“You are… the Indestructible Golden Body — you come from the Burial Emperor Star?” Jun Wei Mountain Lord spat a mouthful of blood, his upper half alone remaining, crying out in astonishment from his pool of blood.

Ye Fan’s gaze flickered. His opponent knew quite a number of secrets — it would be necessary to search his memory sea and get to the bottom of this.

Whoosh!

Not far away, a figure shot upward — trying to flee. It was the sole survivor of the four from the Four Symbols Formation, the only one whose forehead had not been pierced by the broken spear.

Ye Fan didn’t even turn his head. From his fingertip appeared a single golden droplet of blood. In the instant he flicked it outward, heaven and earth collapsed — and a host of divine demon phantoms materialized, coiling around the blood droplet as it pierced clean through the man’s body.

“Aaah…!”

He let out a wretched cry. His physical body was as though struck by a mountain — blood and flesh torn apart, shattered where he stood. Only his head remained.

His primordial spirit was just rising when Long Ma stepped forward, bringing down one hoof the size of a basin. It rested on top, ready to come crashing down at any moment.

“Burial Emperor Star — you truly come from there. The Indestructible Golden Body… to think that after lying dormant for a hundred thousand years, this physique has appeared again!” Jun Wei Mountain Lord’s expression filled with astonishment.

“You know quite a lot. Tell me everything you know — before I search your memory sea,” Ye Fan said.

“I admit you are powerful — but on this road you are not invincible. Those ahead of you will cut you down!” Jun Wei Mountain Lord laughed in a half-crazed manner, filled with boundless sorrow. Today he had been completely defeated. Whatever hope he had held for contesting supremacy on the Emperor’s path was gone.

“Is that so? And who might they be?” Ye Fan asked without concern.

“Many people — not just one rival. Not even the Indestructible Golden Body can laugh all the way to the end. You are merely one of the witnesses to a legend — not the supreme one!” Jun Wei Mountain Lord laughed wildly, yet his face was already streaked with tears.

“A witness to a legend?” Ye Fan said coolly.

“The glory of the age of legends will return. Outstanding stars will blaze bright across the heavens — without mentioning others, just two physiques you have heard of would be enough to cut you down,” Jun Wei Mountain Lord said, his heart hollow. Now perhaps only by recounting the brilliance of others — and using it to press down on Ye Fan — could he find even the faintest illusion of dignity.

“Forget it — I won’t say. Wait until you actually encounter them yourself, and feel that fear firsthand!” Jun Wei Mountain Lord suddenly broke into a mad laugh.

“In the future I shall see for myself who can cut me down,” Ye Fan said coldly. He prepared to make his move — to search this man’s memory sea. But he did not dare press too hard, fearing that in an instant he might detonate himself.

“Boom!”

Jun Wei Mountain Lord’s upper half of his body ignited. His primordial spirit too burned like a torch — the violet little figure left his body, enveloped by a flame of chaos, on the verge of disintegrating.

Ye Fan’s expression changed. There was no way to stop it. A cultivator at this level who chose to destroy himself was very difficult to halt — after all, he had not been completely restrained.

He fixed his gaze on that flame of chaos, realizing something, watching Jun Wei Mountain Lord, and allowed him to self-destruct.

“Did you catch onto something? Know this — I have only glimpsed a portion of the orderly divine chains of Chaos, yet the one you must face in the future is… heh!”

Ye Fan’s brow knit. That physique had never been seen to emerge. Even if it had, it was never in a pure form. Rumor held it could only be witnessed in an age of legends — the probability so vanishingly small as to be negligible.

“The Indestructible Golden Body — you are very powerful, but you are still only a green leaf. It is precisely because of your fresh vivid color that the brilliant flowers around you shine more vividly. Their glory will light up the entire cosmos.”

His physical body was reduced to ash by the flame. The violet little figure was in agony — on the verge of complete obliteration, walking toward its final act of self-destruction.

“I have fallen — I am far below you. But neither can you reach the end of this road. One hundred thousand years ago, several Indestructible Golden Bodies fell — slain by another kind of supreme physique. Once people learn you come from the Burial Emperor Star, the mortal enemies of the Indestructible Golden Body will turn and come for you!”

The violet little figure was filled with boundless sorrow, shouting and howling as it walked toward death’s end.

Ye Fan’s expression stirred. He thought of ancient events — some sacred bodies had set foot on the ancient star path through the cosmos, meeting their deaths beyond the domain, falling in battle throughout the universe. It was said this was the work of some manner of fearsome mortal enemy.

Naturally, not all such battles ended in defeat. Some sacred bodies had prevailed — slaying their peerless great enemies and returning to the Northern Dipper ancient star domain.

“Has the age of legends come? Have people who should never have appeared, now appeared — am I merely a green leaf here to set off their brilliance?” Ye Fan murmured quietly. Then he smiled coldly, fixing his gaze upon the violet little figure. “Legends are made to be broken!”

“Boom!”

Jun Wei Mountain Lord’s violet primordial spirit shattered, scattering throughout heaven and earth. The final life imprint vanished completely — never to witness the many wonders of the Emperor’s path again.

Ye Fan looked toward the remaining man — nothing left but a severed head, filled with terror, held beneath Long Ma’s hoof. He was intensely unwilling to die, yet knew there was not the faintest thread of hope.

In truth, from Ye Fan’s perspective, the four had held somewhat greater value than Jun Wei Mountain Lord. That primordial magnetic immortal light was truly extraordinary — a peerless secret technique.

Jun Wei Mountain Lord had been able to contend with him because of his own sheer power. But these four had matched him through the mystery and ferocity of their secret technique.

“I want the Four Symbols Formation — and the cultivation method for the primordial magnetic immortal light,” Ye Fan said.

“You won’t get it. If you force me, I’ll shatter my own consciousness immediately!” The man’s face was snow-white — all bluster with nothing behind it. The panic in his eyes betrayed the weakness within.

“Hand over what I need. In return, I’ll give you eight hundred li of a head start — and if you truly manage to get away, I’ll spare your life,” Ye Fan said.

The man’s face was ashen. He wanted to negotiate — but seeing Ye Fan’s cold expression, he immediately stopped, dropping the four corners of the formation diagram as his head shot upward into the air.

Ye Fan caught them in his hands and examined them carefully. The four corners assembled into a half-moon shape — crystalline and white, as though carved from fine white jade.

On it were countless fine, densely-packed characters — all in an archaic divine script from the ancient world — recording a secret technique called Primordial Magnetism.

“As expected — a world-shaking divine technique, inscribed onto this precious Four Symbols Formation diagram to preserve and transmit the inheritance beyond destruction,” Ye Fan said with a sigh, committing the secret technique firmly to memory.

“This lord finds this half-moon formation diagram rather appealing,” Long Ma said, narrowing its eyes.

Ye Fan nodded. This formation diagram was no small matter — once arranged properly, it could trap a host of powerful enemies with little hope of breaking through. He flicked his wrist and tossed it to Long Ma.

Then he drew out a great bow. He had crafted it himself on the road through ten years of blood and war — strung with the sinews of a flood dragon, with ancient tree essence as the bow’s body. He nocked a bone arrow to the string and shot it out in an instant.

A streak of white light, reaching eight hundred li in the blink of an eye. The fleeing head had already sighted the exit, believing it would live — but in that moment, an arrow pierced through it. With a dull sound, it dissolved into a pulp of flesh and shattered bone. A mist of blood drifted upward. Dead where it was.

The bone arrows had been refined from the spine-spikes of ancient holy beasts — the saint-level creatures Ye Fan had slain before, from which he had gathered dozens of such spikes and forged them into arrows.

A flash of white light — Ye Fan retrieved the arrow without letting it go to waste. The road ahead held an unknown number of dangers still.

The whole expanse of the world fell quiet. Ye Fan alone had nearly wiped out all the cultivators across two zones, crossing domains in battle to slay the assembled heroes.

Every ferocious bird and savage beast that survived his passing trembled. All went into hiding, filled with terror, not daring to show themselves.

Long Ma toyed with the Four Symbols Formation diagram, sinking into a state of immense delight. It was certain those four had not fully unleashed the formation’s true power.

Ye Fan left the ravaged battlefield behind and sat cross-legged upon a rocky peak, his mind utterly tranquil — yet full of a sense of harvest.

The Primordial Magnetism secret technique was absolutely a supreme divine technique — comparable to the five-colored divine light obtained from the Eternal Star Domain. It was a rare find.

This technique had allowed four people of no particularly exceptional genius to be this difficult to deal with — which spoke volumes about what made it extraordinary. It deserved to stand alongside the secret techniques of the Ancient Emperor’s Forbidden Chapters.

Ye Fan possessed the Battle Saint Technique, which allowed him to cultivate other secret techniques with exceptional speed. Two hours later, a faint gray mist appeared over his body — the power of primordial magnetism had emerged.

He then evolved it further. The gray mist dispersed, transforming into primordial magnetic lightning that coiled around Ye Fan’s outer form.

Crack!

Ye Fan’s entire being transformed into a human-shaped beam of immortal light, sweeping with irresistible force — reducing an entire mountain range ahead of him to flying ash in a single breath, completely annihilated.

“What a powerful secret technique!” Long Ma was astonished, its eyes green with envy. It too began to ponder the technique.

Ye Fan frowned — he felt no joy in a divine technique brought to great completion, for there was still a distance to go before true perfection. He lacked a specific divine magnetic stone to aid in cultivation, without which it could not be brought to ultimate mastery.

“This secret technique is too wondrous — it’s truly terrifying without limit!” Long Ma had also grasped some of its principles. It transformed into a magnetic lightning horse and leaped across the sky, releasing rolling waves like a surging ocean.

They came to understand that completing this technique would require descending deep into the earth to capture the legendary divine magnetic ore — using it as tempering material to reach the great perfection of the technique.

“This is the Fallen Saint Island — not a true ancient star. There is no divine magnetic ore here. We cannot continue this cultivation further,” Ye Fan said, rising to his feet. Then he walked into the primordial mountain ranges, beginning to comprehend the Great Dao of this place.

The forbidden secret technique was important — but completing the trial mission mattered more at this moment. His mind and spirit were clear, washed clean of the energy of slaughter. His body flickered with precious radiance as he melded into all the things of nature.

“The Dao of Nature!”

Ye Fan let out a quiet breath and opened his eyes. He had spent half a day capturing the traces of the Great Dao left by the ancients here, gaining insight into its essential principles.

Not long after, he opened the sutra scroll that the Rain Butterfly Princess had given him and began to read it carefully — immersing himself in it, merging with the heaven and earth around him.

“Man follows the earth. The earth follows the sky. The sky follows the Dao. The Dao follows what is natural.”

Ye Fan murmured the words quietly. His entire body emanated a soft, flowing light. The fresh, clean breath of grass and trees blew toward him, washing away the killing energy on his body, leaving his heart absolutely clear and empty. Deep in the mountains, the calls of apes and tigers rang out again — the trial grounds had returned to peace.

“Truly a supreme Great Dao — yet this is not my Dao.”

After some unknowable span of time, Ye Fan closed the ancient scroll and rose to his feet. He threw a punch toward the heavens — golden light pierced into the cosmos, shattering the seals. The entire ancient land nearly collapsed.

“What kind of person is this?”

Outside the Fallen Saint Island, some soldiers changed color. Even the great commander seated atop his celestial wolf was startled — then shook his head and told the others not to concern themselves.

“The furnace nurtures a hundred scriptures — the path I walk is one of being unmatched in this age, of breaking through legends!” Ye Fan murmured to himself.