Immortal Tear Green-Gold, Phoenix Blood Crimson-Gold, Divine Mark Purple-Gold, Dragon Pattern Black-Gold… Chain after chain rang out with a resounding metallic cry, blazing with light that streaked toward the heavens, surging upward from the depths of the chasm below.
They were coiled around the woman’s body, binding her, restricting her movements. Some said she had sealed herself this way, for fear that the unrestrained power of her physical form would cause the collapse of the heavens and the earth — these chains were how she held herself in check.
In truth, she was simply that powerful. In that long-distant age of the past, a Quasi-Emperor had once observed her from afar and concluded that even a fully reawakened Emperor’s weapon would be useless against her.
“Boom!”
The nine vast sacred mountains shook, fracture after fracture tearing open across their surfaces. The gaps were black — as black as corridors leading straight into the underworld — and from within them streamed a nameless force that devoured the very source of the Grand Dao.
From afar, every powerful figure outside the restricted zone felt their blood run cold. Even beings as strong as they were felt something draining out of them — their vital essence, their spirit, their strength — all flowing out as streams of light, pouring into those dark fissures.
Everyone was horrified. The powerful figures from beyond the realm, in particular, were encountering the power of Desolate for the first time — and the bone-deep chill it inspired was unlike anything they had felt. Every one of them recoiled and retreated, putting as much distance between themselves and that great rift on the Immortal Path as they could.
The nine sacred mountains were splitting apart. The fractures had spread from the peaks all the way down to the base — and this was a life-restricted zone. Never before had anything like this occurred here. It had never happened — and now, witnessing it, the very souls of those watching trembled.
A mysterious mist hung over that place, woven together with the very fabric of time — draining and stripping everything it touched. Any living being that approached would inevitably wither and die, reduced to dried bones, and in the end, to ash.
What was the woman within intending to do? This restricted zone had always inspired a terror unlike any of the others — its master unknown, what lay beneath its surface unknown, the most mysterious of all. The most mysterious of all.
“Shick. Shick…”
Light streaked toward the heavens, soaring upward — dazzling and brilliant. Then, like nine rivers of silver tumbling down from above, the beams arced down and connected to the peaks of the nine sacred mountains.
Earth and stone flew. Radiance detonated outward. Something had happened at the summits — the nine divine herbs had all torn themselves free from the earth, each one condensing into an orb of blazing light as they lifted off the ground and rose into the air.
“Heaven above — are the divine herbs flying away? Were they what caused the nine sacred mountains to crack?”
From their distant vantage points, those gathered were shaken to their very cores, eyes fixed and unblinking on the radiance above the chasm. Hearts pounded. Divine herbs — who among them did not crave such a thing?
If they were to fly free of the restricted zone… the eyes of every powerful figure blazed with desperate, ardent desire. Mouths hung open. Hearts hammered without ceasing.
Undying medicines — each one a world unto itself of luminous splendor, their petals translucent, utterly unlike their usual appearance. They were releasing their full immortal radiance and power, blazing so brightly that none could keep their eyes open.
“Why is this happening? What upheaval is about to be set in motion?” People were baffled — stunned and unable to comprehend.
Those who had initially entertained ideas soon felt their hearts grow cold. There was absolutely no hope of getting their hands on anything. The woman was standing right there at the summit — what insect would dare to try?
Yes — even a sage, in the presence of that woman, was likely no more than an insect. If she truly chose to act, she could perhaps wipe out every clan and every living being between heaven and earth with nothing more than a snap of her fingers.
The mist grew thicker. The mysterious force continued to circulate — though mercifully, it had not surged outward in a great rush. It remained coiling at the mouth of the chasm, contained. Had it been otherwise, the result might have been a world-ending catastrophe — the life stripped from every living thing.
And the nine divine herbs that had torn themselves free were growing brighter still. They appeared as though they were on the verge of dissolving — transforming into something made of pure light, their physical forms ceasing to exist.
Did she intend to destroy the undying medicines? The watching crowd felt a shock that ran through them to the bone.
“She is refining the medicines. It is said this is the technique of ancient Great Emperors — to refine the greatest medicines of the mortal world within the void of space, extending a single generation of life.”
An ancient sage spoke in astonishment — and the more they understood, the more deeply the woman unsettled them. She had not moved at all, only gazing with her eyes, watching the process by which the medicines dissolved into light. With her gaze alone, she directed and observed.
It seemed as though the Immortal Path was truly about to open at any moment — why else would she make such a move? Perhaps it was to replenish her life, to enter battle in the absolute peak of her condition against the ancient supremes.
That was the speculation of many of the older sages, and every one of them held their breath and watched with rapt attention.
This would never be seen before, and would never be seen again — a being of this magnitude was something that struck awe into the deepest marrow of one’s bones.
Yet all of them guessed wrong. The great medicines were not consumed, and they were not destroyed. Instead, they hung in the air like nine suns, suspended there — and then began to rotate with extraordinary speed.
A deep, resonant hum filled the air as countless fragments of the Grand Dao flew free, separating themselves from the light, and arranged themselves in the empty space — recombining, reshaping, becoming something like a rain of transcendent beings ascending to immortality, so dazzling it surpassed all description.
Everyone was transfixed — their instinct was to rush forward at once and let that rain of light fall upon them, drawing those infinite fragments of the Grand Dao into themselves.
The process continued for a very long time, and then the nine orbs of light crashed together — colliding in a moment of blinding, searing radiance. The fragments of the Grand Dao that surrounded them were also drawn together and fused as one.
At the center of it all, a single orb condensed — immense, burning with fierce brilliance, pressing on the surrounding space until it was on the verge of collapse.
In the end, before the stunned eyes of the watching world, a single undying medicine took shape — born of union, nine become one, assembled into a single complete immortal herb.
It had nine branches, each bearing leaves of a different shape, in nine distinct colors — translucent and radiant, its every aspect speaking of the profound and the mysterious. The whole plant stood just under a meter in height, its skin like dragon scale, its branches like the wings of a soaring phoenix.
This was its true form — its original, complete form. The name it bore was the Nine Wonders Undying Medicine.
Long ago, the complete plant had been divided into nine, each piece planted on one of the nine sacred mountains. Now at last they had been rejoined, and the world was permitted to witness what it truly was — the full, complete form revealed before all living eyes.
At the same time, the nine sacred mountains collapsed — crumbling apart amid billowing clouds of dust and debris with a long, continuous roar. The nine sacred springs ran dry. Every last drop of divine water was gone.
This was a transformation that shook the world to its foundations.
The cracks spread outward, stretching for uncountable miles. The nine sacred mountains toppled at last — and in the process, the woman’s body rang with the sound of immortal gold. Every kind of radiant light swirled and danced around her.
It was as though an all-cutting sword energy was sweeping outward — the ringing resonance of steel, clear and sharp. Every one of those immortal-gold chains snapped apart. She was fully unbound, standing sovereign over the mortal realm, gazing down upon every heaven and every region below.
With a thunderous crash, the earth sank. The land surrounding the chasm for hundreds of miles caved inward — and what was revealed below was an enormous stretch of ruins. And within those ruins stood a towering stele — immense, imposing, steadfast and unyielding — carved with three great characters: The Immortal Path.
The script was ancient, a style that only a handful among all the gathered sages could read. Some said it was the written language of the celestials — the script of the immortal realm. Others said it was the writing of the mythological age.
“How can there be such a stele here?” Everyone was struck dumb.
Could the Immortal Gate truly be about to open here, in this very place? For years upon years, there had been a rumor that the Immortal Path would appear somewhere beneath the depths of the Ancient Forbidden Land’s chasm.
This woman had come to possess this place, making it into a life-restricted zone — was that not an act of supreme defiance against the natural order?!
“Now it is confirmed — the Celestial Holy Land in that long-ago era was driven by a desperate madness — it was all for the sake of forcing their way onto the Immortal Path.” Every soul in this land let out a sigh of lamentation.
In that distant age, the Eastern Wasteland had been shaken by a violent upheaval — cracks had torn open in the void — and it had almost certainly been a portent of the Immortal Path beginning to manifest.
In that era, the most glorious sacred ground in all of history had constructed a heaven-spanning formation array, taken up an Emperor’s weapon, and charged straight into the heart of that disturbance — hoping that at exactly the right moment, they would break through the Immortal Gate and achieve true Immortality in a single instant.
But they had been wrong.
The Immortal Gate had not opened. The glorious Celestial Holy Land plunged into the abyss, their heaven-spanning formation shattered. Unable to retreat in time, even with an Emperor’s weapon in hand, they could not protect themselves.
The power within the depths of the Ancient Forbidden Land’s chasm had annihilated that entire lineage — only a handful of survivors had escaped with their lives, each one barely alive.
“There is another stele!” People were astonished. Who had moved these here? According to the oldest accounts, this place had not originally been claimed by a woman — she was a later arrival, who had displaced the original master and taken it for herself.
It was a massive ancient stele, covered in flickering symbols — the Grand Dao flowing through it, transforming strand by strand into an unstoppable and all-conquering intent of the fist, bursting forth from within.
“Six Paths Reincarnation Fist!”
Someone cried out in recognition — those were the characters visible. The specific cultivation methods, however, remained illegible. The shock was staggering. The excitement was overwhelming, and the urge to rush forward and press one’s hands against it was almost impossible to resist.
“The unmatched fist art inscribed on the Immortal Path — that claim… is evidently true, and it is right here.” People cried out in amazement, their thoughts racing toward the old legends.
The Six Paths Reincarnation Fist being inscribed on the Immortal Path, later carried out by the ancient madman who had transmitted it to Ye Fan — all of it had proven to be true, not a single detail fabricated, every piece consistent with what came before and after.
The enormous ruins. The collapsed palaces. What was this place? No matter how one looked at it, it appeared to be a heavenly palace from the Immortal realm itself — as though it had fallen out of the Immortal Domain and crashed here. The aura that radiated from it was enough to make one’s skin crawl.
What was the woman intending to do? Everyone was at a loss, consumed by doubt and uncertainty.
Nine sacred mountains collapsed — and the secret grounds that had been the subject of ten thousand generations of speculation were finally laid bare before the eyes of the world. The truth was revealed at last — yet everything about this day was far too strange.
Above the ruins, a five-colored altar floated in the air — it had not fallen.
The woman, wreathed in cloud and mist, descended. The Nine Wonders divine medicine followed at her back, drifting down after her until she came to stand before the great stele carved with the words The Immortal Path.
Dozens of figures came forward to receive her — there were people in those ruins.
“Of course — they are her servants, those enslaved to Desolate.”
One of the women in white seemed to be a person of the current era, her clothing no different from what one might see today.
Another woman was recognized — she appeared to be the Holy Maiden of the Celestial Holy Land, the most beautiful woman of the Eastern Wasteland more than six thousand years ago — for the style of her sacred robes matched those of that sect’s Holy Maiden exactly.
A third person was identified as well: the Ancient Sage Xia Feng, from more than ten thousand years ago, who had paid audience to the Green Emperor on multiple occasions.
The rest could not be identified. Their robes were of an antiquity that left no frame of reference, their origins impossible to determine.
Mist swirled and coiled — even celestial sight could not pierce through it, the true faces of those gathered beyond reach.
The sovereign of the mortal realm, the master of the restricted zone — a flicker of light at the center of her brow, and with a sound like the heavens and the earth being split asunder, a colossal gate of light appeared out of nowhere in the void. She stepped through it in a single stride.
Everyone watching was left slack-jawed, their eyes wide.
What shocked them even further was this: the great stele carved with The Immortal Path and the ancient stele carved with the Six Paths Reincarnation Fist both transformed — becoming a pair of immense gates, standing in place of what had been, sealing shut the passage beyond.
The woman, together with her dozen-odd servants bound to her, walked into that road and vanished. A mysterious world was shut away from all eyes.
Everyone stood frozen, speechless.
“Heaven above — is that the Immortal Path?!” The entire crowd erupted in an uproar. The stele had made it plain.
Every cultivator in the world dreamed of setting foot on the Immortal Path — and just like that, she had walked right in. Had this woman found exactly the right moment? Was she about to… become Immortal?!
The Southern Region boiled over. The Eastern Wasteland shook with tremors of the earth. Untold numbers of people trembled where they stood, barely able to believe what they had witnessed.
Yet no one dared to approach, not even one step closer. The ruins were filling with vast, spreading waves of mist — the power that stripped and devoured the passage of time — engulfing everything in that place.