The Undying Heavenly Blade — hailed as the greatest blade across ten thousand ages — had shattered. Its cold radiance swept across the galaxy like a river of stars, and its divine brilliance illuminated all ten wastelands. This outcome left everyone shaken.
And the Female Emperor’s strength defied all description. She had torn apart an imperial weapon with her bare hands — and not just any weapon. This one was unlike all others, beyond the measure of ordinary logic, already drawing near the rank of a supreme immortal weapon.
It was as though an entire starfield had collapsed. The site of the Heavenly Blade became a source of absolute destruction. Broken into two halves, its cold radiance swept outward like a silver waterfall — or perhaps a vast and endless ocean, surging on without cease.
This was the blade’s resentment and fury. Once an invincible weapon, it had been reduced to this — humiliation, suffocation, and the pressure of survival drove it into a frenzy.
Yet it could change nothing. Its own rupture had already been sealed as fate. This was an indescribable bitter consequence.
Whoosh!
The Undying Heavenly Blade plunged into the void, desperate to escape, unwilling to truly perish and have its spirit shattered in this place. Throughout this process, the two broken halves of the blade behaved strangely — both erupted with crimson radiance like vivid red blood, striking the eyes and stirring the heart, before they began drawing back toward each other, seeking to reunite.
What was happening? Everyone was taken aback.
“That is the ultimate profound art of the Phoenix-Blood Crimson Gold!” the Old God declared, his eyes gleaming with light.
Phoenix-Blood Crimson Gold, true to its name, possessed the nature of the undying phoenix bird — it could undergo nirvana and be reborn. The Heavenly Blade was clearly performing just such a transformation and self-preservation. The erupting crimson radiance was the law and profound art of the Phoenix-Blood Crimson Gold, born of bathing in immortal blood. In this moment of crisis, the Undying Heavenly Blade revealed its heaven-defying side.
Everyone drew in a sharp breath. No wonder there were legends that to forge an immortal weapon, one had to smelt all manner of divine metals — there was truth to this.
Each divine metal possessed its own supreme foundational profound art. Take the Divine-Mark Purple Gold, which could trace and replicate the remnants of the Grand Dao preserved between heaven and earth, capturing the profound teachings encoded in ancient ruins. This Phoenix-Blood Crimson Gold, by contrast, embodied undying rebirth — it could achieve nirvana and be reborn — a staggering latent potential.
Of course, divine metals were not scarce, but not just anyone could refine a weapon to this level. Even the foundational properties of a supreme treasure required proper development.
“What a terrifying heavenly blade — it would truly be unrivaled under heaven. If given time, once it completes its transformation into an immortal weapon, even destroying it would become impossible!”
Crimson blood stained the river of stars as the broken blade reassembled itself. The Female Emperor stepped forward and struck once more.
At the same moment, the Primordial Azure Lotus, which had previously taken root in the void, suddenly moved — it vanished from where it stood and shot toward the deepest reaches of the cosmos, precisely in the direction where the stone egg had disappeared.
The Heavenly Blade roared. This time it was truly driven to complete desperation — more anxious than it had been when it was shattered itself. That was the immortal egg it had been guarding, not yet born into the world, and nothing could be allowed to go wrong.
It charged forward at full speed, its entire body blazing with bloodlight, the Phoenix-Blood Crimson Gold boiling and surging forth like true blood. Simultaneously, the other four divine metals resonated as well, each displaying their great divine powers as the blade attempted to cut through nothingness and vanish.
The Heavenly Blade unleashed the most powerful strike of its entire existence. It cleaved the cosmos open, fleeing toward the stone egg, attempting to stop the azure imperial weapon from causing destruction. The Female Emperor, unhurried and composed, followed after it.
“All of you, retreat!” Ye Fan commanded. Just moments ago, many had halted to watch, protected by the Azure Emperor’s Lotus, and had no cause for concern.
Now, all three weapons had plunged into the cosmic sea. Though everyone dearly wished to witness the outcome, they understood it was far too dangerous. Upon hearing the order, they departed in an orderly fashion.
The Old God, Ye Fan, and the Woodcutter — three supreme peerless experts — charged toward the cosmic sea. They hoped to witness the conclusion, and if necessary, to fight with everything they had. That Heavenly Blade was truly a great menace.
Yet however heaven-defying their abilities, it was still difficult for them to keep pace with those three weapons. Along the way, they witnessed shattered galaxies, destroyed star systems, and ruin after ruin spread across the expanse.
At last, they caught sight of certain fragments of time — that was the final battlefield.
The Primordial Azure Lotus had found that stone egg. One of its roots, like a gnarled dragon, cracked open the cosmos and took root within the past, driving straight for the immortal egg.
The Heavenly Blade fought desperately, attempting to sever the Lotus’s root tendril, refusing to let it draw near the stone egg.
Behind them, the Female Emperor moved with unhurried grace, her entire body enveloped in a rain of light like an ascending immortal. Her hands — fair and flawless as jade — began forming seals, pressing forward.
Dong!
The Celestial Emperor’s Summoning War Drum shook and positioned itself before the stone egg. That azure root tendril pierced straight through the drum’s surface and took root there — a sight that left everyone shaken.
“Ahhh—!”
The Heavenly Blade let out a furious roar that shattered the cosmic star-river. It burned through itself, unleashing power that transcended all reason, and in an instant, it vanished — it cut across the river of time and placed itself before the stone egg, blocking the Lotus’s root, then hacked downward.
The Azure Emperor’s Lotus was of incomprehensible size, its main body still infinitely distant, its branches and leaves blanketing the entirety of the cosmos. This was but one among its countless root tendrils, and it did not clash head-on with the Heavenly Blade — it withdrew at the right moment.
But from this single strike alone being capable of piercing through the Celestial Emperor’s Summoning War Drum — itself a powerful secret weapon — one could see just how terrifying the Lotus truly was, a fact that left all who witnessed it in awe.
From afar, the Old God, Ye Fan, and the Woodcutter all exchanged glances. Indeed, none of them were weaklings — not the last Great Emperor of the post-Desolate Antiquity era, not the Celestial Emperor revered by ten thousand races, not the most breathtakingly gifted figure in all of history. All of them were utterly heaven-defying.
The Female Emperor arrived, stepping forward with calm ease, not a flicker of emotion crossing her face. She seemed to sense something through some form of attunement. Her hands moved slowly and deliberately, and the cosmic sea around her immediately surged with violent fierce winds — it threatened to tear everything apart!
“You push people too far! I would sooner slumber for ten thousand years to summon the undying Celestial Emperor down into the mortal realm — let the supreme and exalted descend!”
The Heavenly Blade roared out in madness.
It had been driven into a dead end and had no other option. It was invoking something that would set it upon a path of partial destruction — even one called the Undying Heavenly Blade, like the Celestial Emperor of old, difficult to kill, would still be required to pay a tremendous price.
The blade’s body blazed and shone. A mysterious and unfathomable power radiated outward, calling upon a supreme and mighty force hidden somewhere in the great unknown.
Amid a chorus of cracking sounds, the Heavenly Blade became covered in dense fractures, and then it began to collapse — it shattered into seven or eight pieces, paying an unimaginably terrible price.
Boom!
A phantom figure descended. It was a tall, imposing man — indistinct and blurred, impossible to see clearly — yet simply his presence conveyed a sense of overwhelming dominance.
He was the Undying Celestial Emperor!
On the other side of the galactic river, the Woodcutter, Ye Fan, and the Old God felt their hearts tremble. The color drained from all their faces. This supremely terrifying powerhouse from history had truly appeared, and by such means as this.
“That is not his true body — only a phantom!” After calming somewhat, the Old God spoke. This was a contingency the Celestial Emperor had left behind in the distant past; it was not his true phoenix form descending into the world.
Bang!
The Female Emperor struck out, meeting the phantom directly. She led with the power of an ascending immortal, and amid a rain of light that filled the sky, that fair white palm was incomparably sharp and dominant.
Upon seeing the scene before it, the phantom of the Undying Celestial Emperor was clearly taken aback. He fixed his gaze on the Female Emperor and then on that Azure Lotus — yet he did not engage. Instead, his form dispersed, dissolving into a swath of blazing Dao principles, wrapping around the damaged Heavenly Blade, the Celestial Emperor’s War Drum, and the stone egg alike, before plunging into the Primordial Chaotic Sea ahead.
The Azure Lotus and the Female Emperor gave chase without pause.
Ye Fan and the Woodcutter both sighed with a measure of regret. Since the Undying Heavenly Blade had paid such a great price to summon a phantom, escaping was likely not going to be a problem.
At the same time, a wave of deep dread washed over them both. What in the world was that stone egg, that the Heavenly Blade would be so protective of it — to the point that the Undying Celestial Emperor had left a phantom to guard it?
One had to remember — even the Celestial Emperor’s sons and daughters of old, and even the Undying Celestial Empress, had never received such treatment. The difference was staggeringly apparent.
A long while later, deep within the Primordial Chaotic Sea, an ancient and simple jar fell into Ye Fan’s hand, accompanied by a soft ding — a ring dropped down and landed in his palm.
An Azure Lotus returned to its normal size, suspended in the void.
The battle had come to an end. Ye Fan and the others stood in silence for a long while, then bid their farewells to one another and prepared to each set off on the road back.
“The future holds many possibilities — it is mutable, and not everything that is foreseen will come to pass,” Ye Fan murmured to himself. He looked toward the Old God, for the Black Emperor had once prophesied that the Old God would die by the Heavenly Blade’s hand. Yet that had not come to pass — the Old God had survived.
But no sooner had his words fallen than the Old God, stepping through the stargate, coughed up a great mouthful of blood. His body swayed, and he turned back with a long sigh. “I have been struck by a blade intent,” he said. “I have a few more decades left. I will return now to put my affairs in order.”
Ye Fan was taken aback. He had believed the future’s trajectory had already been altered — yet now a chill swept over him once more. Were there forces of destiny that truly could not be changed?
The Old God was going to die after all. He had long since been wounded by the Heavenly Blade; it was merely that it had been delayed for a period of time.
Ye Fan had laid waste to the Phoenix Nest, slain the divine generals of its various factions, driven even the Undying Celestial Empress to a desperate end, and dismantled this great threat entirely. Could this truly resolve the danger once and for all?
His thoughts turned to the Underworld. In the future he had foreseen, it was these two great powers that had destroyed the Heavenly Court and killed Ziyue, Little Pine, Pang Bo, the Black Emperor, Xiao Zi, and the others. Yet the Underworld had still not been dealt with.
This meant that perhaps the tragedy might still come to pass. He could not relax. He could not breathe easily. He still had to fight on — to make himself yet stronger.
When the time came to part ways, Ye Fan spoke plainly, offering to send the Old God Bodhi branches and leaves along with the Medicine King to heal his injuries. But the Old God politely refused, for he knew that the blade intent had entered his very soul. He was going to die — that was not something immortal medicine could reverse.
What allowed him to cling to life now was the fact that he was using the fruits of his entire lifetime’s cultivation to suppress his own condition. The moment he relaxed that suppression, he would disintegrate in an instant, his soul shattering into fragments scattered across the starfield.
The battle’s conclusion reverberated far and wide.
The cosmos erupted into clamor — discussion filled every corner. The Phoenix Nest, once possessed of awe-inspiring divine might, had been annihilated. The all-conquering Undying Celestial Empress had perished among the stars.
These tidings were shattering in their impact. Across every region of the cosmos, countless great powers stirred in agitation. The outside world roared with noise that could deafen the ears.
In this battle, Ye Fan had slain three great divine generals in succession. His name now spread across the entire starfield, and he was acclaimed as the one with the greatest potential among all those currently on the path to becoming a Great Emperor.
From this day forward, anyone who wished to walk the path to becoming an Emperor would first have to pass through him. This was a reality placed squarely before every supreme powerhouse with ambitions toward that path.
The rise of the Heavenly Court had become unstoppable — it truly soared into the heavens, ascending to become one of the most powerful forces in the cosmos. The Phoenix Nest had been destroyed, and the Heavenly Court took its place, standing alongside the Dao Palace, the Underworld, and two other great forces in a four-way division of the heavens. It commanded all domains and issued decrees across the ten thousand skies.
Boom!
Just as people were still marveling and reflecting, a tremendous disturbance erupted from the depths of the cosmos. It was a supreme aura spreading outward, sweeping across every sun, moon, river, and mountain in an instant.
“The First Divine General of the Ancient Heavenly Court!” Ye Fan perceived it at once.
Had the decisive battle between the young man and the Underworld Emperor still not concluded? In that moment, every heart leapt to every throat. If he were defeated, it could mean the descent of dark chaos.