Ye Fan’s heart hammered — thoom, thoom, thoom — the rhythm quickening, driven entirely by excitement. In an instant, his thoughts leapt to the Dao Sutra. The sect master of Lingxu Cave Heaven and several Great Demons were fighting to the death, and the primary prize they were all seeking was the Dao Sutra and one of the Eastern Desolation’s sacred treasures.
This sheet of golden paper was profoundly mysterious — as though condensed from the very essence of rainbow light, glowing with brilliant splendor so intense it forced the eyes shut. It was heavy in the hand, far heavier than metal by many times.
“Just a single page… and yet it must contain upward of ten thousand characters…” Ye Fan narrowed his eyes and studied the radiant golden sheet carefully. But even straining his vision to its limit, he could only make out blurry outlines — the inscribed characters were far too tiny. Both the front and the back were covered in writing, dense and countless, every character shining like a star and radiating divine light, so piercingly brilliant that it hurt to look at.
Ye Fan’s heart refused to settle. If his guess was correct, then this was without question the Dao Sutra — the very thing he desired most. He had never expected to obtain it like this, and the whole thing felt somehow unreal. He gripped the dazzling golden sheet of paper tightly and didn’t fully calm down until a long while had passed.
In that moment, he thought of Pang Bo — his face still wreathed in blue-green qi — and the glance Pang Bo had cast in this direction when he sent those corpses flying over. That look had seemed to carry a meaning all its own.
“Could it be that he did it on purpose, to send them this way?” The possibility occurred to Ye Fan instantly. Yet the unknown entity that had seized Pang Bo’s body surely wouldn’t be so charitable — why would it willingly do him a favor for nothing?
“Unless… it was Pang Bo himself!” The thought came to Ye Fan quickly.
Pang Bo had been fighting all along to reclaim control of his own body. Perhaps in that single instant, he had briefly seized the reins. But thinking it through, Ye Fan shook his head — the probability was vanishingly small. At best, Pang Bo could disrupt the unknown entity; actually gaining the upper hand seemed all but impossible.
“In the midst of that life-or-death battle, being disrupted even for a moment could spell death at any second…” Ye Fan pondered for a while and concluded that the most likely explanation was that the unknown entity and Pang Bo had struck some mutual compromise — a temporary arrangement — using that moment to pass the golden Dao Sutra out without anyone the wiser.
The more Ye Fan thought about it, the more convinced he became that Pang Bo had made this happen — that Pang Bo had sent the Dao Sutra to him. He murmured to himself, “Pang Bo absolutely cannot come to any harm…”
Thinking of the demon script that had appeared across Pang Bo’s face, Ye Fan’s heart sank. The unknown entity very likely belonged to the demon clan — though it was clearly unlike those Great Demons — and showed no interest in the human race’s Dao Sutra. Its ambitions were almost certainly focused on the Demon Emperor’s relics.
Ye Fan composed himself and searched the remaining corpses one by one, but found nothing more. There was only the single page of golden paper — gleaming and heavy, like holding an entire treasury in his hands, pressing down on him with a sense of immense weight. And yet in truth, this one page of the golden book was worth more than any treasure.
Ye Fan wanted to understand what it contained. He focused his mind, connected with the golden Bitter Sea, and strained every capacity of his vision, determined to know what was recorded on this golden page. Golden threads from within the Bitter Sea flowed up through his body and gathered in his eyes, causing tiny flickers of golden light to shimmer within his pupils.
The Wheel Sea Volume!
At the very beginning of the golden page, three somewhat larger ancient characters stood out — like three bright moons fixed in place, clear and luminous, their light flowing and shifting. Looking further down, the characters grew considerably smaller. He could barely make out their forms, yet the attempt sent a stab of pain through his eyes. The ancient characters blazed with divine radiance, shooting out like golden needles — the harder he tried to look, the less he could see, until his eyes swelled and throbbed with pain.
In barely an instant, Ye Fan’s eyes turned completely red, unbearably sore, and tears streamed involuntarily down his face. He hastily looked away. The golden light within his pupils faded, and after a moment he recovered. This baffled him — looking at those ancient characters normally, though still illegible, caused no pain at all. But the moment he channeled fine threads of divine power into his eyes and fixed his gaze on this page of the Dao Sutra, his pupils had nearly been injured. How extraordinary.
“This page of the Dao Sutra is truly something else…”
Unwilling to give up, Ye Fan rested for a while, then focused his mind again, connected with the Bitter Sea, and strained his vision once more. This time, instead of looking at the beginning, he looked directly at the very last few characters on the back of the page.
The Wheel Sea Volume — Complete!
The final four ancient characters, like the three at the start, were noticeably larger and easy to read — like a bright moon rising over the sea, scattering its glow across the water.
Likewise, all the other characters on the back of the page remained indecipherable. Each tiny ancient character was like a miniature sun — blazing and brilliant, beams of divine radiance shooting out like golden needles to pierce the pupils, hot and stinging and painful.
Ye Fan quickly looked away. His heart lurched violently. He could now say with near certainty — this golden page was the most crucial opening volume of the Dao Sutra!
The so-called Wheel Sea could only refer to one thing: the Wheel of Life and the Bitter Sea — the wellspring from which divine power endlessly flows, the very foundation of all cultivation. No wonder the sect master of Lingxu Cave Heaven had said this was the most vital volume of the Dao Sutra — because it was the first and foundational volume of this immortal scripture, the bedrock upon which the towering edifice of all cultivation is built.
Elder Wu Qingfeng of Lingxu Cave Heaven had once said that if a cultivator refines the Wheel of Life and Bitter Sea to their absolute limits, the benefits will last a lifetime, and they will ascend to the ranks of the truly supreme. From this alone, one could understand the importance of the Wheel Sea Volume.
Lingxu Cave Heaven had possessed only a single scripture from this volume — a fragment of a fragment, occupying less than one tenth of the whole. It was sufficient only to guide the most gifted beginners in connecting with the Bitter Sea, with no methods for what came after. This had always been a source of deep regret for Ye Fan. And now, to have obtained the complete Wheel Sea Volume of the Dao Sutra — it was a joy beyond anything he had hoped for. This volume alone was enough to benefit him for a lifetime; it was a complete and self-contained cultivation system that could carry him all the way forward.
Ye Fan carefully tucked away the golden page. He knew that not a word of this could be allowed to leak out — if it did, he would die without a place to be buried. Even if the sect master of Lingxu Cave Heaven were to obtain it, he would have to immediately seek the protection of the sacred ground standing behind him; otherwise, his entire sect would face annihilation. A volume of the Dao Sutra such as this was beyond price — and at the same time, it was like an ever-erupting volcano: boundless fortune and the threat of utter destruction, existing side by side.
To have obtained a single page of the golden book was more than enough — it was already an incomprehensible stroke of fortune. Ye Fan had no wish to linger here any longer. With his current strength, he had no means to compete for anything. Leaving at once was the wisest course.
He rushed swiftly down the mountainside, running the mysterious method recorded in the Dao Sutra. Golden threads immediately spilled out from within his Bitter Sea, coursing through his four limbs and every bone and muscle. His flesh and skeleton were nourished at once, and his speed surged considerably.
But just then, Ye Fan felt a strange change. The golden sheet of paper in his chest seemed to be trembling. At first he paid it no mind — until at last he suddenly felt a chill run through his body, as though the golden paper had come into contact with his bare skin.
“What’s happening…” He hadn’t placed it close to his body. He stopped and looked quickly.
What then happened left Ye Fan completely thunderstruck. His chest was empty — the page of the Dao Sutra had vanished.
“How can this be?!” Ye Fan could scarcely believe what lay before him. Even if the sect master of Lingxu Cave Heaven had struck, it couldn’t have been done so silently — so how could it have simply disappeared without a trace?
At the same moment, he felt the life essence within his body surging and boiling. The mysterious method recorded in the Dao Sutra had begun to run on its own, beyond his control — and his Bitter Sea blazed with golden light.
“Hmm?!”
Ye Fan was deeply astonished. In that very instant, he sensed something unusual within his Bitter Sea — as though something had been added to it. He hastily turned his attention inward. What he saw left him stupefied: within the golden Bitter Sea, no larger than a soybean, a page of the golden book had appeared!
The golden sheet had grown smaller, materializing inexplicably within that tiny golden Bitter Sea. The outcome left Ye Fan dazed for a long while, feeling as though it defied all reason and explanation.
The mysterious method of the Dao Sutra ceased running, and everything grew still. Yet within Ye Fan’s golden Bitter Sea, one miniaturized golden page now rested — and no matter how hard he tried, he could not move it by so much as a fraction. It would not come out again.
Ye Fan stood there, bewildered and at a loss. He thought about it for a long time and still couldn’t understand why this had happened. But his body felt no discomfort, and neither did his golden Bitter Sea — and that, at least, allowed him some measure of relief.
Having finally composed himself, Ye Fan made up his mind to leave and set off once more.
Boom!
Just then, a violent sound erupted from behind him. He looked back from a distance and saw the ancient hall in the sky shuddering — blazing light radiating outward in all directions, scattering the supremely fierce beasts and the elders of Lingxu Cave Heaven in every direction.
“I can’t leave.” Ye Fan simply could not bring himself to go. He knew that staying served no purpose — he couldn’t do anything to help. But he couldn’t get past the feeling in his heart. Until he saw Pang Bo safely free from danger with his own eyes, he could not find peace, and he had no way to leave.
Of course, he wouldn’t do anything reckless. This time he chose a more distant mountain peak from which to watch from afar.
Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!
Just then, from the distant horizon came the sound of air being split apart in succession. Dozens of divine rainbows streaked toward this place through the sky.
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
Following behind those dozens of divine rainbows, the roars of countless savage beasts rolled forward — mist tumbled and churned, clouds and rosy light blotted out the heavens. Dozens of savage beasts rode the clouds through the sky, each carrying a cultivator on its back. Though they traveled through the air, the sound they produced was like rolling thunder — as though tens of thousands of soldiers were charging forward all at once.
Those savage beasts were all rare primordial species, every one of them covered in gleaming scales and armor, ferocious in appearance. The cultivator riding the central beast cradled a great banner in his arms, snapping fiercely in the wind with an awe-inspiring momentum. Written upon it, in four great characters, were the words: Yao Guang Sacred Ground!