There were three Sovereign Steles in total.
The first was shattered, the third was blank, and only the second had names written upon it.
First: Qin Jiu.
Second: The name was blurred, as if this person had deliberately concealed their identity.
Third: Song Shu'an.
Fourth: Like the second, this name was also blurred.
Fifth: Ba Jiutian.
Sixth: Zhongli Bahuang.
Aside from those two who had blurred their names, the other four — though the brush strokes were similar in overall style — each bore distinctly different flourishes, suggesting that most likely each name had been written by the person themselves.
Chu Feng soared into the air, wanting to observe up close, but discovered an invisible barrier protecting the second Sovereign Stele. He could not approach.
The first Sovereign Stele also had a barrier.
But at close range, even though the stele was shattered, Chu Feng could still make out some details.
On the first Sovereign Stele, there were also names — many of them, over nine hundred in total.
Though the stele was massive, the characters of each name were also quite large, so the first Sovereign Stele was nearly filled to capacity with names. However, because the damage was so severe, it was impossible to determine what those names actually were.
"If these three Sovereign Steles represent the Primordial, the Ancient, and the Current eras respectively, then wouldn't there be far too many powerhouses from the Primordial Era?"
"Or perhaps writing one's name isn't simply a test of strength, and there's some other method?"
As Chu Feng pondered this, he arrived at the third Sovereign Stele.
The third stele also had an invisible protective barrier, but this one Chu Feng could pass through.
"This barrier seems to restrict people from different eras. It seems I guessed correctly — these three steles likely represent the Primordial, the Ancient, and the Current eras."
Chu Feng felt that the reason he could ignore this stele's protective barrier was because it was not meant to block him, but rather people from other eras.
But just as Chu Feng was about to observe the Sovereign Stele up close, a thunderous boom rang out and an enormous pressure descended from the heavens. Chu Feng plummeted from the sky and crashed into the ground.
The tremendous impact smashed a deep crater into the earth, yet the pressure continued to bear down on him relentlessly. Even though Chu Feng was already at the bottom of the crater, the ground beneath him continued to sink.
It was powerful — an incredibly powerful oppressive force. But it was no ordinary pressure.
Chu Feng struggled to rise and looked back.
Only then did he notice that a gigantic calligraphy brush had appeared in the sky at some unknown point.
The brush was peculiar in shape — a thousand meters long, with a large head and a tapering tail, forming a cone. The brush tip and ferrule were the thickest parts, and where the shaft connected to the ferrule it was still very wide, nearly a hundred meters across. But the shaft was long, growing thinner the closer it got to the tail end, and the very tip — the thinnest point — was about the size of a normal calligraphy brush.
Despite the vast difference in size between Chu Feng and this brush, he could grip the tail end with his hand quite normally.
This peculiarly shaped brush, golden and gleaming, hovered in the sky like a sun descended into the mortal world — clearly a supreme treasure.
And it was an artifact of the Primordial Era.
The moment he saw this brush, despite being pinned to the ground unable to move, Chu Feng's face was filled with wild joy. The size of the brush was nearly identical to the marks left by those people on the Ancient Era's Sovereign Stele. His past experience told Chu Feng that if he could conquer this enormous brush, he might well earn the right to leave his name on the Sovereign Stele.
"How did such a little child end up here?"
Just then, a woman's voice came from within the brush. The voice was incredibly composed, mature, and steady, yet simultaneously very gentle and pleasing to the ear. Even though it was his first time hearing it, and the brush was the very thing pinning him down, hearing that voice actually gave Chu Feng a sense of reassurance.
"Senior, how may this junior leave his name upon the Sovereign Stele?"