The Imperial Master of the Great Xia was not the only powerful figure to have died here. There were also four Holy Masters — and one Divine King of the Eastern Desolation. All of them had met their end in this pine forest.
This was a Source Heaven Master’s personal journal, recorded with clarity. He had identified their identities from the artifacts left behind and carved these words.
The ancient pavilion stood roughly four meters tall. The ground was carpeted with fallen pine needles. The trees leaned in from all sides, and moonlight filtered down through them, giving the structure a serene and elegant quality. The four stone pillars were covered in dense, tightly spaced ancient characters.
The Imperial Master, the Holy Masters, and the Divine King of the Eastern Desolation — all had entered this hidden place at the end of their lifespans, when their vitality was nearly exhausted. Their cultivation had been world-shaking in its power — and yet all of them had died here in this forest.
Ye Fan studied the first stone pillar at length, and could only sigh. No matter how unparalleled one’s talent, no one could resist the passage of time. These people had all come here in their later years seeking a means of extending their lives, and in the end, none of them had succeeded.
He walked to the other side and stood before the second stone pillar, reading carefully. It contained details about this Source Heaven Master’s origins and recorded some of the events of his life.
Ye Fan skimmed through it quickly — and then stood there in stunned silence. This was the Fourth Generation Source Heaven Master. In a certain sense, this was his own ancestral master.
The second stone pillar recorded a portion of the lineage history of source technique. Since ancient times, only five Source Heaven Masters had ever appeared in the Northern Region — and they had all descended from a single line.
It mentioned the name “Zhang Lin” — the ancestor of Old Man Zhang the Fifth, who had been the disciple of the Fourth Generation Source Heaven Master. He had been accepted as a student when the master was two hundred years old, at which point the master already knew his “later years” were approaching and had begun to arrange his final affairs.
“So I’ve met the founding Ancestral Master…”
The third stone pillar recorded matters that concerned Ye Fan most deeply. The “extreme-reversal” terrain was close to unsolvable — yet the Fourth Generation Ancestral Master, whose mastery of source technique could be said to rival the workings of heaven and earth itself, had carved out a path through it through sheer force of brilliance and survived without being entombed here.
Moreover, the pillar clearly stated that the ground of this place had already been sealed and subdued by him. What had been there was no longer a lethal formation. But the “force” beneath the earth was ten thousand times harder to dispel — he had not dared touch it.
The ancient carved inscription solemnly warned all future generations: even if one’s power shook heaven and earth, even if one’s source technique rivaled a true Heaven Master, one must not act rashly. To do so would be to invite certain calamity.
Ye Fan drew a sharp breath. The surface layers of the immortal forest had already been broken and resolved by the Fourth Generation Ancestral Master — and they had still been this dangerous, nearly costing him his life. The depths of this place were entirely beyond imagining.
Some terrain formations lay beyond the power of any human being to dissolve. Some mountains and rivers concealed cosmic secrets that must never be disturbed. That was the grave warning of the Fourth Generation Ancestral Master.
The third stone pillar spoke in somewhat veiled terms. Ye Fan studied it carefully and eventually drew some insight. Beyond the warning, it faintly hinted at the secret of this place.
“The mountains and rivers entomb an ancient sage…”
Beyond the “extreme-reversal” terrain, the immortal forest also harbored a divine source — and more than that, it was a great burial site.
Ye Fan stood in silent contemplation for a long time. The depths of the earth were truly formidable. The Fourth Generation Ancestral Master had found no solution, and Ye Fan could not possibly touch it.
He mulled it over for a moment, then moved to stand before the fourth stone pillar. He was immediately moved. For him, this pillar was beyond price.
The characters on this pillar were small and closely packed, etched three cun deep into the stone — as though the author had feared they might be worn away. This turned out to be a source technique text.
The Fourth Generation Ancestral Master had spent over two hundred years venturing through deadly places, confronting situations that even exceeded the scope of the Source Heaven Scripture — situations even the wondrous book could not resolve.
With source techniques that were insufficient to break through them, he had relied entirely on his own inspiration — sudden flashes of insight — to escape each of those deadly zones and survive into old age. The words carved on this pillar were written as he approached death, born from insight that had come to him at the very end: a supplementary addition to the Source Heaven Scripture — what could be called a continuation of the wondrous book.
To an “Excavation Lord,” this was a supreme secret text beyond comparison, not even obtainable with divine sources — it was a celestial book of the highest order.
Since ancient times, only five Source Heaven Masters had ever existed. This was the crystallization of a lifetime’s refinement and insight from one ancestral master. Its preciousness was beyond all estimation.
Ye Fan read it character by character, word by word, committing it to memory, fearful of missing even a single symbol.
The text was extraordinarily deep and abstruse — difficult and obscure, with source techniques never heard of before, approaching the very essence of the Dao. Ye Fan could not understand it, but he memorized it all.
When it was fixed in his mind, he flicked his sleeve. Fragments of stone flew as the source technique was erased from existence. After estimating mentally, he reckoned that if this content were written into the Source Heaven Scripture, it would add nine additional pages.
“Truly, the Fourth Generation Ancestral Master was a genius of the heavens — to have continued the scripture for nine pages…” Ye Fan exhaled with emotion.
After reading all four stone pillars, a question lingered in his mind: why had the Fourth Generation Ancestral Master come here, and where had he ultimately gone?
Inside the pavilion stood a stone table and four stone stools. Time, like a blade, had carved upon them a quality one could only call “the passage of time.” They were unpretentious and simple, holding within them a long accumulation of years.
Yet they were free of dust — old as they were, they were still reasonably clean. Ye Fan walked forward and was surprised to discover that the stone table also bore writing. It was very faint and nearly imperceptible.
He sat on a stone stool and examined it carefully, his heart leaping. The table mentioned the Source Heaven Master’s final years.
The Fourth Generation Ancestral Master had not reached the end of his lifespan. Rather, he had sensed that his “later years” were approaching — that something ominous was coming — and he did not wish to face the same fate as those who came before him. He wanted to break the cycle, and so he had come to the Taichu Forbidden Zone.
“Surely not…” Ye Fan was confused. He had always assumed that the dreadful “later years” of a Source Heaven Master must be tied somehow to a lifetime of excavating sources. Coming to the Taichu Forbidden Zone seemed like digging one’s own grave.
This was the place that most deserved to be called the ultimate convergence of source power in the entire world. How could one come here to avoid catastrophe?
He read on carefully, and slowly came to understand the Fourth Generation Ancestral Master’s difficult position. No matter how vast the world, he could find no place in it where he might safely dwell. After much thought and deliberation, he had entered this place. The “extreme-reversal” terrain was among the rarest formations in all of history. He sought to use this very “extreme” and its “reversal” to alter his own fate.
“Did the Ancestral Master find rest here?” Ye Fan scanned all around.
The pine forest was serene. The moonlight was gentle. The spring water was clear and quiet. There was no trace of a grave anywhere.
Unwilling to face the fate of those who came before, determined to dissolve the calamity of his later years — the Fourth Generation Ancestral Master’s words carried a note of absolute resolve. At the end of the text on the stone table, an arrow pointed toward the depths of the forest.
The pine forest stretched endlessly, standing tall and beautiful beneath the moonlight, flowing with a silver mist.
Ye Fan stood in the pavilion for a moment, then stepped forward. As he left the pavilion, the scripture in his hand rustled and fluttered open again, radiating auspicious light.
The source-heaven inscription patterns in the immortal forest glimmered, pointing the way.
Ye Fan understood. Both the ancient pavilion and this path had been left for the next person who held the scripture. Without it, no one could have detected the inscription patterns buried in the earth.
What exactly were the “later years” of a Source Heaven Master? What catastrophe would befall? Whether the Fourth Generation Ancestral Master had managed to avoid it — perhaps the answers lay just ahead.
“To be a Source Heaven Master — spending one’s life defining dragon veins and extracting precious sources, living most of one’s days in deep mountains and desolate wilds, digging up things that should never have seen the light of day — perhaps this is what earns the enmity of heaven,” Ye Fan murmured.
He himself was quite possibly going to become a Source Heaven Master one day. He did not know whether his own later years would see the same disaster befall him. Even now, he could not truly understand — what was this great upheaval, exactly?
He walked through the forest. He encountered no danger. The source-heaven inscription patterns on the ground rose and surged like dragon-serpents or like mysterious turtles pulling a cart, drawing down silver threads from the stars above, with a clear and luminous light spilling down.
“The Fourth Generation Ancestral Master truly worked wonders beyond reckoning — these inscription patterns that sealed the surface have not weakened even after more than ten thousand years.”
Ye Fan felt deep admiration. The master had been extraordinary. Even Holy Masters and Imperial Masters in the twilight of their power had been destroyed in this place — yet he had carved out a path through it. In matters of combat, a Source Heaven Master could not compare to the great Holy Masters — but in navigating such deadly terrain, he could be called the most remarkable person in the world, surpassing even Imperial Masters of the Central Province.
“The Ancestral Master has already resolved the danger on the surface — so why was I still trapped here? How exactly does one escape? Why didn’t he leave that information behind? Could it be further ahead?”
Ye Fan wanted to see what had become of the Fourth Generation Ancestral Master in the end — but more than that, he wanted to leave this place. The immortal forest could not be broken by even a Source Heaven Master in all that pertained to what lay beneath the earth. The depths below were entirely beyond imagining.
He feared that a long night brings many dreams, that some terrible thing might be roused. That would be a disaster beyond salvaging.
He had advanced over several li when Ye Fan successively discovered three more crumbling old structures — not large in scale, similar to the first shrine he had encountered, all of them extremely ancient, on the verge of collapse.
That after so many ages they had not fallen was nothing short of a miracle. Ye Fan believed that inscriptions of the Dao and similar things must be carved within — otherwise, any architectural structure would long since have turned to dust and ceased to exist.
These were true relics of the ancient era — and they lay within the Taichu Forbidden Zone. If any artifacts could be recovered, their origins would be staggeringly significant.
But Ye Fan only looked. He did not approach. He followed only the path indicated by the source-heaven inscription patterns, not daring to take unnecessary risks.
The source-heaven inscription patterns corresponded to the stars overhead, with faint silver threads descending into the forest, flickering like candlelight.
After another four li of walking, a grand structure loomed across his path in the forest, blocking the way. The source-heaven inscription patterns pointed toward precisely this place.
The ancient shrine was immense, like a mountain planted before him. Even the towering ancient pines could not fully conceal it.
Yet when the silver moonlight fell upon it, it did not appear bright or sacred. Instead, it was deeply foreboding.
It had been constructed of black stone that absorbed light, and it resembled a ghost-fortress sealed away for ages, completely silent, without a single sound.
The gate stood wide open. Inside was absolute darkness. Nothing could be seen within — it seemed to connect to a bottomless abyss.
“The Fourth Generation Ancestral Master spent his later years here in hiding. One wonders whether he managed to alter his fate…” Ye Fan found something unsettling about this grand and magnificent shrine. It was too dark. Even with his vision, he could make out nothing of what lay inside.
“The later years of a Source Heaven Master… whatever the outcome, I ought to go in and learn what happened.” He stepped forward.
Pine needles lay thick as several chi, burying the stone steps almost to the top. Walking on them was soft and springy. He advanced a dozen-odd meters, the steps rose higher, and he ascended to the front of the ancient structure.
“There are characters…”
Before the wide-open stone doors, on the open ground, stone slabs bore carved symbols.
Ye Fan was immediately startled. He saw the Fire Dragon Burial Ground. He saw the Dragon’s Blood. He saw this very pine forest. All of it was carved on the stone slabs in precise, miniature detail.
And beyond that — the Fourth Generation Ancestral Master’s annotations, as well as many symbols Ye Fan could not decipher.
Ye Fan was profoundly astonished. The carvings on the ground connected the Fire Dragon Burial Ground to this place.
The Fire Dragon Burial Ground wound sinuously. Bodies lay scattered across the ground. The Dragon’s Blood, too, was carved in a way that struck the eye with vivid horror. Most extraordinarily, the pine forest carved into the stone contained an ancient coffin within it.
A low ridge of hills connected the Fire Dragon Burial Ground to this pine forest, like an iron chain linking them together.
This was a True Dragon Pulling a Coffin.
Ye Fan changed color on the spot. The stone carving before him was deeply shocking. The ancient coffin rendered in fine lines was remarkably detailed — its patterns were present, and he felt an uncanny sense of familiarity.
Yes — he was certain of the feeling. It bore a resemblance to the enormous bronze coffin pulled by the nine dragon corpses that had brought him into this world.
Not completely the same — but very similar.
“This is…”
The hair on his scalp prickled. The Fire Dragon Burial Ground and the Dragon’s Blood — together, they formed a single dragon. And connected to the ancient coffin in the pine forest — was this not a True Dragon Pulling the Coffin? It was deeply reminiscent of the nine dragon corpses pulling the coffin that had once carried him here.
“What is happening here?”
Ye Fan was dumbfounded. This was a true topographic map. The Fire Dragon Burial Ground and the pine forest were joined by a low ridge of hills — which served as a true iron chain, binding the two together.
This was the terrain of several hundred li, compressed and carved onto a stone slab — and within it lay such a profound mystery.