The black fog on the great dark peak grew thicker and thicker, until one could barely see their hand in front of their face, yet this place remained strangely peaceful.
“Truly shameless — how could anyone scribble and scratch all over this place? Do these two old relics actually think themselves so heroic?!” the Great Black Dog grumbled and cursed.
The golden light of the Scroll of Divine Sealing flowed endlessly, never gathering dust or grime, dispersing the dense fog all around, as an unsurpassed aura of the Great Dao permeated the air.
“Who exactly is this old baldy, anyway? He looks kindly enough at first glance, but somehow doesn’t strike me as anything decent. And this old stick-in-the-mud riding a bull — wrapped in a towering demonic aura — clearly no good sort either.” The Great Black Dog continued its cursing.
Ye Fan was left somewhat speechless. The Great Black Dog was truly something else — Shakyamuni had just been cursed as a baldy, while the one who came forth with purple qi from the east was declared to be oozing with a towering demonic aura.
“Can’t you say something a little more respectful…” Ye Fan said.
“This bald man covered in bumps all over his head, and this old fellow herding cattle — what on earth is their background?” The Great Black Dog’s mouth ran wild as a rampaging dragon, its words completely unhinged.
“Doggy, stop saying such things.” Xiao Nannan gently patted it. The little girl barely reached its knees, soft and rosy-cheeked, utterly childlike.
“I get so irritated just looking at this baldy and this cattle-herder. Damn it — utterly shameless, daring to carve their scrawlings before the Scroll of Divine Sealing. They really deserve a beating!” The Great Black Dog was furious, feeling that scribbling in front of the seal laid down by Emperor Wushi was an act of outright insolence.
Ye Fan thought of the identities of Shakyamuni and the old man riding the bull, and hearing the Great Black Dog’s wild ranting made him want to burst out laughing. This wretched dog truly had no shame.
“Don’t let me ever see them — if I do, I’ll beat them every single time!” the Great Black Dog declared outrageously.
Ye Fan was thoroughly defeated by it. He said, “Stop being so arrogant. Never mind those two — you couldn’t even beat the bull that old man was riding.”
“Damn it, it’s just a water buffalo. I’d chew it up and spit it out, and it still wouldn’t be enough to fill the gap between my teeth!” The Great Black Dog was absolutely unconvinced, one hundred and twenty percent so.
“Even if you were ten thousand times stronger, you’d still be no match for either of them.” The Old Madman suddenly spoke. He stared intently at those two inscriptions, his expression grave, studying them with great seriousness.
Ye Fan felt the Bodhi Seed growing warm in his hand. He quickly took it out and held it carefully, sensing it intently. He discovered that the two inscriptions on the black mountain face seemed to have come alive.
In a trance, he saw a compassionate Buddha seated beneath a Bodhi tree, with endless chanting reverberating, calming the soul, making one wish to take refuge and kneel at his feet.
On the other side, purple qi came from the east. A green ox traveled westward, carrying an old man, flowing with the aura of the Great Dao — boundless, timeless, and transcendent.
One could say that both Shakyamuni and the old man riding the green ox possessed an unsurpassed, lofty resonance of the Dao.
Even a single trace of the imprints they had left behind was enough to stir one’s soul, making it impossible to resist the urge to follow after them — utterly mysterious and wondrous.
Ye Fan’s heart was far from calm — even turbulent would be an apt word. Just how many ancient sages of China had crossed through the starry sky to this end?
Perhaps the road home had not been severed after all. Perhaps it could still be found. He discovered a few new strands of hope — perhaps someday he would be able to return to Earth.
“Damn baldy, old stick-in-the-mud…”
Ye Fan was pulled back to reality by the Great Black Dog’s cursing. He had found no cultivation techniques within the inscriptions — only proof that the two had been here.
“Stop calling out like that. Even if you shout those two’s names all day, they won’t appear. Who knows whether they even remain in this world anymore.” Li Heishui said.
“I’m just so furious! Scrawling all over this place — it’s a great affront to Emperor Wushi!” the Great Black Dog said indignantly.
The Old Madman closed his eyes and fell into silence, projecting his divine sense into the Scroll of Divine Sealing. A long time passed before he opened his eyes again. Without lingering further, he walked forward.
“They’ve been suppressed for over a hundred thousand years — whatever lies within this great mountain can’t still be alive, can it?” Ye Fan said uneasily.
“That’s hard to say. If it was buried in divine source like the ancient creatures, it might truly be able to emerge alive.” The Great Black Dog said in a trembling voice, nearly frightening itself.
There must be something beyond imagination within this great mountain — otherwise, Emperor Wushi would never have used the Scroll of Divine Sealing to suppress it.
“Could it be that the Holy Body’s seclusion here, and the blood that stained the Sacred Cliff in his later years, was connected to what lies within the belly of this mountain?” Li Heishui said in alarm.
Ye Fan said, “Perhaps it truly is so. A creature that could bring regret to the Great Completion Holy Body in his later years — one can hardly imagine how terrifying it must be. Fortunately, it was sealed away by Emperor Wushi.”
“Something that could clash with the Great Completion Holy Body, yet chose to wait until his final years to strike — could it really have been lurking silently within the mountain’s belly all that time?”
All of them knew that the Sacred Cliff had been severed from the Undying Mountain by the Great Completion Holy Body himself and used as a place of seclusion. When one thought carefully, it was truly a chilling revelation.
“The aura of the great emperor…” The Great Black Dog rarely showed any trace of sorrow, yet upon seeing the Scroll of Divine Sealing, it had repeatedly worn such an expression — and in the end, it departed with great reluctance.
The fog sealed the mountain. They walked for more than another hour before they were no longer too far from the summit. Ahead, a towering figure stood upon a boulder, gazing down at what lay below.
“Didn’t we already bypass him? How did he get to the front again?” Li Heishui’s expression changed.
The figure was immensely tall, with a pair of eyes devoid of pupils — only two beams of blue-green light that could pierce through the dense fog. It was deeply unsettling.
The Old Madman had said not to look at it, to treat it as an ancient corpse — yet this terrible body with no trace of life force was moving on its own, blocking their path.
“What sort of being is this? How could it appear on the Sacred Cliff — daring to obstruct a living saint of this age…” The Great Black Dog’s fur stood on end.
The Old Madman came to a stop, facing off against the cold body above them. His head of thick, dense long hair fell loose, his aura at its peak, as he took several great strides forward.
“Remain as you were a moment ago — don’t look, don’t extend your divine sense. Wait here.” The Old Madman warned them, then strode forward with great steps.
“Things don’t look good. Even the saint was compelled to act.” All of them felt deeply uneasy.
“Uncle, please be careful.” Xiao Nannan called out from behind.
Ye Fan and the others heeded the warning. They did not look upward, and drew their divine sense inward, cutting themselves off completely from what lay above, to avoid encountering something ill.
“Boom!”
From above came a terrifying shockwave that nearly brought them all to their knees. Had it not been for Emperor Wushi’s formation inscriptions on this ground, the entire great peak might well have ceased to exist.
The living saint of this age had made his move — engaging in fierce battle with that unknown being. The intensity was extreme, transmitted downward through the ancient great emperor’s formation inscriptions.
“Terrifying…” In the end, the Great Black Dog sat down heavily on the ground, its entire body trembling, utterly unable to withstand the pressure of that aura.
Li Heishui fared even worse — he collapsed to the ground a step earlier, his body no longer obeying him. He said furiously, “Damn dog — you’re sitting on me!”
The Great Black Dog, as robust and massive as a large bull, nearly crushed the breath out of Li Heishui, leaving him utterly powerless and unable to push it off.
Ye Fan strained with all his might to resist. His physical body was incomparably powerful — life essence surging throughout, golden blood qi rushing like a torrent — and he just barely managed not to fall beneath the saint’s pressure aura.
Only Xiao Nannan remained unaffected. Making no attempt to resist, she simply blinked her wide eyes, crouched on the ground, and looked at the Great Black Dog and Li Heishui.
A quarter of an hour later, the endless terrifying pressure dissipated. The dense fog churned and rolled, and the Old Madman walked back, step by step, the entire left half of his body stained with blood.
“Uncle, you’re injured…” Xiao Nannan cried out.
“What?! Even the living saint of this age has bled?!” The Great Black Dog scrambled upright in an instant, staring with its great copper-bell eyes.
“It is not my blood — it is the ancient corpse’s.” The Old Madman replied.
Even having blood splattered upon a saint was cause enough for alarm. That ancient corpse must have forced the Old Madman to resort to his true methods.
Ahead, that towering body had fallen to the ground and lay completely still. One could see luminous blood flowing, strange and eerie.
“The Sacred Cliff is boundlessly terrifying. One wrong step leads straight into hell. These ancient powerhouses perished countless ages ago, yet they still emerge to cause havoc!” Li Heishui frowned in troubled worry.
“Uncle, those few people we saw earlier have appeared again…” Xiao Nannan pointed toward the depths of the thick fog and delivered extremely unwelcome news.
Up on the cliff face, several dark silhouettes stood like petrified stone within the dense fog, completely motionless, gazing down at what lay below.
“Aren’t they ancient corpses? Why are all of them moving?” Li Heishui’s entire body broke out in goosebumps.
Ye Fan felt his scalp go numb. They were precisely the figures seen halfway up the mountain — ancient and decrepit, male and female alike, all dressed in archaic garments.
The Old Madman said nothing. He took out the piece of the formation diagram that the Great Black Dog carried and studied it carefully, thinking in silence. Ye Fan and the others dared not disturb him.
And so, standing there for a full day and night, the Old Madman finally raised his head and continued forward, stepping ahead. A golden pathway suddenly appeared beneath the feet of all those present.
“To actually manifest such a ‘path,’ leading straight to the absolute summit…” The Great Black Dog’s eyes grew strange.
And so they advanced along the golden pathway, and after a quarter of an hour arrived above the absolute summit. Those several beings in archaic garments had not drawn near.
It was a vast expanse of cliff face, immensely wide — broad enough to build a small town upon.
Yet this place was utterly barren, not a blade of grass growing, its entirety pitch-black in color, with numerous dark reddish bloodstains.
Here and there, small pools of vivid red caught the eye — startlingly crimson. Despite so many ages having passed, although the spiritual energy had long since dissipated, for reasons unknown the sacred blood had never dried.
Most striking of all was the edge of the Sacred Cliff. There, a colossal stone coffin sat — fully a hundred zhang in length — suspended over the sheer precipice.
“An ancient coffin that has endured in this world for nearly two hundred thousand years…”
Each one of them felt their heart stir. If nothing untoward had occurred, this was where the Great Completion Holy Body had fallen — and the one within the coffin should be none other than him.
“The Great Completion Holy Body’s entire body is a treasure. A single bone alone is worth a city. His complete frame could serve as a sacred object to forge a peerless sacred weapon!”
They approached the immense stone coffin of a hundred zhang in length, all of them scrutinizing it carefully. This was a burial site of a saint — within it might rest peerless immortal treasures.
“Where is the ‘Movement’ character secret of the Nine Secrets? Surely it wouldn’t be inside this ancient coffin?!”
The greatest purpose for which they had come here was to find the Movement character secret — the world-shaking supreme holy technique of the ages. Every cultivator under heaven yearned for it, even saints coveted it.
“Has this stone coffin grown mold? There’s so much green fuzz on it…” The Great Black Dog eyed it with suspicion.
“That’s not mold — those are very long green hairs!” Li Heishui went cold from head to toe, his entire body turning to ice.
At the summit, though thick fog still drifted, now that they had walked right up close to the ancient coffin, the scene before them was entirely visible.
“Damn — that green fuzz is growing out through the cracks of the coffin. It’s dense, nearly swallowing the whole thing!” The Great Black Dog’s black fur stood on end all over, as if someone had stepped on its tail. It leapt high into the air, overwhelmed with shock.
“Something terrible is happening — could it be that the Great Completion Holy Body’s remains have undergone some manner of transformation?”
“No matter how many tens of thousands of years pass, the flesh of the ancient great emperors never rots or crumbles. The Great Completion Holy Body would certainly be the same. If he has undergone a corpse transformation, then that peerless and matchless physical body…”
Everyone was stunned speechless, a sense of foreboding rising in their hearts.
“Let’s quickly find the ‘Movement’ character of the Nine Secrets and leave at once. Whatever we do, we must not touch this ancient coffin.” The Great Black Dog’s fur stood up straight. For the first time in its existence, it looked upon a treasure and felt no greed.
Ye Fan took out the ancient scroll, compared it carefully, and after examining it closely fell into dumbstruck silence. The ‘Movement’ character secret of the Nine Secrets was pointing directly to the location of this ancient coffin.
“Does this mean we must open the coffin?” He felt a wave of dread. If they managed to provoke an ancient corpse of the Great Completion Holy Body into action, their entire group might perish here.
“Damn it — that cursed baldy, and that old cattle-herding stick-in-the-mud, they came here too! Their imprints are right here!” The Great Black Dog cursed furiously.
Beside the ancient coffin stood two stone steles, bearing words left behind in mourning.
Additionally, there were two enormous star charts. The two figures seemed to have each deduced something here separately — dense and intricate, stars filling the ground.
Within each star chart was a faint line, barely visible, pointing off into the depths of the starry sky. This made Ye Fan’s heart stir — could these be the ancient star paths?