The interior of the massive bronze coffin was filled with a mysterious aura. All manner of bronze engravings flickered, flowing with a radiance that was not particularly brilliant — alternately bright and dim.

The patina of rust was thick, yet it still could not conceal the vague engravings on the bronze. There were ancient ancestors gazing up at the starry sky; there were primordial divine beings bearing tear-streaked faces…

At this moment, they seemed to have come alive, as though trying to break through the bronze patina, forcing their way through the thick layers of rust to emerge — giving one a profoundly vivid sense of reality.

Ye Fan’s heart was deeply shaken. He released the small bronze coffin and carefully absorbed every detail, observing intently, wanting to penetrate the mysteries concealed within.

More vague bronze engravings flickered: a ferocious nine-headed divine bird spread its wings in soaring flight, spanning the azure sky; a being that might have rivaled the Heaven-Defying Battle Ape stood atop the clouds, its staff splitting the heavens.

There were ancient ferocious beasts recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas — glutton, Qiongqi, Taowu, and others — as well as many unrecognizable creatures, enormous in form, grotesque in appearance, so lifelike they inspired dread just to behold.

What captured Ye Fan’s attention above all was the starscape engraving. It was so real and profound, so unceasingly transformative, that one felt the vastness and immensity of the cosmos — a cold, dark aura washing over the face.

He tried to trace the ancient starry road, but it extended far too rapidly, flickering and vanishing. He had no way of knowing what stellar domains it had traversed.

Because the stellar domain was limitless, with no reference coordinates. He had no way to identify anything. Looking out at the stellar domain from the other end of the star sea was entirely different from looking out at it from here — he did not know from whose perspective it was being shown.

“Mount Tai, the ancient star of Huoying, the ancient forbidden land… does it next point toward the ancient land star of Ziwei?” Ye Fan murmured to himself, filled with profound wonder.

“Swish!”

A flash of light, and all the engravings on the coffin wall lost their radiance, quickly dimming. It seemed everything was connected to the small bronze coffin — leave it alone, and all returned to stillness.

The small bronze coffin inside the great outer casket was about four meters in length and less than two meters wide — ancient and dim, engraved with archaic patterns, covered with patina, and inscribed with the weathering of the ages.

“Clang!”

Ye Fan pushed forcefully, wanting to lift the lid open. His heart was filled with endless questions. What manner of being lay buried in the coffin pulled by Nine Dragons?

“Hum!”

Sure enough, the moment he moved the small coffin again, all the engravings flickered back to life, filled with an air of mystery.

“Clang!”

Ye Fan felt as though he were uprooting a mountain. The bronze coffin was as heavy as a great sacred peak. He poured every last drop of his strength into it. His entire body shone as though cast from gold, his golden blood energy seething. The bones of the Imperishable Holy Body groaned with a sharp creak, nearly breaking.

“Boom!”

At last, he managed to pry the ancient lid open the smallest crack — just a tiny gap. A thread of chaotic energy seeped out, and in that instant, he was blasted flying.

Even a body as powerful as the golden-bodied Holy Body had been pierced clean through — a blood-hole through the front and back. Had the green bronze piece in his bitter sea not trembled gently and absorbed that misty thread of chaotic energy, he would have been ground to powder in that moment.

Ye Fan was terrified. This was too fearsome. A single thread of aura revealed — chaos! Even with the Holy Body at minor completion, he was like paper before it — utterly incapable of withstanding it. This result shook him to the core.

He quickly drank the divine spring water to heal his wounds. He certainly did not want to be destroyed by this ancient coffin just as the crack in his Great Dao was on the verge of improvement. His vital energy surged powerfully through his body in rapid circulation.

Ye Fan’s heart was shaken beyond measure. What was inside the small bronze coffin? It could recite the celestial sound of the Great Dao — it might be an ancient scripture. It had emitted a thread of chaotic energy — it might be a supreme treasure. And if it were a corpse… that would be the most terrifying possibility of all.

After a very long time, Ye Fan’s wound finally healed. He naturally did not dare to lift the lid again — for within lay absolute killing force.

He paced within the great coffin, examining every engraving carefully and pondering deeply. The more he thought, the more his heart trembled. Countless astonishing thoughts arose within him.

The vast stellar void held too many secrets. The ancient road through the stars had no end. Its terminus was unknown. This ancient and mysterious stellar region perhaps was only a stretch of road.

The Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin — perhaps it had set sail since the most ancient of times. Where was it ultimately bound? Perhaps… it had no beginning and no end, with no answer, no destination.

Ye Fan pondered this at length, then took up the Qilin divine medicine seed and the seven-colored small stone and walked out of the ancient coffin. He came to stand before the nine enormous Dragon Corpses and began to devise plans for them.

Whether or not they were true dragons, with forms so similar, they were certainly no ordinary things. Even setting that aside — if they were merely flood dragons, they had most likely evolved to an unfathomable degree.

The fact that they could pull the bronze coffin through the boundless stellar void and remain uncorrupted to this day was testament enough. Every part of them was a priceless treasure.

Ye Fan’s Great Dao wound had not yet healed, but his physical body had recovered to nearly full capacity. His divine power was unparalleled. He tried again to draw dragon blood, but after great effort, he could not pull off even a single dragon scale.

“Clang!”

He tried to break off a dragon horn, and the impact split the web between his thumb and forefinger, yet he could not pull it loose at all. He grabbed onto a dragon whisker and nearly sliced his own palm clean off — and even so could not sever it.

“This is a supreme hidden treasury, and I am its guardian — yet I cannot extract a single thing from it.”

Ye Fan was truly at a loss. He tried to carry away an entire Dragon Corpse but found it heavier than mountains, and they were connected to the bronze coffin by iron chains that could not be severed and could not be moved.

In the days that followed, he divided his time between nursing his wounds and pondering the bronze coffin and the nine dragons. Clearly he knew they were priceless treasures — but there was nothing he could do about it.

They could not be cut, could not be moved. He stood guarding a mountain of treasure yet could not obtain so much as a single copper coin. It was a profoundly helpless situation.

In the blink of an eye, Ye Fan had been in the ancient forbidden land for more than twenty days. In this primordial stretch of heaven and earth, the Great Dao wound was indeed healing little by little.

Several years ago he had harvested two varieties of divine fruits. Now he had harvested three more. Four varieties of divine roots remained on the nine sacred mountains, and he decided to brave the dangers once more.

This time he was fortunate. He harvested the sixth variety of holy fruit — shaped like small suns, each one golden and perfectly round, as naturally formed as could be. Every single one was the size of an infant’s fist.

This sixth variety of divine root had produced nine small trees in total, which had naturally borne nine fruits. Held in his palm, they illuminated his entire body in a brilliant golden glow.

The interior of the bronze coffin shimmered with brilliance, filled to overflowing with sweet fragrance, gleaming with radiant light. Just breathing in the aroma gave one the sensation of being about to ascend in a burst of celestial light. Every pore opened wide and was being continually bathed in divine power.

They truly resembled the refined essence of the sun — their medicinal power mysterious and formidable, beautiful and crystalline. Even looking at them was enough to make one drunk with wonder.

Ye Fan went into seclusion again. On the sixth day, after refining two golden sun fruits, one incomplete Dao diagram after another circled his body and was branded into him, sinking into the Great Dao wound within.

The wound could be seen clearly beginning to slowly close. The wound was progressing toward recovery. At the same time, his physical body also began to change. His bones and flesh seemed as though they were being reborn.

Previously, when he had entered the holy land and been so grievously injured by the desolate power, having consumed seven holy fruits in total, he had only recovered to his robust state. Now, refining two more golden sun fruits, his five organs and six viscera shook in unison. Signs of a fundamental transformation began to appear.

Three days later, after he refined the third sun divine fruit, his bones cracked and popped. His flesh tore open and shed a layer of old skin, and a brand-new body was born beneath.

His physical body had become supremely powerful. Freed from his aged shell, he was once more filled with vitality and vigor — and his flesh was even stronger than it had been before.

He sealed away the remaining six golden fruits. The fragments of the laws of heaven and earth they contained were the same, and could produce no further effect on his Great Dao wound.

“Clang!”

Ye Fan exerted himself forcefully — and actually managed to hoist the small bronze coffin onto his back. One could imagine just how tremendous his divine power had become — surpassing anything he had previously achieved.

Though it was enormously taxing, he truly had moved it. It felt like carrying an entire mountain — his vital energy churning powerfully, sweat streaming freely, golden blood energy blazing around his body like fire.

“Clang!”

When he set the small bronze coffin down, the resulting sound shook the heavens. The small coffin and the great outer casket had a kind of magnetic attraction — they merged seamlessly back together.

“Three varieties of fruits remain. I will harvest them all to seal the Great Dao crack!”

Yet in the days that followed, Ye Fan spotted Desolate Slaves several times and dared not ascend the mountain, fearing he would bring upon himself a killing calamity. He waited for half a month, during which he spotted them twice more.

“It seems I can only carry the small bronze coffin up the mountain.”

Having made his decision, he set out that very day, carrying the small coffin step by step up the mountain. It pressed down so heavily that every bone in his body rang, and each step he took left enormous cracks in the hardened sacred rock.

Upon reaching the summit, he encountered the Desolate Slaves again — the white-haired man, the Holy Maiden of Tianxuan, and an elder with the face of a youth and white hair of old age.

Ye Fan advanced step by step. All three Desolate Slaves fixed their gaze upon the bronze coffin, utterly transfixed. They took no action whatsoever, and indeed retreated, seemingly unwilling to draw too near.

“Swish!”

In the end, they all leaped into the abyss and did not reappear. They seemed to hold the bronze coffin in absolute dread.

Carrying a coffin to harvest divine medicine — truly a first in all of history. But with no other option for survival, there was nothing else to be done. That day, he harvested three varieties of holy fruits in succession, each one extraordinary and wondrous. One variety was shaped like small cauldrons — suffused with Dao resonance, swathed in hazy mist — of which there were six. Another resembled flying birds — shaped like phoenixes, crimson as blood, so lifelike they seemed ready to spread their wings and soar — of which there were five. The last variety was also quite peculiar in shape — like small round discs, glowing with blue light, marked with eight scars in a pale gold, resembling the Eight Trigrams — of which there were five.

“This is…”

Ye Fan marveled and clicked his tongue in wonder. These holy fruits were truly extraordinary — not one of them was alike. Every single one was marvelous and magical, gleaming brilliantly with shimmering radiance.

He had successfully harvested every last holy fruit. Carrying the bronze coffin, he made his difficult descent. On the way down he nearly tumbled — the small bronze coffin was far too heavy, pressing down until nearly every bone in his body was about to break.

Over the next half a month, the interior of the Ancient Bronze Coffin was suffused with the aura of the Great Dao, rich with sweet fragrance. The various extraordinary fruits radiated magnificently brilliant light.

When he refined the Crimson Bird Fruit, his surroundings seemed to fill with phoenixes dancing and phoenixes softly singing. Incomplete Dao diagrams flowed and circulated. Every inch of his flesh trembled as his blood was continuously renewed and reborn.

When he refined the Cauldron-Shaped divine fruit, his bones shattered inch by inch and then reassembled — continuously renewed and reborn. Incomplete Dao diagrams first encircled his body, then sank into the Great Dao wound.

When he refined the holy fruit bearing the Eight Trigrams scars, eight varieties of innate markings transformed into the Eight Trigrams arranged in all eight directions, enclosing him within. One mysterious Dao diagram after another emerged and drowned him entirely.

Over nearly twenty days, Ye Fan’s flesh and bones were continuously reborn in a fundamental transformation. Though he had branded the nine ancient characters onto his body, he still nearly came out even smaller than before.

This transformation of fundamental rebirth rendered his physical body supremely powerful. His every gesture and movement seemed capable of piercing through heaven and earth.