The final layer of the small world contained eighty-one great halls. Standing upon the roof ridge, Ye Fan and his companions could overlook everything in all directions — wisps of mist and rosy clouds drifted through the air, the temples were magnificent and grand, radiant with flowing brilliance.
“If I could choose, I would rather never leave the Taixuan that raised me, never step into the cultivation world. I would only wish to be a simple, happy zither boy, lingering among small bridges and flowing streams.” Hua Yunfei murmured softly to himself, his expression drifting into a momentary daze.
“You walk your own path — everything is your own choice. Why put on such a sentimental act on the eve of a life-and-death battle?” Ye Fan formed the True Dragon seal and drove forward in attack.
A true dragon leapt from his fingertips, its azure scales flashing, its body powerful and brimming with mighty vital fluctuations, its twin eyes vivid and gleaming with brilliance. The moment its dragon cry rang out, wind and clouds scattered, and the nine heavens thundered.
“If life offers no choices, how pitiable that would be — forced to walk passively forward…” Hua Yunfei lamented, yet quickly composed himself, striking with calm ease. From his fingertips burst forth five-colored divine light, and his five fingers suppressed heaven and earth!
The battle between the two began. Radiant brilliance shattered and erupted — strand after strand, ray after ray — surging in all eight directions. Slaughter techniques rose simultaneously as clouds surged and rosy light shot forth, immortal radiance blazing brilliantly.
Hua Yunfei’s attacks and defenses were nearly flawless. This was the secret art of the Ruthless Emperor — the most breathtakingly gifted Emperor of all ages — who, through her own singular genius and talent that looked down upon all eras, had independently opposed the crystallized wisdom of every past sage of the Daoist tradition across all of history: the Nine Secrets.
Of course, there were those who said each of the Nine Secrets had been created by a Daoist Heavenly Venerate, their cultivation impossible to fathom, said to be ancient ones from the mythological era who had long since passed into nirvana.
But the Ruthless Emperor stood alone. She had, single-handedly, created nine corresponding secret arts of her own — one person seeking to rival the entire Daoist tradition!
Each of her secret arts countered one of the Nine Secrets, and some speculated she had encountered nine world-shaking masters who each cultivated one of the Nine Secrets, and had been profoundly moved by those encounters.
Others said she had confronted nine peerless and unconquerable powerhouses from nine ancient stars, vanquishing them only after bitter struggle — and that through those battles she had forged her own nine unique secret arts.
The Ascending Immortal Force!
This was a matchlessly fierce attack — the Ruthless Emperor’s world-shaking supreme secret art, created to counter the Battle Scripture. No one knew what manner of adversary she had faced when she first conceived it.
Ye Fan countered with the orthodox Daoist Battle Scripture, drawing both hands apart. A magnificent divine cauldron appeared — the Eternal Universe Cauldron — wreathed in crimson mist, its brilliance stretching ten thousand feet as it descended to suppress.
“The Ten Thousand Transformations Sacred Art — shatter all laws!” Hua Yunfei roared, his left hand unleashing wave after wave of ripples that dissolved time and obliterated space, enveloping the entire cauldron and attempting to swallow it whole.
“Boom!”
An ancient mirror appeared in Ye Fan’s right hand, manifesting the Void Emperor’s Mirror. It shone forth a ray of undying divine radiance that pinned Hua Yunfei’s entire left arm in place.
In the same instant, the Eternal Universe Cauldron in his right hand also blazed with soaring crimson clouds — immortal fire roaring and seething as it smashed downward, flickering with the supreme divine might of the extreme Dao.
“Bang!”
Both were sent shaking violently. Blood flew — it was impossible to tell whose — as the two became ghostly afterimages locked in a world-shaking confrontation, incomparably brave and relentless.
This was a battle to determine life and death, held back nothing. Both went all-out, their eyes practically burning red with killing intent. The Ascending Immortal Art, the Ten Thousand Transformations Sacred Art, the Battle Scripture, the Soldier Scripture, and other supreme secret arts blazed together in a glorious display of genuine ferocity.
The two streaked over hall after hall, becoming twin rays of light entangled together. The battle reached a fever pitch as Hua Yunfei bore upon his back a divine painting that snapped and billowed.
The Dragon-Sealing Map!
This was a priceless treasure he had sought through thousands of mountains and rivers, found within a dragon cave in the Qinling Mountains of the Central Province — the relic of the third-generation Yuan Tianshi who had traveled far to the Central Province. It could seal the dragon veins running through mountains and rivers, and no one else could draw upon its power.
The third-generation Yuan Tianshi had met with misfortune in his final years and fled to the Qinling Mountains, where he died and was buried within the dragon cave. Seventy thousand years later, his undead corpse emerged to cause chaos, only to be extinguished by a single killing thought from the Azure Emperor.
It was not that he was insufficiently powerful — it was that ancient Emperors were simply too terrifying. Otherwise, it would have been hard for anyone in this world to subdue him, and the divine map he had refined was naturally of unfathomable profundity.
With the earth’s dragon veins locked away, Ye Fan’s Yuan Tian patterns could not manifest effectively, and this advantage was neutralized. The two clashed like hare and hawk in fierce rivalry, slaughtering their way from above the great halls down into the ancient temple.
Time was pressing. Ye Fan did not want to waste too much of it — he needed to find the scripture repository before anyone else, or else if the secret of crossing the star domains became known to others, the consequences would be dire.
Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist!
Heaven and earth split open as chaos surged — six ancient universes appeared, sun and moon and stars revolving in their cycles. His pair of golden fists shattered the void and obliterated all obstacles.
“Spit!”
Hua Yunfei coughed up a mouthful of fresh blood that dyed his blue collar crimson, yet the battle-will in his eyes blazed even higher. The order divine chains running through his entire body rang out as they transformed into phoenix divine wings that swept in all directions, severing everything in their path, their radiance stretching ten thousand feet.
This had been a harrowing battle. Hua Yunfei was not what he once was — in years past he had already been able to contend with Ye Fan and measure himself against him, and now, having devoured the primal essence of countless beings and even excavated great tombs of saints, he had become far more fearsome.
Fortunately, the Heaven-Devouring Demon Art was too profoundly esoteric. He had only mastered three or four of the forbidden secret arts on its final pages, and had not yet achieved perfect mastery of them all, nor could he fully deploy them — otherwise the consequences would have been unimaginable.
Even so, it was already exceedingly terrifying, enough to make many ancient fossils tremble with dread. This was also why the entire world fell into panic whenever an inheritor of the Ruthless One’s legacy appeared — they were simply too invincible.
The two fought from one hall to the next, battling until heaven grew dark and the sun and moon lost their light. All manner of immortal radiance and divine clouds surged and crashed, shaking the entire small world.
Even the ancient cave that connected to the deepest reaches of the Central Province’s first ancestral vein began to crack, giving off a demonic light as it rumbled and roared, sending streams of Dao radiance rushing forth.
“Bang!”
Ye Fan coughed up a mouthful of golden blood. In this era, the Ascending Immortal Force was one of the few secret arts capable of wounding him. Legends said that when the Ruthless Emperor deployed it, she truly became an ascending immortal — already transcending the realm of human capability entirely, something no being who was merely “human” could withstand. Some speculated it was created to kill true immortals!
“Spit!”
Hua Yunfei suffered an even greater blow, sent flying by Ye Fan’s palm — which struck like a golden millstone — and though it was only a glancing hit, bones cracked all over his body, more than a dozen snapping as he coughed up blood in great heaves.
He was naturally a man of elegant and otherworldly bearing, rarely suffering such injuries. Especially in these past twelve years, he had been unstoppable — the mere mention of the inheritor of the Ruthless One’s legacy caused the whole world to pale with fear. Yet now, facing Ye Fan once again, he had come off badly once more.
“Ye Fan, the path ahead of you is not smooth — someone has already set their sights on you.” Hua Yunfei smiled, with more than a trace of desolation, as blood dripped from his mouth, giving those who looked on a strange feeling.
“Such words are useless. Today we determine who lives and who dies — nothing else matters!” Ye Fan attacked with sweeping, overwhelming force. His long cry shocked every soul in the small world into a shudder.
The golden blood essence of the Sacred Body of the Human Race was extraordinarily unique — like an immortal cauldron left behind by gods since ancient times. Golden blood essence filled the sky, drowning out all eighty-one ancient temples.
Ye Fan’s hair billowed loose, each strand dancing in the air — thick, dark, and lustrous — as he strode forward like a divine demon, launching the Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist once more. Yang to the ultimate extreme, this arcane technique was best suited to his constitution.
“Boom!”
Heaven and earth surged and churned because of him as Life Essence ran wild. Had it not been for the protective formations left by the ancient sages, nothing here would have remained — everything would have been leveled to a plain of scattered ash.
Hua Yunfei’s Ten Thousand Transformations Sacred Art struggled to keep pace. Even this world-defying wonder of a technique could not dissolve all of it — for Ye Fan had brought the Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist to an entirely new realm of understanding. It was no longer merely a clash of technique against Dao, but had something of conviction and soul woven into its very core.
“Hua Yunfei — did you come here today to die? With a divided heart, still daring to oppose me — you have not a shred of hope for survival!” Ye Fan roared.
Though threads of golden blood still seeped from Ye Fan’s own lips, his life-and-death adversary was far worse off. Were it not for the miraculous Phoenix Tribulation Rebirth Art, the consequences for him would have been unthinkable.
The two battled on, blood spattering as they crashed into one ancient hall after another. Ye Fan fought and searched simultaneously for the scripture repository, for this great adversary had truly grown far more fearsome than before — having devoured kings and swallowed saints, his constitution had become something uniquely extraordinary.
Pang Bo and the Great Black Dog were also locked in fierce combat, though both still had killing moves held in reserve. The Black Emperor in particular wore a sinister smile, not yet delivering his killing blow.
Qi Luo and a certain half-saint had vanished simultaneously, engaged in a hunt-and-counter-hunt pursuit across the void, from which terrifying fluctuations occasionally burst forth.
Most astonishing of all was Ji Ziyue, locked in battle with Li Xiaoman, displaying a shocking degree of power — trading blow for blow with three hundred and sixty-five golden divine beings without falling behind.
“Ah—!”
Hua Yunfei was wounded again, the blood from his mouth staining nearly half his body red. His eyes turned ice-cold, almost frenzied. The Grand Dao Treasure Vase above his head descended and merged with the Ascending Immortal Force as he unleashed one wondrous technique after another.
“A single thought blooms into a flower, and you shall reign supreme over all beneath heaven…”
The Ascending Immortal Force surged forth, and alongside it, wave after wave of pristine white flowers blossomed — crystalline petals drifting down, each one releasing a resonant Dao-cry. This entire space was pierced through by all manner of order divine chains and completely overwhelmed.
“Crash!”
The divine chains were as solid as physical matter — one after another they intertwined, scarlet as blood, sky-blue as crystal… a riot of five colors, every strand a different hue, dazzling yet deeply menacing.
“Spit!”
Ye Fan dodged hundreds upon hundreds of them, but at last one pierced through his chest. Even a Sacred Body of the Human Race could be gravely wounded by it — which spoke volumes for the terrifying nature of the Ruthless One’s secret arts.
A thread of golden blood shot from his chest. Ye Fan’s eyes turned utterly cold in an instant. He withdrew every scattered thought from his mind — no longer giving any attention to the ancient temple’s scripture repository or anything else — and focused entirely on killing Hua Yunfei.
He let out a clear, sharp cry. His thick black hair flew in wild disarray, and behind him a total of eighty-one golden waterfalls reversed their course toward heaven, each one thick as the celestial river, rolling upward.
The central column in particular erupted from the crown of his skull, piercing through the entire small world — his Dharmic power vast as an ocean, cleaving through every last order divine chain.
Ye Fan’s left hand deployed the Holy Warrior Sacred Art while his right unleashed the Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist — unyielding and fierce, domineering beyond measure. His eyes blazed upward with inverted intensity as the great golden rivers behind him surged skyward and swept away all resistance. His divine courage shook the world.
“Boom!”
Amid a thunderous roar, Hua Yunfei was forced backward step by step, each footfall leaving a bloody print. A crack split open at his brow, then spread like a spider’s web all the way to his chest — until finally his sternum exploded.
He was sent flying sideways, coughing blood even as he laughed: “The Sacred Body’s name is well-deserved. But you too are someone else’s prey.”
“With a heart in that state, facing me today means certain death!” Ye Fan deployed the “All” character secret, his body blazing with golden light like immortal fire — golden flames roaring fiercely as his bones crackled and snapped, his injuries restoring themselves.
“I have no wish to be anyone else’s shadow. Today we fight, and either you die or I perish. If I succeed, I will journey to the other shore of the starry sky — and one day I will return in glory, come back to fight my way through!” Hua Yunfei activated the Phoenix Tribulation Rebirth Art, his flesh also rapidly mending with the miraculous power of nine deaths and nine rebirths.
“What are you saying?” Ye Fan pressed forward impassively, without fear. Among his generation in this age, he feared no one.
“The lineage of the Ruthless One is far more fearsome than you can imagine. Today, you too are nothing but prey…”
“Are you trying to tell me something?” Ye Fan asked.
“I am simply unwilling — unwilling to become a chess piece in another’s game. Today, I, Hua Yunfei, will carve out a future that is truly my own!” His entire bearing changed — a look of absolute and final resolve.