Ye Li had run out of trump cards. He knew that it was over. His life and death would be decided by Zhou Fan, but before that, he would fight.
He wasn't someone who would give up, especially when he was truly at the end of his rope.
Zhou Fan fought casually, as Ye Li could no longer muster up any meaningful resistance.
With a swipe, a claw fell from the Heavens. With a step, Ye Li was forced down. With a flick, Ye Li was sent flying.
Lu Jue had stopped fighting and had begun to watch the exchange. He too was seriously injured, perhaps even more so than Ye Li.
Divine Power already harmed its user, not to mention the injuries Ye Li had caused.
After a few moments, Ye Li found himself bound by black chains.
He struggled, but could no longer escape.
He looked at Zhou Fan. Zhou Fan looked back.
"I've lost." Ye Li said.
Zhou Fan nodded. "I'm not entirely at blame for that. You could blame Lu Jue, or even the Universe itself for your bad luck."
It had been only by chance that Zhou Fan had left the seal a bit early.
Ye Li seemed truly defeated. Zhou Fan had never seen him like this.
After a while, Ye Li spoke. "Have you finally decided to kill me?"
"Why would I do that?" Zhou Fan asked.
Ye Li appeared confused, and the nearby Lu Jue was also confused to the extreme.
"Because I tried to kill you?"
"So? You didn't. You'll never be able to. Why would I care about your life and death?"
Ye Li fell silent. He had nothing to say to that.
"But punishment must be made. Uhhh… Don't collect Karma for the next hundred thousand Sage Years." Zhou Fan said.
As he spoke, Leaf reached him and wrapped around him. Monty came back as well.
"That's it?" Lu Jue asked from a distance.
"Do you have any other suggestions?" Zhou Fan asked. This was his first time speaking with the highly regarded Lu Jue.
Lu Jue shook his head after a moment.
It seemed he had been under the impression that Zhou Fan was some sort of righteous being. That misunderstanding was cleared up.
Zhou Fan left, assuming Ye Li would follow the rules of the punishment. It wasn't that much after all.
He still had a main focus, the next realm. He was close to breaking through.
Zhou Fan took Leaf around the Universes, collecting the green power. There was a large amount waiting for collection. Leaf was clearly happy.
They did not take long, soon returning to the Main Multiverse. Over the next million Sage Years, Zhou Fan cultivated.
Focusing all of his time and energy on it, he was soon ready to make a breakthrough. This realm was special. Or at least, Zhou Fan planned to make it so.
An Immortal Emperor who could break into the next realm had mastered at least 3,000 Rules. The Rules represented a part of the Universe. When all parts of the Universe were combined, one created Chaos.
Or rather, when Chaos broke apart, it created every part of the Universe.
The next realm was named the Chaos Immortal realm. Combining the mastery of 3,000-10,000 Rules, one would create something akin to Chaos, though not exactly. Only Zhou Fan could control Chaos, and while powerful beings could naturally manipulate it to a certain extent, it wasn't useful at all. It was only using absolute power to affect the Universe.
When breaking through to the Chaos Immortal realm, all of the mastered Rules were temporarily fused to create an imperfect version of Chaos. This Chaos takes root in the body, becoming a part of it.
This process was like the process of fusing with Space Qi upon entering the Void Traversing realm, which allowed a being to enter space.
It was fusing with Chaos upon entering the Chaos Immortal realm in order to traverse the nothingness.
This was what Zhou Fan was bestowing upon those who entered the next realm. This would change everything for them, and the Multiverse would no longer limit them in the slightest.
To Zhou Fan, this process was meaningless. He simply broke through, increasing his strength. The only complicated part was the temporary fusing of the Rules, something he had spent a lot of time including into the breakthrough process.
It would be a while before anyone entered the Chaos Immortal realm, even Ye Li. Ye Li's punishment had already been over for a long time.
He had been surprised to learn that Zhou Fan had done nothing about the Karma imprints which allowed Ye Li to collect Karma from almost every being in the Multiverse.
Zhou Fan had only torn down the formation around the Main Universe because it was an eyesore.
Lu Jue, on the other hand, had begun to take action against Ye Li's Karma imprints. He already erased them from countless beings, and if Zhou Fan hadn't been here, Ye Li would have already started a decisive war.
However, the damage to the Multiverse would surely lure out Zhou Fan.
Luckily, with Zhou Fan's breakthrough, the Universe began to expand greatly. It was around a thousand times bigger than before, unimaginably vast. At Leaf's request, Zhou Fan had also expanded the Universes outside of the Main Multiverse.
Zhou Fan continued to cultivate after breaking through.
To other beings, an Era had just ended.
Everything was different than the future seen in the past. Celestial Emperors were still exceedingly rare, with few existing.
At this time in the future they had seen in the past, there were thousands of them, if not more.
Some interesting figures had still been born, such as the Temple Master.
His strength was indeed great.
While due to Zhou Fan's absence, some beings had begun to travel down the wrong path of cultivation, he had quickly fixed that as well.
It seemed that simply seeing into the future was not nearly enough to predict what could happen.