Having consumed four golden sacred fruits in total, Ye Fan felt he had returned to his absolute best. His physical body was flawless — like crystalline jade, pure and translucent. With every move, divine force surged powerfully through him, and he felt that his flesh had grown considerably stronger.

“The power of the Desolation beneath the endless abyss is truly terrifying — the sacred grounds and ancient families alike were helpless against it. In all the world, only these sacred fruits can dispel it. No wonder they have been renowned throughout the Eastern Wasteland since ancient times. They truly are divine medicine.”

When they had first entered the ancient forbidden zone, a single shattered skeletal form had caused more than ten powerful mounted soldiers to fall one after another. From this alone one could grasp how fearsome the power of the Desolation truly was. And Ye Fan had been attacked by an even more terrifying Desolation Slave, his body saturated with a far heavier aura of Desolation — had he not possessed the Desolate Holy Body and consumed the divine medicine, death would have been his only outcome.

“Where venomous creatures nest, healing herbs grow nearby — there is indeed truth to that saying…”

This life forbidden zone was extraordinarily mysterious and sinister — yet in this very place of desolation, nine varieties of sacred medicine flourished, prompting nothing short of wonder.

“My youth has been fully restored. Now I must strengthen my cultivation.” Ye Fan’s heart surged with excitement. He needed powerful sacred medicine to help him make another breakthrough.

However, when he looked at his own reflection in the pool, he was immediately taken aback. He seemed to have grown even younger — more like a boy of thirteen or so. The clear, handsome face gazing back from the water carried a trace of childish innocence.

Ye Fan immediately let out a helpless groan. “Blessings upon the spirits of my ancestors — if I consume one more golden sacred fruit, I’ll turn into a soft, tender little baby, won’t I?” At the thought of this terrifying outcome — becoming an infant in the middle of the endless abyss — he felt a chill crawl through him. If that came to pass, the situation would be spectacularly disastrous.

“Good grief!”

Ye Fan pondered for a very long time and still could not think of any solution, which gave him a splitting headache.

Around the pool there were in total eleven small trees, and seven golden sacred fruits still remained — crystalline and translucent, glinting with points of radiance, their fragrance intoxicating, wave after wave of perfume enough to make one helplessly enchanted.

“I have it!” Suddenly, he recalled something recorded in the Dao Scripture — just a few lines, a brief mention of an ancient technique: using an “implement” to suppress oneself and thereby achieve “permanence.”

“If I use my own Cauldron to suppress myself and then consume the sacred medicine, there would be no problem.” However, he did not dare attempt this here. If something went wrong, he would die with no place to be buried.

Ye Fan retrieved several jade boxes from within his robes and carefully, one by one, plucked the golden sacred fruits and placed them inside. He felt as though he were cradling seven divine treasuries — every motion gentle and meticulous as he put them away. These were the divine medicines for cultivating the Desolate Holy Body, and absolutely could not be lost.

“Finally in hand.” He let out a long breath. Nine deaths and one survival — and he had succeeded at last. Thinking of how the three factions — the Jiang Family, the Ji Family, and the Yao Guang Sacred Ground — had all been wiped out to the last man in the forbidden zone, every supreme powerhouse fallen, every transcendent great faction having gained nothing — he felt that picking this sacred medicine had truly been a near-impossible endeavor, and a strong sense of achievement rose within him.

Ye Fan stood and gazed out at the other seven sacred mountains, murmuring to himself: “There are still seven more varieties of divine medicine…”

He very much wanted to collect them all. That way, there would be no impediment to his future cultivation of the Desolate Holy Body, and he stood a real chance of climbing to the very pinnacle. But looking at things now, it seemed his wish could not be fulfilled — every sacred mountain was guarded by a Desolation Slave, each one an existence at least comparable to the Sacred Maiden of Tianxuan, some perhaps even more terrifying.

Ye Fan had no illusions that the green copper block would act to protect him. Fortune like that could not strike twice. If those Desolation Slaves came at him directly, there would be no suspense whatsoever about the outcome.

“I truly want to know what those other sacred medicines look like.” Ye Fan murmured to himself.

Every sacred mountain held one variety of divine medicine — this puzzled him greatly. Had someone planted them intentionally? He could clearly sense that the small trees had existed through boundless ages. In that distant past, what kind of place had this been? What had happened here?

Ye Fan felt that in the ancient era, this place must have been a pure, untainted land — otherwise, how could there be divine springs and sacred trees? It must have been some terrible catastrophe that came later and turned it into a life forbidden zone.

Then his thoughts turned to the Old Madman’s words. “That muddled, erratic old man said ‘it has come again’ — what exactly was he referring to?”

Ye Fan gazed out toward one of the sacred mountains in the distance. That one had more skeletal forms than any other — far more than the other summits — with white bones endlessly clambering up from the abyss below, piled into a small mountain of bones on the summit itself.

“The Ancient Bronze Coffin has been buried under the skeletons — what is happening here? How did the ancient coffin make its way back to the sacred mountain? Could the Desolation Slaves have done this? Are they in fear — unwilling to let it remain in the abyss below?” Ye Fan’s mind brimmed with questions.

This was no place to linger. He did not want to delay, and walked over to pick up the jade pure vial lying not far away — just palm-sized, completely white, like something sculpted from fine mutton-fat jade. It was a treasure of the Yao Guang Sacred Ground — the one Xu Daoling had given him — its interior a self-contained space capable of holding an entire mountain.

The jade pure vial had visibly dimmed — its spiritual radiance withdrawn, the patterns on its surface blurred nearly to the point of vanishing.

“Could this treasure have been damaged by the sinister force of the ancient forbidden zone?” Ye Fan held the jade pure vial and approached the pool, beginning to collect the spring water.

Glug. Glug. Glug.

The milky white jade pure vial did not fill quickly. Ye Fan estimated that roughly seven or eight jin had gone in so far, and this pleased him greatly. Though it was not as precious as the sacred medicine, the spring water here was after all said to be a divine spring and must surely hold some extraordinary quality.

“What in the world — wasn’t it supposed to be able to hold an entire mountain? Why is it already full after this little?” He figured he had managed to fill it with only about ten jin or so of water before the jade pure vial was full.

Only this much spring water could be taken — no more. Ye Fan stood, walked to the eleven small trees, plucked one needle-shaped leaf, and placed it in his mouth to chew. He felt a powerful spiritual force.

“A greedy person would most likely pull these sacred trees up by the roots.” Ye Fan did not want to squander something so irreplaceable. Trees like these could only survive in the presence of the divine spring — he did not want to commit an act of utter destruction. Besides, there was every chance he might return here one day to collect more sacred medicine.

He broke off only a few slender twigs and placed them in the jade pure vial, then strode toward the mountain’s foot.

Not far down the slope, Ye Fan came across a purple-copper mirror — the weapon of Jiang Family elder Jiang Hanzhong — lying dull and lightless among the rocks.

“A weapon consecrated by a cultivator who surpassed the Other Shore Realm must be something extraordinary beyond the ordinary.” Not long ago, he had witnessed the terrifying power of the purple-copper mirror with his own eyes — before it, sun and moon went dark, heaven and earth lost their color. The brilliant beam it had fired forth had surged with an ocean’s worth of divine force.

Ye Fan picked up the purple-copper Eight Trigrams mirror. “Just like the jade pure vial — the spiritual radiance withdrawn, the Dao patterns fading away. Whether it can recover once we leave the ancient forbidden zone is uncertain…”

Not far away there was also a Heavenly Net Umbrella — the weapon of Ji Family elder Ji Yunfeng — pierced straight through by a single finger from the Sacred Maiden of Tianxuan, somewhat damaged. But Ye Fan collected it all the same.

He searched the area for a time but found nothing else. Ye Fan rushed swiftly down the mountain, unwilling to linger a single step further. He had no desire to see the youth he had only just recovered wither into age once more.

“I cannot go back by the same path…”

The Jiang Family, the Ji Family, and the Yao Guang Sacred Ground each had a divine carriage stationed outside the forbidden zone. The people who had arrived in those carriages — before whom even Jiang Hanzhong and the others had bowed and prostrated with deep reverence — must have been of extraordinary power beyond imagination.

Ye Fan selected his direction carefully and, without any hesitation, rushed outward at his absolute maximum speed.

“Those great figures, if willing to expend their vital essence, can open their immortal sight and see through hundreds of miles — that was how the Ancient Bronze Coffin was first discovered. I must leave as quickly as possible, before they are moved by impulse to gaze outward in idle curiosity — if they see me, there will be no place left in the Eastern Wasteland where I can live.”

Before long Ye Fan burst out of the life forbidden zone. Without any hesitation, he immediately began gulping down the spring water in large drafts — he feared that, as Jiang Hanzhong had warned, leaving the ancient forbidden zone might bring some terrible change upon him.

As it turned out, he had worried for nothing. He was already a cultivator at the Life Spring Realm, and while on the sacred mountain he had rapidly dissolved the divine medicine and completed his transformation. No further change could come upon him now.

“I wonder how Liu Yiyi, Zhang Ziling, and the others are doing…”

Ye Fan rushed ahead into the deep mountain wilds, putting distance between himself and the life forbidden zone. He knew that what was coming next would certainly be a great upheaval — the news of every last powerful member of the Jiang Family, Ji Family, and Yao Guang Sacred Ground being wiped out within the forbidden zone would inevitably spread. When it did, the shockwave would be immense.

“I can only hide for now — wait a year or half a year for things to settle down before showing my face again.” He had no wish to take unnecessary risks. He decided to find a cave dwelling within this wilderness mountain range to go into seclusion, raise his cultivation, and make sure no one knew of it.

In the end, Ye Fan selected a rocky mountain and carved out a cave dwelling within it.

Time moved swiftly. A month passed in the blink of an eye. Ye Fan tried using the Cauldron to suppress himself to achieve “permanence,” but the related passages in the Dao Scripture were sparse — barely a few lines — and he nearly killed himself in the attempt.

“Blessings upon the spirits of my ancestors!” He struggled for a full month before freeing himself, and when he finally recalled the Cauldron, his face was pale as ash. He hurriedly took out the jade pure vial and gulped down a great deal of the spring water before recovering.

And so he continued to probe and experiment for two more months before he finally found the way through. The ancient Cauldron — simple and natural in form — slowly expanded within the cave dwelling until it stood five meters tall, and then it drew him inside, suppressing him within.

Following the ancient technique recorded in the Dao Scripture, Ye Fan imprinted nine unusual ancient characters inside the Cauldron. This time, the nine characters finally aligned in perfect formation — as if possessed of a terrifying power capable of overturning heaven and earth — and in that instant the interior of the Cauldron became shrouded in primordial chaos, as though it had returned to the very moment of creation.

“These nine ancient characters…” In that moment, a bright light flashed through Ye Fan’s mind. He suddenly arrived at a realization.

Long ago, when he had first been studying the Dao Scripture, he had always felt that these nine ancient characters were extraordinarily special. In the Dao Scripture they appeared as symbols — with no explanation of their meaning — and naturally he had had no way to recognize them. There were only a few lines, briefly mentioning an ancient technique. According to the Dao Scripture’s records, imprinting these nine ancient characters within an “implement” could provide a source of power, suppress oneself, and thereby achieve “permanence.”

“I know now…” Ye Fan’s heart was filled with excitement. These nine ancient characters had called to mind the ancient scripture he had obtained from the Ancient Bronze Coffin — the nine characters bore a striking resemblance to those hundreds of ancient characters, seemingly of the same script.

“These nine ancient characters alone already carry such immense power — and yet that mysterious ancient scripture is written in its entirety using this very script. Setting aside the true value of the ancient scripture itself, even if those hundreds of characters were extracted and copied out one by one, they alone would constitute a priceless and matchless treasure!”

At this moment, the nine ancient characters were branded within the Cauldron — the primordial chaos swirling and dim, time seeming to come to a halt. In that instant, only the resonance of the Dao continued to flow — as though eternity had been reached.