A marvelous power descended from the heavens to envelope Earth. Everything in this world came to a halt, leaving only Lu Yun, Qing Yu, and the little fox moving about freely.

Lu Yun lifted his head to see an elder in white robes and loose-flowing white hair walk out of a beam of white light.

“This human descendant greets the Flame Emperor.” Though the elder’s long hair scattered around his shoulders, he wore the clothing of modern humans. He bowed respectfully when he arrived in front of Lu Yun.

“I know you.” Lu Yun frowned slightly at the newcomer. He could clearly see that the old man’s cultivation was at the human king realm. The latter wasn’t an immortal of the grand pure realm, but a human king who practiced human dao. “You’re a forefather of my sect.”

This old man was a hallowed ancestor of Lu Yun’s sect; worship had to be offered up to his portrait every festival holiday. To think that this historical figure was still alive, and as a human king!

“Oh no no no!” Startled, the old man jerked backward when he heard the title. “The forefather of the human sacred land is Holy Emperor Fuxi. This humble one is but an advocate of his teachings.”

Every cultivator in the multiverse had seen Lu Yun excise the Dao Tree from the world of immortals and battle the fiend within. This old man was no exception, and he also knew that the youth was one of the founders of human civilization—the Flame Emperor.

“Do you know who he is?” Lu Yun put the issue of the elder’s identity out of his mind. He’d traveled back in time to become the Flame Emperor of the human race and in doing so, thrown an enormous number of hierarchies into complete disarray. This forefather of his sect had somehow become his junior as a result and had to refer to himself as “this humble one” in front of Lu Yun.

Back in his days on Earth, this would’ve been grave insubordination almost on par with personally stabbing his master. But with his changed mentality now, these issues were completely meaningless in his eyes.

“This humble one doesn’t know who he is either, but the holy emperor left instructions for this one to stay on the ancestor planet to protect him.” The old man’s expression grew ever more respectful.

“Holy Emperor Fuxi? Where is he?” Lu Yun brightened. He’d come back to Earth to look for Fuxi.

He'd originally guessed that Fuxi would be on Kunlun Mountain or the ruins of Mount Buzhou, but didn’t discover traces of the demon god when he swept Earth with his consciousness. Besides, it would be Fuxi standing in front of him if he was still on the planet, not this old man.

“The holy emperor is in the human sacred land outside the cosmos, standing guard over the Great Formation of the Nineheavens Gates. He hasn’t been back to the ancestor planet for several tens of thousands of years.”

“The Great Formation of the Nineheavens Gates in the depths of space…” Alarm crept into Lu Yun’s face. “Has something happened there?”

The great formation among the stars should’ve been the one that Lu Yun had set up according to Taiyi’s formation diagram. It was to protect space and stopper the realm monsters in the chaos. What he hadn’t expected was that it’d still be standing after a hundred million years! It was still there, sealing away the fissure between the chaos and this world.

“Many things have indeed happened and the original great formation has already been destroyed. The one now was supposed to be protecting the ancestor planet, and the holy emperor expended great effort to move it.

“But it, too, has begun to waver. I’m afraid the holy emperor won’t be able to maintain it for long.” Fresh hope flared to life in the old man’s eyes when he looked at Lu Yun.

Though the Flame Emperor’s cultivation was so low now that it was almost nonexistent at peerless immortal, the human race nursed a nearly fanatical faith in their Flame Emperor. This elder was a human king from the era of human dao, so the legendary emperor was almost invincible in his eyes.

“Alright then, you remain here and keep him safe. I’ll go take a look in space.” Lu Yun looked deeply at the old man and walked out of Earth with a single step.

……

“There’s something wrong with that elder,” Qing Yu whispered softly to Lu Yun.

“It’d be weird if there isn’t something wrong,” Lu Yun chuckled. “But thankfully, though his body has decayed, his soul hasn’t changed.”

“Oh?” Qing Yu blinked.

“The way he looked at me… I’ve seen too many humans look at me with those eyes in the great wilderness. It’s an emotion that other races can’t understand at all.” Lu Yun heaved out a long sigh. “He’s changed, but his roots are still there.”

Qing Yu and the little fox looked at each other, unable to understand Lu Yun’s words.

Though Earth was many times smaller than the planet of the great wilderness, the cosmos outside of its atmosphere was still the same. Its boundless stars were still transformed from bodies of countless great masters.

Qing Yu picked up on a few things and subconsciously deployed formula dao, deducing a few theories.

“I can bring them back to life!” she suddenly whispered next to Lu Yun’s ear.

“Oh??” Lu Yun’s eyes lit up.

Of these great masters, some were connate great gods and others were empyrean powerhouses. It would be a tremendously wonderful thing for the world of immortals and the realm at large if they could return to life.

“If there’s a way to refine this entire cosmos into a formation or a huge treasure, then we can gather all of the energy in space into a world… If we then add your power of reincarnation to it, we’ll be able to revive all of the fallen masters into that world.” Qing Yu looked at the enormous sun star and murmured, “But the magnitude of such an undertaking is too tremendous and almost impossible… According to my calculations, we’d need at least ten creators to complete it.”

“Ten creators?” Lu Yun blinked.

“Ten creators? If ten creators really existed in this realm, would it matter if these masters came back to life or not?” the little fox piped up.

“It’s not the same.” Lu Yun shook his head. “These great masters are all heroes who sacrificed themselves for the sake of this realm. If it’s possible, I’d really like to revive them.”

These celestial bodies had all been the corpses of the fallen masters. If they were still alive, they could've lived carefree and easy without a worry in the world. But when the realm monsters invaded, they’d willingly gone to their deaths to carry out their duties.

“There are too many heroes in this world… do they all have a chance for resurrection?” the little fox murmured to herself.

Lu Yun and Qing Yu fell silent when they heard her words.

“Well, I’ll do my best no matter what,” Lu Yun said heavily after a moment.

The Path of Ingress pierced through the void and zigzagged madly through the graveyard of space. A brilliant star appeared in front of them before long—Taiyi’s sun star.

Lu Yun also saw an enormous mountain next to the sun, a towering monstrosity that was even bigger than the star beside it.

Mount Buzhou!

Fuxi had shifted the destroyed Mount Buzhou into the depths of space, outside the great formation. The human sacred land at its foot was still there, and Lu Yun could even glimpse the hustle and bustle of human cultivators within it. What marked them different from before was that they were all immortals now. Changes had incurred in their bodies after the immortal dao ran whole and complete through the multiverse.

However, they were only slightly stronger than those of the world of immortals. Those in the sacred land were just over the dao immortal threshold into the ingress realm.

Of course, this described only the humans that Lu Yun could see—the ones born in this era. He firmly believed that there were many more experts hidden in the mountain that’d almost become a world of its own. The elder earlier had been a human king.

……

“Who dares trespass in the Great Formation of the Nineheavens Gates?!” A voice rang out like a clap of thunder as a tall and bulky man with nine golden feathers stuck in his hair appeared in the void, wielding a bow. His internal energy was gathered and on the tip of lashing out—he was a peak grand pure realm powerhouse.

Human king!

Peak grand pure realm put one at peak human king realm and only a step away from grand emperor.

The man was dressed in simplistic ancient armor and he fixed a sharp look at the two humans and one fox on the Path of Ingress.

Wham—

A second explosion rang out in space as a furry white beast’s claw descended from the void, pressing the man face down where he stood.

“A great emperor!” he shrieked with horror.

“Shh, be quiet.” Lu Yun and Qing Yu walked down from the path. The little fox yawned lazily in Qing Yu’s embrace and swept a glance over the man. It’d been her, or rather, her paw that’d acted just now.

“Hello again, Gai. Last time Shennong and I visited the sacred land, you were the first one I saw. Who would’ve thought that you’d still be the first person I meet upon my return visit a hundred years later!” Lu Yun smiled merrily at the man beneath the little fox’s paw.

“You’re… the Flame Emperor?!” Gai struggled to get up, but the little fox was too strong. She wouldn’t let him up before she was certain that this Gai wouldn’t attack them.

Lu Yun and Qing Yu were only peerless immortals at the moment, they wouldn’t last half a second in an attack from a human king. In fact, Gai could injure them by simply leaking out a little bit of his presence.

Seeing that he couldn’t escape from the little fox’s paw, Gai ruefully withdrew all of his strength and lay docilely face down in space.

Those of the sacred land had naturally witnessed Lu Yun’s battle with the Dao Tree and even when he guarded the Dao Flower to make the immortal dao whole again. When he’d established the Dao Academy, they’d realized that… their Flame Emperor had returned.

“Gai greets the Flame Emperor!” Sprawled face down, Gai wanted to bow reverently, but quickly realized with embarrassment that he could only settle stretching his limbs out even further.