The golden spear was like a lightning bolt, slicing through the sky — its blinding golden light carrying Ji Hui with it and nailing her to the gatehouse of the city wall. She screamed toward the heavens, blood streaming in great rivers from her wound — and she could not budge even a fraction.

The spear shaft trembled faintly in the sunlight, casting a cold, soul-piercing gleam — like the supreme weapon of a war god descended into the mortal world, immovable and absolute.

Blood trickled down, dripping onto the ground below. The sound was not loud — but it struck terror into every heart. Every person present stood with mouth agape, seized by dread.

Time seemed to freeze. The world reached an absolute stillness — broken only by the sound of blood dripping onto the earth. This enormous city was dead silent. Every single person held their breath.

In that moment, a chill seized everyone’s heart — a bone-deep cold that seeped into the body, leaving every single person transfixed.

Ye Fan’s matchless valor was on full display: standing hundreds of zhang away, he had hurled a golden war spear through the air for over a thousand meters, impaling one of the Ji Family’s elder-generation figures and nailing her to the gatehouse of the city wall — a spectacle that filled everyone who witnessed it with dread.

“This… this is terrifying!”

“The Sacred Body’s combat strength is truly fearsome. Not even Dragon Transformation Secret Realm powerhouses could stop him — he moved through them as though they weren’t there, piercing through his own clan’s elder!”

“Everyone said the Sacred Body had already died three months ago — yet here he is, alive again, and every assumption in the world has been proven wrong. No one knows how much longer he can hold on.”

After a brief silence, a wave of voices broke out as people talked all at once.

At this moment, Ji Hui’s hair hung in wild tangles. The golden spear had driven clean through her chest and into the wall. Her courage and her very soul had both been shattered — never had she imagined a day like this could come.

More than half of her body was soaked through with blood. The war spear was destroying her life force, draining her vital essence by the second. Filled with terror, she cried out: “No — get me down from here! Someone save me!”

Swish!

A great black rift split open in the void. A Ji Family Dragon Transformation Secret Realm elder deployed the Great Void Technique, crossing through the emptiness to appear at the gatehouse, intending to rescue Ji Hui.

Hum!

Ye Fan moved, striking after but arriving before — his right hand rose like a great golden millstone and came crashing down, its unconstrained and absolute power warping and collapsing the void beneath it.

Bang!

His great golden hand was like ten thousand mountains piled together. It struck the Dragon Transformation elder and sent him hurtling away, vomiting blood with every breath. The elder’s heart pounded with shock: had his spiritual power not been oceanic in depth, that single blow would have pulverized him utterly.

“I am going to kill her — and who among you can stop me?!” Ye Fan’s expression was impassive. He swept his gaze across every direction, then with a resounding crack, wrenched the golden spear free.

His black hair billowed and his eyes blazed with divine light. He held the spear aloft in one hand, angling it toward the southern sky. Golden radiance flowed in liquid currents along the blade — and Ji Hui, still skewered upon it, was pale as yellow paper, grinding her teeth, not daring to make a sound.

“You—” The elder who had just attempted to intervene was shaking with rage.

And yet deep within his heart, he was gripped by alarm. He had heard long ago of the Sacred Body’s unmatched physical form — but facing this pressure in person, wave after wave of dread still crashed through him unbidden.

Hum!

His body blazed with light. His spiritual power surged, as vast and fathomless as an ocean — and then he erupted. His full spiritual power swept toward Ye Fan like a tidal wave, overwhelming and all-consuming, seeking to bury and crush him.

BOOM!

Ye Fan held the spear in one hand — Ji Hui still skewered upon it — and drove the fist of his other hand upward like a great wave striking the heavens. His golden fist punched through the boundless torrent of spiritual power, tearing open a terrible fissure in the air — a blinding column of golden light slicing forward like a divine blade from the sky.

Bang!

The Dragon Transformation elder was sent flying. That golden blood energy had devoured his spiritual power outright, sending a shock through his very mind and spirit.

Ye Fan repelled a Dragon Transformation Secret Realm elder with physical force alone — unshaken and unmoved, standing alone in the void, without so much as the hem of his robe stirring. Steady as a mountain. His combat strength sent the color draining from every cultivator watching.

“The Sacred Body disappeared for three months — and did not die. He’s even more fearsome than before!”

“He broke the curse of tens of thousands of years — could his cultivation really be advancing by leaps and bounds? This is deeply unsettling.”

Throughout the area around Yan City’s gate, cultivators were packed everywhere, figures crowding in on all sides. Every single one was filled with dread. A Four Extremities physical body squaring off against Dragon Transformation powerhouses — this was beyond terrifying.

“Hmph!”

A cold snort rang out. Another Dragon Transformation Secret Realm elder sat cross-legged high in the sky, and without warning, reached a great hand downward toward Ye Fan — large enough to blot out the mountains, blanketing the heavens and covering the earth.

This was not a contest of physical endurance — it was the manifestation of spiritual technique pushed to its absolute limit. The elder was hundreds of zhang in the air, yet his hand blotted out the sky itself.

He folded a portion of space within his palm and fingers, bringing it pressing downward — intending to capture Ye Fan within it. It was an abstruse Dao technique — as if conjuring a small world of its own.

Yet Ye Fan could not have cared less. He let that great hand press down toward him without moving an inch, as a magnificent landscape of rivers and mountains materialized around him.

BOOM!

Within it: towering mountains, silver waterfalls cascading down their faces, ancient trees reaching to the heavens, and a great river surging through the land — dividing the earth with its roar. Vast beyond measure and breathtakingly beautiful. It was a landscape of majestic and glorious rivers and mountains.

Resplendent Rivers and Mountains!

The moment this phenomenon manifested, it remade heaven and earth — as if an entirely new world had been carved open. All things awakened; creation itself began anew. It filled the beholder with a sense of incomparable grandeur — while simultaneously unleashing a terrifying surge of power.

BOOM!

When the Ji Family elder’s mountain-sized hand crashed down, it met a devastating counterforce. The small world conjured within his palm and fingers collapsed in an instant, ceasing to exist.

The Resplendent Rivers and Mountains — wreathed in swirling, primordial breath — billowed outward, relentless and horrifying, obliterating the small world he had created within his palms.

Thud!

His great hand took a devastating blow, scattering a storm of blood across the sky — falling like a curtain of crimson rain, pattering down in all directions.

“The Sacred Body is too powerful — once his phenomena manifest, who can stand against him?”

“He constrains every phenomenon under heaven, grinds down every great force in the world, and stands undefeated from the moment of his birth. Anyone who dares to face the Sacred Body in battle has to be terrified.”

Even those watching from the sidelines felt this way — to say nothing of those who were actually facing Ye Fan, who were met with an aura of extreme danger, as though they stood before a sacred being incarnate.

BOOM!

Another Ji Family Dragon Transformation Secret Realm elder came surging in. He appeared as a middle-aged man of imposing bearing, clad in bronze battle armor that moved with a cold metallic gleam — an oppressive presence.

In his left hand he carried an ancient bronze shield, in his right a bronze war spear. He advanced step by step, each footfall splitting the void, as though an ancient hero’s spirit had been resurrected and returned to the mortal world.

Bang!

With a powerful shake, his bronze war spear stirred the heavens and earth, then expanded outward in size — it was like a magnificent mountain ridge descending from the heavens, vast and terrifying, its pressure making it impossible to draw breath.

In the area around the city gate, the earth cracked open, countless structures toppled and crumbled to rubble and powder, and an unseen killing intent along with crushing force destroyed everything in its path.

The enormous ancient bronze spear stood like a great mountain planted between heaven and earth — terrifying beyond measure, capable of crushing any cultivator who had reached the great completion of the Four Extremities realm into pulp, filling the heart with dread. It was as though an ancient warrior’s spirit had descended from the heavens wielding a divine weapon!

And yet, for all its enormity and terror, this war spear could do absolutely nothing to Ye Fan. Holding his golden spear with Ji Hui skewered upon it in one hand, he stood unmoved — surveying the field from every direction with sovereign calm.

Within the Resplendent Rivers and Mountains: great peaks soared to the heavens, long waterfalls fell like silver rivers from the sky, ancient trees reached the clouds, creation unfolded at the dawn of the world, ten thousand spirits emerged, and primordial breath swirled and drifted — nothing could break through.

Thud!

Ye Fan swung his golden fist upward, striking toward the high sky on his own initiative — it shone like a golden sun blazing in the firmament. The divine golden flames around his body burned and roared, his bearing as towering as a great mountain, unreachable in its heights.

His physical body matched a divine weapon in its strength. His fist struck the massive war spear head-on, shattering it as easily as breaking dead branches — the ancient bronze spear first fractured with hairline cracks, then shattered into pieces.

Dong!

Like a great war drum struck from the heavens, the middle-aged Dragon Transformation elder brought the ancient shield in his left hand slamming down, imprinting it into the void as a counterattack against Ye Fan — the ancient bronze shield merging with heaven and earth, channeling the very breath of the Dao.

BOOM!

Within the Resplendent Rivers and Mountains, the glorious landscape surged forward as one, pressing down upon it, primordial mist coiling and swirling — obliterating everything that stood in its way.

Crack!

The ancient shield that had been imprinted into the void was shaken loose and blasted out — reduced to ash entirely. The Dragon Transformation powerhouse recoiled in alarm, retreating swiftly — the portion of the void that had fused with him shattered apart.

Below, many cultivators could not withstand the pressure — faces draining of color, retreating involuntarily, some with blood seeping from the corners of their mouths.

The several Ji Family elders felt a weight settle over their hearts. They could sense the dangerous aura radiating off Ye Fan — and even though he had not directed it at them, that did not mean they could not feel it.

He was like a dormant savage dragon. If he truly unleashed himself without restraint, most of them would not be able to hold him back.

“Young man… you have gone too far. This is the Southern Region — Ji Family territory. And yet you dare to act like this!” One of the elders hardened his expression.

“When she tried to kill me — did she ever once think she had gone too far?” Ye Fan asked coldly, standing alone against these Dragon Transformation powerhouses without a trace of fear in his heart.

“Save me…” Ji Hui was genuinely terrified now, impaled on the spear and trembling, begging the Dragon Transformation elders to come to her aid.

“The peerless Divine King has already resolved the grievance between our families on your behalf. Surely you have no further desire to continue making enemies of us. Hand her over to us — what do you say?” one of the Ji Family’s Dragon Transformation elders said.

Those watching in the crowd were astonished — these several elders had visibly lowered their posture, their wariness plain to see.

“She was the one who came to kill me. How could I possibly let her go?!” Ye Fan was unmoved. He fixed his gaze on Ji Hui, contempt written across his face. “The Ji Family has figures as wise and noble as your Saint Ruler — and yet also shameless, ungrateful wretches like you. It baffles me.”

This was not a compliment to the Ji Family’s Saint Ruler. He was simply making his position clear: he had no desire to make enemies of the entire Ji Family — only to kill this one old woman.

“Young man, you had better think carefully about what you’re doing!” The several Dragon Transformation powerhouses felt their hearts lurching, for they could sense the killing intent radiating off Ye Fan.

“You… don’t kill me…” Ji Hui was on the verge of collapse.

Ye Fan glanced at her with cool disdain. “It ends here.”

“Show mercy!” The several Dragon Transformation cultivators shouted.

But Ye Fan merely swept them with a single glance — and without a shred of hesitation, he drove his full strength into the spear and hurled it forward. The spear blazed like a golden lightning bolt and drove back into the gatehouse.

Only this time, the force was incomparably greater. Ji Hui was shattered to pieces, her remains embedded in the wall — utterly and completely dead. Not a trace of breath remained. The spear shaft trembled, coldly and terrifyingly, without cease.

“This…”

Everyone was in shock. Ye Fan had killed before the eyes of several Dragon Transformation elders — and then strode away without a backward glance. Not one person moved to stop him.

“Cough…”

As Ye Fan departed, he coughed once, allowing a thread of blood to seep from the corner of his mouth — deliberately so. He had no desire to let anyone know that his Dao wounds had fully healed. If that became known, grave calamity would follow. Better to let people continue in their misunderstanding for a while longer.

On this day, the Southern Region was shaken. The Sacred Body made a powerful return, engaged the Ji Family’s strongest fighters in battle, swept through them without opposition, and nailed Ji Hui dead to the gatehouse wall — causing a massive uproar that reverberated in all directions.

The news spread swiftly to every corner of the world. Many “old acquaintances” were stunned to learn the Sacred Body had not died. That he had done all of this with such combat strength astonished people across the board.

Yan City was caught in the center of the storm. The Eastern Wasteland’s holy lands and the Central Province’s supreme great sects all had designs on entering the ancient forbidden land to gather the Immortal Medicine — and this city had become a gathering point for extraordinary fighters and formidable figures.

Among them were young kings from the Central Province and peerless talents from the Eastern Wasteland, who had been engaged in relentless battle and fierce competition. When word reached them that Ye Fan had reemerged, sharp light flickered in every pair of eyes…