In the ancient Northern Dipper Star Domain, amid a great wilderness, a powerfully built man two or three heads taller than an ordinary person — covered in blood, hair loose and disheveled — was running with a strange and eerie movement technique.
Behind him, a hazy silhouette flickered like a deity — vanishing one moment, appearing abruptly the next — pursuing him with murderous intent.
“Nine Demon Emperor Slashes — Dissolve into the Dao!” The powerfully built man ahead bellowed, twin dragon-shaped pillars of light shooting from both eyes, slashing toward that hazy, godlike figure.
“The divine arts left behind by the Verdant Emperor are indeed supreme above all in this world. Though you may be comparable to a Sacred Lord, what a pity that you’ve encountered me — you fall just short in the end.” The man behind raised one finger, and a vast flood of divine radiance instantly overwhelmed the entire wilderness.
“I’ve survived all these years without being killed by any of you — I refuse to believe I’ll fall here today!” Pang Bo roared. He was a man of thick brows and large eyes, powerfully built. Now covered in blood, he unleashed all nine slashes of the Nine Demon Emperor technique, instantly ripping through the wilderness as he and that man clashed in a great battle.
In the Northern Region, amid a stretch of primeval mountain ranges, not a blade of grass grew — the earth scorched and barren for ten thousand li. The monkey’s fiery golden eyes blazed, twin beams of light shooting up to pierce the heavens, his body covered in gash after gash.
The jet-black golden staff in his hand was stained with blood — patch after patch of it, both from enemies and from himself — while behind him, the savage man’s body was riddled with wounds, dragging his wolf-fang club by its tail end, carrying on his back the half-ruined, constantly coughing-blood Li Heishui, whose entire side had nearly rotted away.
“Sacred Emperor’s Son, do not be led astray.” On the other side, a man laughed coldly.
“Coming at me — very good, very good indeed. I want to see just how capable you all are. I am going to kill every last one of you!” The monkey was seething with rage, many wounds across his body, his golden fur soaked in blood.
“Sacred Emperor’s Son, you should know — a Celestial Emperor Divine Son of even more illustrious status and greater nobility than yourself is now rising like the sun at its zenith. If you make this choice, the situation will be unfavorable for you.” The pursuer spoke with cold cruelty.
“Oh, so the descendants of the Undying Celestial Emperor are making their move as well?!” A sharp gleam flickered in the monkey’s eyes.
The man ahead wore a cold, indifferent smile and said nothing. His eyes held a deep, weathered quality, as though they contained the shifting of ages, the collapse of mountains and rivers — the air of a supreme expert in full flow.
“Had I known it would come to this, back when little Ye cracked that stone at the Jade Pool, I should have smashed that egg to pieces rather than giving it to the Primordial King — this ungrateful wretch!” The dying Li Heishui struggled to speak.
“You desecrate the Celestial Emperor Divine Son of the Primordial Clan — be careful someone hears and seals you in purgatory for eternity.” The several pursuers laughed coldly.
“Seal your mother — I’m going to die anyway. If you have the guts, seal me and let me live for ten thousand years suffering purgatory’s torments — I’d accept that.” Li Heishui shouted.
“That is true enough. Having been struck by the killing technique created by an Ancient Great Emperor, even that Sacred Physique Ye Fan would die if he returned. What a pity that he can no longer appear in this world — it’s truly a regret that we cannot kill him ourselves.”
Hum!
The jet-black golden staff crushed the void into collapse, and the monkey’s body blazed with golden fur shooting out ten thousand zhang of divine radiance as he bellowed: “Spare me the nonsense — if your strength isn’t up to it, I’ll smash every last one of you to death today!”
In the Southern Region of the Eastern Wasteland, atop a soaring jade terrace belonging to the Ji Family, pure moonlight cascaded down. A young woman in purple robes gazed up at the starry sky, lost in a daze.
Before long, a man with traces of blood all over him, a halo of light wreathing his head, came walking step by step up onto the jade terrace, utterly weary, his body bearing many terrible wounds.
“I arrived too late — I only found traces of blood and bone. I fought a great battle against certain people. I hope they are unharmed.”
“Could it be that, just like that dog, he fell in battle and vanished from this world? Where has Xiao Nannan been all these years?” The young woman was wrapped in the cool, clear moonlight — pure and otherworldly, like a divine maiden from within the Guanghan Palace — and she was none other than Ji Ziyue.
“I truly hope that dog hasn’t died. With its boundless divine formations, things would be much easier for them.” Ji Haoyue let out a long sigh.
Brilliant starlight, infinitely distant. Ji Ziyue gazed up at the starry sky, her gaze fixed on the far end. “Time flows like water — in the blink of an eye, twelve years have passed.”
Far away in the Ziwei Star Domain, Ye Fan was also gazing at the stars, trying to distinguish where the Earth was, where the Northern Dipper lay — for standing on a different ancient star, the heavens one saw were not the same.
On this quiet night, many thoughts came to him: longing for family in his homeland, and an even deeper nostalgia for everything he had experienced in the Northern Dipper Star Domain.
He still remembered the moment of farewell — Ji Ziyue smiling through her tears, her words seemingly still echoing at his ear: “At night, I will gaze up at the starry sky, looking toward the other side, sending you my blessings. I know you are there at that end.”
“If you ever think of me, you can look up at the sky overhead. I am here on this side… looking across the distance.” At the time, the young woman’s smile had been radiant, yet there were clearly tears shimmering in her eyes.
Then, as thoughts of those old companions surfaced, a tremor moved through his heart.
Those who needed to be killed had mostly been killed. The elderly Yin-Yang sect master was dead; Wang Teng had also been slain by him. They should have no more enemies — yet Ye Fan felt a vague unease.
Pang Bo was the successor of the Verdant Emperor and had the protection of the demon clan. Li Heishui and the others were the descendants of the Thirteen Great Outlaws — which one of them wasn’t under the care of someone formidable?
Why is it that whenever I gaze up at the Northern Dipper Star Domain and think of them, I feel this unease?
Ye Fan stood upon the mountain peak, bathed in moonlight, his entire body glowing. He gazed up at the Northern Dipper Star Domain, racking his mind over what changes might have occurred.
“Twelve years — I want to return to the Northern Dipper. I want to go see them. I must leave the ancient Ziwei Star Domain.”
Yet crossing star domains — how could that be easy? Even the ancient sages of old had great difficulty doing so!
Pang Bo, Li Heishui, the Great Black Dog, Xiao Nannan, Ji Ziyue — one vivid face after another surfaced before his eyes. Would he see any of them again in this lifetime?
On that deep night, Ye Fan sat cross-legged beneath a green pine tree, a silver moon disk overhead, and fell into a nightmare: the Great Black Dog had fallen in battle; Wu Zhongtian had been killed; Liu Kou had been crushed under a seal until there was nothing left but pulp; Pang Bo, drenched in blood, laughed bitterly at him; the monkey was locked in a savage, bloodsoaked battle with someone — it was harrowing to behold; and Xiao Nannan had gotten lost and wandered away again.
“No!”
Ye Fan cried out, jolting awake. For someone at his level, such a dream was almost impossible to produce naturally — and it left a cold sweat across his body.
“Perhaps my premonition is real. They have fallen into great calamity — their circumstances now are extremely dire, hovering between life and death, fighting desperately for survival in a sea of blood. I must go back. I must go back!” He sprang to his feet.
Not far away, little Tong Tong was murmuring in her sleep, lying on a bed of pine needles, sleeping deeply and sweetly — the moonlight casting a crystalline glow over her small face.
When the first rays of dawn came shooting through the horizon, Ye Fan rose tall, facing the rising sun, his gaze clear and resolute. From this day forward, he would spare no effort to find his way home.
He placed little Tong Tong upon his shoulder, took to the skies, and began to visit ancient ruins and seek a path of return. Every region with legends of the five-colored altar had traces of his passing.
Over these days, Lu Ya had gone mad — scouring the entire world in search of Ye Fan, turning Shenzhou in the east nearly inside out, and not a single person dared invite trouble upon themselves.
“Damn it — he is the most terrifying genius the Golden Crow Clan has ever produced, and he’s wielding the Crow-Wing Gilt Trident, a sacred weapon of a sage. Who would dare provoke him!”
Countless cultivators trembled and stepped back out of his way — Shenzhou fell into great chaos, with multitudes of cultivators flooding in, all hoping to witness an earth-shaking battle.
Lu Ya far surpassed the Golden Crow Clan’s junior leader Chi Yang, and was incomparably beyond the other nine among the ten princes — this was everyone’s consensus. Otherwise, the Golden Crow King would not have entrusted him with the sacred weapon. One could imagine how dearly he was prized.
Yet Ye Fan paid absolutely no attention to any of this. He was now focused on finding a way to leave, and viewed everything else with great indifference. So long as no one came to kill him before his face, he would not seek out a blood battle.
Half a month later, Ye Fan was bitterly disappointed. Every ancient ruin, every legend — all had come to nothing, swallowed up long ago by the river of time.
The only thing he had gained was picking up a few fist-sized five-colored crystal stones from an ancient battlefield in Shenzhou. As for a five-colored altar — he hadn’t seen so much as a shadow of one.
“This won’t do. It seems there’s no way to return along this path. I must think of another method.”
Suddenly, Ye Fan thought of Laozi and the Buddha. These two ancient figures had also visited this ancient star. Though any trace of their movements was long beyond verification, the ancient path they had walked might perhaps still leave some thread to follow.
The Palace of Eight Sceneries!
A divine light flashed in Ye Fan’s eyes. He had a goal in mind. Perhaps the Palace of Eight Sceneries of the Supreme Clarity Holy Land held an ancient route left behind by Laozi.
However, to seek a path from there would very likely mean fighting until the earth cracked and the seas overflowed with flooding waters. Because that was the site of Yin Tiande’s closed retreat — and his deification by the world was testament enough to how powerful and terrifying he was.
“I need to understand more first.” Ye Fan did not act rashly. Faced with such a figure, not a single person in the world today would dare claim they could suppress him.
Yin Tiande’s prestige was so overwhelming that every cultivator trembled before it, pressing down over the entire mainland. He had once engaged the Golden Crow King in a discourse on the Dao — that alone conveyed just how unfathomably deep he was.
In the early morning, mist wound through the forest, and even the sun was a soft, gentle red — not harsh to the eyes at all. Upon the blades of grass and trailing vines, dewdrops rolled and trembled, like diamonds and pearls — translucent and gleaming, wave after wave of fresh, clean fragrance drifting from the plants and trees.
Ye Fan arrived at the ancient cultivation grounds of the Path of Human Desire, seeking out Li Tian and Yan Yixi, hoping to learn more from them.
“Damn it, that bastard surnamed Ye has come.” Li Tian cursed under his breath, standing before an ancient cave dwelling and looking down at the figure below.
Nearby, from another cloud-wreathed and rosy-misted mountain peak, Yan Yixi emerged from his cave dwelling — clad in a moon-white long robe, strikingly handsome, possessed of a quality that could only be called divine bones and jade bearing. His captivating smile was the kind that would make young women scream.
“Brother Ye, congratulations on your return.”
“Hey, you surnamed Ye — what exactly did you do to Yi Qingwu four years ago?” Li Tian tilted his head, his face full of dissatisfaction.
“Brothers, I hope you’ve both been well…” Ye Fan said with a smile.
“What would be wrong with me? My senior brother remains as dashingly elegant as ever, passing his days surrounded by beauties beneath the flowers and the moon. And I, as ever, am cursed by people all over the world as a lecher — chased and beaten everywhere like a rat crossing the street. Of course, now that the Divine Maiden Furnace has been exposed, my senior brother doesn’t have many young ladies left to deceive.” Li Tian was actually quite handsome in his own right, though his face always bore a roguish air — one look made it plain he was no upright person.
Ye Fan stated his purpose: he wanted to learn about the Palace of Eight Sceneries, to know everything about the Supreme Clarity Holy Land, and he spoke frankly to the two brothers, telling them he wished to cross the star domain.
“You bastard surnamed Ye — oh no, I mean, Brother Ye, great benefactor Ye — you’ve truly raised an excellent idea, and I am wholeheartedly in support of it. I have truly longed for the Northern Dipper Star Domain — my heart surges, my heart pounds.” Li Tian heard his idea, and his eyes immediately lit up. “So many different races, and the chance to court ancient-era women. If I went there I’d be smiling in my sleep. Of course, I would completely turn over a new leaf — or at least completely change my outward face — and from then on be no longer a lecher, but a dashing gentleman of culture like my senior brother, a man of irresistible charm who captivates everyone, free-ranging among the ten thousand ancient races.”