The silver moon inclined to the west. Mountain winds swept in waves. Secluded orchids drifted their fragrance from the cliff face. The beauty had departed, leaving behind a graceful and clear silhouette — which vanished into the horizon.

The captivating grace of a smile while holding a flower. A meeting in ten or a hundred lifetimes. What Buddhism calls “those with karmic ties” — is it the single instant of a glance backward, or is it the boundless expanse of the far and distant?

“Eternity or a single instant — what of it? I will be unrivaled in this life. What entanglement, what attachment, what karmic force — I will blast them all apart!”

Ye Fan did not believe in future lives; he believed only in this life. This was not merely the difference between Daoism and Buddhism — it was his own conviction.

“All of this can be broken through. I possess the strength to fight the heavens. I possess feats that defy the heavens. Nothing is beyond solving.”

Even as he said this, in his heart there was still the briefest of tremors. In this world, many things involving people and events could not be resolved by force alone.

“I reign over this life — what is there to fear of what lies ahead!” In the end, he steeled his conviction, utterly fearless. His gaze turned toward the distant horizon, as though it could pierce through the vault of heaven.

To the east, the first ray of morning light appeared — cleaving through the mist and haze, illuminating the great steppe.

A dim mist stirred across the land. The entire steppe was layered in a fine water vapor that shimmered with countless colors in the light of the rising sun that followed.

Dang!

The great bell tolled. The grand ancient temple was all the more solemn and sacred — like an immortal monument standing in stillness, bestowing upon all who beheld it a sense of vast and inviolable gravity.

In the morning light, the ancient temple no longer radiated its own light — instead it was bathed in a layer of golden radiance, as though a great Buddha were seated within.

Ye Fan returned and witnessed a sight that astonished him. Yan Yixi, Li Tian, and little Tong Tong stood before the temple gate, motionless — as though they had entered meditation.

Apprehending the Dao — the divine sense touching the Dao, the heart entering the ancient temple. This was the state the three of them were in.

What surprised Ye Fan the most was that little Tong Tong appeared to be “spacing out” right along with them.

This ancient temple was no ordinary place. It had been left behind by a Sage, with nameless Dao imprints circulating within — plunging one into the sensation of standing before a great abyss or entering a vast ocean, as though transported into another world entirely.

“A Sage’s ancient temple — it must have been left by a disciple of the Buddha.” Ye Fan murmured to himself.

Legend had it that the fifth disciple of Amitabha had once entered the Northern Plains to propagate the Buddhist Dharma, preaching throughout the northern lands, and had ultimately entered nirvana somewhere upon the vast steppe — leaving behind one immortal ancient temple containing the supreme Buddhist teachings.

Not long after, Li Tian snapped out of it and muttered to himself: “Truly bizarre — that bodhisattva was so beautiful, yet there was no way to get close.”

Ye Fan had a strong urge to slap him. This fellow really was outrageously irreverent — even wanting to desecrate the imprinted image of someone who had attained the fruit of a bodhisattva.

“Don’t measure my pure and genuine nature by your complex way of thinking. I was merely savoring the state of the Dao realm just now — nothing more.” Li Tian said.

“I didn’t say anything — are you confessing of your own accord?” Ye Fan smiled.

Li Tian said: “Tell me, where did you go last night? Where’s the person? Why didn’t she come back with you? That woman is someone you could rank alongside Yi Qingwu, you know!”

“Wuuu… Lecherous uncle, please spare me. I really can’t stand you.” At that moment, little Tong Tong snapped back to awareness too, mouth puckering as she burst into tears.

“This child is getting more and more impossible to like. A man as dashing and charming as me, and she keeps tearing me down.” Li Tian slanted a glance at the little one.

Yan Yixi stood before the temple gate, still and unmoving — as though connected to the ancient temple itself, bathed in golden morning light, emptied of self and entering the Dao.

“It seems Elder Brother Yan has gained something.” Ye Fan said.

The master of this temple was unmistakably a Sage — one who had left not a single word, free and unrestrained in spirit.

“A Sage transmitting the Dao — lofty in heart and nature, fitting with my elder brother’s style: the carefree-yet-dissolute type. Just like him, passing through ten thousand flowers without a single petal clinging — they are cut from the same cloth.” Li Tian curled his lip.

After a long while, Yan Yixi came back to himself. His expression was grave. He said that he had touched upon a vague and indistinct Dao — but could not capture it with precision.

“Junior Brother, focus your heart and feel for it. There is a great Dao here that runs close to our sect’s path — you must obtain it!”

“You’re certain it can be compared with the Human Desire Dao?” Li Tian was startled.

“Yes!” Yan Yixi nodded.

Ye Fan suddenly understood. In that instant all became clear to him. An Miaoyi had been here — which meant she had certainly recognized that something here was related to what they sought. Perhaps it truly was a tremendous stroke of fortune.

This time they entered the temple together in a row, pausing in every corner with focused attention, sensing with their hearts. Ye Fan was no exception.

Dang—

The ancient bell tolled. In the rear hall stood a great copper bell weighing ten thousand jin. With no one pushing it, it rang on its own — covered in rust and patina.

“Pity — it is not some Sage’s weapon. Just an ordinary bell, not a weapon.”

“Ah, but that is not quite right either. This bell has been empowered by a Sage and holds Buddhist radiance within — otherwise it could not have endured in the mortal world all this time.”

The group noticed the anomaly. They studied it carefully, extending their divine senses to probe it — yet in the end they were disappointed. Nothing was gained.

It seemed to be merely an ancient bell that a Sage had often empowered and personally struck, without having left behind any rule-level divine inscriptions.

In each of the halls stood a great Buddha. Li Tian and Yan Yixi finally found the source — turning their attention to the central ancient Buddha whose gilding had largely flaked away, leaving only mottled green rust.

Very quickly, the two of them entered a meditative state, immersed in a lofty and distant Dao realm, utterly absorbed. Before long, they had obtained a flawless Dharma technique.

Ye Fan did not go to the other places. He stood before the ancient bell, and no one knew how much time had passed — when suddenly he threw a punch straight out.

Dang!

The bell sound was deafening. The entire grand ancient temple trembled as though it might collapse.

In the great hall, Yan Yixi and Li Tian were startled. Little Tong Tong immediately covered her ears and took shelter within the divine light emanating from Li Tian.

“What on earth is Little Ye doing?”

“A single punch couldn’t shatter that ancient bell — it must be no ordinary object. That was a punch from the Holy Physique!” Yan Yixi was astonished.

Dang— Ye Fan struck again. Golden blood-energy surged into the sky. The great bell erupted in boundless Buddhist radiance, emitting an even more thunderous sound that traveled a full thousand li outward.

In all directions, across the endless steppe, every blade of grass was flattened — transformed under the sonic wave into a green carpet. Several lakes in the area rippled into churning waves.

“Break for me!”

Ye Fan roared out and struck once more. The great bell cracked and fractured, Buddhist radiance erupting skyward — flooding the entire land below.

“What a wasteful brat — this is a Buddhist treasure of an entire lineage, and he’s gone and wrecked it.” Li Tian stomped his foot in frustration.

Hum!

In that moment, a great Buddha emerged from the cracked and fractured copper bell — vivid and lifelike amid the boundless golden radiance, full of solemn grandeur, seated in meditation.

“Retreat!”

Ye Fan bellowed out. He brought forth the incomplete sacred weapon — the Purple-Gold Hammer.

Li Tian and Yan Yixi felt their hair stand on end. They grabbed little Tong Tong and turned and ran, vanishing from the great hall in an instant.

“Om!”

A sound that was not particularly loud — yet spread across the entire steppe — rang out like a Chan melody spanning the ages, breaking through from across the vast reaches of antiquity to pierce through time and shake all around it.

The entire ancient temple silently annihilated itself. This ancient sound struck the Purple-Gold Hammer in Ye Fan’s hand — producing a crisp crack — and carved a fracture upon it.

From the distance, Li Tian and Yan Yixi turned pale with shock. The Purple-Gold Hammer — what was that? It was an incomplete sacred weapon. With it in hand, one could stride unobstructed across the world.

And yet a single shout had cracked it. This was like something out of a fairy tale — utterly inconceivable.

“This is nothing but an imprint — and yet the divine sound it unleashed was so terrifying. It is truly, truly frightening.” Both Yan Yixi and Li Tian broke out in a cold sweat.

However, after this great Buddha released such a sonic wave, his body immediately faded and grew faint, unable to recover any semblance of the awe-inspiring presence from before.

Ye Fan put the Purple-Gold Hammer away, stepped forward, and struck at the Buddha — reaching directly toward the center of his brow. He was going to seize it with his bare hand.

“Little Ye is seizing the art from the Buddha — he’s not there to pay his respects; he’s going to forcibly take it. This really is…” Even Li Tian — depraved as he was — could not help but be stunned.

“Om!”

Ye Fan shouted out this sound, striking at the golden great Buddha — prompting him to awaken and respond.

He was forceful, yes — but in his heart he was also stirred with excitement. He knew he had encountered a heaven-defying opportunity: he had stumbled upon one of the ancient sounds of the Buddhist Six-Character True Mantra.

In this age, Om, Ma, Ni, Pad, Me, Hum — like the Nine Secrets — had nearly been lost to time. Only several ancient temples in the Western Desert each held one character, and they were nearly impossible to gather together again.

To encounter the Om sound here — it was a stroke of extraordinary fortune. The prerequisite, of course, was being able to obtain it.

As for this single sound — Ye Fan had been cultivating and evolving it himself for some time, reaching perhaps one tenth of its power, and already found it incomparably vast and terrifying. Now that he had encountered the true original sound, he naturally did not want to let it pass him by.

“Break!”

He unleashed a Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist into the body of the great Buddha — the fist sinking into it. The Buddha was not a physical form, merely a kind of imprint.

“Om!”

Then the boundless Om sound reverberated in echo. And at the same time, a nameless Chan chant began to resound.

“Take refuge in the Buddha…” A vast divine sound arose — and even the distant Li Tian and Yan Yixi fell into a momentary daze, involuntarily moving forward as though compelled to kneel before the great Buddha and prostrate themselves.

Those two were standing so far away and were already affected to such a degree — one need not ask about Ye Fan, who stood right before it. Sweat poured down his face. He had been pulled into the Buddhist radiance of this imprint.

This was a secret art of salvation — an incursion into the Primal Spirit, attempting to forcibly bring him into the fold of Buddhism. It carried no harm — yet it was akin to washing a person’s will clean, causing a complete and thorough transformation.

“Spread the Dharma — take refuge in our gate…” The sound rang out like a Buddhist chant, deafening and penetrating — striking at the divine soul.

The Om sound revolved, entering Ye Fan’s Primal Spirit and thundering therein — assisting in the salvation, causing Ye Fan to involuntarily begin silently reciting the Om mantra.

This was a forcible salvation. To learn this true mantra, one must enter the Buddhist gate — the power of this vow was terrifyingly potent, left behind by an ancient Buddha.

As Ye Fan chanted the Om sound from his mouth, an immortal great Buddha appeared behind him — towering and majestic. And in his four directions, several more began to appear one by one.

Buddhist radiance illuminated everything. It sought to make him kneel — to enter the Buddhist gate forever.

“Such overwhelming Buddhist radiance. Worthy, indeed, of what Amitabha’s fifth disciple left behind. After uncountable ages, a single imprint is still this terrifyingly potent!” Ye Fan gritted his teeth. Sweat drenched him — yet his will remained iron-like, utterly unmoved.

“Transform the Buddha!” Ye Fan roared out.

In that moment, he activated the Duel Character Secret of the Nine Secrets — casting aside the Buddhist radiance of the Om mantra while preserving its power — using the Nine Secrets to evolve it further. With the supreme secret art of Daoism, he transformed the Buddha.

“One day I will be unrivaled in this life. Even if Amitabha himself came, he could not coerce me — I would shatter him with one fist!”

Ye Fan’s dark hair flew wildly. His eyes flashed like lightning. Every last piece of clothing on his body exploded away, revealing his powerfully built frame shimmering with an ancient bronze radiance.

He shouted and roared from his mouth — still the Om sound — but behind him the great Buddha gradually dissolved. In its place, an entirely new silhouette emerged: himself.

“This freak — he learned the other’s supreme divine art, yet in the end made only himself the object of reverence. He even dissolved the Buddha.”

“He does not bow to the earth; he does not revere the heavens; he believes only in himself. This is a kind of conviction. And yet — even an ancient Great Emperor like Amitabha he refuses to submit to. He truly is a freak.”

Li Tian and Yan Yixi muttered together in this manner.

In the end, every last trace of Buddhist radiance was dissolved clean by Ye Fan. The great Buddha was completely replaced by his own divine image, becoming an immortal demon-god.

With one final great roar, the cracked and fractured ancient bell shattered entirely into fine powder. All the Buddhist radiance vanished — and together with the ancient temple, it turned to flying ash.

In heaven and earth, only he stood alone — the divine and demonic radiance behind him blazing ten thousand zhang high, illuminating all ten directions — merging with him, becoming the absolute sovereign that bows to none.

With the Duel Character Secret of the Nine Secrets, he had completely transformed and absorbed the Om sound — transcending its origins, reshaping it for his own body.

To walk the road of being unrivaled in this life — this was his promise to An Miaoyi. From this day forward, to shatter everything that stood in his way.

“Human race’s Holy Physique — where are you? I have come specifically to kill you. Do not disappoint me.” On that distant Southern Range, a young and fearsome primordial living being spoke these words — the bloodline of an ancient emperor.

Wang Teng. Hua Yunfei. Li Xiaoman. The Holy Sons and Holy Daughters of the two ancient Assassin Divine Dynasties. All of them were waiting in the Southern Range — waiting quietly for Ye Fan to return.