Beyond the domain, all was deathly still. Looking down upon the Northern Dipper Ancient Star Territory from above, it was a breathtaking vista of celestial bodies.
At the center, a great life-bearing star hung close before them, suffused with an aura that inspired deep reverence — like an ancient resting place where gods had long since fallen into eternal slumber.
Ye Fan stood in the eternal domain exterior and felt a profound vastness and desolation. At this moment, they were caught in the gravitational pull of this great star and were orbiting it.
“Truly magnificent — what a massive star. Unbelievably vast!” Li Tian said, shaken to his core.
At this point, it was not impossible for them to use their ancient sacred weapons to breach the void and land upon the surface — but the journey would feel as though it would last forever, because this ancient life-bearing star was simply too enormous. The time it would take to reach the surface was enough to make anyone go mad.
“It would be best to construct a teleportation formation. In a moment, we’ll look through the ancient texts left behind by those degenerate founders of ours and see if there are any relevant records.”
The sect of carnal desires had produced no fewer than one Sage across its history, and those figures had crossed the star territories — they had surely studied formation runes related to teleportation, and naturally left behind works of considerable value.
“What is that?” Yan Yixi’s eyes flickered with a sudden shift in expression. He fixed his gaze on a patch of darkness in the far distance, a trace of suspicion crossing his face.
They had not hurried to descend to the surface. They continued drifting freely, like a few specks of dust orbiting the enormous life-bearing star.
Ahead, something like a mountain-sized shadow loomed with an eerie menace — as though some celestial body were suspended there, with faint, strange tendrils of aura drifting outward.
When they drew to within several dozen li, a cold metallic sheen cut through the dark. It was an iron peak over a thousand meters tall — dense and imposing, like a fallen meteorite, exuding crushing pressure.
“What is this thing? How can there be such a massive iron block here?” Li Tian was quite astonished.
The iron block appeared to be no ordinary material — it very much resembled a kind of divine iron. Yet it lacked that corresponding essence, and no divine power fluctuations could be sensed from it.
When they drew closer by another dozen or so li, even in the darkness of this void it was possible to make out the pits and gashes that covered its surface — riddled with sword cuts and blade marks, along with many terrifying fractures, as though it had been shattered by the force of blows alone.
Moreover, the surface was stained with dark, dried blood. Though long since desiccated, it still exuded a terrible desolation — as though it had once borne witness to an unimaginable battle of the ages.
“This is indeed a type of divine iron — a material that even Sect Master-level figures could only dream of encountering. How could there be such an enormous piece of it here? This is outrageous!” Yan Yixi exclaimed.
Under ordinary circumstances, a piece the size of a fist worked into a weapon would be considered a precious treasure — enough to make a Sect Master-level cultivator overjoyed. Yet here there was a divine iron mass a thousand meters tall.
However, they also sensed something wrong. This precious iron had been completely drained of its essence, all divine power gone. There was no knowing how many ages it had drifted here for that to have happened.
“If I’m not mistaken, this must be a fragment of a shattered ancient sacred weapon — and a thousand meters is likely just one small piece of it.” Ye Fan said.
Ancient Sages all possessed extraordinary power. The spectacle of their weapon-forging was beyond imagination. If they found the right divine material, a piece the size of a fist might be sufficient to forge a legendary sacred weapon that would pass down through the ages.
But if the materials were not strong enough, they might exhaust the spiritual energy of endless mountain ranges and ancient veins, gathering spiritual qi to shape a single weapon. In ancient times, some Sages wielded a tiny mountain-and-river seal that appeared translucent and delicate — but the truth was that it had been formed from ten thousand li of rivers and mountains. When truly expanded to its full scale, it would be boundless and immeasurable.
“There’s another piece over there!”
Indeed, before long they came across another divine iron fragment, also a thousand meters long — cold and gloomy, smeared with dried blood, making it even more certain that this was a destroyed ancient sacred weapon.
And very soon they discovered a broken ancient bow, several dozen zhang in length; then a purple-gold hammer nearly decayed beyond recognition; and after that, a great cracked bell, incomplete and ruined.
“All of it looks like things left behind by Saints — yet all of it has been destroyed beyond recognition. Not only has the essence contained in the materials been entirely spent, but the Dao imprints engraved within have been obliterated.”
All the broken and ruined ancient weapons were orbiting the ancient star, drifting eternally in the endless void, wordlessly bearing witness to the carnage and tragedy of battles long since past.
“I understand now. This must be what they call the battlefield beyond the domain.” Ye Fan said.
Long ago, he had heard people speak of it: when the Saints of antiquity fought, they would invariably lay waste to the heavens and the earth. The moment their hands were raised, endless mountains and rivers would crumble, and countless living beings would perish. And so, they all went to the battlefield beyond the domain.
Looking at all of this now, there was no need to think further — this boundless void was the place where ancient Saints had once waged war.
Such a battlefield had not been used for who knew how many tens of thousands of years, for even producing a single Saint in this era was near impossible — let alone staging battles of life and death.
Before long, everything confirmed their deductions. Picking up speed as they orbited the ancient star, they entered a vast stretch of that ancient battlefield. It was in complete disarray — strewn with great fragments, primarily the scattered remnants of several enormous sacred weapons that had shattered into countless pieces, littered about like a field of rubble.
Moreover, in this region there were also collapsed ancient towers, abandoned war vessels, and enormous skeletal remains, long since decayed beyond all recognition.
“These bones are so immense — what manner of being did they belong to? Even a single toe bone is ten zhang long!” Yan Yixi said in astonishment.
Here there were not a few bone fragments, and they belonged to different beings: some were jet black throughout, some were a pale blue, others a silver-white — all different.
“Beings on par with Saints — a single drop of their blood could kill a great master. Their bones would be precious beyond measure.” Li Tian rubbed his hands together, his eyes bright.
They had now moved deep into this domain exterior battlefield. Broken battle garments, bronze ships, ancient weapons, and all manner of shattered relics appeared one after another.
“Don’t even think about it. At the very least, these are skeletal remains from tens of thousands of years ago — possibly from the age of primordial antiquity. The essence has long since been fully drained. Whatever power they once held is gone — they were already nearly rotted away when the battle was raging.” Ye Fan said.
“What a pity — not being able to put them to proper use is truly a waste…” Li Tian said with regret. Then, all of a sudden, he let out a startled shriek. He leapt high into the air, spun around sharply, and clapped his hand to his backside.
“Ahhh ahhhh!” He howled as though he were being tormented by a demon, his face turning snow-white as he jumped and scrambled in a panic.
On his palm were a few spots of blood. On his backside clung a severed hand — bloody and dripping — that had latched on and refused to let go. It made one’s scalp crawl and every hair on one’s body stand on end.
Li Tian’s voice was on the verge of tears. “I was joking — I had no disrespect toward the great Saints whatsoever. Please, ancestors, rest in peace — don’t bother arguing with someone like me.”
Ye Fan and Yan Yixi too found this deeply strange. The entire ancient battlefield was eerie. How had that hand flown over without them sensing a single thing?
“Damn it — a drop of a Saint’s blood can kill a Sect Master, and I’ve got a whole hand’s worth of blood on me. How many times over would I have to die?” Li Tian wailed, the severed hand bouncing with every tremor of his body.
“This is a severed hand from tens of thousands of years ago. The Saint’s essence has long since been fully spent — it won’t harm you. Stop frightening yourself.” Yan Yixi said.
Li Tian expended enormous effort to detach the severed hand from himself, then placed it reverently in the void as though offering prayers at a shrine. He truly was a little unsettled — for someone as powerful as he was, with divine consciousness of extraordinary acuity, he had felt not even the slightest warning before it grabbed hold of his backside.
When they were about to leave this stretch of the area, within a field of ruins they spotted a rotted wooden box. There was nothing to sense from it — yet Ye Fan opened it anyway.
“Hum!”
A flood of divine radiance burst forth, brilliant and eternal. Inside, a human-head-sized divine source quietly floated — and that rotted wooden box had somehow sealed off its aura entirely.
“Breathtaking!” Li Tian exclaimed.
Within the divine source the size of a human head, a flower bud not yet in bloom — roughly the size of a fist — floated serenely. It gleamed with a crystalline, luminous beauty, radiant and captivating, so beautiful it was intoxicating.
It seemed to possess a kind of bewitching power that forcibly claimed one’s very spirit, making one want to plunge inside and never return — drawing one toward an irresistible sinking and losing of oneself.
The three of them had never seen a flower bud of such immaculate beauty. Though it had not yet bloomed, it surpassed all blooms in the world. It shimmered with red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and violet light — each hue crystalline and translucent — making one feel as though one were sinking into something it was impossible to resist.
“I can’t control myself — I want to offer my Primordial Spirit to it, to plunge into its depths.”
“My whole body feels at ease. I want to fall and sink into the flower bud — forever.”
“Quickly — stop looking. This is a demonic flower!”
In the end, with tremendous force of will, they severed all connection with it and sealed it once more in the rotted wooden box. Cold sweat broke out all over their bodies.
No one knew how much time passed. Then Li Tian seemed to recall something. “I once came across a record in an ancient text: there is said to be a kind of Divine Flower that only the great emperors of antiquity could behold — the ultimate, absolute pinnacle of beauty in the world. The instant it blooms in full, even ancient Saints would sustain grave injuries. Anyone else who looked upon it would find their Primordial Spirit reduced to ash, the body left behind an empty shell — a walking corpse.”
Ye Fan and Yan Yixi were immediately drenched in cold sweat. This was a profoundly strange and terrifying plant — utterly beyond mortal sight. For this reason it was called the Divine Flower.
Li Tian continued: “Legend has it that it drifted down from the immortal realm. When one flower withers, it becomes a seed that breaks through the void and is reborn in another realm.”
Ye Fan said: “We’re going to descend to the life-bearing ancient star below. If ancient clans are everywhere and ancient kings have all emerged, this Divine Flower may yet prove to have great use.”
“To think it was granted to us by heaven itself. The land below surely hasn’t undergone such drastic change that we’d actually need to use something like this, has it?” Yan Yixi said.
They pressed onward, and by chance discovered an ancient formation platform. After studying it carefully for a good while, they determined it could still be used — and that it connected downward to the surface.
“The heavens truly are on our side — we can descend immediately.”
The three of them stepped onto the ancient formation platform, set the source stones in place, and prepared to activate it and descend upon the great star below. But at that very moment, their eyes froze. Out in the cold, dark starry expanse, a small ancient vessel was moving steadily in their direction.
It was not particularly fast, but its heading was unwavering and clear. Gradually, it drew closer to this life-bearing ancient star. The concept of escape velocity meant nothing to it — some mysterious power propelled it, keeping it moving at a constant and steady pace.
“It… came from the depths of the universe?”
The hearts of all three leapt sharply as they watched it appear in this outer domain battlefield, and then — just like them — begin to orbit the ancient star.
“Ancient stars where even the great emperors of antiquity descended must hold some secret. Don’t tell me some titan has arrived.” Li Tian said, uncertain and wary.
The ancient vessel was small — barely a zhang and more in length, holding at most two or three people within, sealed tight. They attempted to probe it and found two incredibly faint auras inside — auras that seemed on the very verge of being extinguished.
“There are indeed living beings within. This does not bode well. Whatever could dare to come here this way cannot possibly be an ordinary person — they would not be someone that ordinary folk could afford to provoke.”
“They’re heading for the Northern Dipper Ancient Star Territory — are they following the footsteps of the ancient great emperors, or do they have other intentions?”
“Let’s go. Don’t provoke them. Though the life aura is nearly gone, there may still be tremendous danger lurking within. In this vast expanse of the heavens, there are few life-bearing ancient stars to be found. The master of a vessel capable of crossing the star territories like this must be shrouded in mystery and possess incomprehensible power. We should not invite trouble.”
Especially Ye Fan — after the episode of the ship full of ancient kings, he had become all the more wary of things like this. Getting back to the surface was the most pressing priority. If they provoked a Saint-level existence, they would have more than they could handle.
A flash of brilliant light — the ancient formation activated. They vanished from the outer domain battlefield. And in the next moment, they appeared upon the boundless surface of the great earth below.
“I’m back…” Ye Fan could not help but lift his head and let out a long cry toward the sky.