The black mountain peaks rose one after another, each soaring to the sky, clustered together in dense formation — forming what was perhaps the most terrifying and desolate forbidden ground in all the world: the Undying Mountain.
At the center of the great mountain range, black mist curled and drifted, mysterious beyond all fathoming. Since ancient times, save for the Void Emperor, few had ever ventured inside.
Now, a headless corpse faced this direction — and every soul who looked upon it went cold to the marrow, bones seemingly sealed in ice. His power was beyond all question.
It was not Ye Fan’s first time laying eyes on this figure. In his youth, he had stumbled into the Undying Mountain and faced this very entity — the guardian of the central sacred ground within the Undying Mountain, who would tolerate no trespass.
At the heart of the Undying Mountain stood one hundred and eight main peaks, their black bodies like ink, encircling that hidden sanctum — utterly terrifying.
The headless rider was like a divine being — every soul’s spirit trembled at the sight of him. It was difficult to fathom what tier he stood at. To think he had shattered two saint-kings with a single blow, reducing them to blood-mist.
“His mount is a stone horse!” The Sacred Imperial Son’s golden eyes were sharp as lightning.
The headless rider was clad in black metal divine raiment, dark light flowing across it, dense and textured. He was tall and heroic, wielding a black-gold long spear — his bearing one that could command the submission of heaven and earth. Regrettably, he had no head. At the severed neck, a quantity of blood still clung — as though just cut away.
Beneath him stood a great stone horse — shaking its head, swishing its tail, raising its muzzle to issue a long neigh. Powerful and fearsome, its hooves were the size of basins. Each time they fell, they cracked the void asunder.
“The stone horse is a sacred spirit that has not achieved full completion — unfathomable in depth. One can only imagine the battle power of this rider — how difficult to gauge!”
What lay at the center of this Undying Mountain, that such a terrifying entity should appear there — alive without a head?
“This should only be a guardian, not the master of the Undying Mountain. He pierced apart two saint-kings with one spear thrust. One glimpse at the terror of the forbidden zone is more than enough,” the Black Emperor said in a solemn voice.
Ji Zi stood quietly, saying nothing. His father had once fought here — had exchanged blows with a supreme existence within these depths. Time is merciless, and the years had flowed on. The Void Emperor had long since been interred within the darkness of the universe, and no one knew where his body lay.
“He’s coming out — he’s trampling through the black peaks, making his way out!” Dongfang Ye shouted, gripping his wolf-fang great cudgel.
“Retreat immediately!” Even the Slaughter Saint Qi Luo changed color. As powerful as he was, there was no fighting this — only fleeing.
The Black Emperor’s array platform had long since been readied, and this place was already far enough from the Undying Mountain to give them ample time to withdraw.
“Execute the spatial jump — leave this cursed place!”
The Cao Family and Mo Family people were in terror, shouting and screaming. In the wake of that single spear thrust, fewer than twenty percent of them had survived — only because they had been far off at the edge of the sky.
Yet the moment the headless rider came charging forth, the heavens themselves collapsed. Warship after warship burst apart like flowers of fire — reduced to fragments of ash by a single surge of overwhelming aura.
“What kind of monster is this?! He hasn’t even attacked us — and just this aura alone is already unbearable!”
Death — everywhere, death.
In the end, only one mother ship from the Cao Family managed to escape. Every other warship, along with the entire Mo Family, perished — all crashing down upon this ground.
The headless rider paid them no mind — made no attack. It was merely the aura naturally radiating from him that had wrought this scene of horror.
As for the one surviving Cao Family mother ship, it did not get far before a sharp killing intent shot out from a star gate, sending it crying away toward some distant land.
The headless rider spared it no further glance. Stone horse’s hooves treading the void, he moved like a transcendent being, passing through a domain gate — apparently intent on finding Ye Fan and the others.
“This Emperor’s spirit is uneasy. Why do I feel as though great disaster is upon us?” the Black Emperor said, heart pounding with dread while they traversed the heavens.
“I have a premonition as well — that calamity is about to befall us,” Ye Fan said in a low voice.
The Sacred Imperial Son’s expression grew grave. He too shared this feeling. The spiritual perception of people at their level was keenest of all — they could sense the approach of great peril before it arrived.
“Let us go quickly to my Ji Family. He is coming for me — he has sensed the aura inherited from my father,” said Ji Zi, who rarely spoke.
Everyone’s hearts clenched. They believed this calamity came from the Undying Mountain — and that it was directed at them.
In the unfathomable void, they sensed the presence of the headless rider. Stone horse leaping through the void, he gave chase.
Fortunately, the Black Emperor commanded the array inscriptions of the ancient great emperor, and their traversal speed was extraordinarily fast. In the blink of an eye, they had entered the Southern Region — and in the next instant, appeared before the Ji Family’s gate.
“Could it be that the dark upheaval is about to come again?” Every face was grim.
“More than ten thousand years ago, my father went to subdue the Undying Mountain and brought all beneath the heavens under his rule. Even in his absence, the Ji Family has nothing to fear,” Ji Zi said calmly.
Hum!
In the next moment, an ancient mirror flickered — simple and grand, appearing out of nothing, cascading rivers of primordial chaos in a magnificent, awe-inspiring spectacle.
A divine spirit!
The divine spirit within the Void Emperor’s Mirror had awakened on its own — radiating the majestic, sovereign aura of an ancient great emperor!
In this moment, all living beings across the entire Southern Region trembled in their hearts, unable to help themselves from falling to their knees. Every great clan was shaken. Birds and beasts alike collapsed to the ground, crying out in lamentation.
Hiss!
The Void Emperor’s Mirror tore open space, vanishing in a flash, traversing hundreds of millions of li to charge toward the Undying Mountain in the Central Region — the supreme imperial might blanketing heaven and earth without limit.
Even while passing through the void, the aura of this ancient great emperor shook all of antiquity, overflowing outward — filling the hearts of countless powerful clans with dread.
“What has happened?!” Ye Fan and the others were all dumbstruck.
This ancient mirror had awakened on its own — without anyone to drive it. The divine spirit within it was virtually ready to let out a long roar at the heavens, as though the Void Emperor had returned in person.
“This is my father’s weapon, his companion through a lifetime of battle. Perceiving the upheaval of the Undying Mountain, it acts in the Void Emperor’s stead!” Ji Zi’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears.
Boom!
The headless rider reacted with breathtaking speed. In an instant, he turned his stone horse around and vanished into the black mountain range. The stone horse, on the verge of becoming a sacred spirit, trembled from the force — its hooves shaking through heaven and earth, crouching between the one hundred and eight black peaks.
The Void Emperor’s Mirror cast forth a beam of immortal radiance that drove straight into the heart of the Undying Mountain, scattering the light of countless ages — filling that place with an eerie, otherworldly glow.
Black mist curled upward, brushing against that immortal luminance — and there was no great explosion, no thunderous sound. Only a swirl of points of light, like souls ascending to transcendence, rose into the air.
“He has been dead so many years, yet the Void Emperor’s conviction has not dispersed. By the covenant, the Undying Mountain should not have emerged into the world. We were rash.”
An ancient voice — devoid of all emotional fluctuation — came from within that most mysterious black mist. All one hundred and eight black peaks resonated together, humming and trembling.
Within a radius of a million li, every living being was gripped by an instinctive, bone-deep dread. They had heard this divine sound clearly — and all were shaken to their cores.
As legend had it, the Void Emperor had gone to do battle with the forbidden zones, reaching agreements with all parties — and this, apparently, was true. His authority had endured for over a hundred thousand years, transmitted through the ancient mirror.
Hum!
The immortal light flashed — and the ancient mirror vanished, appearing directly in the Ji Family. Its brilliance retracted inward; it grew plain and natural, stripped of that surging imperial air.
Within the mirror, phantom points of light drifted. The voice sounded once more. Everything that had just transpired was replayed through the ancient mirror in its entirety.
Ye Fan, the Sacred Imperial Son, Dongfang Ye, and the others were all greatly shaken.
Ji Zi’s eyes became crystalline with light. In silence, he turned, cradling the ancient mirror, and walked into the depths of the clan — vanishing from sight.
“This is bad!” The Black Emperor’s expression was troubled, deeply creased with worry and dread.
The covenant’s appointed time had surely come. If nothing went awry, it would be when the path to immortality opened. When that day came, the supreme existences of the forbidden zones would surely emerge into the world — and heaven alone knew what would unfold.
The Northern Region was in great turmoil. Though the mother ships had nearly all been eliminated, the reverberations of this upheaval were far from over. What power had done this — to dare raise a blade against the ancient clans? All along the way, they had swept through everything in their path, eliminating many great clans. Even several primordial royal clans’ ancestral grounds had been razed flat.
Ye Fan and the others re-entered the Northern Region, for he knew one clan had not yet been destroyed — the Lanto Clan. They had gone to the Primordial Ancient Mine, and he did not know what had befallen them.
At this moment, the Lanto Royal Clan’s faces had turned green. In their hearts, they had cursed the Southern Demon beyond all count — this was an obvious case of being set up to die!
“This is a world of demons — it has nothing to do with the word ‘weak.’ We’re finished!”
Ever since more than twenty warships had plunged into the Primordial Forbidden Zone and a mother ship had exploded inside, they had sensed that something was terribly wrong and scrambled to ascend.
But a mysterious wave surged from the depths of the forbidden zone, and their fleet was shattered in swathes — silently, without a sound — terrifying to the uttermost.
The Lanto Clan’s faces went green. With nothing else to consider, they wanted only to execute a spatial leap and escape this accursed place.
But the star gates could not be constructed. There was simply no way to escape. Gritting their teeth, they unleashed their most ferocious assault — enough to obliterate an entire star region.
Blinding light fell upon the Primordial Ancient Mine — yet was utterly extinguished. Divine power of this magnitude could detonate the entire ancient star, yet here it had no effect whatsoever.
Bang!
From within the Primordial Ancient Mine, a figure walked out — as though the Grand Dao itself had taken human form. Shrouded in haze, utterly terrifying, the power within that body encompassed all of ancient and future time — and yet was also like the resurrection of an immortal.
The Lanto Clan stood in complete stupefaction. This was not a true living being — it was a body formed from Primordial Life Stones, the very thing they had desired most.
Many swallowed hard!
That body of Primordial Life Stones radiated threads of immortal luminance, immobilizing every last mother ship.
“Even the great Dao Yan in his prime would not have dared to enter the Primordial Ancient Mine.”
A cold, dispassionate voice came from within that sacred mine — and the body of Primordial Life Stones shuddered once. Divine brilliance blazed to its fullest, sweeping forward in an obliterating tide.
The people of the Lanto Clan were so terrified their souls nearly fled their bodies. Who was it, inside this Primordial Ancient Mine?! Dao Yan had been a deity of the Eternal Prime Star in ancient times — said to have attained the Dao one to two million years ago.
But they had no more time to be astonished. Wherever that brilliance passed, every mother ship and ancient-saint war instrument turned to flying ash — completely obliterated.
As for the Lanto Clan’s saint-king — they didn’t even manage a single sound before becoming a streak of blood-light on the spot, thoroughly vaporized. Nothing remained.
Boom!
Simultaneously, the Zi Yun Royal Clan’s dense fleet of warships above the Myriad Dragon Nest was completely shattered by the violet waves resonating from the Ten-Thousand-Dragon Bell, reduced to smoke and dust.
With that, the great battle drew to its close. Every mother ship had been destroyed. Save for a handful of ancient-saint mechs that had slipped away into hiding, the Twelve Great Royal Clans had been nearly annihilated.
Yet the reverberations refused to settle. The primordial clans beyond counting were in fury, wishing they could overturn the very sky. Even the primordial imperial clans had been attacked — had these people eaten the courage of the gods themselves? Were they intent on defying heaven?
“Eternal — they came from a life-bearing prime star called Eternal. They dared come here to attack us — these insects are tired of living!”
The primordial clans roared in fury!
On that very day, many of the most belligerent and fearsome royal clans swore oaths that they would find every means possible to attack the Eternal Star Domain — to drown it in rivers of blood and mountains of bone.
Of all those who had gained the most, without question it was Ye Fan and his companions. In this battle, they had seized three undamaged mother ships, five ancient-saint war instrument battle mechs, and the evolution fluid from five great lords — all claimed successfully.
Yet the Black Emperor was deeply anxious: “Time grows short. The moment the path to immortality opens, I believe the covenant’s appointed time will have arrived. The supreme existences comparable to great emperors will emerge into the world. The day the sky shatters is not far off!”