The ancient Yinghou of primordial times had clearly been far larger than it was today. Due to some cataclysmic event, it had contracted sharply and violently, leaving it as it now appeared.

Where the North Sea’s eye had been, the ground was dry. No water remained. When Ye Fan and the others arrived, all they found were sand and boulders, scoured clean, most of them a deep, scorched red.

Some said this was the result of blood having soaked into the earth. In the battle of that age, the entire ancient star of Yinghou had been drenched in crimson. Had it not been for the immortal treasure sealing this place, what was now called the solar system would have ceased to exist entirely.

“Boom!”

The Hundred-Limbed Celestial Worm made its move, shifting a great boulder aside to break the seal, revealing a dark and gaping opening from which an icy, desolate breath poured out — enough to make one’s soul shudder.

Ye Fan strode forward and was the first to enter, descending directly into the depths below. Faint and indistinct sounds reached him — the roar of what seemed like a vast ocean — and he could sense that this was an immense world, far more expansive than anything he had imagined.

Below were seals. At first they were not difficult to break — even an ordinary Great Sage could have managed them. But eventually, the group heard the rising sound of chanted sutras, and they raised their guard.

“Hmm — it’s that group of monks, turned now into ghostly monks.”

A great ship lay anchored there, radiating golden light in ten thousand streams, with wave after wave of Buddhist chanting drifting out — yet faint and frail, as though it might cease at any moment.

“No — this is different from what it was several hundred years ago,” Ye Fan murmured.

His divine sense was incomparably powerful. The ancient Buddhas, arhats, and the rest were all gone. Upon the ship lay nothing but fine, powdered ash — they had dissolved, turned to dust.

The chanting was emanating from the ship itself — an echo of the Buddhist music from long ago, not any living person reciting scripture.

Something had clearly happened here. This place had changed. It was more terrifying than before, and it put one on alert — and this was not even the deepest level.

At last, they came to the world beneath the earth. All of them were shaken without exception. There truly was a vast ocean here — black as ink, boundless and without end — stretching out with no shore in sight. The existence of such a spectacle underground seemed uncanny and deeply unsettling.

“This place is a world unto itself,” the Great Xia Dragon Sparrow remarked.

By what it knew, approaching this boundless sea had once been an enormous undertaking — even a Great Sage would have struggled to break through. Yet now it had been so easy, which meant the great seal over this place had already been broken through.

“Be careful!” the Mountain Phoenix warned.

“Of course, old rooster — I mean, Lord Mountain Phoenix!” the silver serpent hastily corrected itself. It had let the habitual name slip and genuinely feared drawing a deadly consequence upon itself.

“Now that we are here, we must work together. Whatever each of you knows, say it clearly in advance — so that we do not run into serious problems,” Ye Fan said.

With that, he was the first to descend into the black expanse, probing to see what lay within.

Nothing untoward occurred. This place was deathly still, utterly devoid of life. No fish swam in the sea; not a single demon lurked within. It was a dead sea — silent, without sound.

Was this truly the place that had buried an entire age and entombed imperial-level masters? Nothing could be seen — only the dark water, only the black sea.

There was no danger to speak of. This place was peaceful, yet the silence had grown so profound as to border on terrifying, and everyone felt as though something was wrong.

The group followed close behind Ye Fan and the Mountain Phoenix as they pressed deeper into the sea. After all, these were two Quasi-Emperors — their presence gave the others sufficient courage to continue forward, a formidable assembly by any reckoning.

At their speed, crossing an entire stellar domain would have posed no problem. Yet even so, they could not reach the sea’s far shore. Truly, this was a world entire.

At last, they sighted an island — black as a mountain ridge, jutting above the waterline.

But the moment they drew close, their expressions changed. This was no island at all. What lay before them was a vertebral column — a spine, stretching across the seabed, boundless and immense, extending for more than ten thousand li.

What sort of incomprehensibly enormous skeletal remains could these be? Sunken beneath this ocean, yet still jutting up like this — it was staggering.

“This is a star beast — still in its juvenile state, by the looks of it. They feed on stellar cores. I never thought such a creature truly existed — only a handful have ever appeared throughout all of history.”

The group was astounded. Such creatures possessed limitless potential for growth. In their later stages, they would have power comparable to a Quasi-Emperor, and the few that had appeared throughout history had each stirred up storms of incalculable scale.

Were it not for how exceedingly rare this species was, they would long since have become a catastrophic plague upon the universe.

“This boundless watery world — when will it ever end?” someone muttered to themselves.

Ye Fan extended his divine sense outward, but found something strange — this place was extraordinarily peculiar. Even his divine thought, as powerful as it was, could not penetrate and cover the entire expanse. Some mysterious fluctuation had blocked his perception.

“That is the breath of the supreme treasure — it has transformed into an invisible Dao, cutting off all perception within this place.”

“It may be beneath the water,” the Mountain Phoenix offered, sharing the clues it had gathered.

The Hundred-Limbed Celestial Worm said: “Hmm — then let us go down and look. But this sea seems wrong in every way I look at it. Going down rashly may lead to something unexpected.”

“Send out a strike first to test it. If something terrible is lurking below, a battle will come sooner or later — better to bring it sooner,” the silver serpent said.

“Allow me!” The immortal crane revealed its true form — both wings unfurled, vast enough to blot out the sky and sun. Then it cut downward with tremendous force. Its divine wings blazed like snow-bright heavenly blades, splitting apart the heavens above and cleaving the vast sea into two halves.

Suddenly, a terrifying presence surged skyward and locked onto the immortal crane. An enormous tentacle reached up from the depths — like a demon from the abyss of hell, its body knotted and gnarled, covered in slime, and stretching for several thousand li.

The immortal crane met it in a single clash. Its silver wings erupted with brilliant light and rang out with a metallic cry — then it was sent spinning through the air.

That tentacle was extraordinarily powerful. It continued to extend and nearly coiled around the immortal crane, threatening to drag it down into the sea. It radiated a terrifying, demonic force.

“It’s a squid — enormous, suffused with corrosive power, radiating deathly energy.”

As the seawater heaved and surged, they caught sight of an enormous grey squid, vast as a mountain reaching the heavens, wreathed in death-mist and carrying with it the stench of rot.

This was no true prehistoric squid. It was an undead creature — a death-spirit assembled from countless masses of rotting flesh, with yin energy billowing off it like a flood.

“Departed heroes find rest, and dead slaves stand guard over the mausoleum… These were words my master told me in life. It seems the truth lies beneath this sea.”* Someone exclaimed in astonishment.

This squid was a strange creature. Its body contained the flesh of Great Sage corpses and the shattered weapons of Quasi-Emperors. It was powerfully strong — somewhat weaker than an abnormal Great Sage, though certain specific parts of it might have surpassed even that.

“Pfft.”

Yet before a true Quasi-Emperor, it amounted to nothing. The Mountain Phoenix extended a single finger, and that colossal entity exploded directly into pulp, disintegrating into mud, as yin energy and the stench of putrefaction flooded the air.

The Mountain Phoenix pointed out another finger, carving open a pathway that held the seawater on either side, descending vertically into the depths below the ocean.

“This is…”

They crossed an indeterminate distance and passed through the water layer entirely, arriving at what lay at the very bottom — a vast, empty space, without a drop of water. The ocean loomed above them like a ceiling, held there and not falling down.

And upon the ground beneath them — densely, everywhere — were bones. The cold, stiffened bodies of countless beings lay as far as the eye could see, stretching on and on without end. The sight of it made every person’s scalp crawl.

How many had died here in that age? How could there be so many? There was no end to them in any direction.

“This is the place — we have arrived at the ancient battlefield that buried an entire age. Imperial-level figures fell here!” The silver serpent was overcome with excitement.

“Something is wrong — I was told that ordinary people cannot enter this place at all. How did we get in without any difficulty?”

“The seals over this place were broken open by someone before us, so we faced no resistance — we came straight into this battlefield!”

When this realization set in, a cold weight settled in their hearts. Someone had come before them, arriving here many years ahead.

Ye Fan looked down at this battlefield with no visible end, sensing the boundless yin energy within it — along with a faint thread of surging vitality — and knew that great danger dwelt here.

He had once speculated that yin spirits might rise again in this place. Now it appeared that speculation had proven true.

“This is practically a second underworld — the most terrifying outcome may have come to pass!” the Great Xia Dragon Sparrow said, its expression deeply grim.

Ye Fan brought out the Chaos Green Lotus, holding it in hand as a precaution, and walked forward.

As they pressed on, each step more alarming than the last, they found shattered weapons and tattered banners everywhere on the ground. Among them were no shortage of Quasi-Emperor weapons — though all had been destroyed beyond use, even the divine properties of their materials long since extinguished, one could still clearly see that these had once been Quasi-Emperor arms.

How terrifying must that battle have been — to have left behind so many shattered remnants of such an elevated grade?

And they further discovered that the battlefield consisted of many layers, each one originally sealed. The deeper they went, the deeper the seals — yet every one had already been broken open, leaving the path unobstructed.

“Too terrifying — every seal already broken. This defies all imagination!” Even the Mountain Phoenix was shaken.

For as they approached the core area, even the residual sealing power left upon the battlefield made it feel extremely troublesome to the Mountain Phoenix. Had it come here to break the seals itself, it would most likely never have made it this far.

The bones upon the ground were endless. The earth was black-red — this was the product of countless rivers of blood and fragments of flesh baked into the soil. At the level of power those combatants had wielded, few corpses could remain intact — they would inevitably have dissolved into mists of blood.

“These remains were gathered and placed here by someone after the fact. Otherwise, only blood-mist would remain — someone buried them in this place, transforming it into a mausoleum of one world.”

An entire world as a graveyard — how terrifying a thought was that?

“I think it was not later generations who buried them here — but rather that someone did this deliberately, for a purpose. They needed these bodies of flesh and blood.”

Ye Fan’s brow furrowed. He sensed a powerful presence of life — though submerged beneath yin energy as dense as an ocean, his spiritual instinct could still perceive it.

“We have arrived — the innermost burial ground.”

“What is that — several corpses, drained of blood, dead on the ground here!”

They were startled. Deep in the heart of the battlefield stood a palace, vast and imposing. The surrounding area was already filled with fleshy corpses, but three were distinctly different — lying prostrate before the palace doors.

A divine tiger — unmistakably at Quasi-Emperor level.

Ye Fan was stunned. This was the mount of the Longevity Heavenly Venerate from within the Immortal Mausoleum. Before the final battle, when the immortal path had collapsed, this tiger had disappeared — and here it lay, fallen, its internal blood essence entirely drained. The blood that had pooled beneath its body had long since lost every trace of spiritual energy.

Beside it, another body was identified.

“This one is from the underworld — they found their way even here. A battle-slave!” Ye Fan knew the underworld well by now and recognized this figure at a glance — the mark of reincarnation was upon the body, along with the brand of an underworld slave.

This one had never truly awakened, yet had possessed formidable power and been dispatched to carry out a mission — only to fall here.

The third was a Quasi-Emperor Ye Fan did not recognize. By all appearances, this one had fallen at minimum several centuries ago, the blood essence likewise gone, corrupted blood scattered across the ground.

Even setting aside the other demons, this place was enough to make even the Mountain Phoenix’s heart pound. Quasi-Emperors of great renown had died here. To enter meant most likely sharing their fate.

Ye Fan fixed his gaze ahead. He swept the Chaos Green Lotus in a wide arc, cutting through the thick, heavy yin mist — without this, even his Heavenly Eye would have been blocked by that suffocating darkness.

Within the vast and majestic palace hall, there were three severed arms, half a skull, and a scattering of bloody fragments of flesh — belonging not all to the same person.

Ye Fan’s mind rang like a thunderclap. That was the flesh and blood of an imperial-level cultivator. Who had eaten them? Who had left behind so little?

He had once done battle with a supreme-level existence and knew intimately that kind of presence. This flesh and blood absolutely belonged to an imperial-level cultivator — though by now the blood essence was gone and the imperial Dao laws had been ground away, leaving none of that supreme dignity behind. Only that distinctive breath remained.

And they appeared to have been devoured by some large predatory creature.

The thought of it made every scalp crawl with horror.

Carefully sensing further, he perceived that the severed arms, the shattered skull, and the scattered pieces of flesh were saturated with the power of endless years — they had been partially consumed in the immeasurable past and what remained had been left behind.

Ye Fan’s body went cold. What, exactly, had been buried deep beneath Yinghou? What was the truth? It was far from as simple as what the outside world believed.

Something slumbered in this place. It had consumed this boundless mass of flesh and blood, had devoured the remains of imperial-level cultivators — those supreme beings who had fallen in battle in an age long past, bringing an era to its end, had met this fate.

Could that something still be alive? The divine tiger, the underworld’s battle-slave, the unnamed Quasi-Emperor — all had fallen just outside over these past several centuries, their blood essence already consumed.

Ye Fan’s eyes blazed with light. His Genesis Sky Eye pierced through the void and illuminated the entire palace hall, dispersing the yin mist entirely.

“What is that?” Someone trembled.

Above the palace hall, in the void — there was a blood-red lump of flesh, though it also resembled a great cocoon. It was being drawn into a rift in space, on the verge of vanishing from this world at any moment.

Beyond that rift, a great bell of chaos hovered, exerting a powerful suction — it was this bell that was pulling the lump of flesh through. The two were locked in a stalemate, a state that appeared to have persisted for an exceedingly long stretch of years.

“How can it be this?!”

Even Ye Fan — with a will as unyielding as iron — went pale. His voice escaped him in a startled cry. He was utterly shaken, for that was unmistakably the Wushi Bell!

In the old days, that bell had been driven into the immortal path. How could it be here now? It was trying to pull that terrifying lump of flesh into another world!

The Immortal Bell was gone — yet the Wushi Bell had appeared. Within Ye Fan’s heart, the waves rose to the heavens. Truly, the depths beneath the ancient star of Yinghou harbored something of immense and terrifying power. Hidden here was a bloody and ancient secret of staggering magnitude.