The lake was vast. Mist drifted across its waters, its countless acres of surface stretching beyond sight.
All around, ancient trees coiled like gnarled dragons — some taller than the mountains themselves. The undergrowth was lush and thick, medicinal plants gave off a fragrant scent, life flourished everywhere. Many great old vines — enormously thick — wound from one mountain peak to another.
Ye Fan felt uncertain. He did not know whether this was truly the Immortal Transformation Pool. The stone stele with its hairline cracks looked to have been here for quite some time — measured in units of ten thousand years, its inscriptions sharp and powerful as blade and dragon.
Among the boundless mountains, such a vast great lake appeared — azure waves stretching for tens of thousands of acres, borderless and boundless like the open sea.
Over the years, people wandering through the million li of the Qin Mountains had come across many places called the Immortal Transformation Pool. Some were as small as a well. Others stretched for tens of thousands of acres of azure waves. No one truly knew which was real.
The Immortal Transformation Pool carried many legends. In ancient times, immortals had been seen ascending to the heavens in blazing radiance. Later, there were tales of the Green Emperor being born here — which naturally drew the gaze of all beneath the heavens.
The great lake was filled with a quality of spiritual beauty. Lake and sky merged together. Water mist drifted. Within, azure lotuses gleamed like emerald clouds. Strange beasts moved beneath the surface, their scales and horns glinting.
Deep within the lake, thunder rang out — deafening as a mountain flood, like the surge of the sea, as though connected to the primordial sound at the beginning of all things. The aura was staggeringly immense.
Ye Fan skimmed the surface of the lake and moved forward. After traveling dozens of li, he finally beheld a terrifying sight. The sky was full of lightning, blood-red radiance everywhere — the entirety of the space above the great lake completely submerged.
“More than twenty people are crossing a tribulation…” His expression froze. Within the endless sea of blood-colored lightning, there were over thirty human silhouettes — an inconceivably strange sight.
What startled him even more was the intensity of the heavenly tribulation itself — extraordinarily terrifying, many times more powerful than the lightning tribulation Yan Yun had faced, not much weaker than what he himself had experienced.
“Who are all these people?!” Ye Fan’s heart was shaken considerably. This kind of heavenly tribulation — each lightning bolt shattering the void.
The tribulation was harrowing. The blood-colored lightning was the dominant element, like a sea of blood, and running through it at intervals were flows of primordial chaos light.
True Lunar Tribulation, True Solar Tribulation, Great Tribulation of Earth’s Fire and Wind and Water, Undying Phoenix Tribulation… The sky was a boiling tempest of lightning. Within the blood-colored sea of thunder, every variety of tribulation lightning appeared, striking until the void itself trembled and shook.
“Such immense heavenly punishment — as though it is determined to obliterate and will not allow those crossing to succeed!” Ye Fan’s heart was grim. It was nearly equal to the tribulation he himself had faced.
And one had to remember: his body was nearly indestructible. Among the younger generation, the strength of his physical body was unmatched beneath the heavens — and it was only because of that that he had been able to endure such heavenly punishment. What kind of people were crossing here?
Ye Fan examined them carefully. Within the boundless sea of lightning, there were fully thirty-two figures, buried beneath dazzling radiance, resisting the great heavenly tribulation.
“How can there be so many of them?”
The lightning was fierce and blinding, too brilliant to look at directly. Those people were all as if submerged within the sun — blazing and brilliant, impossible to view clearly. Ye Fan concentrated his gaze, divine light blazing in his eyes, and managed to catch glimpses of some of their faces.
In that instant, he drew a sharp breath. The people he saw were too bizarre. Their clothing and appearance were each entirely different — men and women, young and old — each belonging to a different era and dynasty.
“What are these people — a host of fierce ghosts crossing a tribulation?!”
Among the thirty-odd silhouettes, there were old Daoists wearing tattered robes who looked as though they had just been unearthed, reeking of decay. There were also emperors wearing rust-mottled dragon crowns, as though freshly emerged from an ancient mausoleum. There were also celestial maidens clad in heavenly silkworm divine silk, their gowns nearly rotted away. And there were Arhats in tattered kasayas, their bodies withered, yet as though cast from gold.
It was said that the earth of the Qin Mountains was riddled with ancient mausoleums — could a host of ancient powerful figures, now ancient corpses, have emerged from their tombs simultaneously and come out to cross tribulations?
However one looked at them, it seemed impossible that these people could belong to the same era. Their garments were so old they were nearly gone — like a group of living fossils freshly unearthed.
“How truly strange…” Ye Fan was filled with suspicion and unease. What he had witnessed defied all rational explanation.
He could make out over ten of them. The rest were deep within the center of the lightning sea, visible only as hazy silhouettes. The clothing of all those he could see was of a style from at least tens of thousands of years ago.
He even spotted one ancient emperor wearing a purple-gold crown whose style matched what was recorded in ancient texts as being from fifty thousand years ago — ancient enough to make one’s eyes swim.
At the center of the lightning sea, the other ten or so figures were hazy, but could be seen to be wearing modern attire. Among them, one was dressed in the manner of a prince from an undying divine dynasty.
“Spanning tens of thousands of years — from the present day to the most ancient of times — how did all these people end up in the same place? And all crossing tribulation together — it’s almost equal to the great heavenly tribulation I experienced.”
In such fierce and terrifying lightning, the garments of these people ought to have been destroyed long ago. Ye Fan activated his Origin Celestial Eye, examined them carefully, piercing through the void to look at the source itself — and finally saw through the illusion.
“Life essence materialized — not their true bodies!”
Ye Fan’s heart lurched. His eyes shot out two bolts of cold light. He began searching for the thirty-third person — there must be one, for that person was orchestrating everything.
“Ancient emperors, divine monks, old Daoists — and from the present era, princes of divine dynasties, celestial maidens — what a sweeping, grand hand!”
At last, he found the thirty-third person at the very center of the lightning sea. Their state was extraordinarily strange — the entire figure had merged into the void, while a black sacred vase hovered above the crown of their head.
“As expected — a practitioner of the Heaven Devouring Demonic Art. To have devoured so many people…”
Ye Fan’s heart was grim. The Qin Mountains’ underground was full of ancient mausoleums. This person had found so many incorruptible ancient corpses — extracting only a little source essence from each. Even so, it was enough to shake the world.
Moreover, many present-day heroes and prodigies had been killed, their source essence taken. This was an enemy beyond imagination. No wonder the heavenly tribulation was so terrifying.
“Hua Yunfei — I have found you again.” Ye Fan stood in the distance, his expression serene and detached. After so long in the Qin Mountains, he had finally located this terrifying adversary.
Within the sea of lightning, Hua Yunfei had merged with heaven and earth — as he always had. Even in the face of a heavenly tribulation, he appeared utterly ethereal and transcendent, like an immortal exiled to the mortal world.
Ten thousand bolts of tribulation lightning crashed down. He resisted with everything he had, the vase above his head breathing in and out streaks of lightning, mysterious and inscrutable. He was the kind of man who made even women envious — divine and jade-like in bearing, almost too handsome, transcendent and otherworldly, as though an immortal reborn.
“The eighth transformation of Dragon Transformation heavenly punishment!” Ye Fan drew a sharp breath. His opponent’s cultivation speed was alarming.
Two days prior, Ye Fan had crossed a terrifying tribulation himself and advanced to the fifth transformation — already considered extremely fast. He had not expected his opponent to have reached such a frightening speed as well.
Before this, in the Eastern Wilderness and Southern Region, he had fought Hua Yunfei in battle. At the time, he had been at the second tier of the Four Poles realm, while Hua Yunfei was at the first transformation of Dragon Transformation — a gap of three minor realms.
Now, years had passed. Ye Fan had surged forward relentlessly, ascending to the fifth transformation of Dragon Transformation at his peak — a remarkable ascent with great fortune along the way.
Yet Hua Yunfei had kept pace, still three minor realms above him. His speed had been equally terrifying.
Ye Fan had gained many fortuitous encounters over these years, soaring upward like a man in flight, and for anyone else to match his pace would be extraordinarily difficult. Yet Hua Yunfei had done exactly that — advancing with the same breathtaking, day-by-day speed.
The terrifying eighth transformation of Dragon Transformation — and the tribulation he was enduring was barely weaker than Ye Fan’s own. It was chilling to the heart.
The Heaven Devouring Demonic Art was indeed fearsome. All those beneath the heavens were its medicinal cauldrons. Every powerful cultivator could have their source essence devoured to strengthen the practitioner. With such a technique, how could one not soar?
This art offended the will of heaven — and so every advancement brought a catastrophic heavenly punishment. Heaven itself seemed determined to strike the practitioner down to ash. Such an endless sea of lightning was nearly comparable to the sacred body’s tribulation.
“Killing all along the path, heaven pressing down relentlessly — those who cultivate this demonic art, so long as they do not die, have no choice but to grow stronger and stronger!” Ye Fan sighed quietly.
To attain the Dao by this method was a journey of unimaginable hardship — a thousand difficulties and ten thousand dangers, walking the line between life and death at every step. Only the most astonishing of individuals could hope to survive.
No wonder people predicted that so long as Hua Yunfei did not die, within ten years he could sweep through the world and wreak havoc across the Five Great Domains. Looking at his current pace, there was no doubt it would come true.
In just three short years, Hua Yunfei had absorbed the source essence of thirty-two powerful cultivators — eleven of them ancient remarkable corpses, twenty-one of them outstanding heroes of the present age.
Now, as Hua Yunfei crossed the tribulation, the life essence of those he had devoured spilled outward, manifesting into their true forms and crossing the tribulation alongside him.
“Such a terrifying tribulation — and yet he can endure it. He’s nearly through. The end is in sight!”
Ye Fan did not enter the tribulation. He had only just successfully crossed his own tribulation — even if he charged in now, drawing his own heavenly punishment, he could not advance another stage. He would simply be struck by lightning for nothing.
Moreover, Hua Yunfei could withstand this level of tribulation. If Ye Fan further intensified the lightning sea, there was a good chance it still would not kill his opponent.
“At this rate, no one in the world will ever be able to control him. Once he has absorbed the source essence of every body type, he will be undefeatable beneath the heavens!”
In this present age, the heroes and prodigies of the world — every King of all under heaven — were like divine medicines growing in the mortal world. Hua Yunfei, practicing this technique, was like someone harvesting divine medicine from among the living.
Ye Fan stepped onto the surface of the lake and advanced step by step into the void, moving toward the lightning sea as it neared its end. Since they had met, a battle to the death was unavoidable.
“Crack!”
When the last bolt of lightning finally faded, all life essence returned to Hua Yunfei’s body. The emperor in his tattered dragon robe, the celestial maiden with her dust-covered garments — all of them vanished.
Ye Fan stood tall and straight, his dark hair dense and thick, his eyes clear and bright. He swung the Divine Scourge Whip and shattered the heavens, as though sweeping with an entire river of stars — and struck forward like an ancient sacred spirit reborn.
“Clang!”
Hua Yunfei raised a golden-winged phoenix trident and deflected the blow directly. The sound that rang out was like the roar of the sea — the great lake below erupted in a boil, and in the distance the mountains crumbled and the earth split apart.
Two people, barely a single exchange — and already the destruction was extreme.
“Brother Ye — we meet again.” Hua Yunfei had already changed into a fresh set of blue robes, refined and noble, his expression warm and serene with a gentle smile.
“Indeed — there’s nowhere in life we cannot meet.”
“In truth, we could simply sit down and talk. There is no need for a battle to the death.” Hua Yunfei’s sleeves and robes flowed gently, ethereal as an immortal.
“Haven’t you always wanted to devour my Sacred Body’s source essence?” Ye Fan took one step forward, then another.
“That was then, this is now. You and I have both become enemies of the world. Why not join forces? There is no need to decide who lives and who dies.”
Ye Fan laughed. “Join forces to help you kill people and take their source essence — and then have you devour me in the end? I have always had great admiration for the Ruthless Great Emperor’s ancient scriptures. Let me have a proper look at all your peerless sacred arts.”
“Brother Ye — this is no longer three years ago. I hold nothing back. I fight with no restraint. Who lives and who dies, it is difficult to say.” Hua Yunfei spoke lightly.