Before this stretch of palace halls there was utter silence. The spear — seemingly cast from black gold — pinned this ancient race powerhouse into the plaque. Blood trickled down, a sight that struck the eyes with shocking force. The spear shaft was long, its dark-gold luster cold and merciless.

This place was incomparably still. Not a single person spoke. A Dao Severer had been struck through and nailed to the great palace hall with a single thrown spear, leaving everyone trembling with awe.

The razor-sharp spear tip flickered with dark light, piercing through the man’s brow. White brain matter had stained the hair strands ashen, crimson blood spraying everywhere, flowing down the dark-gold spear shaft and dripping onto the ground below. The sound was faint, yet it landed in every heart like a boulder dropping.

The scene was utterly still. Many people dared not even breathe. This man was truly terrifying — one disagreement, he declared his intent to kill the Celestial Prince, and a casual strike nailed a king to the wall!

“You…” The remaining few ancient race members broke out in a cold sweat all over, seething with shock, fury, and fear. Not one of them dared make a rash move.

“Where is the Celestial Prince?” Ye Fan asked them, his gaze sweeping down over everyone within this stretch of palace halls.

“Once the divine child exits seclusion, he will annihilate your ten clans, permanently suppressing your living soul — unable to seek life, unable to seek death!” One of them declared with bitter venom.

And they took the initiative to act. That person spat out a silver-colored small spear the length of chopsticks, which transformed into a streak of silver light aimed at Ye Fan’s eyes. Across the void it carved a landscape of Dao traces, as one row after another of Order Divine Chains appeared — resembling silver divine phoenixes bathed in flame being born.

In the distance, many people cried out in alarm. This was the Spear of Dao Severing!

This person was ruthless and resolute, striking out with a blow cultivated at the cost of a Dao Severer’s very life, gambling away more than half their own life force. Yet this could multiply the might of the blow severalfold.

Rumble, rumble…

Indeed, this spear grew faster and faster, its silver radiance ever more dazzling. It caused the Great Dao to resonate in harmony — even the vault of heaven descended with auspicious colored light, and the ground surged with several streams of sweet spring water. All of heaven and earth stirred in response.

A breathtaking spear thrust!

This was a death-defying killing blow. An ordinary Dao Severer would not dare face its edge — contact would reduce them to ash. One could clearly see the void itself being annihilated in its wake.

The silver radiance grew ever more terrifying, carving open a black void tunnel. Several wisps of primordial chaos qi even coiled about it, spreading across the long sky.

Yet in the face of this world-shaking strike, Ye Fan stood unmoved. Not until it had closed in upon his eyes did he strike back at the last moment — with a faint ting, a single finger flicked out and tapped the shaft of the silver-white spear.

The chopstick-length silver-white divine spear gave a sharp crack and snapped on the spot. Like a jade bottle suddenly shattered, brilliant light scattered in all directions, forming a great wave of Dao resonance that radiated outward to all four sides.

Immediately, this stretch of heaven and earth was riddled with holes, shot through like a beehive — black voids and spatial gorges appeared in vast numbers, the scene grim and harrowing.

In the distant sky, many people were caught in the shockwave, coughing up blood and stumbling backward. The mere aftershock was already like this — one could well imagine the true power of the blow itself.

Suddenly, the man standing at the center of the scene swept a hand across the air, and in an instant the storm sweeping through heaven and earth was stilled. In the space of a single breath, wind and waves fell calm. He stood there like a divine pillar holding up the sea, suppressing this entire stretch of heaven and earth.

The crowd nearly stopped breathing. Silence fell again immediately as everyone watched tensely, their attention fixed on the man at the center of the scene.

“Everyone, attack together! Consecrate your secret weapons!” Several ancient race members steeled their hearts and shouted. They knew they were no match, but had no choice. Before someone who could stand as an equal to the ancient princes, there was simply no escaping.

A rain of brilliant light shot outward — these were blades shaped like centipedes, their sinister and dazzling gleam rolling up a murderous wind that scattered even the clouds in the heavens.

A great bell rang solemnly. Another person consecrated a purple-gold great bell, its resonating waves like the surging of the sea. One could clearly see ring after ring expanding outward, shattering heaven and earth!

Every manner of ancient weapon blazed with light. Killing intent billowed like a tide. Sword radiance spread in all directions like a vast rushing wave, engulfing everything in a terrifying assault.

Faced with the attacks of several people at once, Ye Fan simply stepped forward. With a bang, Dao resonance waves radiated outward. The foremost person bore the brunt of the force and was blown apart on the spot, becoming a rain of blood.

Ha!

Simultaneously, Ye Fan let out a single soft shout, and that rain of centipede blades dissolved like snowflakes in fire, turning to vapor and smoke. The purple-gold great bell was covered in cracks and exploded apart with a boom.

He raised both hands to guide and draw. The black spear that had been pinned in the great palace hall shot back in reverse, appearing in his grip — then thrust forward.

Dark light pierced the sky. In a few jabbing thrusts, every ancient race member remaining on the scene had their eyes go wide — then ivory-white bone fragments flew outward, trailing great sprays of blood, dissolving and falling apart before the palace hall.

Ye Fan stood like a demon lord, his hair swirling. Spear in hand, he ascended to the high heavens — then thrust downward. This vast sprawling mansion was reduced to ash in one strike, nothing left at all.

Swoosh!

A flash of light and shadow — Ye Fan vanished from above the Divine City, gone without a trace. This place remained silent for a long while — then erupted in a tide of noise!

On that day, the Divine City was filled with clamor everywhere. Discussions resounded in every corner. People understood that a heaven-shaking storm was about to begin. With someone throwing down this kind of challenge, the Celestial Prince could not possibly remain indifferent.

For over ten years, finally someone had drawn their blade and was moving against the divine child. This was undeniably enormous news, sending all the various factions of the ancient races into shock and commotion.

The Divine City seethed. Every manner of news was transmitted through domain gates, sent across the entire continent to every corner. The many great powers were all shaken.

At this moment, Ye Fan paid none of this any mind. He was sitting inside the Tianxuan Stone Workshop of the Divine City, drinking tea with the elder saint Wei Yi, earnestly recounting some of his experiences over these past ten-plus years.

This elderly man who appeared to be in the twilight of his years nodded from time to time, occasionally offering a few words. Just as in the past, he remained unruffled — still as deadwood.

“The path to immortality is about to open. There will certainly be the most terrifying upheaval in history. Some immortal legacies may be reduced to ashes.”

As Ye Fan departed, these words of the elder saint continued to echo in his heart, weighing it down. Hundreds of thousands, even millions of years of waiting — the hope of ten thousand clans across the primordial ages, the expectation of ancient great emperors — a glimmer of dawn had at last appeared.

Yet this also meant that bones would be piled into mountains and blood would flow like rivers. This was a great age that came once in hundreds of millions of years!

All sides would contend. In the not-too-distant future, for the chance at immortality, the fighting would reach a degree of carnage impossible to imagine. The many sages from beyond the domain would most likely all come rushing in!

“Immortality…” Ye Fan murmured. He looked back at the Divine City once — and then he was gone.

Half an hour later, Ye Fan appeared on the crimson earth a hundred thousand li from the Primordial Forbidden Zone, standing in this familiar yet unfamiliar mining district.

Outside the Primordial Ancient Mine, the hundred-thousand-li radius was the most famous source-mining district in the world, partitioned among the holy lands of the Eastern Wastelands. It was a land of treasure.

Now that the ancient races of primordial times had emerged into the world, they naturally wanted to claim this territory. For the Primordial Ancient Mine was a sacred site of worship for all clans. Today more than half the hundred-thousand-li radius was already under their control.

Moreover, they had ordered their disciples to continue mining, excavating the rare treasures beneath the earth. For during the primordial ages this area had been a famous sacred land, with many ancient architectural ruins, and several primordial battlegrounds. There might be divine caches below — possibly primordial holy temples — true rarities, potentially containing world-shaking treasures.

Ye Fan recalled that long ago, when he had been forced to open source mines here, he had once witnessed a green-gold pyramid cast in jade-gold emerge from the earth — and it had been taken away by an old woman who had lived in the same era as the Old Madman. Thinking back on it now, it was certainly an extraordinary treasure.

This time he had come for the Celestial Prince’s territory. This place also had a mining district belonging to the divine child. As the son of the Undying Celestial Emperor, all sides had to defer to him — he was a force that could not be taken lightly.

The Celestial Prince harbored great ambitions. Without hesitating to use the ancient imperial weapons at Blood Phoenix Mountain and the Fire Qilin Cave to refine the divine blood samples, he had enormous designs. He had set his sights on the Jade Pool’s divine embryo, filling Ye Fan with deep unease. He wanted to force the prince out — to deal with him as early as possible. Otherwise, major problems might arise.

He had said he would fight his way across the entire world and eliminate every one of the Celestial Prince’s strongholds — and this was no empty boast. Everything was grounded in the reasons above. That flawless divine female embryo must absolutely not be allowed to fall into the Celestial Prince’s hands.

Ye Fan walked across this crimson earth with the spear on his back, a hundred feelings mingling in his heart. Long ago, when he had still been a minor cultivator, he had crossed through a domain gate borrowed from the Yao Guang region and sneaked here in secret. He had sold his labor, dug source mines — and in the blink of an eye, so many years had passed.

Each of the holy lands of the human race had carved out a portion of their mining districts to cede to the ancient races. Such had been promised during the great assembly of ten thousand clans when the agreement had been drawn up. This stretch of territory was now a web of entangled powers.

The Celestial Prince’s territory was vast, bordering the Ji Family’s mining district. Over all these years there had been frequent friction — stemming from the fact that Ji Ziyue had once been very close to Ye Fan.

During the time Ye Fan had been away in the Purple Micro stellar domain, Li Heishui and the others had nearly lost their lives and come close to being killed. It had been Ji Haoyue who had carried them back to an ancient cave of the Ji Family on his back, and he had also once aided Dongfang Ye and the others.

Over all these years, the Celestial Prince had continuously sought to eliminate the Ji Family siblings, but the two had left this ancient star and ventured deep into the cosmos, placing them beyond his reach.

The forces under his command, meanwhile, constantly targeted the Ji Family. Were it not for the fear of that ancient mirror — the Void Imperial Weapon — they would likely have been crushed long ago. Even as things stood, friction was constant.

Over all these ten-plus years, this mining district had naturally been far from peaceful. The ancient races frequently made trouble for the Ji Family, with clashes and bloodshed occurring regularly. One could say the Celestial Prince’s subordinates were constantly stirring up strife.

Though the Ji Family had an extreme Dao imperial weapon, they could not use it for deterrence over minor incidents like these. As for drawing on their deeper reserves — one need not even think about it, for such would not be mobilized except at the moment of the family’s destruction.

At this moment, Ji Yuande stood with brow deeply furrowed on this crimson earth. Not far away in the mining district, another clash had erupted and there had been more bloodshed. This filled him with a sense of helplessness and agitation.

The people of the Celestial Prince’s faction were simply going too far — did they truly think the Ji Family was easy prey? He clenched his fists tight, the light in his eyes growing cold as he stepped forward. “From ancient times to this day, no one has ever dared to insult the Ji Family like this!”

“What’s so great about the Ji Family? You produced one Void Spacial Emperor — so what? Human race great emperor — in my view it’s an undeserved reputation, nowhere near the primordial kings!” Came the taunting voices from across the way, followed by loud laughter.

At that very moment, a flash of dark light cut through the sky. A dark-gold spear descended and pinned this loudmouthed ancient race member to the ground with a single thrust, blood spraying in all directions.

“A human race great emperor — how dare the likes of you petty clowns insult such a one!”