That mountain peak was not particularly tall, but dragon aura coiled about it — it was the ancestral root of this mountain range, and truly an excellent place for cultivation.
Ancient pines grew in deep green splendor; strange stones rose in jagged silhouettes; and spring waters burbled up in one stream after another.
Duan De worked with devoted concentration, very carefully inscribing Dao markings at the summit. Beside him, the lean and wooden old Daoist figure bustled back and forth.
From among the distant ranges, the Black Emperor said: “The markings are nearly done — he’ll definitely finish today. This stubble-snout is no ordinary figure.”
“High time we sold this Crooked Path Daoist. Only question is what price we can get for him.” Tu Fei muttered.
Ye Fan, afraid of being detected by that unscrupulous fatty, made a gesture — and the two of them and the dog retreated silently.
Chaotic Cloud Prefecture: mountains everywhere, ancient pines soaring, blue peaks touching the clouds.
They came to rest upon a sheer cliff of a thousand ren in height. Several old pines, gnarled as coiling dragons, stretched their boughs outward — stark and vigorous against the mist.
“Once everything falls naturally into place, we go claim the reward in his name, and draw the great Sacred Ground’s people here,” Tu Fei suggested.
A smile crept onto the corner of Ye Fan’s mouth. “We have to think through every step, plan it out carefully — not a single thing can go wrong. Otherwise we’d be doing a disservice to this dead fatty.”
If they succeeded, Duan De would be so furious his lungs would burst: all that hard work, all that enormous risk, and in the end he’d done it all for someone else’s benefit.
The Black Emperor was like a dog with too much tail to wag. It was also deeply interested in the hundred thousand catties of Source and very eager to replace Duan De’s role in the scheme. It, too, started laughing dryly.
From that sheer cliff, the laughter of two people and one dog drifted out. Several hundred li away, Duan De gave a sneeze, looked up at the sky, let out a string of curses, then bent his head and went back to carving.
“Black Emperor, you stay here on watch. If that fat idiot shows any sign of leaving, make those modifications to his Dao markings immediately. Tu Fei and I will go back into the city to see what’s going on and get ready to lure the Sacred Ground people in at any moment.”
When Ye Fan and Tu Fei entered Mountain Rock City, they felt immediately that something was wrong. Far too many cultivators had shown up.
“This won’t work — tricking anyone out of their Source will be extremely difficult.”
Ji Family and Yao Guang both had Supreme Elders present. Just which major figures from all the Sacred Grounds had turned up was impossible to determine. Beyond that, there was no shortage of independent cultivators — many of them figures of considerable renown. By comparison, the younger generation present suddenly seemed far less intimidating.
Ye Fan even suspected there was a very real possibility that powerful elders — or even Sacred Lords themselves — had come. This was anything but a good sign.
Under normal circumstances, he would have called the plan off entirely — he absolutely could not go set up a Sacred Ground himself. Now everything was being done by Duan De — but even so, he had his doubts.
“Duan De will finish his Dao markings today, and at the latest he’ll make his move tomorrow, going after the Sacred Grounds. We have no more time. Do we run, or do we trap the fatty? We have to decide right now.”
The two returned to the mountains and began deliberating again.
The great black dog — square-headed, big-eared, powerful and imposing — stood beneath an ancient pine. “The way I see it, going straight for that stubble-snout is the most straightforward approach. It’s also the safest.”
Inheritances spanning more than a hundred thousand years — the Sacred Grounds were not to be provoked. The situation this time had escalated far beyond what they’d anticipated, with many elder figures coming out of the woodwork.
If they went to claim the hundred thousand catties of Source in Ye Fan’s name, they were very likely to give themselves away — and the substitute Tu Fei had found was not particularly reliable.
“But this Crooked Path Daoist is unfathomably powerful. We may not be able to handle him,” Tu Fei said, frowning.
Duan De’s origins were mysterious, and his methods were formidable. He had been hunted by Elder Wu Dao for days on end and still come bounding back alive and well — which spoke for itself. On top of that, he cultivated an ancient technique from more than a hundred thousand years ago; his true strength was impossible to gauge.
Ye Fan said: “Going to claim the Source ourselves is no longer advisable. It’s best to let Duan De do everything — let him bear all the blame — but there’s no guarantee we can deal with that fatty.”
“This fat idiot has kicked up such a massive storm — even he must be getting a headache trying to clean it up,” Tu Fei said, pacing back and forth, unable to think of a solution.
“The core problem is that we can’t be certain just how strong this fatty really is. But we’re not targeting his main body — we’re targeting that divine deity of his.” Ye Fan pondered the wooden Daoist’s strength, but in the end still couldn’t arrive at a conclusion.
The reticent great black dog suddenly spoke up: “If we’re only dealing with that wooden Daoist, it should be manageable — because I just remembered that the ancient technique he cultivates has a fatal weakness before it’s fully mastered.”
“You know how to deal with him?” Tu Fei was astonished.
“The ancient technique he’s cultivating is called the Tribulation-Crossing Heaven Art. Currently, he hasn’t completed all nine tribulations, which means a single isolated divine deity has a deadly vulnerability to thunder and lightning. I’ll carve some Dao markings — we trap him, then draw down heavenly thunder. He won’t be able to withstand it.”
Ye Fan contributed all the materials he’d gathered in the Demon City, and the Black Emperor set to work with focused concentration. Before the sun had set, it was done.
“This dead dog is truly vicious — how did it carve something this deranged,” Tu Fei muttered.
Before sunset, Duan De also finished his work and drew all five divine deity figures back inside himself, letting out a long breath.
Ye Fan and the others stood on a distant peak, separated from him by a dozen or more mountain ridges — just able to make out his silhouette in the haze — keeping far enough away to avoid detection.
“Looks like he’s not planning to act tonight. The real storm should come tomorrow,” Ye Fan judged.
And indeed, Duan De sat down at the summit and began to meditate and regulate his breathing.
Not until after midnight did Duan De rise, ghost-like, and move toward the distant peaks — very cautious, reconnoitering the surrounding terrain once more.
“Black Emperor — it’s your move!” Ye Fan transmitted.
The great black dog disappeared silently. It wasn’t gone long — a short while later it returned.
“He won’t notice, will he?” Tu Fei asked.
“This Emperor only made a small adjustment. On the surface the Dao markings look unchanged — but they can no longer traverse the void,” the great black dog said.
Dawn broke. Duan De sat on the mountain peak and breathed deeply — coils of white qi, each as thick as an arm, flowed in and out of his seven apertures like coiling dragons.
It was the first time Ye Fan had ever witnessed Duan De cultivating. Looking at this display of power, Ye Fan truly couldn’t fathom his depth. Those white streams were all innate primordial essence qi.
Flash!
A burst of radiance — and the gaunt, wooden Daoist figure shot out from Duan De’s Dao Palace and flew off toward Mountain Rock City, three thousand li away.
Ye Fan swept his wide sleeve and tucked the now-shrunk Black Emperor into it, then left silently with Tu Fei, taking a different road toward the mountain city.
There was no further need to monitor Duan De at this point — keeping their eyes on the wooden Daoist was enough.
“Heh heh… let Crooked Path Daoist do it all — let him bear all the blame. Are we being a bit too ruthless?”
“This dead fatty deserves exactly this kind of treatment. He’s always done things this way — now he’s just fallen into his own pit.”
This time they were being thoroughly methodical — they weren’t even going to risk claiming the Source themselves. All they needed was to intercept the wooden Daoist at the critical moment.
Mountain Rock City — not particularly grand, nestled among towering peaks and steep ranges, with forests of trees on all sides and yellow leaves drifting in the wind.
At noon, the atmosphere in the city grew subtly charged, as if a hidden undercurrent had suddenly begun to surge.
Then, large numbers of cultivators shot up into the sky and flew off in one direction, disappearing into the endless mountain ranges.
“It’s started!” A light flashed in Ye Fan’s eyes.
Many of the cultivators had white hair and full beards — figures of the elder generation. How powerful they were, he couldn’t know.
“So many old ones — I don’t know how Duan De managed to deceive them all without giving himself away,” Tu Fei said in astonishment.
The Black Emperor said: “The Tribulation-Crossing Heaven Art contains the Supreme Emotionless Severance — it can temporarily make the user appear as a completely different person. That stubble-snout naturally wouldn’t give himself away.”
By then, the young girl Daoist from Dao Yi Sacred Ground, Xiang Yifei from Dayin Sacred Ground, Ji Biyue from the Ji Family, and the disciple of Purple Prefecture Sacred Ground had all revealed their true forms and joined the pursuit.
“The future Spirit King of the Ji Family has come as well,” Tu Fei said.
“The disciple of Wanchu Sacred Ground has also arrived,” Ye Fan’s expression shifted.
“Xia Jiuyou has appeared — that little brat is still as arrogant as ever. Today would be the perfect time to take care of him as well,” Tu Fei said.
Up in the sky, Xia Jiuyou was dressed in snow-white robes, spotlessly clean, only thirteen or fourteen years old, luminous as a banished immortal, ethereal and transcendent. Beneath his feet, nine streams of dragon qi ran side by side, carrying him like lightning toward the distant mountains, while the two gray-robed old men followed close behind.
Ye Fan said: “Let’s follow. The wooden Daoist is up ahead leading the way. I suspect he’s already collected part of the Source — we can’t let him slip away in the middle.”
Chaotic Cloud Prefecture: mountain ranges crisscrossed in every direction; many of the great peaks thrust straight up into the sky.
That day, cultivators were everywhere — a sky full of moving figures. Beautiful young women, old men of several centuries — all surging in the same direction.
“Duan De has gone and played this too big. He thought he could play everyone like puppets, with everything firmly in his grasp — but now, with so many people surrounding him, and then suddenly discovering he can’t traverse the void, I wonder how he’ll get out of that one.”
Tu Fei was intensely looking forward to that moment — he very much wanted to see the expression on Duan De’s face when it happened.
They flew fast, gradually catching up to the crowd, and from a distance spotted the wooden Daoist — still calm and honest as ever, utterly steady.
“Heh heh… let’s see whether this one cries or laughs in a little while.”
None of these cultivators were slow. Those at the very front — a cluster of old ones, along with the Sacred Sons and Sacred Daughters of the great Sacred Grounds — flew as if they were contracting the earth beneath them, covering vast distances in moments.
An hour later, they finally caught sight of the sacred mountain. Everyone spread out from all sides, closing in from every direction.
The peak was not tall. Its green pines were verdant, and streams of white cascaded down from the summit in one after another, making it quite picturesque.
“There really is someone cultivating up there.”
“Perhaps the information is real after all.”
Two sharp-eyed old men nodded, speaking one after the other. Both had ruddy complexions and snow-white hair — they carried the air of ancient immortal elders.
From a distance, Ye Fan was startled by what he heard in the crowd’s discussions. These were two of Yao Guang’s Supreme Elders!
On another side, three old men of outstanding bearing stood suspended in the air. Many recognized them — the Ji Family’s three Supreme Elders.
Ye Fan was relieved. He had not made a rash move earlier, letting Duan De take the lead instead — and now, with so many major figures present, the situation was extraordinarily complicated.
Tu Fei said: “Did you hear? People were just saying that Supreme Elders from all the Sacred Grounds are here. And just now, someone said they dimly glimpsed a Sacred Lord flash by and vanish.”
The person on the sacred mountain seemed to sense something — and suddenly flared into view, appearing before everyone’s eyes.
“It really is him!”
“No question — it’s that Ye boy. The Myriad Things Mother Qi is on his body.”
The surroundings erupted in noise. Many recognized him — it was “Ye Fan.”
He wore purple robes, his black hair flowing like a waterfall, his eyes bright and clear, his age around fifteen — looking quite refined, even a little young.
“Did all you Sacred Grounds grow a pair of dog noses — to sniff me out all the way here?” The purple-robed young man gave a sharp shout from the peak.
His words set off a commotion in every direction. This “Archaic Sacred Body” truly had gall beyond measure — surrounded by enemies, he still dared speak like this.
“Ignorant brat — death is at your door, and you’re still flapping your tongue,” one of the elders berated him.
“Ha ha ha!” The purple-robed young man threw back his head and laughed, his unruly hair flying wild, shouting at the top of his voice: “Don’t flatter yourselves with your seniority! I will pay each of your Sacred Grounds a personal visit in time — and when my Archaic Sacred Body reaches full completion, I will slap your Sacred Lords one by one to death!”
“…”
Everyone broke into an uproar. Words this monstrous and presumptuous — in today’s Eastern Wasteland, perhaps only he would dare say them.
“Dead fatty — let’s see how you get out of this one!” Ye Fan gnashed his teeth. The Crooked Path Daoist was spouting all this brazen talk without restraint, and you could bet every bit of it would be credited to his account.
“Once that fatty realizes he can’t traverse the void, I wonder what face he’ll make. I’m guessing it’ll turn green,” Tu Fei chuckled slyly.