In the end, Ye Fan set out, moving into the depths of the immortal-nurturing ground. Little Pine naturally followed along, in high spirits, clutching its small medicine hoe in hand, prepared to harvest ancient Medicine Kings.
The Dragon Horse exhaled white breath from its mouth and nostrils, wrestling inwardly with itself. Ye Fan had already made it clear: the Dragon Horse could come in with them, or it could leave on its own — he would not force the matter.
It had just now learned that the “villain” before its eyes possessed an immortal map, capable of penetrating the interior of the ten thousand dragon-headed peaks and glimpsing the secret of immortality.
One could say this was a temptation that no one could have resisted. The Dragon Horse too could no longer hold out. In the end, it gritted its teeth and followed them in. Its entire body was dancing with fire, crimson red as blood, its dragon scales gleaming, its frame long and powerful — it arrived at the entrance like a gust of wind.
Ye Fan laughed loudly and mounted up directly, sitting astride this magnificent Dragon Horse. It was as though cast from a mix of crimson cloud and divine gold — extraordinarily powerful.
The Dragon Horse’s eyes blazed with fury; it almost kicked him off with one hoof. But in the end it held back, and in sullen resentment bit off and swallowed half of the ancient herb that Little Pine had been fiddling with — consuming it with barely concealed resentment.
“That was mine.” Little Pine whimpered meekly, watching it eat the precious herb of fifty or sixty thousand years’ medicinal age with wide, plaintive eyes.
The immortal-nurturing ground was utterly extraordinary — one could say it transcended the mundane world, and should not have existed within time. The ground had no soil, no stone, no dust — only the glossy, gleaming sheen of jade marrow.
There was not a single weed in this place. Ordinary vines and trees had no way to grow here. This was an ancient jade field from primordial times — only precious medicines could grow in it, and the standard was exceedingly high.
Upon arriving here, the Dragon Horse’s mouth never stopped moving for a moment — it grazed on all manner of ancient medicines as though eating grass, spiritual energy overflowing in radiant splendor.
Little Pine was fastidious. It searched here and there for treasures. By this point, its small medicine basket no longer accepted ordinary spiritual fruits — it would not store any ancient medicine lacking ten thousand years of seasoning.
With its small medicine hoe in hand, those large eyes kept flicking over toward the dragon-headed peaks, having long since identified the true Medicine Kings and now preparing to dig up a few.
Ye Fan moved very cautiously and carefully. In this place, a single wrong step would plunge one into eternal, inescapable ruin — the moment a Great Emperor’s killing formation was triggered, even a quasi-emperor who came would die without a burial ground.
The deeper he went, the more awe filled his heart. Setting aside the Imperial Formation entirely, the source arts principles here already exceeded his understanding. This place absolutely had a source arts master of divine caliber who had laid down restrictions here — and those restrictions were lethal.
Even if you broke through the ancient great emperor’s killing formation, there was still the source arts forbidden array. The two merged together to form a diagram for slaying immortals — one could enter but never leave.
He held the ancient scroll and compared carefully, walking very slowly. Any deviation in path would condemn one to an eternity of no escape — there was only one winding, narrow trail, meandering and extraordinarily complex.
Suddenly, his expression grew taut. In a stone forest, he caught sight of a person seated in meditation on a cyan jade stone, their bearing dignified and solemn, wreathed in immortal energy.
From this person’s body, terrifying aura radiated outward in waves — utterly awe-inspiring. Every single wave was as heavy as ten thousand jun, like an entire magical mountain pressing down upon them.
The Dragon Horse lowered its head and let out a soft whinny. Fire flashed beneath its four hooves, blazing flames surging, its entire body shooting out a sheet of crimson cloud, dragon energy rolling in waves, its mane bristling, its scales trembling.
Little Pine was even more frightened, gripping a corner of Ye Fan’s clothing, not daring to make a sound. That aura was beyond its ability to withstand.
Ye Fan brought out the cauldron, letting the countless streams of primordial mother energy fall and envelop them within, his heart profoundly shaken. To think there was such a world-dominating figure right here within the immortal-nurturing ground — absolutely invincible!
This person’s Daoist robe was worn and old, gray hair secured with a wooden hairpin, utterly motionless, enveloped in the faint mist of immortal energy drifting from the immortal-nurturing ground ahead — the scene was awe-inspiring.
A Great Sage!
This was a supreme expert of the human race. Ye Fan made the judgment in an instant: this person was a Great Sage. He had sensed this kind of aura once before, from the Great Sage Huntuo of the primordial royal bloodlines.
The immortal-nurturing ground was the most terrifying forbidden zone of life — nothing living could pass through it by sight. How could there be someone guarding this place? Ye Fan could not puzzle it out no matter how he thought about it.
“Senior.” He called out softly. Encountering an existence of this rank so unexpectedly had left him feeling somewhat unsettled.
The figure ahead showed no reaction whatsoever — seated on the several-zhang-long cyan jade stone, still as a clay figure or stone sculpture, with only immortal light flowing in and out.
“Something is wrong. Though there is powerful life force, there are no fluctuations of divine consciousness. This person must have died.”
Ye Fan made the swift judgment, his expression hardening. He opened his Heavenly Eye, and his heart filled with shock and awe — this was a Great Sage of the human race. Could they simply have died here like this?
He examined carefully. This person’s physical body was perfectly intact, the flesh still with a luster to it, immortal energy flowing in and out through the pores as though breathing — yet the eyes were shut tight, the original spirit hollow and empty.
“This…” Ye Fan was baffled. This person appeared to have died. Even with the physical body intact, having lost the soul, one could hardly be called alive.
This was not a natural passing into Dao. Had that been the case, they would already have dissolved into the Dao. This was a Great Sage from ancient times, slain in combat — their flesh and blood undecayed, preserved in place.
“Truly eerie — vivid as life, indistinguishable from the living. What a pity that even a figure of this stature died within the formation.” Ye Fan grew even more cautious. If even a Great Sage had failed to pass through, the horror of what lay within was easy to imagine.
He opened his Heavenly Eye and found that within this Great Sage’s body burned a divine lamp, still alight and undimmed even now, full of vitality. It was the lamp’s breathing in and out of immortal light that made the corpse appear still living.
“A supreme treasure of a Great Sage!”
Ye Fan was startled. This was certainly a rare treasure, no more than a few zhang away from him — yet he could only gaze upon it with empty longing. There was no way to approach.
There was only one winding safe path here. To step a single pace off it meant death — and this Great Sage was the clearest possible proof, cut down right here for no reason at all.
Ye Fan attempted to activate his Word of Soldiers secret technique — but did not dare act rashly. He only tested it by attempting to lift a single grain of dust that lay on the “safe boundary,” and instantly the wind and clouds shifted, heaven and earth lost their color. The force of immortal-slaying power wove through the void and pulverized that grain of dust; even that strand of his divine thought was wracked with searing pain.
He swiftly severed the causal connection, his heart shaking with dread. This place was truly extraordinary — he could not act rashly. If he did, he would die without ever knowing how.
They continued forward. Left turns and right turns brought them into a hilly terrain, and Ye Fan began to sense waves of murderous blood aura, as though capable of flaying skin and severing bone.
After advancing a short distance further, he caught sight of a patch of blinding red — blood vapor rising in steam, far from this safe path yet still chilling to perceive.
“Another Great Sage has died here!”
Ye Fan opened his Heavenly Eye. Before a slope of low hills lay a corpse — far more grievous than the person of empty original spirit he had seen before. This Great Sage’s flesh was a bloody pulp, enduring the agony of fire essence burning through the body.
The Great Sage was already dead, of course, beyond feeling this kind of pain — but the sight was truly wretched. Half the body had been burned to dry bone, blood energy steaming upward.
Ye Fan’s heart was struck with a great jolt. This was not the work of a Great Emperor’s killing formation — it was source arts forbidden technique beyond anything he could have imagined, surpassing everything he had ever learned. Drawing upon the power of the ten thousand dragon-headed peaks, it had been woven into a creative fire origin, capable of slaying all living things.
“Can it be that there once existed in the world a sacred emperor who attained the Dao through source arts, and who once served the ancient Celestial Court?”
Doubt stirred in Ye Fan’s heart — for no matter how he looked at it, the source arts forbidden formation array of this place was no weaker than an ancient great emperor’s killing formation. Otherwise there would have been no need for double-layered defense.
Moreover, the ten thousand dragon-headed peaks nurturing the immortal ground had most likely been arranged and shaped into being by this very same person.
Ye Fan advanced a great distance further. Along this stretch, he discovered three Great Sages in total who had died here. The third had only bones remaining, with a few droplets of blood.
“In ancient times, sages from outside the domain had all come. I do not know from which ancient stars these three came — not even their bones can be given a burial.”
Ye Fan sighed. He too could do nothing to help — there was no way to approach, and even if there were, the weapons these people had left behind would have been enough to drive others to frenzied desire.
At last, as they drew near to the immortal valley formed by the ten thousand dragon-headed peaks, it was precisely at that moment that Ye Fan felt a bone-chilling killing intent. Even with the All-Things Mother Qi Cauldron shielding him, he felt waves of icy cold.
The Dragon Horse would advance no further. Its body had broken out in protrusions — veins and tendons had all swollen and bulged, as though about to burst. Its entire body was wracked with spasms.
Little Pine had taken cover on Ye Fan’s shoulder, and was even less capable of bearing it. With its cultivation still relatively low compared to theirs, it let out piteous cries.
Fortunately, Ye Fan had been carefully watching over it throughout. He had wrapped the greater part of the mother energy around it from early on, preventing any mishap.
“Boom!”
Ye Fan erected a curtain of light, letting his golden blood energy spread outward and envelop both Little Pine and the Dragon Horse within it. In this age, few could rival his physical body — it was enough to block the killing intent.
Simultaneously, he activated the All-Things Mother Qi Cauldron, rousing it to life. Instantly, the mother energy poured down like a waterfall, sealing them from the outside world and blocking the lethal force.
The Dragon Horse breathed a long sigh of relief and pressed forward. Little Pine sat down on his shoulder with a thud, gently patting its own heart, looking thoroughly shaken.
Suddenly, Ye Fan’s expression grew taut. In a stretch of stone mountains, he caught sight of a shattered corpse — and it was the tremendous killing intent radiating from those chunks of flesh and those gleaming white fragments of bone that had been the source of it all!
“A Quasi-Emperor!”
Ye Fan’s spirit was shaken to its core. The blood throughout his body roared like thunder, rushing forward with great speed, like a great rumbling across the nine heavens. His heart went cold with dread.
More than a hundred gleaming white bone fragments and blood of shocking, vivid red — all of them glowing with a blazing light. That person had been shattered by a Great Emperor’s killing formation!
A Quasi-Emperor — with means that could reach to the heavens, able to contend with heaven and earth for the workings of creation. How many such figures had there been throughout all of ancient and modern times? They were existences that shook the ages.
Yet here one lay, dead in misery.
Even from more than a li away, the blood aura and killing intent were enough to make a person unable to bear it. Were it any other Dao-severing figure, their body would have already cracked apart. Only Ye Fan could withstand this terrifying bloodline force.
“Dead for perhaps ten or twenty thousand years and still with this kind of might — truly beyond belief!” Ye Fan exclaimed in wonder. He did not know from which ancient star this person had come, and had met their end lying here.
Even setting aside the primordial killing formation, he still had no way to approach — for the corpse-blood of this person was strewn everywhere, the quasi-emperor’s aura filling the sky and covering the earth. One could not reach within arm’s reach without dissolving into a pool of blood.
Even a centipede does not stop wriggling after death. As a Quasi-Emperor, it was even more terrifying — even in death, it was beyond what any ordinary person could compare to.
“The immortal-nurturing ground — a truly inconceivable place. Three Great Sages and one Quasi-Emperor have all died here.” Ye Fan could only sigh with feeling.
Witnessing the terrifying power of the Quasi-Emperor’s bloodline force, he could not help but let his thoughts drift to certain events of the past. Had the Demon Emperor’s heart harbored killing intent, how overwhelmingly powerful would it have been? Impossible to even imagine.
Had the Azure Emperor not dissolved the killing intent from that blood, when that heart emerged from the yin tomb back then, the entire expanse of heaven and earth would have collapsed.
At the time, he had only just set out on the path of cultivation and had not understood any of this clearly. He had only learned how truly terrifying it was afterward, when Yan Ruyu and the Crimson Dragon Daoist had spoken of it — and had been thoroughly horrified.
That had been the Azure Emperor’s gift of imperial blood medicine left for later generations. The killing intent had long since been dissolved from it. Otherwise, once it emerged into the world, no one could approach — it would have triggered a tremendous killing calamity in which any living being that touched it would die without exception.
As for the divine blood obtained by the Vatican’s holy knight — the same principle applied. According to the holy knight’s account, the so-called divine blood was the refined blood essence left behind in the mortal world by an ancient sacred emperor. Through ten thousand forms of ritual refinement by generations of predecessors, the killing intent had been dissolved. Only because the holy knight had accidentally spilled it and been bathed in it had he not died, and had from then on possessed an indestructible physical body of supreme power.
Suddenly, Little Pine dropped its small medicine hoe and stood staring ahead, a strange expression crossing its face. It tugged Ye Fan gently, urging him to look forward.
Ye Fan withdrew his gaze from the Quasi-Emperor’s bones and looked ahead — first startled, then shaken to a degree beyond any further description. He could scarcely believe his own eyes.
“Is… this real?”
And the Dragon Horse beneath him also recognized the value of what lay ahead and nearly went mad. Its four hooves stamped and kicked, almost throwing Ye Fan off. It wanted to charge straight toward the object — it was far too precious, the kind of thing that would make even an ancient great emperor’s heart convulse with shock.