Thread after thread of dark radiance descended. The Heaven-Devouring Demon Vessel appeared not far off. The Old Blind One and Duan De had returned after all — together they offered this weapon, shielding Ye Fan.
The Heaven-Devouring Demon Vessel had been forged from the flesh and bone of the Ruthless Emperor herself — profound and mysterious beyond all measure, more enigmatic than any other Emperor’s weapon. Though it appeared ancient and unassuming, it possessed an immortal might that defied all reckoning!
To gaze upon it was to imagine that breathtaking woman from ages past — she who had looked down upon all eternity with unparalleled audacity. What kind of immense resolve must she have had, to have forged even her own body into a weapon?
On the demon lid was a ghost-face seal — part weeping, part smiling — faintly playful and faintly sorrowful, with traces of tears yet touched by light. One glance, and it could never be forgotten.
The peerless presence of a great Emperor from the ancient past seemed to reach across ten thousand ages to suppress all beneath it — looking down upon the nine heavens and ten earths. In this moment, all things fell silent. Every living being wanted to kneel and prostrate themselves, not one who did not tremble with fear.
An uncanny stillness reigned, until the imperial might receded and everything returned to normal. Ye Fan faced the outer walls of the ancestral temple, his voice cold: “I knew long since that you would come to kill me. Do you dare face me in open battle?”
The Monkey, Duan De, Dongfang Ye — their pursuit of the Heavenly Prince had been a performance all along. They had not truly gone far. Ye Fan had foreseen that someone would strike with an Emperor’s weapon and had made arrangements.
The Emperor’s weapon had silenced everyone. Not a single other cultivator dared approach this hall — for merely touching a thread of imperial might would instantly reduce them to bone-dust, without the slightest doubt.
A great stillness. No one responded to Ye Fan. That sudden thread of imperial might had vanished, as though it had never appeared.
“Tap… tap…”
In the vast and empty hall, footsteps echoed — making the silence even deeper. The Monkey, Duan De, and the Old Blind One converged together, moving in to deliver the killing blow to Hua Yunfei.
“The demonic body must eventually be shed — it becomes nourishment for the divine embryo. I am unwilling…” Hua Yunfei murmured to himself, letting out a soft sigh. He looked toward Ye Fan and said: “I ask for nothing else. I wish to let loose completely, and share one final battle with you.”
“Flash!”
A blue light flickered. Through some wondrous technique no one could identify, Hua Yunfei vanished from before them, shooting into the hall the Great Black Dog had discovered. The others gave chase immediately.
“Woof—!”
The Great Black Dog pounced on him at once, one sweep of its massive claws instantly opening several spatial rifts. Yet Hua Yunfei pressed his hand against a star map carved into the stone wall, and divine radiance blazed intensely.
The stone wall softened — like a swamp of mud — and he lunged forward, disappearing into it, vanishing from the hall entirely.
“These are all miniature teleportation formations!” the Black Emperor declared.
Ye Fan was the first to follow. Whatever lay on the other side of these formations was of immense significance — heaven only knew what secret location they connected to.
Light flashed and they emerged onto a vast open terrace — a great stillness, boundless emptiness on all sides, not a soul in sight. It closely resembled a training ground.
Below, figures moved like shadows — ancient temples spread in dense clusters. They had somehow arrived in midair. This was a “Battle Island” suspended in the sky — used in former times for the high-level duels of masters within the ancestral temple.
“They’re up there!”
Those below saw the two figures and their expressions changed, all of them craning their necks to look up.
Everyone had come seeking treasures and none wished to waste time — yet no one had anticipated this one-on-one duel, and naturally it drew the attention of all.
At the entrance to the small world, even more people were flooding in — all witnessing this extraordinary scene. A Sacred Body of the Human Race in battle against the inheritor of the Ruthless One’s legacy — truly a world-shaking confrontation.
“This is bad — we can’t get in. This is an ancient ‘Battle Island.’ They’ve sealed it from within — until one life is ended, no outsider can enter.” The Great Black Dog gnashed its teeth furiously. It had just tried to charge through the stone wall and had given itself a massive lump on its head — like it had grown a great tumor.
“They cannot enter. No one to disturb us, no one to interfere. Let us have our final confrontation of this lifetime!” Hua Yunfei’s voice was low and somber.
In this battle, the fight could not end until the opponent was dead — it truly was a final confrontation for both of them. Only one person could survive. Two titans could not coexist.
Below, Duan De and the Old Blind One also looked up at the sky, about to activate the Heaven-Devouring Demon Vessel to shatter the light barrier over the Battle Island and join in.
“You need not strike. This final battle, I will handle myself.” Ye Fan spoke, simultaneously transmitting to Pang Bo and the others to continue seeking the secret of crossing the star domains.
A brutal battle. A life-or-death confrontation. Ferocious and harrowing energy swept across the entire Battle Island — from time to time, world-shaking killing intent pierced through the light barrier and escaped outward, leaving onlookers slack-jawed.
Hua Yunfei truly entered his state. He cast aside everything — like a lone wolf on the eve of doom, carrying a tragic resolve — going all-out to walk the final stretch of his road.
“Spit!”
Fresh blood splashed from both of them simultaneously, flying more than ten meters away. A true fight to the death has no flourishes — only the most lethal strikes.
Ye Fan’s eyes were utterly cold. In a life-and-death duel, showing mercy was the same as cutting one’s own life short. Moreover, the other’s actions made it impossible for him to feel any such mercy — he had only one choice in this battle: destroy this enemy.
The Ascending Immortal Art!
The Ten Thousand Transformations Sacred Art!
A single thought blooms into flowers, and you shall reign supreme over all beneath heaven!
Hua Yunfei’s bearing had completely changed — nothing like his former self. Murderous intent surged like a tide. His ethereal spiritual quality had been utterly extinguished — his hair flew in wild disarray, and his eyes grew sharper and sharper.
The fallen immortal had transformed into a god of slaughter!
His aura rose to overwhelming intensity. A brilliant blood-light erupted all over his body. With one great shout, the entire small world trembled — whole rows of temples swaying — for his spirit force had pierced through the Battle Island and flooded outward.
Ye Fan had not expected that the ordinarily graceful and refined Hua Yunfei, when he lost his mind, would have this terrifying a side — not a trace of his former self remaining.
In this moment, Hua Yunfei seemed to have entered a demonic state — reincarnated as an Asura. Endless killing aura filled the air. His hair flew wild, his battle will soared, his eyes grew more and more blazing — like two divine lanterns. He had fought himself into a frenzy.
“Spit!”
The Ascending Immortal Force tore away a great scoop of blood from Ye Fan’s abdomen. In the same instant, five-colored light flashed all over Hua Yunfei’s body — the five divine spirits within him all erupted outward in a united killing strike.
Ye Fan roared back — growing stronger as his opponent grew stronger. The “Om” syllable resounded, shattering the five divine spirits in his opponent’s Dao Palace. The Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist drove forward — six ancient and primordial universes revolving — and tore one of his arms clean off.
Golden battle blood boiling, Ye Fan answered frenzy with frenzy. One punch pulverized one of Hua Yunfei’s arms. He pressed forward without pause — this was the dialogue of the strong against the strong, meeting on a narrow path where only the brave survived.
From the first blow until now, three thousand rounds had passed. It had been extraordinarily perilous. Hua Yunfei spared no cost — expending boundless primal essence, both that of kings and that of ancient saints — all of it the essence of others.
Since Ye Fan had walked the cultivation path, he had faced countless perils. Those who had pushed him to three thousand rounds of bitter struggle could be counted on fingers. Those who had made him fight to this point, paying such a price, were nearly impossible to find.
Ye Fan held the upper hand, his destructive power growing ever more astonishing. Even though Hua Yunfei had absorbed the primal essence of many beings, he had now sustained grievous injuries — more than a dozen sections of flesh and bone shattered.
Suddenly, black divine chains came shooting in — silently, without warning — coiling toward Ye Fan, drawing away his divine power, Life Essence, and primal essence. Terrifying beyond measure.
This was the true essence of the Heaven-Devouring Demon Art. It could normally only be deployed once an enemy was slain. With Hua Yunfei’s current cultivation, he could not yet use it freely against a living adversary in the midst of open combat.
Yet he had mastered one secret art from the Forbidden Pages — Severing Heaven’s Way!
Once this technique was achieved, it elevated his combat power by a great margin — able to merge with the Heaven-Devouring Demon Art’s primal essence technique and be deployed together with it, omnipotent, causing his battle power to skyrocket.
“Severing Heaven’s Way” — a name daring enough to speak for itself, terrifyingly boundless. It severed the Way of Heaven: offensive power, controlling power, and divine soul power all elevated across the board, bringing one person to a peak of fearsome extremity.
All manner of rainbow light erupted forth — thousands upon thousands of immortal blades, some in dragon-form, some in phoenix-form, shattering heaven and shaking earth, slashing and killing everything they touched!
By this point in the battle, Ye Fan had also fought himself into a frenzy — golden blood flowing, hair wild and unbound, every secret technique blazing. He met this never-before-seen technique head-on, the two fighting until their blood boiled.
An immortal king overlooking the nine heavens, holding a lotus flower, treading upon a vast golden sea of bitterness, bearing on his back the sun, moon, rivers and mountains — Ye Fan manifested his divine form in a sweeping and overwhelming display, countering the immortal blades in a killing assault.
His true body was even more ferociously dominant: his right hand drove the Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist forward — nothing could obstruct it — his body deployed the Battle Scripture so that every part of him was a weapon, while his left hand occasionally struck out with that incomplete single-move secret art of Wushi, making all things return to their origin.
Hua Yunfei suffered greatly. Though he had unveiled a brand new forbidden secret technique, he was still nearly split apart — many shattered bone fragments flying outward, his flesh body laboriously reconstituting itself at a distance.
“Ah—!”
Hua Yunfei cried out. His life force was more than half consumed. His body was almost on the verge of becoming pure light. Yet his endless potential was driven out without reservation — wounding Ye Fan as well, sending golden blood flying in all directions, the price paid in kind.
His several secret techniques were not merely layered on top of each other — each was intimately connected to the others, mutually transforming and reinforcing one another, multiplying the total power severalfold. For Ye Fan, this was a catastrophic consequence.
When a person fights with total abandon, the potential they manifest is limitless. Hua Yunfei’s flesh body was almost melting away, his multiple secret techniques merged into one — very nearly splitting Ye Fan in two in a single strike!
“Witness my supreme secret arts!” Ye Fan’s fury was ignited. Sustaining such grievous injury — the crown of his skull nearly blown off — he activated his secret arts with everything he had.
The first technique was the Wushi Art — making all things return to the primal beginning, reverting to the origin. Ye Fan drove this single technique with full force, bringing Hua Yunfei to the very edge of a great catastrophe.
“The secret arts of the Ruthless One are breathtaking across all eternity — even the Wushi Emperor himself is no match!” Hua Yunfei roared back, every strand of his black hair standing on end. The Heaven-Devouring Demon Art turned, the Grand Dao Treasure Vase flickering at his brow — and the incomplete Wushi secret art was rendered ineffective!
“I consecrate my divine form — manifest the true Emperor’s technique!” Hua Yunfei cried out. From his brow, ten thousand strands of radiance shot forth. His flesh body began to burn. The Ascending Immortal Force flew from the treasure vase seal at his brow, manifesting as a fallen immortal.
Then the Severing Heaven’s Way was also raised. Radiant light of every kind erupted — dragon-forms and phoenix-forms swirled around the fallen immortal, becoming weapons adorning him like a layer of immortal armor.
“A single thought blooms into flowers…” Hua Yunfei murmured. Blood seeped from his original body. Every forbidden art from the Forbidden Pages was unleashed without reserve.
White petals danced and swirled, encircling him — each petal stained with blood — filling the Battle Island with heartbreaking beauty as they drifted and fell from the sky.
The power of the Ten Thousand Transformations Sacred Art also fused into the lights, joining with Hua Yunfei in one unified whole. Treading upon snow-white petals in the void, he advanced — pressing forward in a final, ultimate strike!
Ye Fan had also moved long since. His entire being vanished — transforming into the Golden Taiji Circle, his divine form. Far too few people in all of heaven and earth could cultivate a personal “divine form” of their own.
Deploying every secret technique through his divine form, his Dharmic power surged rapidly. He was drowned in Dao radiance — the Six Paths of Reincarnation, the Nine Secrets, and the remnant Wushi art all erupting simultaneously, meeting the unbroken secret arts of the Ruthless Emperor!
Below, everyone had stopped fighting. No longer contesting for precious treasures, all eyes were drawn to the battle above. People understood: life or death would be decided in this ultimate strike!
“Boom!”
Immeasurable Dao radiance bloomed. Everyone closed their eyes — even Dao-severing cultivators were no exception. No one could see clearly. This level of confrontation was too terrifying — beyond all imagination.
The Battle Island shattered. The small world itself was punctured through — yet not a single sound was heard. Terrifying energy scattered wild for one instant, then rapidly contracted inward, all of it concentrating toward a single point.
The two were entangled together!
No one knew what had happened, nor who was alive and who was dead. It was utterly uncanny!
It was a single “point of extremity” — from first to last, not one person could look upon it directly. It blazed brighter than the sun by a thousandfold and more. The void around it collapsed into black holes, chaos surging and crashing.
Like the creation of heaven and earth — there, all was shattered and then reformed, in an infinite cycle.
In this moment, all factions were stricken still. Not a single person dared approach. They could only watch from afar in silence, waiting for calm to return.
No one knew how much time passed. The light dimmed. Ye Fan — his entire body covered in golden blood — stepped out of the sphere of light one step at a time, leaving bloody footprints in the void behind him.
Within the “point of extremity,” light blazed brilliantly — another figure emerged. Clad in a water-blue immortal robe that billowed and snapped, transcendent beyond the mundane world, untouched by the smoke of mortal fires — like a true immortal, with an ethereal quality no words could fully capture.
A rain of flowers fell from across the sky — crystalline and gleaming — drifting down into the small world. Hua Yunfei, more graceful and beautiful than any woman, his skin fair as snow, every strand of his black hair light and luminous, stood there.
His entire being seemed woven from light — every inch of his body breathing in and out immortal radiance. In this moment he was like a true fallen immortal — yet tears suddenly rolled down his face, carrying a thread of grief: “It is finally over… The Taixuan peak that gave me life and raised me — I cannot let you stand at the absolute summit of this ancient star. I… in the end, could not break free from the shackles of fate.”
His body was becoming light. Wave after wave of light-rain flew from his body as the fallen immortal’s form grew ever more faint and transparent. He drifted down to the mouth of the ancient cave within this small world — the entrance connecting to the deepest reaches of the Central Province’s ancestral vein — drawing upon the power of these earth veins to temporarily hold his body of light together. He sat cross-legged there, took out an ancient qin, and began to play.
“Ding ding dong dong…”
The qin’s music was moving beyond words — conjuring in its melody a living landscape: pure moonlight, clear springs running over stones, flowing past the roots of pine forests, a harmony of infinite peace and stillness.
The entire battlefield, the entire small world, grew quiet. All eyes turned to the ancient cave, fixed upon Hua Yunfei — radiant as a fallen immortal — watching wave after wave of light-rain fly from his body as he slowly dimmed, gradually fading away.
“A pitiable life. A future with no choices. All of this… is finally over. I cannot break free. Then let me scatter on the wind.” Hua Yunfei murmured, his body growing ever more dim as light-rain continued to dissipate.
“Hua Yunfei!” Ye Fan called out, his voice low.
This ethereal, otherworldly young man kept playing the qin even as he tilted his head to look at Ye Fan, transmitting through spirit: “The lineage of the Ruthless One is far beyond what you can imagine. I was nothing but a pitiable discarded piece.”
“It has always been through the demonic body that the divine embryo is achieved — just as the Heaven-Devouring Demon Art achieves the Imperishable Celestial Art.”
“I did not wish to walk this path. If I could have chosen, I would only have wished to be a happy zither boy.”
“In my fifth year of life, they found me. Even now I can remember the inheritor of the Imperishable Celestial Art — the same age as me, so small, and his entire body was glowing.”
“I know that even if I speak of it, all of Taixuan’s peaks would not be enough for them to annihilate.”
One image after another appeared in Ye Fan’s mind — he saw two young children and a mysterious guardian.
One child, glowing all over his body, appeared clever and sacred — almost like a child of the gods. The other child must have been Hua Yunfei: he looked gentle and delicate, more pitiful than even a little girl — clutching an ancient qin, timid and fearful, shrinking back again and again.
“One was me. The other — you should have guessed by now. Long ago, I told you that you had only guessed half correctly — guessing at me, the discarded one.” Hua Yunfei smiled, his form growing even more indistinct, waves of light-rain rising.
“I have seldom killed truly good people. The primal essence I took was mostly from ancient tombs I excavated myself. Those I executed had all committed wrongs. Pursuing you and Ji Ziyue and the others — that too was only the manipulation of fate, an invisible hand in the dark…” At this point his voice dropped to a murmur: “You need not believe me.”
Hua Yunfei smiled — with loneliness, with unwillingness, with a trace of grief — gazing into the distance as though he would pierce through space and time itself, to look one last time at the distant Taixuan peaks.
“Every secret art I know, he knows as well. The Imperishable Celestial Art surpasses the Heaven-Devouring Demon Art. The greater my achievements, the stronger his power grew. I was… one who labored only to benefit another.”
“My guardian was also his guardian. He only ever regarded me as a chess piece. Whose advancement was truly being served? From the very beginning the choice had already been made. My fate was sealed when I was still a young child. All the unwillingness, all the effort — in the end it all turned to nothing.”
Ye Fan said nothing, listening in silence — his eyes calm and still, looking at him, then glancing at his own blood-soaked hands.
“It is said that the Ruthless One’s lineage shakes the ancient world and illuminates all ages — and that is entirely without error. Even the great sacred grounds have become soil for it to take root, their nourishment drawn away. What a terrifying thing. Like the Imperishable Celestial Art emerging from the Heaven-Devouring Demon Art — this lineage is reborn within an ancient and declining sacred ground, shedding from it a divine embryo!”
Ye Fan was struck with shock. All of this had indeed surpassed his imagination!
“I was a pitiable little fish. All these years, I leapt up again and again with all my strength. Each time I believed I had escaped that river — soaring up into the air, diving toward another river of life that belonged to me alone — and each time a great hand seized me back and threw me into that same unchanging current, forever flowing in one direction.”
“If I could have chosen, I would only have wished to be a child on the Taixuan peaks. Those were my happiest days.” Hua Yunfei gazed distantly, his expression filled with desolation. At last he gave a bitter, grief-stricken smile — the kind that wrung the heart in ways no words could express.
The qin music lingered. Flowers of pure and boundless beauty bloomed in profusion — white petals raining from the sky, encircling him, enveloping him, burying him.
He was so transcendent and otherworldly. Wave after wave of light-rain flew from his body. He grew slowly more and more transparent, gradually fading — his life moving toward its end.
“Taixuan peaks that gave me life and raised me — I have failed. I lost to fate. I could not break the shackles. What a pity. I will never be able to look upon you again. Father, Mother, senior and junior brothers — I did not betray Taixuan. Yunfei had no choice. May Taixuan flourish and prosper, and protect all its disciples. I go now…”
He gazed southward toward Taixuan, crystalline tears sliding down his face. The last wave of light-rain scattered and fell into the ancient cave of the ancestral vein. Hua Yunfei vanished utterly — gone, dispersed, extinguished.