The ice mountain had nearly fully melted. Bones were plentiful, floating in the black underworld river. The deep pool too had been evaporated dry, revealing the ancient well beneath. A single Holy Spirit stood before it, and no one could approach.

This was precisely the stone figure that the Tyrant Dragon Queen Tuolan had summoned from the depths of the starry sky: at the peak of the Sacred Saint King realm, capable at any moment of stepping into the Great Sage domain. His cold eyes swept over all four directions, and he had not yet made a single move.

This was a supreme being—below the Great Sage realm, absolutely no one was his match. Even a Great Sage who came to challenge him might be killed in return, for he was a Holy Spirit!

With such a powerhouse standing guard, who could approach? His cold eyes glinted as they swept across all eight directions. Though blades of light flashed and blood flew, even those who managed to push through to close range found he had not stirred a single step.

Long Ma and the Nine-Tailed Crocodile Dragon went cold all over. They had thought it possible to fight through and disrupt the enemy’s deployment—to stop them from opening the seal. Now, with one look, their hearts dropped like stones.

Yet this was not the true reason Ye Fan had been struck cold with dread. What he had seen was an even more terrifying truth.

The ancient well was swathed in mist and haze—none could see through it. The mist covered the well’s mouth entirely, enshrouding it within a cloud of dense vapor.

“Do you hear it?” Ye Fan said, brow furrowed. “There is someone chanting sutras.”

Long Ma and the Nine-Tailed Crocodile Dragon stared in bafflement, then both shook their heads simultaneously, unable to make sense of what Ye Fan was saying.

“There is an existence here beyond all imagination—absolutely without rival in power.” Ye Fan murmured, feeling as though a great mountain had settled upon his chest.

“Are you truly certain of this?” Long Ma and the Nine-Tailed Crocodile Dragon both felt their hair stand on end.

Ye Fan opened his Heavenly Eye of Origins, pushing his spiritual perception to its absolute limit. He heard the faint sound of sutras being chanted; he made out a hazy silhouette seated cross-legged beside the ancient well, wreathed in mist, dismantling the seal.

And the stone figure at the peak of Sacred Saint King—motionless, acting as the other’s protector of the Dao.

An inconceivable existence was at the well’s mouth, breaking apart the seal!

Beyond the domain, the battle continued to rage—the Cyan Phoenix Daoist was locked in combat with that invincible Holy Spirit. Who would have imagined that before the dry well of the Divine Ghost Burial Ground, yet another peerless entity waited—of a terrifying magnitude beyond all reckoning?

Ye Fan felt that even his divine sense had been seared—within that mist, it was as though a flame of immortal fire was leaping in a human shape, seated upon a meditation mat, chanting sutras to shatter the well.

“A fire spirit—an immensely powerful Holy Spirit of the flame clan!”

When Ye Fan grasped the truth of it, a sensation of helplessness washed through him. The stone figures had appeared; now a fire Holy Spirit too had arrived. This was enough to drive anyone to despair.

Blood of the scarlet-gold phoenix, tears of the immortal turning to verdant gold—these things could be refined into Holy Spirits. A divine fetus nurtured within stone could become a Holy Spirit. A being that gains sentience within the flames of immortal tribulation can become a Holy Spirit…

Born from what is most divine and most sacred—achieving an invincible body—and upon reaching full perfection, capable of contending with the Great Emperors of antiquity: this is what a Holy Spirit is.

Long ago, Ye Fan had once seen on the Immortal Mountain refined immortal gold take shape—a flying swallow, and a tiny golden ox pulling a cart no larger than a chi—that were suspected to have become Holy Spirits.

And in the Eastern Wasteland there was a place called Demon Fire Ridge, where Ye Fan had once used a heavenly tribulation to kill many foes. Legend held that Demon Fire Ridge had once given birth to a Holy Spirit of the flame clan—slain by the Tyrant Emperor over two hundred thousand years ago.

He could never have imagined that today he would personally encounter a flame clan Holy Spirit—overwhelmingly powerful. The thought alone was enough to make one’s scalp crawl.

“Several Holy Spirits from the depths of this universe have come together, and what they seek is something enormous. The disaster may be far more severe than any of us have imagined!”

As they approached, they had concealed the workings of fate with a formation inscribed with the runes of heaven-deceiving art—otherwise the stone figure at the peak of Sacred Saint King might well have come charging at them to avenge its kindred.

Even so, Ye Fan still sensed a scalding and terrifying gaze sweep past him. The fire Holy Spirit seated at the well, unraveling the seal, had detected him!

This ancient well would inevitably be opened. If the human race had only one Path Guardian here, there was simply no way to stop it. Every human being in this stellar domain would be killed.

This flame clan Holy Spirit was far too powerful—no one could stop it. A single cry from it could collapse a stellar domain. Perhaps this stretch of the ancient road was fated to crumble and fall.

Long Ma and the Nine-Tailed Crocodile Dragon, even unwilling, dared not even breathe too loudly. Before a Holy Spirit’s ancestor of this magnitude, even if they themselves attained sainthood, they would be flicked to death with a single finger.

Ye Fan retreated without a sound. “To the outer domain!” he said.

The only one now capable of turning the tide of the battle was the Cyan Phoenix Daoist—that old Daoist who was but one step from the Quasi-Emperor realm, known as the human race’s Path Guardian of this stellar domain.

No one else could solve the problem—not even the Reception Envoy of the Tenth City of the Human Race.

“Charge——!”

Within Great Moon Slope, battle cries echoed without end; the fighting raged on. Blood flowed in rivers; bones carpeted the field; all manner of powerhouses had gone red-eyed with slaughter.

“Splat,” “splat”——!

Ye Fan struck fist after fist—each one detonating a foreign-race warrior, blood running free to dye his golden fists crimson, before it was all burned to ash.

“Clang,” “clang,” “clang”——!

A chorus of metallic vibrations rang out. From behind Ye Fan there materialized a golden divine treasury: the Dao Bell, the divine sword, the heavenly pagoda, the sky-covering umbrella—one after another, gleaming with golden light. Hundreds and thousands of golden weapons launched themselves forward in a simultaneous barrage.

This was an area-of-effect attack with no discrimination. Screams of agony erupted in waves; wherever he passed, the ground was blanketed with fallen bodies. No one could stop him.

Ye Fan went on a rampage through the battlefield. A true vacuum zone materialized around him—none who stood before him remained standing!

Whether foreign-race army, human race cultivator, or ancient beast—all were struck with fear and turned to stare in this direction. In this battle, Ye Fan had bathed in blood and carved out a fearsome and legendary name.

From a distance, even the Reception Envoy was deeply shaken, marveling inwardly that this was indeed the physique all the veterans of the ancient road had been anticipating.

And the Holy Spirit Mopu, locked in battle with the Reception Envoy, turned eyes cold as an icehouse, letting out growl after growl as he dispatched his powerhouses to press forward and encircle and kill Ye Fan.

“You again—don’t think you’re escaping!” The Holy Spirit Wugu from the outer perimeter of Great Moon Slope arrived, hurling itself forward in frantic pursuit.

Ye Fan remained fearless, cutting his way toward the vault of heaven. Swaths of corpses fell—one after another, as though the end of the world had truly come.

“What can we possibly accomplish by going to the outer domain?” the Nine-Tailed Crocodile Dragon asked.

“To deliver a cauldron.” Ye Fan had no other choice. Perhaps at this juncture, only the green copper cauldron could turn the tide—otherwise, this entire stellar domain would be beaten to fragments.

Long Ma’s heart leapt. “Doing that puts you in extreme danger on the ancient starry road,” it said. “You may become the hunted target of every living being—including the human race.”

“It won’t be that terrible. I trust the Cyan Phoenix Daoist. At this critical juncture—if I don’t deliver it, I will carry the guilt.” Ye Fan said.

“Those who accomplish great things care nothing for the flood that comes after—even if a hundred million corpses are left in their wake, so long as I ascend to the heavens, everything else is but floating dust.” The Nine-Tailed Crocodile Dragon said this with indifference.

“Everyone—move together to hunt this one down and kill him!” Below, the Holy Spirit Mopu issued a cold and ruthless command. In Ye Fan’s bloodline, it had seen something extraordinary. Once he grew to full power, he would inevitably become the paramount existence of a generation within the human race.

From the ground, armies of every description surged upward: a sky-blotting, sun-covering mass of them, dense as a swarm of locusts, flying toward the heights of heaven to kill Ye Fan.

At the head of this force came the stone figure Wugu—its divine might shaking the heavens, ripping apart the vault of the sky itself.

The sight made Long Ma’s and the Nine-Tailed Crocodile Dragon’s scalps creep. Saints wielding treasure pagodas; giants bending bows with nocked arrows—an endless army was closing in from all sides.

Great Moon Slope instantly opened into a vast vacuum, as ten thousand troops and ten thousand horses poured out together to kill Ye Fan and his companions. Wugu became the vanguard at the front.

“The human race is finished—they will be struck from the roll of this starry sky!”

“Their Path Guardian cannot contend with a Holy Spirit—he will fall soon enough!”

Throughout the battlefield, voices like these were numerous. Even within the human race, there was hidden fear and worry. Reaching the Great Sage realm, a human cultivator would inevitably be breathtaking across all ages—no ordinary being. But Holy Spirit was a title synonymous with invincibility, and that made them all the more terrifying.

Ye Fan cut his way from the ancient star all the way out to the outer domain. By the end, even he himself could not count the number of powerhouses he had slain. His battle robes were in tatters, saturated with blood.

In the beginning, the Nine-Tailed Crocodile Dragon had been exhilarated—swallowing vast quantities of prey. The blood and flesh of the more powerful the cultivator, the greater the nourishment for it. But by the end, the very sight of a corpse made it want to retch; it could swallow no more.

Long Ma was no different. By now even seeing a living creature made it feel nauseous.

In that last battle, both of them had transformed into savage beasts, consuming every cultivator they slew as prey on the spot.

“Damn it all—you rotten stone, stop following us! Looking at you makes me sick. Why are you still chasing us?!”

The two savage beasts hurled curses at the top of their lungs, vomiting until even their bile ran thin. In this battle, due to the demands of their cultivation techniques, they had been unable to stop even when they wanted to—and now they had hit their absolute limit.

The stone figure Wugu was genuinely formidable, leading the army to surround and attack Ye Fan and his companions, from the ground all the way up into the sky, relentless and unyielding in pursuit.

This was a powerhouse invincible within the Saint realm, capable of holding its own against Ye Fan—a true invincible king that could not be easily dealt with in a single battle.

Wugu was in truth deeply furious. He was already approaching the Sacred Saint King realm—yet he was being matched blow for blow by someone of lower cultivation. For the invincible Holy Spirit lineage, this was a humiliation.

Because they had always been the ones who killed beyond their realm. Same realm was invariably their victory. Now the situation had reversed.

“Were it not for the impact I sustained at the ancient well—had that chanting old Daoist’s sutra not wounded my fundamental origin—I would have already slain all of you!” Wugu’s voice was icy as he pursued them relentlessly through the outer domain.

“Where have the Cyan Phoenix Daoist and that Holy Spirit fought their way to?” Long Ma searched through the vast stellar domain, but the space around the ancient life star was utterly silent—nothing to be seen.

The two supreme powers had fought to parts unknown, and worry pressed down on everyone. After all, Holy Spirit prowess had been written into legend through a long succession of glorious victories.

“Break through first!” Ye Fan said.

His cultivation realm was on the verge of a breakthrough. The vast death energy he had just released had tipped the balance of the Taichi Immortal Chart within his wheel-sea, and it could no longer sustain its equilibrium.

“Of all the terrible luck—everything happening at once!” Long Ma cursed. The sheer volume of prey it had consumed had been staggering, and the two savage beasts had vomited until even their bile was running thin.

Yet the gains they had reaped were clearly immense. The blood and flesh of Saints contained Dao cultivation, law and order principles, and other wonders—beyond words in value, capable of aiding their own breakthrough.

The ancient formula the Demon Emperor had left in his cave was only a single technique and not a complete ancient scripture, yet it was incomparably heaven-defying—a path of evolution that could allow powerful demons to grow without limit.

The Holy Spirit blood Ye Fan was sending them now was a nourishment beyond all imagination for their kind, greatly accelerating the refinement of their blood.

Though both savage beasts had vomited until their bile ran thin, now, through the walls of their cocoons, they were frantically absorbing the Holy Spirit blood—not wasting a single drop. This was one of the wellsprings of their transformation.

“So many powerful experts who fell in battle were swallowed by you two—many of them at the Saint level. And now you have drunk Holy Spirit blood on top of it all. If you cannot achieve something worthy of the Dao, you would truly be failing to honor all of that.”

Ye Fan brought them to a tranquil stretch of starry sky far from the battlefield so they could pass their tribulation in safety. It was especially important that they not be disturbed during this period—the two savage beasts needed to refine their dragon blood and undergo a deeper-level attainment of the Dao.

After leaving them, he searched everywhere but could find no trace of either the Cyan Phoenix Daoist or that peak-realm invincible Holy Spirit—there was no knowing where they had fought their way to.

Ye Fan returned to the Tenth City of the Human Race and gazed down at the ancient star below. The fighting there had grown even more intense. Numerous powerful reinforcements for the human race had arrived, drawn in from other stellar domains.

The foreign-race army was fierce. At the cost of countless lives, they poured body after body into the Divine Ghost Burial Ground at Great Moon Slope. Not to speak of the human race fallen—even the blood of this invading force alone was considerable as an offering.

Great Moon Slope was trembling. The entire ancient star rocked gently. Ancient beasts throughout the earth felt their hair stand on end; even the battling powerhouses found the hair on their arms rising.

At the ancient well’s side, immortal fire blazed. A terrifying silhouette was seated there, drawing in stream after stream of sacred blood, pouring it all into the ancient well to unravel the seal.

In that moment, demons and gods howled; a great wind raged, sending sand and gravel flying. Even the outer domain felt the impact.

These were signs of heaven and earth—something terrifying and world-shattering was about to happen. Everything across the mountains and rivers trembled and shook; the entire ancient star seemed on the verge of shattering.

“Stop them—do not allow it to open the ancient well. If it does, this entire stellar domain will not be preserved.” The Reception Envoy of the Tenth City of the Human Race shouted.

Countless powerhouses charged forward, among them no lack of beings at the peak of Sacred Saint King, pressing toward the deepest part of the demonic grounds within Great Moon Slope. Yet no one could draw close. The stone figure that had stood motionless beside the well finally made its move—its divine might overwhelming all creation.

“Lunduo!” The Tyrant Dragon Queen Tuolan surged forward with a host of ancient beasts, unable to suppress a furious roar.

Lunduo had been her late husband’s close friend. She would never have imagined that he would have sent someone to steal their child—and then, in the end, had played the part of the righteous helper to perfection when she invited him here. He had stood before her, forthright and upstanding, looking every bit like a champion ready to act on her behalf. And all along he had been the mastermind behind it all.

“Splat,” “splat”——!

Lunduo struck without mercy. Whether ancient beast or human race powerhouse, none could draw within so much as half a step of the ancient well—all were slain on the spot, blood pooling freely on the ground.

Both Tuolan and the Reception Envoy sustained grievous wounds, unable to overcome Lunduo. And from further away, the stone figure Mopu too was laughing coldly, leading his personal forces rushing in to guard the demonic well.

“Boom,” “boom”——!

Thunderous impacts rang out one after another. From beneath the ancient well, something seemed to be trying to claw its way out—crashing repeatedly against the well walls, causing Great Moon Slope to convulse violently, sending the sun, moon, rivers, and mountains shuddering!

Not only did the stone figures Lunduo and Mopu change color—even the invincible fire Holy Spirit seated at the well’s mouth had its body shudder. Within the flame mist, its expression shifted between darkness and light.

“After so many ages—there are living things still within the ancient well?” Ye Fan too wore an expression of disbelief.

It was abundantly clear that things had already gone beyond the Holy Spirit lineage’s control. Even if they withdrew now, this ancient well was fated to break open—for something within had revived and was forcing its own way out, at a pace far exceeding and far more violent than the Holy Spirits’ unraveling of the seal!