The Emperor’s Pagoda flew away, its boundless and majestic presence resonating with the Heavenly Dao, surging with unstoppable momentum. Ye Fan and the others made no move to stop it, nor did the Ji Family deploy their Great Emperor formation runes to obstruct it—they let it depart freely.

Now was not the time to sever ties with the Emperor Lord. Keeping a single pagoda behind would serve no purpose; it could not prevent him from attaining the Dao. What must come would come in time.

What was most lacking right now was time. Whether it was Ye Fan, the Sacred Emperor’s Son, or Ji Zi—all three possessed the qualifications to one day contend for the position of supreme sovereign. So long as they continued to grow, the strength to wage that battle was not beyond their reach.

And that period of time need not stretch too far into the distant future. For those who truly set their hearts on walking that path, the passage of years would never be the obstacle that barred their steps—it could not be considered a stumbling block.

Above Ye Fan’s head, the bronze cauldron drifted up and down in a steady rhythm, the primordial energy of all creation cascading downward, its imperial might fully revealed in all its vast and boundless glory. Having now become a Great Sage, he was like the Ancient Demon Old Man of years past—capable of channeling this incomplete immortal weapon, able to make it unleash its unparalleled Pressure Aura.

As for the brown-haired Great Sage, he had long since been crushed beneath that might until both his knees cracked and split. Unable to bear the pressure, he had crumpled to his knees—he had no power whatsoever to resist the imperial Aura of Power. Had he stubbornly endured any further, he would have been reduced to the dust of tribulation.

“Read the letter,” Ye Fan said with cold indifference.

This man had intended to use another’s power to oppress him, to humiliate him, to force him toward a dead end. Naturally, Ye Fan harbored not a shred of goodwill toward him. He would deal with things exactly as they were—direct and without compromise.

The letter continued to radiate a treasured brilliance, emanating strand after strand of auspicious light, its surface branded with the Dao principles of one who had nearly attained the Dao. Though it carried no killing intent, it was terrifying in its own right.

Having lost the protection of the Emperor’s Pagoda, stripped of the imperial weapon’s reinforcement, the brown-haired Great Sage—though still bearing the title of messenger—trembled as his palm clasped the letter, his entire body on the verge of shattering.

“You should not… be so overbearing!” he ground out with great difficulty, straining to raise his head and meet Ye Fan’s gaze.

But the bronze cauldron drifted before him, and a single sweep of its Pressure Aura was all it took to make him shudder violently. His complexion turned ashen white, and he could not utter another word.

“Who is being overbearing? To conduct yourself in such an unbridled manner at my engagement ceremony, attempting to use another’s power to humiliate me—you are far beneath the threshold required to do so,” Ye Fan said with cool detachment.

With a thunderous boom, the imperial might flooded outward. Ye Fan’s voice, accompanied by the resonance of the bronze cauldron, rang out vast and boundless—as though a Great Emperor himself were reprimanding a condemned prisoner groveling beneath his feet.

Before the brown-haired Great Sage, only two paths remained: submit, or be reduced to ash. And at this moment, his body was trembling against his will—the Great Emperor’s Pressure Aura had seized control of his flesh, stripping him of command over his own body. As for his nascent soul, it too could no longer hold on. Faced with this sensation—as though a primordial beast were poised to devour him whole—fear had reached its absolute zenith.

In that moment, his instincts betrayed his consciousness. The deepest layer of his soul trembled. Confronted with the reverberations of a relic left behind by an ancient Great Emperor, his terror had reached an extreme.

The brown-haired Great Sage knelt there, trembling, and extended both hands to unfold the letter. As he did, an even more blazing torrent of light poured forth, nearly shattering his composure entirely.

The aura of one who had nearly attained the Dao overwhelmed him like a tidal wave, compounding his dire circumstances. His body shook like a sieve, and he collapsed limply, convulsing uncontrollably—a truly wretched state.

The surrounding area had fallen utterly silent. This was a Great Sage—and yet beneath an imperial weapon, before the branded imprint of one who had nearly attained the Dao, he was nothing. Not even a hair’s worth of resistance remained possible.

Driven by pure instinct, the brown-haired Great Sage spread open the letter, his voice trembling and halting as he began to read it aloud. Just as he had indicated, the letter’s contents were an invitation extended to Ye Fan—and a relatively respectful one at that.

Everyone held their breath. The silence was absolute. And yet—this was the outcome. Earlier, the brown-haired Great Sage had arrived in arrogance, intending to use another’s power to oppress, standing tall with imperious authority, expecting Ye Fan to receive the edict with deference. In the end, it was he himself who knelt here, reading the letter aloud to the human race’s Holy Body—truly pitiable and lamentable.

That such a scene had unfolded here—a Great Sage on his knees, prostrated before the Holy Body of the human race, holding the letter in both hands, reading it word by word—was both staggering and beyond words.

His conduct warranted no sympathy. He had been domineering first, adopting an air of supreme superiority—and to be crushed afterward was entirely of his own making.

And yet the contrast between what had come before and what followed was so stark that it gave people an almost disorienting sense of time and space having been upended.

For a patriarch of a great faction to be reduced to this—it was rather pitiful.

“Who told you to be so arrogant? Now you’re going to get your bottom smacked, aren’t you?” The Divine Child muttered not far away, his chubby little face wearing an expression that said I knew it would come to this. “Don’t you know that Ye the Great Villain is terribly wicked? Even I, the Heavenly Emperor, generally dare not provoke him—and you? You’re still far off the mark.”

Everyone was truly left speechless, nearly bursting into laughter. The little chubby one was clearly no taller than a knee, yet he did his best to affect the air of a seasoned old sage, only managing to invite further amusement.

Ye Fan put away the battered All Things Origin Cauldron and never once cast another glance at the brown-haired Great Sage prostrate on the ground—as if the man didn’t exist, as if he were invisible. He had completely disregarded him. It was an undisguised contempt: treating him as if he were nothing, truly and literally regarding him as no more than a delivery servant, never for a single moment considering him a powerful and domain-commanding patriarch of a great faction.

The Sacred Emperor’s Son also put away his black immortal iron staff, withdrawing every ray of auspicious light and every beam of immortal radiance back into his body. Ji Zi likewise put away the Void Mirror, restoring calm to the area.

Dongfang Ye, Li Heishui, and the others all burst into laughter. Why go through all of this? Had the brown-haired Great Sage not harbored ulterior motives and been so relentlessly aggressive from the start, none of this would have come to pass.

Every guest who had come to attend the engagement ceremony had witnessed firsthand Ye Fan’s display of dominance. Those with ill intentions were now deeply apprehensive, all of them intimidated to the extreme. Forcing a Great Sage to kneel and read a letter aloud—this was truly an act that shook the world.

The leaders of the ancient clans were all inwardly shaken. They had already witnessed Ye Fan’s methods one or two hundred years ago, back when he had not yet attained sagehood and had already stirred the winds and clouds of the entire world. To say nothing of the present—he had already become a Great Sage, striding across all under heaven, looking down on every clan. The more they understood of the past, the more their hearts trembled, and the deeper their dread grew.

The foreign sacred beings had all become quite sensible. In a setting such as this, there was absolutely not a single one who would speak out of turn, let alone take any reckless action.

The brown-haired Great Sage wobbled as he rose from the ground, placing the letter on the table. His complexion was ghastly pale. Having suffered such humiliation this day, the resentment bottled up inside him had reached its utmost limit, and within his eyes, a flash of light receded—one of unbridled and venomous hatred.

He shuddered, and only when he had moved far away from the letter did he straighten his back. His face alternated between green and pale. He wished he could bash his head against the ground and end himself right then and there. Yet even an ant clings to life—how much more so the patriarch of a great faction spanning an entire domain. He was unwilling to accept such an end.

He slowly calmed himself and spoke with an expressionless face: “May I leave now?”

“You may,” Ye Fan said, waving a hand to dismiss him.

The brown-haired Great Sage fixed him with a long, deep look. Fury burned within him, yet he knew that he was no match at all. So long as the other party held that green bronze cauldron, he would never have even the faintest hope of revenge.

At last, his gaze swept across the Divine Child, Xiao Nannan, Li Heishui, Xiao Que’er, Hua Hua, and the others. In the very depths of his eyes lurked a killing intent that was cruel and bone-chillingly cold.

However well he concealed it, how could it escape the Sacred Emperor’s Son’s piercing golden eyes? And there was even less chance of deceiving Ye Fan’s Origin Heaven’s Eye. Both men immediately darkened their expressions.

“Bold indeed. You treacherous wretch—do you still harbor no intention of repenting? Your life has already been spared, yet rather than showing remorse, you still conceal vicious designs,” the Sacred Emperor’s Son rebuked.

Ye Fan moved first, not wishing for the Sacred Emperor’s Son to incur any karmic entanglement with the Celestial Court Emperor Lord’s lineage. The green bronze cauldron within his body radiated light, causing a burst of imperial might to erupt from his palm. In an instant, he flicked his finger, sending a thin, faint ray of rosy light shooting out—directly striking the brown-haired Great Sage’s body.

“Aah—!” He let out a great cry, his entire body convulsing. White sweat drenched his face and hair, as though pain had reached its absolute extreme.

“You severed my Dao foundation?” the brown-haired Great Sage cried out in agony, his face a sickly gray, his appearance truly wretched.

“You harbor venom in your heart—that is permissible. But you must conceal it well. The moment you let me discover that you harbor ill intent toward my disciples and friends, to allow you to remain and continue causing harm would be something that heaven itself would not tolerate.”

“What a vicious heart you have!” the brown-haired Great Sage cried, nearly in despair.

“Your foundation has not been completely severed—however, you may forget about being a Great Sage for the rest of this life,” Ye Fan said lightly and casually. To the brown-haired Great Sage’s ears, however, these words struck like a clap of thunder. His face turned snow-white, and his body staggered as he retreated into the distance.

One unexpected incident concluded, yet the hearts of those present could not settle. The Emperor Lord of the Celestial Court was on the verge of attaining the Dao—he would become another supreme Great Emperor unseen across the ages!

The letter rested on the table, still glowing with dazzling, magnificent brilliance. Strand after strand of imperial energy radiated from it—barely anyone dared approach.

At this moment, the white-robed Divine King stepped forward, pinching it between two slender fingers and lifting it delicately before reading it word by word. He then asked Ye Fan whether he wished to send a reply, and Ye Fan nodded.

A clear ringing sound arose, and brilliant light erupted at the Divine King’s fingertips as character after character appeared, branded into the letter. He presented it to Ye Fan, who read it through once.

“My deepest gratitude, Senior.” Ye Fan expressed his thanks. Only the Divine King possessed such skill—able to inscribe marks alongside imperial runes, a testament to his mastery in seizing the creative forces of heaven and earth. Anyone else would have required an imperial weapon to accomplish the same.

With a soft hiss, the letter flew upward, disappearing into the brown-haired Great Sage’s body from behind. He shuddered at the sensation, then fled toward the horizon without looking back.

The engagement ceremony resumed. This time, the atmosphere was entirely harmonious. It was impossible that anyone would stir up trouble again. Two separate incidents had already occurred—one involving an entity from the Life Forbidden Zone, another involving a disciple under the wing of the future Great Emperor—and both had departed in disgrace. Naturally, no one dared provoke any further confrontation.

“The heavens and earth are on the verge of collapse, and the immortal gateway is about to manifest. Great upheaval must come to this world. Before this era of chaos—before the greatest transformation across the ages—unfolds, I believe it would be better to change this engagement ceremony directly into a grand wedding.” The Divine King Jiang Taixu made this proposal.

He was a figure of breathtaking brilliance, fully capable of serving as an elder on Ye Fan’s behalf. Once he raised the suggestion, the Ji Family pondered it briefly and agreed.

The heavens and earth were on the verge of total transformation. In this terrible great era, with countless unforeseeable upheavals, anything was possible. The sooner the marriage was formalized, the better.

Though the decision came swiftly, with the white-robed Divine King and the Ji Family elders presiding over the matter, all were pleased, and all gave their agreement.

The Ji Family’s estate immediately grew lively. Every manner of exquisite dish and delicacy was brought out and laid upon the tables, while jars of divine wine appeared one after another, their fragrance drifting for miles—enough to set one’s mouth watering from a single breath.

The atmosphere instantly grew jubilant. Cups were raised and exchanged, toasts offered freely in good cheer. Whether the foreign sacred beings or the great powers of the Northern Dipper Starfield, all had gathered together in one place.

Nearly every sacred ground was in attendance, and eminent representatives from countless immortal lineages had come to offer their congratulations.

“Congratulations to you both, Brother Ye!” A clear and lovely young woman stepped forward—ethereal and otherworldly, naturally beautiful, possessing a captivating radiance. It was Weiwei, the new generation’s sacred lord of Yao Guang.

Ye Fan expressed his gratitude, his heart filled with endless emotion. All those years ago, when they had first arrived in the Northern Dipper Starfield, the very first person they had encountered was Weiwei, who had led them from the forest outside the Ancient Forbidden Land into a place of human habitation, whereupon they had joined the Ling Xu Cave Heaven. And at that very same time, Weiwei had been selected and sent to Yao Guang—and today had become its master!

Word had it that she had swept through and reshaped everything in Yao Guang, rewriting every aspect of the institution, rooting out the entire old order and becoming the sect’s paramount female sovereign—a woman of extraordinary courage and resolve!

A layer of mysterious radiance surrounded her person.

“Ha ha… Brother Ye, great joy has come to you—congratulations!” Xia Yiming, the sovereign of the Great Xia Imperial Dynasty, stepped forward, his younger sister Xia Yilin following behind him.

“Congratulations to you as well. I heard you were recently blessed with the birth of a son—I was just about to offer my felicitations,” Ye Fan said with a smile, then he teased his former little white-robed young nun, asking when she planned to marry. The ever-pure Xia Yilin glared at him with wide eyes and shook a tiny fist at him.

Next came Feng Huang, the sacred lord of the Wind Clan, who also stepped forward. “Congratulations,” she said.

Between the two of them, there had once been a passage of shared history. Looking back now, it felt as though it were only yesterday—yet the Ye Fan of that era, compared to the Holy Body of the human race standing here today, seemed almost impossible to connect, as though a fault line had split across time and space.