I am the Heavenly Emperor. I shall crush every enemy beneath heaven!
Even with Meng Chuan's unexpected arrival, even though the Shrouding the Heavens World had changed beyond recognition since the end of Desolate Antiquity...
After experiencing the Illusory Universe Light Fragment, inheriting the Heavenly Emperor's Position, and everything else that followed, Ye Fan had still forged a similar conviction and will.
Unbreakable. Peerless.
He did not merely call himself the Heavenly Emperor. He was the Heavenly Emperor.
A title, a position—and yet they had become a person.
Of course, that did not mean Ye Fan alone was the Heavenly Emperor, or that Shi Hao, the Desolate Heaven Emperor, and Meng Chuan, the former Heavenly Emperor, were somehow impostors.
When Meng Chuan and Shi Hao held the Heavenly Emperor's Position, both had willingly fulfilled its duties. Their deeds were celebrated throughout the world—not unparalleled, perhaps, but not too shabby either.
They might not have been the most perfect Heavenly Emperors, but no one could argue they had not been worthy of the title.
It was simply that, for them, "Heavenly Emperor" was neither everything nor the path they walked.
Meng Chuan could relinquish the Heavenly Emperor's Position and become a Dao Ancestor, a role better suited to him. Shi Hao could relinquish it too and live unfettered.
Ye Fan could certainly give up the Heavenly Emperor's Position as well. One day, he might even pass it to the Great Accomplishment Sacred Body, or to his own son or daughter.
But for Ye Fan, the Heavenly Emperor was no longer merely an exalted position.
Even without holding that position, he remained the [Heavenly Emperor].
Meng Chuan had [Transcendence], and Shi Hao had [Freedom]. For those two, Heavenly Emperor was an identity and a responsibility, but it was not the near-perfect embodiment