The Heavenly Saber Fell! Ye Mingyuan's Demise? Revived, Half-Crippled!

In the Black Realm, imperial might surged boundlessly.

Upon his imperial throne, the Black Emperor watched the world-destroying scene with icy eyes.

Beside him, the Great Dao flowed, and space and time retreated.

"Treading upon the myriad Daos to become an emperor?"

"Do you truly think... that I, a mighty Great Emperor, am inferior to your Sacred Body lineage?!"

While a Great Emperor like him still lived, someone sought to forcibly break through the imperial Dao and enter the ultimate domain.

This was undoubtedly an attempt to step on him to rise higher!

If he was not the only Great Emperor, how would later generations regard him?

Everyone would remember only that, at his peak, this Great Emperor had possessed no suppressive power whatsoever.

He had actually allowed a Sacred Body, for whom attaining the Dao was already difficult, to break into the imperial Dao.

Without comparison, there was no hurt.

He would surely have a vivid, indelible stroke dedicated to him in ancient history!

"That Sacred Body seized my supreme treasure and left with ease."

"And now you, Ye Mingyuan, seek to tread upon my imperial Dao and defy heaven to become an emperor. You truly... go too far!"

Anger churned in the Black Emperor's eyes, yet he took no concrete action.

Though furious, he disdained becoming a human calamity in his capacity as a Great Emperor.

He needed only to wait quietly.

Once Ye Mingyuan survived his tribulation and attained the Dao, he would suppress him with overwhelmingly superior power!

He might even... knock him from the imperial throne!

Of course, as things stood... Ye Mingyuan's hopes were slim.

Yet even so.

Ye Mingyuan would... never give up!

"What of the myriad Daos?"

"What can the Great Emperors of antiquity do?"

"They are all dead, mere imprints engraved upon heaven and earth, preserved until now and revived through the Heavenly Dao's power. But they are not their true selves, after all. What can they do to me?"

Ye Mingyuan's Dao heart was exceptionally steadfast.

After a brief moment of astonishment, he calmly accepted the situation.

Brimming with heroic vigor, he stretched his limbs, which stood like golden divine pillars reaching into heaven at the edge of the universe.

He let the lightning crash down, remaining as immovable as a mountain!

Only when bolts of humanoid lightning attacked him did he engage them in mortal combat!

Golden blood scattered. Gash after gash appeared across his Sacred Body, splitting like a spiderweb, divine light spilling from within to grind away the Dao wounds at each injury.

And his gains were considerable as well.

Of the thirteen bolts of humanoid lightning, he had forcibly worn four out of existence!

He opened his mouth and inhaled, drawing in the terrifying lightning and converting it into his own divine power. His presence grew formidable once more, and he actually took the initiative to charge at some humanoid lightning figures that had not moved from the very beginning!

A massive palm imprint struck, like a heavenly abyss crashing down!

It blasted his right arm into golden blood mist, only for the limb to regrow in an instant as he continued his assault as though nothing had happened!

As a Sacred Body, his health bar was inherently thick.

Not to mention that, after being put through someone's training several times, his ability to survive had improved tremendously!

So much so that... he ultimately wore all thirteen bolts of humanoid lightning out of existence!

But before he could reveal even a hint of a smile.

Within the lightning tribulation, that enormous dragon head... emerged. Its vast body stretched for an unknown distance, wreathed in electric arcs, every strand containing the most extreme tribulation power of the Heavenly Dao!

And then...

"Kree-!!"

A clear, piercing bird cry sliced through the edge of the universe.

A true phoenix that soared through the nine heavens descended with beating wings. Beneath those wings, the terrifying lightning shook cracks into the void!

Under Ye Mingyuan's increasingly grave gaze, immortal spirits that existed only in legend manifested one after another from the lightning tribulation.

They barred his path like an impassable heavenly chasm!

This battle was exceptionally arduous.

His body was blasted apart dozens of times, and each time he reassembled it, he grew a little weaker.

Only at the very end, when nothing remained but his head, and he shattered that immortal-spirit lightning completely with one final roar.

Did everything finally fall quiet for the moment.

Now, the thunder no longer rumbled.

The tribulation clouds stilled, and radiance spilled down.

Wisps of immortal light poured from that corner of an immortal palace deep within the lightning tribulation, dreamlike and illusory.

It seemed that everything was already over.

He needed only to walk into that immortal palace to enter the imperial realm and look down upon the world...

A glimmer flashed through Ye Mingyuan's eyes.

A smile first appeared on his bloodstained face as he gazed at that corner of the heavenly palace, at the endlessly churning immortal mist.

At... a heavenly saber condensed from the will of the greater universe, high above the nine heavens.

It slashed down at him!

Its brilliance blazed, as though the entire world had become a swath of pure white, without a trace of any other color.

The instant that heavenly saber fell, everything seemed to come to an end.

Soundlessly, silently, it erased everything.

The tribulation clouds dispersed.

The edge of the universe once again sank into an almost eternal deathly silence.

An endless sense of sorrow spread throughout the greater universe.

The beings of every race sobbed uncontrollably!

Though a Great Emperor now lived in this world, many beings still remembered Ye Mingyuan's achievements and knew the pressures and responsibilities he had borne in the age without an emperor.

Thus, at the sight of this scene, their eyes could not help brimming with tears.

Just then, a grief-stricken cry resounded through the edge of the universe!

"Master!!!"

Golden blood Qi surged!

Ku Mu, the Sacred Body who had already reached late Quasi-Emperor, rushed into the edge of the universe.

Braving the lingering lightning power, which had yet to dissipate completely and was enough to make all living beings wary, he searched everywhere for traces of Ye Mingyuan.

Though the terrifying lightning power had lost its source and weakened.

It still struck Ku Mu until his body split and golden blood scattered, but he did not abandon his search.

And finally, relying on the mutual resonance between Sacred Bodies.

Within a patch of turbulent void, he discovered a drop of golden blood Ye Mingyuan had left behind. It was dull and lightless, seemingly stripped of all divinity.

Yet even so, Ku Mu was overjoyed!

Squelch-!

Without the slightest hesitation, he slit his palm.

He used the essence blood of his late Quasi-Emperor Sacred Body, which was nearing Great Accomplishment, to replenish that drop of golden blood's origin.

Only after it had stabilized completely did Ku Mu, pale-faced and swaying, take it back to the Feng Clan.

A thousand years later.

A piece of news spread throughout the greater universe, shaking the world!

Ye Mingyuan had revived. He had come back to life!

Only...

All his cultivation had been severed by that heavenly saber.

Now, he could only be reduced to a cripple.

The once supremely powerful Sacred Body had fallen to such a state, leaving others sighing.

The Black Realm.

"Emperor, has Ye Mingyuan truly become a cripple, as the rumors say?"

A diminutive follower of another race, with a serpent's head and bull's horns, asked in bewilderment.

Upon the imperial throne.

The Black Emperor looked down at this follower of another race with an indifferent expression.

His voice carried boundless imperial might. "What gave you the courage to call a Great Accomplishment Sacred Body with considerable achievements a cripple?"

At these words.

The expression of that serpent-headed, bull-horned being changed drastically. Realizing he had misspoken, he hastily dropped to his knees in panic.

But the Black Emperor paid him no further attention.

His gaze was merely deep, filled with many reflections.

The affairs of the world were truly unpredictable.

Back then, he had been angered by Ye Mingyuan's attempt to tread upon the myriad Daos and become an emperor.

But now, that man once so full of heroic vigor was already half-crippled.

Over these thousand years, he too had been invited to help revive Ye Mingyuan, so he knew just how severely Ye Mingyuan had been injured!

That strike of the heavenly saber had severed more than all his cultivation.

It had also completely sealed his path to cultivating again, effectively sealing off everything. Cultivation was even harder for him than for those living through a great upheaval of heaven and earth or an age of Dharma's decline.

However...

Even so, he still possessed a Great Accomplishment Sacred Body physique tempered to its utmost limit.

In terms of combat strength alone, beating up little weaklings at the Quasi-Emperor level remained effortless.

So he was half-crippled at most.

And reaching such an outcome actually counted as fortunate...

After all, even he had no confidence in surviving a tribulation that terrifying...

"Fortunately, he has already begun his second life."

"Even without his cultivation, he can still live another ten thousand years. His life has not been in vain."

The Black Emperor reached his conclusion.

He did not believe Ye Mingyuan had any possibility of recovering completely.

Dao wounds jointly inflicted by the myriad Daos were difficult to remove even if Ye Mingyuan could find a Divine Medicine of Immortality identical to his true form!

Nothing remained in this world that could reverse it.