The Dark Emperor was deeply unsettled and hesitated to advance. It was afraid someone was trying to achieve Emperor status through a corpse.
Ye Fan shook his head. “There’s no possibility of a corpse-Emperor appearing here. There are sounds of battle from inside. If something like that truly existed, every cultivator in the Eastern Wasteland combined wouldn’t be enough — form and soul alike would be obliterated!”
The building complex was constructed of gold and jade — glittering and shimmering, radiant golden light, lucidly transparent as crystal, both real and dreamlike.
They ascended a flight of steps. The jade stairs beneath their feet flowed with auspicious colored mist. Not a trace of yin energy — instead the air was filled with a fragrant floral scent. The jade towers were encircled by blossoms and greenery.
Upon entering the first jade hall, rich spiritual energy rushed to meet them at once. Everything sparkled and glittered — every object was carved from spirit jade.
“Let’s separate and move individually, to avoid attracting attention.” Ye Fan took the lead and pressed forward.
The Dark Emperor made itself even smaller — little more than a foot long now, like a divine cat — moving with silent, stealthy steps, slipping forward undetected.
Inside the first palace building, the ground was covered in bloodstains. Many cultivators had perished, their bodies nearly beaten beyond recognition. Additionally, several yin soldiers lay destroyed — or perhaps better called yin generals.
Though they had been cut down, they still appeared vivid and lifelike, each bearing a pair of black wings on their backs, two meters in span. When tapped with a finger, the wings rang clear and metallic — indestructible.
“Appearing peaceful on the surface, and yet these sorts of things are here to guard it. This is no benevolent place.”
Ye Fan hesitated briefly, then continued inward. The second palace building left him deeply shaken. If one stepped onto the ground, the blood would have risen to ankle height. Beyond the corpses of cultivators, there lay an eight-headed great serpent.
The great serpent was dead, blood soaking the entire floor, flooding the entire hall — reeking of blood and rot.
“Yin energy capable of developing this kind of powerful flesh and blood — truly terrifying. And yet it was still killed off in the end.” The Dark Emperor clicked its tongue from a distance.
Ye Fan found the cutting mark of the Great Desolation Halberd on the bodies. Once again the work of the Golden-Winged Xiaopeng King. This future king of the demon race was truly ferocious in valor.
“Tap — tap — tap…”
The only sound in the quiet hall was Ye Fan’s own footsteps. When he entered the third palace building, a silver radiance swept toward him and a savage wind struck his face.
He was startled. Forming a seal with his hands, he struck out — clang — and sent the creature flying with a heavy impact.
It was a flying yaksha — silver light flashing, features gruesome, bearing a pair of silver wings, strong and powerful, its low rumble resounding as it lunged at him again.
Ye Fan had never encountered this kind of creature before. Legends held that they had the power of at least the Four Extremes Secret Realm — formidable and extremely difficult to deal with.
Yet he was not afraid. Though the silver-winged yaksha was fearsome, it was already on its last legs — more than half its body had been destroyed by whoever came before. It had little strength left.
He raised his golden palm, like a heaven-flipping divine seal, and struck down hard. With a boom, the flying yaksha was destroyed.
In this hall, no fewer than ten silver-winged yakshas lay dead — equivalent to ten cultivators of the Four Extremes Secret Realm. They had all been slain by the holy land disciples.
The power of the younger generation of holy land heirs was, to put it simply, extraordinary.
Likewise, human cultivators’ bodies were also scattered throughout the hall. The casualties had been severe. There was more red blood than silver, and the floor ran crimson.
Before long, Ye Fan entered the fourth hall. The corpses of human cultivators were even more numerous — an entire floor of them, sprawled in every direction, blood mist thick in the air.
In this hall, there were six particularly unusual corpses — not human. They were six Winged Transformation Daoren. Every one of them had skin stretched parchment-thin over bone, wearing Daoist robes.
Their skin and flesh were a burnished golden color, dry and taut over their bones, with short feathers growing across their bodies. To the touch, their bodies were heavy as ten thousand jun, and the feathers rang clear like metal.
These were not forms shaped by yin energy — they were true cultivators who had died in seated meditation, and been processed into sacred vessels by someone. Yin spirits had entered their bodies as hosts. Such powerful ancient corpses possessed inconceivable combat power, surpassing the Four Extremes Secret Realm.
“All six Winged Transformation Daoren killed, their powerful golden bodies shattered — these holy land heirs are truly terrifying.”
Ye Fan was astonished but not overly surprised. Ji Haoyue and the Divine Physique of the Jiang Family — after manifesting their supreme phenomena, they could fight one full secret realm above their cultivation level and cut down even veteran powerhouses among the elder generation. Six Winged Transformation Daoren hardly needed to be said.
“This great tomb is truly something — even Winged Transformation Daoren appear here. I can’t even guess what else might leap out. I’m starting to have doubts again. Could it really be that some reckless fool, thinking themselves the measure of heaven, is trying to achieve Emperor status through a corpse?” The Dark Emperor muttered to itself.
The fifth hall: even more corpses on the ground, no clear space to step. A field of blood and mud, with fragments of white bone scattered here and there, splattered against the transparent jade walls.
“What happened in here? Could it be that everyone died in this place?” A chill passed through Ye Fan’s heart.
Then Ye Fan sensed the residual power of an Extreme Dao weapon, and within the blood and mud he discovered three extraordinary shattered bone fragments — carrying a faint jade-like luster.
The Dark Emperor was astonished. “Three bodies with jade bones — extraordinary corpses of powerful masters in life, processed into vessels after death, yin spirits entering their host. Though not comparable to a living great master, they were still inconceivably fearsome.”
“Even the corpses of great masters could be obtained…” Ye Fan was utterly startled.
It was clearly Yan Ruyu who had struck — using an Extreme Dao weapon to shatter all three jade-bone extraordinary corpses. Traces of the Extreme Dao divine might still lingered in faint wisps.
Ye Fan listened carefully. After some time, he finally heard the fierce sounds of battle again — another clash had ignited, far off in the distance.
He did not linger. He moved toward the sixth ancient hall — a considerably long stretch of road, fully a li away.
Ahead, only one final hall remained, aglow with light in this dark underground world.
The deepest layers of earth had been entirely hollowed out. The sixth palace hall was extraordinarily vast, appearing to float suspended in midair, seeming more distant and ethereal than before.
“The final hall — all the secrets are in there!” Ye Fan’s heart surged with excitement. Perhaps the Nine Secrets were inside. Perhaps something else. It was certainly a place unlike any other. He raced ahead at full speed.
In the pitch-black underground, the Dark Emperor moved with a cat’s graceful steps, light and nimble, keeping a distance, following closely behind.
When Ye Fan arrived before the final hall, he felt the divine power of an Extreme Dao weapon — enough to make one shudder involuntarily.
“An Extreme Dao weapon…” The Dark Emperor’s eyes flashed with a covetous light, almost unable to restrain the urge to rush over and take it.
Inside this last radiant hall, a great battle was clearly in progress. Even with an Extreme Dao weapon deployed, the intensity was still this fierce — one could only imagine the terrifying strength of the opponent.
He did not immediately enter. He and the Dark Emperor stopped at a distance and waited in silence.
“Boom!”
The entire underground world shook, yet the sixth hall blazed with radiant light and did not crumble — it stood firm as ever. Without question, extraordinary Dao patterns had been inscribed upon it.
On this hall, a plaque was mounted, bearing four large characters: Hall of Radiant Divinity.
“Clang!”
Continuous tremors shook the underground, all of them originating from within the Hall of Radiant Divinity — yet it stood unshaken and did not collapse.
“Why does this Hall of Radiant Divinity look somehow familiar to me…” The Dark Emperor was deeply unsettled.
Just then, Ye Fan was startled. The jade towers had reached their end here — yet in the pitch-black terrain beyond, three colossal forms loomed, seated in the darkness and emanating no light.
“Those are… three coffins!”
His heart shook. Three coffins — the smallest of them the size of a palace hall. The three great coffins were stacked, each taller than the last, towering in the darkness.
“Six halls, three coffins, together they make nine — the number the ancients esteemed above all else.” Ye Fan murmured to himself.
“Boom!”
The Hall of Radiant Divinity suddenly gave a violent shudder, then fell completely still. The Extreme Dao divine power diminished sharply, slowly returning to quiescence.
“Is it over?” Ye Fan prepared to act.
Suddenly, the Hall of Radiant Divinity erupted into chaos — as though people inside were scrambling to seize something.
“It’s over. Never mind those three coffins for now — let’s enter the hall first and see.” Ye Fan shot forward like a flash.
When he was almost there, the Dark Emperor’s body gave a sudden violent tremor. Its face was etched with disbelief. “It’s… that thing…”
“What did you see?” Ye Fan halted at once, stopping in his tracks and turning to look at it.
“This is no Hall of Radiant Divinity — this is clearly the Great Emperor’s former bedchamber! Which scoundrel moved it here and changed the name?!” The big black dog cursed in a low voice.
“What?!” Ye Fan’s heart shook. No matter how he pressed with questions, the Dark Emperor would say nothing more — meeting everything with silence.
Left with no other option, Ye Fan strode in great steps into the Great Emperor’s bedchamber.
The radiant hall stretched vast and deep. Extreme Dao divine power still overflowed in every direction. Yet many of the human cultivators were nearly at each other’s throats, on the verge of open battle.
In the center of the grand and spacious hall, a divine platform floated suspended — entirely jet black, yet shooting out streams of brilliant colored light that cascaded downward, extraordinarily mysterious.
Most stirring of all was what rested upon the divine platform — an ancient scroll of beast hide. It appeared unremarkable. Yet the instant everyone laid eyes on it, excitement surged through them all.
Every one of them wanted to rush forward and seize it, to make it their own — because that beast hide scroll was in all likelihood the Nine Secrets.
The strongest heirs of the Dayin, Wanchu, Jiang Family, Purple Mansion, Daoyi, Ji Family, and Yao Guang factions were all unharmed — not a scratch on them.
Inside the hall, Ji Haoyue, the Holy Son Yao Guang, Yao Xi, the Divine Physique of the Jiang Family, the Holy Maiden of the Jade Pool, and the others were all on guard against one another. Every one of them wanted to strike — to seize the beast hide scroll resting upon the black divine platform.
Yet Ye Fan felt that one crucial person was notably absent — Yan Ruyu. She carried an Extreme Dao weapon. How could she have simply disappeared?
“Over there…”
He noticed an ancient tower inside the hall. At first he had taken it for decoration. Now he realized it was an exceedingly fearsome weapon.
The ancient tower was half-transparent. Through it, one could vaguely make out Yan Ruyu, sealed within the fifth level, her hands blazing with light as she used her Extreme Dao weapon to resist the pressure.
This tower had seven levels. At the highest level sat a hazy, indistinct figure — the one directing the ancient tower, suppressing Yan Ruyu.
Ye Fan drew a sharp breath. This person was without question of extraordinary power. The ancient tower, though a formidable weapon, was in no way comparable to an Extreme Dao weapon — the difference was immense.
Yet this person, through sheer strength of cultivation alone, had sealed away the demon race princess who wielded an Extreme Dao weapon. He was the guardian of the sixth hall!
A chill settled over Ye Fan’s heart. None of the many holy sons present had moved to help Yan Ruyu. While she was locked in battle against this terrifying guardian, each of them had their own calculations.
The black divine platform floated in the center of the great hall. Brilliant colored light cascaded down from it in streams, creating an incomparably soothing sensation. The ancient beast hide scroll rested just within reach. Every holy land heir was ready to fight — yet not one of them dared to be the first to reach for it.
“That pitch-black stone platform — what is that thing, to be able to float in the air on its own?” Ye Fan sent a spiritual thought.
The Dark Emperor seemed tremendously agitated. “That, damn it all, is a priceless treasure — a Chaos Stone. It’s the bed the Great Emperor used to sleep on!”