The Ye Clan's Ancestral Grounds floated above the boundless sea of stars.
It was not a star, but a vast continent forged and refined through supreme power, broad enough to hold countless galaxies. Palaces stretched across it in endless succession; every pavilion and tower stood upon foundations of stars, with divine gold for pillars, and shimmered with radiance that had endured through the ages. The innate spiritual qi, a single breath of which could transform an ordinary cultivator, was so dense here that it had condensed into tangible spiritual rain, falling in a soft, ceaseless drizzle that nourished all things.
Today, the Ye Clan's Ancestral Grounds were a thousand times livelier than usual.
It was not because an enemy had invaded—in the Three Thousand Great Worlds, no force possessed either the courage or the standing to attack the heart of the Ye Clan. Rather, today was the thousandth birthday of Ye Chen, the only son of the Ye Clan's current patriarch, Heavenly Emperor Ye, and Immortal Emperor Yaoguang.
A thousand years, in an era when lifespans routinely stretched into the millions, amounted to no more than an insignificant ripple in the long river of life. Yet for the Ye Clan, and for Young Master Chen, upon whom countless affections converged, it carried extraordinary significance.
"The Ten Thousand Buddhas Heavenly Sect presents a flask of water from the Eight Treasures Merit Pool! May Young Master Chen's Dao heart remain clear, and may he soon attain enlightenment!"
The booming announcement pierced the clouds and echoed before the towering Chen Hall. In the plaza before it, galaxies served as carpets, and suns and moons as lamps. Giants from the various great worlds and overlords of entire domains had all reined in their customary majesty, wearing carefully measured smiles that even held a barely perceptible trace of flattery.
The announcement had barely faded before a faint stir swept through the crowd.
"Water from the Eight Treasures Merit Pool? That's one of the Ten Thousand Buddhas Heavenly Sect's supreme treasures! A single drop can cleanse inner demons and reshape one's affinity with the Buddha! They actually sent a whole flask?"
"Tsk, tsk. What a lavish gesture. Though to the Ye Clan, perhaps it's merely another fragrance for Young Master Chen's bath."
Amid the crowd, a young man in splendid purple-and-gold robes idly toyed with a misty strand of purple qi at his fingertips, bored beyond measure. His face was extraordinarily handsome, though a certain languor lingered around his eyes and brows. The purple qi looked faint, yet it contained boundless powers of creation, as though three thousand worlds were being born and destroyed within it.
He was the center of today's celebration: Ye Chen.
Ye Chen could not even be bothered to lift his eyelids at the clamor and exclamations around him. He yawned, sweeping his gaze over the dignitaries below—people whose slightest stamp of a foot could ordinarily shake an entire great world—and found it all terribly dull.
"The Nine Nether Demon Domain presents a reverse scale from a Primordial Demon Dragon! May Young Master Chen remain untouched by demonic corruption, and may ten thousand tribulations never befall him!"
"The Primordial Demon Court presents three drops of demon emperor ancestral blood! May Young Master Chen's bloodline flourish forever, and may his lifespan equal that of heaven!"
"The Void Divine Hall presents a Void Heart! May Young Master Chen see through all illusion and command space!"
One peerless treasure after another, each enough to unleash storms of blood and gore in the outside world and drive Immortal Kings—even Immortal Venerables—to slaughter one another, was presented as though it cost nothing and piled into Ye Chen's treasury. His treasury was itself a refined small world, where treasures formed mountains and divine medicines spread like seas. These new birthday gifts merely made those mountains a little taller and those seas a little broader.
"Chen."
A gentle yet commanding voice sounded. Ye Chen looked up to find that his father, Heavenly Emperor Ye, had come to his side at some point. Heavenly Emperor Ye stood tall and imposing, his features obscured within endless Dao resonance. Only his eyes were clear; as they opened and closed, universes seemed to rise and perish within them, and myriad Daos ebbed and flowed. Simply standing there, he seemed to be the center of heaven, earth, and the cosmos, around whom all laws had to revolve.
"Father." Ye Chen rose and bowed respectfully. Lazy by nature though he was, he had always respected this man, who was both his stern father and the guide who had led him onto the Dao Path.
Heavenly Emperor Ye nodded slightly. His gaze swept over the guests below before returning to his son, carrying a barely perceptible depth of meaning. "Your thousandth birthday marks a small milestone of completion. How do you feel?"
Ye Chen pursed his lips and transmitted his voice. "Father, honestly, I'm a little bored. Every year, it's the same things, the same people, the same gifts. They fear us and respect us, but that's all. There isn't even an opponent who can stir the slightest interest in me."
A loneliness that had seeped into his very bones colored his tone. It was not affectation, but fact. He had been born divine: his primordial immortal body automatically absorbed fragments of the three thousand Great Daos, his supreme bone contained unsurpassed treasure arts, and his dual pupils could see through to the origin of all things. One year of cultivation for him equaled ten thousand years of grueling practice for an ordinary genius. At a thousand years old, his true cultivation had long since surpassed that of many old monsters in the outside world who had struggled through countless ages.
Yet that was precisely why he found everything so uninteresting. Among his peers, no one could withstand a single move from him. Whenever the clan's Immortal Emperor ancestors sparred with him, every one of them was exceedingly cautious, suppressing their cultivation to his level before... being easily defeated. He could even sense that, after losing to him, some of those ancestors showed no frustration in their eyes at all, only an indescribable gratification and... anticipation?
He did not understand where that anticipation came from.
At his words, a flicker of complex emotion crossed Heavenly Emperor Ye's eyes. He patted Ye Chen's shoulder, his voice still calm. "The vastness of the universe far exceeds your imagination. Though our Ye Clan stands at the absolute summit, we are neither all-knowing nor all-powerful. Be patient. Perhaps the 'excitement' you seek will arrive very soon."
Ye Chen took it as nothing more than his father's reassurance and gave it no deeper thought.
The banquet reached its climax when Ye Chen's mother, Immortal Emperor Yaoguang, personally brought him a glasslike jade cup. It held no wine, but a swirling mass of chaos qi, within which galaxies revolved and Dao patterns arose and vanished.
"Chen, I gathered a strand of primordial source from when the myriad worlds first opened, then supplemented it with the essences of a hundred undying divine medicines to refine this Primordial Nectar for you. It will benefit your constitution." Immortal Emperor Yaoguang's beauty was unmatched. Her gentle bearing carried the regal grace of a mother to all beneath heaven, and her gaze upon Ye Chen brimmed with unreserved adoration.
"Thank you, Mother." Ye Chen took it and drank it in one gulp. At once, a warm current flowed into every limb and bone, mingling with the Primordial Chaos Purple Qi within him and filling him with such comfort that he nearly moaned. It did have an effect, but for a body nourished with countless heavenly treasures for a thousand years, it amounted to no more than "feeling something."
He set down the cup and looked once more toward the distant starry sky, made even more dazzling by the treasured radiance of the birthday gifts, and sighed silently.
Being invincible really was a kind of loneliness.
The banquet lasted three full days.
Three days later, the guests had all departed, and the Ye Clan's Ancestral Grounds returned to their customary "tranquility."
Ye Chen lay on the roof of his palace, with smooth, ten-thousand-year-old warm jade beneath him and a brilliant galaxy seemingly within arm's reach overhead. A meteor streaked past. He casually reached out and caught it, and the meteor, powerful enough to smash a small world apart, was pinched between his fingertips and reduced to a handful of sparkling dust that streamed through his fingers.
"Young master, are you feeling bored again?" A deep voice sounded beside him.
Ye Chen knew who it was without turning his head: his Dao guardian, Emperor Xuanwu. Outwardly, he looked like an honest, burly middle-aged man, but in truth, he was an Immortal Emperor whose strength was unfathomable.
"Uncle Xuan, tell me, is there anywhere in this universe that even our Ye Clan doesn't know about? Is there any opponent who could make me take things even a little seriously?" Ye Chen rolled over onto his side as he asked.
Emperor Xuanwu smiled and sat beside him, his massive frame making the roof tremble slightly. "Young master, you had yet to be born when this old servant followed the patriarch on campaigns across the realms to quell unrest. Our clan has indeed explored almost every corner of the Three Thousand Great Worlds. As for opponents..." He shook his head. "Of the forces known to the world, even those six great powers combined wouldn't be enough for the patriarch to defeat with one hand."
"Ah..." Ye Chen let out a long sigh.
"However," Emperor Xuanwu said, shifting his tone as a glimmer of reminiscence crossed his eyes, "the dawn of the universe held endless mysteries. Even our clan would not dare claim to know them all. The patriarch often says that the Dao has no end. Though our clan stands at the summit, perhaps... there is another view above that summit?"
These words faintly echoed what his father had said, stirring something in Ye Chen's heart. Yet he was still too young to fully grasp their deeper meaning.
"A view? Watching the same galaxies turn day after day would make even the most beautiful view tiresome." Ye Chen stood and brushed nonexistent dust from his clothes. "Come on, Uncle Xuan. Let's take a stroll through the Myriad Laws Abyss and see if we can find a cultivation method I haven't practiced yet to relieve the boredom."
Watching Ye Chen's slightly forlorn figure from behind, Emperor Xuanwu's eyes flickered with barely perceptible heartache and gravity. He raised his head, his gaze seeming to pierce the endless void and reach the deepest part of the Ancestral Grounds, a forbidden region that even he dared not enter lightly.
There lay ancient secrets that even the Ye Clan had yet to fully uncover.
And the gears of fate often began to turn with the most insignificant of opportunities. A seemingly ordinary training excursion, undertaken merely to dispel boredom, was about to quietly change everything.
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