Boundless Desert

The vast desert stretched on without end, a boundless sea of golden sand beneath a brassy sky. Time and space seemed to dissolve as Xiao Chen walked alone, a bitter pilgrim exploring this desolate, forbidden realm.

No one dared to venture here. This was one of the Four Extremities Forbidden Zones of the Eternal Continent—the Ancient God Wasteland. If one asked where the most terrifying places were, any knowledgeable cultivator would name the Four Extremities: the Northern Ancient God Wasteland, the Western Million Bronze Mountains, the Eastern Vast Ocean, and the Southern Myriad Desolate Islands. Beyond these realms, no living soul had ever returned to tell the tale.

It was the unknown that made them so dreadful.

Even gods could scarcely enter, much less fathom what lay within.

A vast desert of over a hundred thousand li, where golden sandstorms blotted out the sky and turned the heavens into a rain of yellow gold. Golden dunes vanished in an instant, only to be born anew elsewhere. One could imagine how fierce the gales were. If not for his many sacred artifacts, Xiao Chen would have long since been scattered to dust. The wind here could tear apart even the body of a god.

At last, the gale subsided. The golden desert blazed like sculpted gold, each grain of sand dazzlingly bright, yet the heat was terrifying. The sun overhead added only tens of degrees, but the desert itself seemed to possess boundless energy. Xiao Chen saw a divine weapon half-melted into the sand, a god's name clearly inscribed upon it. Even such a divine artifact could not resist the desert's terrible temperature. Only with his many sacred relics could Xiao Chen survive here.

At high noon, the sun blazed, and the gale had ceased. The great desert lay quiet and peaceful. Xiao Chen sat alone in the golden sands, practicing cultivation without fail no matter how harsh the day.

He continued to refine the Heavenly Diagram of the Ancient Stele, finding it ever more profound. His divinely transformed acupoints shone more brilliantly, and the true divine meridians extended further, becoming more condensed and mysterious than natural meridians.

Sweat dripped from him, but the Twelve-Grade Lotus Platform beneath him absorbed and refined every drop. The Four Immortal-Slaying Swords stood in four directions, emitting hazy primordial chaos energy. The Ancient Divine Scripture flipped through its pages, releasing golden stars that swirled around him. The Taiji Diagram floated, the twin yin-yang energies circling. The Sun Sacred Stone hung in the air, shedding multicolored rays.

Indeed, Xiao Chen was now bathed in flowing light. He used these sacred artifacts to temper his body while simultaneously circulating the Heavenly Diagram of the Ancient Stele.

"Ah..."

He threw back his head and howled, his hair flying wildly. A mouthful of pure life essence sprayed out, circled him three times, then surged back into his body.

"Boom!"

A tremendous roar came from within—a shackle had broken. Divine power flooded through him, and rays of light burst forth from his body in a thousand streams. In that moment, he had entered the Sky-Mastery realm. He was now a young half-god.

His gaze swept the eight directions, cold and sharp. He leaped into the air and stood there, his eyes brighter than the stars in the heavens. His resolute face was calm and confident.

At last, he had broken through. He had waited long for this day.

Half-god—a watershed. It laid a solid foundation for advancing toward Deathless Longevity. To reach the realm of immortality was no longer a dream. Every step forward was a march toward the divine.

Suddenly, a strange feeling surged in his heart. His body trembled violently, and a profound peace filled his mind. The space around him seemed to contract, pressing in from all sides, as if the void itself had collapsed into a single point. That point transformed into a beam of spiritual light that shot into his sea of consciousness. Then space shattered again, forming a black hole from which black mist poured, a dark fog rushing into his mind...

Illusions... delusions...

When Xiao Chen opened his eyes again, neither the condensed point nor the collapsed void existed. It had been a mere flicker of distraction.

But at that moment, he truly felt a difference. He could merge with the entire world—no, he was indistinguishable from space itself.

Sudden enlightenment!

He had grasped a new divine ability: the Space Divine Law!

"Space is king; time is sovereign!" Liu Mu had once said those words. Among cultivators of the same realm, those who controlled space or time were the supreme beings. Even at the Mortal-Shedding realm, they could challenge those above them, and now that Xiao Chen himself had reached the Mortal-Shedding realm, he naturally understood cross-tier combat. Controlling space meant he could challenge cultivators of higher realms.

Space is king; time is sovereign!

Breaking into the Sky-Mastery realm had unlocked a deeper treasure within his body. He had grasped a divine ability that cultivators dreamed of.

But at that moment, trouble also came. The Martial Imprint grew restless. His martial body, though incredibly powerful, now showed signs of collapse. Severe injuries appeared—his body was slowly splitting apart.

The sight was terrifying. Above the endless desert under cold moonlight, Xiao Chen seemed about to disintegrate, his body on the verge of shattering at any moment.

Divine ability and martial body were conflicting!

Gritting his teeth, Xiao Chen endured it with sheer will. He silently deliberated over the Martial Imprint and forcibly suppressed the newly acquired Space Divine Ability. At the same time, he summoned his sacred artifacts, hoping their power could protect his physical form. But the destructive force came from within, and the sacred relics were useless—worse, they nearly backfired.

Fortune and misfortune intertwine! He had just gained the Space Divine Ability, and in an instant, his martial body reacted so violently.

"Crack!"

He heard the distinct sound of bones breaking. Then he felt his soul float out of his body, and he watched his flesh tear apart into pieces.

No!

In that instant, Xiao Chen was shocked to discover that although a body had split apart across from him, he was not floating outside as a soul—he was still in a physical form.

How... could this be?

How could there be two bodies? But Xiao Chen was stunned to find that it seemed real. He pinched himself and felt the truth of flesh.

At the same time, he noticed that his current body radiated brilliant light—it was the divinized acupoints and extended divine meridians. This was a body formed from divinized acupoints and divine meridians!

Was this a divine body reborn from his original flesh? Xiao Chen was profoundly shaken. Was this the first manifestation of the Heavenly Diagram of the Ancient Stele?

Before he could think further, the shattered body opposite him slowly gathered, then burst into an intensely dazzling light and reconstituted itself.

"Swoosh!"

Light flashed, and the two bodies merged into one. Only then did his anxious heart settle down. No matter what transformation occurred, he felt that his original body was most important.

Space Divine Ability surged again, but this time there was no conflict with his martial body. The earlier splitting may have allowed the two to temporarily fuse.

Half-god!

Xiao Chen had truly stepped into the half-god realm and grasped a new divine ability!

Time passed, and he continued deeper into the Ancient God Wasteland. Another year seemed to go by. During this time, he refined all the worldly spiritual treasures that the Little Defiant Dragon had given him and all the rare herbs the fat merchant Zhuge Liang had brought. Now he felt an endless surge of life essence, as if possessed of inexhaustible power.

Forty-nine major acupoints were now completely divinized. The divine meridians extended throughout his entire body, connecting not only all the divinized acupoints but also linking and touching those that remained unawakened.

This vast life essence was his greatest capital. By now he no longer doubted that when every last acupoint was divinized and all life essence in his body served him, his power would be unmatched under heaven. Every gesture would hold world-shaking force.

And that force was only the most basic manifestation of his might. What kind of astonishing transformation would truly occur was beyond imagination.

His martial body progressed smoothly. His physical form was as strong as divine weapons—ordinary mortal blades could no longer wound him. Such a physique seemed beyond what a half-god should possess.

Xiao Chen did not realize that three years had passed in the blink of an eye.

He cultivated alone deep in the Ancient God Wasteland, while the outside world continued to search for him. But without sacred artifacts to protect them, even undying gods could not penetrate the depths of this desert.

Xiao Chen walked on foot, because here the sacred artifact "A Step Across the Horizon" was suppressed, its power barely functioning. Each use could only traverse a kilometer, and it took a long time. Riding the Twelve-Grade Lotus Platform also slowed drastically the deeper he went—the deeper, the slower.

Yet even with most of each day devoted to cultivation, he had already advanced over two hundred thousand li into the depths of the Ancient God Wasteland. Such depth was beyond his imagination. The vast desert seemed to have no end.

Time flowed emotionlessly, and Xiao Chen forgot everything outside. Day by day, he cultivated and moved forward, wanting to see the deepest secrets of the Ancient God Wasteland.

Then, one day, he suddenly heard the distant sound of a bell. It felt unreal.

Soaring into the sky, Xiao Chen summoned his sacred artifacts and stood in the void, gazing into the distance.

Deep within the golden desert, an ancient temple sat silently, as if it had existed since time immemorial.

He descended from the sky and walked toward it step by step.

The ancient temple was bathed in a holy glow under the setting sun. The slow bell had gradually died away. In the twilight, the temple gave off an air of profound mystery.

At last he drew near, but Xiao Chen could not approach. A strange power isolated him at the temple's periphery.

Casually turning his head, he was startled. Far from the temple, a Taoist temple sat in silence, bearing the weariness of ages, as if it had traveled here from the primordial era through the void of time.

"That is..."

Suddenly, Xiao Chen looked further and saw a small divine island floating in midair, as if sealed away for endless years. It emitted no energy fluctuations, standing there in utter loneliness.

"Everything in this world should be destroyed. This is merely a projection of the real world—all illusions. The World of Immortality should not exist..."

A vast voice echoed through the entire Ancient God Wasteland, deafening, shaking the boundless golden desert.