Li Xiaoman had come. She appeared at this critical moment, when departure was imminent, her eyes cold and full of killing intent, unhidden and unchecked. She walked forward one step at a time, cradling in her hands a cracked Buddhist statue, its golden light sheltering her form.

“Li Xiaoman!” Ye Fan called out sharply. His entire body blazed with vital energy and blood—though he could not let it surge outward, it burned with extraordinary intensity within him. In this forbidden life zone, that alone was something close to a miracle.

Clang!

Light suddenly flared between Li Xiaoman’s fingers—a manifestation of her Dao attainment. This was terrifyingly significant: even Dao-severing kings who entered this forbidden zone were reduced to ordinary people, yet her cultivation had been preserved.

Li Xiaoman’s killing intent was overwhelming. She shot forward like a bolt of electricity, white robes flying. She moved like a beam of white light—impossibly swift, utterly merciless. Her palm and fingers cut toward Ye Fan’s throat, aimed at taking his head.

Clang!

Ye Fan had no divine power and no Dao attainment to call upon. He could only fight with his body—and when he met that glowing strike, a thunderous clash rang out.

“What—how is this possible? Why hasn’t she been reduced to an ordinary person?” Every last person on the Central State side was frozen in place, staring in disbelief at the scene.

In this forbidden life zone, even ancient Saints who had ventured in could only meet a bitter end. Over the past few years, multiple groups of ancestor-kings had gone deep inside seeking the nine wondrous divine medicines—and all had failed.

Li Xiaoman, however powerful, could not compare to a Saint. How could she emerge unscathed, and even make use of her Dao attainment? Was she truly in a class with the Silkworm God Princess or the Victorious Battle Buddha?

“It is the Buddhist statue in her hand,” the Black Emperor said, staring fixedly at the white-robed young woman on the Five-Colored Altar. “It is protecting her—and reinforcing her Dao attainment and divine power.”

“That is… a peerless forbidden weapon tempered by a quasi-emperor!” Duan De had seen countless grave treasures beyond compare, yet even he was stunned. That thing was absolutely extraordinary.

In Li Xiaoman’s left hand rested a small Buddhist statue—cast from bronze, no taller than a fist. The expression on its face was one of sorrow and suffering, exquisitely lifelike, its surface worn and discolored, as though it were on the verge of rusting away.

Shakyamuni.

Buddhist monks from the Western Desert had come as well. One of the holy monks’ eyes flashed like lightning as he identified the statue and drew in a sharp breath—to him, it was an object of dread.

“A quasi-emperor forbidden weapon!”

It was temporarily holding the power of the Desolate at bay, emanating a mysterious aura. The golden light radiated by the statue fell upon Li Xiaoman, preserving her cultivation and making her physical form solid and imperishable.

“Thank heavens that statue is covered in cracks and nearly rotted away,” Qi Luo said. “Otherwise, Ye Fan would be in serious danger.”

Even in its deteriorated state, the Buddhist statue in Li Xiaoman’s hand was terrifying. It slowly rose into the air and hung above her head—archaic and natural in its manner—reinforcing her body and cultivation.

Clang!

She was able to contend physically with Ye Fan. The strikes rang out in a cascade of metallic resonances. Empowered by the quasi-emperor forbidden weapon’s laws, her entire body had taken on a faint quality of indestructibility—comparable to an ancient sovereign’s bloodline reincarnate.

This was a dangerous clash. Both moved with the flow of clouds and water, beautiful to behold yet laced with deadly intent at every step, as their killing techniques emerged without trace, like an antelope hanging its horns.

Ye Fan could not help but be surprised. His physical body was extraordinary—yet in this place, Li Xiaoman could meet him blow for blow. This defied all reason. Neither exchanged a word. From the very first moment, it was a life-or-death battle.

One small comfort was that the bronze statue was on the verge of breaking—its cracks spread like a web, and with each passing moment, more appeared. Corroded by the power of the Desolate, it clearly could not last long.

Because forbidden weapons could only be used a limited number of times by nature—and in a place like this, though there was some strange protection at work, they would inevitably be destroyed in time.

At the same moment, Ji Ziyue, Dongfang Ye, and the others were reminded of something from twelve years ago. Back then, Li Xiaoman had manifested a golden crocodile ten thousand zhang long to pursue the Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin. That too must have drawn on this Buddhist forbidden weapon.

Li Xiaoman extended her delicate hand like a dragon driver, and from between her fingers and palm a rainbow of light flew out, transforming into an immortal blade—slashing straight down toward the crown of Ye Fan’s head, ruthless and without pity.

Slap!

Ye Fan sidestepped to the right, formed a sword seal with his fingers, and cut outward with his palm—meeting the rainbow light head-on. Divine radiance burst in all directions, strands of blinding light erupting from the collision, and the strike was dissolved.

At the same time, his upper body remained still while his right leg swung up like an iron whip, sweeping toward her—and though he had no Dao attainment or divine power, pure physical force alone caused the very void to twist under the impact.

Any Hierarch-level cultivator—even a Dao-severing king—who took that blow directly would be reduced to a pulp of flesh, without a shadow of doubt. There was simply no escaping it.

Because this was a strike from the Human Race’s Holy Body. Even drawing on nothing but physical strength, it could deliver an absolute death to peerless powerhouses. This was one of the fundamental reasons this particular constitution could roam the world unopposed.

Li Xiaoman moved like a willow in wind—her lower body stayed still as her upper body bent backward. She had no bones, it seemed. She slipped beneath that ferocious strike.

Vital energy surged violently, and a terrifying whistling filled the air as Ye Fan’s leg—more frightening than any blade for cutting down immortals—passed above Li Xiaoman’s head and shattered the void in its wake.

Even the glancing wind from that strike left a streak of blood on her fair forehead and sent a lock of her hair drifting to the ground. It had been that close. Had she not evaded it, the top of her head would have been reduced to countless scattered fragments.

Hum!

The void shuddered. Vicious wind roared out and slammed toward Ye Fan. Someone else had struck—and though that person too could not use divine power or Dao attainment, the force of the fist was peerless. This was a Dao-severing king.

His whole body was translucent, as though carved from crystal, and within it flowed an unrivaled power. Slow and massive in its momentum, it surpassed the bodies of ordinary Dao-severing kings—his punch split the void itself wide open.

“That is a Stone King—whose shell is the strongest of all, nearly indestructible!”

The crowd on the Central State side cried out. This was a great demon—clearly here alongside Li Xiaoman, both attacking together to kill Ye Fan.

“This is the world’s rarest Diamond Demon. Once it severs the Dao, its body is nearly without equal under heaven!”

A Diamond Demon was not one of the nine-aperture sacred creatures born of heaven and earth. Though also a stone person, its essence was different—it had reached enlightenment from the hardest diamond stone.

Thud!

It swung its nearly transparent fist, reflecting the sun’s seven-colored divine light, and met Ye Fan in a straight collision. It did not shatter—which told all observers everything they needed to know about its hardness and power.

“Such a massive diamond,” Ye Fan said to himself, even as his palm ached from the impact. “The number of smaller diamonds you could cut from something that size—and now it has achieved consciousness as a demon. No wonder it has an imperishable divine body.”

In that very moment, an ancient king of the Fallen Feather Clan also stepped through the golden door and appeared on the Five-Colored Altar. Together with other peerless powerhouses from different lineages, seven or eight individuals in total had surrounded Ye Fan—each with a healing medicine held in their mouths, and nearly all of them Dao-severing cultivators.

Crack!

This was a pure contest of force. Almost every one of them wielded a precious artifact—things that rivaled even incomplete holy weapons. Unable to use divine power or Dao attainment, the sharp edge of these weapons was the only thing they had to threaten Ye Fan’s life.

Because, aside from Li Xiaoman with her quasi-emperor forbidden weapon and the Diamond Demon with its innately invulnerable body, no one else’s physical form could hope to stand against the Human Race’s Holy Body—anyone struck directly would die without fail.

Thud!

In this moment, Ye Fan revealed the terrifying truth of what he was. His body was imperishable, his blood and vitality like an ocean. He was unstoppable—moving like a bolt of lightning through the storm of attackers. Surrounded, he still swept through everything. His golden right fist pounded one Dao-severing cultivator into a pulp of flesh and bone that scattered in all directions.

Then Ye Fan leaped upward like an arrow piercing the clouds—able to fly it seemed—and soared skyward in defiance of all logic. He seized a winged Ancient Clan being by the throat in midair, and with his bare hands tore the figure apart above the sky, bringing down a great rain of blood.

“A Dao-severing king—just killed like that!”

On the Central State side, every heart hammered with dread. In the forbidden life zone, Ye Fan was close to invincible—his pure physical body was nothing less than a human-shaped weapon. Gods would be slain; Buddhas would be put to death.

As Ye Fan descended, he moved at lightning speed—head below, feet above, diving down. His golden fists blasted toward Li Xiaoman, shattering the vacuum, as though he were bringing down a section of the sky.

Thud!

Li Xiaoman raised the quasi-emperor forbidden weapon. The bronze Buddhist statue flew up to meet Ye Fan. Its light was boundless and radiant. Covered in cracks though it was, it still inspired dread.

Ye Fan exhaled a strand of innate vital essence from his mouth—he could not use Dao attainment, but his deep reservoir of breath remained—and used the force to reverse his body’s direction, sending himself rocketing to one side.

Hum!

His body twisted in midair. Then his right leg swept out sideways with enormous force, causing the void to roar and shake violently. With a thunderous boom, his right leg—solid as steel and iron—kicked apart the head of a Blood-Lightning Clan Dao-severing cultivator. Blood and brain matter erupted outward as the aged corpse fell into the endless abyss.

Before his body had even hit the ground, he used the momentum of that kick to spring toward another target. His right arm extended in a horizontal shove—and with a cascade of cracking sounds, he arrived at the side of the old Dao-severing king of the Fallen Feather Clan and shattered every bone in the man’s chest, tearing his body into four pieces and sending them tumbling into the abyss.

All of this happened in the span of a single spark—at the absolute limit of speed. Ye Fan, in the midst of being surrounded, had dealt instant death to three kings without ever landing on the altar. The onlookers were paralyzed with shock and cold to the bone.

Boom! Crack!

This was a frightful slaughter. Ye Fan grew more ferocious with each passing moment. Though his enemies were all near the Dao-severing threshold and possessed powerful vitality, it was useless in this place—they were still aging.

“No…”

A scream rang out. Ye Fan’s fist drove through another Dao-severing king’s chest, blasting the man apart. Blood poured out in a torrent like a small river.

Splat!

The next instant was even more gruesome. At blinding speed, Ye Fan seized another Dao-severing king, pinned one of the man’s feet beneath his own, grabbed the other foot in his hand, and split him alive down the middle on the Five-Colored Altar.

When the Ancient Clan saw this, not one of them dared send another person forward. Who could match this savagery? Here above the Primordial Forbidden Abyss, the Holy Body was invincible—as alive and vigorous as a great dragon among men.

Clang!

Ye Fan fought Li Xiaoman—who still had her cultivation—while simultaneously fighting the Diamond Demon. When the two clashed, bright sparks erupted in chains, scattered like streaks of meteor light.

“Kill!”

Ye Fan roared, his entire bearing like a mountain range. He had no Dao attainment or divine power—yet he was performing the Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist, and his golden fists could destroy all things, sounding in harmony with the Heavenly Dao, capable of collapsing the sky even without cultivation.

He attacked with wild intensity, throwing exactly one hundred and eight palm strikes—meeting the Diamond Demon head-on in absolute direct collision. His innate blood and physical holy strength defied the heavens. Even the sky itself could be crushed flat.

Boom!

A great crash rang out. The so-called indestructible great demon’s body erupted in dense hairline cracks covering its entire surface—and then, with a shattering noise, the whole thing collapsed. Ye Fan had beaten it to death.

“What—the Diamond Demon emerges once in a thousand or ten thousand years. It is the most fearsome rare demon in all of heaven and earth, its body supremely powerful and peerless under heaven—yet the Human Race’s Holy Body destroyed it!”

On the Central State side, countless mouths hung open. That had been the ultimate collision of physical forms, and the outcome had been decided this quickly. When it came to the body alone—who under heaven could resist the Human Race’s Holy Body?

“Li Xiaoman,” Ye Fan said, walking step by step toward her on the Five-Colored Altar, eyes fixed on the white-robed young woman. “What other allies do you have? What other methods remain? Bring them all out.”

“You still haven’t worked it out, even now,” Li Xiaoman said quietly. “Who is good, and who is evil.”

“What do you mean?” Ye Fan asked.

“What of Pang Bo?” Li Xiaoman’s voice carried a magnetic quality. “He is the true great evil.”

Ye Fan laughed coldly at once. Pang Bo’s disappearance had been strange, certainly—but to call him a great evil was obviously a smear and a slander. He and Pang Bo had walked through death together. If Pang Bo had wanted to harm him, he’d had countless opportunities. And above all else, Ye Fan trusted his own instincts.

“You are no longer the Li Xiaoman of before!” Ye Fan pressed forward, performing the Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist. Without Dao attainment or divine power, his fist still overwhelmed all of heaven and earth.

All at once, the Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist resonated with something beneath the Primordial Forbidden Abyss. Strands of immortal patterns emerged.

In that instant, a chill ran up Ye Fan’s spine. Something occurred to him—it was said the Reincarnation Fist was recorded on the road to immortality. Yet the old madman had brought it up from beneath the Primordial Forbidden Abyss. Could that mean…