“The Purple Subtlety Divine Dynasty’s imperial palace burned to ash over a hundred years ago.” A cultivator nearby said.

“What? The Purple Subtlety Divine Dynasty was destroyed?” Li Tian cried out in shock. He and Yan Yixi had grown up on this land and knew well how terrifying this colossal power was — it was an undying sacred ground. He had never imagined it had been uprooted.

Even Ye Fan was taken aback, deeply surprised. He recalled the dynasty’s Imperial Preceptor from those days and the prophecy he had made before his passing — that a divine infant would descend from heaven and the dynasty would rise to great prosperity. And yet this was the outcome.

“The Imperial Preceptor’s prophecy never came true — and in fact, things developed in exactly the opposite direction.” Yan Yixi was also stunned. A dynasty of that size, spoken of as being destroyed just like that — it surpassed all expectation and struck one’s mind with tremendous force.

“It did flourish — extremely prosperous for a hundred years. And then it collapsed utterly and was destroyed completely.” Someone said.

“So it was like this — how lamentable, that a generation’s Imperial Preceptor who glimpsed the scene of the Purple Subtlety’s great rise in those final moments before his passing should, in the end, be left with such an outcome. Truly… one guesses the beginning, yet cannot guess the end.”

Even Ye Fan stood in a daze. Who could have foreseen it — what was called the great prosperity turned out to be no more than a hundred years, and then everything changed abruptly. An undying dynasty had come to its end, reduced to dust.

The bearded man clapped Li Tian on the shoulder and said: “Young man, I see great promise in you — your foundation is excellent. Become my disciple. Right now you understand nothing at all, and your master here will train you properly, showing you the supreme grandeur of the cultivation world.”

“Get away,” Li Tian said. But in the end he still held himself back, telling himself not to stoop to the level of a mortal, and to temper his character.

“How did the Purple Subtlety Divine Dynasty end up being destroyed?” Yan Yixi also murmured to himself. Only by understanding could one feel the weight of it. The origins of this colossal power from those days had been immense.

Someone sighed: “Naturally it was because of the divine infant descending from the heavens — stirring the greed of all the great sacred grounds, who rose up together. Add to that an incomparably terrifying great power descending from outside the domain, which broke through the dynasty directly, reducing them to ash.”

“The dynasty rose because of the divine infant, and fell because of the divine infant — the root of everything traces back to her.” The bearded man made his concluding remarks.

“Where did the divine infant go?” Ye Fan asked. Whatever had become of the Purple Subtlety Divine Dynasty, or the great power that had descended from outside the domain — he had no interest. He cared only about Xiao Nannan.

“Where is she now?!” Li Tian pressed as well.

“Young man, don’t get any ideas. The divine infant is not someone you can go seeking. Come with your master honestly and together we will contemplate the supreme Grand Dao — only then will you one day have the qualifications to contend for mastery of the world.” The bearded man said with weighty sincerity.

“My thanks, grandmaster of the Dao Palace realm — I cannot aspire to your exalted heights. Even one day of your instruction would drive me to an early grave!” In truth he was already breathing hard right now.

Xiao Nannan had vanished!

This was what Ye Fan and the others came to understand after a round of inquiries.

The Purple Subtlety had flourished for a hundred years and then met its ruin — overrun and swept clean. In that battle, the divine infant had been lost outside the dynasty, and in the decades since had been spotted several times, each sighting triggering great massacres as the whole world fought to seize her — yet every time, nothing came of it.

The reason every single cultivator recognized Xiao Nannan was that over these decades her portrait had already spread throughout the entire cultivation world. People had been searching for her for tens of years.

Pulling out a portrait and asking around — the way Ye Fan and the others had just done — was the very definition of being newcomers to all this. No wonder the bearded man looked down on them.

“The whole world is searching. She goes in and out of the great wildernesses, enters all the great sacred sites — she’s been searched for for decades already. And even if someone finds her, do you think they’d tell you? She is an undying divine medicine!”

In the Purple Subtlety Ancient Star Domain, nearly everyone believed that Xiao Nannan was a unique and extraordinary undying medicine — one that had broken through the impossible constraints of heaven and earth, a sacred herb that had taken human form.

Who would not care? The entire world had gone mad. This divine medicine surpassed all others that had come before. The greatest of all time, ancient and modern alike!

Over these decades, the entire cultivation world had been thrown into upheaval. The strong rose on all sides, every one of them searching for Xiao Nannan’s whereabouts — for obtaining her held the secret of eternal life.

“In the eyes of the world, she is the greatest immortal medicine that has ever existed, past or present!”

Upon hearing this, Ye Fan furrowed his brow deeply. This news was truly not good. Xiao Nannan’s situation was precarious — she was exactly like the legendary Tang Monk’s flesh, drawing every god and demon and ghost from every heaven toward her, each one wanting a bite.

This was precisely why the Purple Subtlety Divine Dynasty had been destroyed.

One could say that whoever gained hold of Xiao Nannan would make enemies of all under heaven — subjected to the attacks of countless powerful figures, with no foothold anywhere. It was a precarious situation beyond imagining.

After all, in the world’s eyes, she was a divine medicine that had taken human form — and that significance was no less than truly achieving immortality.

And in fact that was precisely what it was. An undying medicine had taken human form and would live on as long as the world endured, never growing old. That was eternal life — the realization of deathlessness. Aside from lacking great power, what difference was there between her and an Immortal?

“Everyone wants to obtain her. Many believe that simply consuming her would grant boundless lifespan, allowing one a glimpse of eternal life — perhaps even enabling one to ascend in a blaze of light and enter the Immortal Realm.”

If the conjecture were true, all the undying medicines in existence combined would not be worth a single Xiao Nannan. How could the world not go mad?

“What do we do?” Yan Yixi frowned.

“I’ve long since prepared myself for the whole world to be my enemy. Whoever dares harm Nannan will have to get past me first.” Ye Fan said coldly, with a thread of sky-reaching killing intent quietly contained within his words.

Yet his heart was deeply worried. Xiao Nannan had not been seen for many years now — and if she had been found by someone, that person certainly would not announce it publicly.

The situation was thorny. He had to find the little girl as soon as possible, for with every passing day the variables could only multiply. The powerful figures of the whole world had her in their sights.

At the parting, the Dao Palace realm big uncle felt tremendous regret, gripping Li Tian’s hand and saying with weighty earnestness: “Child — missing a great master like me will be a lifelong regret.”

“Quasi-Emperor, I cannot aspire to your heights — please spare me.” Li Tian pinched his nose and said his goodbyes, feeling utterly unlucky to have run into someone like this.

“Ah, how lonely the road of a future quasi-Emperor — how pitiable that my supreme secret arts of a lifetime… young brat, one day you’ll regret this.” The bearded man shook his head, and disappeared into the vast sea of people.

Boom!

Once outside the city, Li Tian sent a palm flying and smashed a tall mountain flat, letting out a long breath. “Finally some peace and quiet.”

“Hahaha…” The little chubby one in the Immortal Spring gloated and laughed without end, barely stopping short of rolling around the floor — which promptly earned him a round of smacks from Li Tian.

“Where do we go from here?” Yan Yixi felt no more urgency to visit the old grounds of the Way of Human Desire — finding Nannan was the most pressing matter.

“Let’s first go look at the ruins of the Purple Subtlety Divine Dynasty and figure out a plan from there.” Ye Fan said with resignation. This world was enormous. Finding one small person — how could it possibly be easy?

A grey mist hung heavy over the place — a vast expanse of ruins. Even though decades had passed, this place remained bone-chillingly sinister, permeated with the aura of killing.

So many people had died here in that great battle. Nearly everyone in the Purple Subtlety Divine Dynasty had been exterminated — slaughtered wholesale. That great sect that had once towered over all had become nothing but a memory.

Crumbled walls and shattered ruins, desolation stretching in every direction. Not a single intact structure remained standing anywhere.

And it wasn’t just this place — everywhere the Purple Subtlety Divine Dynasty had once held dominion had been demolished, torn up by the roots, without the slightest hope of revival. Struck from the world’s memory forever.

In this entire area, not a single blade of grass grew. The ground was a dark reddish-black — stained by blood — and to this day still carried the scent of gore. Some of the sacred blood had not yet dried.

In that battle, the Purple Subtlety Divine Dynasty had shown their full strength and it could not be said to have been insufficient. Their ancestors had once found divine origin liquid in the Primordial Pure Land, and over countless tens of thousands of years had sealed away certain supremely powerful Saints.

Yet even with their full reserves expended, they had still been destroyed — thoroughly and completely.

The main force behind it had been that great power descending from outside the domain, combined with the surging assault of many local sacred grounds acting in concert. Together, they had driven the dynasty to its final end.

Ye Fan entered the collapsed imperial city and came to the central area, where he found a massive cave — and his expression changed.

Black mist drifted here, with a baleful aura that was deeply intimidating. The cave itself was especially pronounced — as though some enormous weapon had been driven straight through the earth.

Ye Fan applied an ancient method from the Vedic Scripture, returning to the source and examining the origins, carefully reconstructing what had happened here. He wanted to understand how this great hole had come to be — for even he felt a wave of chilling killing intent. Whoever had struck this blow was clearly terrifying.

A sequence of images appeared. A battle spear flew in from outside the domain, plunging straight into the center of the imperial city. No vast divine power exploded outward — only a terrifying killing intent.

And the result: the imperial city had crumbled, but had not been pulverized into powder. Yet countless living beings throughout the city had exploded and died within that killing intent — no fewer than fifty thousand cultivators perishing on that single day.

If there had still been common people in the city, the thought was simply beyond imagining.

This single earth-shaking blow had been one of the primary reasons for the Purple Subtlety Divine Dynasty’s destruction. When a peak-level war force appeared and unleashed such a blow, it had dissolved the will to resist among the remaining powerful figures.

“It seems that in those days, an extraordinarily powerful figure took action. Not even the full reserves of the Feathered Transformation Divine Dynasty could have withstood it.” Yan Yixi said.

“Not necessarily a supremely powerful figure — it could be that the battle spear itself was too extraordinary. The divine power fluctuation wasn’t particularly intense. What was dominant was the appearance of a supreme killing intent!” Li Tian spoke up.

Zheng, zheng…

Suddenly, something within Ye Fan’s body stirred and struggled — and his entire form emitted waves of dark radiance, emanating a killing intent of its own.

“This is…”

Ye Fan was startled. With a single thought, a black spear appeared in his hand, radiating terrifying light. Dark radiance pierced the nine heavens, and every cloud in the sky above was blasted to pieces.

He had not activated it — the weapon had lit up on its own, radiating killing intent, which was alarming.

Evidently, this dark gold long spear had resonated with the aura within the cave. A soaring battle-will had emanated forth — one that was at the level of the horrifying, enough to shake anyone.

“This spear… may be beyond the category of a sacred weapon.” Yan Yixi’s expression shifted, and he said this.

The spear had been obtained at Mount Kunlun. Its true origins were unknown. According to Long Ma, it had flown down from outside the domain and embedded itself into an ancient sacred ground of immortal ascension.

And Ye Fan had examined this spear many times, finding that the divine entities within it were nearly all dead — only some remnants of light masses remained, yielding no secrets.

He had not expected it to light up on its own today like this — an instinctive act of confrontation and response.

“Could it be a quasi-Emperor weapon?” Li Tian said.

Ye Fan said nothing. Long before this, he had formed certain conjectures: somewhere in the infinitely distant reaches of the cosmos, two parties had been locked in a battle of devastating intensity. In the end, the black spear had been struck nearly to the point of destruction, tearing through the void and falling onto Mount Kunlun.

And now it seemed that the force that had opposed this spear might have appeared — right here, in the Purple Subtlety Ancient Star Domain.

After a long while, the black spear slowly settled. Its dark radiance receded, and the killing aura that had filled the cave was fully dissolved.

“It seems this journey to the Purple Subtlety Star Domain will not be as peaceful as we imagined!” Ye Fan said.

Just then, with the killing aura cleared away, he suddenly felt a resonance stir within him — a familiar aura reaching him, carrying with it a powerful life fluctuation.

“Xiao Nannan’s aura!” Ye Fan’s heart leapt. He wheeled around instantly and surged toward a distant expanse of shattered ruins, moving with every ounce of speed he possessed.