A jolt of searing pain, like a burrowing fiend, tore through Wang Lin’s left arm. The agony, though brief, beaded his brow with a film of icy sweat. Yet, his face remained an impassive mask. Slowly, deliberately, he raised his right hand, his gaze fixed upon the wisps of ethereal smoke that billowed from the icy fissure. These spectral tendrils, seemingly endless, snaked towards him, plunging greedily into his left arm.

The vaporous tendrils possessed an insatiable hunger, ceaselessly湧出 and entwining within his flesh. Gradually, the skin of Wang Lin’s left hand hardened, becoming coarse and weathered. Faint, intricate runes began to shimmer and dance upon his forearm, their patterns shifting like constellations in the night sky.

A full incense stick burned down before the last tendril of smoke escaped the ice cave and merged with Wang Lin’s left arm. At that instant, a sensation surged through him, reminiscent of the day he first grasped the right hand of Ye Mo – a feeling of untamed power, the ability to rend the very heavens.

He slowly flexed the fingers of his left hand. A series of sharp, cracking sounds echoed around him. After a long moment, Wang Lin clenched his fist, rose to his feet, and with a single stride, launched himself into the air above the frozen pool.

He raised both hands, an overwhelming surge of power reverberating within his soul. With the left arm of Ye Mo now his own, the ancient starlight markings upon Wang Lin’s brow and within his eyes erupted in a violent transformation!

This change was a herald of the ninth star, a premonition of its imminent birth. Faintly, swirling stardust began to coalesce around his eyes, hinting at the nascent celestial vortex.

He closed his eyes, immersing himself in the ancient Dao power that coursed through his veins, mingled with the rampant strength blooming within his arms. After a time, Wang Lin’s eyes snapped open. His gaze, sharp as glacial ice, focused on the pool below. At that instant, a glint of fierce determination shone within his eyes. He raised both hands, and with a furious roar, rent the very fabric of space above the frozen abyss!

“Tear the Heavens!” Wang Lin bellowed, his hands clamping down upon the void. With a herculean effort, he tore the space apart. A deafening roar echoed through the cavern as the ice pool below convulsed and shattered. A massive fissure ripped across its surface, a raw gash in the frozen landscape.

As the crack opened, a thunderous cacophony erupted, signifying the pool’s catastrophic collapse. Cascades of ice exploded outwards, the entire frozen expanse disintegrating into oblivion.

The earth trembled. The collapse of the ice pool unleashed a massive chasm across the land. With earth-shattering booms, the fissure snaked across the barren wastes like a slumbering earth dragon. The land buckled and splintered as the crack plunged deeper and deeper.

Within the heart of the cavern, surrounding the immense cauldron shrouded in black miasma, the faces that once haunted its surface began to fade. Those visages marked the souls who dared to enter the cauldron, their presence imprinted upon the metal.

But now, the faces were almost gone, many had vanished. Even the visage of the Seven-Colored Daoist was dissolving into nothingness. Instead, upon the front and back of the cauldron, the face of Wang Lin and the face of the Battle Old Ghost were now etched with terrifying clarity. They radiated an ominous black light, drawing in the swirling miasma.

Deep within the cauldron, within the realm of the Second Flower of Five Flowers and Eight Gates, the frozen blossom was being torn asunder. A great fissure ripped along its stem, widening until it cleaved the flower entirely in two.

Having torn a rift in the land with his twin “Tear the Heavens” technique, Wang Lin glanced at the frozen skies in the distance. Without hesitation, he plunged into the chasm, his figure vanishing into the darkness.

“The Seven-Colored Daoist is no longer a threat. Now, I must face the Battle Old Ghost… a cautious and suspicious soul, difficult to ensnare,” Wang Lin mused as he reappeared within the third space of the Five Flowers and Eight Gates – the realm of the Third Flower.

Here, everything was draped in shades of gray. No life stirred, only the oppressive weight of death. Even the Third Flower, once vibrant, hung limp and withered, as though drained of all vitality.

Its leaves were brittle, its petals decaying. It was dead.

Gazing upon the withered flower, Wang Lin realized that there was no need to enter. The Third Flower of the Five Flowers and Eight Gates had been destroyed long ago.

He studied the lifeless bloom for a long time, considering his options. In the end, he abandoned his plan to lay an ambush. Such a trap could only be sprung once. If he tried a second time, the Battle Old Ghost would never fall for it.

With a sigh of resignation, Wang Lin stepped forward, vanishing from the desolate realm of the Third Flower, and journeying towards the Fourth Space of the Five Flowers and Eight Gates.

As Wang Lin materialized within the fourth space, he beheld a flower that was completely black. Its appearance was both striking and disturbing. Black liquid dripped from its petals, falling upon the ground, where it had pooled over centuries, creating a sea of black.

The black sea lay still and silent. Only the strange flower, seemingly born from the ocean itself, bloomed in a disturbingly beautiful manner.

As Wang Lin gazed at the black flower, he detected a scent of blood. The aroma was ancient and filled him with a sense of decay.

The smell of blood was rising from the dark depths of the sea below.

After a moment of silence, Wang Lin knew that time was short. He steeled himself and stepped forward, heading towards the black flower. However, at the very last moment he abruptly stopped. He thought he could hear a muffled roar emerging from within the flower.

Wang Lin knew this roar!

“Tosen!” Wang Lin paused, startled. He stared at the huge flower which blocked his view of the sky. With a flash of light, Wang Lin stepped onto a petal and disappeared.

Half an hour after Wang Lin entered the fourth space, all those who had survived up until this point gathered here. When they saw the black, dead sea before them, they all wore grim expressions.

Without much hesitation, they stepped into the world of the fourth flower.

In this world, the sky was dark, covered in swirling mist. The mist roiled and moved constantly. More mist lay below and from within it came sounds of roaring.

There were floating platforms of various sizes. On some of them were the dried-up remains of corpses, whose bodies were like skeletons due to the flesh having been sucked away.

Wang Lin stood on a stone platform and looked around, a wry smile on his face.

He couldn’t help but smile, because he recognized this place as the Ancient Tomb where he had obtained the Dao Ancient heritage!
The truth dawned upon him at last. “This is it… the Sepulcher crafted by the Celestial Sovereign of Seven Hues, the final resting place of Ye Mo!” But why would the Sovereign, a being of such boundless power, dedicate his artistry to this desolate domain? The answer, as bitter as graveyard dust, revealed itself: this was the fourth Bloom, the penultimate bastion in the labyrinthine defenses of the Sovereign’s Immortal Cave. A tide of complex emotions washed over Wang Lin. “All this…” was chillingly familiar.

“No wonder I faintly heard the echoes of Tuo Sen’s voice!” The tormented soul of Tuo Sen was forever bound within this ancient tomb. After a moment of somber reflection, Wang Lin walked to the edge of the stone platform, his gaze drawn to the swirling mists below.

He remembered the past, the chilling dread that had gripped him when he sensed the hidden depths beneath the fog. Several layers, each more perilous than the last, awaited. A presence of terrifying power had forced him to halt his exploration, to retreat in disquiet.

And then there was the memory of acquiring Ye Mo’s inheritance, the chilling vision of a heart, beating faintly, in the lowest, most forsaken layer of the Sepulcher! It was unmistakably the heart of Ye Mo.

“The Inheritance of Ye Mo… beyond his left eye, only his heart remains.” Wang Lin had already claimed a significant portion of the fallen Sovereign’s legacy. He knew Ye Mo’s body was shattered, save for his severed arms, preserved against the ravages of time.

If he could absorb that heart, pulsing in the deepest shadows, his inheritance would be complete. Well, almost complete. The left eye remained elusive.

Yet even without the eye, the power of Ye Mo’s heart might be enough to ignite the ninth Ancient God star within him! Perhaps even awaken the ninth star of the Ancient Demon!

He would ascend to become a Nine-Star Ancient God, his Dao Ancient power amplified a hundredfold!

“A Nine-Star Ancient God… if I were to unfurl my form, how vast would I become?” Wang Lin closed his eyes, weighing the risks and the rewards.

Upon another stone platform, Xuan Luo stood facing the mists, a sigh escaping his lips.

“So, this is where that child, Ye Mo, met his end…”

After a silent reckoning, Wang Lin’s eyes snapped open, blazing with resolve. Fortune favors the bold. Wang Lin’s life had been a dance with death, and his hard-won power was the fruit of countless struggles.

What was one more gamble? Besides, the terrifying presence lurking in the second-to-last layer… after piecing together fragments of the Sovereign’s Third Soul, Wang Lin believed he knew what awaited him.

“The Ancient Sepulcher… I dared not delve deeper back then. But now, having returned, I cannot afford to falter!”

His decision made, Wang Lin stepped into the void, plunging into the swirling mists. The fog rushed past him as he descended, headfirst, like a fish diving into the depths.

No one knew this place better than he did. Wang Lin had mapped its every twist and turn in a past life. He needed no platform, no guide; the pathways were etched into his mind, the secrets of the next layer already revealed.

Perhaps the only soul whose knowledge rivaled his was the Third Consort of Tianmen Dao, a virgin Saintess from the Immortal Gang Continent.

At this very moment, the Third Consort drifted within the mists, her gaze lost in the swirling gray. A wave of emotion washed over her.

“The Fourth Bloom… so it was here.” She, too, had acquired a portion of the maps in her past life. She was a quiet soul, unnerved by these dangerous lands. And it was here, in this place, that her tranquil heart had first been stirred.

It was here that she had encountered Wang Lin, who had aided her escape from imprisonment. An act that baffled her to this day. Never had she encountered someone so…helpful. Forced into servitude as a consort to the Celestial Sovereign for the sake of her sect, the Third Consort retreated inward, content to spend her days alone, training, with only her sister for company.

Wang Lin was the first to offer her aid, an act of kindness that had ignited a strange, unfamiliar spark within her. She could not explain it.

“He helped me… I must repay the debt. I long to return home… I wonder if my master still lives… and my sister, so much more gifted than I am…” The Third Consort fell silent, her eyes filled with longing.

As Wang Lin entered the Sepulcher, deep within the Ancient Tomb, in the great hall where he had inherited Dao Ancient, Tuo Sen, or perhaps Tu Si, opened his eyes.