“Brother, where are you? Come back quickly to see Father — he has returned!” Huo Lin’er wept bitterly, tears rolling down without end as she embraced the elderly Qilin Emperor. The ancient emperor was failing, his life force nearly spent, like a lamp running dry of oil.
Once the mightiest ancient emperor of his generation, utterly without equal, yet here he faced such a bleak twilight — powerless to reverse his fate, aged to the point where he could barely control his own body.
“He is at the edge of the universe, living well.” The Qilin Emperor spoke softly, his expression gentle — a far cry from his former supreme authority. In this moment, he was simply a loving father.
Yet he coughed blood intermittently, the vivid crimson droplets a harrowing sight. He strained to suppress it, unwilling to let the aura of his imperial body harm his daughter. Diminished as he was, even his corpse could pulverize all things.
“Father, I beg you — you must live. I cannot bear to be parted from you!” Huo Lin’er wept until her voice went hoarse, her eyes red and swollen. Never in her life had she felt terror like this — like a helpless little girl walking alone on a freezing, dark street.
“I too wish to live. I cannot bear to leave you all. But there comes a time when even the mightiest run out of strength, and death must come in the end. Immortality… is so very difficult.” The ancient Qilin Emperor sighed deeply and coughed up another mouthful of vivid crimson blood.
“There will be a way — there must be a way to go on living. Father has survived from the primordial age until this day unscathed; surely he can continue to endure!” Huo Lin’er sobbed.
“Foolish child. That was only accomplished by paying the most devastating price — surrendering the ancient emperor’s Dao position. What can your father do now? The primordial spirit has already decayed.” The ancient Qilin Emperor murmured softly.
Then his eyes suddenly blazed with brilliant radiance. “What your father has seen and heard on the road to immortality is world-shaking — it could help future generations achieve immortality. But… I cannot leave it to you. To do so would only bring you harm.”
Saying this, he raised his head to gaze at the starry sky. Then the light from his brow bone blazed magnificently, and he cast all his spiritual insights and imprints outward into the cosmos, transforming them into a magnificent shower of radiant light.
“My road to immortality, my method of achieving immortality, all that I — the Qilin Emperor — have witnessed and comprehended upon that path: all of it is contained within this. I will not entrust it to my daughter, nor pass it to my own son. I leave it for the one destined to find it!”
The Qilin Emperor’s roar shook the eight wildernesses of the universe, causing the entire mortal realm to shudder. Such was the power of an ancient emperor — supreme and boundless in his terror.
He feared that leaving such things to his descendants would bring them ruin, for there were supreme existences in this world who could still reach this place. He cast it directly into the cosmos, illuminating all nine heavens and ten earths, letting people search for it in the void of the universe.
“Father…” Huo Lin’er watched her aged father, even now in such a state, still worrying about her and her brother. Such overwhelming love only shattered her heart all the more.
Upon the old ancient emperor’s body, points of light began to appear — signs that he was dissolving into the Dao, unable to hold on any longer. Such signs had already been quite apparent on the road to immortality, but he had forcibly suppressed them. Now, at last, the end had arrived.
The ancient Qilin Emperor looked at his daughter one last time with reluctant eyes, as though trying to commit her face to memory, then slowly but firmly pushed Huo Lin’er away, preparing to depart alone.
At this moment, Huo Lin’er knew it could no longer be reversed. The father who had made all gods bow in submission, who could enter the Deathless Mountain and daily pluck enlightenment tea to brew for her — that father was now departing from this world.
The mightiest of men, the most loving of fathers — his life exhausted, about to part from her forever.
“Father…” Huo Lin’er reached out to grasp at him, but could hold onto nothing. She wept loudly: “I hope there is a next life, so that I may always be your daughter. Father, do not forget me — your daughter, forever yours!”
Tears blurred her vision. The grief in her heart reached its absolute depths. She had once experienced the pain of parting in the primordial age, and now faced it again — but this time it was truly a final farewell, more than she could endure.
In the sky, the Qilin Emperor was dissolving into the Dao, becoming a shower of light. Yet he kept it all under control, directing the immortal radiance outward beyond this realm, without disturbing a single thread of what lay here. All his blood burned away as well, not a drop left behind.
Clang!
In these final moments, he severed some Dao chain that had been suppressing his daughter, shattering those immortal links so they could no longer become shackles.
Taking one last look, the old ancient emperor let out one long, resonant howl that shook the vast heavens. He transformed into the most brilliant shower of radiant light and vanished at the edge of the universe.
Huo Lin’er wept until she fainted, weakly grasping at the void, crying out loudly. She had clearly seen the sorrow in her powerful father’s eyes — an expression never seen before, filled with reluctance — yet in the end, he had still left her.
“The Ancient Emperor!”
“The supreme ancestral emperor!”
Upon this ancient star, the entire Qilin clan was stirred. They rushed forward, crying out in grief, kneeling upon the ground to see off the distant shower of radiant light.
At the edge of the universe — a desolate and bitterly cold place — upon a meteorite, a man sat bare-chested, his body lean and sinewy with muscle, eyes closed, sitting cross-legged in meditation, comprehending his Dao.
He had a head of long blue hair. Though he still appeared young, there was a weathered quality to him, as though he had endured tremendous hardship — a wandering ascetic cast adrift in this place.
In that instant, he suddenly opened his eyes, shooting forth two beams of startled radiance. He then pressed a hand to his chest, nearly breathless, and trembled: “Who is it… is it my younger sister? No — who exactly is it? Someone I hold closest to my heart has died…”
His eyes suddenly flew wide open, and he leapt to his feet. Brilliant light erupted from his entire body as he gazed toward the region of the Big Dipper, shaking: “Could it be… Father? No!”
This was Huo Qizi. After his battle with Dao Yi, he had vanished for many years, drifting at the edge of the universe, fighting all manner of strange and ancient creatures, undergoing a hellish ascetic cultivation.
After being resurrected from within the divine source, he had long lingered outside the Primordial Forbidden Zone, for he had always suspected his father had not died — his intuition was terrifyingly sharp.
In this moment, fear gripped him. He could not suppress a grief-stricken howl, and wished with all his being that he could return to the Big Dipper immediately.
A blinding shower of radiant light streaked across the sky and blossomed not far away. A towering figure coalesced into form — it was the Qilin Emperor at the pinnacle of his power, gazing at him with solemn majesty.
“Father!” Huo Qizi cried out. Tears rolled down, blurring his eyes. He knew his father had fallen. This was the final, imperishable imprint that had crossed all this distance to see him one last time.
“You are the child of an ancient emperor. Such a child should not shed tears — only blood. You must hold an undefeatable conviction within you, and believe that you will surpass even me!”
The Qilin Emperor’s attitude toward his son and daughter was entirely different. His daughter was to be cherished and protected. His son was the continuation of his will — strict, demanding, the vessel of his hopes, the one to carry out the dream he himself had never fulfilled.
“You must believe yourself to be the greatest, for no other reason than that you are the Qilin Emperor’s son — his hope — and you must surpass him!” The ancient Qilin Emperor thundered.
At the very last, he let out another sigh, and a thread of tenderness showed in his eyes. “You have already done so very well…”
“Imperial Father!” Huo Qizi bellowed and lunged forward as though in a frenzy.
But the shower of radiant light tore directly through the void, burying itself in the boundless cosmos. It dimmed rapidly — he did not want his son to be harmed by the imperial Dao’s laws.
And so, a generation’s ancient emperor came to his end.
Upon the road to immortality, the Stone Emperor let out a cold laugh, scanning all under heaven with indifferent eyes. “Death? I am unwilling, and I refuse. My life runs hard. It is not yet time for me to end this era!”
Not counting the divine self of the Amitabha Great Emperor, eleven supreme beings in total had set foot upon the road to immortality. Now, five had already fallen — those great emperors and supreme beings who had proclaimed they would leave behind methods of achieving immortality for future generations, verifying the path with their own lives and blood.
Before their deaths, they had cast their insights and imprints — gathered upon the road to immortality — out into the cosmos, leaving them for those who would come after.
Of those who still remained, nearly all were the greatest instigators of the dark upheavals, those who had bathed entire regions in blood, or mysterious ancient heavenly venerables from the age of myth.
“Longevity Heavenly Venerable — have you fallen within the Cave of Soaring Immortals?” A giant from an ancient forbidden wasteland roared, golden radiance blazing from every hair upon his body, so brilliant that people could not keep their eyes open.
Everyone was astonished — just what was his origin?
“The only surviving… perfected sacred body!” An ancient supreme being murmured softly. Though his life flame was dim, he persisted still — his eyes cold and sharp as he swept his gaze across the six directions and eight wastes.
“What?!”
Those beyond this realm who heard his voice were without exception stunned. That magnificent man clad in golden fur was actually a perfected sacred body — it was simply too staggering to comprehend!
Now at last the truth emerged: the earliest master of the ancient forbidden wastelands had been transformed from a human clan’s perfected sacred body, taking dominion over that place.
“The master of the Immortal Mausoleum, beyond being the Longevity Heavenly Venerable, once served as the lord of the underworld as well — though the time was brief. Moreover, he once instigated a dark upheaval, and has a deep entanglement of enmity and fate with the perfected sacred body!”
An ancient supreme being murmured to himself, revealing the hidden circumstances within.
This was truly astounding. The master of the Immortal Mausoleum had too grand a background — too overwhelming. Being the Longevity Heavenly Venerable of the age of myth was extraordinary enough, but to have also once been the lord of the underworld left people utterly speechless.
“This…” Many were unable to speak at all.
It was too extraordinary — beyond what people could imagine.
“It was said that sacred bodies in their later years suffer ill omens, growing terrible corpse-hair. This is actually true! However, this perfected sacred body seems to have suppressed it, maintaining clarity of divine consciousness!”
Aside from the Longevity Heavenly Venerable, the other five still-living supreme beings stood upon the road to immortality with no signs of dissolving into the Dao. All were struggling to persist, unwilling to fall.
“Why do I feel as though the greatest upheaval of ten thousand ages is not yet concluded — these supreme beings…” An aged grand sage said with a shudder, then abruptly fell silent.
“Go — leave this place!” A quasi-emperor felt a bone-deep chill and was the first to tear through the universe, vanishing in an instant.
In that moment, all cultivators moved as one. The inexplicable premonition from before resurfaced — everyone felt as though this heaven and earth were about to undergo a great transformation. This place in particular sent chills crawling through them all.
Beyond this realm, an ancient, unadorned cauldron drew near — flying in from the depths of the distant cosmos. It was covered in rust and green copper patina. In truth, it had nearly lost the form of a cauldron entirely; it was pieced together from fragments, missing more than half its body, riddled with holes throughout.
Had Ye Fan been present, he would certainly have been shocked. This was the green copper cauldron left behind by the Exalted One — and there was actually as much as a third of it here, matching the portion he himself controlled!
“Master of the Immortal Mausoleum — Longevity Heavenly Venerable — your day of reckoning has come! To the Heavenly Court, you are an unforgivable sinner!” A shrieking voice rang out, shaking heaven and earth.
The green copper cauldron blazed with brilliant light, swaying and radiating dazzling brilliance, tearing directly through the void. It fully awakened and crashed into the road to immortality, plunging into the chaos cave. It had not come to achieve immortality — it had come to shatter the road to immortality and slay the master of the Immortal Mausoleum — the Longevity Heavenly Venerable!
“A group of people who call themselves gods — a clan left behind by the Heavenly Court!” someone murmured softly.
No one had anticipated it: the divine organization had come to control a third of the green copper cauldron, and now, sparing no cost, had unleashed it to shatter the immortal path and slay the master of the Immortal Mausoleum.
This was profoundly shocking. The shattered immortal artifact was burning — a sign it would self-detonate. It was too terrifying. To kill the Longevity Heavenly Venerable at any price — just what depth of hatred could drive this?
“Without you, how would the Heavenly Court have collapsed? The Exalted One would most likely have succeeded as well. You are the greatest sinner of ten thousand ages — cease your wretched clinging to life and meet your end here!” One could only imagine how many tens of thousands of years they had waited for this moment.