Ye Fan howled his wild song, his hair loose and flowing, blood energy surging in torrents, his Emperor’s Fist thundering and roaring, making all the stars across every heaven tremble and shift their courses — every one of them resonating with him.
He drove the sun, moon, and stars before him, all nine heavens and ten earths beneath his feet — and yet he still could not change anything. Those luminaries had been gone for many years already. What made it all the more sorrowful was that the people around him were still departing, one after another, and all he could do was watch.
A long time passed before he grew calm again. What remained of this life? Only battle! A vast and boundless canvas of immortal war spread before him, waiting to be filled with a lifetime of struggle.
Xia Jiuyou stood in white as pure as snow — peerlessly beautiful, yet with a blankness about her, as if her spirit had gone somewhere else. All these years spent in grief searching for her master’s whereabouts had left her hollow, adrift, walking alone in the direction of the distance, very solitary.
“Wait — let me think of something. Perhaps Elder Gai can be made to appear in the world once more.” Ye Fan called after her. Seeing the prodigious girl from years past reduced to this state, he found his own heart unable to settle.
“What method is there?” Xia Jiuyou turned back. Her eyes carried a mist of tears, and the single strand of white among her dark hair was striking in its contrast.
“I have been exploring various paths to immortality — none are fully matured yet, but one of them may be worth attempting.” Ye Fan said honestly.
Six thousand years — the better half of which had been spent in contemplating the Dao. He had walked very far down this road, drawing on every “Dao” and every “path” that the ancients had been able to articulate.
“What method?”
“I intend to use the power of belief to bring Elder Gai back to the world.” Ye Fan said — and yet in his heart he sighed, knowing how remote the chances were, how nearly impossible success would be. It was largely because seeing the prodigious girl grow old and appear so pitiable that he hoped to give her some form of spiritual anchor to hold onto.
Of course, it was not entirely without some small hope of success either. This was the great Dao of Amitabha Buddha — a path Ye Fan had devoted five hundred years to studying deeply, turning over and working through countless questions along the way.
In the course of that study, Ye Fan had once marveled that the old monk had reached the absolute pinnacle of this Dao, surpassing all who had come before him across all ages — Shakyamuni Buddha himself had been partially reborn through a fragment of that old monk’s divine sense.
“Can it truly succeed?” Xia Jiuyou’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears. All these years she had been helpless and grief-stricken, yet without a single course of action open to her.
“It can — but I will need your help!” Ye Fan gave her something to believe in.
“Agreed!” A flash of astonishing brilliance passed through Xia Jiuyou’s eyes.
Their group returned to the Heavenly Court. Upon returning, Ye Fan personally erected a divine temple and began the apotheosis — an extraordinary act.
In the name of the Heavenly Emperor, he established a magnificent temple throughout the universe, his words rolling and booming out, shaking the sea of stars, spreading across every domain. On that day, with solemn gravity, he personally presided over the ceremony, enshrining Gai Jiuyou as a god. The first surge of thought-power to pour into the divine temple was his own Heavenly Emperor’s will — causing golden light to billow there and casting a resplendent divine form.
The second surge of thought-power was Xia Jiuyou’s — a thought steeped in grief and undying devotion. Though it could not compare with the Heavenly Emperor’s will, it shone with a holy, luminous purity as it flowed in.
Boom — in that moment, bolts of lightning split down through the heavens one after another, as if in punishment for this heaven-defying act. For this was a Great Emperor performing a divine enshrinement — something that could truly succeed.
“Scatter!” Ye Fan thundered in fury. Two blazing bolts of lightning erupted from his eyes, shattering the tribulation lightning and obliterating the heavenly punishment — all of it completed in a single thought.
This display of power shook the mortal world!
The Jiuyou Divine Temple — magnificent and splendid — stood beside the Heavenly Court. The moment it took shape, auspicious light radiated in all directions, rosy clouds filled the sky, and a faint silhouette of the ailing elder flickered in and out of sight.
This truly astonished many people. The powerful figures of the world trembled in disbelief. Everyone knew that Ye Fan must have employed a supreme great technique to build this divine temple, touching upon forbidden territory.
Monkey, Pang Bo, Li Heishui, Dongfang Ye, Li Tian, Yan Yixi, the Black Emperor, and all the others came — unable to stop themselves from sighing deeply, each paying their respects in reverence. The ailing elder was worthy of a bow from every one of them.
That day, many powerful figures from across the universe also rushed over, and all were moved with awe. On the faintly luminous divine seat within the temple, a silhouette truly did appear, vaguely seated in meditation — Ye Fan’s methods were nothing short of heaven-defying.
As all the powerful figures of the Heavenly Court paid their reverence in this manner, the entire great temple blazed with ten thousand feet of golden light, drawing all manner of celestial phenomena, for they were all powerhouses — and naturally their thought-power was extraordinarily strong.
“Is it any use?” Monkey asked privately.
“Unknown — perhaps,” Ye Fan said.
The inheritance of flesh and blood is the continuation of life — and is the transmission of belief not equally the immortality of the spirit? Ye Fan had delved deeply into the path of faith, reconstructing the various ancient methods of Amitabha Buddha.
The life imprints of ancestors live on within the bodies of their descendants. And the great ones who were once revered and spoken of by the world — their beliefs live on in the hearts of all living beings. If awakened, perhaps they could be called back — a Gai Jiuyou created anew.
This was the fundamental basis of Ye Fan’s attempt at this method.
Xia Jiuyou became the temple’s Grand Sacrificial Priest. From that day forward, she began to spread the teachings throughout the world, hoping that more people would come to cherish her master’s memory — that more waves of thought-power might flow in.
Of course, this required more concrete and practical action. She began performing a hundred acts of kindness each day, then ten thousand — using her great power to move through the great star domains, and in the mortal world and the cultivation world alike, lending her hand to help others.
Thereafter, in every star land where there was a grand city of the Heavenly Court, a magnificent divine temple was established, spreading outward in all directions — for a true apotheosis required an enormous force of faith.
In the central divine temple personally built by Ye Fan, a single drop of blood was sealed within a divine crystal — bearing a powerful life fluctuation within it — and placed in the hands of the faint “divine form.”
Given Ye Fan’s current strength, he could naturally use that true blood to restore Gai Jiuyou’s physical body. But that would be only a physical body — without spirit or thought or feeling.
And so he did not do it.
“Uncle, my father asks you to come.” On that day, Ji Chengdao came. Though he was powerful — standing within the quasi-emperor realm, not far behind his own father — he already had a few threads of white in his hair.
Ye Fan nodded and, with a single step, brought him back to the ancient star where the Ji Family currently resided.
This left Ji Chengdao in shock. Was this the power of the Heavenly Emperor? He felt that he should be able to contend with a Supreme Being — yet compared to Ye Fan, the gap was immense.
Many years had passed. Ji Haoyue’s hair had turned grey, and a new dignity had grown about him — truly resembling a peerless Divine King, looking down upon all under heaven.
The Ji Family was now at the height of its glory. The only blemish was the loss of Ji Ziyue — something that many felt keenly and thought of often.
Yet it was also because of this that the Ji Family’s prestige shook the universe, for Ji Ziyue had ascended to immortality — she was of the Ji Family bloodline, a descendant of the Void Great Emperor — and so she left behind an endless legend.
“The Void Mirror has been shining at times — brilliantly crimson, as if blood were surging within it.” Ji Haoyue brought out the half-broken mirror.
The mirror’s surface was dim, and at this moment showed no extraordinary signs — as if a layer of rust had settled over it, the mottled ancient marks recording the cruelty and glory and achievements of those past days.
It had to be said: this was a legendary treasure mirror. It had been stained with the blood of too many Supreme Beings, and bore the potential to become an immortal mirror — far surpassing an ordinary emperor artifact. It lacked only a single catalyst to make the transformation.
Unfortunately, it had not waited for that moment of transformation.
Years ago, Ye Fan had held this mirror and studied it, and it was through that study that he had entered the Star Ascending Realm — yet he had ultimately not discovered any abnormality in the mirror. Later he returned it to the Ji Family, unwilling to have objects remind him of those he had lost, and the sorrow that brought.
This was the first time since becoming the Heavenly Emperor that he had taken the mirror in hand again. Immediately he felt a wave of fluctuation — a breath of life. The divine mirror had not died; it was mourning in loneliness — only that ordinary people could not hear it.
“I will reforge you. Is there anything you wish to tell me?” Ye Fan murmured softly.
He unfolded his supreme power, employing his great divine ability, and for the first time explored the Void Mirror in this manner. Things were different now — as the Heavenly Emperor he was capable of many things that had been beyond him before.
Boom — with a thunderous sound, Ye Fan opened a dim space within the Void Mirror — a sealed void, inaccessible to anyone in the past and impossible to open.
Even the Void Mirror itself had been powerless to do so, for it was half-destroyed.
In that moment, the dim void opened — and a half-ruined, bloodied corpse tumbled out of it, sending a great pain surging through Ye Fan’s heart.
And Ji Haoyue — always so dignified and composed — this time could not stop himself from crying out: “Little Ancestor!”
“What — he is the Little Ancestor?!” Ji Chengdao also cried out. Every member of the Ji Family came rushing over, all of them alarmed, erupting into commotion.
“Ji Zi!” Ye Fan trembled, reaching out both hands to cradle the half-ruined remains. They were wet with blood to the touch — the body shattered, riddled everywhere with wounds left by Supreme Beings.
It truly was Ji Zi. Ye Fan’s very heart was shaking. In that battle all those years ago, he had watched helplessly as the half-broken mirror carried this shattered body away. He had searched for many years afterward — with nothing to show for it.
Today, he had finally found him!
“Before the Void Great Emperor dissipated in the end, he left his child’s body with a sorrowful parting, sealing him within the broken mirror and leaving behind a thread of hope.” Ye Fan surmised the truth.
Ji Zi had been situated within the divine void that a treasure mirror might contain a deity — sealed there by a mysterious power — and this was also the reason the broken mirror had occasionally emitted rosy light over all these years: it had been drawing upon its essence-source to maintain the seal over Ji Zi.
On the half-ruined corpse, the head was still intact. When Ye Fan poured his supreme blood essence into it — to everyone’s astonishment — a faint, weak fluctuation came back in response.
“Ji Zi!” Ye Fan cried out, trembling with agitation.
“Is the Little Ancestor still alive?”
“His sea of consciousness has died — yet just now it seemed as if there was a slight spiritual fluctuation. I will find a way to save him!” Ye Fan declared. He cradled Ji Zi and, like a thunderbolt splitting heaven and earth, returned directly to the Heavenly Court.
That day, he entered seclusion. No one was permitted to disturb him. He employed his supreme great power to wrest Ji Zi back from fate against all odds.
“Ji Zi — you must come back to life. We three brothers still have to drink together. How could we be one short?” Monkey, upon hearing the news, came rushing over. Even someone as domineering and fierce as him was on the verge of tears, thinking back on how he and Ye Fan and Ji Zi had once together fought against the Heavenly Prince, Huang Xu Dao, and the Eight Divine Generals.
Ye Fan emerged from seclusion, cradling Ji Zi’s ruined body, and without hesitation had all of the Qilin Immortality Medicine he had previously gathered be refined and channeled into Ji Zi’s body — not a drop spared.
“He’s Uncle Ji Zi — so pitiful. Uncle Ye Fan, you must save him.” The little holy ape said in a small, childlike voice — and for once did not leap about wildly or cause havoc in the Heavenly Court.
Finally, Ye Fan personally built another magnificent divine temple, placed Ji Zi within it, and performed the apotheosis. Though this time it was somewhat different — only a partial apotheosis — for Ye Fan felt that Ji Zi had not been truly and utterly extinguished.
That day, thunder rolled through the Heavenly Court, auspicious light broke through the thirty-three layers of heaven, and Ye Fan employed his supreme great power to manifest a Platform of Creation, hoping that he might one day summon Ji Zi back to wakefulness and restore him to life.
Crack!
On that same day, on the Ancient Amitabha Star, before a ruined temple long overgrown with wormwood, a stone Buddha suddenly cracked with a sharp sound. At the same moment, a stone golden-winged great roc perched on the great Buddha’s shoulder began to shine — and then turned to gold.