The dark spring’s waters were clear and crisp. The rosy glow could no longer be seen dancing within them, yet Ye Fan knew by instinct alone that the water’s quality had risen to an entirely new level.

“A divine spring rivaling those found in the Ancient Forbidden Zones!”

No wonder the Jade Pool had once shaken the world in its glory, with countless great sects coming to seek its waters. The quality of this spring was rare beyond measure, comparable to the divine springs found within the great life-type forbidden zones. Water of such quality, whether used for refining pills or for drinking, carried miraculous effects — it could extend a person’s lifespan, making it a treasure of the highest order.

But the moment Ye Fan entered the ninth underground level of the Immortal Lake, he felt a surging aura so overwhelming it threatened to shatter his very flesh, leaving him in unbearable agony.

The lake was vast, stretching dozens of li in every direction.

The Green Copper Cauldron emitted a faint, shimmering light. That even its defensive power was strained like this spoke volumes about how treacherous this place truly was. Ye Fan raised his Golden Sacred Domain, cradling the child protectively against his chest.

“The aura of a Great Emperor!”

In an instant, Ye Fan understood why. This place held the power of the ancient Great Emperors — something they had left behind — and it was because of this that the terrifying waves came surging forth in all their vastness.

Only divine ripples of such magnitude could cause the Green Copper Cauldron to glow, the Imperial Sword to tremble and cry out, activating its own defenses!

The murderous intent was bone-chilling, enough to make one shudder. When the Jade Pool had been relocated, nearly all of the ancient sacred stones inscribed with formation runes had been taken away. There was no way this could be an Imperial Formation.

“Son of a— that’s a big one!” the Divine Infant muttered under his breath in shock.

“What are you saying?” Ye Fan asked.

The little chubby one pursed his lips and wiped at his eyes, on the verge of tears — he was, after all, still a child, with the simple and guileless heart of one.

“Don’t cry. I’ll hide you away.”

“No — I want to see what’s in there!” the little chubby one said stubbornly, wiping his tears with one hand while sneaking a peek forward with the other.

The danger was immense on all sides, yet Ye Fan still felt a strange urge to laugh. He shook his head, steadied his thoughts, and pressed forward.

From that point on, every single step carried with it the sensation of heaven and earth collapsing. Even the Imperial weapon trembled in his grasp, making it difficult for him to endure. The suffocating pressure radiated outward, capable of slaying gods and Buddhas alike.

At last, he saw it. The Immortal Lake came to its end, and there, sealed off from the rest of the lake, was a small pool. Its waters shimmered with a crystalline glow, forming a luminous barrier. Within it, a woman sat cross-legged with her hair disheveled and loose, concealing her true appearance.

The barrier was set against a stone wall, forming a small Immortal Pool — perhaps one could call it the tenth level of the Immortal Lake — yet its diameter was no more than a single zhang.

“The Western Empress!”

Ye Fan’s face drained of color. Before him was a woman whose body was completely intact, without a single wound. Unlike the Grand Emperor, who had shattered apart and lost most of his mighty life essence, she was impossibly imposing — even holding an Imperial weapon, one felt incomparable pressure standing before her.

Ye Fan’s heart seized with shock. He had not imagined that the catastrophe of the Jade Pool was connected to the Western Empress. She had been the one to found this sect with her own hands — and was it also because of her that it had nearly come to an end?

Within the small pool, that woman appeared so lifelike that divine energy seemed to flow through her flesh. Though she was still several li away, the pressure was stifling enough to make breathing itself feel impossible.

A strange and unsettling aura emanated from the Western Empress’s body, sending waves of dread through his heart, making one wonder — had she truly died?

Suddenly, Ye Fan felt a bone-cold killing intent. In a trance-like state, he thought he saw a pair of eyes open through the woman’s disheveled strands of hair, their gaze so penetrating it shook the very soul.

Ye Fan could hardly believe his own eyes. Had that woman opened her eyes? How could this be? The Western Empress had died tens of thousands of years ago. The entire Jade Pool sect knew she had passed away in seated meditation. How could she still be alive?

In an instant, that terrifying gaze vanished, as though it had never been real.

“A hallucination — or did it truly happen?” he couldn’t help but murmur to himself, feeling a chill crawl up his spine.

“A ghost!” the Divine Infant cried out, kicking his little legs frantically. Unfortunately, the interior of the Immortal Spring was limited in space, leaving him no room to flee, and his face turned pale from the strain.

Ye Fan’s heart leapt. He grabbed the child and retreated decisively, feeling more strongly than ever that this place was eerily unnatural and terrifying. It unsettled him in waves — he had not expected that even arriving here with Imperial weapons would offer so little assurance.

Within the dark Immortal Lake, shadowy shapes flitted through the water as though something was gliding beneath the surface, making it all the more ghastly. Only that small pool continued to glow.

“What did you see?” Ye Fan asked.

“I saw her smile at me,” the Divine Infant said, his small face pale, his voice trembling.

“Nonsense. Even my Heaven-Seeing Eye didn’t see her smile — I only saw her open her eyes. How could you have seen that?” Ye Fan said sharply.

“It’s true. I saw her smile. Her face was very beautiful, but very pale — without a trace of color.” The Divine Infant insisted with absolute certainty — and, strangely, claimed he had not seen the woman open her eyes.

Upon hearing this, chills ran down Ye Fan’s spine one after another. How had two people seen entirely different things? Which of them had been mistaken?

He said nothing more and directly examined the little chubby one’s Immortal Platform, reading through his memories. There, he truly saw it — a blurry, pale face, as though it stood right before him, facing him directly.

Ye Fan’s heart shook violently. He suppressed the urge to shout at him, feeling more intensely than before that this place was dreadfully cold. Was it truly haunted? But for cultivators, such a notion was laughable.

At their level of cultivation, how could one still fear ghosts? Such things were nothing more than gathered yin energy — field phenomena — and could not compare in the slightest to a Saint.

That woman carried Imperial-level fluctuations, and was at the very bottom of the Jade Pool. She had to be the Western Empress. But what was happening? Why were these strange events unfolding? It filled one with a sense of foreboding.

And why were two different people seeing two different “visions”? Was it all a hallucination? Or was there something peculiar about this Imperial corpse, something that could influence a person’s primordial spirit?

Ye Fan’s expression shifted between uncertainty and composure. He truly did not know what had caused such eerie phenomena. He opened his Heavenly Eye, determined to examine things carefully.

A Great Emperor was far too mysterious and terrifying. The Western Empress’s face was shrouded by her disheveled hair, and the slender form seated cross-legged was half-obscured by the tangled locks. He could not see through it.

At this moment, only that blurry, pale face could serve as any reference. Everything else remained hidden.

Ye Fan strained his Heavenly Eye to its limits, pushing so hard his eyes nearly burst — and still could not see through it. Even more alarming, the corpse began to emanate waves of swirling primordial mist, making it more terrifying still.

Abruptly, Ye Fan felt another surge of bone-deep cold. The Green Copper Cauldron blazed with brilliant light. The slaying sword trembled lightly, its sword radiance flickering in and out, the Immortal-Slaying diagram on its blade dripping with blood so vivid it seemed to have come back to life.

In a trance, that pair of cold, piercing eyes opened once more — and it seemed as though there came a faint, almost imperceptible sigh. It was a sound of boundless grief and sorrow, suffused with sadness and anguish.

It was a contradictory scene. Those eyes were so cold and cutting, yet the sorrow echoing in that sigh was so deep and desolate. The two forces clashed against each other, deeply unsettling.

“Help me — she’s lunging this way!” the little chubby one thrashed his legs wildly, his face flooded with terror. If he could have fled, he would long since have scrambled behind Ye Fan.

It was truly strange. Two people were perceiving entirely different things. Ye Fan no longer knew which was real and which was false.

He retreated again, then probed the Divine Infant’s sea of consciousness. He found a blurry pale face right up close, wearing a ghostly, unnatural smile, hair spilling in all directions — deeply alarming.

Even looking at it himself made Ye Fan draw a sharp breath. No wonder the little chubby one was spooked enough to beg for help and could no longer put on a brave front.

Standing at a sufficient distance, Ye Fan and the little chubby one gradually calmed. Yet this place grew colder and more ominous by the moment, as though they had fallen into the underworld itself.

“I’m scared. I want to leave,” the little chubby one finally admitted, speaking with great difficulty, his face flushed with embarrassment.

“I’ll put you away first,” Ye Fan said.

“Then… let me watch for just a little while longer!” he muttered, lips pressed together, his eyes brimming with tears, refusing to let Ye Fan put him away.

Ye Fan was at a loss for words. This little chubby one was really quite stubborn — clearly terrified to the core, yet still trying to match him, determined to endure it.

“Why is there one more person over there?” the little chubby one blinked his large eyes and asked in a trembling voice.

Ye Fan looked — and felt his scalp crawl. A new shadow had appeared there, emitting rolling waves of mist that made the small pool appear many times more horrifying than before.

“Another ghost appeared. How did it come out?” the Divine Infant whispered, desperately wishing he could flee and never return.

The mist was peculiar, coiling around the Imperial-level corpse, impenetrable even to the Heaven-Seeing Eye. Only as it gradually dispersed could it slowly be taken in.

A blood-drenched arm tinged with a bluish-purple hue emerged, covered in long golden hairs that were jarring to behold, radiating a chill that seeped straight to the bone — a cold so literal it lived up to its name.

Ye Fan was stunned on the spot. Looking more closely, his expression changed drastically — his pupils contracted sharply, as though he had seen a fearsome apparition.

There were wounds on that arm, and fresh crimson blood flowed from them. His heart pounded violently, for a Dao law within him resonated in response, forging some kind of connection.

The blood of a Flawless Sacred Body!

The thought struck Ye Fan immediately, for the more carefully he observed, the more he felt a resonance. It transcended even the Great Emperor’s aura, transcended the Green Copper Cauldron’s faint emerald glow, and set his own blood boiling.

How had this arm come to be here?

Ye Fan stepped forward several paces, unable to contain his astonishment. Eventually he discovered that the small Immortal Pool was connected to a hidden cave — and that the arm had been swept out by the flowing water.

A Flawless Sacred Body!

“Is this Wushi’s father — the Western Empress’s companion?”

Ye Fan was rendered completely speechless. What he had witnessed today was too staggering and world-shaking. He had come upon the remains of two supreme figures at once. This, perhaps, was the root cause of the great catastrophe that had befallen the Jade Pool.

He stood there in a daze for a long while before the Divine Infant’s urgent calls brought him back to his senses. Ye Fan changed his angle and peered toward the small pool and the cave within, hoping to glimpse the true appearance of Wushi’s father.

The cave was well-concealed. He shifted his vantage point again and again. Inside, there was an ancient coffin — but it had already been opened. A corpse lay sprawled outside it, one arm resting beside the Western Empress.

“Why does the body have golden hairs growing on it?”

This was clearly something that had appeared afterward — a sign that something ominous had taken hold, triggering this transformation. The entire corpse was enveloped in wisps of mist that made it difficult to see clearly.

But one could make out that the forehead bore a crack — a fatal wound. It seemed that in those ancient days, the primordial spirit had been shattered.

“What happened?” Ye Fan’s heart was full of unanswered questions as he stood there, staring at the two corpses.

The distance between them was great, yet he still felt as though his body might be pulverized at any moment. Meanwhile, the sacred blood within him, when faced with that Flawless Sacred Body, surged involuntarily — the same constitution, creating a resonance between them.

Without warning, as his blood boiled, an inconceivable scene unfolded before Ye Fan’s eyes — as vivid as if it were truly happening right before him.

It was a magnificent man. His sword-like eyebrows swept upward into his temples, his eyes were as deep and unfathomable as the sea, and his powerful, towering frame was such that merely standing there caused the sun, moon, and stars to pale in comparison.

He was like the sovereign of all heaven and earth, standing beneath the vault of the sky, gazing down upon all six directions and eight wastelands.

Yet in this moment, he was exhausted. Waves of bluish-purple energy kept surging through his flesh, especially around the forehead — and one after another, golden hairs were forcing their way out through his skin.

“I can no longer grow old by your side. Let me be released — send me on my way.” He turned to a peerless, radiant woman whose beauty likewise dimmed the sun and moon, and spoke with inexpressible helplessness and reluctance.

The woman in white was overcome with grief, tears streaming down her face, utterly heartbroken, as she gripped his broad, wide hand with all her strength.

“Our child — if he cannot ascend to immortality, he will rebuild the Heavenly Court and become the ruler of the rise and fall of heaven and earth!” In those final moments, as the man spoke of their child, his face was written over with pride and confidence, radiant with light.

A wave of water surged forth, and the vision shattered. Ye Fan’s heart was filled with profound shock.