The nine sacred mountains stood towering and solemn, their ancient trees reaching toward the heavens and strange rocks jutting upward in a display that could only be called magnificent.

They were not particularly tall, yet their imposing presence was boundless, bearing down upon the viewer with endless pressure, as though nine heavens and ten earths stretched across the path ahead.

When Ye Fan arrived at the foot of the mountains, his body was withered and emaciated, barely able to hold himself upright. He raised his head and looked up, and a chill spread through his entire body. Those cold, piercing gazes and those daunting silhouettes made him feel as though he had plunged into an ice cellar.

Several figures stood shoulder to shoulder upon the high mountain — some with hair white as snow, others with hair dark as a waterfall. The mountain wind swept through, sending their hair dancing in wild disarray. Their eyes were cold and expressionless as they gazed down below, utterly devoid of any emotional fluctuation, profoundly indifferent.

What manner of place was this? An ancient forbidden land!

No creature of flesh and blood could survive here for long. Even the divine garments of ancient sages and holy men could not withstand the erosion, flying off on their own, unwilling to venture deeper inside. No one could linger here for any length of time. Since ancient times, an untold number of supreme masters had been buried here — even the mightiest of holy lands that had dared to enter were likewise destroyed, reduced to catastrophic ash.

Ye Fan’s heart turned cold in an instant. He knew that those figures could not possibly be human — they were the dreadful and mysterious Desolate Slaves, unparalleled heroes of a bygone age.

Without a sound, another figure appeared alongside the others — a woman with bright eyes and white teeth, a slender and delicate neck, like a lotus emerging from still water, strikingly beautiful beyond compare.

She was dressed in white, her robes billowing in the mountain wind as though she might ride it away into the distance — a transcendent immortal of the Guanghan Palace, otherworldly and flawless, like a figure stepped from a painting.

“The Holy Maiden of Tianxuan!”

Ye Fan’s heart tightened. He had encountered this woman once before and had barely escaped with his life. She was the greatest beauty of the Eastern Desolation from six thousand years ago, and also a fellow disciple of the Old Madman.

Five silhouettes stood side by side, each with an extraordinary bearing. Only those of breathtaking talent and brilliance could become Desolate Slaves. Though they had not lived in the same era, every one of them had surely once stood unrivaled beneath the heavens.

Perhaps some of them could be found recorded in ancient texts — very likely, they had once been supreme heroes who shook the heavens and commanded the winds and rains across the entire continent.

“Is heaven determined to destroy me?!” Ye Fan let out a long sigh. He had exhausted every means available to finally approach the sacred mountain, only to encounter world-shaking Desolate Slaves. How was he to contend with them?

Legend held that Desolate Slaves rarely emerged. Sometimes centuries would pass without a single one climbing up from the abyss — yet now five of them had appeared at once.

A wave of helplessness surged through Ye Fan. Three times he had entered this ancient forbidden land, and twice he had encountered peerless Desolate Slaves. This truly was calamitous misfortune beyond measure.

At this moment, he had already aged beyond recognition. Though the Heaven-Covering Sacred Garment and the Stone Garment had not shattered, they could no longer hold back the erosion of time. The Qilin Seed had long since withered — Ye Fan had been drawing upon its endless life essence to sustain himself against death, but this could not continue indefinitely.

The divine medicine seed and his own physical body were his greatest trump cards. He had originally been just barely able to press toward the sacred mountain, but now this unforeseen calamity had unfolded.

“Swish!”

A silhouette, its feet never touching the ground, drifted down from the sacred mountain like a phantom, charging straight toward Ye Fan. Every hair on his body stood on end as a terrifying aura surged toward him.

“Hum!”

At this critical juncture, the Holy Body’s golden blood energy surged and boiled. Even with his body aged and decrepit, he still possessed boundless potential — as though it were an innate force that resisted the desolation.

Ye Fan forced himself to concentrate, and with swift, powerful strides, he rushed toward another sacred mountain. He chose not to flee, for in his current condition, he would likely wither and die of old age before he could even escape the forbidden land — reduced to scattered ash.

The figure was a middle-aged man with hair white as snow, upright and imposing in bearing, possessing an air of absolute supremacy and dominion over all under heaven. One could only imagine what a world-shaking figure he must have been in his prime.

In almost the blink of an eye, he blocked Ye Fan’s path — yet he did not strike. Instead, he fixed his unblinking gaze upon Ye Fan’s sea wheel.

Ye Fan’s heart pounded violently, as though he were being stared down by an ancient primordial beast, his entire body’s blood and qi on the verge of being scorched dry, his physical form threatening to crack apart.

Just how terrifyingly powerful was this person?

Although his own condition was terrible — withered flesh, a body in decline — he was nonetheless a Holy Body. And yet he felt this way!

The white-haired man stepped forward, each stride steady and resolute, as though each step could crack mountains and split the earth. Ye Fan realized that the Heaven-Covering Sacred Garment had already fractured, and the Stone Garment had crumbled to dust.

Absolute, world-ending terror.

This middle-aged man was magnificent and commanding, as though he could rule heaven and earth. He advanced with perfect calm, like an enormous sacred peak bearing down upon Ye Fan, threatening to crush him to nothing.

Ye Fan let out a great shout. Golden blood energy surged outward, circling his body as the boundless potential of the Imperishable Holy Body welled up to resist this catastrophe.

At the same moment, he wore a solemn expression, reciting a strange scripture aloud. The words reverberated throughout heaven and earth like thunder descending upon the world, setting the ancient trees rattling with a great roar, leaves scattering in all directions.

He shook the golden blood energy of the Holy Body — this was his final supreme trump card that he could actively deploy: the several hundred ancient characters of scripture from within the Ancient Bronze Coffin.

From the past to the present, he had never been able to fully comprehend these words. Now, roared aloud, they did not take the form of sound — they became instead a kind of vibration.

This scripture did not exist in the mortal world. Whether written down or chanted aloud, it could not be perceived; those outside had no way of knowing its content.

Suddenly, from the mountainside not far away, the same scripture rang out — far louder than his own, pressing down upon heaven and earth, as though expounding the supreme truths of the Great Dao. The sound of heaven resembled a thunderclap, yet only Ye Fan could hear it clearly. It mirrored his scripture exactly, manifesting as a form of celestial authority whose meaning no other person could discern.

Heedless of everything else, Ye Fan charged straight toward the mountainside. Whether or not the white-haired man followed him, his heart held room for nothing but that ancient coffin.

By now his consciousness had grown somewhat blurry, and he could topple to the ground at any moment — there was simply no capacity to consider anything else.

Amid the ancient forest on the mountainside, a massive Ancient Bronze Coffin lay quietly on its side, bearing the weathered marks of a vast and distant age, as though it connected to the most primordial of times.

The bronze casket lay tilted on its side, its lid having slid off nearby. Ye Fan staggered forward, and upon reaching it, threw himself inside. He could hold on no longer.

“Am I going to die? No — I absolutely cannot die!”

He clutched the Qilin divine medicine seed to his chest, letting the last faint thread of his blood energy flow outward to draw life essence into his body. He clenched his teeth, refusing to allow himself to fall unconscious.

But his condition was truly too dire. Even with iron-willed determination, he could hold on no longer. The Great Dao wound fractured, suddenly expanding, and he nearly perished on the spot.

Ye Fan finally fell unconscious. The crack in the Great Dao deepened. His spirit and flesh could no longer bear the burden. He collapsed inside the ancient coffin.

More than five years had passed — nearly six — and he entered the bronze casket once more. Everything had begun from it when he first arrived in this world, and now he returned.

The Ancient Bronze Coffin that crossed the stellar void — where it had begun, and where it was destined to end, no one could say. It was filled with far too many secrets.

No one knew how much time passed before Ye Fan slowly regained consciousness. The celestial sound of the Great Dao had long since ceased. The silence was absolute — not a single sound remained.

Within the casket, there was no desolate force. Time could no longer continue to strip away his life. Ye Fan knew he had gambled correctly. The several hundred ancient characters of scripture had stirred the ancient coffin.

Before entering the ancient forbidden land, he had made various deductions. Since even the desolation had feared the ancient coffin — pushing it out from the abyss — it must certainly have no dread of that aura.

At the moment between life and death, his choice had been correct. He and the ancient coffin had resonated through the celestial sound, entering this place, allowing him to narrowly escape disaster.

Though time no longer eroded him, his condition had reached rock bottom. The Great Dao wound had worsened, and the wellspring of his life was nearly split in two.

Moreover, his body remained aged, his flesh withered and dried, as though the oil in his lamp was nearly spent — he could walk to the end of his life at any moment.

Had he not held the Qilin divine medicine seed, he would already have become dry bones. The small purple Qilin, no larger than an infant’s fist, was dim and lightless, close to completely shriveled.

This was a decadent extravagance — drawing upon the life of an imperishable divine medicine seed to resist the erosion of time. In all the world, perhaps only he had ever done such a thing.

A supreme king of his generation, clothed in the divine garments of ancient sages, still could not approach the sacred mountain. Even Ye Fan, with his unparalleled physical body, could not possibly have come this far — or remained alive to this point — had he not possessed this seed.

This was the most rare and precious sacred object in all the world.

“Please, do not wither and die…” Ye Fan felt a deep pang of guilt. The imperishable divine medicine was the only one of its kind in the world — if it died, it could never come again.

Heaven and earth lay in utter stillness. He looked outward but saw no white-haired man, nor any trace of the other figures.

“Does this ancient coffin truly restrain them?”

Although he had not died, Ye Fan’s life span was depleted and he was merely borrowing the Qilin Seed’s vitality to sustain himself. The terrifying Great Dao wound threatened to claim his life at any moment.

“I am trapped here — how am I to reach the summit?” He felt he no longer had the strength to climb up. The moment he left the bronze casket, he would be unable to resist the desolate aura.

“No — I must go up. There is no time to waste. Otherwise I will certainly die here!” Ye Fan’s heart burned with urgency.

If his divine power were sufficient, he could carry the Ancient Bronze Coffin up with him to ward off the erosion of time — but as things stood now, even walking was a problem.

“What am I to do? The Qilin Seed has shriveled, and it is difficult to draw life essence from it anymore. How am I to get up there?” Ye Fan had never felt so helpless as he did now.

Death hovered so close. Perhaps before the sky darkened, he would depart from this world — his life dried up, unable to go on.

Ye Fan struggled to his feet and looked outward. In the ancient forest, nine enormous Dragon Corpses stood like walls of iron and steel, uncorrupted to this day, gleaming with dark light, radiating immense power that made one tremble involuntarily.

“Are these… true dragons?!”

His voice trembled. The nine corpses looked exactly like true dragons, with a pressure as vast as the heavens themselves. But having experienced so much, he had come to doubt even the existence of immortal spiritual beings.

“Perhaps they are merely flood dragons evolved to the ultimate extreme.”

Gritting his teeth, Ye Fan clutched the Qilin Seed and charged out, running toward the enormous Dragon Corpses with their gleaming scales. He intended to drink dragon blood to sustain his life.

“Clang!”

Sparks flew. Ye Fan’s fingers felt as though they had struck ten-thousand-tempered divine iron — he could not cut through at all. The wounds he had sustained were far too severe. He hacked repeatedly, yet could not even budge a single dragon scale. The fearsome Great Dao wound left him barely able to stand.

He exhausted every method but could not breach the Dragon Corpses, and his body aged further still. He nearly toppled backward onto the ground. Using the very last thread of his strength, Ye Fan barely managed to return to the bronze coffin and collapsed inside, unable to move even the slightest bit more.

“Am I truly going to die?”

Ye Fan felt a bleak despair. He had traveled far from his homeland to the other side of the stellar void, only to die in a place where no one would ever know. There were no family members, no friends who would ever learn of it. It was too desolate, too sorrowful.

“If I die this way, who would shed a single tear for me…”

He could not even send word out. Ten years, a hundred years from now, there would be only a set of white bones here. If some figure of breathtaking talent ever made it to this place, they would merely sigh briefly and move on.

Ye Fan truly did not want to die this way. He muttered to himself: “What trump cards do I still have that I can actively use?”

He searched his entire person: the golden Dao scripture, the silver Origin Heavenly Book, the Bodhi Seed… Of all his many treasures, aside from the shriveled Qilin Seed, none could save his life in this moment.

“Ding!”

Suddenly, a crisp sound rang out. A small, crystalline stone dropped to the ground. It was no larger than a finger joint, flowing with seven-colored radiance — lustrous and beautiful.

“Xiao Nannan…” At the sight of this small stone, Ye Fan’s mind instantly flew to the mysterious and pitiful little girl.

His heart stirred. He placed the seven-colored small stone in his palm and drew upon it as though it were a divine medicine, absorbing its vital energy. With a “swish,” a stream of seven-colored light disappeared into his body.

“This is…” Ye Fan was startled. He felt a sense of comfort spreading through his entire body, and a great deal of strength had returned.

He could hardly believe what was happening. What kind of stone was this? How could it contain such pure life energy? He continued to draw from it, and stream after stream of seven-colored radiance poured into his body.

Ye Fan finally managed to sit up. Having recovered some strength, he stared at the small stone in disbelief. It was not an imperishable divine medicine, yet it possessed powerful life vital energy.

“Nannan…” Ye Fan had not expected that at this critical moment, the little stone Nannan had given him would save his life. Without it, he would not even have had the strength to stand.