“What did you discover? Do you know its origin?” Pang Bo asked, uncertain and alarmed, looking at Ye Fan.
“My feeling shouldn’t be wrong. Do you all remember? On our way here, we saw a flash of golden light vanish, incredibly fast. I caught a trace of its aura at the time—it’s the same kind as this egg,” Ye Fan said.
People recalled that before discovering the Lightning Phoenix Bird’s nest, they had indeed glimpsed a golden creature disappearing deep into the mountains, which everyone had assumed at the time was the lightning bird.
“Don’t you find this egg’s aura strangely familiar? I will never forget it for the rest of my life!” Ye Fan’s knuckles had turned white from clenching.
“Familiar…” Pang Bo was startled, thinking hard.
“I’ve long suspected that there might have been other things in the ancient coffin, crossing over to this world together with us. Now it seems that guess has come true,” Ye Fan murmured to himself.
“It’s them!” Pang Bo’s eyes widened, his voice deep. “They followed us here too?” His expression turned furious, his fists clenched as well, eyebrows standing on end, wanting to stomp his foot down and crush that golden divine egg on the peak.
The others were confused, showing looks of astonishment, not expecting the two of them to be so agitated, all unable to help but ask what exactly was going on.
“An unforgettable aura—one that took the lives of many of my old friends back then,” Ye Fan said, staring at that divine egg, gritting his teeth. “If I’m not mistaken, it should be a divine crocodile egg!”
Distant memories were unlocked. On the ancient star of Sparks, they had experienced life-and-death separation for the first time in their lives—despairing sobs, helpless cries, terrified expressions, tragic pleas for help… still echoing in his ears.
That had been a bloodbath—a group of young people who could originally have lived good lives, continuing along their own paths, facing death for the first time, grieving and helpless, watching one companion after another fall in pools of blood.
Ye Fan and the others had numbered thirty in total, crossing the void together. From the moment they arrived at the ancient star of Sparks, people had continuously died, ultimately losing fourteen—nearly half of them departing forever.
All of this was because of those divine crocodiles beneath the Great Thunder Sound Temple on the ancient star of Sparks, sucking blood and taking lives, piercing through the skulls of one classmate after another, blood everywhere.
Ye Fan still remembered, to this day, a female classmate’s pale face—how helpless she had been, not wanting to die, reaching desperately toward him, tragic and sorrowful, until finally a streak of golden light plunged into her forehead, a trail of blood spilling down…
He had tried desperately to save her, but simply hadn’t been fast enough, watching helplessly as she fell backward into the dust, her eyes wide open, blood staining her pale cheeks, never to rise again.
A full fourteen classmates—all of whom had once had their own paths in life, their own bright futures ahead, even if some had been quite ordinary, could have lived normal lives—yet had their lives ended just like that.
Pang Bo’s eyes had turned red as well. “I’ll never forget Xiao Lin’s heart-rending scream, the way he looked at me so helplessly, while that damned divine crocodile—no, that vermin—burrowed in and out of his skull, and I was powerless to do anything!”
The others were shocked—there were no such creatures as divine crocodiles in this world today. It was said that many species had gone extinct long ago; perhaps only in that era could such things be found.
The divine crocodile resembled a snake yet wasn’t quite a snake, shaped like a crocodile but without legs, its underbelly bare and smooth, its entire body covered in black scaled armor, dark and glossy, like some malevolent thing from the underworld itself.
Back then, the ones Ye Fan and the others had seen were only about ten centimeters long, no thicker than a finger, yet their bodies were as hard as diamond, capable of flying through the sky and burrowing through the earth, piercing human bone and easily stabbing through flesh and blood.
“What else crossed the void together with us?” Pang Bo murmured to himself. Somehow they’d already picked up an extra vengeful ghost, and now divine crocodiles had appeared too—were there other mysterious creatures as well!?
The Demonic God Flower’s four-colored buds were resplendent and dazzling, wisps of rosy light like threads cascading down. That golden egg was absorbing them, growing ever more extraordinary, like a divine fetus being nurtured.
This was clearly different from those divine crocodiles of before—it would certainly be far more powerful, comparable even to the phoenix bird’s divine egg in Ji Ziyue’s hand, capable of growing to the demonic sage realm.
“The peerless crocodile ancestor that was suppressed by the Buddha beneath the Great Thunder Sound Temple back then—though its true body didn’t follow us here, it clearly left behind quite a few contingencies.”
Ye Fan and Pang Bo could not possibly tolerate this egg hatching—there was simply too much grief and hatred bound up in it. They wanted to destroy it immediately.
The Monkey was quite alert, saying, “Be careful. That this egg was placed at the root of the Demonic God Flower most likely means there’s some extremely terrifying ancient demon nearby.”
“Hmph. Wanting to use the once-in-a-hundred-lifetimes Demonic God Flower to forge its Dao foundation—don’t even hope for it. I won’t let you be born aligned with the Dao. Disappear!” Pang Bo strode forward, stomping his foot down, descending toward the stone mountain.
Suddenly, a terrifying killing intent, like a heavenly sword, surged up from an ancient cave on the stone mountain. A grayish mist permeated the entire sky and earth, foul and pungent, assaulting the nose.
And in the next instant, the killing intent grew even more terrifying, as if a hundred thousand divine swords were resonating in unison, piercing through the heavens, shattering everything, intent on annihilating Pang Bo.
Nine Slashes of the Demon Emperor!
Pang Bo let out a great shout. Unable to strike down his enemy, he instead slashed at the void itself, his own body transforming into a beam of light and vanishing from that spot, returning to the sky above, evading that surging gray mist.
Li Heishui, Li Tian, and the others were all startled, worried for him. Seeing him return safely, they let out a breath of relief—the aura below had been far too terrifying, absolutely no ordinary presence.
“Such powerful demonic energy—this one has cut through the Dao, a King-level being guarding the divine crocodile egg,” the Black Emperor said.
“Boom!”
Two tentacles, each as thick as a water vat, extended out from the gray mist, waving about like demonic hands, a terrifying sight. Below, an enormous creature slowly crawled out of the stone mountain.
Endless killing intent, terrifying poisonous mist, surging and turbulent, submerged this entire region. Much vegetation instantly withered, turning to ash on the spot.
“What is this thing?!” Ye Fan and the others retreated far back, avoiding the poisonous miasma.
“Rumble, rumble…”
Rocks tumbled, the ground trembled, the stone mountain seemed as if it would split open. Yet that Demonic God Flower remained brilliant and crystalline, unharmed within the mist, swaying with four-colored immortal light.
The mist surged upward like clouds into the high sky. An enormous creature rose up, passing through the poisonous miasma, finally revealing its true form—its entire body gleaming with dark light, possessing a hundred legs, its physique terrifying to behold.
“Heavens, this is a centipede—how can it be this huge, several hundred zhang long? Is this even still a poisonous insect? How is it bigger than a giant serpent?” Several of them felt their scalps go numb.
“Are we mistaken? Was that actually a centipede egg just now? Otherwise how could there be such a terrifying existence guarding it?” Li Tian said, swallowing hard with difficulty.
This giant centipede’s entire body was covered in dark, gleaming scaled shell, glinting with a cold light like black iron. It opened its mouth and spat out a stream of poison, transforming into strands of order-chains, piercing toward the group.
The Monkey gave a light shout, opening its mouth to spit out a beam of golden light. It too had cut through the Dao at the Immortal Third level, brave enough to face King-level beings without fear, wielding a great iron staff and charging forward, swinging to strike.
However, immediately after, it staggered and stumbled backward, warning the others, saying, “Careful, this old centipede’s cultivation runs deep—who knows how many thousands of years it’s cultivated. Its order-chains combined with poison can corrode protective body-guarding energy.”
“Clang!”
Finally, the Monkey clashed head-on with the centipede in a single blow. Two terrifying tentacles fell from the sky, along with a great swath of poisonous rain, foul and pungent, the centipede spirit wounded.
It surged upward like a dragon, swaying its head and tail, coiling above the clouds, enormous beyond measure, stirring up wind and clouds across the entire sky, then coiled together, head held high, utterly resembling the bearing of a true dragon.
The jet-black giant centipede’s whole body glowed, transforming into a massive Dao diagram, becoming the central Dao-eye at its core—this was a desperate, all-or-nothing gambit, wanting to use its own several-thousand-year cultivation to take down the Monkey.
“No need to bother with it—crush it directly!” Pang Bo said, joining forces with Li Tian to activate the Divine Maiden Furnace. Instantly, the might of a human-race Saint was unleashed.
The weapon forged by the Hengyu Emperor for the Ancestor of Human Desire far surpassed ordinary Sacred weapons, its power dominating heaven and earth, causing the entire Feathering Immortal Valley to tremble, the high heavens collapsing all at once.
A blazing flame shot out, pinning down that Dao-cutting giant centipede. The divine fire within the legendary furnace was no trifling matter—it burned the creature until it writhed and rolled, and the Dao diagram it had constructed collapsed instantly.
The centipede king tried to flee, soaring into the sky, wanting to break through the heavens and escape. At this moment, the Monkey struck, pressing one great hand onto the Divine Maiden Furnace, unleashing an even more terrifying flame.
Various fluids sprayed everywhere. The centipede king, several hundred zhang long, was struck and broken into dozens of segments, especially where its head housed its primordial spirit—that too was shattered, meeting an unnatural death, its corpse falling beside the stone mountain.
After a long while, the various gray poisonous mists finally dissipated. They descended onto the stone mountain, with Ye Fan personally moving to destroy that golden egg.
“Hiss!”
Suddenly, a piercing beam of golden light shot out from the giant centipede’s corpse, transforming into a streak of silk racing toward Ye Fan, incredibly fast. Everyone cried out in alarm—it was simply too fast.
Ye Fan’s eyes flashed with cold light, alert in that first instant, stepping with the Character Technique to dodge, turning around to look back, immediately clenching his fists.
This was a divine crocodile, different from the small black crocodiles he’d seen before—eight meters long, its entire body seemingly forged from gold, radiating an intimidating aura, pouncing to kill.
“It’s no longer like the old days now. You group of cold-blooded vermin—I will kill you all clean, avenging my old friends of the past!”
Black hair covered half of Ye Fan’s face. His entire body radiated light like divine flame. His right hand unleashed the Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist, while his left hand transformed into a Golden Taiji Circle, striking forward instantly, engaging in close combat.
“Clang!”
Various sounds rang out, like a giant swinging a great hammer to forge iron. This place was completely submerged in golden blood energy. By the time the Monkey rushed over, Ye Fan had nearly beaten this divine crocodile to a pulp.
Golden fragments of flesh flew about, blood spraying everywhere. Ye Fan’s golden fist shattered the divine crocodile into hundreds of pieces—had he not wanted to preserve its consciousness for searching, it would have long since turned to ash.
The Monkey joined him in striking, reaching for its primordial spirit, fearing it might self-destruct and taking extra precautions. Yet in the end, they still couldn’t stop it—its primordial spirit let out an ancient, cold snort before shattering completely.
“Could this be… a strand of the crocodile ancestor’s clone, the one suppressed by the Buddha beneath the Great Thunder Sound Temple?” Pang Bo’s expression turned grave.
“Whoever it is, I will find them all and cut them down completely!” Ye Fan said coldly.
Seeing that Pang Bo really intended to stomp the divine crocodile egg with his big foot, the Great Black Dog hurriedly stopped him, saying, “Don’t, don’t waste such a heavenly treasure! This is a demonic sage’s divine egg! Let this Emperor think about how to eat it—should it be a sunny-side-up egg, a boiled egg, or perhaps egg fried rice?”
The moment it said this, not only did the divine crocodile egg tremble, but the phoenix bird’s divine egg in Ji Ziyue’s palm shook as well, clearly both having been startled.
Ji Ziyue quietly comforted it, finally settling the demonic-sage-level phoenix egg down, its rings of golden ripples resonating with the Demonic God Flower, drawing close to the great Dao.
“The black vengeful ghost in the bronze coffin, or the divine crocodile, or perhaps an old friend?” Ye Fan asked himself, wanting to know who the hidden hand truly was. Looking off into the distance, he said, “Let’s go to the ancient wasteland’s forbidden ground. We must get to the bottom of everything!”