Chaos surged all around, immortal lightning filling everything — vast and magnificent, saturating the entire star region, radiating a brilliance that illuminated all ages and heralded an ultimate power.
Both Ye Fan and the cauldron had been shattered, reduced to dust-like particles. The golden figure in particular now resembled a handful of golden sand — brilliant yet infinitesimally small — scattered in all directions.
At last, the devastating and destructive Chaos Heavenly Tribulation passed. A living energy began to spread, diffusing outward, filling those who sensed it with hope.
Yet Ye Fan did not dare relax in the slightest. This was, after all, a great tribulation — not a true divine radiance of life spreading across the world. That was lightning.
The Creation of Heaven and Earth Tribulation!
It drove back the Chaos — though it was terrifying in its own right, immense in its power, fully capable of striking a person into tribulation ash — yet it also contained within it a layer of hope for life.
Amid the rolling thunder, Ye Fan seized this rare opportunity to repair his physical body. The golden figure condensed and formed once more, and then, within the lightning of the Creation of Heaven and Earth, he began to forge the cauldron.
This great tribulation lasted an exceptionally long time. Unlike the lightning that had come before it, it truly seemed as though the heavens were being opened anew — and there in the surging sea of lightning, surrounding Ye Fan on all sides, all things were born for the first time: flowers, birds, fish, and insects; the stars and cosmos; divine beings and ghosts and humans. Everything that could be imagined or witnessed took shape in that moment.
These were bolts of lightning, not true living beings. Rukh spreading their wings soared straight up ninety thousand miles. Divine beings and demons roared and howled, carving out the primordial immortal earth. True dragons swung their tails and shredded the sun, moon, and stars. Immortal phoenixes struck out in fury and split the cosmos asunder…
A magnificent scene — all of it wrought from lightning. This was the Creation of Heaven and Earth Tribulation: vast and ferocious, enough to stir the depths of one’s soul.
Ye Fan’s expression shifted. At first he had thought this represented life and vitality, but now he saw that it also concealed extraordinary danger. The rukh came plunging toward him; the immortal phoenix beat its wings — if these things truly struck his body, it would be a catastrophe.
Within the Creation of Heaven and Earth Tribulation, even a single blade of grass, a single worm, a single sparrow was terrifying — each one attended by world-ending killing light, posing dangers that were impossible to fully measure.
All things were born anew. Everything was alive and growing — grass, wood, fish, insects, the sun, moon, and stars. Immortal phoenixes, white tigers — all appeared. And the divine beings and demons who roared through the primordial heavens and earth appeared in great numbers!
Ye Fan froze. This spectacle of all things coming into being felt overwhelmingly familiar. His thoughts stirred, and he slowed the process of forging the cauldron, turning the idea over in his mind — and thinking of the Green Cauldron.
That ancient, weathered relic — once the mottled ancient marks had been wiped away to reveal its true form — was exactly like this: flowers, birds, fish, and insects; vermillion birds and qilins; the sun, moon, and rivers of stars; divine beings and ancient people — every living creature in the world rendered upon it in full.
In that moment, his heart trembled. He immediately began to forge the cauldron — nurturing it within this Creation of Heaven and Earth Tribulation, allowing it to be born here.
Ye Fan’s flesh was shattered and reforged. The golden figure before his brow was likewise — seated in meditation, inhaling and exhaling the lightning of the Creation of Heaven and Earth, boundless and immeasurable, without wasting a single trace.
Then it was channeled into the cauldron, using this lightning as both water and clay, to shape and build an ancient cauldron.
The Myriad Origin Cauldron had become powder — yet it was not dead and still. It brimmed with the vitality of something on the verge of transformation, suffused with inexhaustible life force, radiant with brilliant light.
Boom!
Guided by his spirit, nourished by his blood and flesh, with the thunder and lightning as his forge fire, he began the casting, and the cauldron took shape rapidly.
The artifact-refining art in the Dao Sutra was of the utmost importance, and one of its most vital core principles was this: cast one and only one weapon — the ultimate path-to-Dao weapon. Of all the weapons in the world, I master only “one.” That is enough!
Ye Fan had cultivated the Dao for so many years, and he was more familiar with the first scroll of the Dao Sutra than with anything else. Thus, he had taken the mastery of this technique to its absolute peak — and the cauldron was swiftly forged and tempered into completion.
Or perhaps more accurately — the fragments of the cauldron were reviving of their own accord, reforging themselves into a unified whole, manifesting before the world once more.
The cauldron took shape, and upon it had appeared a new network of markings from all creation — rivers of stars swirled around it, divine beings from within Chaos roared upon its surface, even producing a rumbling sound that could shake blood and flesh to the point of collapse. Ancient people, vermillion birds, rukh — each one vivid and lifelike.
Flowers, birds, fish, and insects were likewise present, becoming beautiful patterns. Grasses and trees breathed life into it, giving it a tangible texture and vitality.
“This is…” Ye Fan drew in a sharp breath.
Was this how the Myriad Origin Cauldron had been forged?
Now, having forged this cauldron through an ordeal like those of former ages — how had such a spectacle come to be? He could not help but think long and hard about this.
Boom!
The Creation of Heaven and Earth Tribulation continued. Grasses, wood, fish, insects, immortal beings, ancient people, the rivers of stars and cosmos — all were continuously branded upon the cauldron’s surface, making it grow ever more vast and boundless. The cauldron was not tall, and it rose and fell before Ye Fan’s brow, yet it seemed to contain within it an entire true cosmos of the world.
Ye Fan repaired his physical body. The golden figure blazed with divine radiance, seated in meditation, reciting scripture. One could clearly see golden characters being engraved upon the cauldron one by one. He pushed with everything he had, hoping to brand the ancient scriptures from within the Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin onto its surface.
This scripture was extraordinary — unseen in the world — and whether the attempt would succeed was unknown. All he could hope for was that it would play some part.
The Creation of Heaven and Earth Tribulation entered its most immense and overwhelming moment, and Ye Fan and the golden figure and the cauldron likewise reached the most critical point of their transformation.
Boom!
The golden figure returned to Ye Fan’s brow. He tempered his physical body and his divine consciousness to their absolute peak, crossed a threshold, and stepped into the realm of the saint — ten thousand realms trembled!
At the same moment, the cauldron thundered and roared. All the living creatures depicted upon its surface quivered, as though about to come to life. One could even hear the howling of divine beings from within the Chaos, and the sight of the vermillion bird striking three thousand worlds in all its divine glory.
“Dao… Dao… Dao…”
From within the cauldron, a succession of Dao cries rang out — solemn and vast, as though they had come from before the most ancient times, sounding since the very moment when heaven and earth were first divided.
A billion bolts of even lightning poured down in a torrent, baptizing the cauldron and making it ever more imposing and magnificent, emanating an inviolable sacred energy — strand after strand, wave after wave — that pressed down upon the heavens of all ages.
Within the cauldron, a divine spirit was born. An immortal will came into being. It had formally become an immortal sacred weapon!
Boom!
The primordial energy of all things descended — strand by strand, drifting in a haze, each strand comparable to Chaos sword energy, capable of sweeping away all mountains and rivers, and equally capable of withstanding the collision of stars.
Its power was beyond compare. The moment its transformation and elevation reached perfection, the lightning of heaven and earth could no longer harm it by even the slightest fraction.
When the cauldron hovered above Ye Fan’s head, the primordial energy of all things — ten billion strands of it — enveloped him within, impervious to all laws, nothing able to break through. Nothing could approach his body. Even the lightning tribulation was blocked beyond the outer perimeter.
From a distance, Long Ma bared its teeth, its entire body a forest of white bone shards — a ghastly and pitiful sight. But when it saw what was happening on Ye Fan’s side, it was so stunned its jaw dropped — and then, nearly, it was carried away by the power of Dao dissolution. It cursed without end, crying out that this defied the heavens, that there was no justice in the world.
The Myriad Origin Cauldron had been completed — it had truly become an immortal sacred weapon. It swallowed ten billion bolts of lightning and, in a brief instant, nearly devoured every bolt of lightning in the sky above!
Ye Fan did not use the cauldron as a shield. He threw back his head and let out a long roar to the heavens, facing the final lightning of the Creation of Heaven and Earth head on, while continuing to refine the cauldron as well.
Upon his forehead bones, a field of luminous white shone. Ancient character after ancient character leaped out — though they could not linger in the world for long, they could still appear for a brief instant. One after another, they flew toward the cauldron.
A divine spirit had been born within the cauldron, and it could now receive these imprints. In this moment, the cauldron grew ever more sacred — encircled not only by the primordial energy, but also by the rivers of stars and the living creatures of all creation, all of them present in the space around it.
Hundreds of ancient characters were branded into the cauldron, committed to memory by the divine spirit within. From this day on, it would cause them to spread from within into every inch and corner of the cauldron.
“Roar…”
A single roar shook the entire star region. Ye Fan’s body erupted with ten billion strands of radiant light. A saint’s divine might spread across the sky and covered the earth. He threw a fist toward the heavens — a punch aimed at the last lightning of the tribulation.
“Receive!”
At last, with one quiet command, his physical body, the golden figure, and the Myriad Origin Cauldron all became like great whales drinking deep from the ocean, swallowing the entire sea of lightning whole.
A saint’s divine might surged and rolled, covering all the sky and earth. Without sainthood, one is ultimately a speck of dust — but the moment one crosses that threshold, it is a transformation of the most fundamental kind: ascending a heavenly ladder, achieving a sublimation of life itself.
In a certain sense, a saint and a non-saint were two entirely different life forms. Only those of the level of Emperor’s children, or individuals of breathtaking brilliance across all ages, could glimpse the splendor of this realm without first attaining sainthood.
Clearly, the Saint’s Tribulation was not done with him yet. The lightning was no longer as terrifying as before — but a far greater threat was descending. Ye Fan’s black hair cascaded over his shoulders, his slender and powerful body unclothed, his cold eyes gleaming like lightning. He stood there like a demon god as he gazed into the celestial vault.
And then, as he had suspected, the young Emperor appeared!
In this place, in this ancient star region, an ancient Emperor had once appeared. The aura from before had been drifting through the air — it had already foretold this outcome.
A young man of powerful build and tall stature descended from within the sea of lightning — his hair dense and full, his eyes deep as the star sea itself, and the demeanor of one who stood supreme throughout the entire universe flowing from him naturally.
He was only one person — yet the entire celestial vault fell silent when he appeared. The lightning was still there, the bolts of electricity still interweaving — yet the moment this person appeared, it was as though heaven and earth had frozen still.
Apart from his face, which was indistinct, the depth of his eyes, the black of his hair, and the lustrous gleam of his body could all be clearly seen.
Compared to the time of the Three Immortal Severings of the Dao, this young Emperor was far more real — the true form of a young Emperor at the golden moment of achieving sainthood!
Ye Fan stood unmoved, like a boulder — yet possessed of an aura like a fathomless ocean, cold and composed as he faced what stood before him. He would fight this young Emperor.
And precisely because he saw a form more real than before, his heart was deeply stirred. Every Emperor had been invincible, unmatched among their peers, unstoppable in all directions.
Ye Fan had attained sainthood and was filled with confidence — yet not with arrogance. Especially now, seeing the true form of a great Emperor’s youth, he felt himself grow calmer and more composed.
“Who is this person? An ancient star region, a great star dissolving into the Dao, and even the ancient Heavenly Court has been mentioned — could this be an Emperor connected to the Heavenly Court?” Ye Fan’s expression shifted with a tremor.
Was there only one Emperor?
This person came from within the Chaos. Once he descended, his dominance was absolute. He threw a single punch — divine might surging across the sky, his dense black hair billowing wildly in every direction — and for someone who had only just attained sainthood, his power shook the ancient and illuminated the present!
Ye Fan felt no fear. On the contrary, his blood surged with heat and excitement. To fight an ancient Emperor’s youth in the same realm — what was there left to regret in this lifetime of cultivation?
Boom!
Without any hesitation, Ye Fan opened with the Six Paths Reincarnation Fist, meeting this young Emperor’s attack head-on, strength against strength, hardness against hardness, engaging in all-out battle with that towering form before him.
A peak clash of a bygone age!
This was an intense, explosive collision — a battle between young Emperor-level combatants, one seen but once since the beginning of time!
One Emperor, one person — just who was he? Ye Fan’s heart trembled — for in that very moment, in the midst of their battle, he could clearly sense a magnificent invincible fist intent in the other’s strikes. His opponent was also using the Six Paths Reincarnation Fist.
Boom!
A moment later, that person’s black hair flew in all directions, and golden blood energy soared to the heavens from his crown — rolling upward, vast and magnificent — exactly like Ye Fan’s own golden blood energy!