Ye Fan was weary. Having broken through three tiers of the quasi-emperor tribulation, there were faint traces of blood on his body. Even someone as powerful as he could not have crossed such a trial with ease. How many people in all of history had ever witnessed such a tribulation? The quasi-emperor tribulation was something one could scarcely transcend — yet he had leaped across three such levels in succession.

Clang!

A bell rang out. Its sound was clear and pure, shaking the heart to its very core. A great bell appeared.

The heavenly tribulation had been on the verge of dissipating — Ye Fan had broken through the spectral immortal domain, cutting down the Azure Dragon and the Vermilion Bird and all the rest. Yet now, unexpectedly, such an object appeared, abrupt and without warning.

The lightning had already thinned considerably, but this great bell was indistinct and blurred, with traceries of electric light interwoven across it, tracing out its shape.

It was not the Wushi Bell he had seen before, but a mysterious bell body he had never encountered — with endless talismanic text carved into its wall, and every ancient rune emanating a strange and singular power.

It was awe-inspiring to behold!

The moment Ye Fan laid eyes on it, he felt his blood-pulse surge and race, resonating with it as though in some inexplicable communion. It was a remarkably strange sensation.

Then, in a gentle, resonant strike, it nearly shook his soul clean out of his body. Even someone as hardy as he had to use every last ounce of power at his command to resist, mobilizing all his strength.

“How terrifying!”

For Ye Fan to speak those three words was truly a rare occurrence. It was not that he had never faced an encounter with an emperor-class weapon — yet now he felt that this bell was even more mysterious.

In that instant, he thought of one particular artifact: the immortal bell held by the Kunlun relic clan, the one that an emperor-venerable had once personally attacked and attempted to seize — the one said to have been born from an immortal mountain.

It must be that one!

It was truly beyond expectation. Had a “reflection” of that immortal bell been cast here? Forged from the laws themselves, with lightning interwoven, barely distinguishable from the real thing — and it could transmit a clear and resounding sound.

Hum!

It transformed into a current of flowing light and came flying toward him. Then it pressed down in suppression. The mouth of the bell expanded in size, and the man and the cauldron below were both engulfed within it, covered completely.

Ye Fan fought back. This was a tremendous pressure — the blood within him, growing ever closer to a vivid crimson, began to seethe. His bones crackled and groaned.

The immortal bell scattered down beam after beam of light. Ye Fan offered up the cauldron to receive and bear it — though it risked injuring him at any moment. Still, he took that risk to temper the Primordial Chaos Cauldron.

The bell-sound rang on and on. The laws washed down in waves. This was not an attack like a blade or a sword — it was a descent of massive, crushing force, as though the entire starfield had been pressed down upon him, intending to grind Ye Fan into a pulp of flesh.

If not for the Holy Body, if not for the most unyielding of constitutions, it would have been impossible to endure. It was far too powerful. Even Ye Fan’s flesh had cracked open, leaving marks of blood.

One might even say that precisely because his physical body was this powerful, the immortal bell had appeared — to apply the pressure befitting such a body, to serve as the corresponding heavenly tribulation.

The one thing that offered any relief was that the immortal bell did not fight to the death without relent. It hung suspended there and pressed no further.

It was impossible to say how much time had passed. Ye Fan brought every secret art to bear in resisting the immortal light that descended upon him, and even summoned the phenomenon of the Holy Body, propping open the entire sky — before at last he lifted the immortal bell upward.

There, brilliant radiance shone. A great bell resonated on and on, cutting through the immaculate stillness of ten thousand ages.

And in that moment, Ye Fan finally felt something stir within him — some force inside him moved and vibrated, resonating with the immortal bell. A passage of law and formula rose into his mind.

He was immediately shaken. Great waves of shock crashed within his heart. This passage had something to do with the bell — had it been this formula that had woven the immortal bell into being?

Ye Fan was profoundly astonished. Mists that had shrouded him for many years seemed to have been partly blown away. His heart trembled. Many things came to mind. Once this matter was concluded, he absolutely had to go investigate!

The scripture resonated of its own accord — then returned to stillness. The immortal bell also disappeared. The sea of lightning in heaven and earth gradually scattered, and the brilliant starlight was beginning to restore the full sky.

But then a thunderous roar erupted — as though a vast and raging sea had come crashing forward, wave upon towering wave — a great fire that threatened to reduce the cosmos to cinders. Stars in the far distance were swallowed by the flames and melted directly away.

This was karmic fire. It scorched Ye Fan, tempering his body and constitution — arriving inexplicably and without any warning.

Ten thousand feet of mortal dust. All living beings bear sin. Fire burns the body. Not even the divine are spared. Even the ancient Buddhas cannot escape. Once it clings to the body, it truly burns down into the very soul, where it reduces all to ash.

This karmic fire differed somewhat from the karmic fire of the mortal world. This was the essential blaze of ten thousand streams of karmic fire — the most terrifying of all — with every form of great sin and transgression from across all the heavens and ten thousand Daos converging and combining into fire, and it burned and smelted Ye Fan’s flesh.

Ye Fan did not flee. He let the cauldron cross the tribulation alongside him, bathing in the firelight. This was an inevitable stage that every quasi-emperor had to pass through. Most people encountered it when they first achieved the quasi-emperor — though a few encountered it only later. Ye Fan, when he had first become a quasi-emperor, had already undergone two tribulations, so it was natural that he had been a special case even then.

In those years, when Sakyamuni achieved the quasi-emperor body, his flesh was tempered and forged, and his bones were burned through — leaving behind a single Buddha’s crown bone, which had fallen into Hua Hua’s hands.

Ye Fan sat cross-legged and actively drew the karmic fire into himself, tempering it deep into his own soul. This was something ordinary people would never dare do. He was taking a tremendous risk.

For he needed to grow as powerful as possible. He demanded of himself an unimaginable standard — to prepare for the great battle to come. He would not allow regret to arise again.

Though the future was full of uncertainty, and what he had seen was only one corner of a possible future, filled with variables, not necessarily destined to come true — if there was any possibility, he intended to eradicate it in its earliest stages.

Growing stronger was the only choice!

The karmic fire smelted his golden body. Ye Fan shone with light throughout. The blood within him surged and rushed. Every single bone was vibrating and trembling without cease.

This was a tempering — and more than that, a rare and precious transformation. It was not the karmic fire that the world had seen, but the essential blaze of ten thousand streams within the karmic fire — forging and smelting his flesh, burning on and on.

This was naturally a great ordeal — for one could see clearly that Ye Fan’s blood and flesh cracked open, as though they had nearly burst into flame. Every bone was in collision, some even shattering.

His flesh was being restructured — like a serpent shedding its old skin. One small fragment of broken bone after another was squeezed out, and blood and flesh continued to shed away, raw and bleeding.

The sight was disturbing. How could a transformation proceed in such a manner? It should come gradually, changing from the subtle upward — a step-by-step process. Yet this was radical, sweeping, and all-encompassing — bones shattering and being replaced, flesh shed and renewed. It was truly somewhat alarming.

But this was the nature of the karmic fire drawn down by a quasi-emperor. This kind of transformation had nothing to do with gradual progress. It was fierce. It was savage.

A great calamity blazed on outside Ye Fan’s body, engulfing and swallowing him. The place had grown ever more mysterious and unknowable — as though some invisible great axe was hacking and cleaving, remaking his body.

No one could say how much time had passed. At last the karmic fire receded. The cauldron hung suspended above Ye Fan’s head. He opened his eyes — sharp as lightning — and rose to his full height.

Beneath his feet lay many fragments of broken bone — the useless bones that had been squeezed out in the process of shedding the old self and forging new bones. It was somewhat disturbing to see.

Ye Fan grasped them in one hand, then ground them into ash and raised them lightly, saying: “A span of years is buried here. Rest with them in this place.”

Three tribulations concluded. He had ascended in full circle — both his flesh and his divine consciousness had reached a state of terrifying extremity, arriving at a level that was truly and utterly staggering.

From this day forward, gazing across the entire cosmos, he could be counted among the most powerful beings alive. He had surpassed his former adversaries. Many people would find it nearly impossible to contend with him in this lifetime — they might only be able to close the gap slowly, through the accumulation of years.

Ye Fan devoured the essence of the eight wastelands and the cosmos in great, sweeping draughts, replenishing the body that had been depleted by the tribulation. What was astonishing was that the golden sea of bitterness below remained completely unharmed — so vast a heavenly tribulation had not destroyed it.

He drew in the essence of ten directions, moving all things and ten thousand Daos across heaven and earth into harmony with him. Within the depths of the golden sea, Ye Fan sensed a familiar resonance. He flew into its center as wave after wave of radiant, rosy light surged against him, his body shaking violently — and then he let out a long sigh.

He finally understood where this place was. It was the Holy Body’s ancestral star!

Yet it had been destroyed. The sealed tombs of the holy body forebears who lay buried here had been broken open. No bodies remained. No bones remained. Only the golden forbidden sea had burst free and flooded this entire place.

“Is this the wrath of the Holy Body lineage’s progenitor?”

Ye Fan reflected on it with quiet awe. The being of those ancient days had been too powerful — even the sea of bitterness in his tomb had been so immensely vast that it had broken open the tomb and flooded the entire starfield!

Such residual law and Dao, such traces — that they could still achieve this, was truly an ultimate expression of the idea that a single drop of blood could fill an entire sea of stars.

“It is no wonder it could affect me in such a way — through the Before Character Secret and the Transversal Character Secret both together. A single lineage, the calling of the blood.”

This place would no longer be of great use to Ye Fan. Only some undissipated vital energy had entered his body, along with certain laws of Dao that gave him pause for thought — yet now, to him as a sixth-tier quasi-emperor, they were no longer essential.

“It would still be of great use to Yang Xi. Perhaps he could find some great opportunity here.”

Ye Fan searched thoroughly throughout the golden forbidden sea, feeling that something should still remain — yet after searching for several days he came away empty-handed. He had no time to linger, for there was another important matter he needed to attend to.

He was going to seek the immortal bell — to add to the advantages for the great battle to come, a hidden trump card that no one could ignore.

Though the hope of obtaining it was somewhat remote, he had no choice but to try. The reason was the passage of scripture within him — it could actually resonate with that bell.

Ye Fan departed. His seclusion had temporarily come to an end. He flew forward, transforming into a terrifying current of time’s light that sliced through the darkness of the cosmos — awe-inspiring and without limit.

As he moved along his path he tested his law and technique. Every aspect of his body had been comprehensively elevated. His battle-power had surged enormously. In the truest sense, he was a being of terrifying, surging might — with few equals in the world!

Moreover, Ye Fan was astonished to discover that he was able to enter the Forbidden State of the Divine almost instantaneously. Repeated testing confirmed this — the likelihood of triggering it was extremely high.

For a period in the past, triggering it even once every half year had filled him with delight. Later it had shortened to once a month, then to a matter of days when he was at the Great Sage level. Now it had advanced to this — within a single day he could trigger it successfully multiple times.

In that instant, Ye Fan’s confidence swelled to fill the heavens. In this world, he could be counted as one of the supreme-tier masters!

With no supreme being present to contest him, someone like himself — on the verge of reaching his full achievement — could stand against the eight directions. Even if he could not suppress every one of the peerless supreme masters, he would no longer be at as passive a disadvantage as he had been in the past.

Ye Fan flew onward, his silhouette blurring. His Transversal Character Secret was unmatched beneath heaven. His body influenced the passage of time itself. Each leap seemed to carry him through a thousand ages.

Along the way, Ye Fan carved characters into the void — one rune after another blazing with brilliance, then converging together and transforming into a golden divine sparrow that flew toward the Heavenly Court.

This was a sixth-tier quasi-emperor’s technique — even separated by a boundless distance, crossing countless star clusters, it was possible to transmit a letter through a divine art. This was the message he left for Yang Xi, bidding him to go search the Holy Body’s ancestral star.

As for himself, he charged directly toward an ancient path, tracing it back against its current to its origin — the path from which Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin had emerged. It was a road that led out from this particular stretch of starfields.

Moments later, Ye Fan descended upon the ancient star of Huohuang. Such was his power now — with a single thought he had crossed a boundless starfield and arrived at his destination.

For the sake of the great battle that would come in a few years — for the sake of surviving it, for the sake of protecting his loved ones and friends, for the sake of ensuring that no song of sorrow ever rang out — he would do everything within his power to strengthen himself, to enrich the foundations of the Heavenly Court, and to come here in search of the immortal bell.