A blood-stained crescent moon, lying across the earth — known as the Crimson Moon Cavern, a death zone of supreme Yin and supreme softness, around which even the great Sage Masters must detour. It was a place of extreme terror, a ground of catastrophe and malevolence.
A dark sun fallen and sunk, buried beneath a ridge — known as the Fallen Sun Ridge, a cursed land of supreme Yang and supreme strength, capable of incinerating all things in the world. Even Emperors must avoid it. It was one of the most fearsome places of ill-fortune under heaven.
To encounter either one alone would be enough to shake the world. For both to exist side by side — this was, since ancient times, the ultimate cursed land, extraordinarily rare throughout all of history. Since time immemorial, only three such pairings had ever been seen, and almost none had ever been broken.
Yet Great Emperor Hengyu had forged an extreme Dao weapon in exactly such a place — something that left people feeling that it defied all reason. Anyone hearing of it for the first time would feel a deep tremor of disbelief.
“Was that Great Emperor truly that remarkable?” Ye Fan stared in wide-eyed astonishment.
This was the Primordial Forbidden Zone — with the Crimson Moon Cavern and the Fallen Sun Ridge side by side, their combined power would be even more formidable. What the Jiang Family’s Great Emperor had accomplished was truly staggering.
“Naturally he was remarkable. How many Great Emperors have there ever been throughout the ages? The founder of the ancient Jiang Family shook the past and illuminated the present, representing the pinnacle of what humanity could achieve.”
Ye Fan fell into a moment of deep thought. A figure like that was indeed legendary throughout the ages. To come to the Primordial Ancient Mines to forge a weapon — the thought seemed incomprehensible.
Throughout countless years, every Sage Master and every Emperor who had entered had gone in but never come out. Even the Divine King of the Eastern Desolation could not extend his life here.
Yet this Great Emperor had treated the Primordial Forbidden Zone as his weapon-forging workshop. What kind of bearing and stature was that? What a pity that time flows like water — there was no way to witness such a world-shaking figure in person.
“Why would he have chosen to refine his divine weapon here?”
Old Blade Handle said: “Great Emperor Hengyu’s cultivation looked down upon all ages. The whole of the Eastern Desolation lay under his might, so naturally he would forge his weapons in the finest possible location — even the Primordial Forbidden Zone could do nothing against him.”
“As long as one does not enter the ancient mines themselves, the dangers of this forbidden zone cannot touch him. Legend says he was a man of great fortune — he obtained the bone of a divine phoenix and needed a special location to refine it into an extreme Dao weapon. Only the Fallen Sun Ridge met the requirements.” Li Desheng’s eyes took on a faraway, reverent gleam.
“A divine phoenix bone?!” Ye Fan was startled.
It was said that a pure-blooded phoenix rivaled immortals and did not exist in this world. To think that Great Emperor Hengyu had obtained such a thing — how could he not be astonished?
“That is only rumor. Where in this world would there be any divine phoenix?” The Yaochi Saintess shook her head. “What Great Emperor Hengyu actually obtained was the Phoenix Blood Crimson Gold — a divine substance that comes close to matching the value of a divine phoenix bone.”
“There is no divine phoenix in this world — but the Phoenix Blood Crimson Gold does exist as a divine substance.” Yao Guang Sage Son nodded in agreement.
Phoenix Blood Crimson Gold — encountered perhaps once in a hundred thousand generations, brilliant and radiant, as crimson as phoenix blood, of extraordinary and transcendent beauty, with the veins of a divine phoenix naturally inscribed within it.
Such a divine substance was beyond any measure of value. In the hands of a Great Emperor, it would certainly be refined into an extreme Dao weapon.
As for the Fallen Sun Ridge — legend says it formed from a fallen child of the celestial sun, making it a death zone of supreme Yang and supreme strength.
Phoenix Blood Crimson Gold — supremely Yang, supremely blazing, indestructible, the pinnacle of hardness. To forge it into an extreme Dao weapon, the Fallen Sun Ridge was without question the foremost choice.
“I beseech the immeasurable celestial worthy — what does Phoenix Blood Crimson Gold look like? Have any of you ever seen it?” Ye Fan asked Yao Xi and the Yaochi Saintess.
The two incomparably beautiful women exchanged a glance. Something like this appeared perhaps once in a hundred thousand years — who could possibly have seen it? Otherwise, why would the Eastern Desolation have produced only a handful of extreme Dao weapons? A Great Emperor could forge only a single such weapon in an entire lifetime — not only because of the overwhelming difficulty, but because the required divine materials were nearly impossible to gather. Such materials, searched for across the entirety of the Eastern Desolation, were exceedingly hard to assemble.
“By now, only the direct descendants of the Jiang Family have ever seen the Phoenix Blood Crimson Gold. It has been four to five thousand years since that extreme Dao weapon last appeared in the world.” Yao Guang Sage Son answered.
“Great Emperor Hengyu was truly terrifying beyond words…” Ye Fan could only sigh in admiration.
For the Crimson Moon Cavern and the Fallen Sun Ridge to coexist — this was, since antiquity, the most supremely cursed ground that had ever existed. And yet he had used it to forge a weapon. It was beyond imagination.
It was clearly evident that the Fallen Sun Ridge’s Yang energy was insufficient — it had been absorbed dry, all in service of completing the extreme Dao weapon hammered from Phoenix Blood Crimson Gold.
“What kind of bearing must Great Emperor Hengyu have possessed — if I had such might…” Ye Fan drifted into a reverie.
“If Daoren had such divine might, what would you do?” Yao Xi’s beautiful eyes sparkled at him.
“Naturally I would… establish an immortal dynasty.”
He had nearly let something slip and corrected himself at the last moment. What was truly in his heart was: to visit all the great sacred grounds, take their ancient scriptures for a look, and borrow their extreme Dao weapons to test their power.
“Let us move on quickly. This place is not suitable for lingering.” Old Blade Handle’s expression was grave.
Ye Fan and the others — all six of them — moved away from the Crimson Moon Cavern and advanced by edging slightly closer to the Fallen Sun Ridge, praying inwardly that no calamity would befall them. If it did, no one would be able to save them.
The pale moonlight stretched their shadows out long before them. Li Desheng’s Yin-Nether Eye flickered with dim light as he anxiously scanned in all directions, perpetually feeling as though something lurked unseen nearby.
“Stop jumping at shadows — you’re making all of us uneasy too.” Old Blade Handle shot him a sideways glance.
“I really do feel something is off. Like a pair of eyes watching us from the darkness — but I keep failing to catch sight of anything.” Li Desheng could not settle his nerves.
“There’s no need to dwell on it. As long as nothing appears, we treat it as though it doesn’t exist.” Yao Guang Sage Son’s expression was calm.
The six moved forward while simultaneously sweeping their gaze in all directions, carefully observing the movements around them. In this cursed land where the sun and moon coexisted, a single misstep would cost them their lives.
“Why is the moon so bright tonight? This isn’t the night of the full moon.” Old Blade Handle muttered.
“It does seem unusual — the moonlight is like flowing water, silver-white everywhere.” Yao Xi nodded in agreement.
Ye Fan heard this and immediately halted, snapping his gaze upward. “Something is wrong!”
“What has Daoren discovered?” the Yaochi Saintess asked quietly.
“It isn’t the moonlight becoming brighter. Something is wrong with the Crimson Moon Cavern.” Ye Fan furrowed his brow and looked toward the blood moon not far ahead.
Yao Xi could not understand it: “The Crimson Moon Cavern appears no different from before — how could it be the cause?”
“We need to move further away. If nothing else works, we enter the Fallen Sun Ridge — at least its Yang energy is weakened. This Crimson Moon Cavern is making me deeply uneasy.” Ye Fan said gravely, taking the lead toward the ruins.
The others guessed that Ye Fan must have learned some advanced source arts — perhaps he had obtained even a partial legacy from some celestial source master. Seeing him act this way, they naturally followed.
Not long after, the sound of shifting sand and pebbles began. The Crimson Moon Cavern blazed a brilliant crimson red — like a surging tide, something pulsed and throbbed. Ripples of blood-red light rose and expanded across its surface, sweeping up sand and dust as they rolled forward.
“This is the Crimson Moon Tide!” Ye Fan’s expression changed drastically.
He moved like a streak of shadow fleeing a serpent or scorpion and shot toward the Fallen Sun Ridge.
The other five, seeing this, each unleashed their own abilities and rushed at full speed toward the ruins.
Li Desheng was the slowest, lagging behind. The blood-colored tide swept over in an instant, and he screamed in terror: “No!”
The crimson ripples were gentle in appearance — but they radiated an energy that sent dread coursing through the body. Li Desheng’s face went ashen. He bit down and summoned a divine idol from his Dao Palace, placing it as a barrier behind him.
Slash!
Without a sound, the divine idol became a pool of bloody pus. He stumbled and fell forward into the ruins, his face completely drained of color. By the narrowest of margins — had he not been decisive enough at the critical moment to sacrifice that divine idol, he would have ceased to exist entirely.
“This…” Everyone was shaken.
Ye Fan’s expression was solemn. “This is the Crimson Moon Tide — it surges outward from the Crimson Moon Cavern and can dissolve all things. There is no resisting it. Supreme softness overcomes all methods.”
The Crimson Moon Cavern was clearly visible — a blood-stained crescent moon imprinted on the earth, drawing down the moonlight from above. The red tide flowed like water, rolling through the void.
“We should be grateful to Great Emperor Hengyu. If not for him breaking the Fallen Sun Ridge, Yin and Yang would have surged together against us, and we would have been annihilated in body and spirit alike.” Ye Fan stood within the ruins and looked on.
“Could there be something below the Crimson Moon Cavern and the Fallen Sun Ridge…?” Old Blade Handle murmured to himself.
“Old sir, I beg you to stop talking to yourself — every time you open your mouth, something happens. In the end it always turns into reality.” Li Desheng’s voice was on the verge of tears.
The six moved forward. Now they had only one thought — to leave the Primordial Forbidden Zone — while praying that Great Emperor Hengyu had dealt thoroughly with the Fallen Sun Ridge.
These ruins were ancient and far gone in decay. Every crumbling wall and collapsed pillar, touched even lightly, would dissolve into dust. Even the stone columns were no different.
Ahead, all was peaceful and serene. The ruins had crumbled to drifting ash. When one reached out with careful perception, a hazy black sun could be made out imprinted on the ground.
It spanned no more than several hundred zhang — considerably smaller than the Crimson Moon Cavern. Over ten-odd thousand years, its Yang energy still had not recovered to full strength.
What was remarkable was that beside the black sun stood an ancient structure, standing tall and upright without having collapsed. On it hung a plaque, inscribed with the two characters: Hengyu.
“This is Great Emperor Hengyu’s weapon-forging ground.” The group was astonished, all of them fixing their gaze upon it.
This was not a relic of the Primordial Era. This was an ancient structure left behind by Great Emperor Hengyu. Legends said he had spent several years here in solitude within the Primordial Forbidden Zone, tempering the extreme Dao weapon.
This had been his dwelling in those days. Though now covered in dust, it remained standing, with the flow of the Dao still circulating through it.
What a spirit — what grandeur of soul. Others who entered the Primordial Forbidden Zone were terrified with every step, and Emperors themselves perished here — yet this man had made it his home for years.
No one spoke, yet all of them made the same choice simultaneously, moving toward the ancient structure. In the former dwelling of Great Emperor Hengyu, something out of the ordinary might well remain.
The structure was built of enormous source stones — majestic and imposing, giving one a feeling of the great Dao spanning the heavens, its heights beyond all reach. This was the “Dao” of Great Emperor Hengyu.
“So many skeletal remains…” Everyone’s expression changed.
They had been blocked by the structure from seeing this earlier, but now that they had come close, they found that on the other side of the ancient building, bones lay piled one after another — a small mountain of them.
Even after ten-odd thousand years, those bones still flickered with faint luminescence. There were over a hundred of them in total. Most were humanoid in form, but clearly not of the human race.
“These bones are still glowing — one can only imagine the terrifying power they possessed in life. Great Emperor Hengyu was truly fearsome. Worthy of being counted among the most powerful figures in all of human history.”
Alone, he had slaughtered this many terrifying beings. Were word of it to spread, it would shake the world. By the nature of these remains alone, it was clear they had all been apex existences.
“This…”
The six were completely stunned. To come to the Primordial Ancient Mines and go on a rampage of killing — only a Great Emperor of antiquity would dare to do such a thing.
“Great Emperor Hengyu truly fills me with awe!”
“To kill here, and to kill by the hundred — every single one was a supreme powerhouse, and their bones glow to this day!”
“All of it — just to forge one extreme Dao weapon…” Old Blade Handle sighed.
The Great Emperors of antiquity were beings of transcendent talent and genius. They had developed ancient scriptures that were passed down to this day and had caused the great sacred grounds to flourish.
Beyond that, every Great Emperor would exhaust every means to leave behind one extreme Dao weapon — for such a weapon was the continuation of their own lives, capable of unleashing their incomparable divine might.
In a certain sense, extreme Dao weapons were even more important than the ancient scriptures.
“To think that Great Emperor Hengyu, in order to forge the Phoenix Blood Crimson Gold into an extreme Dao weapon, truly unleashed the full might of a Great Emperor!” Yao Guang Sage Son exclaimed. His goal in this lifetime was to become a Great Emperor.
“What weapon did the Phoenix Blood Crimson Gold ultimately become?” Ye Fan asked. He did not know much about the Jiang Family’s affairs.
“The Solar Divine Furnace!” the Yaochi Saintess answered.
“What?!” Ye Fan started.
“You’re not thinking about that broken furnace of yours, are you?” Old Blade Handle took a draw from his pipe.
Ye Fan gave an embarrassed laugh and produced the Lihuo Divine Furnace — the inch-or-so-tall furnace was clear and translucent, yet twisted and bent in all directions, looking about as misshapen as a squashed persimmon.
Though it had recovered somewhat, it was still dented and pocked all over, not yet fully restored.
“Don’t even think about it. How could the Jiang Family’s extreme Dao weapon end up lost somewhere out in the world? Besides, besides being somewhat tougher than most things, this broken furnace has nothing remarkable about it whatsoever — not in power, not in anything.” Old Blade Handle was blunt in his dismissal.
“The Solar Divine Furnace has not appeared in the world for four to five thousand years. Most people have nearly forgotten what it looks like.” Yao Guang Sage Son spoke.
“How terrifying can an extreme Dao weapon actually be?” Ye Fan asked.
“Terrifyingly beyond imagination. The deeper the divine power of the one who wields it, the greater the force it unleashes. At its fullest, it can manifest the incomparable divine might of a Great Emperor.” Old Blade Handle answered.
They had not lingered there — they continued forward as they talked, entering the ancient structure to see whether Great Emperor Hengyu had left anything behind.
Ye Fan’s heart lurched. Did that not mean it represented the single greatest force the human race could bring to bear?! Something that could sweep through all under heaven with nearly no rival.
“Unfortunately, extreme Dao weapons consume far too much divine power — ordinary people have no means to wield them.” The Yaochi Saintess shook her head. “After all, they are weapons exclusively suited to the hands of a Great Emperor of antiquity.”
“In a confrontation between equals in cultivation, if one side wields an extreme Dao weapon — what would the outcome be?”
Yao Guang Sage Son smiled. “Taking the Solar Divine Furnace as an example: in the past, Sage King Jiang Taixu fought a great battle in the Central State against a world-shaking figure of roughly equal power. The Solar Divine Furnace was brought out — and the opponent was reduced to ash.”
“That is absolutely terrifying…” Li Desheng shivered at the telling.
“A fully achieved Divine King of the Eastern Desolation lies too far beyond us to speculate about — but speaking just of the great Sage Masters, if one were to fight while wielding an extreme Dao weapon, that would be enough to effortlessly slay even a supremely powerful figure who dominated an entire region without equal.” The Yaochi Saintess answered.
“Unfortunately, nearly every extreme Dao weapon among the great sacred grounds cannot be used — all of them are occupied in suppressing what is called their ‘profound foundation.'” Old Blade Handle shook his head.
“You know of this…” A blazing golden light flashed through Yao Guang Sage Son’s eyes and vanished.
Yao Xi steered the subject elsewhere: “The Seventh Great Bandit Tu Tian and the Azure Flood Dragon King joined forces and offered up an extreme Dao weapon — it nearly left Yao Guang’s Supreme Elders drinking deep of bitter defeat. And that wasn’t even a complete weapon. The might of the extreme Dao is evident.”
Ye Fan knew this. He had witnessed it himself. After the Peacock King had kept Yao Guang’s Sage Master at bay, Tu Tian and the Azure Flood Dragon King had joined forces to offer up the clay jar, nearly suppressing every one of Yao Guang’s ancient elders to death.
“That was the Ancient Magic Jar — the Heaven-Swallower. Unfortunately, it lacked its clay lid and could not once again manifest its full extreme Dao might.” Old Blade Handle shook his head.
By now they had entered the ancient structure. The great hall inside was ancient and weathered — extraordinarily tall and vast, with a feeling of the great Dao extending without end.
On the floor lay much ash — pitch black all around. The group scattered in different directions and began searching.
Ye Fan deployed the terrain-reading method and surveyed the great hall from every angle. Suddenly his heart lurched — something pounded within his chest.
The terrain-reading method could pierce through the great secrets of mountains and rivers and discern the nature of objects.
In this very instant, he felt his eyes burning with heat, as though some object blazed with dazzling splendor — more brilliant than the actual sun — making it impossible to look directly at it.
“Could this be a divine source?” Ye Fan’s heart stirred with excitement he could not contain.
Beside a pile of ash, there was a black stone — no larger than a fist. Yet its divine radiance was so blinding it brought tears streaming from his eyes.
Ye Fan quickly withdrew the terrain-reading method, fearing the divine substance would sear his eyes blind.
The source stone looked completely ordinary. Without the terrain-reading method, nothing about it would betray anything.
“It is like a divine sun — so brilliant it is unbearable to look at. This must be a divine source!”
Ye Fan walked over and reached down to pick up the black stone — and was greatly startled when he failed on the first try.
Thud!
The black stone struck the ground and sent tremors through the entire great hall.
This… was no larger than a fist, yet it weighed a full ten thousand jin!
Everyone looked over. The outer skin of the black stone, shaken by the impact, had flaked off in places, and a streak of dazzling crimson light shot out — resplendent as a rainbow, blindingly radiant, impossible to look at directly.
“Phoenix Blood Crimson Gold!”
“Heaven above — it truly is Phoenix Blood Crimson Gold!”
Everyone cried out in astonishment simultaneously.
Ye Fan exerted himself and in one motion scooped up the black stone, stepping back several paces. The outer skin was not a divine source — what lay within was the Phoenix Blood Crimson Gold, appearing only once in a hundred thousand generations!