The seven-colored small stone was crystalline and flawlessly clear — so beautiful as to border on the dreamlike, shimmering with an intoxicating radiance that made Ye Fan’s palm look transparent just from holding it.

He had absorbed a surge of robust life vital energy. Every pore on his body opened wide as his vital energy revived. He was now able to stand, no longer paralyzed as he had been before.

This was the most primal form of life vital energy — pure and flawless, without a trace of impurity. The moment it entered Ye Fan’s body it became a part of his very life, producing an extraordinary effect upon someone in his condition of spent vitality.

What origins did Xiao Nannan truly have? This small stone set his imagination running wild. The lovable little girl surely harbored astonishing secrets.

Before, Ye Fan’s flame of life had been like a candle in the wind, ready to be snuffed out at any moment. Now, nourished at last, he had temporarily escaped the threat of death.

He rose to his feet and looked up toward the sacred mountain. There was no time to waste. The Great Dao wound was worsening, and though the crystalline small stone had temporarily revived him, it certainly could not sustain him for long.

Each bit of vital energy consumed from the small stone meant one fewer chance of reaching the summit of the sacred mountain!

The towering sacred mountain showed no trace of the Desolate Slaves. They had all vanished, seemingly returned to the ancient desolate abyss below — cold and desolate.

Not a single sound. He was alone in all of heaven and earth. He could not sense even the faintest pulse of life. It was as though he had come to the very edge of the world.

Ye Fan clenched his teeth, took up the seven-colored small stone, and charged up the mountain. Here he could find momentary peace, but to remain here for long was no different from a slow death.

“Swish!”

The moment he moved even a short distance from the Ancient Bronze Coffin, the desolate power surged toward him — as though scraping his bones, gouging his flesh. The searing pain nearly made him cry out.

The Heaven-Covering Sacred Garment and the Stone Garment on his body had already been shattered, and now they crumbled to powder, scattering silently to the ground. This was an absolute killing force — the ruthless grinding of time, like a heavenly blade capable of annihilating everything in the world.

The small stone shimmered in his hand, its seven varieties of radiance flowing outward to envelop him, making him appear shrouded in hazy, shimmering light.

Ye Fan was astonished to discover that the small stone was holding back time — resisting the desolate aura. His life was still flowing away, but far more slowly than before.

“Ah, of course…” Ye Fan understood in an instant. No wonder Xiao Nannan, even now, appeared exactly the same as she had three years ago — without any change at all. This small stone could ward off the erosion of time.

However, no one in this mortal life could ultimately escape death. No eternal existence was possible. The small stone was also dimming — it was only temporarily blocking the desolate power.

Dread swelled in Ye Fan’s heart. This was his very last trump card. If he could not reach the summit of the sacred mountain, he would truly be returned to dust, ashes to ashes.

He also clutched the shriveled Qilin Seed in his hand so that both the seven-colored small stone and the seed of the imperishable divine medicine could simultaneously provide him with life vital energy.

The sacred mountain was lush with vegetation and adorned with strange rocks — certainly beautiful — but Ye Fan did not spare it a single glance. At this moment between life and death, reaching the summit was the only path to survival.

The closer he drew to the summit, the more concentrated the desolate aura became, penetrating deep into his very bones. Even the seven-colored radiance could barely hold it at bay. The small stone was dimming rapidly.

The Qilin divine medicine seed, too, was shrinking, on the verge of drying out completely. Their life vitality had all been drawn upon by Ye Fan to sustain his dwindling lifespan.

At last, Ye Fan reached the summit.

This was the very heart of the life-forbidden zone. The nine sacred mountains joined together, encircling a vast abyss — black and fathomless, its depths impossible to see.

To look upon it made one’s blood run cold. It seemed capable of swallowing a person’s very soul.

The sacred mountain he had climbed was grand and majestic, towering and solemn — yet utterly silent.

The bottomless abyss seemed to connect to the nine nether hells. A bone-chilling aura of dread seeped outward. The small stone dimmed completely, no longer emitting any light.

The Qilin Seed whimpered softly. Unable to endure Ye Fan’s relentless drawing of energy, its life was nearly at its end — it was almost entirely dried out.

“Crack!”

Ye Fan seemed to hear a splitting sound from within his body. The wellspring of his life was held together by the most tenuous thread — nearly cleaved in two. His entire body was without strength. He could barely even keep his eyes open.

The Great Dao wound had deteriorated to its absolute worst. Death stood directly before him. There was nothing left to be done.

At this moment, unable to absorb any more life vital energy, even someone as powerful as the Holy Body would soon turn to ash and vanish forever from this world.

“Spit!”

Ye Fan gritted his teeth and spat out a thread of golden blood essence, burning it into a golden light that shielded the surface of his body to block the desolate force. He staggered forward. He had been here before — the Life Spring Pool lay just ahead.

Suddenly, despair seized Ye Fan. There beside the spring pool stood a cold silhouette — hair white as snow, upright and imposing bearing. The same middle-aged man.

A Desolate Slave — a supreme master of a bygone era — now stood blocking his way. How was he to pass?

“Desolate Slaves are rarely seen — why do I keep encountering them?” He looked to the heavens and sighed. This was a hopeless conclusion.

Not long ago, the ancient coffin’s celestial sound had rung out — so why had they not returned to the abyss? Ye Fan did not think his judgment had been wrong. Something unexpected must have intervened.

Ye Fan could barely stay upright, yet he refused to simply wait for death. He flung everything he had: the golden Dao scripture, the silver Origin Heavenly Book — and even considered splitting open his sea wheel to tear out the most mysterious piece of green bronze within!

“Hum!”

The white-haired man took a single step forward, and this entire expanse of heaven and earth seemed on the verge of collapse. This was the presence of a supreme master of the ages — each movement capable of making the sky tremble.

Ye Fan’s physical body began to crack rapidly, like exquisite porcelain on the verge of shattering — about to be ground to powder.

A figure of world-shaking supremacy, even across the passage of many years, could still look down upon all under heaven with immeasurable divine power.

The white-haired man stood like the absolute ruler of all beneath the heavens, with the presence of one who could swallow mountains and rivers, supreme above all within the eight desolations and six directions.

“It’s over!” Even though Ye Fan’s Holy Body had reached minor completion, he still could not withstand this. His physical form cracked apart, fractures appearing even in his bones.

“Ding!”

A crisp sound rang out. The upright and imposing white-haired man caught three pieces of ancient jade. A flicker of light appeared in his previously vacant eyes. He stilled his form and took no further steps.

Ye Fan had flung the three pieces of ancient jade left behind by Emperor Wushi — and they had been caught in the white-haired man’s hands. He stared at them, transfixed and dazed.

Ye Fan’s hand had already reached into his sea wheel, prepared to self-destruct the bitter sea and wrench out the green bronze. He had not expected the other party to stop.

“Ding!”

Another soft sound. In the white-haired man’s hand there was now one additional piece of ancient jade — clearly it could be joined to the other three. He stood there in a blank daze.

Ye Fan’s heart pounded fiercely. That too was an ancient jade left behind by Emperor Wushi. There were nine pieces in total, and he had never imagined that the white-haired man also held one.

The white-haired man placed all four pieces of ancient jade on the ground. His eyes became utterly vacant once more. He glanced once at Ye Fan, then turned without looking back and leaped into the abyss.

This outcome was beyond anything Ye Fan had anticipated — yet he had no time to dwell on it. Unable to hold on any longer, he stumbled headlong into the Life Spring Pool ahead.

No one knew how much time passed before Ye Fan came to, his entire body immersed in the Life Spring Pool, filled with absolute comfort. The desolate power had finally been blocked.

A faint, delicate fragrance enveloped his body. The spring pool was crystal clear. He drank great mouthfuls of the divine spring water, nourishing his nearly depleted life.

His vitality slowly recovered. He had finally pulled himself back from the threshold of death, and hope of living had returned.

In this place of despair — capable of destroying supreme masters of the ages — there existed this one Life Spring Pool. In some ineffable way, it aligned with the will of heaven’s Great Dao: at the very extreme of death, a thread of life was concealed, offering a sliver of hope.

Around the spring pool grew thirteen small trees — pure emerald green and gleaming with verdant light, as though carved from jade, none taller than half a meter. Their leaves were shaped like human hands, resembling small figures with many arms.

However, the trees bore no fruit. Several years ago, Ye Fan and Pang Bo had already picked them clean, and they had not bloomed or borne fruit again since.

His reason for choosing this particular sacred mountain was primarily because the Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin rested on the mountainside. For the sake of prudence, he had not ventured to more distant peaks.

Ye Fan became aware of something unusual — a powerful life force like a surging tide pulsed around him, filling him with profound wonder.

Looking down, he saw that the seven-colored small stone was absorbing the divine spring water, recovering its radiance, and growing crystalline and clear once more.

As for the Qilin divine medicine seed, it was like something reborn — drawing in the morning essence of the sun and moon, absorbing the divine spring water. What had been nearly shriveled was now slowly swelling full again.

Ye Fan was deeply astonished. No wonder that when a damaged human-shaped divine medicine had been unearthed in the Northern Domain, many had said only divine spring water could revive it.

He lay unmoving in the Life Spring Pool, carefully sensing the nature of this stretch of heaven and earth. It was truly different from the outside world — it preserved a kind of Great Dao and natural law different from anything else.

“Jiang Shenwang’s conjecture proved true!”

This was a stretch of primordial heavens and earth, retaining the aura of time before the ancient desolation. The rules of heaven and earth had not changed — everything here was different from the present age.

“If I could cultivate here, I could certainly repair the Great Dao wound!” A great wave of feeling arose in Ye Fan’s heart.

If he could perfect his Holy Body to great completion in this stretch of heaven and earth, even if the rules of heaven and earth elsewhere had changed, he could defy the heavens on his own terms.

Ye Fan lay in the Life Spring Pool as his depleted lifespan was restored bit by bit. But he was not satisfied — he wanted to restore his vital energy as quickly as possible.

For this was the ancient forbidden land. In that bottomless abyss below, who knew what existences lurked? He could be annihilated at any moment.

In the end, he chose to draw upon the Qilin divine medicine seed and the seven-colored small stone, letting them absorb the life-giving divine spring water.

A primordial divine medicine, drawing only upon the essence of the sun and moon, could remain undying for eternity — nothing in the mortal world could absorb imperishable power more swiftly than them.

With the divine spring at hand, the Qilin Seed was naturally like a fish returning to water, ceaselessly converting the imperishable power into its own life vitality.

No one knew how much time had passed when Ye Fan’s vitality at last grew more robust. He could stand again. The golden blood energy began to circulate once more.

The Great Dao wound in his body showed no sign whatsoever of improvement, yet the imperishable holy body was slowly reviving. The flame of life would not dim for the short term.

He needed imperishable divine medicine. The nine sacred mountains had nine divine roots, and previously he had already harvested two varieties of holy fruit. Now he turned his gaze toward the distant peaks.

After resting for sufficient time, Ye Fan took up the Qilin divine medicine seed and the seven-colored small stone and flew forth, running swiftly around the sacred mountains that encircled the abyss.

The moment he drew close to the sacred mountain ahead — still far off — he caught a fragrance so heart-piercingly sweet that it nearly made him drunk on the mountain air.

This sacred mountain was grand and majestic, as vast as the heavens themselves, like an ancient site of the celestial court, teeming with exotic flowers and strange grasses, bursting with life.

At the center of the flat mountaintop, a spring pool measuring two meters across flowed with a soft trickle, emitting tiny gleaming points of light, as though divine liquid had pooled together.

Beside the spring pool grew three small trees, each half a meter tall — crimson as fire and shimmering brilliantly, as though carved from red carnelian, each resembling a small dwarf-like figure. Their branches were like arms, their root stems jutting slightly above the soil like a pair of legs. They were exceptionally peculiar.

Though small, they were as vigorous as ancient gnarled dragons, filled with the breath of long ages, giving one a sense of the vast weight of time.

The fragrance was thick enough to feel tangible. Atop each of the three small trees hung a single pink fruit — lustrous and translucent as fine jade, its warmth and clarity unlike the color of the trees themselves.

Ye Fan stared wide-eyed. The three fruits were shaped like tiny babies, each about the size of a fist — remarkably unusual.

“Ginseng fruit?!”

The three small trees did not move, but the three pink fruits swayed — as though trying to break free — which was quite strange.

Ye Fan dared not linger. He plunged into the Life Spring Pool to restore his vitality, then picked each one carefully and sealed them inside jade boxes. Even the faint aroma alone was enough to make him feel intoxicated.

“Rustle, rustle, rustle!”

The crimson-as-fire divine trees stirred, their leaves turning like the notes of a beautiful melody, making Ye Fan marvel once again.

By now the sun was setting in the west. Ye Fan felt the abyss growing more terrifying as dusk approached. He did not dare waste any time, and decided to retreat to the bronze coffin for the night.

Before leaving, he could not resist approaching the cliff edge, calling upon the Origin Heavenly Eye to peer down into the abyss.

“That is… a Five-Colored Altar!”

Ye Fan was greatly startled. Within the boundless abyss, he spotted a crumbling altar suspended in midair — ancient and mysterious.

His divine eye had grown powerful, but even so he could not see to the bottom of the abyss. Yet this altar was not at the very deepest point — it was suspended midway, and it looked exactly like the one he had seen at Mount Tai.

“So that is how it is…” He finally understood why the Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin had descended to this place.

“The Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin — its starting point unknown, its destination unknown. Across the vast stellar void, the other end of the star sea, and this place — all are nothing but waypoints. Where the road ahead leads, no one can say…” he murmured softly to himself.