An ancient vessel, no one knew how many years old — dim, lightless, mottled with rust, drifting ahead, drawing closer as it came.

Yet it carried a faint tremor — something very much like a breath of life. This astonished Ye Fan greatly. At minimum tens of thousands of years had passed — how could anything still be alive?

Ten-Thousand-Things Mother Qi cascaded down from above. He brought out the cauldron and suspended it over his head like a canopy of rain, covering him completely. Then, gripping the black gourd, he faced forward with grave solemnity.

The nine Dragon Corpses showed no reaction. The great Ancient Bronze Coffin continued to drift, silent and motionless, without the slightest change.

From the darkness and cold of what lay ahead, the purple-gold ancient vessel at last drew near, coming before him — about to pass alongside. The ancient weapon-scars upon it narrated a chapter of history unknown to any.

That battle long ago must have taken place somewhere in the star domains. At minimum, figures of the remote ancient saint level had participated — for nothing less could have carried them to the cosmic depths.

Ye Fan was somewhat stirred. Such an ancient vessel — its former masters must have been beings of immense power. And yet they had been reduced to this state. Surely extraordinary secrets lay within.

“It’s about to pass by. That faint pulse remains the same. Do I truly board and take a look?”

No danger had materialized, and that pulse was not particularly strong — which set his heart to restlessness, and made him deeply curious to investigate.

In the vast celestial expanse, boundless without end, traversing it in this manner made it extraordinarily difficult to discover anything connected to life or civilization. In the darkness of the cosmos, encountering such a vessel was nothing short of a miracle.

“Tens of thousands of years have passed — there may not be any living thing aboard. It may not even be a pulse of life…” Ye Fan reflected carefully and concluded that the possibility of life was very small.

This ancient vessel was worth boarding regardless. It could very well be an extraordinary treasury of divine artifacts — something connected to a saint of remote antiquity, where even a single random object would be priceless.

In the instant it was about to slip past, Ye Fan acted. His palm released a divine chain, which connected to the vast and imposing old warship, synchronizing it with the Dragon Corpses so they moved together.

Still there was no reaction. No sound from within the warship, no call, no disturbance — dead and still.

Ye Fan did not board immediately. He waited for a very long time, as the vessel and the bronze coffin traveled side by side. In this dark cosmos, there was no sense of direction — neither could truly be said to have altered the other’s course.

Observed from close range, the vessel’s grandeur and extreme age became even more apparent. Those fracture lines, Ye Fan felt, were at least several hundred thousand years old.

This purple-gold was far from ordinary. Refined through a hundred heatings into divine gold, it was unlike anything commonly seen. A divine potency had been infused into it, and the patterns of immortality carved upon it — these were what had preserved it intact to this day.

“At minimum, this was the craft of a remote ancient saint refined into a generation-spanning holy weapon. Even so, it has nearly been destroyed.”

The vessel’s hull was battered — knife-scars, sword-holes, damage upon damage. A great battle had been fought in the depths of the cosmos. Even to imagine it stirred the heart, and one’s thoughts wandered to the events of that ancient past.

Ye Fan attempted to extend his divine sense and probe within — but to his surprise, this ancient vessel was capable of blocking even his powerful consciousness. He could not see through it.

After another half an hour, he was certain that the danger was minimal. Only then did he board, entering the dilapidated ship’s interior to explore the remnant site.

“The pulse — it is right ahead!”

The ship’s hold was immense — like a great palace, with halls and ancient sealed chambers everywhere, stretching beyond sight.

This was less like a ship and more like an immortal estate — vast and all-encompassing. He even caught sight of a withered medicine field.

Of course, nothing grew within it any longer. The sacred herbs and the like had long since crumbled to ash. A divine pearl was suspended above the field, radiating light — but it too was cracked, and its spiritual energy was nearly spent.

Time is the most fearsome force of all. It can wear away everything. In the end, nothing escapes its reckoning.

The pulse was like ripples on water — right ahead. Ye Fan’s heart tightened. Gripping the black gourd, the Ten-Thousand-Things Mother Qi Cauldron suspended over his head, he moved forward one step at a time.

A human skull — snow-white and crystalline, as though the most perfect work of art heaven itself could craft — rested motionlessly within a great ancient hall, emanating a soft and gentle radiance.

It was this that had sent out the pulse. Ye Fan was startled for nothing — it was not what one might call a living entity.

“That speed…”

Yet immediately after, he was greatly astonished. This skull was extraordinary — it bore the tremor of the Dao, natural and self-arising, inviting closeness.

“A saint’s skull!” He made this discovery with a start.

No wonder that even tens of thousands of years later, the skull still emitted a pulse — still imperishable. This was what a saint of remote antiquity left behind when they dissolved into the Dao.

To dissolve into the Dao is to naturally fuse one’s physical body back into the Heavenly Dao. Only one or two of the hardest bones — those that even the Dao itself cannot dissolve — would remain.

Such a skull alone — one could only imagine how precious. It could absolutely be refined into an invincible holy weapon, bearing an immortal divine nature.

“This is a woman’s skull…” Ye Fan murmured to himself.

A female saint of remote antiquity. From the shape of the skull and other details, one could partially reconstruct her appearance. So elegantly formed — she must have been a matchless beauty of her age.

“There is writing…”

Within this ancient hold, Ye Fan found several lines of delicate small characters, carved into the purple-copper wall beside the skull. Like the skull, they were suffused with Dao resonance — for they had come from the hand of a saint.

“Primordial divine script!” Ye Fan was astonished. This ancient writing was said to have been the common language of all the ten thousand tribes before the primordial age — even the human race had once used it.

He examined it carefully. He had once had two members of an ancient tribe translate the True Sutra of the Sun, and had learned some of the ancient characters in the process — enough to make out a portion.

After reading it through, he grasped the general meaning. His heart trembled beyond measure. Among the words, there was a mention of a person — Wushi.

“So it is that even in later ages, some of the human race still used the divine script.”

In the boundless cosmos, in the eternal vastness, in the endless darkness — a female saint had once astonished the world in her time. She had encountered a supreme being named Wushi, and had admired him in her heart.

But Wushi the Great Emperor had appeared briefly as a fleeting dream — he walked with her for a time, imparted a section of cultivation teaching, and then disappeared. It was said he had returned to his homeland.

When Ye Fan reached this part, the magnitude of his astonishment could only be imagined. In this desolate cosmos there were indeed other cradles of life — Ancient China and the Northern Dipper star domain were not the only ones.

Wushi the Great Emperor had visited other ancient stars, and had shared a passage of experience with a woman there. This struck Ye Fan profoundly. If the Black Sovereign ever learned of this, it would most certainly let out a howl toward the sky.

The female saint had entered the boundless star domains seeking an opportunity to achieve the Dao — and also hoping to encounter Wushi one more time. But in the vast universe, she did not know which way to go.

In her understanding, the entire cosmos held only a handful of cradles of life. She did her utmost to seek them, but in the end, it was hopeless.

As her cultivation reached its absolute peak, she could advance no further — she could not achieve the Dao. In the end she sat in stillness and passed away amid the star-sea — dying alone in old age.

“A remarkable woman who admired Wushi — and died like this in the star-sea.”

“Wushi the Great Emperor passed away within Purple Mountain. He would never have known that a woman once pursued him this way. Otherwise, with his peerless divine power, perhaps he could have aided the female saint in achieving the Dao.”

“Did Wushi the Great Emperor truly die within the Ancient Emperor Mountain?”

Every time he thought of Wushi, he thought of the sound of the bell within Purple Mountain — driving back four or five weapons of the extreme Dao. It was beyond comprehension.

“How many cradles of life exist within this boundless cosmos?” Ye Fan read on carefully — and then shook again. In the final lines, the female saint made mention of the Ancient Star-Road. It was a pity that when she had discovered it, her life was nearly spent. She could not pursue it.

The female saint had discovered the ancient vessel only just before her passing, but had not been able to explore it before dissolving into the Dao. She had been merely a latecomer.

The skull was a priceless divine object. Ye Fan had no wish to desecrate it. If he ever truly returned to the Northern Dipper star domain someday, he might consider bringing it to Purple Mountain.

Suddenly, as his hand drew near the crystalline skull, he felt an extreme cold — bone-piercing and bone-cracking. Even his physique, powerful as it was, found it difficult to endure.

DING!

In the instant he lifted the skull, a jade pendant fell from within — no more than an inch long, shaped like a crescent moon, translucent and lustrous. One glance made it clear it had been something the female saint treasured dearly.

The bone-piercing cold was emanating from it. It could freeze a person’s very soul solid. Had it been anyone other than Ye Fan, an ordinary cultivator would most likely have already become an ice sculpture.

“The Supreme Yin Sacred Force!”

Ye Fan’s eyes shot out two beams of divine light. He endured the extreme cold and cradled the jade pendant in his palm, observing it carefully. Only by cultivating the True Sutra of the Supreme Yin could one refine such a sacred force.

“A mere jade pendant — how can it radiate the Supreme Yin Sacred Force?”

He extended his divine sense, attempting to enter the jade pendant — but was immediately met with a sensation like needles stabbing inward, his head erupting in agony. The Supreme Yin Sacred Force within the ancient jade was even more terrifying!

“Could the cultivation teaching Wushi the Great Emperor once imparted to her be sealed within the jade pendant?” A bold conjecture formed in his mind.

In the end, Ye Fan stored both the skull and the jade pendant and continued onward. The ancient hold was vast beyond measure, with many more areas still waiting to be explored.

Along the way, he encountered piece after piece of twisted and broken metal — beyond all doubt, in some age no one could any longer count, each had been a divine weapon of immense worth.

The battle of those days had been fierce. Destruction was visible throughout the ancient hold — not a single full skeleton remained, only bone dust, the devastation reaching far and wide.

“Not from the human race…”

Within the bone dust, Ye Fan also found some fractured scale fragments — and a few divine feathers, buried among the bones. Whoever they had been were members of extraordinarily powerful non-human tribes.

Not long after, he arrived at a grand and imposing divine hall, his eyes trembling. At last, he saw a human-shaped pile of bone dust — and one segment of finger bone had been preserved intact, not yet dissolved.

“Tens of thousands of years at minimum — perhaps even longer — and still one segment of finger bone remains. The strength of this person’s living body defies all imagination.”

Abruptly, Ye Fan was startled. Beneath the bone dust, there was writing — still in the divine script. He crouched down and examined it closely. Again he saw the words “Ancient Star-Road.”

“I have found the Ancient Star-Road, leading toward…” The writing stopped here, cut short suddenly. The person seemed to have died of exhaustion before finishing.

“What a pity.” Ye Fan let out a soft sigh.

Not long after, he at last approached the ship’s central region. When he pushed open a purple-copper door, he came into contact with a sealed and mysterious inner sanctum.

What met his eyes was a blinding expanse of brilliance. Row upon row, like sarcophagi arranged in lines — there were fully several dozen enormous blocks of Divine Source!

“Heavens — so many!”

Even Ye Fan, experienced and well-traveled as he was, could not suppress a cry of astonishment. More than forty massive blocks of Divine Source — each two or three square meters in size — and within each one, an ancient living creature was sealed.

He was truly struck speechless. Not even the Ten Thousand Dragon Nest came close to this number. What kind of force could have gathered so many in one place? If all of them were primordial kings, they would be enough to shake the ancient and modern ages alike — enough to make one’s blood run cold!

“Something is wrong!”

Ye Fan quickly noticed an abnormality. So many Divine Source blocks gathered in a single hold — and yet not a trace of divine power emanated from any of them, not a single blinding ray of light. On the contrary, all of them were somewhat dim.

“These are… Divine Sources whose essence has been entirely exhausted. Only the empty shells remain!”

This was even more frightening. Their Divine Sources had been drained — what kind of catastrophe had the ancient creatures within experienced? How many years had they drifted through the cosmos?

“Were they all primordial kings? Are they all dead? Their flesh, their bones, the weapons they carried in life — all would be priceless divine objects!”