A handful of silver flames danced and flickered, brilliant and dazzling against the vast star sea. In the boundless expanse of the universe, there was no other light that could compare.
Ye Fan rode Long Ma through the sky, broke through the seal, and burst free from the Ancient Proving Ground, emerging into the immeasurable star sea — finally having leaped beyond its confines.
He had good reason to believe that the Ancient Proving Ground was a piece of primordial immortal earth caught in chaos.
Above, below, and in all four directions lies the universe; from ancient times to the present lies the cosmos. This boundless universe stretched on without end — vast beyond measure, such that even the most colossal ancient stars were like specks of dust by comparison, let alone a single person.
Ye Fan stood astride his mount with a spear across his lap, his body and mind serene and clear, the urge to attain sainthood suppressed. He gazed out at the rivers of stars stretching in all directions, his eyes fixed on the brilliant silver flames glowing in the distance.
“The aura of an ancient Emperor…” he murmured to himself.
This feeling could not be wrong. Somewhere ahead there appeared to be an ancient life-bearing star, one where an Emperor had once appeared — its grandeur and vastness was beyond compare.
Long Ma, without waiting for him to say more, galloped across the great expanse and left a streak of flowing light in its wake as it charged toward those brilliant silver flames.
The distance was not great — the region lay just adjacent to where they were, and the magnificent aura rolled out in every direction like a wave, filling those who encountered it with the urge to prostrate themselves in reverence. It carried a sense of vast remoteness, and an air of immense majesty.
This was an enormous star — so enormous it was staggering to behold. Countless moons orbited it, glittering brilliantly. This place had once been a primordial land of life, yet now not a single living being remained. One could still faintly sense the glory of what it had once been.
Long Ma shuddered violently and skidded to a halt, no longer daring to advance. Now, seeing clearly what lay before them, it finally understood.
Within the silver flames, countless chains of divine order intertwined — golden chains of primordial law, gray wisps of mist, and green streams of life source energy — all manner of Dao merging and fusing together into a great expanse of flame.
The power of Dao dissolution!
The entire ancient star was saturated with this aura that chilled one to the bone. A once-thriving primordial life-bearing land had been brought to its end by this power. How could an entire life-bearing star be filled with such a force? It was incomprehensible.
How could this have happened? Ye Fan was dumbstruck. It was beyond imagination. The Dao dissolution energy was strong enough to swallow and obliterate all things — even a Great Sage who came here would perish.
A man and a horse stood before this place, their divine nature exalted, their bodies and minds tranquil, as they silently contemplated the endless ages of vicissitude held within this great star. Then, all of a sudden, Ye Fan heard an ancient, weathered fluctuation of sound.
“The Emperor has fallen. The divine generals of all realms will descend into chaos. The Heavenly Court has collapsed — all crumbled in a single dawn…”
It was a remnant whisper — like a bolt of lightning cleaving through the vast cosmos — and it sent a violent tremor through Ye Fan’s heart, a chill running through his entire body.
“Did you hear that?” Ye Fan asked Long Ma.
“Hear what?” Long Ma replied, puzzled, a look of confusion crossing its face.
“The Emperor has fallen. The divine generals of all realms will descend into chaos. The Heavenly Court has collapsed — all crumbled in a single dawn…”
The remnant sound rang out like rolling thunder, causing the entire star sea to tremble — vast, majestic, and deafening.
Ye Fan fell silent, his gaze fixed on the great star. Yet Long Ma sensed nothing, and was completely baffled by his reaction.
An Emperor had fallen. The Heavenly Court had collapsed. All had fallen into chaos. This was a bleak and desolate aura, sweeping over everything like an unstoppable tide — and Ye Fan felt as though he were experiencing the sorrow of witnessing glory’s final curtain call.
This had undoubtedly been a figure of immense significance. Otherwise, who would have the standing to feel such grief — and to speak such words? Countless ages had passed, and no one could know, and nothing could be verified.
The fate of this great star was most likely tied to the fall of the Heavenly Court.
Ye Fan had heard these same words once before, on Earth — transmitted from a single corner of an ancient ceremonial terrace, like smoke from a distant past, never to return.
Had the collapse of the Heavenly Court sent shockwaves across the entire universe? What a staggering fact — from Earth all the way to this place, across countless star systems.
This great star was merely one of the places that had been swept up in the aftermath. But why had it been struck so severely? Could it have been caused by a single person’s Dao dissolution?
The years had grown too distant. The Undying Celestial Emperor had forged the glory of the North Dipper’s primordial era, yet even his deeds had grown so old that they were now blurry and impossible to verify.
Let alone the Heavenly Court, which had existed before even that — a relic of the age before the most ancient times. Apart from a handful of ancient lineages that had survived by fortune alone, no one else could ever look back and see it clearly.
“This is bad!”
Long Ma was troubled. Its judgment had been wrong — there was no life-bearing star here. All that existed was emptiness and silence. Who would dare undergo their tribulation here? Anyone who tried would be dissolved into the Dao.
“This time things have truly gone wrong. My own cultivation can no longer be suppressed either. I had just thought we had found a place to charge through freely — I never anticipated running into this kind of situation.”
Its entire body was swirling with divine radiance, rays of colored light flickering wildly around it, its flesh and bones crackling continuously — as though it were about to shed its old form and ascend — divine power surging and impossible to contain.
What were they to do? The conditions here were even worse than the Ancient Proving Ground. What was here? Nothing but endless void.
Along the ancient star road, special ancient grounds had been prepared for trial participants to attain sainthood. Breaking through in such places brought tremendous benefits, and could even influence one’s future achievements, allowing the path ahead to grow ever wider.
This place had none of that. The guiding attendants of the ancient road would not have arranged anything here. If one broke through and passed, what Dao fruits could one hope to comprehend?
Ye Fan said, “For me, what matters most would be an ancient star that an Emperor has once presided over — everything else is secondary. But you need a pure land where all manner of laws intertwine, so that you can comprehend the order of heaven and earth. That does make things a bit complicated.”
“It’s not as if I’m breaking through to the Great Sage level — I don’t need to face the star sea and the universe for that. This is turning into quite a problem.” Long Ma let its head droop.
Ye Fan considered for a moment, then said, “If you are not afraid of Dao dissolution, then the ancient star ahead would be the blessed land where you defy fate and seize fortune.” He pointed forward, where silver light blazed brilliantly, all manner of flames roiling and surging, laws without end, and the power of Dao dissolution spreading in every direction.
“That’s just asking to die!” Long Ma’s expression shifted dramatically. Who could withstand the power of Dao dissolution? The slightest carelessness would mean the complete destruction of one’s cultivation.
“You have no other choice. If you want to grow stronger, this is the ideal place.” Ye Fan leaped up and shoved Long Ma toward that great star where the silver flames danced.
Long Ma let out a strange howl, yet it did not stop itself — it rode the force of the push and charged forward, only halting once it had reached a certain distance from the star.
Ye Fan wandered through the star sea, surveying this star region, his expression shifting from a furrowed brow to a calm serenity as he took in the full scope of what surrounded him.
There were multiple life-bearing lands here. Several of the planets had known glorious pasts, but all had now dried up and returned to silence and desolation.
He did not land on any of the stars. Instead, he moved directly through the cosmic void, surrounded by these withered ancient lands and taking up a position in the center among them.
“I am about to begin. As long as I survive this, I will be unmatched under heaven in the future.” Long Ma called out, cheering itself on. It refused to dissolve into the Dao — it intended to transcend these laws and make them its own.
From that swirling, overwhelming blaze of light, it maintained a certain distance and no longer suppressed its cultivation. It began to push for the breakthrough — and in an instant, lightning and thunder erupted, all manner of light danced wildly, and a sea of tribulation lightning descended.
Long Ma’s Heavenly Tribulation had arrived, its momentum earth-shattering!
Boundless thunder and lightning, an uncountable number of tribulation punishments — the tribulations of the Yin, the Yang, the Five Elements, Chaos, and more all intertwined together, their varieties beyond counting, every last one of them the most terrifying and catastrophic form of lightning tribulation.
Long Ma was arrogant and boastful, but it indeed had the capital to be so brazen. One only had to look at the tribulation it was undergoing to see that this was far beyond the scope of an ordinary Saint’s Tribulation — bolts of lightning blazing without end, their terror boundless.
Lightning was born from the void, enveloping it completely. The space around it became a pool of tribulation, and it let out a series of miserable cries. The great star that was dissolving into the Dao also began to stir — streams of silver radiance rose up like smoke and mist, spreading outward unceasingly toward Long Ma.
This was an extreme threat. Not only did it contain all manner of laws and divine order, but also the power of Dao dissolution — capable of mercilessly obliterating all living beings.
Long Ma howled and wailed, shrieked and roared. Now was not the time to play at being cool. One moment it neighed like a horse, the next it barked like a dog, then it let out a dragon’s cry, then a qilin’s roar. Its scales rippled and flared, its mane blazed like flames as it leaped and sprang through the tribulation, all while keeping a vigilant eye on the ancient star.
For Long Ma, this was both an opportunity and a trial of death. It stirred up the lightning tribulation, using it to purify itself and repel the power of Dao dissolution, while simultaneously comprehending the remaining laws and divine order.
Slowly, it finally found the trick to it, grasping the balance — absorbing what it needed and using the thunder and lightning to resolve each crisis as it came. Of course, the Heavenly Tribulation was dangerous in its own right, and Long Ma was struck raw and bloody, its bones broken and its tendons snapped, its entire body soaked in blood.
This was the Saint’s Tribulation — the most terrifying ordeal of all. Since the dawn of time, no one had ever passed through it with ease. By the end, Long Ma was on the verge of being struck into a broken wreck.
“I am going all out against you, accursed heavens!”
Long Ma was drenched in blood, an untold number of its bones broken — though thankfully it could always rush to repair itself each time, arduously and painfully. It endured the overwhelming exhaustion and fought back against the punishment from above.
Ye Fan glanced at it and, seeing that although it was suffering greatly it could still hold on, he trusted that Long Ma would make it through — even though the tribulation it faced had far surpassed the range that any ordinary saint could bear.
“It is time for me to undergo my tribulation as well!” Ye Fan stretched his body, threw open his chest, and gazed up at the vast expanse of the heavens. Standing alone beneath the boundless star sea, he began his ascent, ready to face his own Heavenly Tribulation.
Streams of saint energy flowed from within his body, rays of divine radiance blooming outward. He shone brilliantly from head to toe, as though cast from gold, and his blood energy rose from the crown of his head like true dragons ascending to the sky.
Boom!
In that instant, the heavenly punishment was unleashed — in a frenzy so extreme it was beyond belief. It was blindingly brilliant, like countless star seas plummeting down and drowning this place entirely.
Ye Fan vanished at once, swallowed by the star sea. This entire region of space was buried under waves of divine radiance — light everywhere, his figure impossible to see.
Long Ma stared wide-eyed. If its own Heavenly Tribulation had far surpassed the ordinary, like rivers of stars descending and gathering into a vast ocean that blanketed the area — then Ye Fan’s Heavenly Tribulation was not streams descending one by one, but ocean upon ocean crashing down all at once.
The sight struck Long Ma deeply, and it cried out: “Am I seeing this right? Is this still a Heavenly Tribulation? The entire star sea has been buried. Are you leaving anyone alive?!”
It was fortunate that the two of them had kept a great enough distance from each other, for otherwise Long Ma would have been swept up in it as well. That was not a Heavenly Tribulation — it was the end of the world.
Within that terrifying blaze of light, planets began to detonate, shattering into blinding bursts, yet within the sea of tribulation lightning they amounted to little more than a few ripples, unable to stir any great waves.
Ye Fan had anticipated that his Heavenly Tribulation would be ferocious, but he had not expected it to be this extreme. Even his powerful physical body had split open with wound after wound, his joints groaning and protesting.
This was a heavenly punishment that stripped away flesh and tempered bones — refining every cell and every fragment of muscle and blood, truly shattering the bones only to reforge them anew. Ye Fan’s Saint’s Heavenly Tribulation was savage beyond measure.
Every variety of terrifying lightning known to exist in this world made its appearance. He summoned the Myriad Origin Cauldron at the very first moment, keeping it close and allowing it to rise and fall alongside him, subjecting it to the baptism of the tribulation as well — for on this day, even this artifact was destined to undergo a transformation and be elevated to an entirely new level.
No one could say how much time passed. Ye Fan’s bones were shattered multiple times, his entire body nearly obliterated — only to be reforged again and again, blazing with light. He endured the pain, fought back against the tribulation, and never permitted himself to relax for even a single moment. Then, after some time had passed, he suddenly raised his head. His gaze blazed like twin torches as he stared into the depths of the sea of lightning — where the aura of an ancient Emperor was spreading, along with another kind of imposing and solemn power.