The one-armed elder, cyan robes billowing in the wind—though neither imposing in stature nor powerfully built—now radiated a supreme, world-conquering splendor that could suppress the three thousand realms and sever ten thousand ages!
At the Valley of the Rising Sun, divine radiance shot into the heavens. With a single unsealing, the entire island seemed to come alive. Its aura charged into the heavens, setting the stellar domains in motion, causing the myriad heavens and ten thousand worlds to tremble in unison!
The old man in cyan robes stood alone beneath the divine tree. The ancient Fusang tree rustled and rang out, as though it were crying out in response to him—cascading golden light rained from its swaying branches and fell upon his body. Anyone else would have been reduced to cinders, yet the elder bathed in it, becoming ever more sacred.
The Ancient Solar Emperor!
An identity no one could have anticipated. A title that crushed the myriad heavens of ten thousand ages. A great emperor of the human race!
Many people trembled, unable to control themselves, falling to their knees in worship without even meaning to. This was submission from the very soul.
Thump. Thump.
All across the island, the sound of people falling to their knees rose and fell in waves. People trembled. An emperor from the primordial era was separated from later ages by an unfathomable gulf—yet he could actually reappear in the mortal world. This was a divine miracle.
Ye Fan had prepared his heart for this, and yet he could not help feeling a shock. He had encountered this person on another ancient life star—and indeed, this was a great human emperor: after death, a single thought-will had refused to be extinguished, longing to return to the ancestral land.
The Golden Crow clan’s primordial killing formation had been aimed at Ye Fan, but the Ancient Solar Emperor had been caught within it as well. Dark clouds surged and black mist flooded the sky, with a golden great sage manifesting within.
The old man in cyan robes emanated a divine and awe-inspiring might. Two beams of golden light shot from his twin eyes, cleaving through the vault of heaven in an instant—as though capable of slicing down stars from beyond the outer realm. It was both brilliant and terrifying beyond measure.
Clang. Clang.
Eight tremendous sounds rang out. His gaze-light severed all eight formation banners crafted by the Golden Crow clan’s great sage’s own hand—their cloth flapping and fluttering as they fell into the dust.
This feat shook the world. With a single thread of gaze-light, he had destroyed the Golden Crow clan’s sect-guarding divine formation. It could be said to be without equal through all the ages, impossible to compare.
Everyone was stupefied. All of this was far too unreal. How could any person be this powerful? Without even lifting a hand—a mere thread of gaze-light, severing ten thousand ages!
“It truly is the Solar Sacred Emperor!”
At the Valley of the Rising Sun, people trembled. Only an ancient great emperor could possess such divine power—even now, with nothing left but a single divine thought-will.
The people of the Golden Crow clan felt as though their hearts might shatter. Those formation banners had been crafted by the hand of a great sage—they were priceless divine objects, no less precious than the sacred weapon, the Crow-Winged Flowing Gold Lance. They were the supreme treasures that anchored the sect.
Their hearts ached beyond bearing. The eight Golden Crow princes went pale as snow—they felt as though they would have preferred to die. This was tantamount to destroying their very foundation.
There was absolutely no doubt—this was the ancient human emperor. To look across all ages, past and present, only a handful of people could have done this.
The old man in cyan robes did not continue to strike. He bathed in the golden light cascading from the Fusang Divine Tree, momentarily lost in a daze, gazing up at the sky, looking down at the earth. His eyes held infinite depths of sorrow and time.
No one spoke. The Valley of the Rising Sun fell quiet. There was only the sound of the golden leaves stirring in the breeze, and the distant rise and fall of the black ocean.
Suddenly, the old man in cyan robes shuddered. From all over his body rippled wave after wave, transforming into a dark radiance. Like a black sun, it encircled him in its glow.
This was a bizarre transformation—nothing like the legendary Solar Sacred Power. Instead, it was black as ink. He had become a black sun.
“Beware—this is a divine fiend thought-will!” someone said with great composure, sending a voice transmission in secret to warn everyone.
These words caused many to feel a wave of cold terror crawl across their skin. Such a thing was far too sinister. The legends surrounding it were terrifying in the extreme—it was said to be capable of killing human sage-level figures.
A divine fiend thought-will—legend held that it was formed from the malevolent thoughts of a god after death. How extraordinarily powerful must the Ancient Solar Emperor have been to produce even such a thing—something that could stand shoulder to shoulder with a divine being!
“In the past, the Solar Sacred Emperor looked down upon ten thousand ages in the greatness of his courage and benevolence. The greater he was, the greater the malevolence his divine fiend thought-will would embody!” someone cried out in warning.
The crowd grew horror-stricken. This being was formed from a single thread of malevolent thought—it could not begin to compare to the ancient great emperor himself. Yet it could still stand as an equal to a sage.
Boom!
Lu Ya advanced with his Crow-Winged Flowing Gold Lance. The Three-Deficiency Daoist pressed forward with his Longevity Halberd. The Sacred Son of the Lunar Yin and other powerful figures likewise descended with sacred weapons pressing down!
Below, the eight Golden Crow princes immediately felt as though a weight had been lifted from their shoulders. They snatched up the eight shattered formation banners and retreated hastily. The people from the Hall of the Human King, the Purple Subtlety Divine Dynasty, and other major powers also fell back, distancing themselves from the Fusang Divine Tree. Not a single person dared to encircle it any longer.
Those bearing sacred weapons also hurried to withdraw—not because they intended to attack the divine fiend thought-will, but only to provide cover for their own people’s retreat.
Beneath the Fusang Tree, the old man in cyan robes was enveloped by a black halo of light, filled with a demonic power. He looked down upon all living things as though he could roar the ten thousand ages to pieces.
He cradled the stone coffin, and only Ye Fan still stood before him. Every other person had retreated far away, trembling, not daring to breathe.
This was no longer the Ancient Solar Emperor—it was his malevolent thought awakening. In an instant, the entire black ocean trembled, its shaking spreading toward the mainland!
“A force that is the complete opposite—originally a golden sun, now transformed into a black sun!”
People’s hearts pounded. Not one dared to move rashly. All watched with tense eyes.
Then, at the center of this black sun, the one-armed elder’s twin eyes shot out two beams of dark light. Something seemed to startle him—he turned abruptly and fixed his gaze upon Ye Fan.
More precisely, he fixed his gaze upon the two chunks of rust-mottled aged bronze hanging at Ye Fan’s shoulders. His dark gaze did not waver for even an instant.
“It is them—they are shattered…”
He seemed deeply shaken, nearly petrified—still as a clay sculpture or wooden carving. He stood like this for a very long time without moving.
The old man in cyan robes stood in silence for a prolonged period. The black sun encircling his body slowly dimmed, the dark halo gradually dissolving. His eyes cleared once more.
“I am not the Solar Sacred Emperor. I am only a single thread of his malevolent thought—not even one ten-thousandth of him…” he murmured, head bowed, in quiet self-reflection.
He had awakened to his past and present lives and come to understand what had come before. The Fusang Divine Tree rained down a mantle of divine light, baptizing his malevolent form and gradually illuminating it.
A golden halo of light wound around the outside of his body—entirely different from a moment ago. At last, there was a hint of the ancient human emperor’s presence.
As his mind grew clear, the malevolence would no longer manifest as malevolence. The gaze of the divine fiend thought-will gradually cleared, fixing upon the two pieces of green copper. His eyes were deep as the starry sky, and he said nothing.
In the end, he stood before the Fusang Tree, set the stone coffin on the ground, and slowly pushed open the coffin lid, gazing inside.
Boom!
The aura of the ancient great emperor burst forth. Throughout the entire ocean, towering waves rose ten thousand zhang, scattering every cloud in the sky!
This was an aura beyond all words—thread upon thread, strand upon strand, reaching through past and future alike, suppressing the three thousand great worlds, reversing the six cycles of reincarnation!
Everyone fell prostrate. Even Ye Fan, shielded by the aged bronze, could not help but feel on the verge of suffocation. His heart and body trembled—he nearly fell backward and toppled over.
“The Sacred Emperor has passed away in seated meditation—and his body has vanished. Who touched him?” the divine fiend thought-will said in a startled voice.
At that moment, only Ye Fan had any opportunity to look into the stone coffin. Every other person was trembling and had fallen prostrate to the ground.
Inside the coffin, there was no body of the ancient human emperor—only a human skin, radiating golden light, as dazzling as a blazing sun!
Every terrifying fluctuation originated from it. Upon it clung several drops of golden blood, as though it had only been shed not long ago.
Where were the bones of the human race’s Sacred Emperor? Where had they gone? Why was there only a skin left? Ye Fan’s heart shook violently. He immediately thought of the Undying Heavenly Emperor—when he had opened that coffin in the past, he had also found only a skin.
The Undying Heavenly Emperor. The Solar Sacred Emperor. These were the supreme beings of the primordial age—surpassing even divine beings. Only they had given birth to divine fiend thought-wills.
Why was this so? Why had the remains left behind at their seated meditation come to this? It was far too similar—they had nearly walked the same road!
The old man in cyan robes kowtowed to the coffin with profound reverence. After a very long time, he finally rose to his feet and closed the ancient coffin.
He turned to face Ye Fan and said: “I had originally intended to give you the Fusang Divine Tree. But now that is no longer possible—I can only give you one zhang of divine branches.”
Clang!
From the Fusang Divine Tree fell a golden branch approximately one zhang in length, covered in golden leaves, so brilliantly dazzling it was impossible to look at directly.
In the distance, many people’s eyes went red. Their blood surged and boiled. They burned with desperate excitement—wanting nothing more than to rush over—yet not a single one dared to move rashly.
Ye Fan summoned his cauldron and drew the golden branch inside. This was the most fundamental of substances, containing Solar Fire Essence within, a supreme sacred object. Hundreds of millions in gold could not purchase a single leaf.
The old man in cyan robes’ form was growing translucent and faint. Just before he disappeared, he came before Ye Fan and extended one finger to carve characters at the center of his brow—each stroke and each line traced slowly, with great deliberateness.
Neither more nor fewer—precisely nine ancient characters, seared into his Immortal Terrace. Every single one was brilliant and crystalline, eternal and imperishable!
Ye Fan’s heart trembled. He was overcome with excitement. These were imperial script—characters that only an ancient great emperor could understand. The Daoist scripture also contained nine ancient characters, and he had spent over a decade pondering them without fully comprehending them.
“Senior, please carve a few more characters—I will carry your legacy forward and let it shine throughout the three thousand realms,” Ye Fan said with a shameless grin.
“Nine characters are sufficient. The Dao must be walked by oneself.” The old man in cyan robes was as still as an ancient well.
In the end, he cradled the stone coffin and sat cross-legged beneath the Fusang Tree, saying: “I attained the Dao here. I shall lay my bones to rest here. When causes and conditions arise and when they cease—all things shall pass.”
The old man in cyan robes began his dissolution into the Dao. His body slowly grew translucent and faded, gradually vanishing.
People understood: the last thread of malevolent thought left behind by the human race’s Sacred Emperor was about to disappear as well. Only the Undying Fusang Tree would endure alone in the world. It was a sight that stirred deep sighs—the Dao had no feeling. Even an ancient great emperor was nothing more than a speck of dust in the river of history.
Boom!
A tremendous quake rang out. The entire island began to sink. The black ocean surged inward.
“The Valley of the Rising Sun is going to disappear!” people cried out in alarm, flying up into the sky one after another.
Some also charged toward the Undying Tree—but the ancient coffin lay across the path, making it impossible to get near. And the golden divine tree itself surged with a fearsome sacred power.
Ye Fan realized that he was stuck fast before the divine tree, sinking together with the ancient coffin, vanishing into the depths of the Northern Sea.
“The sea eye—it’s the eye of the Northern Sea!” many people cried out in terror.
Within the great ocean, a massive black void appeared, swallowing the Valley of the Rising Sun and plunging it into eternal darkness. Even the golden Fusang Divine Tree could only emit a faint light within.
Not a single person dared to follow. Legend said the eye of the Northern Sea could devour heaven and earth, refining and dissolving gods and demons. It was the place where ancient great emperors imprisoned those who had committed the most terrible crimes.
“You damn turtle Ye Fan, why aren’t you escaping yet?!” Li Tian shouted.
“I’d love to escape—unfortunately, I can’t move,” Ye Fan said with a helpless smile, deep in the darkness.
If misfortune were to befall Ye Fan, Yi Qingwu would be implicated as well. Her brows knitted slightly. At the center of her forehead, a small red mole glowed like rosy clouds. She was like a divine moon herself—of a purity and sanctity without equal.
“I won’t die. Fulfill your role as the Divine Maiden and wait for my return,” Ye Fan said.
Boom!
One final muffled sound—the Valley of the Rising Sun sank completely into the sea eye and from that moment vanished from the world.
In the darkness, a golden divine tree took root atop the stone coffin, flowing with a mantle of sacred light.
Not far away, Ye Fan sat cross-legged in meditation, quietly cultivating, contemplating all he had learned, and refining the golden branch.
So this is the eye of the Northern Sea—the place where ancient great emperors imprisoned those who had committed the gravest of sins…