The One Breath into Three Purities secret art — performed not by one, but by several at once. Combat power doubled, then layered further. In an instant, the tide of battle had shifted completely.

This was like a host of dragons and tigers unleashed upon the world. Ye Fan’s power needed no elaboration — everyone present had already witnessed it. Who among them could honestly claim they were confident they could beat him? Pang Bo was formidable in his own right; the moment he entered the fray, he delivered a blow to the Gold-Devouring Beast — his arm, thicker than most men’s legs, nearly ripped one of the beast’s limbs clean off.

Long Ma was no creature to take lightly either. Rising on its hind legs, it circled with the Movement Word Secret Art, probing for an opening. At last, with the timing of a sudden ambush, it unleashed a rear kick — and it actually worked. A young powerhouse was literally stomped to death by a horse’s hoof.

The one who received that blow died with eyes wide open, skull caved in, the fragments of his true spirit howling as they scattered to the wind. There was no more humiliating way to die — killed by a horse’s kick.

In this opening exchange, it was Long Ma who claimed the first kill.

Over these past twenty years, Long Ma had trained its Dao tirelessly, gradually absorbing and refining part of the inheritance crystal left by its ancient ancestor. Its power had grown — enough now to reign as a force in its own right.

Most surprising of all was Xiao Budian. The Lightning Phoenix Bird was extraordinarily powerful — her large eyes were clear as crystal, and she was utterly without hesitation when the fighting started. Like an immortal phoenix blazing across the sky, golden flames roared from her entire body. She ignited a young supreme powerhouse on the spot, her light chirping cries releasing threads of ordered divine chains that cut the opponent down.

“Truly worthy of the name — a divine bird variant that once consumed the Demon God Flower,” Ye Fan couldn’t help but marvel. The fuzzy little creature of days gone by now commanded a terrifying presence.

Pang Bo’s hands were equally busy. He sent the Gold-Devouring Beast crashing and deformed, then combined with his Dao body to press forward and grind through another opponent, his bronze-colored physique like a tower of iron, tearing that one apart.

On the other side, Ji Ziyue moved like a celestial maiden in a dance — purple robes flowing, her figure impossibly graceful as she glided forward, calling upon the primordial fragments and fundamental energy of the Divine Demon Burial Ground, channeling it all to suppress those arrayed before her.

At the same time, she poured streams of divine demon energy into Ye Fan, Pang Bo, Long Ma, and the others — sustaining them, replenishing them, while their enemies steadily weakened. The effect was decisive.

Ye Fan’s true body drove toward the Golden Serpent Third Lord — but a pack of fighters converged to intercept, and even his Dao body was held back when it moved to assist.

But he was not losing ground. With Pang Bo, Ji Ziyue, and the Source Heaven Formation spreading golden radiance beneath his feet, blazing and brilliant, he remained firmly in control.

“Spit!”

In nearly the same instant he surged forward, one of the enemies on the other side exploded — shattered by Ye Fan’s supreme Source Arts, burst apart into dozens of fragments, dead before he could cry out.

“Deploy the Formation Diagram — kill him!” the Golden Serpent Great Lord said sharply, decisive without pause. He held nothing back now — he moved immediately to merge all four corners of the Soaring Serpent Formation Diagram.

“Hiss—!”

From the crown of his head, two streams of primordial chaos qi surged outward, each carrying a corner of the formation diagram. One corner was his own; the other had been left behind by the fallen Golden Serpent Second Lord.

Across the battlefield, the nearly overwhelmed Golden Serpent Third Lord’s face twisted with savage fury. Chaos qi erupted from his own crown as he brought out his corner of the formation diagram and drove it toward Ye Fan.

The Fourth Lord did the same — eyes nearly blood-red with killing lust, radiating an overwhelming slaughter intent, hurling the fourth corner outward with terrifying force.

The four corners of the formation diagram united with a rolling thunder, radiating the light of an age when heaven and earth first parted — wreathed in surging primordial chaos. This was a supreme killing weapon, a relic left behind by the Soaring Serpent bloodline’s ancient ancestor.

Twenty or thirty years ago, the four young Lords of the Golden Serpent Clan had wielded this against a Great Sage and held their ground — nearly destroying the Grey Flood Dragon in the process.

Ye Fan raised his right hand and thrust it upward toward the sky, where the four corners of the formation diagram had merged and were now descending, threatening to shatter heaven and earth — yet he moved directly to meet it.

Primordial mist churned and billowed. Every other young Supreme in the area changed color — they could all see at once that this was the ancestral weapon of the Soaring Serpent bloodline, and it had finally been brought out.

But in this moment, it was the Golden Serpent Great Lord himself whose expression changed — because he finally understood why his second brother had died, even with the Soaring Serpent Formation Diagram in hand.

From Ye Fan’s right palm, there emanated a faint green radiance. Something within his flesh and blood — merged with it, woven into it — was giving off that glow. Though it showed no true form, it faced the Soaring Serpent Formation Diagram without flinching.

This sent the Golden Serpent Great Lord into a state of cold shock. In that single instant, countless thoughts raced through him — and his spiritual sense, which was extraordinarily keen, reached outward. The hairs all over his body rose at once. He was close to horrified.

“Retreat — retreat now!” the Golden Serpent Great Lord roared, his voice cracking with urgency as he called out to his two brothers, while he himself had already begun to move.

He had caught something impossible with his sharp perception: the unified Soaring Serpent Formation Diagram seemed to carry within it a trace of fear — a wariness directed at the green glow radiating from Ye Fan’s right palm. That should not have been possible.

This was, of course, the incomplete Green Copper Cauldron. Ye Fan could not actively wield or bring it forth — certainly not at his current Sage-King cultivation level. It only stirred when subjected to tremendous pressure — and the Soaring Serpent Formation Diagram was exactly the kind of ancient weapon that could produce that kind of pressure. The aura it carried came from the age when the world first began — it was said to possibly be an artifact of the mythic era.

No one had anticipated it: the Golden Serpent Great Lord pulling back, calling urgently to his brothers to flee, going against all logic. The Soaring Serpent Formation Diagram had just been fully activated — this was a supreme killing weapon that even a current Great Sage would have to treat with caution, all the more so without its seal. If fully unshackled, its power would have been beyond reckoning.

Some speculated that it might be a quasi-Emperor weapon that had been sealed.

And yet — with the formation diagram exerting such overwhelming dominance, pressing down just as it was about to fall — the Golden Serpent Great Lord had turned and fled as if he’d seen a ghost. It made no rational sense.

Moreover, he had called back his two corners of the formation diagram, unwilling to let it press down any further — as though terrified it might be destroyed.

Ye Fan quietly sighed. He had genuinely hoped the Golden Serpent Great Lord would stay — that through the pressure of the Soaring Serpent Formation Diagram, the Green Copper Cauldron would have been forced to stir fully, and in doing so, wiped out everyone present in one sweep.

But the Golden Serpent Great Lord’s instincts were too sharp. This was a truly formidable enemy — his spiritual perception alone was extraordinary. He had sensed that something was about to go terribly wrong, and that premonition — a kind of terrible instinct — had saved him.

The Golden Serpent Fourth Lord deferred entirely to his eldest brother and retreated the instant he received the command. Only the Third Lord hesitated for the span of a breath — and that brief moment of hesitation cost him everything.

“Boom—!”

Ye Fan’s right palm radiated a green luminescence as it struck toward a corner of the formation diagram — but the Soaring Serpent formation diagram evaded on its own, shooting straight up into the sky.

“This—” The Golden Serpent Third Lord’s heart seized. Then he launched himself upward in a flash.

To outside eyes, it looked as though he was simply obeying his elder brother’s command to retreat. But only he knew the truth — he was chasing the formation diagram. Because… why had the Soaring Serpent ancient diagram fled on its own? It had been afraid.

Ye Fan’s cold smile spread across his face. In a single blur, he was in motion, closing the distance to the Golden Serpent Third Lord in an instant.

The moment the Soaring Serpent Formation Diagram came apart, the incomplete Green Copper Cauldron fused within Ye Fan’s right palm grew dim. The overwhelming aura that had briefly awakened vanished just as quickly — utterly unhurried. As always with this cauldron: if not pushed to the edge, it would not awaken.

Even without it, Ye Fan’s own power was more than enough to destroy the Golden Serpent Third Lord. A massive palm descended like a golden mountain range collapsing from above.

“Big brother — come back and kill him!” the Golden Serpent Third Lord turned to face his attacker, hatred boiling in his eyes. He truly wanted to drink the blood of the Human Sacred Body — every fiber of him burned with it.

“Get out now!” the Golden Serpent Great Lord roared back.

“Too late.” Ye Fan’s cold smile was unhurried. The Green Copper Cauldron had just driven away the Golden Serpent Great Lord — and now there was no one to save his brother.

The Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist thundered out. Ye Fan struck eighteen consecutive blows — each one harder, more ferocious than the last. The enemies surrounding him struck at him relentlessly; the Golden Serpent Third Lord fought back with everything he had. None of it mattered.

With eighteen blows like that — what kind of power was that? In the past, a single one of Ye Fan’s punches had been enough to destroy a great enemy.

“Ah—!”

The Golden Serpent Third Lord screamed — and was simply obliterated. A second fighter caught in the wake of that force was also shattered on the spot.

“Big brother, save me!” the Golden Serpent Third Lord’s true spirit shot upward, desperate to escape.

Ye Fan reached out and caught it — and with a single sharp pull, tore it in two. Body and spirit destroyed completely.

This display sent shockwaves through every person watching. The death of a mighty Soaring Serpent, in full view of all — it froze everyone from head to toe, every one of them even more wary than before.

“Golden Serpent brother — what was the meaning of that?” many demanded with open hostility. The moment before, the situation had clearly been in their favor. And yet the Soaring Serpent Formation Diagram had simply… dissolved.

“Ah—!” The Golden Serpent Fourth Lord let out a cry of grief, his eyes going red. He surged forward, screaming curses. “Human Sacred Body — I will kill you!”

The Golden Serpent Great Lord grabbed him by the arm, his expression as dark and still as stagnant water. He said nothing — only stared, from across the distance, at Ye Fan’s right hand. On the other side, Sangu’s brow furrowed slightly. He had felt it too — something deeply unsettling.

“Strike!”

Ye Fan’s true body and Dao body moved together, driving the Source Arts to heaven-shaking effect, flooding the entire mountain land in blazing radiance until it became a land of luminous splendor.

Boom!

The Golden Serpent Great Lord charged forward, trading a palm strike with Ye Fan across empty air — then flew back. His eyes were wide, his expression haunted. He was still trying to sense the aura of the Green Copper fragment from a moment ago.

“Go!” He made up his mind without hesitation and shot into the sky — leaving even the death of his brother unavenged, swallowing it down.

Ye Fan exhaled quietly. He had truly hoped the Golden Serpent Great Lord would stay — that through the power of his brothers’ Soaring Serpent Formation Diagram, the Green Copper Cauldron might have been fully roused, and he could have destroyed everyone here in a single sweep.

But it was not to be. After calling all four corners of the formation diagram back to himself, the Golden Serpent Great Lord tore open the void and vanished, taking the Fourth Lord and the Gold-Devouring Beast with him.

With one of the major pillars of the opposing force gone, the rest had no will to fight on. Their combat strength had dropped sharply — and every one of them fled.

“Kill—!”

What followed was a one-sided slaughter. Golden symbols blazed as Ye Fan’s Source Arts locked down the field. Pang Bo cut down two enemies in rapid succession, advancing through blood. Ji Ziyue pinned down several more — and proved stronger than anyone had expected. A clever, scheming young woman — and this powerful to boot. No one had seen it coming.

In the end, Sangu used an ancestral weapon to tear open the void and vanish.

Every other fighter was killed — hunted down and eliminated by Ye Fan, Pang Bo, and Long Ma to the last. Blood ran across the earth, soaking everything in red, the scene like a vision of the underworld itself.

These had been young Supremes — all of them. And yet here, against a handful of opponents, they had been routed and slaughtered, their bodies left to scatter across this ancient land. It was a sight that would chill anyone who heard of it.

“Only one can stand supreme beneath heaven and earth!” The mountains echoed with the sound.

“That felt good,” Pang Bo said, sounding mildly dissatisfied that it was already over. “If another wave came, that would be even better — wipe them all out.”

Long Ma was equally pleased with itself. Just how few of them were there? And they had broken an entire assembly of young Supremes, every one of them a supreme powerhouse from a different ancient domain.

Only the Twelve Sages were subdued — their cultivation level hadn’t allowed them to take part, and they had spent the battle as an audience.

“Your turn will come,” Ye Fan said. “For beings with several thousand years of life ahead of them, falling behind by a few minor cultivation realms means nothing. There is plenty of time to catch up.”

He could say that with conviction. They had the Bodhi Tree — the Twelve Sages could cultivate and achieve enlightenment beneath it, and sooner or later they would each break through whatever bottleneck stood in their way.

Ye Fan walked forward, his gaze resting on the figure ahead.

Purple robes drifting, fine hair dancing softly, eyes like black gemstones — clear and luminous, carrying a transcendent, ethereal quality. Ji Ziyue stood with the corner of her mouth gently curved, her smile quiet and beautiful.

“Ziyue.” Ye Fan called her name softly.

One hundred years apart — and now, at last, they met again, on the far shore of the stars.