The Sacred City had existed alongside the world since time immemorial — its origins untraceable. Long before the human race began keeping written records, it had already stood.

Throughout the Eastern Desolation, many great powers existed. The various holy lands and ancient aristocratic families all coveted it for themselves, yet this remained entirely unrealistic — after all, there was only one Divine City.

In the end, the many great powers held secret deliberations and agreed to jointly exercise authority over it, collectively governing the city.

As for the secrets of the Divine City — what lay hidden within — outsiders knew almost nothing. Only a handful of open secrets had been revealed to the world at large.

The Archaic Dao Platform stood at the Central Heaven Gate at the heart of the Divine City, suspended in the air. It was a grand and magnificent celestial terrace, its surface covered densely with Dao markings, layer upon layer upon layer.

Without question, this was an extraordinarily complex arrangement of Dao markings — so profound and abstruse that even many holy lords could not fully comprehend them. Almost no one could claim to understand them completely.

In ancient times, everyone believed this place could be used to traverse the void and reach some mysterious destination, and all had attempted it many times with great excitement in their hearts.

As it turned out, the Dao markings etched upon the Archaic Platform were indeed marks of the Great Dao — imprints capable of crossing through the void — yet no one had ever managed to traverse to any other realm.

Certain vaguely worded records noted that the Platform could send one to a divine place of immense fortune, yet no one had ever succeeded in doing so.

The reason this was said at all was because of legends that several Great Emperors of antiquity had successfully traversed the void here — but regrettably, no one could verify this.

However, people had discovered other wondrous uses. The Platform held nine stone tokens; no matter where one traveled, holding a token and offering divine power to it as a sacrifice would allow one to rapidly traverse the void and return to the Central Heaven Gate of the Divine City.

This was a startling discovery. An elderly holy lord had once tested it — traveling all the way to the Central Continent, then holding the stone token and offering up divine power, and still successfully crossing back.

Of course, the cost was tremendous. An ordinary person would have their divine power drawn completely dry and die as a result.

The nine stone tokens had been divided among the various holy lands and ancient aristocratic families. In those days there were more holy lands than there are now, and those who didn’t receive a token nearly came to blows over it.

The tokens were all held by the great holy lords. Only they could traverse freely and return to the floating Heaven Gate of the Divine City.

On this very night, at the Central Heaven Gate of the Divine City, a dazzling radiance bloomed. The Archaic Dao Platform shuddered with boundless spatial force, and seven or eight figures materialized simultaneously.

They swept their wide sleeves, and from those sleeves fell a dense swarm of figures — too many to count.

Everyone understood: something catastrophic had happened. Seven or eight holy lords crossing the void together and retreating to the Divine City’s Heaven Gate was something that had never occurred before.

And there was the bell just moments ago — a thunderous, world-shaking peal whose reverberations had moved the very soul, causing even the Divine City itself to resonate as though it might shatter.

That the bell waves had caused the Divine City to resonate was something unheard of since ancient times. The entire city was roused, and everyone poured out into the open, gazing upward into the distance.

“This is an Emperor’s might!”

“Heavens — this is the divine might of a Great Emperor!”

Elders cried out in alarm. Even someone as powerful as a holy lord could not possibly produce such a bell toll. Every soul present had trembled with the peal.

No deliberation was needed, no speculation required — almost by pure instinct, countless minds arrived at the same conclusion: this was the overwhelming pressure of an ancient Great Emperor, enough to make heart and courage quail together.

“Heavens — can it be that an ancient Great Emperor has not died? This is astounding!”

“No, those Great Emperors cannot still be in this world. No one can live that long. Unless… someone has become an Emperor?”

“Could it be — has a new Great Emperor appeared?!”

Many showed expressions of sheer disbelief. The Emperor’s might that had just struck them was truly soul-shaking.

The Divine City was the heart of the Northern Region, drawing together the winds and currents of all under heaven. Naturally, many extraordinary individuals were present — a royal uncle of the immortal dynasty Great Xia from the Central Continent, a powerful figure from the Northern Plains’ Golden Family, a great authority from the Southern Ridge. Several figures simultaneously surged toward the Heaven Gate.

Ye Fan and the others naturally rushed out as well. Even An Miaoyi’s beauty that eclipsed all heaven and earth could not compete with the clamor of Emperor’s might outside.

This night, the Divine City was destined to know no sleep. Many could not settle their hearts.

“The holy lords have run into trouble — something terrifying must have happened at Purple Mountain.” Jiang Yifei thought briefly, then turned and mounted his golden divine beast, galloping off beneath the moon. His white robes billowed behind him with extraordinary elegance.

“I will visit Immortal Lady An another day — farewell, everyone.” His voice carried from afar, as the golden divine beast transformed into a streak of golden light and vanished at the lake’s edge.

“We take our leave as well.” The holy sons of Dayan and Wanchu both departed in haste. If something had befallen the great holy lords, it bore heavily on them — it was tied to whether they could become the lords of the next generation.

“Miaoyi bids farewell to all of you!” An Miaoyi transmitted her voice.

With things as they were, the gathering dissolved. Everyone scattered and went their separate ways.

Two days later, word finally spread — and it shook the world.

The combined forces of the great holy lands had made their first assault on Purple Mountain, and they had failed — nearly suffering total annihilation.

The Jiang Family, the Ji Family, Yao Guang, and Yaochi all possessed replica supreme Dao weapons. On that night, four replica supreme Dao weapons — including the Solar Divine Furnace, the Dragon Pattern Cauldron, and others — were all shaken to pieces, reduced to fine powder.

Beyond that, the weapons of several holy lords — which had already become interwoven with Dao and principle — were likewise reduced to ash, vanishing into nothing.

All of this had been caused by a single bell. No true Great Emperor had emerged into the world. A single wave of the bell had shattered numerous powerful cultivators on the spot. They could not resist it at all.

The holy lands and ancient aristocratic families had spent many days studying Purple Mountain, and concluded that the site must hold the secrets of an ancient Great Emperor. Nine dragons coiled in protection around a single mountain — such terrain was nearly impossible to find anywhere else under heaven.

They had considered many plans, and ultimately decided that venturing deep into Purple Mountain was too dangerous. Better to join the combined strength of all the holy lands and cleave it apart at its center.

What none of them anticipated was that this course of action would bring catastrophe. Purple Mountain was not cleaved — instead, the supreme Dao Bell was roused, its waves shattering everything in their path. Wherever the bell waves passed, all was reduced to fine powder.

Over a hundred veterans were instantly reduced to smoke and ash on the spot, unable to even utter a cry before their bodies and spirits were annihilated together. There was no resisting it whatsoever.

The great holy lords had reacted with swift decisiveness, using their great divine arts to draw the surviving cultivators into themselves, then held the stone tokens and traversed the void. The replica supreme Dao weapons that had been serving as protective shields, along with the holy lords’ own weapons, were all shattered.

When word of this spread, the Northern Region shook. The Eastern Desolation shook. All under heaven shook!

The name of the Emperor Wushi re-emerged into the world, rising to the surface, thundering forth from the depths of history.

The vast majority of people in the world barely knew this name, but the ancient heritages of the world would never forget it. In the age when Emperor Wushi had dominated all under heaven, he had displayed the might of an ancient Great Emperor to its absolute zenith.

At the end of the immortal road, who stands at the peak? A single glimpse of Wushi, and the Dao turns to empty void!

This was the world’s highest praise for him. Even after over a hundred thousand years had passed, those ancient lineages had not forgotten: when Wushi appeared, the Great Dao itself became empty.

The Sacred City seethed. All under heaven was shaken!

This Great Emperor had left behind no heritage. The Bell of Wushi had long since vanished into history, leaving many cultivators deeply grieved.

Indeed — if Emperor Wushi had left behind no Dao lineage, it was an immeasurable loss to the human race, a regret impossible to calculate.

Now, the Bell of Wushi had rung, and all under heaven stirred. Elderly holy lords on the verge of death felt a consoled relief — but far more people were consumed by feverish excitement.

The heritage of Emperor Wushi — lost across endless ages — might be about to emerge into the world. It pulled at the nerves of every person alive. This was a temptation impossible to resist.

“Is it real? Emperor Wushi’s Dao lineage is truly about to appear in the world?!”

“Emperor Wushi — he shook the ancient and illuminated the present. Unrivaled under all heaven, he stands as a monument that none can surpass!”

……

Within just a few days, the world swiftly came to know certain secrets about Emperor Wushi — news traveled with extraordinary speed.

Of course, all of this had naturally been disclosed from those ancient lineages, including the various holy lands, the Northern Plains’ Golden Family, the four immortal dynasties of the Central Continent, and others.

“Rather face a fully-mastered Sacred Body in battle than ever encounter Wushi!” — these were the words left by the ancestral founders of the Celestial Demon Palace, revealing just how deeply the ancient great demons had feared him.

Before the Archaic Era, the land was in upheaval. The demon race and the human race clashed frequently in great wars, until at last they were suppressed by the ancient Great Emperors.

When the great demons had howled across heaven and earth, they had naturally done battle with fully-mastered Sacred Bodies and with ancient Great Emperors, and understood deeply how terrifying those beings were.

“This Wushi is too terrifying — before he even became a Great Emperor, he once blocked a supreme Dao weapon from the Central Continent with his bare hands!” Even people from the Central Continent were dumbstruck when they learned this secret, left utterly speechless with eyes wide open.

In those ancient days, the unparalleled gifts Emperor Wushi had displayed in his youth need not be elaborated upon — he had absolutely suppressed every peer in the world and even shaken many older generation figures. He was a living “monstrous heaven-defying genius” in the truest sense.

And when he had finally achieved mastery, he became so unfathomably deep that no one could gauge his limits, and no one could look up at him without craning their neck to the sky.

Before he became a Great Emperor, he had once fought against people of the Central Continent in the border regions of the Eastern Desolation. That was an age when extraordinary talents emerged in great numbers — and it was precisely because so many geniuses appeared that they served as a backdrop, making Emperor Wushi appear all the more unreachably exalted.

One immortal dynasty of the Central Continent had produced a peerless genius — magnificent in bearing, rarely seen since antiquity. In that era, he stood on the verge of creating a miracle: becoming a new Great Emperor following in the footsteps of the dynasty’s founder. Since time immemorial, no single heritage had ever produced two Great Emperors. Had he succeeded, it would have been an extraordinary feat and a marvel without precedent.

That genius had indeed touched the very threshold of a Great Emperor. Were nothing unexpected to happen, he might well have achieved it — yet fate placed him in the path of the not-yet-Emperor Wushi.

At the border between the Central Continent and the Eastern Desolation, he and Wushi clashed in battle. He even deployed a supreme Dao weapon — yet in the end, he still fell in defeat.

That genius of the Central Continent — infinitely close to becoming a Great Emperor, wielding the supreme Dao weapon left by his founding ancestor — could absolutely have displayed the divine might of a Great Emperor.

Yet Wushi had caught that supreme Dao weapon barehanded. He was not shattered to ash by it; instead, he overpowered his opponent and shook all under heaven.

Emperor Wushi was a man of grand magnanimity. After becoming a Great Emperor, he returned that supreme Dao weapon to that imperial dynasty and did not make things difficult for them.

“He was a monstrous heaven-defying genius of the highest order!” — this was Ye Fan’s exclamation after hearing all of these revelations.

Li Heishui said, “As long as you shatter the curse and break into the Four Extremes Mystery Realm, with the way you’ve been performing — you’ll become another monstrous heaven-defying genius.”

“I’ll sweep the stone stockpiles of every holy land clean — I must enter the Four Extremes Mystery Realm!” Ye Fan had been stirred deeply by all the secrets surrounding Emperor Wushi, his emotions surging.

“These holy lords will leave soon. There is no way they’d simply retreat and give up — the temptation of Wushi’s Dao lineage is something no one can resist.” Li Heishui thought for a moment and said, “The only thing to watch out for is those holy sons. They’ll certainly not be sent to Purple Mountain — and they’ve all seen your face. Whatever you do, don’t reveal any weaknesses.”

“Sooner or later, I’ll plant myself at the gates of every holy land and beat them until they don’t dare come out…” Ye Fan muttered to himself.

“Hahaha…” Li Heishui burst out laughing. “It seems being hunted down by these people has left you absolutely seething with resentment.”

“What a pity — a heaven-defying genius like Emperor Wushi, who shook the ancient and illuminated the present… in the end, he too was nothing but a handful of yellow earth…” Ye Fan sighed deeply.

“Do immortal beings — true immortals — not truly exist?” Li Heishui let out a long sigh as well.

True to expectation, the holy lands could not bring themselves to give up. A second assault on Purple Mountain began — and it was said that this time, supreme Dao weapons might be deployed.

Perhaps the Solar Divine Furnace. Perhaps the Dragon Pattern Cauldron. Or perhaps the Void Mirror…

The next assault — it would surely shatter the heavens and earth. Perhaps Purple Mountain would truly be opened this time.