At the deepest reaches of the forbidden zone lay a scorched wasteland. The outer regions were marked by shattered mountains, dried rivers, barren red earth, and a deathly stillness without a trace of life.

But within — it was a sea of crimson. Blood everywhere. Shattered bone and torn flesh scattered across the ground in a sight that was harrowing to behold.

That blood was a vivid, brilliant red with an immortal divine sheen. Though the vital essence had nearly completely dispersed, it still overwhelmed the senses. A pressure radiated outward from it.

Imperial blood!

In a single instant, both Huntuo and Ye Fan had these same three words rise up in their hearts.

The entire center of the forbidden zone was a scene of lurid crimson, radiating a faint red glow. There were many pools — all filled with this imperial blood — and scattered among them were fragments of blood-streaked white bone and torn flesh, enough to make one’s heart lurch.

A presence that could sever the divine soul and seize the spirit permeated the air. This was not a truly active, overwhelming force — it was an intangible pressure upon the spiritual plane. And the more powerful one was, the more deeply one felt it.

Ye Fan and Huntuo both felt their blood surge through their entire bodies, their brow bones radiating a faint gem-like radiance, as though burdened beneath dozens or hundreds of enormous celestial bodies — the immortal platform within their brows felt on the verge of shattering.

Stillness of heart. Clarity of mind. Self-control. The two of them quickly steadied their inner states, making themselves as if ordinary people — not drawing upon the power of their divine souls or their physical bodies, not resisting.

The tearing pain that ripped through divine soul and bone gradually faded. At last the two stabilized. The sinister, heaven-defying pressure ahead ceased targeting them — but now it clashed instead against the emperor weapons.

Whether the deep teal gourd or the green bronze cauldron above Ye Fan’s head, neither dimmed — they shone even more intensely, blazing with even greater brilliance.

The porcelain doll and the other young ones had felt nothing of that terrible danger just now. But seeing the state of Ye Fan and the Great Sage Huntuo, they immediately understood that this place was layered with lethal peril.

“A great emperor fell here. Even his body was blown apart. The immortal road is this terrifying — it has claimed the life of an ancient supreme being.” Ye Fan exhaled slowly.

The Great Sage Huntuo’s face was solemn and heavy. This outcome was profoundly affecting. That a supreme being invincible through ten thousand ages could still have a day of dark and quiet death — slain on the very road toward immortality — truly sent a chill through the bones.

There was no skull. No face. No recognizable form at all. The ancient emperor had been blown completely apart — pulverized to nothing, blood dripping, radiating a vivid red light that made the flesh crawl.

Among the scattered remains, the only thing preserved intact was a single right palm. It was warm and smooth as jade, possessing a terrifying divine power — if it were to strike anyone, even a quasi-emperor would be annihilated, body and soul.

And yet, now it could only lie quietly before them. Everything had ended. An ancient great emperor had failed to storm the immortal road, and had perished along the way.

This was the ending upon the road to immortality — a supreme being of antiquity, meeting a desolate and bitter end!

Ye Fan had heard many legends, but what he saw before him was the most tragic scene upon the entire immortal road: a great-emperor-level figure blown to pieces outright. How catastrophic must that have been?

Pressing further on, there was only primordial chaos mist — it cut across the entire small world, indicating that the immortal road had ended here. It had been smashed apart.

This person had failed to break through, and had died here without honor.

“Who is this person? Could it be the Undying Heaven Emperor?” Ye Fan murmured to himself.

At that name, the Great Sage Huntuo’s heart lurched. To the ten thousand ancient clans, that name was of the highest sanctity — even after ten thousand ages, it remained the supreme deity in the hearts of many ancient clans.

And within many great clans, a legend had always persisted: the Undying Heaven Emperor had very likely not died — that he had ascended to immortality!

In truth, this could never be verified. Perhaps it was simply the reverence people held for the supreme god in their hearts, elaborated over time into myth and glory. What the truth truly was, no one knew.

“It cannot be the Undying Divine. He was invincible throughout the mortal world — even on the immortal road, he would not have fallen. He is called Undying. This pass could not have killed him.” Huntuo shook his head, refusing to accept this conclusion.

“He came here, left a coffin, left behind a human skin — yet neither flesh nor bone was found. If not him, then who?” Ye Fan’s eyes flashed with sharp light as he opened and closed them.

In truth, even in his own heart, Ye Fan did not quite believe this was the Undying Heaven Emperor. For earlier, in the outer battlefield, he had heard the great roar of another, and the one who had seemed to hold the upper hand appeared to have been that Undying Divine.

“Was there ever an age in this world when two emperors existed at once?” Ye Fan asked.

Huntuo shook his head — in his understanding, it seemed there had not. Yet when he thought of the era of the Revered Emperor, he hesitated somewhat. That had been a complex and sweeping age. It was said that rivals of comparable power might have coexisted, though no evidence remained.

The two of them circled the shattered landscape, gazing at the harrowing blood and white bone. The emperor’s body had been blown apart, so the full measure of his essence had bled away — and yet even now it carried an oppressive presence capable of making the heart tremble and the knees shake.

Of course, the primary burden was on the spiritual plane — the stronger the person, the more deeply they felt it, the more their heart clenched and their legs went weak.

“On the immortal road, to have been driven to this state — this person must have been nearly through. What a pity that in the end, he fell short by just a sliver, dying here.”

“The age this person inhabited was wrong. He was trying to force his way in through sheer transcendent cultivation — he was bound to fail from the start.”

The two of them discussed as they walked. Each would have liked to take a fragment of imperial bone — for even with the vital essence nearly exhausted, it was still a rare and precious immortal-grade material. Yet neither could bring themselves to act, for around the glowing blood and bone, the formation markings of a great emperor still intertwined and pulsed, not yet faded.

“Wuu — wuu—”

Suddenly, a sound of weeping reached their ears. It sounded mournful, utterly bereft. Someone was crying — from the sound of it, not a young person — deeply, bitterly sorrowful, coming from just ahead.

This place had imperial markings flickering throughout. Though they had not spread outward, they could still warp the space here and powerfully distort a person’s sight and hearing.

At first, Ye Fan and Huntuo assumed it was an ancient imprint that had never faded, and paid it little mind. But after continuing for several dozen more li, they felt an imperial aura — and with that, their hearts leapt.

In a mountain hollow, a blurred figure was weeping bitterly, kneeling in prostration before the bloodied flesh at the center. And above his head, a dragon sword blazed with brilliant light, breathtakingly magnificent, sounding a mournful cry without cease.

The Grand Emperor Sword!

This was the supreme treasure of the Great Xia Imperial Clan of Central Region — left behind by its founder.

No further deliberation was needed. This person had certainly come from that immortal dynasty.

Ye Fan’s heart shook. Huntuo’s mind likewise cleared in an instant. Everything fell into place now. The one who had died at the center of the battlefield was the Grand Emperor — the founder of the Great Xia Divine Realm.

The Grand Emperor had stepped onto the immortal road and failed to storm it. His body had been blown apart here!

This person was a Great Sage, emanating an aura of decay — his remaining lifespan was scant. There was no need to think hard about it: this was the “hidden reserve” of the Great Xia Imperial Clan, now emerged into the world.

He must have been a descendant of the Grand Emperor — why else would he weep with such grief? He was a guttering candle in the last season of life, trembling as he rose, letting out several great sobs, allowing the Grand Emperor Sword to cry out its sorrow, and then at last he departed into the distance.

He had not exchanged a single word with Ye Fan or Huntuo, simply walking away on his own.

It was not one of the ancient supreme beings of antiquity — it was the Grand Emperor. With the truth now revealed, Ye Fan let out a quiet sigh. The Great Sage Huntuo, too, was dazed for a long while, not speaking.

As for the porcelain doll and the others, they all sealed their lips, their young faces filled with gravity, every one of them holding their breath in silence, listening and watching with great care.

Ye Fan understood now. The Grand Emperor had come here before — for all those years ago, when he and others had climbed that ten-thousand-zhang jade platform, they had discovered a Dao diagram left behind by the Grand Emperor inside the Undying Heaven Emperor’s coffin.

“So this is how it ends. Not an ancient emperor of deepest antiquity. Not the Undying Heaven Emperor. But the Grand Emperor — dead here.”

An ancient great emperor had died in this place, filled with bitter refusal to accept it. Not far away, imperial blood still burned — and it had not been extinguished even now. This was the residual resentment of his unresigned spirit, still struggling in defiance.

Immortality — the hope of how many heroes across the ages. And yet not a single confirmed account existed, not one clear record attesting that any particular person had succeeded.

Looking at all of this now, it had been nothing but tragedy after tragedy. Even ancient emperors had failed, toppling into the blood-soaked path of the immortal road, leaving behind only great bitterness and regret.

“What was that screaming voice in the battlefield about?” Ye Fan murmured to himself, glancing toward Huntuo.

Thinking back on it now, that cry had been truly unsettling. It seemed directed at the Undying Heaven Emperor in extraordinary fury — a great shouted rebuke, filled with hatred.

Huntuo fell into deep thought as well. This was genuinely strange.

What had happened in ages past? What was it that had driven someone to such an unresigned fury, branding that voice upon the void of ten thousand ages, still unscattered even now?

That voice was so terrifyingly powerful, still present after all this time — it was very likely roared out by a great-emperor-level figure, branded here permanently. Could it have been the Grand Emperor who left it?

Anyone connecting these threads would instinctively begin to form certain associations.

“Just how did the Grand Emperor die?” Ye Fan’s expression shifted subtly.

The Great Sage Huntuo fell into a long silence. The clues all pointed in one direction — it was quite possible the Undying Heaven Emperor had struck against the Grand Emperor from the shadows, had ambushed him.

And yet, how could that be? The Undying Heaven Emperor was a figure of the earliest antiquity, a person from the end of the mythological era — at minimum several hundred thousand years removed from the present. The Grand Emperor had lived only ten-some thousand years ago. How could the two of them have possibly met? There was no logic to it.

“That old ghost, the Undying Heaven Emperor — could he really have lived that long? How is that conceivable? If so, he would have had no need to pursue immortality. He already had eternal life.”

Huntuo, upon hearing Ye Fan’s irreverent phrasing, did not object — he simply knit his brows in serious thought for a long while. Even he felt a wave of disquiet and strangeness.

“Could it be that the Grand Emperor forced his way onto the immortal road, and in the instant he broke it open, the Undying Heaven Emperor ambushed him — stealing the place of immortality that should have been his?” The porcelain doll spoke quietly.

The other young people all looked shaken. These matters were too far removed from them. Even a Great Sage was beyond what they could aspire to, let alone a great emperor — and yet here they were, listening to these innermost secrets unfold.

This was a murky and bewildering blood affair — one that reached all the way to an ancient great emperor.

After finishing what she had said, the porcelain doll shook her head. There was one fatal flaw in that reasoning: who could live for several hundred thousand years?

Ye Fan’s gaze turned cold and piercing. “Could it be that the Undying Heaven Emperor also walked that road in the end — that it might not have been him who created the primordial ancient mine? That through that means he managed to live for endless ages?”

Huntuo trembled inwardly and murmured, “Doing so could indeed sustain life for that long. But it is too cruel. One’s cultivation could never progress another step in this lifetime.”

What he was referring to — by now there was no need to question it. What existed within the primordial ancient mine, and what kind of beings had survived through such means, was no longer a matter of doubt.

“The Undying Heaven Emperor would absolutely never do that. He is a proud man — born to make every deity and spirit in all the heavens and realms prostrate at his feet. He would rather die than submit. He calls himself the greatest beneath ten thousand ages. He would never bow his head.” The Great Sage Huntuo spoke.

Whatever the case, there was no corpse of the Undying Heaven Emperor in this place. He had come here at some point — that was certain — and he had schemed for and obtained something.

“The number of emperors and supreme beings across antiquity can be counted. Let us return to that battlefield, examine those imprints carefully, and see exactly whose they are — to determine the true story of what transpired here.” Ye Fan spoke, already turning to walk outside, intent on getting to the bottom of it.