Golden blood energy surged and billowed, yet Ye Fan stood immovable as a mountain. With only two punches, he had struck down two powerful cultivators from the Western Order, sending chills crawling down everyone’s spines.
Gray mist rolled in like a tide, blanketing everything in sight. An elderly Western cultivator appeared—his face deeply lined, his eyes the color of leaden ash, withered and ancient as though he had stepped out of the underworld itself.
He was the leader of this group of enforcers, his power daunting and terrifying.
The martial arena was completely swallowed by the gray fog. Like a demon god, he radiated an overwhelming, heaven-shaking presence that left many trembling with dread. Through that suffocating aura, people glimpsed a gaunt, skeletal silhouette with gray hair hanging loose—a sight that chilled the soul.
“Clank!”
The sound of iron chains rang out. Though his body was withered, he possessed the menace of an old lion. In his hand was a long chain of vivid crimson, as though forged in the fires of purgatory, radiating a bone-chilling aura.
“Hell’s Binding!”
This was a forbidden technique. Once its chains ensnared a victim, the blood-red iron would cling like a festering poison, draining all vitality, stripping away cultivation. There had been a time when it was regarded as a great evil art—something that violated the natural order—and it was despised by all.
This was a cultivator at the seventh tier of the Dragon Transformation realm, a man of considerable standing in the Western world. Capable of fighting several minor cultivation levels above his own, he felt no fear. The crimson chain shrieked as it shot forward like a red serpent.
“This is my Lord’s final judgment upon you!”
He stood with his hair loose, his eyes the gray of dead ash, his voice cold and merciless, solemn and resolute as he made his pronouncement.
The red chain dripped with blood, growing ever more terrifying by the moment. People could hear sounds like wailing ghosts and howling spirits—as though the gates of purgatory had been thrown open.
In that instant, cold winds screamed, and surging waves crashed skyward. Countless corpses seemed to materialize out of thin air—headless gods, demons, angels—all converging to shroud this place in shadow.
“Awoooo…!”
The scene was terrifying. Thunderous roars accompanied the grinding sound of stone doors being pushed aside, as though the God of Death himself were striding out from the halls of the dead, coming to claim Ye Fan’s life.
A horrifying aura swept through every corner in an instant—ice that could freeze a thousand miles of land, the deathly chill of the Yama Palace descending upon the mortal realm. Its annihilating presence set countless people trembling.
The chain came surging toward him, about to coil around Ye Fan’s body.
He stood perfectly still. Only when the blood-dripping chain nearly reached him—when it was about to pierce his heart—did he finally extend his powerful hand and seize the thick chain.
“Crack!”
He yanked it with force, then gave it a sharp snap. The Western Order’s enforcer immediately coughed up great mouthfuls of blood. The chain went taut—then shattered into pieces.
Like a cluster of bloody fragments falling, the chain broke into dozens of segments, effortlessly torn apart, with the final segment snapping taut as a spear shaft.
“Pfft!”
That segment of blood-red chain, sharper than any spear tip, drove straight through the man’s skull, burst through in a spray of fresh blood and white brain matter, and left behind only a corpse that toppled backward onto the ground.
Far too casual—yet for precisely that reason, all the more devastating. A leader of Western enforcers had been killed just like that, without the slightest drama.
“Who are you?!” The remaining men stumbled backward, horror written across their faces, unable to believe what they had just witnessed.
Ye Fan said nothing. He fixed them with a stare like a man looking at corpses already, his body not moving a single inch.
In his palm, an ancient rune was flickering, weaving together a tapestry of Dao markings. This caused the eyes of the remaining men to grow increasingly hollow as they stared at it fixedly.
This was, at its core, a manifestation of cultivation—at Ye Fan’s level, when technique was employed the Dao moved of its own accord, weaving together the profound principles of heaven and earth into visible symbols.
Yet the men mistook these for a Daoist talisman, believing that Ye Fan had used a supremely powerful treasure to destroy the blood-red chain and kill the enforcer leader.
The others, with the exception of the wandering Daoist Riqi and Kunlun’s Sect Master Xuehen, along with a few others, were equally unable to see through it—all of them shaken to the core.
“Invoke the Thunder Wrath! Deliver judgment upon him!” An elder whose skin was so wrinkled as to be nearly unrecognizable roared aloud.
A larger scroll materialized in the void, and everyone immediately sensed an intensely Yang aura radiating from it.
“What incredible fluctuations!”
All present instinctively stepped back. This was clearly an even more terrifying forbidden weapon.
A man with gray feathered wings on his back—impossibly ancient, his eyes like black holes—rapidly unrolled the forbidden weapon and pressed it forward, seeking to destroy Ye Fan.
Once the ancient scroll was fully unfurled, ten thousand rays of light poured forth—each one a layer upon layer of Dao markings, weaving together into a blinding storm of lightning, forming a sea of thunder that came crashing down.
This was a sight that shook heaven and earth—Heavenly Tribulation descending upon the world!
Someone of immense power had etched it into Dao markings and sealed it within the scroll. Controlled by several Fallen Angels, it served to pass judgment upon supreme cultivators, and its might was boundless.
Rolling lightning surged like a heavenly court descended, shattering all that stood before it. Wave upon wave of violet light inundated the peak of Maoshan’s main summit, enveloping Ye Fan from above.
Every cultivator feared heavenly lightning—this was something tied to the celestial tribulation itself, heaven’s most direct instrument for obliterating the mortal world. It swept away everything like deadwood, and nearly nothing could withstand it.
Yet within that vast sea of lightning, Ye Fan was utterly calm. He tilted his head back toward the sky, drew a slow, deep breath—as though savoring the fragrance of flowers and grass—his composure born from somewhere deep within him.
He spread open one golden palm, and slowly, deliberately, pressed it skyward. Everyone in the distance tensed to the breaking point, stumbling back more than two li.
“Boom!”
Ten thousand bolts of lightning descended—yet Ye Fan did not move a hair. Only in his palm did a symbol appear, drawing every arc of lightning toward it, like a vast sea receiving all rivers.
“Too weak. Not even close to a true Heavenly Tribulation,” he murmured quietly to himself. Only the nearest Western cultivators heard those words—and they nearly had their souls frightened out of their bodies.
“Boom!”
Every arc of lightning vanished. All of it had been absorbed into the symbol in Ye Fan’s palm, turning all who witnessed it to stone. They stood completely stupefied.
“What kind of talisman is that? Could it be the legendary supreme lightning talisman treasure?”
“It must be a divine talisman—surely something left behind by a great sage of antiquity!”
Everyone stood wide-eyed and slack-jawed, frozen as clay figures, and it was a long time before they managed to murmur these words among themselves.
“You…who exactly are you?” Several of the Fallen Angels with gray feathered wings had voices that trembled as they spoke.
“A wandering cultivator—Ye Fan,” he replied with tranquil calm, undisturbed as still water. He had not immediately struck them down because he was studying the scroll, probing their foundations, observing what special strengths the Western Order possessed.
The several Western Order enforcers had all gone pale. The power this man had displayed was clearly at the peak of the Dragon Transformation realm, and as for that Daoist divine talisman—it was even more terrifying, utterly beyond their ability to counter.
“Boom!”
Without another word exchanged between them, the enforcers glanced at each other and then, with unanimous decisiveness, struck out simultaneously. Each one produced a scroll, chanting ancient incantations—every one of them a forbidden weapon.
They hurled the scrolls forward with force, then turned and fled, attempting to escape the area. The man before them was absolutely not someone they could provoke—there was no possible way to kill him.
“You came to pass final judgment upon me, and yet there’s been no verdict. Why don’t you stay and hear my judgment upon you.”
Ye Fan made his move. The symbol in his palm blazed with light, and a brilliant burst of lightning shot forward.
All four ancient scrolls crumbled to pieces, dissolving into crystalline fragments of paper that drifted down through the sky—the Dao markings on each one destroyed, the power sealed within them completely erased.
“What?!”
The four Fallen Angels were horror-struck. These scrolls had not been able to hold for even a moment. Their hearts plunged to the depths of terror. This was absolutely not someone at the Dragon Transformation realm—they had underestimated him catastrophically!
Ye Fan shifted his palm into a pointing finger and pressed forward. His golden finger descended like a pillar of gold crashing down from the heavens, crushing everything solid beneath it.
Ten-plus meters long, that golden finger struck each of the four ancient Fallen Angels in turn, reducing them to mists of blood that burst apart in the air, leaving nothing behind.
Ye Fan reached out with a sweeping gesture, seizing one of the men’s sea-of-consciousness imprints to glean whatever information he needed, and then scattered the mist of blood.
Those present stood completely thunderstruck. This was like something out of legend. Just who was this person? He had annihilated several powerful Western Order enforcers with a casual wave of his hand—as though crushing ants underfoot!
This was simply a divine being, a true grandmaster of supernatural power in every sense of the word. No sect leader here could have contended with him—this was a being unrivaled in the present age.
“He looks so young, his blood energy as vigorous as the sea—he should not have reached this level yet. How can he be this powerful?” This was very nearly the universal question and shock shared by all.
“Hmm?”
Ye Fan turned, spotting someone in the crowd wrapped in a long cloak who was attempting to slip away. A cold smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he leveled another finger.
“You’ll regret this! When my Lord arrives in the world, the Crusades will begin—and they will destroy you!”
The last remaining cultivator from the Western Order cried out in furious indignation—yet still he could not escape the crushing, mountain-like weight of that golden finger. With a thunderous boom, he too dissolved into a cloud of blood mist.
“The Crusades—what grand and mighty bluster. Let us see whether my westward journey to achieve sainthood, or your eastern expedition to the Central Lands, proves more effective,” Ye Fan murmured softly to himself.
A ripple of thought moved through him. Through the memory imprints and the forbidden weapon scrolls, he had come to deeply understand that the Western Order held an overwhelming advantage in this age of withered spiritual energy—cultivating through faith power, with certain individuals capable of becoming grandmasters in the present era.
Perhaps there might even be someone capable of standing against him in battle!
Moreover, within one glimpse of the leader’s memories, a vague suspicion had begun to form: it was possible that the Western Order still harbored a small number of ancient figures who had never departed.
He felt no fear. In the Northern Dipper he had faced countless great enemies and still moved freely under heaven, his might shaking the Five Regions. Why would he fear the Western Order in this age of withered spiritual energy?
Xiao Song poked his head out of Ye Fan’s pocket—mischievous and spirited, with jet-black pupils and fur like violet silk. A creature of this appearance simply could not fail to draw attention.
“Traveling with a purple squirrel—that’s him… the grandmaster who manifested in Jiujiang! No wonder he’s this powerful!” Quite a few people cried out in recognition.
Ye Fan became the center of all attention, with gazes converging on him from every direction. Many people revealed expressions of wonder, and among the young female disciples of various sects, eyes began to shimmer with admiring light. A cultivator who had transcended the ordinary to enter the saintly—it was impossible for him not to command reverence across all under heaven.
“The Grand Gathering continues!” the Shangqing Sect’s leader announced.
He then rose together with Daoist Riqi, Kunlun Sect Master Xuehen, the master of the Immortal Sword Sect, the clan chief of the Zhu Huang lineage, and the others, and together they invited Ye Fan into the Palace of Nine Heavens and Ten Thousand Blessings—a sacred palace hall of Maoshan.
Something of this magnitude had just unfolded—with Ye Fan alone casting a light of mystery over the entire grand gathering—how could these people not be moved?
“Dare we ask, fellow Daoist friend…”
Within Maoshan’s ancestral grounds, several sect leaders could not hold back their questions. Though they held him in respectful awe, certain things had to be asked.
Among those present were naturally people Ye Fan knew. The elder crane, the Grand Valley Master of the Valley of Ten Thousand Demons, cautioned him: acting this way could bring serious trouble—the Crusades would be a great catastrophe.
Ye Fan smiled and said, “What era do we live in now? Crusades—that’s unbridled arrogance. Would they really dare dispatch a great army to the Central Lands to hunt me down? If they truly do—however many come, I’ll cut them all down!”
He also raised a question: these Western Order members, no matter how he looked at them, seemed rather like Fallen Angels—they should logically be in opposition to what were called the Holy Crusader Knights.
“They belong to the same Order. The duality of light and dark, the doctrine of heaven and hell—it’s all meant to make the world feel both reverence and fear, to give people hope and despair, so that there is sufficient faith.”
“Is that so. I must say I’m actually looking forward to it now. Let the Holy Knights come. Let the Holy Maidens appear. Let the Crusades begin their eastern march. I’ll be waiting right here for them to come and purify me,” Ye Fan said.
Upon hearing this, Daoist Riqi, Sect Master Xuehen, the Immortal Sword Sect Master, and the others all felt a chill run down their spines. Just what was the background of this man? What exactly was it that he was looking forward to?!