The Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist!
This was a peerless fist technique recorded on the road to immortality—profound and inscrutable, capable of stealing the wondrous workings of heaven and earth. A stunning secret art, it had been mastered by only a handful of people throughout all of history.
Ye Fan performed the technique. Here in this primordial forbidden land, stripped of Dao attainment and unable to use divine power, his pair of golden fists nevertheless emitted strands of immortal light.
“My word is the law. My body is the Dao.” In this moment, a kind of clarity came over Ye Fan. His mind became empty and still. His hands moved without thought, resonating with the abyss.
Boom!
He threw a punch. Heaven collapsed and earth cracked. Pure physical strength alone could make Dao-severing kings bow their heads—leaving their divine power and Dao attainment useless. It carried the might of shaking the heavens, cutting down ghosts, and suppressing gods.
Crack!
Li Xiaoman had the bronze Buddhist statue to protect her—yet she was still wounded. This time, when she met the strike, blood spilled from her lips. She staggered backward, her chest heaving violently.
“You call Pang Bo a great evil,” Ye Fan said loudly, standing on the Five-Colored Altar with no divine power and no Dao attainment—yet as imposing as a war god. “But I say you are the true great crocodile!”
“Believe me or not, it doesn’t matter,” Li Xiaoman said, wiping the blood from the corner of her mouth. “I have told you.”
Ye Fan laughed aloud. “One has tried to kill me multiple times. The other has walked through death and suffering with me, sharing bitterness and sweetness. Tell me how I am supposed to trust you. You want to drive a wedge between Pang Bo and me—your tactics are rather poor!”
Boom!
Li Xiaoman attacked. She moved like an immortal taking flight—radiant light showered from her body in cascading sheets, and her entire form shimmered and blurred. She soared through the air, guiding a dragon with her slender hand, rending heaven and earth, aiming to split open the crown of Ye Fan’s skull.
Ye Fan countered. His pair of golden fists could reduce anything solid to dust at a touch, sounding in harmony with the Heavenly Dao—without Dao attainment, he could still bring the sky down.
The ringing of metal on metal was unceasing—like a divine emperor hammering iron, or the sound of immortal weapons being forged in the celestial realm and carrying down to the mortal world. Ye Fan and Li Xiaoman fought on, clashing against the bronze Buddhist statue, sending sparks flying in all directions.
“You talk incessantly of slandering Pang Bo,” Ye Fan shouted. “Do you know what you yourself have done? Today I will suppress you!” He attacked with even wilder intensity, nearly shattering the nine heavens, killing intent pouring from him in full flood.
“You have no chance, Ye Fan,” Li Xiaoman said. “Your end has come.” Her eyes too were cold beyond reckoning—like two pools of icy water, setting a chill into the bones.
Their battle was ferocious in the extreme. The Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist was peculiar in this place—from time to time, immortal patterns appeared, causing even the abyss to rumble without end.
Could it be that the road to immortality was not a realm but an actual ancient road—one that existed in the depths of this primordial forbidden abyss? This speculation made a chill run through Ye Fan.
If correct, then the road beneath the Primordial Forbidden Land was something extraordinary. And from that, one could begin to understand the old mystery of why the Xuanxuan sect had once marshaled the full strength of their entire order to attack this place.
This was not the moment to be distracted. Ye Fan swiftly gathered his thoughts and threw himself fully back into the battle. The Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist, performed to the peak of its limits, filled the air before him with immortal patterns—a divine ring seemed to encircle his body.
Divine might. Invincible.
Ye Fan opened with six punches. Li Xiaoman was sent flying, spitting blood in gouts that dyed her white robes red—the sound of bones cracking was clear enough to hear.
“Ah…”
Li Xiaoman let out a long cry. A blaze of golden light erupted from the center of her brow, and a golden figure stepped out—rapidly expanding. It was a golden divine crocodile.
“The Ancestral Crocodile’s divine fetus—so it truly was hiding in your sacred inner world!” Ye Fan’s eyes turned ice-cold in an instant.
“And now—who can save you?” The golden divine fetus merged with Li Xiaoman’s physical body. Her entire form erupted with cascades of immortal radiance.
A divine fetus—a light of the primordial spirit—capable of growing into an entirely new self. It was a supreme art of the demon race, lost to the world for uncounted tens of thousands of years.
“Unfortunate,” Ye Fan said. His heart ached, yet he did not waver. “You are nothing but a newly formed demon fetus, far from fully grown. Today I will take you.” He had long harbored a premonition that something had gone wrong with Li Xiaoman—and now it was confirmed.
“Ah…”
Both of them roared at the top of their lungs. The fight became extreme—fists and legs exchanging blows, palms and kicks flying, fierce winds howling, metal ringing unceasingly. A battle to the death.
At this moment, a number of winged Ancient Clan beings descended onto the altar and tried to fly across to the sacred mountains on the other side. They dared not get drawn into the battle—they only wanted to harvest the nine wondrous divine medicines—but they were pulled in anyway, shattered to pieces by the shockwaves from the two combatants, blood streaming.
“Li Xiaoman—are you still in there at all?” Ye Fan called out.
“I am here always,” came the reply. “Sometimes she is me, sometimes I am her—we coexist. She draws on my power; I observe another world that lives in her heart. That illumination is worth a thousand years of comprehending the Dao!”
“Ancestral Crocodile! Li Xiaoman!” Ye Fan bellowed. His heart was full of something he could not name or explain. What lay before him allowed only one course of action. He swore to himself he would kill that golden crocodile.
“I have already probed the depths,” Li Xiaoman said quietly. “There is a road to immortality beneath the abyss. Shall I knock you down into it and send you on your way to becoming an immortal?”
Boom!
She activated the bronze statue. Without question, it had been brought from the ancient star of Mars—originally a divine object used by Shakyamuni to suppress the eighteen levels of hell, now turned against Ye Fan as a weapon.
The bronze Buddhist statue seemed to come alive—bearing the supreme divine might that had once held down eighteen levels of hell—and Ye Fan was immediately sent tumbling. He slipped under the Five-Colored Altar and caught hold of its base with both hands, then pulled himself up from the other side.
A quasi-emperor forbidden weapon—once it truly showed its power, none could resist it. Even suppressed by the power of the Desolate in this place, it was still barely resistible by force.
Suddenly, Li Xiaoman gave a violent tremor. The bronze statue nearly slipped from her hand and fell into the Primordial Forbidden Abyss. Its towering might vanished without a trace.
“What just happened?” No one could understand it.
Ye Fan had already committed to his punch—he could not pull it back in time. He strained to redirect it, but still crushed her right arm into a mist of blood, spattering himself with it.
“Li Xiaoman!” He was baffled.
“Being an ordinary person really is wonderful,” Li Xiaoman said. Her eyes held a shimmer of water. She stood there in a daze. “But time cannot be reversed. There is no going back now.”
“Li Xiaoman—are you all right? Is this, now, truly you?” Ye Fan demanded.
“What do you think?” Li Xiaoman smiled—two clear lines of tears running down her face, blood flowing without cease from her severed arm, unstoppable.
“Sometimes you, sometimes the Ancestral Crocodile’s divine fetus…” Ye Fan stared at her.
“Think of it however you like,” Li Xiaoman said, laughing and weeping together, golden light flickering in her eyes—killing intent appearing and disappearing in turns.
Boom!
Terrifying killing intent surged. Li Xiaoman’s whole body blazed with golden light. Ye Fan raised his fists and readied himself.
Then, in that moment, Li Xiaoman did something that no one could have predicted. She threw herself into the Primordial Forbidden Abyss.
She looked back one final time. His face was reflected in her eyes. She wore a radiant smile—and in it, a thread of grief. Tears slid down her face. She bloomed like a firework—left behind a single beam of eternal light—and then was gone into the darkness.