One step from Kuntian, and heaven and earth cracked apart. It was not only Ye Fan’s region that suffered — even a good number of the Heavenly Emperor’s followers on the Phoenix Nest’s side were overwhelmed and shattered on the spot, dissolving into clouds of blood mist.

Such was the ferocity and might of his wrath. Kuntian’s entire head of long hair stood on end like sword edges, his body burning with surging battle energy like a colossal fireball — scorching the cosmos itself as he came crashing forward.

Boom!

He swung one fist, and the sun, moon, and stellar rivers reversed in its wake. His fist force surged and billowed along with his strike, shaking the vast sky above!

It was as though he were clearing the field — in this entire region, save for Ye Fan and Kuntian himself, not another person remained. All had retreated. Those who refused to retreat were dead — shattered to fragments and blood mist, leaving a vast battlefield stripped of all life across the star field.

Light blazed in Ye Fan’s eyes. He formed a hand seal, and in an instant eighty-one Heavenly Dragons flew outward — all of them roaring, charging toward the Divine General Kuntian.

Aooo…

The azure great dragons soared and danced, each one stretching tens of thousands of miles in length, their scales dense and gleaming, spanning across star domains. Countless minor planets in the distance collapsed and crumbled. The Heavenly Dragons circled, obliterating all things.

“What does the so-called Holy Body amount to?!” Kuntian bellowed. His fist descended, striking directly against the eighty-one Heavenly Dragons. This place erupted in a tremendous explosion, light blazing endlessly as star domains collapsed.

The true dragons surged in reverse. Eighty-one dragon heads opened wide, swallowing sun, moon, and stellar rivers. White and vast as a divine waterfall, the stellar river rose up and collided with that enormous fist force.

The moment of first contact was already this ferocious.

With a tremendous crash, many of the Heavenly Dragons shattered apart — smashed by that single fist until their bones snapped and their sinews broke, blood pouring in rivers from their forms.

Yet the Heavenly Dragon at the center had also torn open a wound upon his fist, sending his blood scattering through the sky, staining the stars red.

“The Holy Body may not amount to much — but it is more than enough to kill you!” Ye Fan’s cold voice rang out. He rode the dragons forward, dozens of Heavenly Dragons diving in formation, and he pressed onward like a supreme emperor surveying all creation beneath him.

“Not nearly enough. Today we settle victory and defeat, life and death. Even the Holy Body will be nothing but a dead soul and white bones beneath the feet of the Eight Divine Generals!”

Kuntian declared this as he stood his ground. He drew in his fist and spread open his palm, allowing the blood from the wound to drip down, drop by drop.

Very soon, the ground was awash in crimson. That blood, drop by drop, gathered together until it formed a vast and seemingly boundless ocean — impossible to imagine how one body could contain so much blood.

That blood was terrifying — radiating a demonic and uncanny power, devouring heaven and earth. Even several minor planets were dragged downward and fell into it, sending great splashes of waves crashing up.

The sight was shocking. Heaven and earth had turned entirely crimson, a boundless and limitless expanse of red, giving no time for comprehension — in an instant, the blood had flooded everything, reaching to the farthest reaches, vast and surging.

Ye Fan was startled. This terrifying divine ability was genuinely strange — using blood to construct a cage that imprisoned him within it.

“Once I recover to my peak — returning to that realm I held in the primordial age — every person in this world who has made me bleed will be buried alongside me!” The voice of the Divine General Kuntian rumbled like a glacier in the depths of winter, grinding and rolling.

“Go ahead and try!” Ye Fan replied. Dozens of Heavenly Dragons dove forward, tearing at the sea of blood, breaking out through that terrifying ocean of crimson.

The result was shocking. Dozens of Heavenly Dragons dove into it — and were devoured into riddled, broken forms, great chunks of flesh sloughing away, leaving white bone exposed.

Each Heavenly Dragon stretched tens of thousands of miles in length, possessed of boundless divine power — a single coil was enough to smash down countless stars. And yet they had been brought to this.

Ye Fan’s eyes turned cold. This person was truly formidable. The eight divine generals were not a hollow title — and this was before he had even fully recovered. Such a display already.

But he was not afraid. He spread his palm wide, dozens of great dragons dissolving into divine power that merged into his palm. He moved himself, his right palm cutting forward — the sea of blood roared and heaved, split into two halves, and the very void was cut open, a passage appearing.

Boom!

Waves crashed to the sky, blood flooding the heavens, and in an instant the crack in space snapped shut again. Within the sea, various white bones appeared — all of them the remains of powerful warriors who had perished to this secret technique in days past, many of them of a cultivation far higher than Ye Fan’s own. And from those bones, flesh and blood began to grow back. These corpses, briefly restored to something of their past divine abilities, roared together and charged forward.

The scene was somewhat horrifying — the souls of ancient slain heroes summoned to fight — and even Ye Fan could not help but let out a sigh. Worthy, indeed, of someone who had followed the Immortal Heavenly Emperor. With this secret technique alone, the man had earned his place in the annals of history. If this technique were developed and refined further, it would not fall short of a Great Emperor’s secret art.

“Source Heaven Immortal Pupils — scorch all things, reduce all living beings to ash!” Ye Fan recited calmly, deploying a powerful technique of dharmic law that he had comprehended in recent years. It had elevated his Source Heaven Eye to an even higher level — not only capable of seeing through illusion and falsehood, but capable of combat.

This was the product of fusing and transcending the many secret arts of the Source Heaven Master lineage — a forbidden-level secret technique he himself had created.

His pupils blazed with radiant light. The brilliance he released dimmed every sun, moon, and star in the sky. Those emperor-level souls ahead all cried out in agony.

The flesh and blood they had just regrown burned and vaporized into white smoke in an instant, consumed in surging flame. The gone are gone — how could they compare to the truly living?

The source arts could transform heaven and earth and reorganize the sun, moon, and stellar rivers — and pushed further, could rearrange the very essence of life itself. How could these souls, long since departed from the world, withstand it?

Poof. Poof…

As one quasi-emperor skeletal corpse after another dropped back into the sea of blood, silence fell upon this place. Not a sound remained. Ye Fan stepped forward, the immortal light in his eyes blazing and extraordinary, illuminating an imperishable path ahead. He could already see where Kuntian stood — and he went to fight him!

Ye Fan’s power had exceeded Kuntian’s expectations. In the primordial age there had been no such thing as the Source Heaven Immortal Pupils — so mysterious, so reality-shattering, breaking through all things, and destroying all his blood sea heroes entirely. The shock this gave him was immense.

Clearly this was a secret technique created in the ages after, one that countered his dharma and Dao.

Originally, the more powerful warriors the blood sea consumed, the more terrifying it would become over time — yet today it had achieved nothing whatsoever.

The Divine General Kuntian bellowed. The blood sea vanished. Between his hands, the sun, moon, and stellar rivers revolved. He had extracted a piece of the true cosmos and compressed it within his palms, then sent it sweeping down toward Ye Fan.

This was borrowing the power of the great cosmos itself — intending to suppress Ye Fan, to draw him in and seal him away for all eternity.

The other onlookers from afar all witnessed this, every hair on their bodies standing on end, cold sweat trickling down their spines. What incomparable defiance of heaven — and this was from a follower of the Immortal Heavenly Emperor, not yet fully recovered, already displaying such terror-inspiring power.

Boom!

A fierce surge of fist wind billowed, and Ye Fan shattered this cosmos with a single punch.

Kuntian closed the distance, and the two engaged in open, fierce collision — blood flew, great dharmic laws thundered, and this heaven and earth was utterly destroyed.

In an instant, Ye Fan and Kuntian had exchanged a hundred blows — fierce and unyielding clashes, a life-or-death struggle that surpassed a thousand ordinary exchanges in intensity.

They were both risking their lives, burning their undying divine power, standing in the forbidden domain and fighting to the finish — one single mistake and the result would be annihilation of both body and soul.

In the past, such decisive battles between evenly matched opponents were usually resolved within a few exchanges. Yet these two had now battled through a hundred — a testament to the ferocity of it.

The Divine General Kuntian had followed the Immortal Heavenly Emperor and fought his entire life. He had received the guidance and teachings of living Great Emperor-level figures, and his combat experience and battle-hardened veteran wisdom were matched by few in the world.

Yet to his shock, he found that Ye Fan’s mastery of combat techniques had reached a pinnacle — surpassing even his own. All he could rely on was his seasoned veteran experience, and this discovery left him horrified.

Poof!

Blood flew. This was the seventh time Ye Fan had shattered Kuntian’s fist, leaving his flesh a mangled ruin and inflicting heavy damage.

Ye Fan had wounds of his own as well — struck by a secret technique of the other man’s, the dharmic laws having no form, no thought, capable of killing even quasi-emperor-level experts where they stood unseen.

Yet Ye Fan had suffered only wounds. Kuntian’s heart pounded wildly — he knew now that this battle would be hard-won. He had run into one of those invincible warriors of the Heavenly Emperor era, yet he himself was not at his peak, and things were likely to go badly.

Ye Fan was astonished in his own right — that there existed someone who could withstand the impact of his fists. Though it had been only glancing, grazing contact rather than a true fist-on-fist collision, with dharmic laws surging between them — it was still enough to be astonishing.

“That my fist — tempered by the principal master’s immortal blood, capable of destroying all things — should take damage from a clash with this man… it is unforgivable!” Kuntian raged inwardly.

His fists, his invincible striking palms — they were more precious to him than his own life. Tempered personally by the Immortal Heavenly Emperor’s blood, they could shatter all things in existence. And now he had run into this young descendant of a later generation, who shook his very convictions.

He had once looked down upon an entire age as well. Thinking back on those glorious years of old — boundless, magnificent, battling a hundred clans and being revered as a divine general of his domain, ruling over ten thousand realms — how many could match him then?

Kuntian felt the pressure. He knew in his bones that even in the days when his blood ran hot and his power was at its height, if he were to fight Ye Fan at the same cultivation level, he would likely lose — perhaps badly, perhaps in crushing defeat.

The moment he imagined that outcome, a tremor ran through his heart. This young man was terrifying!

Boom!

Ye Fan’s dominance was entirely unconcerned with concealment. His golden emperor’s fist came pressing down, like a primordial beast bearing down on its prey, and the two fists finally met in a true collision.

Dazzling light erupted. Blood scattered. The Divine General Kuntian’s fist was smashed apart — finger bones flew, flesh and skin burst, blood mist rising!

This sight left all who witnessed it dumbstruck. There could be no suspense in this battle now. The Divine General Kuntian was defeated. His expression grew hollow and spiritless as he stumbled backward, staring at the two ruined fists.

These had been the pride of his former days — two fists that had swept the universe, tempered in the Phoenix’s blood, capable of shattering all things. And now they had been broken. A feeling of bleakness swept through him.

This was not something that could be explained away by his blood force no longer being at its peak — the fists themselves had not lost their hardness, yet they had still been broken.

“This is no longer my primordial age!” The Divine General Kuntian uttered a desolate sigh. The glorious years of the past could never return. All the splendor had been buried in that primordial age.

The desolation and the bleakness notwithstanding, this battle still had to continue. The dharmic laws and order divine chains of both men erupted, weaving together into a vast, imperishable divine diagram that shook the stars.

Poof!

Both of Kuntian’s arms exploded into bloody pulp.

Poof. Poof…

The sounds continued without cease. Ye Fan struck blow after blow with relentless heavy force — palm and fingers falling in sequence — and Kuntian’s legs, chest, skull, and more burst apart one by one, shards of bone flying, blood spraying in every direction.