“Who?” Li Tian was startled and suspicious. He and Yan Yixi naturally had no need for a master — the reason Ye Fan had said such a thing was entirely to find them a protector.
That day, Xiao Tingting led the way, and Ye Fan and his group went to the Jiang Family, hoping to seek an audience with the White-Robed Divine King.
The Divine Maiden Furnace had been crafted by Emperor Hengyu’s own hands, and its furnace walls were inscribed with mysterious Dao markings. Entrusting it to the Jiang Divine King for study and contemplation might yield some insight, making it difficult for him to refuse taking the two as disciples.
The ancient family’s presence remained as grand as ever — sweeping and majestic, inspiring reverence in all who approached.
Massive mountains that would never sink hovered in the air, towering into the clouds, while column after column of silver waterfalls cascaded downward like ribbons of the heavenly river, with roiling clouds and radiant mists swirling all around.
Coming to this place was like witnessing the primordial era in which the ancient emperors of old had once dwelled — everything was so splendid and magnificent that it shook the heart to its core.
Deep within the dozens upon hundreds of suspended great peaks stood temple after temple, and there was also one immortal ancient city — the most sacred ground of the Jiang Family.
Jiang Yifei came out to receive them in person, dressed in white, refined and elegant, with an outstanding bearing and a gentle smile on his face that immediately inspired goodwill.
A person who had defeated the Jiang Family’s divine body — no matter how low-key he tried to keep himself, he would always draw attention. When he smiled, he radiated an otherworldly brilliance.
He was the future master of the Jiang Family, and he welcomed the group with great warmth, inviting them to ascend to a divine island and enter an ancient main hall — a reception of the highest standing, one that only a sect leader would ordinarily be permitted to enter.
“After so many years apart, Brother Ye’s bearing surpasses what it once was.” Jiang Yifei ordered tea to be brought.
Ye Fan smiled in response, then stated his purpose — only to be disappointed. The White-Robed Divine King was wandering the world and had not stayed long at home, which was most regrettable.
In the end, Ye Fan went to see Elder Jiang, and the two sat together reminiscing about the past. The old man sighed repeatedly and insisted on pulling Ye Fan into drinking a few more cups.
He was full of vigor, having lived quite contentedly these past years. With Little Tingting rising as the most dazzling star of tomorrow, which branch of the Jiang Family wouldn’t try to draw her close? Her Extreme Yin Physique was destined to shine brilliantly within the clan and carry enormous weight.
“When one grows old, the heart turns toward home. Two years ago, Tingting accompanied me back once to the Southern Region. That little shop was still there, and many of the old neighbors were doing well. They told me something — that a very beautiful woman had come by once, asking about everything concerning your time at the shop in those days.” Elder Jiang said.
“Such a thing happened? Who was she?” Ye Fan poured the wine, unable to think of who it could be.
“One of the old fellows asked her. She seemed to be called Lin Jia. She came by only that one time and never appeared again after that.” Elder Jiang said.
“What?” Ye Fan was momentarily stunned. That was a name from a very distant past — he hadn’t heard it in nearly twenty years, and he had never once seen her since.
Those who had come to this world alongside him were not only he and Pang Bo — there had been more than a dozen of them in total, yet for all these years he had never known where any of them were.
Li Xiaoman had walked the path that stood in opposition to his own life and death. Kai De had been recognized by the holy monks of the Western Desert as having extraordinary innate gifts and was taken away as a reincarnation of a Buddhist guardian vajra.
Lin Jia, Zhou Yi, Wang Ziwen — each and every one of them possessed an uncommon character. Why had none of them appeared in all these years?
Now, hearing Lin Jia’s name so suddenly, Ye Fan’s mind filled with countless thoughts. Memories that had been sealed away were unsealed, and the past floated before his eyes.
“She must be an old acquaintance who drifted apart. That was two years ago when I went back, so calculating from that — the woman must have visited the little shop roughly three years ago, asking about your past.” Elder Jiang said.
“It’s nothing. Since the shop is still there and the neighbors are still there, I’ll go take a look when I have time and ask more carefully.” Ye Fan came back to his senses and continued drinking.
When Ye Fan and his group left the Jiang Family, Jiang Yifei personally saw them off, saying that perhaps one day in the future they would fight side by side, and watched as they departed.
They came to the Divine City and entered the Celestial Pivot Stone Workshop. Of course, there was no possibility of directly asking this Sage to take on disciples — the goal was simply to make themselves familiar.
The entire Celestial Pivot sect had suffered almost complete casualties, and the Path of Human Desire had also had its lineage destroyed by others. In many ways the situations were similar — both were survivors of catastrophe.
The Sage of the Celestial Pivot studied the Divine Maiden Furnace in silence, contemplating it for a long while before opening his eyes and saying: “I understand your intention. You may come to the Stone Workshop often in the future.”
A single word from this Sage was enough. If he offered protection, who in the world would dare make a move? Even the primordial ancestral kings would be wary — at the battle of the Jasper Pool, the might of the human race’s Sages had overawed every clan.
Ye Fan was in a daze, not having expected things to go so smoothly. A Sage cannot be easily fathomed — he had seen through all that they wished for, and so things had come to this result.
In the end, they respectfully bade him farewell and returned to the Celestial Court.
“Hyah!”
The four little ones were training diligently, while the big black dog was still drilling the two silver-blooded royal clan members, with occasional hair-raising screams of anguish drifting over.
All was calm. Everything had fallen into its rhythm, and one day it was destined to shine brilliantly.
“Before I depart, if I cannot rescue all the old companions of former days and slay all great enemies to the last — I will have truly let you all down.” Ye Fan murmured to himself, standing atop a high peak, gazing out over the vast Eastern Desolation.
Where was the Purgatory? There was no need to think too hard about this. Dongfang Ye had fallen into the Eagle’s Plunge Cliff — it must be there. He wanted to guide him out.
Although he had long since heard the monkey speak of it — that few who entered that place could walk out alive — he still wanted to give it a try and force his way in.
In the primordial era, the ten thousand clans had waged great war, and bones had piled into mountain after mountain, the very earth turned the color of blood. The Eagle’s Plunge Cliff had at one point been used as a mass grave, filled with more corpses than could be counted.
It had originally been a primordial battlefield, but in the end it became a place of mass burial, laden with an overwhelming presence of dark and malevolent energy. Living beings who entered had little hope of survival — it more than deserved the name of Purgatory.
The Black Emperor sidled up and said: “If you want to go rescue the wild man, you’ll need the tomb raider to step up. He’s someone who specializes in digging up tombs and dealing with ghosts — every trade has its master, and he is the foremost authority in that field.”
“That fat man’s not easy to find.” Li Tian said.
“That’s actually not difficult. I have a way to summon him.” Ye Fan said.
That day, a shocking piece of news spread out. A valley in the Northern Region had crumbled open, and a primordial imperial tomb appeared to have collapsed and split, revealing itself to the world, with a murderous energy surging up into the nine heavens.
The moment the news broke, it caused an enormous uproar. No one could say how many people rushed toward that place. The entire Eastern Desolation trembled, and not a few major forces were alarmed.
Ye Fan, the Black Emperor, the monkey, Li Heishui, Yan Yixi, and the others sat atop a distant mountain peak, watching that valley, and observed people rushing there one after another.
“Isn’t this move a bit too underhanded? Look at them — the various primordial clans are mobilizing in force. Some of the royal bloodlines are charging here like their backsides are on fire.” Li Tian said, clicking his tongue.
“Even people from Blood Phoenix Mountain and the Divine Silkworm Ridge’s royal clan have shown their faces.” The monkey said.
“Better to believe it may be real than to dismiss it outright — I expect the great clans will all send someone to take a look.” Li Heishui said.
Ye Fan had released a single piece of news and stirred up a massive chaos. No one could say how many powerful figures had rushed over — the collapsed valley was surrounded until not even water could seep through.
“He’s here — that dead fat man has appeared. I’d recognize him even if he turned to ash.” The Black Emperor opened its third vertical eye and gazed forward.
A dead fat man appeared, and no matter how high he held his head, it couldn’t conceal the seediness in his bearing. He was circling the collapsed valley to observe it, then cursed a blue streak, seemingly saying he had been tricked, unleashing a torrent of curses.
“Truly remarkable — with just this one move, Duan Fatty has been summoned.” Li Tian marveled, and then the group all burst into laughter.
They sent a sound transmission to Duan De. The unscrupulous Daoist immediately flew into a rage, cursing them roundly for having no morality — making him scramble all the way here only to discover it had all been to lure him out.
The Black Emperor said: “Grave digger, what are you complaining about? This time we’ve prepared a proper grand tomb for you to excavate. It’s said that at minimum one million or eight hundred thousand people were buried there — or possibly ten times that many.”
“Nonsense. This Daoist has walked the world and dug every kind of tomb there is. I’ve even crawled over Wushi’s Dao platform, and I’ve never heard of a tomb that large.” Duan De was contemptuous.
“Woof. You truly cannot let that obsession die — you’ve been fixated on the Purple Mountain this whole time.” The Black Emperor almost came to blows with him.
Ye Fan hastily separated them. These two were both insufferable — neither one was a sensible sort. If they truly started going at each other, things would certainly dissolve into chaos.
The monkey stepped forward and told Duan De that such a place truly existed — that the battlefield beneath might genuinely house the remains of supreme beings, and that his father, the Battle-Saint Emperor, had entered it before and slain a Sacred Spirit there.
“What?! A Sacred Spirit’s corpse that could rival an ancient emperor in battle? Let’s go — we must absolutely go!” Duan De put on the look of someone who was begging not to be held back.
That day, many people throughout the Eastern Desolation were full of curses — the ancient imperial tomb had yielded nothing but a few nests of mountain mice, nothing else whatsoever. Under ordinary circumstances, no one would be so unconscionable as to deceive so many people, and numerous cultivators, including quite a few members of ancient clans, were so furious their teeth itched.
As for the instigators, they had long since broken through the void and departed, arriving at a well-known land of danger in the Northern Region — the Eagle’s Plunge Cliff.
As the name suggested, even an eagle that landed on its cliff walls would plunge downward — from that alone one could imagine just how sheer and precipitous it was, staggeringly steep, with no foothold to speak of.
“This place holds the buried remains of several hundred thousand — or perhaps over a million — primordial powerhouses?” Not only was Duan De the expert skeptical, even the Black Emperor found it somewhat hard to believe.
The cliff face was sheer and precipitous, rising up into the clouds, yet the valley below was too small — though unfathomably deep, it didn’t look as though it could accommodate several million people.
“Once you go down, you’ll know.” The monkey smiled.
The Eagle’s Plunge Cliff rose ten thousand fathoms high, perfectly vertical, and the valley it enclosed was shaped like a chimney — straight and sheer, absolutely precipitous, dark red throughout, as though it had been soaked and stained by blood.
According to the monkey, it had genuinely been dyed this color by the blood of powerful beings from the wars of the ancient past, which had boiled over with killing — and afterward the color had never faded.
They leaped in, the wind whistling past their ears, descending rapidly. The rushing air stung their skin painfully, and all manner of black clouds and malevolent energies surged around them.
“It’s expanding — how does it keep getting wider and broader down below?” Li Tian said in astonishment.
Below them, dimly visible through the murk, mountains rolled across vast open plains that stretched to the horizon without end. This was nothing like a valley — it more resembled an entire continent.
“In the primordial era, this place was once a battlefield…”
In those days, so many had died in battle that corpses littered the primordial battlefield from end to end. Murderous energy soared to the heavens, ghosts were seen in broad daylight, gloom hung thick, and the cries of ghosts and gods wailed without ceasing.
Because so many had fallen in battle, this vast expanse of land had nearly become a living hell on earth, and many strange and bizarre events had taken place.
In the end, an ancient emperor from some unknown era had used a supreme technique to seize this entire stretch of land in the palm of his hand and refine it into what lay beneath the Eagle’s Plunge Cliff — and so it had evolved into what it was now.
Before long they landed on the ground. Before them stretched an unimaginably open expanse. With divine sight activated one could make out the landscape, though it was somewhat dim.
“People!”
They were startled. More than twenty figures stood motionless at the entrance to the battlefield, dressed in ancient battle attire, like ghostly soldiers of the underworld.
“What is this — guardians of the Purgatory? Is there truly such a thing as a Lord of the Netherworld Court?” Li Heishui was shocked.
“No. They are members of an ancient clan — if I’m not mistaken, they should be people from the Primordial Lake. Why are they standing guard here? Has something happened inside, or is there some treasure?” The monkey said, deeply uncertain.
“The Primordial Lake?”
“It is one of the great imperial clans of the primordial era — the clan to which Yuangu belongs.” The monkey said.
“Who are you people? Why have you broken into the Purgatory?” The more than twenty figures ahead had spotted them, and spoke out in a challenging shout.
“It’s… the Sacred Prince!”
“And the human race’s Sacred Physique!”
Evidently, the lineage of the Battle-Saint Ape was so renowned throughout the primordial era that every clan recognized them. As for Ye Fan, it was because of the killing he had done at the battle of Divine City — enough to make all of humanity’s spirit tremble with awe — that many ancient clans had committed him to heart and had seen his portrait.
“Why are you here?” The monkey asked.
“Move!” At this, the group’s faces all changed simultaneously, and they charged into the valley.
Ye Fan and the monkey struck together. One sent golden blood energy surging into the heavens; the other glowed with shimmering golden fur that blazed brilliantly, illuminating the way ahead. Their dharma bodies rose to a thousand zhang in height and stepped forward, cutting off the path ahead, nearly crushing those below underfoot in an instant.
Pff. Pff…
Seeing this, the ancient clan members were remarkably decisive — every one of them self-detonated, turning into more than twenty clusters of blood mist that died on the spot.
“Even toward themselves they are this ruthless!” Ye Fan was astonished. He reached out a great hand to confine their shattered divine will, wanting to examine it more closely.
“This is…” He could only reconstruct a single fragment of memory — an image of a man and a woman walking into the valley, whom he had been unable to stop in time. It was Hua Yunfei and Li Xiaoman.
What had happened inside the Purgatory? How had it drawn the ancient imperial clan of the Primordial Lake here? And the inheritor of the Ruthless One had even appeared — truly a strange affair!
Ye Fan tried to capture more fragments of divine will, but there was simply no time — they were all ground apart by the malevolent energy, dissolving into smoke, ceasing to exist.
“Something has changed within the Purgatory. Everyone must be careful!” The monkey warned.
This place had been sealed by some ancient emperor from an unknown era, and yet the monkey’s father — the Battle-Saint Emperor himself — had once come here and even slain a Sacred Spirit within. It was decidedly no place of peace.
“In all likelihood there are powerful beings from the Primordial Lake within. Yuangu may be here — we must be vigilant!” Duan De said.
“If we encounter Hua Yunfei and Li Xiaoman — kill them on sight without hesitation!” Ye Fan said in a heavy voice.
They then proceeded forward into the boundless, endless battlefield — truly like an entire continent, without borders or end.
After advancing several dozen li, Ye Fan opened his Celestial Eye. The place looked like a wilderness at dusk, with streaks of black mist coiling around everything, desolate and gloomy.
Before long they came across vast swathes of burial mounds — one after another like small mountains, grand and enormous, and rather frightening.
“When I looked from above, I thought those were mountain peaks. I never imagined they were ancient tombs!” Li Tian said, clicking his tongue.
Duan De’s eyes immediately lit up. He rubbed his fists and palms together, eager to go forward.
“Deal with the real business first — we didn’t actually come here to have you rob tombs!” Ye Fan grabbed him and held him back.
“Those who are buried were all powerful beings, otherwise no one would have bothered with the bodies — but there should be no grave goods of any kind.” The monkey said.
They moved forward with caution, and finally entered an open stretch of ground. Everywhere there were skeletal remains — or perhaps they should now be called fossils, for they had turned to stone.
The sight extended beyond the range of vision, and this was only a corner of the primordial battlefield. It was difficult to imagine how many had died in those days.
BOOM!
Suddenly, an awe-inspiring energy erupted ahead — ice-cold and intimidating. Even as powerful as they were, every one of them felt a chill run through their entire bodies, as though they had plunged into a pit of ice.
“This Daoist has a premonition — perhaps we may unearth an ancient imperial mausoleum, or discover an immortal’s tomb, or it may even be possible to excavate a Palace of King Yama, who could say.” Duan De rubbed his hands, claiming it was purely intuition.
“What — that is…” Ye Fan’s expression changed drastically, overwhelmed with shock, staring blankly ahead. He wanted to curse Duan De for being a jinx.
The others could see nothing whatsoever. Even those who had cultivated the Celestial Eye, or the monkey with his eyes of golden flame, were equally blind — yet they all sensed a wretched and harrowing energy, as though ten million living beings were wailing in grief, as though a vast horde of primordial savage beasts was stampeding across the earth.
“The Ghost Soldiers are Borrowing the Road!” Ye Fan’s face went stiff.
He was witnessing an unimaginable scene. Column after column of ghost soldiers moved in perfect formation, dressed in ancient attire, some carrying iron halberds, others bearing rusted war spears, marching past from ahead — as many as several tens of thousands of them, advancing with great strides toward some infinitely distant place ahead.
Was this not the eerie phenomenon that only those in the late years of a Wellspring Heavenly Master — when inauspicious signs had begun to manifest — would be able to see? How was he seeing it now? His body had gone somewhat cold, and he fell into a momentary daze.