair and a face full of wrinkles.

He was decrepit, looking as if his end was near.

"Have I seen you before?" Fisherman asked, somewhat uncertainly.

The blue-robed Cultivator coughed a few times and said in an old voice, "Fellow Daoist is truly becoming more and more forgetful."

"The last time we met, you could still remember me. Now, you can't even remember who I am?"

"Let me think, that was only two hundred years ago."

Fisherman lowered his head and was silent for a moment, seemingly pondering the meaning of the blue-robed old man's words.

Soon after, he shook his head: "I truly can't remember."

"But it doesn't matter…"

"Anyway, you're about to die."

Old Fisherman said to himself.

The blue-robed old man was instantly stunned.

"Yes, I'm dying…" There was some sadness in the old man's tone.

"Are you still going to stop me?" Fisherman asked.

"It's my duty; I have no choice," Lan Yu replied without any hesitation.

Upon hearing this, Fisherman didn't waste any words.

He extended his right hand and grabbed forward.

Intertwining black lines instantly appeared around the blue-robed old man, like a giant net, completely surrounding him from all directions.

The blue-robed old man let out a muffled groan, and his figure suddenly disappeared.

Only a blue feather remained, emitting bursts of light within the constantly shrinking fishing net.

The next moment, the fishing net contracted and disappeared, returning to Fisherman's hand.

However, looking at the blue feather in his hand, Fisherman's eyebrows raised, as if he was a little surprised.

Immediately, he shook his head slightly, not dwelling on it.

He placed Lan Yu in the fish basket behind him and continued towards Congyun Sea.

Not long after Fisherman left.

A faint figure reappeared in the field.

"After I die, let the floods rage."

"Hmph!"

He gave Fisherman's retreating figure a deep look and disappeared from the spot.

—

Qingyun Province, two provinces away from Luoyan Province.

The moment his peeking perspective disappeared, Li Fan already knew something was wrong.

His reaction was also very quick; he immediately took out a 'Manifested Celestial Venerable Statue' that the Five Old Men Association had previously given him from his grotto-heaven.

It wasn't the five-faced, ten-armed statue that could establish contact with the Five Hub Court.

Instead, it was a statue with lowered brows and a compassionate expression, representing Celestial Venerable Worryfree.

The statue's only purpose was to protect the Sea of Consciousness from collapsing after suffering a fatal blow.

The effect was also extremely significant.

As if he had been struck hard on the head with a club, Li Fan immediately felt a buzzing in his mind.

Thousands of overlapping images appeared before his eyes, constantly shaking.

He suddenly spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, and Li Fan subconsciously used his hands to tightly protect his head.

Even Huan Zhen's protective energy charging progress dropped by 5%.

Fortunately, he only suffered a minor injury; ultimately, there was no danger to his life.

Within his internal grotto-heaven domain, the power of the Five Elements circulated.

Li Fan recovered his Origin Qi in an instant.