My longevity simulation

“Demonic heretic!”

The young Dharma-Transmitter glared at the wicked smile on the other’s face. Shock, fear, and anger surged within him, and he could not help but rebuke.

Yet his own actions betrayed his true heart.

Dark ghostly light spread and wrapped around his body.

Space itself seemed to split apart as the youth’s figure slowly sank into nothingness, his form gradually fading.

“I can feel the fear within your heart. Why do you flee? What is it you are afraid of?”

The Xuantian Sect’s Dharma King gazed upon the youth, his voice low and strange.

“Face your true self… let yourself… return to the real you…”

The words of the Dharma King carried an uncanny force.

As he chanted softly, a transparent dividing line suddenly appeared between him and the young Dharma-Transmitter.

On either side of that line, it was like two mirrored worlds—reflecting each other perfectly.

In an instant, the figures of the Dharma King and the youth overlapped.

At that moment, the Dharma King was also shrouded in the same ghostly black light as the disciple—as though he were truly his mirror image!

Even when the youth’s expression grew more terrified, that same fear appeared upon the Dharma King’s face.

The dividing line between them grew brighter.

Moments later, the space between them was cut away, leaving the two far closer than before.

“You forced me to this!” the youth snarled, terror and unease boiling within him.

A golden thread suddenly emerged from between his brows.

This golden thread carried a unique might—one that the Dharma King of Xuantian Sect could not replicate.

The mirror world reflected everything except this golden thread, creating a faint dissonance.

The mirrored realm trembled on the verge of collapse, even the Dharma King’s figure blurred.

“You and I are one. Do you hate yourself so much that you must resort to such treasures? Is that necessary?”

At this critical moment, the Dharma King’s whispers once again echoed in the youth’s ears.

The disciple’s fierce, twisted expression softened into confusion, then slowly calmed.

The golden thread retreated back into his brow.

The distance between the two shrank further.

“You have lived long, yet the road ahead is blocked. I can sense your hesitation, your unwillingness… Reclaim your true self, and you will awaken your supreme hidden potential. The Grand Dao may yet be within reach…”

As the Dharma King whispered again and again, the gap between them narrowed until only the dividing line remained.

Their gazes met—expressions identical, no longer filled with fear or doubt, only with the joy of newfound clarity.

The line exploded in radiant light—then vanished.

The mirrored world descended into reality.

The two figures overlapped completely.

In the field of battle, only the young Dharma-Transmitter remained.

Having completed the fusion, he stood quietly in mid-air, eyes closed, digesting the vast flood of information in his mind.

“Immortal Ancestor? The Ten Thousand Immortal Alliance?”

Moments later, his eyes snapped open, puzzlement flickering within them.

“So even in this age, they still guard against our Xuantian Sect.”

“The ‘Extermination of Xuantian’ secret art…”

The “youth” gave a cold snort. “I don’t know where they got their confidence from. Thousands of years have passed, yet their so-called secret art remains completely unchanged. They underestimate us far too much.”

As he spoke, the aura around him subtly shifted.

“This should be enough to fool them, as long as I refrain from using our sect’s forbidden techniques.”

Satisfied, he nodded.

But soon, doubt clouded his face again.

“It wasn’t a chance discovery—they were directed here.”

“They used the name of our Xuantian Sect to recruit followers, even knew my whereabouts…”

“After exposure, they immediately lured disaster elsewhere.”

“The Congyun Mutual Aid Association… the True Immortal of Salvation and Mortal Compassion?”

In an instant, he pieced together the truth from the fragments of intelligence.

Yet the youth did not flare with anger. Instead, his face grew solemn as he recalled the faceless divine statue of Xuantian mentioned in the reports.

He pinched his fingers to calculate, then his expression turned to shock.

“I cannot sense its position? But it is indeed the true statue of Xuantian…”

The doubt in the young man’s eyes grew stronger.

“Could it be… the work of one of our sect brothers?”

“Speaking of it, this style of action truly does resemble that of our Xuantian Sect disciples.”

One face after another flashed through the young man’s mind.

“They must have realized that the matter has already been exposed and cannot be salvaged, so they borrowed my hand to suppress it?”

“It seems this brother has also only recently awakened.”

Yet, the young man felt no doubt about why the other party did not choose to meet him in person.

Back then, when the Ten Great Immortal Sects launched their sudden assault, it was during the critical moment when the ‘Xuantian King’ was in closed-door seclusion.

In one fell swoop, they broke through the Xuantian Sect.

The timing was chosen with uncanny precision.

Even the distribution of the sect’s defensive forces and the flaws in the protective formations were known to them in detail.

The defenses were as good as nonexistent.

Caught off guard, the Xuantian Sect suffered a crushing defeat.

The casualties were disastrous.

The Xuantian King and the supreme treasure, the Xuantian Mirror, vanished without a trace, while the Dharma Kings were either slain or gravely wounded.

It was clear—the defeat had been so absolute that there had to be traitors within the sect.

And not just one.

Thus, every surviving Dharma King became extremely cautious.

Other than the Xuantian King, they trusted no one.

The young man was no exception.

“Before the Xuantian King went missing, he sent us a secret message: to remain dormant and preserve our lives.”

“To await his summons.”

“Yet after all these years, no word has come.”

Even so, the young man had no doubt that the Xuantian King still lived.

After the war between the Xuantian Sect and Heavenly Capital, though the Xuantian King had been seriously injured, he had forcibly seized some Immortal Spirit Qi from the enemy, giving him hope of forging a True Immortal Body.

That was the reason for his closed-door cultivation.

“As long as I can reshape my Immortal Body in the lower realm, I will lead us brothers out of this [Darkest Star Sea].”

The young man still remembered clearly the lofty words the Xuantian King had spoken before entering seclusion.

This was also why, even after so many years, he had never once considered betraying the sect.

For him, thousands of years were but a slightly longer sleep.

But to be trapped here for endless ages—that was true despair.

Thus he could never understand why anyone would choose betrayal.

The only explanation he could arrive at over all these years was that the Ten Great Immortal Sects had also promised a way to escape the Darkest Star Sea—one more reliable than the Xuantian King’s method.

At first, he did not believe it.

But after receiving the full memories of this Dharma-Transmitter, his judgment wavered.

For he learned that, when the great calamity of “Incompatibility Cultivation” descended, several high-level cultivators of the Ten Great Immortal Sects had vanished together.

They even took with them a large portion of the Xuanhuang Realm’s resources.

And since then, they had never been seen again.

“If that is true, then those traitors may already be living carefree.”

A flash of killing intent flickered in the young man’s eyes.

“Without the power of a True Immortal, escaping the Darkest Star Sea comes at an unbearable price. Such a chance cannot be repeated.”

“So my only hope still lies with the Xuantian King.”

As for whether the Xuantian King might have abandoned them and escaped first, the youth had no such worry.

The Xuantian King cultivated the “Dao of Word and Deed as One”—he would never casually give his word.

Once he made a promise, it had to be fulfilled. Otherwise, he would shatter his Dao foundation. Even if he became a True Immortal, he would risk falling back into mortality.

So long as he lived, he would certainly gather the Dharma Kings again and fulfill his vow.

It was for this reason that he had once been able to win the allegiance of twelve peak cultivators with nothing but the eloquence of his tongue.

“If I can find that Faceless Xuantian Statue, perhaps I can determine the Xuantian King’s whereabouts.”

The Xuantian Divine Statue was not modeled after the Xuantian King himself, but after the True Immortal he once encountered within the Ascension Passage.

According to the Xuantian King, the aura that True Immortal exuded was vast as the boundless seas.

Compared to him, the newly ascended Xuantian King was as insignificant as an ant.

At that time, he had just pierced through the void and entered the Ascension Passage.

Before he could even fly to the Immortal Realm he longed for, a terrifying roar echoed from afar.

The Xuantian King then witnessed a sight he would never forget.

The Ascension Passage shattered section by section.

Countless figures scrambled to escape, only to be sucked into that terrifying black ruin.

Unnumbered corpses fell through the cracks of the collapsing passage.

Something catastrophic had clearly struck the Immortal Realm!

The Xuantian King turned and fled at once, scavenging the corpses of fallen Immortals along the way.

Yet the collapse of the passage was faster than he imagined.

Just as he was about to fall into the abyss like the others, a figure flashed past him and grabbed him.

That figure pulled him out of the collapsing void.

The Xuantian King, shaken but alive, hastily expressed his gratitude.

But this mysterious being, clearly a high-ranked Immortal, was such that the Xuantian King could not even discern his face.

“Hurry and flee. Any slower, and it will be too late.”

The Faceless True Immortal spoke only this before disappearing without a trace.

Leaving behind a bewildered Xuantian King.

Only much later did the Xuantian King understand what that Immortal meant by “escape.”

The Ascension Passage had collapsed. The road to immortality was severed.

Only a remnant known as the Immortal Ruins remained.

And the influence of the Immortal Ruins upon the lower realms was only just beginning to show.