Yunheng’s killing force swept across the cosmos. He pushed the Walk Secret Art to its absolute limit — his entire body crystalline and resplendent, his feathered robes billowing — like a battle immortal about to cleave down the enemy before him.

At this place, ten thousand laws swirled in a tangle, waves of Dao energy vast and endless. Ye Fan was enveloped by brilliant chains of divine order, cocooned like a great silkworm, divine radiance raining down, beams of light stretching across all heaven.

The laws of heaven and earth had taken on visible form — chains of five glowing colors, ten hues bursting forth together, flowing auroras and swirling iridescence, mist and radiance billowing in every direction, dazzling and dreamlike.

These laws and rules flowed like molten metal, shimmering as they streamed, enveloping Ye Fan — the cauldron becoming a furnace, gestating him within.

The Carefree Celestial Sovereign attacked several times more. Each blow sent Ye Fan coughing up great mouthfuls of blood — yet he could no longer shatter him entirely, and this change alarmed him deeply.

On the contrary, in one desperate counter-strike, Ye Fan swept across the nine heavens with various blazing divine chains, striking Yunheng’s body with enough force to puncture him through a thousand places, shattering him apart for once.

“You surprise me — to hold your own against me in battle,” Yunheng remarked. “If this humble one did not possess miraculous speed beyond the reach of immortals, he might truly have fallen into your hands this time.”

He stopped, standing at a distance, studying Ye Fan within the cauldron-furnace — the light in his eyes shifting with thoughts unreadable. He then drew in a deep breath of primordial essence. That single act alone was enough to cause countless rivers of stars throughout the cosmos to dim, their refined essence all flowing toward him and pouring into his body.

The great and powerful of the cosmos were aghast. At this level of cultivation, one drew breath in swaths of stellar domain — the most primal essence of entire star-seas. For those of this caliber, when they chose to act in earnest, it was a catastrophe for all creation.

The Carefree Celestial Sovereign spread both arms wide, forming seal after seal in unceasing succession — employing secret arts that were a sublimation of the Walk Secret Art itself, taken to a degree of unfathomable complexity.

One of his palms became crystalline and translucent. He then shook it with tremendous force and sealed a dharma imprint, pressing it forward toward where Ye Fan stood.

“Shhh!”

Divine light blazed brilliantly — auspicious splendor of staggering intensity. A streak of extraordinary immortal light shot from the center of his palm, boring directly into that cauldron-furnace of liquid metal, seeking to pierce through Ye Fan’s body.

“Temporal Light!”

Even the existences within the Forbidden Zones of Life could not stay calm — startled cries rang out from several of them, clearly deeply shaken. This was a terrifying divine art that could threaten even them.

The streak of light was not especially thick, yet it pierced straight through the liquid laws surrounding Ye Fan and was about to strike his body. Anything involving the power of time was absolutely heaven-defying.

Ye Fan knew he could not take it with his flesh. This force was too bizarre — a single misstep would cost him enormous amounts of lifespan, a loss no one could afford.

With a sharp shout, the All-Mother Qi Cauldron came swooping down to intercept it, and the beam struck the cauldron wall with a resounding clang, punching a hole clear through. The entire cauldron underwent a strange transformation — mottled patterns spreading across it, as though it had been submerged beneath layers of dust for ten thousand years, every surface marked by the traces of time. A deeply unsettling sight.

If that had struck a person’s body instead — what would have become of them?

Everyone was stunned. The Nine Great Celestial Sovereigns were truly terrifying beings — each one having ascended to the ultimate extreme within their own domain, with none able to rival them. They were already near-immortal.

Unleashing this power of time came at a cost to the Carefree Celestial Sovereign as well. Manipulating the flow of time and years was a heaven-defying act — forbidden, even. The drain on himself was significant. After steadying his breathing, his eyes turned utterly cold.

A brief lull — then Yunheng bellowed, suddenly erupting into full fury. Gone was the elegant transcendence of moments ago. He became a furious lion, blazing with light from head to toe, dazzling and brilliant, attacking with all-out ferocity.

From the tips of his fingers, beam after beam of light shot outward, transforming into brilliant ribbons of blazing radiance — like divine waterfalls cascading from the nine heavens — all of them smashing down toward Ye Fan, seeking to destroy him utterly.

Temporal Light!

Every single beam carried this power. The battle had come to this point — Yunheng had activated this forbidden divine art. He did not wish to drag things out any longer. He hoped to suppress Ye Fan in the shortest time possible.

Across the cosmos, silence reigned. Every being trembled. With so many streams of Temporal Light flying about — who could stop it?

Ye Fan’s expression had already changed drastically. He pushed the All-Mother Qi Cauldron to its limits in fierce resistance, and in mere moments his cauldron had accumulated more than a dozen small holes, broken and battered beyond recognition. Yet the terrifying power of the years that saturated it had made the entire cauldron suddenly ancient and archaic beyond imagining — as though it had been passed down since before the primordial age.

This was a brutal, harrowing fight. During the course of it, Ye Fan spat out streams of essence blood, transforming them into replicas of himself — using these blood-copies to die in his place several times over.

The existences within the Forbidden Zones fell silent. A long while passed before anyone spoke.

“The Carefree Celestial Sovereign is truly terrifying — worthy of the name of a great strongman from the Age of Myth. Even if we ourselves were to venture out, we would likely suffer greatly — perhaps even fall.”

“Temporal Light — the heaven-defying power of a forbidden art. Truly difficult to deal with. It can kill even emperor-realm supreme figures.”

…

These were the assessments of the ancient emperors of old regarding Yunheng’s combat power — which alone showed how fearsome he was. At the same time, it spoke to Ye Fan’s own might, that he had resisted to this point without being extinguished.

Taking a beating passively was not Ye Fan’s way. With ten thousand laws erupting, he entered something close to a frenzied state — every pore across his entire body flowing with immortal essence, laws pouring out everywhere.

Divine Manifestation, the Nine Secrets, the Immortal-Ascending Force, the Wushi Technique, the Celestial Emperor Fist — at this moment he was like a thousand-armed ancient immortal, fighting until heaven and earth shattered, until the world regressed to its primordial state.

Beams of light of every kind shot toward Yunheng — killing intent expanding outward, chaos surging to the skies, drowning this entire place.

Even with his extreme speed, the Carefree Celestial Sovereign was still struck several times amid the all-pervading divine laws — spitting great mouthfuls of blood, fractures spreading across his entire body as he sustained heavy injuries.

This was a bitter battle. Ye Fan was fighting with his life, prepared to drag Yunheng down with him to their mutual destruction — and this kind of fearless, forward-pressing battle intent made the Carefree Celestial Sovereign’s skin crawl.

This young man grew stronger with every exchange, his eyes brighter with each blow. The chaotic cauldron-furnace was a dire threat to Yunheng.

Furnace-Nourishment of a Hundred Scriptures — it had actually begun to refine Yunheng’s Temporal Light, building a power of resistance. How could such a change occur?

When this phenomenon manifested, the Carefree Celestial Sovereign’s eyes went blank. How was this possible? In all of history, such a thing had never once happened.

“Even if the Emperor Venerable were reborn, he could only suppress through absolute battle power — how can this be?”

Boom!

The cauldron-furnace blazed with intense light. Ye Fan himself felt this change — he found that all manner of scriptures and laws had begun to fuse together. In particular, those secret arts capable of countering the Walk Secret Art — such as the Wushi Scripture — had begun drawing on the power of the cauldron-furnace to drive streams of Temporal Light back to their origin point. The Ten Thousand Transformation Divine Art worked similarly, dissolving and diluting Yunheng’s brilliant rain of light.

Ye Fan understood. Furnace-Nourishment of a Hundred Scriptures was evolving toward the secrets of the Chaos Physique — capable of absorbing ten thousand Daos, smelting them into a single furnace, transforming them into his own laws and power.

Boom!

This place shattered. The cosmic stellar river had been beaten into a vast wasteland of star debris, broken and desolate. The Mother Qi Cauldron above Ye Fan’s head was riddled with holes — yet the light in his eyes blazed brighter than ever.

He pressed his left hand into the Cosmos Seal and his right into the Universe Seal, drawing on the force of the great cosmos with every last bit of strength he possessed.

Another shocking development: the power of time gathered in his left hand, while the power of space surged in his right — one side was the Carefree Celestial Sovereign, the other the shattered void. He shook heaven and earth, drawing all of it within himself.

All that exists in the four directions above and below — that is the Universe. All that has passed and all that will come — that is the Cosmos.

With his right hand’s Universe Seal, Ye Fan absorbed the shattered void. With his left hand’s Cosmos Seal, he drew in the force of time — letting both fuse together, transforming into a divine-law cauldron-furnace that existed outside his own body.

Ten thousand laws boiled. This place grew ever more blazing, an ocean of divine power surging to the sky.

“How dare a junior exploit me!” Yunheng trembled with fury.

The power of time was no longer exerting the same effect as before. A portion of it had been drawn into the viscous divine-law quagmire outside Ye Fan’s body, absorbed and contained.

This was due primarily to the Wushi Technique, the Ten Thousand Transformation Divine Art, and Ye Fan’s Cosmos Seal working in concert — guiding the laws of time to enter into this confluence, making this place feel as though heaven and earth were being split open from the very beginning.

All manner of laws manifested, and the primordial chaos energy in this place grew heavier and heavier. At last, the divine-law cauldron-furnace outside Ye Fan’s body began converting toward chaos — devouring and absorbing ten thousand laws into itself.

The Carefree Celestial Sovereign drew in a cold, sharp breath. Was this truly going to form a Chaos Physique? He had made this conjecture the very first time he laid eyes on it — and now it seemed it would come true.

From the several Forbidden Zones of Life, sounds of alarm and disbelief rang out. The bloodline power of a Chaos Physique was heaven-defying — rivaled only by the Innate Holy Physique Dao Womb, and by almost nothing else. Once one manifested, even supreme figures would be wary. All manner of divine arts and attacks would be nearly ineffective against it, for it could devour the Eight Wastelands and absorb all laws the cosmos contained!

Everyone drew cold, sharp breaths — the ancient supreme figures were no exception. In the Age of Myth, a Chaos Physique had once appeared — not yet having attained the Dao, it had already set off endless waves, shaking the heavens.

Was Ye Fan truly about to retroactively evolve into a Chaos Physique? This question hung over everyone present — every single person was shaken to their core, and the ancient supreme figures within the Forbidden Zones blazed with divine light.

Ye Fan himself was somewhat bewildered. Furnace-Nourishment of a Hundred Scriptures — how had the evolution reached this point? He had sought to comprehend ten thousand laws and ultimately transcend beyond them. Chaos was not his Dao — how had it come to this?

Suddenly, a chill ran through him. He felt something was wrong. Not only were ten thousand laws fusing and slowly turning into a chaotic cauldron-furnace — even he himself seemed to be dissolving toward nothingness, reverting to primal chaos.

“This is not my technique. It seeks to dissolve me as well — to make me a part of the laws of heaven and earth. This is not my Dao!”

He awoke with a start.

His Dao was transcendence — cutting against the current, leaping free of the entire great cosmos’s constraints. That destiny had been sealed the moment the third Immortal Slash severed the Dao.

Chaos was not his path. This force sought to draw him back into this world, smelting him into a part of the cosmos itself.

“I must break free from it — push past the extreme of chaos and leap beyond it. Otherwise, sooner or later I will destroy myself on this road!” Ye Fan came to his realization.

But for now, he had to walk this road — walking toward chaos — for the moment to reach the extreme and leap beyond had not yet come.

This was a perilous immortal road. One misstep, and he would fall. The slightest error, and it would be ten thousand calamities with no return.

Ye Fan understood. His heart gradually steadied. This was something that would require long ages of contemplation — there was no urgency yet. He could approach chaos, walk toward it.

For now, this dangerous transformation was an effective weapon against the Carefree Celestial Sovereign.

Yunheng fought on furiously, wielding the Immortal Tear Jade Bottle to amplify his own techniques, spraying blazing beams of light to flood everything where Ye Fan stood — but the effect grew weaker and weaker.

Gradually, half an hour passed. The Carefree Celestial Sovereign grew desperate. He had not anticipated that the battle would last this long — his extreme Sublimation was too costly a drain, and he could not sustain it indefinitely.

And now he could no longer gain the upper hand. The chaotic cauldron-furnace outside Ye Fan’s body had grown increasingly solid, absorbing the Temporal Light — it could no longer be completely destroyed.

Though the Ye Fan within those swirling divine-law depths was covered in wounds — in that half-hour he had endured devastating blow after devastating blow, several times exploding apart together with the light cocoon itself — yet he had held on.

Ye Fan began to strike back. The Carefree Celestial Sovereign’s extreme speed was of no use to him now. The opportunities to wound Ye Fan were growing fewer and farther between.

A collective sigh moved through the onlookers. At this stage of the battle, everyone knew — Ye Fan had turned the tide. Yunheng could not last much longer. His defeat was certain.

“A pity,” the Carefree Celestial Sovereign sighed. “I am old and fading. If I were in my prime, I would cut down even a Chaos Physique without hesitation.”

He could no longer hold on. The state of his extreme Sublimation was impossible to maintain — he was about to fall from it.

“Boom!”

Ye Fan surged forward, ten thousand laws erupting simultaneously. The chaotic cauldron-furnace shook and crashed into the Carefree Celestial Sovereign — in one violent, catastrophic collision, Yunheng’s entire body cracked and fractured, and he went flying, spitting great volumes of blood.

“Chasing the Dao, pursuing immortality — crying out to the vast heavens whether eternity can be grasped — River of Time — Manifest!”

The Carefree Celestial Sovereign roared, his brilliance swallowing the cosmos.

This was his final strike. The battle was about to end.