Above the Northern Sea, countless figures filled the sky, densely packed everywhere. Hovering high in the air were sect masters from the mainland and ancient demons from the depths of the sea, all of them gazing into the distance.
Ahead, a curtain of black waves surged skyward in defiance of the heavens, scattering the clouds and washing the azure expanse clean. Two men stood in cold, silent opposition.
The tides surged and crashed, wave upon thunderous wave. Ye Fan and the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King stood several hundred zhang apart. Between them, an invisible killing field detonated with a tremendous boom, carving out an abyss ten thousand zhang deep. Infinite seawater was hurled into the sky, exposing the seafloor below.
This was the true measure of the era’s greatest talents. Neither had yet made a move, yet the invisible killing ground born of their mere opposition was something ordinary people could not survive. To stand between them meant certain death.
Among the younger generation of the Northern Sea, the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King was unrivaled—he had roamed the world without a single defeat—and naturally possessed the capital to look down upon his entire era.
“The sole remaining descendant of the Human Sage Emperor?” He fixed his gaze on the child sitting atop Ye Fan’s shoulder, an eerie light flickering in his eyes. “I’ll be taking this servant.”
The five-year-old child was well-behaved. Sensing that a great battle was imminent, she uttered not a word, only wrinkling her little nose as she glared at the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King with wide, bright black eyes.
“Making the last bloodline of the Human Sage Emperor your servant…” Ye Fan advanced step by step, his body enveloped in golden holy radiance. He was like an ancient war god transcending time and space, striding forth from ages long past.
“Indeed—he resembles the legendary Human Emperor greatly. What better position for him than to serve as my attendant?” The Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King clasped his hands behind his back and spoke those words with absolute calm.
“What do you think you are? Even if the great emperors of antiquity were reborn, even if immortals descended to walk the earth—I would still cut you down!” Ye Fan struck.
The Mountain-Cradling Seal!
He stood motionless in the void, arms cradling the shape of a mountain. A colossal black peak descended from the heavens, instantly causing the sky to collapse and the seas to roar. The sun and moon lost their light as the world crumbled into ruin.
“Rise!”
The Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King let out a sharp shout. Nine azure dragons surged up from behind him, ascending into the sky and coiling themselves around the black great peak. Their bodies sank deep into the very rock of the mountain.
Boom!
The black mountain shattered. The nine azure dragons burst free—powerful and vigorous, every one of them covered in dense scales that gleamed as though cast from azure gold. They lunged toward Ye Fan, boundlessly ferocious.
Whoosh!
Ye Fan stood as steady as a boulder. Facing the nine azure dragons, he extended a great golden hand that instantly spread to blot out the sky and came crashing down.
The Mountain-Cradling Seal was unceasing!
His five fingers became five great golden mountains, pressing down in suppression. They collided with the nine true dragons. Azure light and golden light erupted, sending out waves that could overturn mountains and seas.
“Dragons Warring Across the Wilderness!”
The Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King let out a great roar. The nine true dragons above him spiraled through the air, releasing roars like thunderous, crashing waves that shattered heaven and earth.
Vast mountain ranges without end materialized—a boundless primordial wilderness—with the nine dragons soaring across it, as though they had arrived on the ancient land of remote antiquity. They dove downward, mounting an assault on the five great golden peaks.
This was a collision like a comet striking the earth!
Range upon range of vast mountains appeared—boundless and endless—as the nine dragons circled and clashed against the five great golden mountains. Endless light, infinite divine power, and the destruction of all things.
Crack!
In the end, Ye Fan’s great golden hand shook with force and shattered that entire domain. Everything ceased to exist—the Mountain-Cradling Seal, the true dragons—all of it vanished.
The Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King exhaled a breath in the distance, his expression composed. “You haven’t disappointed me.”
Ye Fan said nothing. His expression was grave. This was a peerless enemy for the ages—no wonder he had roamed the world without a single defeat and was called the unrivaled rising talent of the Northern Sea.
This was a brilliant era of a generation of stars. Every domain had produced world-shaking prodigies—all of heaven-defying disposition—and the Northern Sea’s Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King was no exaggeration of legend.
Ye Fan drew little Tong Tong into the Jade Purity Vase. His entire person became ethereal, as though dissolving into the heaven and earth and nature around him, merging as one with the ocean and the void.
He advanced step by step. His own aura disappeared, synchronized with the pulse of the world. He swung the power of the Great Dao and drove it forward.
Union of Heaven and Man!
In the distance, many onlookers showed expressions of astonishment. One who could harmonize with the Dao was the most fearsome kind of existence. Approaching the very source of the Dao, such a person would at times unleash inconceivable power.
“Do you think that reaching this level is enough to kill me?” A cold smile played at the corner of the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King’s mouth. He leaped like a dragon, and behind him, twenty-four heavenly realms suddenly appeared!
In the distant sky, the crowd drew sharp breaths. What magnitude of divine power would it take to conjure such a spectacle? The ambition of the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King was immense—he sought to manifest the Twenty-Four Heavens by his power alone.
Though still hazy and merely in embryonic form, this was absolutely an act of staggering audacity. Who would dare attempt such a manifestation? Who would dare to do this?
The Twenty-Four Heavens—like twenty-four great gates opening onto realms beyond—were flung open in that single moment. They poured forth the infinite power of countless worlds. Ten thousand auspicious clouds and a hundred million streams of radiant light converged together, pressing down to suppress Ye Fan.
Ye Fan was fused with the sky, tempered into one body with the sea, pulsing in rhythm with all things. He was swinging the power of the Dao, bearing a divine radiance of undying, immortal nature.
Boom after boom of explosions rang out across the Northern Sea. Ye Fan, wielding the power of the Great Dao, forcefully collided with the Twenty-Four Heavens, producing sounds like the crumbling of mountains and the roaring of seas.
Endless light and boundless sound permeated every inch of space—like great stars shattering, one after another, exploding and scattering across the vast ocean.
Ye Fan withdrew from the Dao state. No longer synchronized with heaven, earth, and all things, he manifested in the void in his true form, standing upon the black sea.
The Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King appeared high in the sky. The Twenty-Four Heavens floated behind him. He was like a divine sovereign at the center of all heavens and realms, looking down upon all living beings—supreme and solitary.
“The last bloodline of the Human Sage Emperor as a servant is not enough. Let me add you as well.” His voice was ice-cold to the bone.
Ye Fan said: “You’re afraid.”
“Me, afraid? I have roamed the world to this day, and I still don’t know how to write that word!”
“Everything you just said was only to infuriate me and find an opening. That means you lack confidence. You’re afraid.” Ye Fan said.
The Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King sneered. “I merely stated a fact. Both you and that Sage Emperor’s descendant shall serve as my attendants.”
“In your heart, you fear defeat. You fear that losing to me will shatter your myth of invincibility. Even if your strength and mine are nearly equal, you have already lost this battle!” Ye Fan said calmly.
Boom!
The great battle erupted once more. It was a fight to the death. In the blink of an eye, more than five hundred exchanges had passed, and the fighting was so fierce that the sun and moon grew dim and the Northern Sea boiled.
Suddenly, at the eight-hundredth exchange, Ye Fan split into four. Above his head, three auspicious clouds burst forth, transforming into three additional true forms.
Every one of them was himself—flesh and blood solid, battle-intent tearing at the sky, divine power vast as a sea. The several of them roared together, shattering distant sea islands, evaporating the seawater below, driving it all skyward in steam and exposing the seafloor ten thousand zhang beneath.
“Ah…”
These several incarnations of Ye Fan were lost in a frenzy of slaughter—each one with wild hair falling across his shoulders and eyes sharp as blades—surrounding the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King, striking with full force and full range, intent on mincing him into a bloody paste.
This was an incomparably wild and domineering scene. Many cultivators in the distant sky were struck by the shockwaves like falling leaves, and numerous people were hurled out of the air.
“What? That is the supreme and peerless technique of the master of the Eight Scenery Palace—an unshared divine art. How does he possess it?”
“Transforming one into Three Pure Ones—that is the wondrous technique for slaying divine spirits. How has it appeared in his hands?!”
The crowd was stunned. Not one of them could make sense of it. Every face was written with an expression of shock.
The Divine Son of Extreme Yin immediately changed color. “How can he—that is the divine technique of my sworn elder brother, Yin Tiande. No one in the world can imitate it, and it was never passed on!”
On the battlefield, the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King was genuinely startled. A chill rose in his heart. The legend of this supreme and peerless secret technique was widely known throughout the world—awe-inspiring beyond measure.
According to the legends, the transformation into Three Pure Ones did not produce mere shadow-clones. A single person could manifest three versions of himself, and each one was a true form possessing divine power identical to the original self.
The Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King felt a cold dread in his heart. One Ye Fan was already terrifying enough. And now four had appeared at once—how could he possibly fight this?
He did not dare to fight to the death. He broke left and right, trying to burst out of the battlefield, intending to wait for the effects of the Three Pure Ones transformation to expire before returning to slaughter his opponent.
Had Ye Fan truly mastered the transformation into Three Pure Ones? The answer was naturally no.
He had witnessed Yin Tianzhi perform it before, and what he employed now was only the Combat Secret to simulate its outward form. He could only grant one “true form” with truly terrifying divine power, but only for a few breaths. Another “true form” was inhabited by his divine soul, which could also release terrifying divine sense combat power. The third was only a shell bearing the outward appearance, nothing more.
In the battlefield, his primary body stood at the center—boundlessly domineering—releasing the ultimate limit of his combat power, its spectacle truly intimidating, its roar shattering several islands in the sea.
Fear took root in the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King’s heart. His will to fight collapsed. A massive opening was exposed. Ye Fan’s several true forms charged skyward and delivered a ferocious strike.
The Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King divided his full combat power into four parts, attacking all of the Ye Fans simultaneously, trying to break through and escape.
But in that moment, Ye Fan, heedless of anything else, channeled only the power of his primary body and unleashed the Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist—advancing without retreat, pressing down and covering everything.
This single strike summoned six ancient universes. The stars shifted and the heavens turned. Heaven and earth were suppressed. The Twenty-Four Heavens were blotted out. Everything vanished.
In that instant, people could only feel a single fist intent—ancient and weathered, yet unyielding and undying:
Shattering All Heavens!
In that moment, time seemed to freeze. In all of heaven and earth, there was only this one fist!
It was as though it could cleave through the vast primordial past, annihilate everything in the present age, and surge toward the endless future—irresistible!
One fist released—and heaven and earth fell silent together!
“Ah…”
The Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King let out a great cry. First, both his hands disintegrated inch by inch into dust. Then his arms, then his skull and torso—completely obliterated.
He had met the Six Paths of Reincarnation Fist with only one-quarter of his combat power. How could he possibly withstand it?
All that remained in the air was a mist of blood. Everyone stood frozen. One fist—and mountains and rivers crumbled. The fist intent was too terrifying.
Was the Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King dead? That was the question on everyone’s mind.
The Northern Sea’s unrivaled rising talent—who had never lost in his entire life—had he been permanently erased from the world on his very first defeat? This outcome was too brutal.
“You killed me—you actually killed me!”
A voice like rolling thunder echoed through the sky. A thousand li of open sky shook violently, as though an endless tribulation of lightning had descended.
The Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King!
Everyone was jolted with shock. He had been reduced to dust in the void—and yet he had not died? What magnitude of divine power would it take to accomplish that?
In the sky, a colossal azure flood dragon materialized. It was truly enormous—blotting out the sky and blocking the sun, towering like a mountain range. It actually had nine heads. Each one was like a great and majestic peak—though one of them had been shattered, a mess of bloody flesh, its blood flowing down and falling into the sea, staining the surface red.
“The Nine-Headed Flood Dragon King—born with nine heads, possessing nine lives. It seems the legends were true.” Among the crowd, the Venerable Black Tortoise murmured to himself.
“You have taken one of my lives! A hundred deaths would not atone for this sin. I will use your sacred blood to wash away this humiliation!” The colossal flood dragon king filling the sky roared. Eight enormous heads pressed across the heavens, casting vast shadows across the sea below.
“So what if you still have eight lives? Within eight moves, I will kill you like slaughtering a dog!” Ye Fan’s voice was not loud, yet it resounded throughout heaven and earth, making every single person tremble—a wave of dread, as though they had heard the oath of a god or demon.