Fifteen thousand years had passed since the age of Li City. Now it was nothing but rubble buried under sand, with almost nothing left behind.
In these ruins, a great multitude of cultivators had appeared. The Golden-Winged Xiaopeng King, the Divine Physique of the Jiang Family, the Holy Son Yao Guang, and Ji Haoyue stood apart in each of the four directions, their battle intent blazing, surveying all beneath heaven with sovereign contempt — four divine beings descended upon the mortal world.
Above, massive divine ships hung across the sky. War chariots came rumbling one after another, making the heavens shudder repeatedly.
“The Dayin Holy Land and the Wanchu Holy Land!” Divine light flashed in Yao Xi’s beautiful eyes.
Two pairs of extraordinarily sharp gazes came down in turn from the divine ship and the ancient war chariots, as though they could pierce straight into one’s bones. The sheer power of them made people tremble. The heirs of these two great holy lands inspired deep unease.
The Dayin Holy Land and the Wanchu Holy Land were of formidable renown — “Dayin” and “Wanchu” were words of extraordinary significance, both representing the oldest holy lands in the ancient Eastern Wasteland.
Then, without warning, purple qi came surging in from the east — boundless, incomparably noble, inviolably sacred, blanketing the eastern horizon.
Purple qi rising in the east, drifting and majestic — since time immemorial it had been spoken of as an auspicious and sacred omen, an air of harmony and blessing.
A suspended immortal palace appeared, borne aloft upon the purple qi, hazy and indistinct, wreathed in violet brilliance, dyeing the entire sky and earth with a sense of transcendent, otherworldly wonder.
“The Purple Mansion Holy Land has sent people!” Duan De narrowed his eyes.
They had come without war chariots or divine ships — instead they rode directly upon a floating purple immortal palace, cleaving through the void, earning gasps of admiration from all who witnessed it.
The Purple Mansion — said in legend to be the dwelling place of immortals. Any sect bold enough to take such a name for itself was naturally one of extraordinary power.
Then, silently and without announcement, a Daoist hall materialized in the high air, filled with an endless sense of the Dao — as though it had stood in that spot since the beginning of time. Many people had not noticed when it appeared.
It was not imposing. It was not adorned with pearls or jade. It was built entirely of ordinary blue stone — plain and unassuming, yet radiating a feeling of the boundless Grand Dao.
“The Daoyi Holy Land has sent people here as well!” Ji Ziyue’s mouth formed a perfect circle of astonishment.
The purple immortal palace hung resplendent across the sky, while the ancient Daoist hall loomed in absolute stillness. Many young disciples had come from both great holy lands, all dressed in Daoist robes — and among them were quite a few female Daoists, like immortal maidens descended to the mortal world.
However, the most powerful heirs among them had not released any surges of divine power. All of them stood quietly in the air, making no expression of intent.
It was obvious: for the moment, they had no desire to clash.
In the ruins of old Li City, aside from the Jiang Family, the Ji Family, Yao Guang, and the Jade Pool, more holy lands continued to arrive. The Nine Secrets had shaken the entire world. With this ownerless divine art on the table, no one could sit still.
Savage beasts roared and bellowed across the sky. Aside from Wu Zhongtian, Li Heishui, and Jiang Huairen, yet more young figures appeared and joined their ranks. The descendants of the Thirteen Great Outlaws of the Northern Region were all present.
“Boom, boom, boom!”
An ancient ship of fearsome design, a full thousand zhang in length, came surging through the air like some ferocious beast of primordial antiquity, its dragon prow rearing high. The demon race had sent their powerful figures.
Behind the thousand-zhang ancient vessel, dozens of warships followed in escort formation. Yan Ruyu stood atop the ancient ship, hovering in the distant sky, watching everything unfolding below. Beside her, three young demon race powerhouses stood at her side, aligned in a row.
The Nine Secrets had shaken all under heaven. More and more kept coming. Every major power outside the holy lands had sent representatives as well. No one would willingly miss this opportunity. The Nine Secrets belonged to no one — whoever claimed it would own it.
Duan De spoke with a pleasant smile. “Future Divine King of the Ji Family — weren’t you eager to go fight a great battle? All the major holy lands have arrived one after another. You may be a Divine Physique, but you could perhaps handle one opponent. Against this many, you certainly couldn’t prevail. And some of the people here may not be any weaker than you.”
“You wicked fat Daoist, stop trying to provoke my brother!” Ji Ziyue gnashed her little teeth at Duan De.
“The Nine Secrets hasn’t appeared yet. I imagine no one is going to start fighting.” Ji Haoyue remained very calm. All of his battle intent drew inward, his divine power settling into stillness, like a perfectly undisturbed lake.
As a Divine King Physique, he could clearly sense the murderous intent and genuine threat surrounding them. The moment the Nine Secrets revealed itself, that would be the signal for great battle to begin — the first Great Emperor Qualification Battle would arrive.
A short while later, all parties reined in their terrible killing intent. The entire area suddenly became calm and peaceful.
“The Eastern Wasteland has truly entered a golden age,” Duan De murmured softly. “Extraordinary talents emerging all at once. If none of them die, the future will be a glorious bloom of a hundred flowers in full rivalry.”
“I doubt many people share the Daoist’s perspective on that.” Yao Xi smiled gently, like a spring breeze, of incomparable beauty. “One or two heaven-defying geniuses is quite enough. If there are five or six or more, that becomes a calamity and a tragedy. The collisions yet to come will be difficult to even imagine in their ferocity.”
She seemed to regard herself as a bystander to all of it. But Ye Fan knew better. Yao Xi was far from simple. In a real battle, her strength would be genuinely terrifying. She possessed incomparable and formidable spiritual sense — no less than his own. That was her devastating trump card, and no one else knew it.
Duan De muttered a curse. “These crafty scoundrels! They deliberately unleashed waves of killing intent a moment ago, to intimidate and suppress everyone — and now, quietly, they’ve sent people to seize the last nine burial zones.”
Of the fifty-four burial zones he had identified, all located around the ruins of old Li City, forty-five had already been excavated by the various factions. Only nine remained.
“Move. Let’s act now, before everyone else gets there first.”
Ye Fan felt that everything else was secondary. He didn’t care about fighting or dying. Right now, what mattered most was finding the Nine Secrets.
The last nine burial zones had been nearly entirely claimed. When Ye Fan’s group rushed over, they claimed their territory without triggering open conflict — due entirely to Ji Haoyue’s presence.
He was one of only two Divine King Physiques in the Eastern Wasteland. Almost no one dared to challenge him head-on. Even the handful of individuals capable of standing as his equal had no desire for a fight to the death just yet, and by tacit understanding, they kept their distance.
As for those outside the holy lands and the demon race — everyone else cleared out at the first moment they could. The Divine King Physique’s reputation was well-established; his invincible divine might was deeply impressed upon all hearts, and none wished to cross his path.
“Daoist, are you confident about this location?” Yao Xi asked.
Duan De’s expression was composed. “This poor Daoist has studied burial arts quite deeply and has developed a certain level of expertise. In my judgment, among all nine burial zones, this one is the most likely to yield the Nine Secrets.”
“Any basis for that?” Ye Fan asked.
“Come look — the topography of this area is quite extraordinary.” Duan De gestured at the vast expanse of the burial zone.
The terrain here rose in a series of terraced steps, climbing progressively higher, as though ascending toward heaven. In the distance, a river wound through like a dragon, roaring and surging past. Standing here and gazing to the horizon, one genuinely felt a sense of expansive ease.
“The ground ascends in steps toward heaven, and a silver dragon sweeps past — this is the renowned ‘Silver Dragon Coiling Toward Heaven,’ a celebrated auspicious burial site.”
The group looked around and, sure enough, found the scenery closely matched his description. It truly looked as though a silver true dragon was sweeping upward to carry away the high heavens.
“A site like this could never be used for the burial of ordinary people. Whoever rested in a tomb here almost certainly came from an extraordinarily prominent background. In its time, old Li City’s most illustrious clan was the one that cultivated the Nine Secrets. That is why I believe this location is worth excavating.”
“To rob tombs with such logic and reasoning… Daoist, you know quite a lot. I suspect you’ve done plenty of practical fieldwork raiding other people’s tombs?” Ji Ziyue chewed on her little teeth as she asked.
“Rumble, rumble, rumble!”
A tremendous roar shook the earth. The group carved open a path downward by force, tunneling through toward the deep underground layers.
Yet after boring down more than a hundred meters, they still hadn’t struck any ancient tomb — only rock and dead soil, with no sign whatsoever that anyone had ever been buried there.
“Daoist, you’ve got the wrong spot. There’s no ancient tomb here. It’s empty.” The group was deeply disappointed.
“That can’t be right. There has to be something down there. After more than ten thousand years, it’s impossible that such an auspicious site has no burials.” Duan De insisted on pressing deeper.
After another full three hundred meters of excavation, there was suddenly a tremendous hollow boom — the sound of empty space — and they broke through to the depths of the underground.
Duan De’s instincts had proven correct. Deep beneath the ground lay ancient tombs — and of considerable scale. A surge of yin energy came pouring upward at once.
“Fall back — now!”
Everyone leapt back in an instant, shooting to the surface. Foul energy sealed underground for thousands of years could still be managed, but if it had been imprisoned for over ten thousand years, it could potentially dissolve a cultivator’s very life without a trace.
“How about that? Didn’t this poor Daoist say so? All exactly as foreseen.” Duan De’s face was flushed with triumph.
By now dusk was settling in. The last sliver of the setting sun was nearly gone. A few crows, entirely unbothered by human presence, cawed incessantly from atop a withered tree.
“Daoist, can we go in?” Yao Xi asked.
“Wait a little longer. Let’s go in after the sun has set.” Duan De answered.
“Why?” Ji Ziyue didn’t understand.
“I’m concerned there may be something down there. Let’s not go in yet — let it come out first.” He looked perfectly at ease, exuding the air of someone with considerable experience.
“It seems the Daoist has spent a great deal of time inside tombs.” No one in the group could find any words.
“Rumble, rumble, rumble!”
From deep in the underground layers came a sound like the galloping of ten thousand horses — an immense and terrifying noise, like a great tsunami, deafening and overwhelming.
Immediately after, an icy, frigid energy surged upward, as cold as the dead of winter. Even cultivators could not help but shiver.
“This is bad. This is no ordinary tomb. There is something of extreme malevolence down there — and it’s likely quite terrifying.”
“Boom!”
Rolling yin energy erupted skyward all at once, instantly blackening the sky as though an endless dark cloud had surged up to blot out the heavens.
“Far worse than I imagined. There are greatly malevolent things below — they’ve achieved spiritual refinement, crossed into a demonic state. And there are many of them. Most likely there are entities among them that we cannot handle.” Duan De’s expression shifted uneasily back and forth.
This enormous disturbance naturally shocked everyone in the area at once, and cultivators came rushing in from all directions.
Even Ji Haoyue’s Divine King Physique could not suppress the situation, because the Golden-Winged Xiaopeng King, the Holy Son Yao Guang, and others had arrived as well. The most supreme young elite fighters of the Dayin, Wanchu, Daoyi, Jiang Family, and Purple Mansion holy lands all came surging in, and shortly after, the demon race’s leading figures appeared as well.
The disciples of every major sect, the heirs of the Thirteen Great Outlaws, and more — all swarmed in, surrounding the site until it was packed beyond measure.
“Boom!”
At the precise instant the sun dipped below the horizon and night began to fall, the deep underground burial site let out a sound that made one’s hair stand on end — something utterly impossible to describe, a sound of what lay below.
Then, roiling yin energy blasted skyward, like an endless dark cloud that sealed up the entire heavens.
“Rumble, rumble, rumble…”
Ten thousand horses in full gallop — the ground shook violently. In the very next moment, troop after troop of soldiers came pouring out, their killing intent surging heavenward.
These beings were all mounted on various savage beasts, armed with long spears and iron halberds, clad in the iron armor of ancient times, its cold gleam flashing in the dim light.
“Powerful yin soldiers and yin horses — how can there possibly be so many?!” Many people cried out in shock.
Within a mere moment, several thousand yin soldiers and yin horses had surged out, shaking heaven and earth. The yin energy was so dense it could not dissipate — and still more soldiers kept streaming up from below.
“There are far too many — and these yin soldiers are all immensely powerful. How can they be stopped?!” Everyone’s expressions changed.
“Just how vast is the ancient burial site below? For it to discharge so many yin soldiers and yin horses in a single surge — it’s impossible to even imagine what lies down there, or what is controlling them!”