Dust filled the air, the earth shook with violent tremors, and nine Dragon Corpses pulled the coffin descending from the heavens, crashing down onto an ancient star.

Ye Fan was like a withered leaf in a fierce gale, sent flying an untold number of miles, colliding with countless boulders. It was only by virtue of his exceptionally resilient physical body that he survived — otherwise, he would surely have been reduced to a pulp.

The nine Dragon Corpses and the bronze coffin descended from the dim expanse of the universe onto this ancient star. Everything was shrouded in the unknown, without a single clue to be found. Of late, he had been in secluded cultivation in a state of complete self-forgetfulness.

“What is this place?”

Billowing clouds of dust and smoke rolled up into the high sky. Ye Fan finally steadied himself — he had not been injured during the rapid descent.

On the ground, there was an enormous crater. The nine Dragon Corpses and the Ancient Bronze Coffin lay strewn within it, equally unscathed. They had merely driven the earth into a deep depression upon impact, splitting it into many great cracks that stretched outward in every direction.

“We’ve landed!”

Was this, then, the final destination? A thought stirred in Ye Fan’s heart, filled with bewilderment and yearning. He desperately wanted to know what kind of ancient star this was.

“There’s air!”

Suddenly, his keen senses picked up on this fact. He could not help but draw in a breath — yet it left him feeling strangely dizzy.

“Deadly poison!”

Even that small inhalation had made him feel lightheaded. One could only imagine how toxic the air of this ancient star truly was — it was entirely unfit for human consumption.

“Is this a death world?” Ye Fan murmured to himself.

When the dust finally settled, everything in the vicinity became clearly visible. The nine Dragon Corpses and the bronze coffin lay motionless — they had landed here, one might say run aground, advancing no further.

This was a stretch of mountainous terrain, barren and utterly devoid of life. Not a single blade of grass grew here, nor was there any sign of living creatures. Ye Fan felt a wave of disappointment; he had thought he was arriving at a wellspring of life.

“Hmm…”

Suddenly, his gaze froze. He was startled. Not far away, he spotted an enormous claw print, branded into the face of a stone mountain — it had nearly split the entire mountaintop wide open with a single strike.

“What manner of creature could be so massive? A single swipe of its claw could uproot a mountain!”

Ye Fan was thoroughly astonished. This desolate world looked nothing like a place where living creatures dwelt — and yet here was a claw print, one so colossal it was terrifying.

He immediately grew cautious. This ancient star might not be as simple as it appeared. Otherwise, the Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin would not have descended here without reason.

Of course, his curiosity had also deepened considerably. What path were the Dragon Corpses and coffin following? How were they able to determine their direction? What force was guiding them? Where, in the end, were they headed — and what was their ultimate destination? What would become of all of this?

A mystery. All of it was a mystery. He could not divine the answers, could not think it through, had no idea what awaited at the journey’s end. Perhaps this voyage — riding the coffin through the cosmos — would unveil a long-buried secret, revealing what it was the coffin sought to reach.

Ye Fan soared into the sky, gazing toward the more distant reaches of this world, wanting to take a careful look at it. He murmured to himself: “Who opened a path through the frigid universe, pointing the way to this place?”

Suddenly, Ye Fan froze. On the horizon, he spotted a gleam of gold — what appeared to be lush vegetation, brilliant and dense, though its color was exceedingly strange.

“That is…” A planet saturated with deadly poison, yet showing signs of life — the sight filled him with astonishment. He cast one last glance at the ancient coffin, then flew swiftly toward it.

After traveling eighty or ninety miles, Ye Fan left that barren wasteland behind and discovered what lay ahead: a vast expanse of golden radiance, incomparably resplendent.

He stood there dumbfounded. Before him stretched a forest of golden trees, breathtakingly brilliant. They were not, of course, forged from actual gold — these were living trees.

He plucked a single leaf. Golden droplets flowed from it. He placed one on his tongue — it was slightly bitter, with a faint fragrance, and a trace of Life Essence stirred within.

“What a strange place — an ancient star with life, a wellspring of unique living things!” Ye Fan entered the forest and made his way toward the central area.

It had to be said: this was a breathtakingly beautiful ancient grove. Every single tree gleamed a deep gold, utterly unlike any vegetation he had encountered before.

Snap!

Without warning, a massive golden flower suddenly bloomed on the oldest and largest tree in the grove. Its stamen shot out like a tongue, coiling around Ye Fan and drawing him into the flower in an instant.

The blossom snapped shut immediately. Golden light pulsed and blazed with blinding intensity. The divine power within Ye Fan’s body began to flow outward, drawn out by the enormous flower, which sought to drain all the Life Essence from his body and refine it.

“Break!”

Ye Fan’s expression hardened. He surged with force, and with a single tremor of his body, the flower and the ancient tree both shattered at once — like fragments of broken gold scattering in every direction, glittering and glinting. A great outpouring of Life Essence burst free.

He drew in a deep breath, refining it into himself. Then came a clear, delicate ding — a crystal fell to the ground, no larger than a pigeon’s egg.

It was a crystalline stone that had formed within the ancient tree, golden in color, dazzlingly brilliant, and suffused with a kind of primordial power. Ye Fan held it in his hand and examined it carefully. It felt sacred and pure — so much so that even his fingers appeared crystalline and translucent in its light.

He marveled. What kind of ancient star was this, to have grown such an old tree? Its life form was quite unlike anything from another world.

Throughout the entire ancient grove, only this one old tree had been exceptional. All the others were normal and had not attempted to draw his divine power. He also noticed that the roots of the old tree extended into every other tree in the grove, drawing their Life Essence.

“A tree spirit? Could it be some aged demon — or is this simply the natural form this life takes?”

Ye Fan exited that golden ancient grove and realized the old tree had been a ruler of sorts — all the golden trees had served as tributaries of its Life Essence. And now he had destroyed it.

As he traveled onward, he did not encounter a single animal. The forest was utterly still, without even the whisper of the wind. The silence was so absolute it felt like despair.

“What kind of ancient star is this?”

Far ahead, a blinding violet radiance erupted into view, surging forward like a great flood tide.

Ye Fan pressed on and soon arrived at its source: an extraordinary expanse of vegetation. Without exception — leaves, flowers, roots, stems, and every variety of plant — all were purple. A faint, luminous mist drifted through them, shimmering like crimson clouds.

“What a peculiar world. Not a single green tree. Every plant looks as though it has been carved from gemstone — and yet they are alive.”

This time, Ye Fan was far more watchful. In the very center stood an ancient tree that was clearly different from the rest — seemingly a sovereign of this place. The moment he drew near, the entire grove erupted in violet light that shot skyward, then coalesced in the air above into an enormous celestial sword, which came crashing straight down!

In an instant, the earth erupted. Soil and rock flew in all directions as a massive fissure split open — several zhang across and stretching out for several miles. The might of that single sword strike was truly fearsome.

“What?!”

Ye Fan was greatly shaken. He had assumed this was merely a strange grove, its life forms simply different from those of other worlds.

Yet now the light had coalesced into a great purple celestial sword — something utterly inexplicable, deeply mysterious. What manner of world was this?

Clang!

Ye Fan did not dare underestimate it. He swung the Divine Striking Whip with full force, bringing it crashing down to meet the purple celestial sword. His body shook violently, and he was driven back more than ten steps — yet he held firm.

That sword strike had been of terrifying power. The ten or so footprints he left in the ground were all cracked and splintered, with countless fissures radiating outward in all directions — a frightening sight.

The purple celestial sword shattered, dissolving into a scattering of violet light. More than half of the surrounding vegetation instantly withered and died, and the ancient tree at the center crumbled directly into ruin.

Ding!

A clear ring sounded. A purple crystalline stone the size of a chicken’s egg flew forth, tracing a beautiful arc through the void, pulsing with powerful waves of divine force.

Ye Fan caught it in one hand and murmured to himself: “What are these? Why does every one of these strange trees contain one?”

He now held two crystalline stones in his palm, yet had no idea what they were or what purpose they served. They appeared to be usable as source stones to absorb Life Essence — yet when he tried, he found it extremely difficult. They were perfectly sealed and incredibly hard, nearly impossible to crush.

Ye Fan continued onward. He wanted to understand the full nature of this world, and to do that, he would have to travel much further.

Rumble, rumble, rumble!

Ahead, a sound like a crashing tsunami erupted. Crimson light blazed into the sky, roiling like a vast sea of burning clouds.

Ye Fan walked toward it and beheld the scene at last: a stretch of ancient trees as red as blood, wrapped in endless flowing wisps of scarlet mist.

These crimson ancient trees were exceptionally tall — many stood several dozen meters in height. The crimson tree king at their center rose even higher, hundreds of meters tall, like a small mountain unto itself. It seemed as though carved from red coral — magnificent and striking, crimson as blood, its leaves crystalline and lustrous.

Yet it was also exceedingly dangerous. The moment Ye Fan drew near, the entire ancient grove transformed into a sea of blood, and crimson light swallowed the heavens and the earth.

Boom!

An enormous crimson cauldron, towering a thousand zhang high, materialized from the sky — formed entirely from condensed crimson light. It descended from above, radiating a sense of absolute, insurmountable power.

Heaven and earth shattered!

The crimson cauldron was ancient in form — three legs, two ears, a perfectly round body. It was almost identical to Ye Fan’s own cauldron, even sharing the same patterns engraved upon its surface.

“The hallmarks of ancient China!” Ye Fan froze.

Then he moved swiftly. This strike was far too powerful. His cultivation had advanced greatly of late, yet even he felt threatened — this blow absolutely carried the full-force destructive might of a supreme Saint Lord!

Boom!

Ye Fan did not expend a single drop of divine essence. He simply sacrificed the black gourd outright. Nine-colored flames surged skyward and engulfed the ancient cauldron in an instant.

Crack!

Sacred flames blazed across the heavens. The great cauldron burned to pieces. The stretch of crimson forest ahead withered away in large swaths, and the tree king shattered — like a burst of fireworks blossoming in the sky.

A crimson crystal the size of a palm flew out, radiating tremendous divine power, like a divine star streaking across the heavens.

Ye Fan reached out and seized it, gripping it firmly, and tucked it away.

And so he continued onward. From time to time he encountered ancient groves. In total, he discovered five varieties of ancient trees — all gleaming brilliantly — each containing a tree king that bore a single crystalline stone.

Traveling this way for over a thousand miles, he came across dozens of groves. The most terrifying of them set his heart pounding each time he recalled it: it was an ancient tree blazing with black radiance, from which a deity-like figure coalesced — and a single roar from it brought an entire mountain range crumbling down.

Even so, it ultimately fell before the black gourd, and from it dropped a black crystalline stone measuring one foot square.

This world bore five-colored ancient trees. Ye Fan suspected a connection to the Five Elements — they were very much like the legendary Five-Element True Woods — but his knowledge was limited, as the ancient texts made only sparse mention of them.

Yet he knew the Five-Element True Woods were of incalculable rarity, extraordinarily difficult to cultivate, and almost never seen in the world.

He would never have imagined that this ancient star would have so many of them, growing in such lush and flourishing abundance.

Two days later, Ye Fan arrived at a stretch of ancient terrain and discovered signs of living activity — and not from long ago. The discovery shocked him deeply.

He made his way through a forest of stone pillars, gradually drawing closer to a massive mountain. As he came around it, the landscape opened wide, and Ye Fan’s astonishment reached its peak.

Ding!

The summit of the great mountain was broad and flat. Upon it stood an old man, arranging five-colored crystalline stones one by one, stacking them to form a small altar.

“A Five-Color Altar!”

Ye Fan’s heart and mind trembled. There was actually a person here — and that person was building a Five-Color Altar. To encounter this so suddenly was a tremendous shock to him.

In an instant, he understood. The crystalline stones produced by the five-colored ancient trees were the very materials used to construct a Five-Color Altar.

The ancient trees — capable of unleashing blows comparable to a supreme Saint Lord at full power — and yet the crystalline stones they produced were no larger than a palm. The majority were only pigeon-egg sized. How many tree kings, then, would it take to build a complete altar?

Ye Fan thought of the Five-Color Altar on Mount Tai, and of the Five-Color Altar in the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Land. What incomprehensibly powerful Five-Element tree kings would be required to produce stones of that scale?

After all, some of those enormous five-colored blocks weighed thousands of pounds — some even tens of thousands.

“So the stones of the Five-Color Altar are produced like this?!” Ye Fan’s heart thundered with the realization. The divine trees were the source.

Ahead, the old man had but one arm. He was clothed in green, working alone to construct the ancient altar — a sight that was profoundly unsettling.