The stargate sealed shut. Ye Fan vanished from this world, leaving behind an undying legend — he had slain the Heaven Prince in his tier without equal, defied the heavens and butchered ancient sages, carving a name that would never be forgotten.

“Master!”

Ye Tong cried out toward the five-colored sacrificial altar as it dimmed and faded, her voice echoing back to her alone — no figure appeared, and stillness reigned.

Over these past decades, Ye Fan had stirred up boundless storms, and the legend of the Holy Body had spread across the entire ancient star. Even long after his disappearance, people could not put him from their minds.

“The supreme path, the greatest trial in the history of the human race — I may know how to force my way into it…” said an ancient sage who had descended from outside the domain.

“Oh? Would the gentleman be so kind as to enlighten us?” said one of the ancient clan lords.

“What is it you intend? Do you also wish to undergo the trial?”

The ancestral king of that ancient clan replied: “The path to immortality is about to open. As a Great Sage, I have no such ambitions — I only wish to send a few of my descendants along to try their luck.”

“Don’t even think about it. Ordinary people who go can only be said to be marching to their deaths. Unless one is of the caliber of an ancient imperial prince, death is all that awaits,” the sage from outside the domain said with cold disdain.

“Is that so? Perhaps worth considering — I think certain individuals would be willing to go. The Golden Princess, the Huangxu Dao, the Dragon Maiden of the Ten Thousand Dragon Nest, and others, for instance. Beyond that, most of the ancient races in this age trace their origins to the world outside the domain — perhaps this path could lead them home, back to their ancestral lands!” A glimmer passed through the ancient clan sage’s eyes.

Although Ye Fan had departed, the entire ancient star was still filled with legends about him. Over these past decades, he had cut down holy sons, beheaded divine sons, and slaughtered ancient imperial princes — his name resounding in all directions.

Many believed this was a path of no return — that whoever set foot upon this ancient road leading to the heavens might never come back. This, they thought, was the final wave of his fame’s spread, after which he would appear no more.

A cold wind blew past. The desolate ancient star finally stirred with the faintest hint of movement, breaking the silence of death. Yellow sand blanketed the earth. Ye Fan gazed into the distance — a vast and bleak emptiness.

Especially at this twilight hour, with shadows deepening on all sides, the sky and land had turned yellow, profoundly dim and heavy, without a single trace of life.

He had abandoned the splendor of the world, left behind his homeland, and bid farewell to those he knew. Alone, he had set foot upon the supreme path. The noise of the mortal world was gone — now there was only solitude.

He had already been traveling for half a year, moving from one ancient star to the next, relentlessly, in endless repetition, and had not encountered a single living creature.

The vast expanse of the starry sky was dark and boundlessly cold. Crossing it like this without end, he no longer knew how far he had drifted from the Northern Dipper — perhaps he would never find his way back.

Half a year ago, when he walked out of the five-colored sacrificial altar, he had found a small sacrificial altar on that ancient star — much like the one-way transmission path that had emerged from the Han Gu Pass on Earth. It moved in one direction only.

He had no destination. He could only follow an ancient road that some forebear had long since laid out — origin unknown, destination unknown — advancing passively, step by step.

This kind of journey was incomparably lonely. There was no one to speak to. The splendor of the mortal world was far behind him, and he could only cultivate in silence and solitude.

“The greatest trial in history — three Holy Bodies have fallen upon it, and even Wushi and the Azure Emperor have walked it. I am following in their footsteps. I will reach the end!” Ye Fan murmured to himself.

The wind picked up. Yellow sand filled the sky, blotting it out. He opened his Heavenly Eye, and as the sand swirled up into the air, a scattering of snow-white skulls appeared across the expanse of this great desert.

He walked over and crouched down to examine them carefully. They belonged to an unknown race, dead for tens of thousands of years at least, yet the skulls remained solid and firm, faint light still flowing within them.

Ye Fan released his powerful divine sense, carefully searching and combing the entire ancient star, until at last he discovered a trace of a clue.

On one bony arm, some characters had been carved — nearly worn away by the ages. They were in the ancient script of the human race, and they stated that this was the gateway to the trial: that upon stepping out from this point, the true ordeal would begin.

“Does it begin here?” Ye Fan murmured to himself.

The ordeal had already begun. It took him a full half a month to locate the small one-way five-colored sacrificial altar on this ancient star.

Those white bones — some of them were the remains of ancient people who had perished here, unable to find the celestial road, their life force exhausted, withering away in this place.

Hum!

Light flashed. He stepped onto the true path of the trial and murmured within the void corridor: “I look forward to what lies ahead.”

Before long, a suffocating and heavy aura surged toward him. Ye Fan burst through the stargate and arrived in a mysterious world.

Bang!

A bone knife came slashing down — momentum heavy and force fierce, enough to split a great mountain apart. The very instant Ye Fan emerged from the stargate, he was already under attack.

“Well, I certainly won’t be lonely anymore — I’ve finally encountered a living creature!” Rather than anger, he felt surprise and delight. He had truly had enough of that kind of monotony and solitude.

Smack!

Ye Fan flicked his finger, shattering the bone knife on the spot. Then he swung his right leg in a sweeping arc, and a snow-white skeleton in front of him exploded apart — it could not withstand the strength of the Holy Body’s physical might.

“What kind of world is this? Is this place the site of the greatest trial in history?”

Ye Fan looked ahead and could not help but furrow his brow.

The stench of death was everywhere. There was no light — yet it was not entirely dark either. In every direction, a dim and heavy atmosphere prevailed, streaked with bands of black mist, as though he had arrived in a kingdom of the dead.

Thick lead-gray clouds pressed down upon the sky like mountains, filling every inch of space, completely sealing off this world — no sunlight, no moonlight, no starlight.

This was a black-and-white world, devoid of any vivid brilliance, resembling nothing so much as the darkest hour of dusk. The ground was covered in white bones to a depth one could not measure, and bone powder blanketed everything.

How many people must have died to produce a scene this terrifying?

Ye Fan did not know. He could not see a single creature with flesh and blood. In the distance, only skeletons were moving, ghostly fire flickering within their skulls — dim and eerie.

“What kind of world have I come to?”

He walked a great distance and still the white bones stretched on without end. Finally, he took to the air, flying over countless mountains and vast stretches of earth — and still he saw nothing but an endless expanse of white!

Ye Fan’s teeth ached from the cold dread of it. This was too terrifying. Even if this had been a living ancient star completely annihilated down to the last being, it could not possibly have produced this many skeletal remains. How had something like this come to be?

Boom!

Suddenly, a ghostly beam of light shot out, splitting apart this stretch of sky — like a vast ocean crashing down. It was a black ancient spear, concentrating within it several strands of undying divine power.

Ye Fan was startled. He quickly dodged. In the distance, a black figure stood atop a mountain of bones, howling at the heavens, utterly unlike the other white skeletons — the sound was deafening.

All around, the many skeletal creatures dropped to their knees in unison, bowing in worship, all of them trembling, suppressed by the black figure’s sea of consciousness power, unable to move so much as an inch.

“A Dao Severing being — one who has given birth to divine consciousness among the white bones. Is this a miracle of life?” Ye Fan fixed his gaze on all the skeletal creatures.

Life was the greatest miracle in the world — incomprehensible, uncreatable, filled with mystery.

That creature — its body entirely black, its bones like ink jade — stared at Ye Fan with naked hostility, shot upward into the sky, gripped its ancient spear, and thrust it at him once more.

Clang!

Ye Fan struck once, shattering the ancient spear. Then with a sharp crack, he twisted its cervical vertebrae, snapped the neck, and tore the skull free — clean and efficient.

“King!”

Across the vast expanse of the white bone-covered earth, every creature dropped prostrate. All of them trembled, sending divine consciousness waves toward him, calling him their king.

“A mysterious world, a kingdom of trials — I mean to understand it fully.”

Ye Fan swept his gaze around, looking upon the skeletal spirits bowing before him, his mind calm. He descended to a mountain of bones, extracted the ghostly fire from within the black skull, and examined it carefully.

Strand upon strand, thread upon thread of silk-like tendrils were interwoven, forming this leaping, dancing “ghostly fire.” To be precise, it was not fire at all — it was a sequence of life imprints, a chain of orderly links!

This shook something within Ye Fan’s heart. He opened his Heavenly Eye to observe: every single strand of flame became a principle of divine order, appearing before his eyes.

“These are incomplete life truths!”

He was profoundly stirred. He sat cross-legged on the mountain of bones right then and there, and did not move for an entire day and night. Had this been deliberately created, or had it formed naturally?

Orderly divine chains interweaved, their field of influence spreading outward, coalescing into a ball of ghostly fire, transforming into a living entity — was this the process by which life came into being?

Who was controlling all of this?

It was different from a person’s sea of consciousness — quite distinct in many ways. These life forms were unique. He used his mind to deconstruct the orderly divine chains, and in the end came to understand a great deal of their essence, drawing deep inspiration from them. His understanding of life deepened considerably. He linked this to the character secret technique of the same nature, fell into contemplation, and remained in a long state of enlightenment.

Was this all the arrangement of someone who had come before? Or was it a coincidence, that this path simply happened to contain such wondrous skeletal spirits?

“Curious — deep within this death kingdom, in the heart of the sea of white bones, there exists a supreme being beyond reckoning. Even this Dao-Severing black-boned creature is chilled with fear of it, and has never dared approach. How powerful must it truly be?”

Ye Fan was astonished. With a boom, he tossed the black skull aside, letting it fend for itself, and paid it no further attention.

He flew forward, and sure enough, with every vast stretch of territory he crossed, he would encounter an exceptionally powerful skeletal spirit — yet none could harm him. He passed through each encounter with shock but no injury.

Before long, he saw ahead of him a towering wall of black mist, and amid it, a colossal stone stele standing upright. Around it, shapes flickered in and out of sight — many soul-shadows, like wraiths. These were another kind of life form, without thought or feeling, blank and wandering, drifting aimlessly through this place.

“These are what mortals call ghosts — nothing but fields of magnetic energy. How can there be so many of them in this region? Though none of them seem to have gained sentience.”

Ye Fan drew closer and came before the massive stone stele, carefully reading the ancient characters carved upon it — written in the ancient divine script of the primordial age, four great characters, bold and powerful: Trespassers shall die!

This was a warning, and more than that, a threat. Standing before this stele, an overwhelming killing intent surged from all directions, making one feel like a piece of driftwood on a stormy sea, liable to be swamped and extinguished at any moment.

“White bones everywhere — even the mountains are piled from skeletons. It is rare to see a single great stone stele here, and yet it is this terrifying!”

Ye Fan was shaken. Even he felt an oppressive weight bearing down upon him, his heart stifled. One could only imagine how terrifying the one who had carved these characters must have been.

To one side lay scattered fields of enormous bone fragments, each one dozens of meters long. In this world of death, bones of every conceivable creature were present — there was no possibility of identifying them all.

“There are characters over here too!”

Ye Fan discovered that these were characters of the human script, and not a small number of them. They were written as warnings, informing those of later generations who had set foot upon the path of the greatest trial — that they must be careful and must not enter this place, for grave danger lay within. This was a lesson paid for in blood by those who had gone before.

Hum!

Suddenly, a streak of immortal light sliced across the distant sky — brilliant and dazzling, holy and without flaw — cleaving the lead-gray clouds and scattering down across the earth.

Roar…!

In every direction, the skeletal spirits howled. All of them were seized with terror. Under that immortal light, the endless multitude of white-bone creatures was turned to dust — completely purified.

“What is that?!” Ye Fan’s eyes went wide in shock.

Roar!

As the immortal light tore apart the lead-gray clouds and cascaded down, from deep within the forbidden zone came a monstrous, world-splitting howl that threatened to shatter every soul into pieces — boundlessly terrifying. The entire world seemed as though it would collapse!