Ye Chen didn't even bat an eyelid at this threat that reeked of hindsight. With a slight stir of his mind, he covered his eyes with divine soul power, sensing that the pair of eyes monitoring him had indeed vanished. Only then did he let out a soft sigh of relief.
Such a monitor was extraordinary. Encountering a monitor not inferior to an Ancient Monarch, perhaps even slightly stronger, immediately upon entering this mysterious Origin Ancient Path was not a good omen.
However, things had already come to this, and having reached this point, there was no reason to turn back.
Relying on the might of the Great Emperor Reincarnation Body, Ye Chen, confident in his own skill, strode forward boldly.
It wasn't a very long time, not even an hour, before the Great Emperor Reincarnation Body emerged from the deep, dark ancient path. Yet, given its speed, it had traversed an untold number of tens of thousands of li in that short span, finally seeing a glimmer of light ahead.
Ahead lay an utterly desolate region, boundless to the eye, nothing but barren red earth as far as one could see, devoid of all life, not even comparable to the mythical ruins. There were no oases of life, no rotting corpses of countless gods and demons, not even fragments of stars or continents floating in the heavens and earth. There was only endless red earth and the massive impact craters left by the fall of enormous stellar remains.
Whoosh—
Here, Ye Chen felt the oppressive atmosphere of the deep, dark ancient path was gone. The power of the Great Emperor Reincarnation Body was fully unleashed. With a single leap, it traversed hundreds of thousands of li, yet the sight before it remained one of boundless desolation.
Was this the Origin Ancient Path?
Ye Chen couldn't help but feel some doubt.
Moreover, he couldn't sense even the slightest trace of the myriad laws of heaven and earth in this desolate land. There was no trace of spiritual energy, no living beings, not even dead, rotting creatures. It was as if this was a dead, silent great world devoid of any life force.
Ye Chen sensed that in this world's heaven and earth, he couldn't draw upon any power. Using a portion of power meant losing a portion, with no way to replenish it. Over a long period, not to mention ordinary cultivators, even Divine Kings and Ancient Monarchs would find it unbearable.
More importantly, this heaven and earth also seemed to isolate itself from all external worlds, preventing the absorption of outside power across the layers of time and space.
Precisely because of this, even Ye Chen dared not expend too much power.
Fortunately, the Great Emperor Reincarnation Body possessed pure physical strength, and within it, one-seventh of an Emperor Dao origin served as an energy source.
"The Origin Ancient Path is a path jointly constructed by Emperors and Supreme Immortals. It shouldn't be this desolate. Even if this might be an abandoned Origin Ancient Path, it shouldn't be like this." Ye Chen squatted down, his tender little hands full of fine, soft sand, devoid of any trace of heaven and earth power.
Under his divine soul perception, the great world was dead and silent, the myriad laws absent. It was like a separate heaven and earth, yet without a corresponding world origin. Perhaps it had long dried up in the river of time; otherwise, how could such a vast heaven and earth lack a so-called origin?
Moreover, it was apparent that the vast, desolate heaven and earth where this Origin Ancient Path was located wasn't formed from just one world. Even though dried up, one could sense no less than five different world attributes. It was highly likely that in constructing this Origin Ancient Path in ancient times, the Emperors and Supreme Immortals used numerous great worlds as its foundation.
Just thinking about it was enough to stir awe in one's heart. What a heaven-defying method this was—using numerous great worlds as foundation stones to build a path, constructing the Origin Ancient Path. Only the peak existences of the Chaos Sea like Emperors and Supreme Immortals could accomplish this.
Among them, Ye Chen even sensed the extraordinariness of some of these great worlds; at the very least, they were the origin inner worlds of Ancient Monarchs, and it was even possible that origin Emperor Realms were mixed in.
Truly worthy of being the Origin Ancient Path leading to the Origin Land. It was indeed extraordinary beyond compare in the world.
Yet Ye Chen remained vigilant. The stone tablet had mentioned the ten-deaths-without-life crisis of the Origin Ancient Path. Perhaps possessing the Great Emperor Reincarnation Body, he still dared not believe himself invincible. Just like the monitor in the deep, dark ancient path, it was a terrifying existence stronger than ordinary Sovereigns.
Whoosh—
With a single leap, it was an untold number of tens of thousands of li away. The Great Emperor Reincarnation Body flashed continuously through the Origin Ancient Path, crossing over majestic mountains that spanned over ten thousand li at a time, comparable to stars. It even saw many unimaginably massive mountains standing on the desolate Origin Ancient Path.
This journey lasted a full day and night, yet the end was still not in sight. One could imagine how vast and magnificent this Origin Ancient Path was, unimaginably huge.
One could also imagine the grand scale of the various Heaven's Emperors or Supreme Immortals—a divine miracle beyond the belief of ordinary mortals.
As they traveled on like this, some different scenery gradually appeared ahead. There were many mountainous and oceanic regions, with vast, continuous oceans and majestic, enormous towns. However, as far as the eye could see, it was all ruins of broken cities, devoid of any life force.
The oceanic regions were just dead water, without even a hint of wind. Only when the Great Emperor Reincarnation Body passed through did it stir gusts of wind, raising some waves.
The ocean water was clear, transparent to the bottom, similarly without any life force.
And the boundless forest regions had long since turned into withered wood. The towering trees that once stood thousands upon thousands of zhang tall were completely dead, stretching for millions of li—all life force had been utterly devoured.
Ye Chen sighed softly, unclear what had happened on this segment of the Origin Ancient Path in the past, that all life force had truly been extinguished.
And so, they continued forward.
Not long after, a stretch of black shadow suddenly appeared ahead, spanning the heavens and earth, prompting Ye Chen to control the Great Emperor Reincarnation Body to quicken its pace.
Yet even so, it still took a full half-day of travel to truly reach the location of this black shadow. One could imagine how far the distance was, and also how massive this black shadow must be, remaining so majestic and enormous even after half a day's journey of countless tens of thousands of li.
When they truly faced it, an expression of shock appeared on the face of Ye Chen's Great Emperor Reincarnation Body. The majestic black shadow before them was none other than—
The Immortal Heavenly Pass!
Indeed, what lay before them was the Immortal Heavenly Pass. That boundless, majestic black shadow blotted out the sky and sun, reaching into the highest heavens. Even stars seemed as insignificant as dust before it; it was simply indescribably majestic.
Faced with such an Immortal Heavenly Pass, even the Great Emperor Reincarnation Body felt a genuine sense of awe.
What surprised him, however, was discovering the existence of an Immortal Heavenly Pass on the Origin Ancient Path.
But what shocked Ye Chen the most was that this Immortal Heavenly Pass was not intact as he had seen in the past. On the contrary, the extremely majestic Heavenly Pass had collapsed over a large section, stretching for who knew how many tens of thousands of li. Countless boulders as large as stars tumbled down, creating a hollowed-out area connecting both sides of the Immortal Heavenly Pass.
This left Ye Chen deeply shaken.
From memory, the Immortal Heavenly Pass had always been an immortal, indestructible fortress; otherwise, it wouldn't be called the Immortal Heavenly Pass. Even when it had been breached before, it was only the gate, not the body of the fortress itself. Yet here, the body of the fortress had been blasted open with such a massive gap, stretching for who knew how many tens of thousands of li, a long section collapsed.
One must know that when the Eight Desolates Ancient Universe attacked the Primordial Immortal Realm in the past, even the self-destruction of the Rebellious Emperor's body, that level of Emperor Body self-detonation force, had not caused the Immortal Heavenly Pass to collapse to this extent.
What kind of terrifying battle had this Immortal Heavenly Pass experienced?
Ye Chen stood silently for a long time, sensing that although the Immortal Heavenly Pass before him was majestic, vast, and towering beyond sight, he could only feel a faint trace of Emperor Dao aura. If not for this faint trace, he would have suspected it was merely built from star-like boulders by some heaven-defying figure.
"Has even the immortal, majestic power of the Immortal Heavenly Pass been devoured?"
Ye Chen murmured to himself. The reason the Immortal Heavenly Pass was immortal and indestructible wasn't just because the building materials were immortal star-like boulders. It was also personally constructed by ancient Great Emperors or Supreme Immortals, leaving behind the immortal, majestic power of Emperor Dao and Immortal Dao, and reinforced with Emperor-level and Immortal-level immortal grand formations, making it eternal and indestructible.
Generally speaking, such majestic Emperor Dao and Immortal Dao power were difficult for heaven and earth to extinguish. Yet here on the Origin Ancient Path, it seemed as if even that was about to be completely devoured, which somewhat puzzled and alarmed Ye Chen.
Whoosh—
With a single step, he crossed into the Immortal Heavenly Pass. Before him appeared an ancient city of supermassive scale, no less than some Emperor Cities he had seen in the past, perhaps even larger.
However, these ancient city areas before him were all ruins, devoid of any life force, not even many skeletons—perhaps they had all rotted away between heaven and earth.
Ye Chen occasionally saw a corpse as large as a star, the remains of a Great Power-level being after death. Yet from its remains, he felt no fluctuation. After searching with his divine soul power, a thoughtful expression appeared on his face.
Soon after, he saw many other remains, including those of Divine King level, and naturally, the far larger, star-surpassing remains of Ancient Monarchs, lying on the ground. Unfortunately, he still felt no energy fluctuation whatsoever, not even from the broken Dao weapons beside them. All divinity had completely vanished.
This scene couldn't help but make Ye Chen suspicious.
If it were just the earlier Great Power remains, that would be one thing. But Ancient Monarchs were countless times stronger than Great Powers in every aspect. Even after death, their remains could maintain an immortal characteristic for countless years, and the divinity within them was difficult to dissipate.
Yet the Ancient Monarch-level remains before him had completely lost every trace of divinity. One had to admit this was a rather bizarre matter.
The deeper he went, the more Ye Chen held a sense of reverence toward this mysterious Origin Ancient Path.
The Great Emperor Reincarnation Body continued to traverse the heavens and earth. This traversal lasted another full day.
However, soon, Ye Chen was surprised to discover another Immortal Heavenly Pass ahead, similarly with a large section of the fortress collapsed, countless boulders as large as stars scattered about. Behind it was sometimes a vast area of ancient city ruins, with divine islands, stars, and heavenly palaces fallen, appearing utterly dilapidated, all life extinguished, and again with many remains of powerful beings having lost their divinity, all the same.
For some reason, this Origin Ancient Path vaguely reminded Ye Chen of a familiar place, but for now, he suppressed the thought in his heart and continued forward.
And so, on the path ahead, Ye Chen continued to see one majestic Immortal Heavenly Pass after another, all with large sections collapsed, each with boundless ancient city ruins behind them and the bodies of numerous supreme experts.
In the end, even Ye Chen began to feel a sense of numbness.
Yet this peculiar sense of familiarity grew increasingly strong.
After crossing eight ruined, collapsed Immortal Heavenly Passes and spending another day, unsurprisingly, a new Immortal Heavenly Pass appeared before him.
However, upon seeing this ninth Immortal Heavenly Pass, suddenly, Ye Chen noticed something different.
Looking more carefully, he found that this Immortal Heavenly Pass was not collapsed, appearing relatively much more intact. Moreover, on the majestic Heavenly Pass, there actually existed living beings.
Yes, living beings, each taking human form, standing atop the Immortal Heavenly Pass, emitting powerful auras, among which were quite a few Divine King realm existences.
Because all the previous series of Immortal Heavenly Passes had been devoid of life, suddenly seeing an Immortal Heavenly Pass with countless living beings made him feel a sense of disbelief, as if he hadn't expected this scene to appear.
Above the ninth Immortal Heavenly Pass, many powerful experts were stationed here, among them Divine King realm existences sitting cross-legged, motionless. Over the long years, it was more like they were meditating here, a form of secluded cultivation in this different place.
After all, how many tens of thousands of years had passed? No other living beings had ever appeared outside the Heavenly Pass. Even the eight equally majestic and vast Immortal Heavenly Passes had been breached and collapsed, with layer upon layer of boundless great worlds falling into silence and extinction.
Therefore, this kind of meditation and guarding was more like a mere formality.
On this day, there were also many powerful experts guarding the Immortal Heavenly Pass. Several Divine Kings were stationed here, their eyes opening and closing, emitting brilliant beams of light that illuminated the heavens and earth, performing their routine surveillance.
"Still no signs of life."
During this monotonous surveillance, one of the Divine Kings suddenly started, a hint of surprise escaping his lips: "Hmm?"
He clearly saw that outside the Immortal Heavenly Pass, at a distance of a hundred thousand li from the great mountain, a tiny figure had appeared. Though countless times smaller than an ant, distance was no issue for a Divine King. He quickly discerned that it was actually a seven-year-old boy, standing on the desolate red earth, lifting his tender, delicate, and fair face, his large, dark eyes unblinking as if examining the Immortal Heavenly Pass.
"Huh? Do you see that? There's a little boy over there?" The first Divine King to notice spoke.
On the Immortal Heavenly Pass, the other guarding experts gradually noticed as well, all revealing looks of astonishment.
"After so many tens of thousands of years, have new Emperor Clans or Immortal Clans finally arrived?" A Divine King on the Heavenly Pass spoke thus, his words seemingly containing a hint of excitement.