The little princess of the Jiang Family had returned to her clan, and the mystery of whether the Unparalleled Divine King was alive or dead became the subject of discussion throughout the world. Every major power was paying close attention.

Everything was so sudden. As soon as Ye Fan received the news, he swiftly traversed the void and soon reunited with the Black Emperor and the others in the desolate mountains of the north.

“I should return to the Northern Region too — I need to tell Old Man Tu about where Tu Fei has ended up, so he stops worrying.” When Li Heishui heard that Ye Fan was heading to the Northern Region, he was immediately all for it.

“Say what you want, but don’t go spreading wild rumors and dragging me into it — I have not one copper coin’s worth of involvement. Tu Fei wandered off on his own.” The Great Black Dog lied without batting an eye.

“You dead dog, how can you say that with a straight face?” Li Heishui was furious. “Don’t ever set foot in the Northern Region again in this lifetime — if you show up, you’ll be skinned alive.”

“Does this emperor look like someone who was raised on fear? When I was roaming freely across the world, those old fogies’ ancestors didn’t even know where they were suckling milk.” the Great Black Dog was unyielding.

“Big brother, is the Northern Region far?” Xiao Nannan asked.

“Very far — a thousand mountains and ten thousand rivers. An ordinary mortal wouldn’t reach it in a hundred lifetimes. But if we traverse the void, it’s just a brief, fleeting instant,” Ye Fan replied.

The Great Black Dog began inscribing array patterns, targeting the Northern Region. This was once again an extremely long-distance transmission — not a single error could be made.

Ye Fan watched it start fiddling with the chessboard array, and immediately a dark cloud gathered over his head. The first time, it had sent Pang Bo astray. The second time, it had sent Tu Fei all the way to the Northern Plains. It had never been accurate even once.

“I’d rather walk back on two legs than use your array patterns!” Li Heishui’s heart was racing with fear, terrified of ending up shipped off to the Western Desert.

“You really have no appreciation for greatness — these are a fragment of an ancient great emperor’s array patterns. Ordinary people don’t even have the blessing to touch them,” the Great Black Dog said with great dissatisfaction.

“You can enjoy them all by yourself — we’ll find our own way,” Ye Fan flatly refused as well. These kinds of array patterns were absolutely not to be messed with.

Even Xiao Nannan looked frightened and backed away, retreating from the Great Black Dog as if fleeing from a demon, pressing close to Ye Fan and gripping a corner of his robe.

The reaction from all three wounded the Great Black Dog deeply. “These are magnificent array patterns and not a single one of you can appreciate them.”

In the end, the Great Black Dog honestly and diligently inscribed another type of array it was familiar with — enormous in scale and taking several days to complete.

The moment the array was finished, Ye Fan cautioned: “This time, please, not another deviation of millions of miles. If we accidentally fall into the Ancient Tai Primordial Mine, we’re finished.”

“Don’t worry — there is absolutely no chance of falling into the Tai Primordial Forbidden Zone. Destination: near the Purple Mountains of the Northern Region.” The Great Black Dog was supremely confident.

“Swish!”

A flash of light — and the several of them vanished from where they stood, entering eternal darkness. In this void, there was no sense of time passing — everything was completely still.

Like a brief instant, yet like the passage of an entire century. Then light returned, and they emerged from the void.

Looking around, all was desolate — a vast expanse of rust-red earth stretching to the horizon.

Across this region, the ground was riddled with ancient mines, one after another, deep and bottomless, like a series of abysses.

“Where did we end up? Something feels off.” Li Heishui was suspicious.

“How is there another deviation…” the Great Black Dog muttered quietly.

The moment Ye Fan heard it say that, he wanted to hit it. Not even once had it been accurate — and the best it had ever managed was a deviation of one and a half million miles.

“This couldn’t be the Tai Primordial Forbidden Zone, could it? I feel like I’m sensing that distinctive aura — it’s making my heart lurch,” Li Heishui said with his hair on end.

“It truly is the aura of the Tai Primordial!” Ye Fan’s expression changed. As a grandmaster of source divination, he naturally sensed that demonic energy immediately.

“This dead dog has gotten us into trouble again!” Li Heishui was going frantic.

“An accident… just a minor accident.” The Great Black Dog cleared its throat, refusing to admit fault.

“We are not inside the Tai Primordial Forbidden Zone.” Ye Fan made this judgment — because he could see people flying toward them, all wearing purple robes, and they were clearly not ancient creatures.

“Who are you people? Why have you intruded into our Purple Palace mining district? What is your intention?” This group surrounded them swiftly.

“It’s Ye Fan — and that vicious dog too.” One of them went pale, recognizing them on the spot.

Ye Fan had been silent for over half a year, but the outside world had not forgotten him. Everyone had been speculating about his whereabouts.

Many had at one point believed he had already been eliminated by the human world and hell — yet here he was, appearing before them again.

“Are you here to take our source mines?” one of them asked with a cold expression.

“Go get the Grand Elder,” another made a signal, ordering a disciple to go and send word.

Ye Fan’s expression shifted. This place was extraordinarily desolate — certainly an ancient mine belonging to a sacred ground, located outside the Tai Primordial region. If a supreme elder of a sacred ground came and intercepted them here, this would truly be a fine place to silence someone forever.

“Bang!”

Ye Fan struck first. Moving at his absolute limit, he shot forward like a beam of light and seized the disciple who had just flown away.

“You… what do you mean by this?” The others immediately panicked.

The Great Black Dog moved in perfect coordination, flinging out a series of array-inscribing implements that sealed off this entire area — not a single person escaped.

“Kill them all?” Li Heishui made a throat-slitting gesture with a murderous look.

“No need — wipe their memories. Let’s move quickly.” Ye Fan had no desire to slaughter innocents. He searched through their spiritual consciousness, obtained some useful information, then erased the relevant memories.

“They wanted to use their supreme elder against us — they really should all be eliminated,” the Great Black Dog said, baring its teeth.

“If several people simply vanish without explanation, it will cause major trouble — after all, this is their ancient mining district.” Ye Fan shook his head, then smiled. “Though they do happen to have a valuable batch of source stones they were about to transport. That’s quite a nice piece of news.”

Commissioning Ancient Assassin Divine Dynasties to deal with Sacred Sons required a massive amount of source as payment — and Ye Fan was just in the process of gathering source. His eyes lit up instantly.

It had to be said — this ancient mining district was very heavily defended. Though this was a remote area and by no means the central divine mine district, it was still covered in dense, intricate array patterns. But with the Great Black Dog on the job, the group moved through it as though on level ground.

In truth, Ye Fan himself could now traverse most of the area on his own, because the Glyph of Traversal had been refined to a remarkable level.

“Those source stones — it’s practically a mountain!”

They had slipped into the restricted area and were watching in secret. Before them, an endless pile of source stones had been stacked into a small mountain.

“It’s not that pile — it’s another, rarer batch, far smaller than this.” Ye Fan fixed his gaze on a nearby source vault, sensing the dense aura of the Tai Primordial within.

The Great Black Dog took out the Profound Jade Platform. This place could not be lingered in — once the looting was done, they had to run immediately or face certain death.

That they had been able to slip in at all was partly because traversing the void had brought them here by accident, and partly because the Great Black Dog’s mastery of formation patterns was rarely matched — it had dissolved one dangerous formation after another the whole way in.

“This source vault is not easy to open — I say we simply take the whole thing. Bring it with us as we traverse the void!” The Great Black Dog excitedly offered this suggestion.

“Dong!”

A thunderous boom — radiance surged in all directions. They wrapped the source vault within them and pierced through the void to escape.

The disciples of the Purple Palace were completely dumbfounded. Never in their lives had they seen such brazen thieves — they had actually taken the entire source vault.

Not even the Thirteen Great Bandits had ever been this thorough.

“Disaster — great bandits have come to loot!”

“Activate all array patterns and prevent them from traversing the void!”

The Purple Palace mining district erupted into chaos. But this ancient mine was quite remote — far from where the supreme elders resided — and none of the high-level cultivators could arrive in the first moments.

“Damn it all, what utterly ruthless great bandits are these, taking the source vault itself? I’ve never seen the like!” The Purple Palace cultivators cursed endlessly.

But it was already too late. Ye Fan and the others were already hundreds of thousands of miles away, far beyond the ancient mining districts of any sacred ground.

“Dong,” “Bang,” “Boom”…

It took Ye Fan and the others quite a long time to finally crack open the source vault. It was a formidable object, but it was now reduced to fine powder.

Inside the vault were more than a dozen source stones, all saturated with the dense aura of the Tai Primordial — clearly a batch of extraordinarily precious pieces.

Ye Fan showed no hesitation, slapping them open right away. After the more than ten source stones were split apart, seven or eight of them erupted with light shooting toward the sky.

“Divine source — they dug into a divine vein. They had probably already guessed as much and had it sealed away for safekeeping. To think it would end up benefiting us instead.” Li Heishui was very excited.

When everything was tallied up, the combined value of these divine source pieces was equivalent to two million three hundred thousand catties of pure source — a truly enormous divine trove.

“Now we can commission another Sacred Son’s death.” Ye Fan smiled.

“I’m quite certain that Purple Palace’s Sacred Son had already been trying to do exactly that to you.” The Great Black Dog said.

Ye Fan nodded. They had analyzed this before — among all the Sacred Sons, the one most likely to have commissioned the human world was the Purple Palace’s Sacred Son, who could be considered among the top candidates.

“And now we’re using the sacred grounds’ own source to hire the Ancient Assassin Divine Dynasties to kill them in return — truly a wonderful idea.” Li Heishui burst out laughing.

“The human world and hell have been lying low all these years. Their power must have grown to a terrifying extreme — they even dared to provoke current-era saints. That means they have some unimaginable trump card to rely on.” The Great Black Dog offered a reminder.

On that same day, Ye Fan and the others traversed the void into the Divine City. Not wanting to show up at the Jiang Family’s door without warning, they planned to have Li Heishui contact the thirteenth great bandit, Jiang Yi, to go through him and find little Tingting.

“Alright, I’ll go find that Jiang scoundrel and ask his grandfather to come out of retirement.” Li Heishui departed.

Setting foot in the Divine City again — everything felt both unfamiliar and familiar. So much had happened here: the stone-gambling battle, breaking the curse, contending with the heavenly tribulation…

Without noticing, more than a year had passed. He had come back. And when he and one great black dog and a small girl appeared, it immediately caused quite the stir.

“The Sacred Physique isn’t dead — he’s back!”

“A pity — a figure who could one day rival the ancient great emperors, yet plagued by misfortune, having self-severed his cultivation. It makes one sigh.”

“His cultivation may not actually be ruined — it’s quite possible that was all smoke and mirrors. There are many such rumors circulating these days.”

“Didn’t the human world and hell both issue kill orders? It’s been over half a year now, and he’s still here, alive and well — that’s truly remarkable.”

Many people in the Divine City recognized him. Ye Fan had been far too famous here in the past — there was no way to go unnoticed.

This was also his first public appearance before the world after half a year of silence — a sign that the Sacred Physique had returned.

Many people were talking about it, and a large crowd gathered around him, warm and enthusiastic, their eyes burning with intensity.

“Young Brother Ye, have you come to do stone gambling?”

“Brother Ye is long past gambling on stones — who would dare compete with him? He must be here for the Yaochi Grand Assembly — it’s starting soon.”

“Brother Gufeng, I hear you slew a Sacred Son and Sacred Daughter from a supreme great sect of the Central Region — is this true?” Some people still couldn’t shake the habit of calling him by his alias.

“You’ve defeated Hua Yunfei, the heir of the ruthless one’s legacy — truly astonishing. Have you truly self-severed your cultivation now?”

“It goes without saying — Young Brother Ye must be here to visit the Unparalleled Divine King.”

The warmth and enthusiasm of the crowd was slightly overwhelming to Ye Fan, but among all of it he gathered a great deal of useful information.

The Yaochi Grand Assembly was actually about to begin — he hadn’t realized it had been delayed this long. He truly wished to witness it for himself.

As night fell, Ye Fan patted Xiao Nannan on the head and left her in the Great Black Dog’s care, then disappeared into the darkness of the night.

He activated the Glyph of Traversal, drifting like a wisp of smoke through the night sky, smooth as flowing water, until he arrived at the Wondrous Desire Nunnery.

The lake on the ground was clear and bright, emanating a gentle radiance in the darkness of night. Stars by the thousands glittered overhead, their light casting a transcendent glow over the magnificent jade towers floating in the air.

The sound of strings and flutes drifted softly, the zither music pleasing to the ear. The place was serene and harmonious, with laughter and lively chatter drifting out from time to time. The Wondrous Desire Nunnery was very popular — one of the three great pleasure quarters of the Divine City.

Only cultivators of a certain reputation could come and go here freely. Ordinary people could not enter.

Ye Fan arrived at this place with a heart not entirely at peace. He had come to see An Miaoyi — not only because it was simply time for them to meet, but because he wanted to verify certain things.

Was there a connection between the ruthless one’s heir and this woman?

Once, An Miaoyi had warned him not to go to the ruthless one’s training ground to seize the sacred object — it was clear she had known what was going to happen.

After that, Ye Fan had departed for the Southern Region, and not long after, news had spread that the younger generation had nearly been entirely wiped out, with almost all of them coming close to perishing inside the ruthless one’s training ground.

Was she connected to Hua Yunfei? Ye Fan didn’t know. He strode into the Wondrous Desire Nunnery and had word sent in that he wished to see the most beautiful woman in the Eastern Wasteland.

Ye Fan arrived outside An Miaoyi’s palace hall but did not enter. The handmaids all recognized him, knowing he was a close acquaintance of the future abbess.

Outside the palace hall, Ye Fan heard the cold, sharp voice of a young man: “So it’s that Sacred Physique who has come. What does he amount to? Tell him to leave — I am here, and there is no seat for him in this place.”

A short while later, a handmaid came out and invited Ye Fan in. He smiled slightly, and strode forward with long steps, curious to see what manner of figure had arrived.

The palace hall was as it had always been, draped in hazy moonlight, with wisps of mist drifting through it like a celestial palace.

Ye Fan stepped into this familiar palace and saw An Miaoyi at once. She was as incomparably graceful as ever, like the Moon Goddess herself descended to the mortal world.

An Miaoyi rose to her feet, standing tall and swaying gracefully as she came forward. Her skin was like jade, her beauty so flawless as to defy description — her complexion bright and lustrous as ivory.

On her face hung a captivating smile; her white teeth gleamed, her red lips were vivid, her eyes were clear as autumn water, and her perfect features were without the slightest flaw.

“Greetings, Immortal An.” Ye Fan smiled.

An Miaoyi invited him to sit. Ye Fan swept his gaze over the other two people present. One of them he recognized — the Central Region’s young king, Wang Chongxiao, who was studying him closely.

The other was a young man — vigorous and dashing but quite arrogant — who glanced at Ye Fan and said: “We made prior arrangements with Immortal An. What brings you here? There is no seat for you.”

An Miaoyi gave a light laugh and shook her head, poured tea for Ye Fan, then deftly steered the conversation with graceful words to smooth over the tension.

“He is…” Ye Fan inquired.

Wang Chongxiao remained cold and detached, yet at this moment he provided the introduction. This person had a significant background — he was the younger brother of the Central Region’s Twin Kings, and his name was Gao Linfeng.

“The Central Region’s Twin Kings — the two old kings that the Unparalleled Divine King slew?” Ye Fan said, puzzled.

Wang Chongxiao, upon hearing this, seemed somewhat wary, and said: “Among their descendants, a new pair of Twin Kings has arisen.”

Gao Linfeng said coldly: “I hear you’ve become a crippled physique again, yet you still dare to walk around openly. You’re quite bold — aren’t you afraid of being killed?”

His ancestors had been slain by the Unparalleled Divine King. Knowing that the Divine King had shown great benevolence to Ye Fan, he was deeply hostile toward him.

“You worry too much.” Ye Fan smiled faintly.

Gao Linfeng’s expression darkened on the spot. “Wang, have him removed. I don’t wish to see a cripple sitting here.”

“Are you quite sure you want to have me removed?” Ye Fan fixed his gaze on him.

“Tonight I have invited some friends. Someone like you — barely half a cultivator — has no right to be seated here.” Gao Linfeng spoke with cold indifference.

“Whether I have the right to come and go here is not yours to judge.” Ye Fan cast him a sideways glance. “Are you trying to provoke me? Looking to avenge your two ancestors?”

“Don’t push me into killing you!” Gao Linfeng’s expression turned sinister.

Wang Chongxiao seemed about to say something, but in the end stayed silent.

“If your two older brothers had spoken to me this way, that would be barely tolerable. But coming from you…” Ye Fan gave a cold laugh.

“Slap!”

He struck without warning, activating the Glyph of Traversal — swift as a ghost, impossible to guard against.

Ye Fan slapped Gao Linfeng, sending him flying, crashing into and collapsing the palace wall.

“Go as far away from me as you can. If your two brothers come, feel free to invite them here to drink tea with me — but you get out of my sight.”