The land was verdant, teeming with life. Some ancient vines stretched over ten li, winding around several mountain peaks. There were even great trees comparable to towering sacred mountains, soaring into the high heavens.
This was a scene from before the primordial era — savage beasts rampaging across the land, howling through the ancient forests; fierce birds spreading their wings to strike the sky. It was as though one had arrived in a prehistoric world.
Ye Fan led Yang Xi forward. This place teemed with rare trees and precious grasses, blanketed with all manner of archaic pre-ancient exotic vegetation, and certain spirit medicines that had long since vanished elsewhere could still be found here.
Xiao Nannan’s breathing was labored, his body trembling lightly, repelled by a domineering order of rules. He was greatly uncomfortable in this place, yet stubbornly pressed forward without stopping for a single step.
Ye Fan’s body emitted faint points of luminescence, which he timely draped over the child’s small frame — though not as a complete shield. Instead, he allowed the boy to barely keep advancing, exerting every ounce of effort to resist.
The ten-thousand-zhang ancient tomb was vast and imposing, piercing through the clouds, its might bearing down upon all six directions and eight wastelands. It hardly resembled a solitary grave — more like some supreme existence in slumber.
Upon the red soil and stone, ancient trees grew in dense groves, blotting out the sky and sun. A kind of Dao aura permeated the air, so domineering and arrogant, like an imperial weapon suppressing the ten thousand Daos of the universe.
The two figures — one tall, one small — had already arrived at the base of the great tomb, the oppression weighing upon them ever more heavily. Strands of heaven-and-earth order laws curled around the mountain face like layers of cloud.
No wonder so many cultivators throughout the ages had cried out in astonishment upon reaching this place. The spectacle here was too overwhelming. Save for those with the Sovereign Heavenly Tyrant Blood flowing within them, any outsider who came here would be repelled.
“Ahh—!” Xiao Nannan let out a great shout, resisting fiercely while venting the fury in his heart. His young and tender face was written all over with unyieldingness. His Bitter Sea actually blazed with golden light under the pressure, sending forth wave after wave of wind and thunder, rumbling continuously.
Ye Fan furrowed his brow and fixed his gaze on the ten-thousand-zhang-tall massive tomb. His heart gave a sudden jolt — this was clearly an ancient grave, yet it felt more like a weapon, emitting wisps of divine might.
Tyrant Bell…
The ancient mausoleum was silent. The enormous tomb body resembled a great bell pressed face-down into the earth, silent for ten thousand ages, emanating a faint, barely perceptible wave of divine power.
Ye Fan had naturally heard of it. In those days, that human-path pinnacle powerhouse who carried the Sovereign Heavenly Tyrant Blood had wielded a great bell capable of overwhelming heaven and earth. In that battle, when the bell sounded, countless stars throughout the cosmos were shattered, reduced to dust within the bell waves.
In the end, that Tyrant Bell had been smashed apart by the Holy Physique. The star domain had collapsed, and the heavens had dimmed, terrifyingly so.
Ye Fan did not rush to scale the mountain. Instead, he led young Yang Xi in a circuit around it, examining it carefully, studying the ancient tomb closely. Its shape truly bore a resemblance to the Tyrant Bell described in the records.
Faintly, wave after wave of great bell resonance emerged — hazy and indistinct, as if transmitted from antiquity across time and space, emanating a kind of invincible bearing.
“Could it be that the weapon was shattered, then reassembled, and transformed into this tomb, sealing and suppressing everything here?” Ye Fan murmured.
He observed for a long while and discovered great crevices on the surface of the tomb — resembling the fracture marks of a bell’s body after it had cracked. The Dao sounds within were deafening.
Ye Fan furrowed his brow. He was a Source Heaven Master, possessing the profound secret arts to see through mountains and rivers and perceive the great forces of heaven and earth. At this moment, however, looking upon the great tomb, he saw no weapon fragments.
This was a domineering law that had taken form, altering the configuration of heaven and earth, naturally forming into a law-made Tyrant Bell. Truly bizarre — its depths were beyond sounding.
“Who is there?!” As the two of them climbed the great mountain, a furious roar rang out. A snow-white grey ape leapt down from an elevated platform above.
The ancient tomb had powerful guardians. This was an old ape — unlike the other fierce birds and savage beasts that had been suppressed, it was unaffected, in harmony with the domineering heaven-and-earth order here. It was exceedingly powerful.
The grey ape was tall and powerfully built, its entire body snow-white, roaring like a fearsome divine warrior. It had reached the Saint realm, and a faint yet overwhelming tyrannical aura surged toward them.
It had cultivated a special technique — vigorous and ferocious. Its eyes blazed like golden lamps, shooting forth a piercing divine glow as it lunged at Ye Fan and Yang Xi, its vast saintly might surging, tremendous in scale.
Boom!
With a single swipe of its claw, fine threads appeared in the void — sheets of laws and Dao imprints that could collapse mountains and rivers. Yet beneath Ye Fan’s casual single punch, its entire right arm twisted grotesquely. Droplets of blood scattered as it was sent flying horizontally.
The grey ape was shocked. It had received guidance from the Cang Clan and had guarded this tomb for generations, cultivating a technique created for ancient beasts by the Sovereign Heavenly Tyrant Blood lineage — matchlessly powerful and astonishing. Even ancient saints found it difficult to be its match.
Because this was a sacred ground of the Cang Clan — extremely important, worthy of great effort to protect — the clan had been generous in cultivating it over the years, treating it even better than their own elite members. It had long since been listed as a guest elder of the Cang Clan.
“You… who exactly are you?” The grey ape was both shocked and afraid. Half its body was convulsing. Just now, a flash of golden fist light had struck it like a bolt of lightning, and its right arm — said to be comparable in hardness to a sacred weapon — had its bones shattered.
Ye Fan answered calmly: “To the Cang Clan, I would be considered a mortal enemy. But I have no intention of fighting with you — unless someone possessing a true Sovereign Heavenly Tyrant Blood physique appears.”
He led Xiao Nannan and continued climbing the mountain, advancing across the ancient tomb, looking around carefully, wanting to see this mysterious ancient place to its very depths.
“What? You are… the Holy Physique from the Burial Emperor Star? You have… finally come!” The grey ape let out a great cry, its expression shifting between surprise and fear.
It was a sacred beast — sharp and powerful, rarely meeting its match even among saints. Yet facing this person, it could not muster any will to fight. There was a trembling that rose from deep within its soul.
“No — you… anyone may climb this peak, but the Holy Physique alone may not set foot upon it!” In the end, it gritted its teeth and shouted aloud. It had its duty, and it refused to be frightened into backing down.
“Why?” Ye Fan wheeled around abruptly. From his eyes shot faint points of golden light. He looked supremely majestic, gazing down from above like a divine sovereign looking down upon all living things.
“Because you are the Holy Physique. Your ancestor was defeated by the one in whom the Sovereign Heavenly Tyrant Blood flowed. The Cang Clan has made it explicitly clear — they will never permit the defeated enemy to come here. They are not to set foot upon this mountain by even a single step.” The grey ape spoke, as if using up every ounce of its strength. It felt certain it had invited a calamity upon itself.
Ye Fan stood upon a massive stone, his gaze sharp as lightning bolts, coldly fixing upon the ape — no joy, no sorrow, no anger visible. “Who is stronger and who is weaker is not determined by ancient battle records. We shall fight anew in this age. Go and tell the Cang Clan — today I came to climb this mountain, and I will also pay a visit to their clan.”
He had not made a move, yet beneath that gaze, the grey ape felt a chill run down its spine. It was a powerful sacred beast that had not met a true match in many years, yet before this person it was trembling. What manner of peerless figure was this?!
“I…” It opened its mouth — but that cold, indifferent golden gaze swept over it, and it shivered involuntarily, stepping back on its own, its scalp going numb.
“Go.” Ye Fan extended a finger and pointed. A ray of divine radiance flew out and fell upon it. With a thunderous boom it was blasted away, tumbling toward the distant horizon far from the ancient tomb.
Ye Fan’s expression remained tranquil. He led Yang Xi forward, his body emanating wisps of radiance that already fully enveloped Xiao Nannan, for the power of the order laws atop the burial mound was far too overwhelming — sufficient to crush a cultivator into a pulp of flesh and bone.
On the mountain’s body, the spiritual energy grew ever denser. Some ancient medicinal herbs grew luxuriantly, with herbal ages reaching tens of thousands of years — extraordinarily rare.
There were even over a dozen that had nearly reached the level of Medicinal King, their herbal ages a full sixty or seventy thousand years. A delicate fragrance drifted into one’s nostrils, making one feel as though floating in an immortal realm.
This place was truly extraordinary, having effectively become the Cang Clan’s medicinal garden — albeit one built upon an ancient tomb. That, in itself, was quite astonishing and unusual.
Splash, splash, splash!
In certain areas, the dense spiritual energy had actually liquefied, pooling into small streams of water that flowed along the mountain’s surface. Source stones were not absent among them — a scene one witnessed only when the ten thousand spirits of heaven and earth were at their peak.
Regrettably, beyond the vegetation, all it could nurture were those of the Sovereign Heavenly Tyrant Blood lineage. The denser the vital energy, the more severely the law forces suppressed everyone else.
Even Ye Fan, as powerful as he currently was, felt wave after wave of discomfort upon climbing this mountain. A domineering power seemed to want to tear his body apart, with a particular targeting of the golden blood within him.
“No weapon fragments — only an order law condensed into a Tyrant Bell…” Ye Fan murmured. What had that supreme Tyrant Physique of old been trying to accomplish? He had clearly passed on in meditation — how could such a transformation have occurred?
He opened his Heavenly Eye. Piercing through the chains of order laws, his gaze penetrated the great tomb and plunged into the ten-thousand-zhang mountain body, seeking to see clearly everything within. This was his fundamental reason for coming here — in those days, the Sovereign Heavenly Tyrant Physique had carried internal wounds, and a decade after the battle, he had fallen apart. Whether anything could remain in his body to provide any information was the question.
Boom!
Suddenly, from deep within the great tomb, an aura of heaven-and-earth destruction surged upward — wild, domineering, and sky-filling in its ferocity. It would cause even the sun, moon, and star rivers to tremble!
This was a peerless master whom countless powerful beings throughout the ages had no choice but to look up to. Worthy indeed of being called a supreme sovereign of an era — even ten-plus years after death, such an aura still remained.
“Truly deserving the title of Uncrowned King — gone so many years, and still capable of this. An ordinary cultivator would absolutely be unable to endure these residual fluctuations.” Ye Fan murmured.
Suddenly, he was greatly startled!
Upon his brow, a vertical eye appeared, shooting forth a ray of immortal radiance that plunged into the deepest depths of the great tomb. Observing carefully, the scene within became visible.
There was actually a terrifying man down there. With disheveled black hair swirling wildly, his overbearing aura filling the heavens, he stood in place with an air of supreme dominance over all under heaven — a peerless bearing that proclaimed himself conqueror of all.
Deep within the enormous ancient tomb, there was actually a man!
This was truly bizarre — astonishing in the extreme.
His figure was wrapped in chains of order laws, rendering that powerful physique somewhat indistinct — yet it emitted a world-shaking fluctuation capable of suppressing the very cosmos. He suddenly looked up, and from his eyes shot two terrifying bolts of cold lightning, gazing out toward Ye Fan here, piercing straight through the tomb’s body.
Boom!
The golden blood within Ye Fan’s body instantly began to boil — surging at high speed, rumbling and roaring, his entire body blazing with radiance, ten thousand rays of light, resisting that impact.
He could confirm it: this was an absolute world-dominating oppression, rising from that man deep within the ancient tomb. An ordinary saint would be unable to endure it!
Clang—
A bell sound rang out from deep within the ancient tomb. In all six directions and eight wastelands, ten thousand ridges and ten thousand mountain valleys all resounded and trembled beneath the bell waves, its might overawing the boundless earth.
From his brow, brilliant light surged as a cauldron flew out, hovering above his head, with strands of order threads cascading downward — sheltering both him and Yang Xi beneath.
Deep within the ancient tomb, above that terrifying man’s head, strands of Dao laws intertwined and condensed into a great bell, hovering over him, ringing in a long, drawn-out tone, its domineering aura filling the heavens.
The Tyrant Bell!
From Ye Fan’s eyes shot a golden gleam. That great bell closely resembled the shape of the ancient tomb itself — identical to the legendary Tyrant Bell — as though it were capable of suppressing all nine heavens and ten lands.