Ye Fan was alive, though utterly exhausted — not a single part of him wished to move. It was not merely his body; even his spirit had nearly run dry.

This battle had been far too brutal for him. Most haunting of all were the fleeting visions of Ji Zi and Jiang Taixu’s shattered bodies drenched in blood, filling him with a sorrow so deep it left him adrift for many years, unable to stir.

That day of battle had reduced everything to a wasteland of blood and bone. A Great Emperor had departed this world. Paragons of their age had fallen. Heaven and earth alike wept a rain of blood.

Ye Fan had fought with everything he had across that cosmic battlefield, playing an immense role in that war. He had supported two Great Emperors and delivered two strikes of critical importance — and it was precisely because of those strikes that the Lord of Reincarnation and the Supreme of Light and Darkness had been slain.

In relative terms, he was nothing more than an ant. Yet he had fought to this extreme at the most crucial moment. The price he paid was devastating: the Immortal Cauldron of Becoming was shattered, and he himself had bled beyond the reaches of the known universe.

Not only that — the Dao-Refining Immortal Vestment had also burst apart, disintegrating into fragments. Those shards, soaked in his blood, blazed with the most brilliant radiance in that final moment.

The reason he survived was that the divine spirits within the Dao-Refining Immortal Vestment had shielded a single thread of his spiritual awareness from extinction — dozens of shards blocking the world-shattering annihilating light that surged toward him.

His two Perfect Sacred Physiques had both been reduced to a bloody pulp, bones scattering in every direction. Of course his original body could not remain intact either — it too had melded into that crimson mire, all merging together. Yet those two bodies, much like the sacred vestment, had shielded him from countless fatal blows and destructive forces.

They were of the same origin. They shared the same body. The bloody remains of the Perfect Sacred Physiques had protected one drop of his true blood from being extinguished, taking it into themselves, never allowing that supreme killing energy to sever the last thread of his life.

Xiao Nannan had come rushing to the scene. Amid that blood-soaked mire and those shards of golden Dao tribulation, she wept without ceasing, her tears falling like rain in absolute despair. Those tears were equivalent to the immortality elixir — they shielded the last faintly glimmering imprint of him that had yet to be erased.

Yet at that moment, he no longer possessed even the slightest ability to speak. His entire being had plunged into an infinite darkness. Perhaps that was death — he had stepped into that realm.

What happened after the Emperor’s battle, he did not know. The shards of the immortal vestment, carried along with traces of blood and fragments of bone, drifted into the distance, floating through darkness and cold, moving ever farther away, cut off entirely from the outside world.

He could not say how many years passed. He lived through that Desolate stillness — a single inextinguishable thread of divine awareness mingled with a single drop of true blood, preserved under protection, enduring within the darkness.

Perhaps it was decades; perhaps it was more than a century. In that darkness, he tried desperately to open his eyes, yet always failed, slipping in and out of consciousness.

Then he heard a passage of scripture. It resonated within that one inextinguishable thread of divine awareness, reverberating like thunder, gradually drawing him back, slowly reviving him. It was an ancient scripture of several hundred characters recorded within the Ancient Bronze Coffin pulled by the Nine Dragons — and it was this scripture that kept him from being extinguished.

Later still, he regained genuine sensation. At that time, the Secret of the character “Zhe” began operating, using that single drop of blood to facilitate his rebirth, nourishing and reconstituting his body.

And it was also at that time that he discovered a green lotus growing beside him, showering down flecks of radiant light that contained the very essence of his bloodline — participating in the restoration of his body, allowing his true form to gradually take shape.

His divine awareness followed the same path. Guided by the immortal scripture within the Ancient Bronze Coffin, repaired by the Secret of the “Zhe” character, and nourished by the green lotus, it slowly grew stronger.

Decades earlier, he had regained a true physical form — his own flesh and blood, unyielding and imperishable. Even colliding with meteorites could not destroy it. Yet that was where things had stalled. He no longer possessed any fluctuations of Dao principles, no holy path order whatsoever.

He was as though forged from divine metal — solid and indestructible — yet he could not activate the arcane arts of old. He had fought supremes to the uttermost, and in that single battle, with all its devastation, the fragments of the Great Dao had become invisible to him.

Throughout those years, he could barely move at all. Perhaps there were fragments of the Dao hidden within his flesh and blood, yet they were not his to command. He could only drift alone, floating through the desolate wilderness at the edge of the universe in the darkness.

During that time, he seemed to glimpse a half of the Void Mirror accompanied by a fragment of a shattered body — whether it was the void itself, or Ji Zi, or the Yellow Emperor, he could not tell. He had wanted to cry out, yet could only watch helplessly as they drifted further away, entombed in the cold.

Likewise, he saw the blood and bones of Emperor Hengyu and Jiang Taixu, along with countless shards of Emperor-grade weapons stained with blood. Deep anguish welled within him, yet he was powerless to do anything.

Only in the past few years had he been able to move at all, and even then he could not fly under his own power. His physical condition was poor. Eventually he fell into slumber once more, not waking until he crashed down upon this great star.

So many years had passed. He did not know what the outside world had become. He did not know where his old companions were. He did not even know the outcome of the dark chaos.

Even now, in these ordinary days, he was still accompanied by heart-rending, bone-splitting pain. His primordial spirit felt as though someone were cutting it apart one slice at a time. His bones felt as though they were being crushed by fragments of the Great Dao, on the verge of being ground to dust. This was the consequence of that battle against an ancient supreme — he had survived, but at tremendous cost.

He was in a daze, body and mind worn through. And weighing upon him was a heartache: had Ji Zi truly died just like that? Would the White-Robed Divine King never appear again? And then there was Gai Jiuyou — the one whose whole life was a single challenge: who dares fight me? Even now, those words shook his spirit.

So many had departed, and even that final parting had been nothing more than a fleeting crossing in the cold reaches of space, with no way to gather up their blood and bones.

“We’re home. This is my home.”

The young man’s name was Bai Ye — a name that was strange in its way, yet utterly ordinary taken at face value. He was cheerful and optimistic, only fourteen years old, yet possessed of extraordinary physical strength that surpassed that of grown men. Otherwise, he would not have been able to carry Ye Fan all the way from the mountainous terrain back to the village at such a swift and steady pace.

It was a perfectly ordinary stone-tiled dwelling, built alongside a fishpond at the easternmost edge of the village. The furniture inside was old and had seen many years, yet everything was kept clean and quiet.

Bai Ye’s eyes were clear and bright. He handed over a dry cloth so Ye Fan could wipe his face, then brought out a pile of clean and soft bedding for him to rest on.

Ye Fan accepted them in silence. He wiped away the mud and water, changed into a half-worn set of clothes, and sat there, staring blankly into the distance.

His head still ached terribly. Whenever he tried to activate his divine awareness in hopes of restoring himself, the pain would return like this. The Emperor-path power of the ancient supreme had done him enormous damage — and though his true body remained indestructible, serious problems had emerged.

An ordinary person would long since have been reduced to ash and smoke. He had survived only through a confluence of many different circumstances converging at once.

After so many years, Ye Fan longed to once again roam the eight wildernesses and surge skyward — yet he could never quite control his own body. He had a faint sense that somewhere deep within his flesh and blood, a powerful force was constantly circulating, but it refused to answer to him.

“Ah — why is it growing on the kang bed?” Just then, young Bai Ye cried out in surprise. The green lotus had taken root right on the heated stone bed and begun to grow downward.

It had only three leaves and no thick root system, yet there in this place with no water or marsh, it displayed a vitality so astonishing that no one could believe it.

Old Grandfather Bai opened his mouth as if to say something, then thought better of it and stayed silent.

Ye Fan lifted the lotus out, walked to the pond in front of the house, and placed it into the water. The result was the same — in an instant it took root, planting itself in the depths. Barely perceptible wisps of white mist curled out across the surface.

“Recover here in peace,” said young Bai Ye, his smile like sunlight.

“Thank you,” Ye Fan said. Though his divine awareness felt as though it were being cut with blades, in that brief span he had still managed to capture their thoughts and come to understand the language of this star.

Perhaps that too was a sign of hope — a signal that he could recover.

“No need to thank me,” the young man said, scratching his head with an unaffected, sunlit simplicity.

At that moment, the old man brought over a bowl of hot broth and offered it to Ye Fan. Though he clearly sensed that this man’s background might be something staggering, he offered this humble mortal food and water all the same.

“Has the dark chaos ended?” Ye Fan set aside his thoughts and asked. It was the thing he cared about most right now, and even his voice trembled slightly as he spoke. That battle of years past — so many paragons had given so much, and the outcome… had left one feeling hopeless. He and Ji Zi, Jiang Taixu, and the others had fought in blood to change a cruel reality. The Void Emperor, Gai Jiuyou — so many had died. Whatever had come of it filled him with dread.

“What chaos? Are you talking about Qiongqi emerging from the world, or the extinction of chaos? None of that has happened here,” the young man said.

“I mean — has this star suffered a blood tribulation? Has an ancient supreme descended upon it?” Ye Fan asked, for he had already discerned that the old man was a cultivator, and that while the young man understood nothing of arcane arts, his physique was extraordinarily powerful — not an ordinary person. He should know of matters in the cultivation world.

The grandfather and grandson exchanged glances, looking puzzled, and both shook their heads to indicate they had no idea what he was talking about.

“Are you… someone from outside?” After a moment, the old man asked hesitantly.

Ye Fan was momentarily startled. Soon, through further understanding, he grasped the nature of this place — it was completely cut off from the greater universe, sealed away by a shroud of primordial chaos mist. This was a most peculiar star domain.

“The dark chaos you speak of — do you mean the Immortal Ascension Battlefield? Don’t worry. As long as you don’t actively enter to participate in battle, the people inside generally don’t come out. Blood disasters are rare.” Young Bai Ye said.

“The Immortal Ascension Battlefield?!” The name easily evoked a great many associations. The darkness in Ye Fan’s eyes blazed with a striking beam of light.

“Right over there — we live right beside it, neighboring it.” Bai Ye pointed into the distance, where a vast grey expanse of land stretched to the horizon, and beyond that lay the Immortal Ascension Battlefield.

“Many beings of tremendous power come here to contend with one another, all of them from the outside world…” After learning these things, Ye Fan murmured softly to himself and, without stopping to rest, stepped straight outside.

“Hey — is your body well enough? That place is extremely dangerous. It severs people’s cultivated attainment and strips away one’s power — it’s utterly mysterious.” Bai Ye called after him.

“I only want to climb a mountain and take a look,” Ye Fan said. He had no problem moving; he simply could not fly. The Dao-fragments within himself were locked away within his flesh and blood.

Bai Ye followed after him, unwilling to let him go alone, and together they climbed a mountain peak and gazed out toward the Immortal Ascension Battlefield. At the far end of that grey expanse, many points of light glimmered, as though a divine domain were awakening.

“Our star is called the First Tribulation Star. And that region over there is boundless — far larger than the lands where humans dwell. It occupies a full quarter of this star’s territory.”

The First Tribulation Star. A very strange name.

Hearing this, Ye Fan silently made his calculations. This was a continent even more vast than the Eastern Desolate region — truly an immense battlefield.

Barely perceptible, he could already sense a mysterious fluctuation emanating from that direction, diffusing outward. And within the battlefield itself, rune after rune was condensing, searing its mark into the mountains and rivers.

“Look — the Immortal Ascension Battlefield is awakening. It’s about to bear witness to round after round of terrifying hunts, duels, and siege battles. It is said that whenever a Golden Age arrives in the outside world, the great champions come to our Immortal Ascension Battlefield to contend with one another, and every single one of them is an unparalleled master.” Young Bai Ye spoke with enthusiasm, full of longing.

“Is that so? So I’ll be seeing many old companions quite soon?” Ye Fan said quietly. Without the presence of his Dao-fragments, his eyes lacked their former luster — yet they had grown deeper than ever.