The sage’s divine garment descended from the heavens, blazing with ten thousand rays of light, like a phoenix reborn in brilliant divine fire — undying and imperishable. The aura of power that radiated from it made everyone tremble, and the crowd fell back as one.

It had the shape of a human, like a living being given form, holding in its grip a golden sacred sword whose edge was matchless in its sharpness. The overwhelming killing intent it exuded sent leaves swirling through the forest.

Every person there was trembling with awe, as though standing before an ancient deity — reverence welling from the depths of the soul, an urge to kneel impossible to suppress, bodies shaking of their own accord.

The golden divine garment blazed like sunlight, then landed on the earth with a ringing clang, golden radiance shooting in all directions, flickering like living flames. The golden divine bow on its back hummed faintly, drawing every person’s nerves taut. Not a few were already struggling to breathe.

“Clang!”

A resonant metallic tone rang out, like a dragon crying across nine heavens, like a phoenix calling through the vast vault of the sky — the sound filled heaven and earth, clear and piercing, reaching straight into the depths of the soul.

Thud!

Many cultivators could no longer hold back. One by one, they fell to their knees of their own accord, kowtowing before the peerless divine garment. It was the supreme awe that arose from the very soul itself — reverence and worship that could not be resisted.

“It truly is alive!” Even Ye Fan was stunned. Though he stood at a great distance, he still felt a terrible and majestic power pressing down upon him.

“Clang!”

Another gentle tremor rang out, and the divine garment’s radiance withdrew inward. The mountain range fell quiet again, and those kneeling on the ground were finally able to stand. Each of them was pale-faced, their hearts shaking.

“All of them are dead.”

On another mountain peak, the supreme figure of the Yin-Yang Sect stood atop the grand high platform they had constructed, gazing out at the scene within the Ancient Forbidden Land, and let out this lament.

Total annihilation.

The Yin-Yang Sect had obtained mysterious stone garments in the Northern Region, capable of isolating any and all aura — yet in the end, they had been useless as well. Those who entered had aged rapidly and then crumbled into ash.

A clamor rose through the mountain range. Everyone was murmuring among themselves. The ancient sage’s divine garment had flown back out; the Yin-Yang Sect’s stone garments had all shattered and crumbled. Together, they meant complete and total failure.

“The Ancient Forbidden Land cannot be breached!”

“Three years ago, when the mysterious ancient coffin appeared and the sacred ground’s curse was at its weakest — that was the one opportunity, and it was missed. What a pity.”

The people from the Central Plains sighed, their hearts full of unwillingness.

Many in the crowd felt their hearts clench. Even the divine dynasties and the eternal great sects of the Central Plains had been powerless against this — who else in the world could enter and harvest the Immortal Divine Medicine?

“I am unwilling. I would defy heaven itself!”

A voice rang out with domineering, sky-shaking force. Boundless fallen leaves swirled up in all directions. The primordial ancient forest shuddered as though a true dragon had emerged from the wilderness and taken human form.

A figure of supreme, awe-inspiring presence — his power eclipsing both sun and moon — walked out from the mountain range. He moved as though an emperor of heaven had descended to the earth, dragon energy coiling around his body, his gaze lording over all below him, as though the eight desolations and six directions existed for him and him alone.

“The old emperor of the Ancient Hua Imperial Dynasty has come!”

“A peerless emperor has descended to the mortal world, come to the Life Forbidden Zone — truly astonishing.”

The cultivators of the Eastern Wastelands were all deeply shaken.

The Ancient Hua emperor wore the Nine Dragon Crown and the Nine Dragon Robe, as though he had walked here through the endless ages, step by step. He and the heaven and earth had merged and become one, making sun and moon grow dim by comparison.

His hair was white as snow, his frame thin and worn — the end was near — yet his presence remained vast and deep as an abyss, awesome enough to make anyone’s heart quail. Above his head, an ancestral dragon that seemed almost to have blood and flesh coiled and circled.

“Your Majesty!”

Quite a few people came forward together, bowing with great ceremony, imploring him not to enter the Ancient Forbidden Land.

Others knelt down, willing to go in his place, to harvest the Immortal Divine Medicine and present it to him.

“I am already a man with one foot in death. All matters of my passing have been arranged. There is no need for any of you to die in my place.” The old emperor of the Ancient Hua declined them all.

“Your Majesty, please reconsider. The Ancient Forbidden Land is unlike other Life Forbidden Zones. No matter how high one’s cultivation, entering will cause it to be stripped away until one is reduced to an ordinary mortal.”

“Indeed — rather than that, please allow us to go in Your Majesty’s stead. We will exhaust every last effort to harvest the Immortal Divine Medicine.”

Everyone of the Ancient Hua Imperial Dynasty tried to dissuade him. Even the four great-ability imperial uncles stepped forward, bowing deeply to block his path.

The many wandering cultivators could not help but be astonished. A peerless emperor was truly going to enter the Ancient Forbidden Land. The legends were true after all — many emperors and saint masters in their twilight years chose this path, and now people were seeing it with their own eyes.

Since ancient times, very few old saint masters and old emperors had left graves behind. The Great Wastelands and the Life Forbidden Zones were their burial grounds — it had become an accepted fact.

Perhaps one day, upon entering an ancient forest, one might come across a bleached set of bones — and those bones might well belong to a peerless sovereign who had once shaken the world. This was their tragedy.

All things must die in the end. Even the greatest of heroes must one day take a final bow. The twilight years are desolate for all. A supreme overlord — in the end, nothing but a handful of yellow earth.

It was often said that the path toward immortality had no end — yet who, since ancient times, had ever truly achieved undying life? Not one soul was ever seen. All, like the setting sun, blazed red and brilliant — only to dim and go out.

The old emperor of the Ancient Hua had a bearing unlike any other, his presence lofty as heaven. He swept his gaze across everyone present and spoke: “All of you, fall back. This is my choice.”

“Your Majesty!”

“The Ancient Forbidden Land will strip away the cultivation of even the most peerless of masters!”

The people of the undying imperial dynasty from the Central Plains all spoke out to stop him.

“Even if my cultivation is stripped and I am reduced to a mortal, I am still a human emperor — stronger than most. Say no more. I do not wish for anyone to die in my place.”

This old emperor possessed a magnificent spirit. He had anticipated the outcome and still chosen this road — every matter of his passing arranged in advance, and yet he pressed forward for one final gamble.

No one dared to stand in his way any longer. Wherever his gaze fell, even the four imperial uncles could only fall silent and step aside.

The Yin-Yang Sect said nothing, watching from the side. They were competitors, but they were also bound by the same fate.

The cultivators of the Eastern Wastelands were deeply moved. They were finally witnessing, with their own eyes, what the twilight of a peerless emperor truly looked like — what choices such a person made.

It was exactly as the legends said: a glorious life, dazzling in its brilliance, yet in the end, walking alone down a road without hope.

One of the imperial uncles of the Ancient Hua came forward. He let out a quiet sigh, walked to the divine garment of the ancient sage, and — though his own power was immense, his divine ability boundless — bowed with great reverence before the golden divine garment and said: “We beseech the divine garment to protect our sovereign.”

“Clang!”

A resonant tone pierced the heavens. Divine light blazed fiercely, soaring straight into the sky. Supreme might swept across the entire mountain range, as though a vast and boundless ocean had swallowed the mountains and rivers whole.

Then heaven and earth fell utterly silent. The mountain wind ceased. Grass and trees went still. Every sound vanished. Time seemed to stand frozen — a silence as absolute as death.

Nine out of ten people present fell to their knees, body and soul trembling, unable to stop themselves from bowing their heads in worship. Throughout the endless mountain ranges, countless birds and beasts prostrated themselves, crying out toward this direction with mournful wails.

This was the might of the ancient sage’s divine garment!

Even Ye Fan, standing at a great distance, was deeply shaken. This was not the first time he had seen it — back in the Northern Region, a sage’s divine garment had sliced open a divine king’s Pure Land.

The Pure Land of a divine king was said to be the most supreme defense in existence, something that could never be broken — and yet it had been cut open. The sage’s divine garment wielded the power to seize the creation of heaven and earth itself.

Swish!

In a flash of light, the peerless divine garment settled over the old emperor’s body. He was clothed in gold from head to toe, surging divine flames burning around him, filling all who looked upon him with awe.

He held the golden sacred sword in his hand and the golden divine bow on his back — like a deity who had walked out from the most ancient of ages. His presence was soul-shaking, a torrential power rolling off him in waves.

Clothed in the ancient sage’s divine garment, the old emperor of the Ancient Hua seemed to regain his youth, his body rising to the absolute peak of its state. Without looking back even once, he stepped forward in long strides.

This was perhaps the last time anyone in the world would see him.

Time seemed to stand still. No one spoke. All waited in silence, though many had already guessed the outcome.

No one knew how much time passed before one of the Ancient Hua’s imperial uncles, standing on the high platform atop the mountain peak, let out a cry of grief — a sound of sorrow, as boundless fallen leaves drifted past, filled with a desolate, autumnal loneliness.

His divine eyes were wide open, seeing everything within the forbidden zone. The peerless emperor had fallen. He had not been able to defy heaven in the end. A brilliant life ended in darkness, buried in a foreign land.

“Your Majesty!”

The people of the Ancient Hua Imperial Dynasty cried out in sorrow. Together they wept. Their grief shook heaven and earth — and yet none of it could change what had come to pass.

“I am unwilling. I would defy heaven itself!” Those six words seemed to still echo in the air. Yet in the end, it was a desolate and sorrowful conclusion.

Swish!

A flash of light, and the ancient sage’s divine garment descended from the sky. It had dimmed considerably, trembling faintly, its surface now marked with streaks of blood and smears of ash.

The golden divine garment had been gravely damaged. No one knew how many ages of time it would need to recover.

Looking across all of history, who in the world can escape death? Everyone present fell into despair. Since ancient times, legends of immortality had never ceased — yet all that people ever witnessed, time and again, was emptiness and annihilation.

Even the Great Emperors of old had been swallowed by the river of history. How could one not despair?

This was a road with no end — a road where success was impossible.

The people of the Ancient Hua Imperial Dynasty withdrew in dejection to the Yan capital. There was no question that they had been defeated. The news shook the entire Southern Region, and the sacred grounds came one by one to learn what had happened.

A peerless emperor had fallen. The Yin-Yang Sect’s people also withdrew from the Ancient Forbidden Land and returned to the Yan capital. Their supreme sect master had not made a final gamble — because the outcome had long been written.

News of this spread swiftly across the entire Eastern Wastelands. Every great power was shaken. The Seven Great Life Forbidden Zones truly could not be entered. They were the burial grounds of the most supreme of masters.

And yet, in the future, there would certainly be more old saint masters who chose this same road. It was the tragedy of their twilight years — when one seeks new life and has no other choice.

The Immortal Divine Medicine can choose its own place of dwelling, and legend holds that all of them have flown of their own accord into the Seven Great Life Forbidden Zones.

A chill settled over Ye Fan’s heart. He had no idea how many times more powerful the curse within the Ancient Forbidden Land had grown compared to before. He fell silent.

Could he succeed? Even with a supreme stone garment refined through the Six Immortal-Sealing Locks technique to isolate any and all aura — what he had witnessed still looked like a road of no return.

This wave of events shook the Eastern Wastelands, and it was difficult for things to settle again. During this period, Ye Fan racked his brain in search of an answer. In the end, he entered closed cultivation once more.

For a full half-month, he exhausted every last ounce of his strength to inscribe the nine ancient characters from the Classic of the Dao into the stone garment. These were the innate Great Emperor patterns — possessing incomparable and mysterious power.

They could be used to suppress the self, to achieve a state of permanence, to halt the flow of time, to plumb the utmost mysteries of heaven and earth — their power immeasurable and boundless, beyond all calculation.

It took Ye Fan more than ten days, pushing both body and mind almost to their breaking point, before he finally fused the nine ancient characters with the tens of thousands of Source Heaven patterns and channels already within the stone garment.

“Big brother — you’re finally awake.” Little Nannan’s lashes were long, her large eyes blinking as she looked at him, innocent and adorable.

Ye Fan felt a pang of guilt. He had been far too busy, and he had barely spared a thought for this little girl. She was still in her tattered clothes, the holes over her small toes still clearly visible.

But at least Little Nannan had not gone hungry. The inn, following his instructions, had sent delicious meals every day.

“Big brother, that grandfather across the way is so sad.” The little girl’s heart was full of sympathy. The grandfather she spoke of was naturally Zhang Wenchang.

Ye Fan patted her on the head. The little girl herself was hardly any less pitiful — it made his heart ache.

“Be good now, Little Nannan. I may be leaving for a few months. Wait patiently for me to come back.”

“Big brother…” The little girl immediately lowered her head, her spirits sinking, thinking Ye Fan was about to abandon her and leave.

“I will come back. Don’t worry, Little Nannan.” Ye Fan said softly in comfort.

“Really?” The little girl was still not reassured. A glimmer shone in her eyes as she pressed her lips together, head hanging low, looking at her worn little shoes. “Little Nannan always forgets the past. I’m afraid that after a while, I’ll forget big brother too.”

“You won’t forget. I’ll leave you a precious jade stone — I’ve already refined it. It can record everything you experience each day, and every morning when you wake up you can see what happened the day before.”

Ye Fan had made up his mind. He could delay entering the Ancient Forbidden Land no longer. He was not going there to die — beyond the supreme stone garment, he still held one peerless ace that no one knew about. Perhaps it could withstand the erosion of time. That was the key to whether he could succeed.

He gazed toward the horizon. Perhaps he could also borrow Ye Fan Huiling’s Heaven-Covering Sacred Garment — having one more layer of protection was always better than none.

“Be good, Little Nannan. Wait for me to come back!”

Ye Fan rose to his feet and walked out of the inn with long strides. Behind him, a small figure waved a tiny hand, large eyes brimming with tears, watching him disappear into the distance.