In this white void, everyone was like headless flies, so the Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess had once again come over to talk to the only person she knew, Yang Kai.
Yang Kai slowly shook his head before suddenly turning to look at her and chuckling.
“What are you laughing at?” The Saintess frowned, “I suddenly found that you’re quite hateful.”
“Then why do you keep trying to talk to me?”
“I don’t know anyone else here, and if they were to recognize me as a Saintess…” Since she came here, she had been hiding her identity, not daring to show her true face to anyone here; After all, the masters of the Seven Family Alliance had all come to welcome her when she first appeared in this island chain and would definitely remember her appearance.
As a Saintess, she had been held up as a symbol of nobility and purity, if today’s matter were to be spread out, not only would it damage her reputation as a Saintess, but even the majesty of Nine Heavens Holy Land would be tarnished.
Therefore, she was quite worried someone would recognize her, and even if she didn’t have a particularly good opinion of Yang Kai, he was really the only one her she could consult with.
“We probably can’t exit this place,” Yang Kai continued to shake his head as he let out a sigh.
“We can’t?” The Saintess’ beautiful face paled slightly, “Could it be we’ll be trapped in here for the rest of our lives?”
“Most likely!” Yang Kai nodded sternly.
“Don’t frighten me, I still haven’t found the next Holy Master yet…” The Saintess really began panicking. Through their few brief contacts, Yang Kai had realized that this silly girl was relatively naive and didn’t understand the cruel and sinister nature of the world; it was probably a result of her status and upbringing.
She was the exact opposite of Yang Kai, who from very young had become accustomed to trials and tribulation and could now face situations like this with a kind of calm indifference.
“I heard that the Holy Masters of your Nine Heavens Holy Land are all found outside your borders by you Saintesses, do you all have some special method of choosing who becomes your Holy Master?” Yang Kai suddenly asked curiously.
“Why would you ask that now? Naturally I have my methods!” The Saintess suddenly becomes somewhat vigilant, “This is something only we Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintesses can achieve, even if you ask me I won’t tell you anything.”
“I was just curious!” Yang Kai shrugged his shoulders, “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”
The Saintess secretly breathed a sigh of relief, apparently quite worried that Yang Kai would continue to inquire about the secrets of the Holy Land. Nonetheless, she took the initiative to slightly distance herself from him.
Time passed and the more than a hundred cultivators continued to constantly search their strange environment, but none of them was able to uncover anything.
Gradually, anxiety, panic, and uneasiness began to set in and the cultivators became increasingly agitated as they wandered aimlessly around the white space.
The masters from the Seven Family Alliance also had ugly expressions.
They were well aware of the seriousness of the problem.
The light sphere everyone had been seeking had actually forcibly pulled all their Souls into this inexplicable space which seemed to have no way out; that meant their fate was die in this place!
Those who were present had cultivations of at least the Immortal Ascension Boundary Seventh Stage. Although their Souls being separated from their bodies wouldn’t be a problem for a short time, once a certain period had passed, without any care, their physical bodies would wither and die.
Once their physical bodies perished, their Souls would become rootless wood, and if they couldn’t find an appropriate vessel to inhabit, they would soon disappear.
Panic and fear of this eventuality began to subtly spread throughout the crowd.
Yang Kai stood back and observed; having felt the rising tension, he had quietly slipped out of the crowd and put some distance between him and everyone else, raising his vigilance as he did so.
The Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess also noticed the strange atmosphere and attached herself to Yang Kai; wherever he went, she would follow, keeping a not too close yet not too far distance from him.
Yang Kai paid her actions no mind and simply allowed her to do as she pleased.
After an unknown period of time, everyone had finally given up exploring their surroundings because there was simply nothing to find!
Everyone sat down where they were to take a break, though, their dark and gloomy expression said otherwise.
Suddenly, a quarrel broke out, it seemed like two cultivators had gotten into an argument and things had begun to escalate. They began shouting and cursing one another, their voices growing louder very quickly. This verbal spat was like a spark in a dry field, igniting the irritability of everyone around.
“Old bastard, if you hadn’t insisted on breaking that damn barrier, none of us would have fallen into this mess! Now that we’ve all been trapped in here, how are you going to compensate us for this?” Someone suddenly shouted towards Old Man Cheng.
With this man taking the lead, many other foreign cultivators began levying condemnations, all of them believing that this disaster was all Old Man Cheng’s responsibility.
There were even many people from the Seven Family Alliance who were giving Old Man Cheng unfriendly looks.
Old Man Cheng’s expression became grim as he sneered audibly, “Aren’t all of you being a bit unreasonable? Although it’s true I summoned all of you here, before breaking the barrier, none of you raised any objections or were forced to accompany us. Didn’t you all want to search the palace behind the barrier for treasure? Yet now that this has happened, you want to push all the blame onto this old Cheng’s head? ”
“No matter what, it was you who caused all of this, if you can’t find a way out of this place, you must pay with your life!”
“That’s right! You Cheng Family bastards are responsible for this mess, so you have to clean it up, otherwise we’ll make you pay the price!”
“The Seven Family Alliance has this responsibility!”
“Since we’re all going to die anyways, we’ll make sure you suffer for this first!”
Everyone seemed to be filled with righteous indignation and were now openly denouncing the Seven Family Alliance, putting on an aggressive stance as if a fight would break out at any moment.
Seeing the tide turn against him, Hai Wang Gu’s face became sullen, “Before coming here, this old master had said that benefits and risks coexist and that whether you live or die is your responsibility. All of you knew this yet still chose to come. My Seven Family Alliance has no obligation to protect your safety, what do your lives have to do with me?”
These words, at this time when emotions were running high, did not calm the crowd and instead inflamed the situation, Hai Wang Gu shirking all responsibility at this point only made him appear even less sympathetic.
However, this was exactly what the sly Old Man Cheng wanted, soon wearing a smile and turning to the first cultivator who had yelled at him and coldly declaring, “Wanting me dead with such meager skill? Foolishness!”
As he spoke, a sharp blade of Spiritual Energy shot out from Old Man Cheng’s Soul Avatar and instantly slashed into the foreign cultivator’s figure.
A scream rang out and the cultivator didn’t even have a chance to fight back before his Soul Avatar directly broke up.
This man was only was only an Immortal Ascension Boundary Eighth Stage cultivator, against the Second Order Transcendent Old Man Cheng, how could he possibly resist?
The crowd suddenly went silent, and the rioters from before all trembled in fear as they stared towards the spot where the previous cultivator had disappeared.
None of them had expected Old Man Cheng to act so ruthlessly, suddenly killing someone without any prior warning.
But soon, the people standing nearby where the unlucky cultivator had died wore strange expressions, their faces showing a look of unexpected happiness, as if they had just tasted the finest wine, the aura of their Soul Avatars even becoming slightly stronger.
“Hm?” Hai Wang Gu raised his brow as he stared at this scene fixedly.
At the same time, all the Transcendents present seemed to notice something surprising.
The Soul Avatar of the dead cultivator had broken up and transformed into strands of Spiritual Energy which had then been absorbed by the several nearby cultivators. Because they had absorbed this Spiritual Energy from the deceased cultivator, their own Souls had grown visibly stronger.
Yang Kai also saw this scene, and his mouth couldn’t help curling into a strange smile, quietly muttering under his breath, “It seems things are about to get interesting!”
“What’s going on?” The Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess asked nervously, she was just following Yang Kai around at this point and hadn’t seen much of the scene just now, so Yang Kai suddenly making such a comment was a bit incomprehensible to her.
“It seems most people here are going to die!” Yang Kai smiled menacingly.
Even as he spoke these words, the Seven Family Alliance’s Transcendents quickly exchanged a glance and instantly understood what each of them was thinking.
An average cultivator found it many times more difficult to cultivate their Spiritual Energy than their physique or True Qi. If they didn’t possess a high grade Soul type Secret Art, they could only use pills to slowly nourish their Souls; such a process took many years to yield results though.
However, in this strange space, there seemed to be some inexplicable law that allowed the residual Spiritual Energy of any Soul Avatar that was destroyed to be swallowed up by others!
This was extremely tempting for anyone.
However, this situation was also accompanied by risks, when another’s Soul collapsed and scattered, the remnants would contain fragmented memories and experiences from that cultivator’s life. If one absorbed too many of these fragmented thoughts, their own personality and memory would likely be affect. In the most serious of cases, one might lose their sense of identity all together or even go completely insane.
Yang Kai had devoured the Soul remnants of many other cultivators before, but only after using his Demon Eye of Annihilation to purge these impurities from them, leaving behind only the pure Spiritual Energy and sentiment. If not for this, he would already have become a madman.
The benefits to his overall Spiritual Energy density were much smaller than directly swallowing these remnants, but the enlightenments about the Heavenly Way and Martial Dao could be completely preserved in this manner, something Yang Kai needed far more than simply improving his cultivation.
But everyone else present obviously didn’t have so many reservations. They had never seen a Secret Art that allowed a cultivator to directly devour the Spiritual Energy of others, even if there was one, it would be far too rare and precious for them to ever get their hands on.
After seeing the people around the dead cultivator receive such benefits, the Seven Family Alliance’s masters were inevitably tempted.
Glancing around at each other, they all quickly wore fierce grins.
The Spiritual Energy of many Transcendents suddenly erupted without any warning and. Since they didn’t possess their flesh and blood bodies here and couldn’t use any of their respective Martial Skills or artifacts, the only thing anyone here could use to attack another was Soul Skills!
Various Soul Skills landed upon the crowd, and before the many foreign cultivators had a chance to respond, more than a dozen of them were instantly killed, their Soul Avatars breaking apart.
The masters from the Seven Family Alliance rushed over to where these cultivators had died and madly devoured the Spiritual Energy which had been left behind.
Whether it was Old Man Cheng or Hai Wang Gu, their old wrinkled faces were filled with exhilaration and excitement.
In that moment, they felt themselves becoming stronger, absorbing the Spiritual Energy remnants of these dead cultivators’ Souls had saved them one or two years of cultivation!
They didn’t care one bit about these foreign cultivators’ lives and instead were eager to have all of them die; this way, not only could they strengthen their Souls, all the treasures obtained in the Ancient Ruins would belong to them.
Facing such temptation, naturally, they had no qualms about slaughtering everyone!
In this white world, the conditions and temptations present had awakened the darkest impulses in the hearts of all the Seven Family Alliance’s masters. These people did not even hesitate to kill their way through dozens of people.
After feeling the benefits of this wanton slaughter, these masters only became more eager.
The foreign cultivators were briefly taken aback but soon reacted, some of them roaring angrily, “I have long seen through your greedy intentions. Brothers, fight with them!”
In an instant, the Soul Avatars of more than a hundred people were divided into two large camps, the Seven Family Alliance was one party while the other was comprised of all the foreign cultivator. In this Soul Battle Hall, a desperate struggle began.
Without artifacts, Martial Skills, or even flesh and blood, the only thing everyone could rely on was their own Soul’s strength and any Soul Skills they may have cultivated.
The cultivators of the two camps collided, and Soul Avatars from both sides continuously collapsed, breaking up into strands of Spiritual Energy that were absorbed by others nearby.
After consuming the Soul remnants of others, these cultivators become even more irritable and murderous, seemingly wanting to kill everyone in front of them in order to obtain the most benefits.
It soon became apparent that the Seven Family Alliance’s was the stronger of the two camps; after all, each family had one or two Transcendents here, easily allowing them to reap the lives of the disordered foreign cultivators.
However, among the foreigners there were also several Transcendents, who soon rallied together and were able to hit back, inflicting considerable damage to the Seven Family Alliance.
Everyone’s eyes had gone red and screams of insanity and fear constantly filled the air.
The cruelty and madness of this scene dumbfounded the Nine Heavens Holy Land’s Saintess, her tender body trembling in terror as she watched this bloody melee play out. Even when someone began approaching her, she failed to take notice of them.
Yang Kai’s brow wrinkled but decided to sit on the sidelines, interested to see just what kind of skill this young woman possessed.
Finally feeling the approaching crisis, the Saintess woke from her daze and a destructive wave of Spiritual Energy instinctually pulsed from her Avatar, flinging the nearby cultivator far away.
Coming to her senses and glancing around at the Soul remnants that were seemingly scattered all around the world, the Saintess frowned deeply and, unlike everyone else, chose not to absorb them, instead moving away as quickly as possible, a look of disgust filling her pretty face.
Yang Kai nodded secretly, feeling that this woman had decent skill and sense. She instantly understood that these benefits came at too high a cost.
As if sensing Yang Kai was observing her, the Saintess glanced over at him, a trace of vigilance flashing across her eyes.
She didn’t know if Yang Kai would act like everyone else here and suddenly try to attack her; if he did, she wasn’t sure she could resist.
From Yang Kai, she felt a vague sense of pressure, and the burning aura coming off his Avatar made her particularly uneasy.
Yang Kai no longer paid any attention to her and instead re-directed his attention to the melee, an indifferent look upon his face.
The battle had become lopsided. Under the coordinated attack of the Seven Family Alliance masters, the foreign cultivators, who were essentially loose sand, had no choice but to cooperate with each other to fight back. Although this achieved some results in the beginning, in the face of an absolute gap in power, they were quickly being defeated.
After the foreign Transcendents were killed, the remaining Immortal Ascension Boundary cultivator became helpless.
Many who were fighting violently only moments ago were now begging for mercy, but the masters of the Seven Family Alliance ignored them and continued reaping their Souls in order to gain more benefits.
Gradually, only a dozen or so people remained, all of them Transcendent Realm masters from the Seven Family Alliance.
If seems that because they swallowed excessive amounts of remnant Souls, side effects were finally beginning to break out. Each of these masters appeared on edge, their Soul Avatars giving off a somewhat chaotic aura.
After only a brief pause, the survivors of the previous carnage began to fight again.
“What should we do?” As Yang Kai was watching, the Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess came over to him for the third time, her face filled with anxiety and helplessness, causing Yang Kai to chuckle slightly.
“What do you mean ‘what should we do’?” Yang Kai asked back
“What should we do if they suddenly attack us?” The Saintess was clearly frightened. Although she was a First Order Transcendent, there were still so many masters left from the Seven Family Alliance. Once they began targeting her, she wouldn’t be able to resist, so even though she was still somewhat wary of Yang Kai, she decided to approach him in an attempt to tie their fates together.
“You deal with your problems, I’ll deal with mine!” Yang Kai shooed her away, keenly aware of her intentions.
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll die here?”
“This is a blessing not a curse, and even if it is a curse, it couldn’t be avoided, what use is there in being afraid?” Yang Kai sneered, his complete indifference to everything dumbfounding the Saintess once again. As she was staring at him though, Yang Kai also began looking her over.
“What do you want to do?” The Saintess immediately became alert, Yang Kai’s unrestrained gaze gave her chills and she quickly said, “Don’t forget, I rescued you once before, you should show a little gratitude.”
Yang Kai shrugged his shoulders in response, “Rest assured, I don’t have any intentions towards you, there’s no need for you to be nervous.”
The Saintess wore a somewhat distrust look upon her face, staring straight into Yang Kai’s eyes, as if trying to see through his thoughts, her expression relaxing a moment later.
She could feel that Yang Kai really bore no malicious will towards her, but as for his true thoughts, she had no idea, causing her to feel slightly uneasy.
If she had known this little adventure of hers would be so dangerous, she wouldn’t have fooled her guards and snuck off to dive to the bottom of the sea!
The Saintess desperately wanted to cry but was unable to shed any tears.
Yang Kai no longer cared about her and instead focused his Divine Sense on the battle occurring a short distance away.
The Seven Family Alliance’s dozen masters were all familiar with each other, so the fight between them was quite heated. On top of that, under the influence of the Soul remnants they had swallowed, these dozen or so masters had basically lost their ability to reason and were only interested in slaughtering one another. After an hour or so, the outcome of this war was decided.
Of the dozen or so masters who had fought, almost all of them had died, only two of them survived.
One of them was the Hai Family’s Hai Wang Gu and the other was Old Man Cheng who had gathered everyone here in the first place. Both of these two were Second Order Transcendents so in this battle they undoubtedly had the greatest advantage in terms of strength.
However, after such a fight, their Soul Avatars had become somewhat weak. After battling each other for a while, they apparently could no longer persist and both sat down to recover their stamina and a little of their sanity.
Seeing this scene, the Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess immediately motioned to Yang Kai, apparently encouraging him to take this opportunity to attack and kill these two old guys.
However, Yang Kai kept shaking his head, indicating that he didn’t have the courage or strength to do so, causing the Saintess no small amount of frustration.
From beginning to end, Yang Kai hadn’t shown the slightest bit of fear, or even concern, instead he even seemed to be enjoying himself as he watched these people fight.
This kind of performance either indicated his absolute confidence or ignorance.
The Saintess didn’t think it was the latter, so she couldn’t understand why he would give up such a good opportunity to launch a sneak attack.
If she were to attack on her own, she didn’t have confidence she could win, thus she could only hesitantly remain where she was.
It wasn’t difficult for Yang Kai to kill Hai Wang Gu and Old Man Cheng, it could even be considered quite easy, but he didn’t want to expose his true strength in front of outsiders. If it is someone else, the solution would be simple, he just needed to silence the witness to the crime and that would be that, but this Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess had previously extended a helping hand to him, although he didn’t really need it.
Killing this woman in cold blood just to keep his secrets was something Yang Kai couldn’t bring himself to do.
He had his own code of conduct, and killing someone who had once helped him ran counter to that code.
Yang Kai had a fair headache now, and mused about how it would be nice if he could find a way to stun this young woman for a while.
As he was mulling over such impractical thoughts, Hai Wang Gu and Old Man Cheng finally seemed to have discovered that there were still two outsiders left here.
Yang Kai and the Saintess had remained far from the battle since it began and had simply been quietly observing the whole time, but now that almost everyone else had been eliminated, it was impossible for them to hide anymore.
Hai Wang Gu and Old Man Cheng both glanced at one another before suddenly letting out a laugh.
“Brother Cheng, how about we solve this small problem first before deciding who the ultimate victor between us is?” Hai Wang Gu suddenly proposed.
Old Man Cheng frowned and pondered for a while before nodding, a malicious grin appearing on his face in the next instant, “I just happen to need to supplement my Spiritual Energy.”
Saying so, the two of them stood up at the same time and glanced over towards the two outsiders, neither of them showing any signs of anxiety as they calmly strode over towards them, a look of absolute confidence upon their faces.
When they had approached to within a short distance, the two old men glanced over at their prey and couldn’t help feeling stunned, apparently recognizing the young woman as the Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess.
“You…” Hai Wang Gu pointed at the young woman, his brow wrinkling deeply, “Are you not Your Royal Highness the Saintess?”
Old Man Cheng also wore a completely stupefied expression.
Their murderous intent and unruly demeanors both disappeared upon recognizing the Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess.
“It is I!” The Saintess nodded lightly.
“How come you are here?” Hai Wang Gu frowned and asked, seemingly coming to a conclusion and asking in amazement, “Could it be you came here as a member of my Seven Family Alliance’s exploration group?”
“En, I had wanted to come take a look at the scenery down here, but I never expected such a thing to happen,” The Saintess replied, looking extremely calm and composed.
“This is…” Hai Wang Gu looked suspiciously towards Yang Kai.
The Saintess hesitated for only an instantly before replying, “He is my servant!”
Yang Kai’s eyes flashed, shooting a somewhat stunned glance towards the Saintess. Her words just now indicated her intent to use her status to shield him by tying them together.
Any servant of a Saintess would obviously be a disciple of Nine Heavens Holy Land. With such an identity, it was likely Hai Wang Gu and Old Man Cheng would be more hesitant to act against Yang Kai.
Sure enough, upon hearing the Saintess’ words, the expressions of the two old men became grim, showing both hesitation and reluctance.
Their moods were completely reflected in the aura fluctuations of their Soul Avatars though. These fluctuations were sometimes rapid, sometimes calm, sometimes dangerous while sometimes nervous. Obviously, they weren’t as respectful as their expressions indicated and were weighing the pros and cons of their next actions.
Perceiving the malice directed towards them, the Nine Heavens Holy Land’s Saintess’ beautiful face changed slightly, lifting her hand slightly and releasing a subtle force from her Soul Avatar.
This force was quite mysterious, and did not carry the slightest murderous intent or maliciousness, but when it appeared, it was like a gentle rain that lightly washed over Yang Kai, Hai Wang Gu, and Old Man Cheng’s forms, seeping into their Soul Avatars before disappearing.
All three of them frowned, unsure of what the Saintess was trying to do.
A moment later though, Yang Kai suddenly felt that his state of mind had calmed greatly and his Soul felt a sense of comfort, it was like a spring breeze had swept away all of his troubles, and the idea of secluding himself away from the world and no longer caring about anything became quite prominent in his mind.
Secretly surprised, Yang Kai quickly shook off such escapist thoughts before turning to look at Hai Wang Gu and Old Man Cheng, surprised to see that the irritability their two Soul Avatars were just giving off seemed to have been soothed. The two of them no longer showed the same violent aggression and were obviously thinking more clearly now.
The Soul Skill the Saintess had just used must be one that helps clear others’ hearts and minds.
Hai Wang Gu and Old Man Cheng looked at each other with their brows wrinkled and hesitated for a while before Hai Wang Gu asked, “What happened just now, Your Royal Highness Saintess saw, correct?”
The Saintess’ pretty face changed slightly as she wore a faint smile, “Yes, but you can rest assured that I will not disclose this matter to anyone, I also do not wish for others to know I was here. What we need to do now is to find a way out of this place, don’t you agree?”
Hai Wang Gu and Old Man Cheng both remained silent, their brows still deeply wrinkled, apparently weighing their options.
The Saintess was a little uneasy; although she used her special Soul skill to help Hai Wang Gu and Old Man Cheng temporarily stabilize their moods, these two men were not good people to begin with. Once malicious thoughts took root in their minds, even her Soul Skill couldn’t dissuade them.
Quickly shooting a glance over towards Yang Kai, she saw him pretending he wasn’t involved.
The Saintess bit her teeth, trying not to say anything but was about to explode!
After a while, Hai Wang Gu suddenly said, “Brother Cheng, what do you think?”
Old Man Cheng took a deep breath and quickly replied, “Since things have come this far, we should see it through to the end!”
Hai Wang Gu smiled and nodded, “Sure enough, Brother Cheng and I are of the same mind.”
Saying so, he directed a sharp glance towards the Saintess and coldly snorted, “So what if you’re a Saintess? No one cares about your status here, and no one will know it was us who killed you.”
The Saintess’ face finally became gloomy as she realized these two old men were determined to silence the witnesses to their crime.
With so many foreign cultivators dead and the Seven Family Alliance having lost so many masters, if the truth of this incident were to spread out, it would be extremely damaging to the Hai Family and Cheng Family.
On top of that, this was the perfect place to make someone disappear.
As they spoke, the two old men’s Soul Avatars once again revealed a hostile and violent aura, in the next instant the two of them launching Divine Sense attacks towards Yang Kai.
Yang Kai’s strength seemed to be relatively low, so Hai Wang Gu and Old Man Cheng naturally wanted to quickly dispatch him first then find a way to deal with the Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess together.
Yang Kai’s face became cold and the moment these attacks were about to hit he swiftly dodged them.
“Hm?” Hai Wang Gu and Old Man Cheng were both shocked by this unexpected development.
“I’ll help you stall one, you should be able to beat them one on one right?” Yang Kai said to the Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess before beckoning to Hai Wang Gu, “Old fart, show me what you’re made of!”
“Little brat, I’ll kill you!” Hai Wang Gu shouted angrily, easily being drawn in by Yang Kai’s cheap taunt and charging towards him.
Normally, it would be impossible for Hai Wang Gu to act so recklessly, but right now, whether it was him or Old Man Cheng, both of them had swallowed too many Soul remnants so their consciousness were somewhat unstable. It can be said that most of their actions right now were being driven by their more base impulses, so when Yang Kai insulted him, Hai Wang Gu had immediately lashed out.
“Wai…” The Saintess hurriedly tried to say something to Yang Kai but before she could, Old Man Cheng came flying towards her and she had no choice but to quickly use a Soul Skill to defend herself.
Yang Kai has led Hai Wang Gu far away but had no intention of fighting him and was only constantly avoiding the latter’s Divine Sense attacks while taking the opportunity to observe the situation of the Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess.
He was planning on letting this Saintess kill Hai Wang Gu and Old Man Cheng so he didn’t need to expose his strength or the existence of his Conflagrated Knowledge Sea.
Yang Kai felt that with her background, this Saintess should have the ability to accomplish this.
Although her cultivation was slightly lower than that of Hai Wang Gu and Old Man Cheng, Nine Heavens Holy Land and the Seven Family Alliance couldn’t even be placed in the same category in terms of heritage. From the Soul Skill this young woman just displayed, Yang Kai estimated her true combat strength should be greater than these two old men.
But after watching for a while, Yang Kai discovered that something was wrong.
Under the constant attack of Old Man Cheng, this woman seemed to only know how to evade and defend herself and showed no intention of fighting back.
From Yang Kai’s perspective, this Saintess had multiple opportunities to take advantage of her opponent’s openings to launch a counterattack, but she never once acted upon them.
It wasn’t even that she couldn’t see these openings but that she didn’t seem to have any will to fight Old Man Cheng.
“What are you doing?” Yang Kai couldn’t help feeling annoyed and shouted out towards her, “Fight back, what do you plan on accomplishing by simply running away?”
“I…” Saintess desperately wanted to cry but was unable to shed any tears, trying to get a word out only to be interrupted again by Old Man Cheng’s assault.
“Little brat, you should be more worried about yourself!” Hai Wang Gu chased behind Yang Kai while laughing maniacally.
Yang Kai glanced at him coldly before his image flickered and shot towards the direction of the Saintess.
Arriving a moment later, Yang Kai came up beside the Saintess and grumbled, “What’s going on? Why aren’t you fighting back?”
The Saintess grit her teeth and shot back angrily, “Why are you asking about something you already know?”
“Why would I be asking about something I know?” Yang Kai asked back.
“I’m a Saintess of Nine Heavens Holy Land!”
“I know that, what about it?” Yang Kai suddenly found that he couldn’t understand this woman’s words.
“You don’t know what Saintesses can’t do?” Blocking another attack, the young woman shot Yang Kai a blank look.
Yang Kai shook his head.
“What backwater countryside did you crawl out from!?” The Saintess saw that he wasn’t lying and her eyes filled with shock before she shouted, “A Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess, before death, cannot kill!”
“Says who?” Yang Kai’s face went black as he began to realize his clever plan was likely going to fail.
“This has been the case since ancient times!” Saintess hurriedly explained, “We can’t kill, once we violate this taboo, a flaw will develop in our Secret Art!”
“What bullshit Secret Art has such a dumb flaw!?” Yang Kai was furious, he had never heard of a Secret Art with such a ridiculous restrictions.
However, with such an unreasonable condition, the Secret Art she cultivated must be quite formidable.
“Then why aren’t you making a move?” The Saintess fled together with Yang Kai as she shot him a sharp glance, “Even in this situation you seem to be quite relaxed, why are you trying to make me do all the work?”
Yang Kai couldn’t help cursing under his breath, feeling somewhat helpless; it seems he couldn’t kill these two old men with a borrowed a knife after all. But, before he did anything, the Saintess voice once again rang out.
“Although I can’t do it myself, I can help you. With my assistance you don’t need to worry whether you’re their opponent or not,” The Saintess hurriedly said.
“How do you plan on helping me?”
The Saintess said nothing and instead poured some kind of Soul Skill into Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar.
Yang Kai’s face changed slightly; when this Soul Skill penetrated into his body, he couldn’t help but feeling a strange sensation, as if a connection had been made between him and this Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess. It was as if she possessed something within her that was now flowing into Yang Kai, rapidly enhancing the strength of his Spiritual Energy.
On top of that, a vast amount of information began appearing in his mind and all sorts of mysterious Secret Arts and Martial Skills were rapidly being imprinted in his consciousness.
Yang Kai immediately felt as if he could freely use these skills!
This feeling was fantastical and unfounded but Yang Kai was fully convinced it was the truth.
His rapid footsteps halting, Yang Kai quickly came to a halt, standing his ground while taking a deep breath, his eyes filling with light.
The Saintess of Nine Heavens Holy Land also hurriedly stopped, standing not far behind Yang Kai, her beautiful eyes staring at him nervously.
“Little brats, let’s see where you can run now!” Hai Wang Gu and Old Man Cheng roared. Although these two juniors weren’t as strong as they were, they were quite quick, so if they hadn’t stopped on their own, it was possible these two old men wouldn’t have been able to catch them.
Hai Wang Gu and Old Man Cheng, their stomachs full of grievances, were both releasing a thick murderous intent.
Yang Kai slowly turned and stared at them, his brow furrowed, seemingly puzzled by his current condition.
A moment later, Yang Kai slowly raised his hand, and his Spiritual Energy burst out, quickly condensing into a huge golden sword that hovered above his head.
This giant sword was comprised purely of Spiritual Energy and was more than a dozen meters long. From this golden body, a burning hot aura pulsed, seemingly capable of incinerating anything it touched.
An unparalleled sense of oppression fell from the sky, and Hai Wang Gu and Old Man Cheng’s faces became stiff as they stared towards Yang Kai. Under this pressure, they felt as if a mountain was pressing down on them and a deep sense of fear penetrated all the way to their bones. In that instant, they felt as if death was upon them and any resistance was futile.
As for the Saintess of Nine Heavens Holy Land, she too was trembling, her pretty face filled with a look of amazement. As she stared towards Yang Kai, a different kind of light flashed across her beautiful eyes, as if she had just discovered something incomprehensible, her spirits rising greatly!
Yang Kai stared at the giant sword above him, somewhat lost in thought for a moment flicked his wrist. In the next instant, the giant sword descended from the sky directly towards Old Man Cheng.
A violent wave of wind swept past and before Old Man Cheng could make a sound, his Soul Avatar disintegrated under the giant sword. Hai Wang Gu, who was standing nearby, was also thrown through the air from the aftermath, landing nearby somewhat unsteadily.
“This is the Profound Heavenly Sword?” Yang Kai frowned and turned to look at Saintess, the latter unconsciously nodding.
“Yes!”
Old Man Cheng was killed with a single blow and Hai Wang Gu had been flung away like a stray dog and was currently scrambling frantically to escape from Yang Kai.
Yang Kai glanced over at the fleeing Hai Wang Yu faintly before his moving his hand slightly, the giant sword that had just crushed Old Man Cheng transforming into a rope and shooting off, capturing the fleeing old man instantly and immobilizing him.
Yang Kai gently tugged his hand and the rope that was binding Hai Wang Gu dragged him back towards the former.
“This is the Imprisoning Heaven Lock?” Yang Kai asked the Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess.
“En!”
“Interesting, why am I suddenly able to use these Soul Skills?” Yang Kai looked at her suspiciously, “And my Spiritual Energy seems to have strengthened significantly. What exactly did you do to me?”
“Can we talk about this later?” The Saintess’ eyes flickered, apparently somewhat reluctant to answer.
Yang Kai nodded lightly and didn’t ask any further.
The two Soul Skills Yang Kai had just used were skills he had never even heard of until just now, yet now he seemed to have a comprehensive understanding of them as well as a complete mastery of their usage, as if he had cultivated them for many years.
If was impossible for this odd situation to occur spontaneously and the only explanation was that this woman had done something to him.
If Yang Kai had to guess, it was like she had directly transferred these two Soul Skills into Yang Kai’s consciousness, allowing him to instantly comprehend and use them.
On top of that, the amount of Spiritual Energy Yang Kai just used wasn’t that great; at most, it was equivalent to what Hai Wang Gu and this Saintess could use, but that not powerful strength had been enough to easily obliterate Old Man Cheng.
Yang Kai’s heart and head were filled with doubts and confusion!
“What are you going to do with this person?” The Saintess asked, pointing to the tied up Hai Wang Gu.
“What else can I do?” Yang Kai snorted, and the rope tied to Hai Wang Gu suddenly burst into flames. With a scream of despair, Hai Wang Gu’s Soul Avatar was incinerated, leaving behind not even a trace of ash.
Throughout the entire Soul Battle Hall, only Yang Kai and the Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess remained.
Facing each other, under Yang Kai’s focused gaze, the Saintess seemed somewhat uncomfortable and averted her eyes.
“What is your name?” Yang Kai asked.
“An Ling’er… what about you?”
“Zhang San!”
An Ling’er’s pretty face turned sour. Yang Kai’s perfunctory attitude really annoyed her, but right now wasn’t an appropriate time to vent her grievances so she could only swallow her anger.
“Now can you tell me what you did just now?” Yang Kai asked solemnly, “Whatever it was, it was quite unusual.”
“Do you have to know?” An Ling’er bit her lip lightly but Yang Kai just nodded firmly, “If I don’t understand what just happened, how can I be sure it won’t bring me harm?”
“You can rest assured that what I did was absolutely harmless to you, moreover, I have no reason to harm you.”
“I still hope you can explain it to me clearly.”
“Good!” An Ling’er took a deep breath, “Since you insist on this, I’ll tell you.”
After she said that, she fell silent for a moment, seemingly organizing her thoughts, a moment later continuing, “Even you should know some basic information about my Nine Heavens Holy Land. Every Holy Master is found by us, the Saintesses from the outside world. We have some special methods with which to seek out appropriate candidates, and if one of them passes our test, they will become the next Holy Master of the Holy Land. As for what kind of methods we use to seek out such candidates, please forgive me, I can only tell you that it is related to my Secret Art.”
Yang Kai nodded lightly.
“I think you should have heard that before being named as Holy Master, each of these people came from different walks of life and their aptitudes varied greatly, but once they enter my Holy Land and become the Holy Master, they are reborn and become extraordinary existences. This actually had a lot to do with us, the Saintesses.”
“Oh? How so?”
“We… since birth were raised as the Holy Master’s cultivation furnaces! All our cultivation and experiences are strictly prepared for the Holy Master, so that upon finding him and bringing him back to the Holy Land, we can instill them into him; this is the greatest responsibility of us Saintesses. Moreover, because there is more than one Saintess in the Holy Land, the benefits each Holy Master can obtain are massive, which is why every Holy Master can become an extraordinary powerhouse, because it is not just him cultivating on his own. Depending on various circumstances, the number of Saintesses can range from three or four to up to seven or eight, all of them assisting the Holy Master in his cultivation. With so many cultivation furnaces all providing assistance to him, it is difficult for the Holy Land’s Holy Master to not become strong.”
“Something like that really happens?” Yang Kai was shocked.
“This is the greatest secret of my Holy Land, do not tell anyone else about it,” An Ling’er warned seriously.
“Don’t worry, I don’t have loose lips,” Yang Kai nodded, becoming slightly pensive as he muttered, “So, my being able to master the Soul Skills of your Nine Heavens Holy Land is simply because you learned them yourself and you then instilled that knowledge into me?”
“En, what you mastered are the skills I am proficient in. A Saintess, before death, does not kill, but we can use our special methods to assist the Holy Master, and the benefits we bring to the Holy Master are not limited to just this. You should have felt just now, with my assistance, your Spiritual Energy became stronger.”
Yang Kai’s expression couldn’t help being strange at this point, “But I’m not your Holy Master, how come you were able to assist me so?”
An Ling’er sighed and bit her lip before saying, “Although I don’t want to admit it, you probably have the aptitude to become the next Holy Master.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“It’s true. Just now, I only wanted to help boost your Spiritual Energy so that you could fight against those two and had no intention of imparting the Holy Land’s Divine Skills, but somehow you managed to comprehend them all on your own. Can I ask you, how many of the Divine Skills did you manage to learn just now?”
“Just those two!”
“Those two skills are both incredibly difficult to comprehend, even with the help of us Saintesses. If a new Holy Master wants to master the Holy Land’s Divine Skills, it is not so easy. It is very likely that it will take many tries before a new Holy Master can thoroughly master any of the Divine Skills. You being able to not only grasp but utilize two of them in an instant, you should be able to understand the implications,” An Ling’er narrowed her eyes slightly.
Yang Kai’s eyes also narrowed slightly, “How many Divine Skills have you mastered?”
“Nine!” An Ling’er smiled lightly, “Want to learn?”
“Meh!” Yang Kai replied casually, putting on an uninterested expression.
“I can teach all of them to you right now actually, but there is a condition you have to promise me.”
Yang Kai’s face sank; he didn’t like it when people bargained back and forth with him.
“Follow me back to the Holy Land. When the times comes, not only will you be able to obtain my enlightenments but also those of my three sisters, we will help you grow in the shortest time possible.”
“You want me to go back with you to become your Holy Master?” Yang Kai grinned.
“Yes! I feel like you are an appropriate candidate, even though… you’re somewhat hateful,” An Ling’er replied truthfully.
“Not interested!” Yang Kai smiled and shook his head slowly.
“You…” An Ling’er almond coloured eyes bulged, a look of pure surprise spreading across her face. Never had she imagined that Yang Kai would refuse her offer so bluntly.
Who didn’t want to be the Holy Master of Nine Heavens Holy Land? The entire archipelago occupied by the Seven Family Alliance had become incredibly lively, with cultivators coming from near and far, all just for the chance of being selected by the Saintess. After all, if they were really chosen, it would be like leaping over the Dragon Gate and soaring into the sky in a single bound!
No matter where An Ling’er went, each island was the same: All the men, young and old, would flock to her with expectant looks.
But now, when she took the initiative to invite someone she believed worthy of receiving this honour, she was actually rejected! An Ling’er couldn’t help feeling like she was dreaming, staring dumbfounded at Yang Kai, unable to speak.
“If I want strength, I’ll cultivate it myself, why should I depend on women for it?” Yang Kai sneered, “What difference is there between that and being a gigolo?”
“Are you still not clear about the benefits of becoming a Holy Master?” An Ling’er frowned, “Becoming a Holy Master not only means you will become one of this world’s hegemons in the future, you will also receive things most people will never be able to obtain in their lifetimes. Whether its wealth, status, fame, even beauties, all of it will be yours.”
“Does that also include you?” Yang Kai looked at her evilly.
An Ling’er’s expression suddenly became a bit unnatural, but she soon nodded, “Yes, I was originally born to be the Holy Master’s cultivation furnace, not only me, but also my three sisters. As long as you desire it, regardless of what it is, we sisters will give it to you; you can openly enjoy the pampering of four wives!”
“A tempting offer!” Yang Kai licked his lips, an obscene expression appearing on his face which seemed to be particularly wretched.
“Then you…”
“Nope!” Yang Kai sneered, his expression changing faster than flipping the page of a book, shaking his head and saying, “There must be demerits, becoming Holy Master has so many advantages, so the price one has to pay shouldn’t be small, right?”
An Ling’er pretty face froze up as she stared deeply at him and nodded, “Yes, there is a rumor in the Holy Land that, although there is no basis, I believe is the price each Holy Master needs to pay!”
“Let’s hear it!”
“Every Holy Master doesn’t live long… It seems that the one who lived the longest was only three hundred years old.”
Nine Heavens Holy Land was a powerful Sect and the Holy Master, with the assistance of so many Saintesses as cultivation furnaces, definitely increased his strength rapidly. Yang Kai estimated that each Holy Master became a Third Order Saint after only several dozen years.
Third Order Saints had long since transcended the level of mortality and their life expectancy was greatly extended, to only live to three hundred years was obviously dying young.
Even Third Order Transcendents from certain forces could live for hundreds of years.
Upon hearing the price, Yang Kai completely discarded any intentions to become the so-called Holy Master had. Three hundred years seemed like a long time, but for those who pursued the Martial Dao, such a period of time was but a fleeting moment.
Yang Kai firmly believed that even if he didn’t become a Holy Master, in three hundred years he would still be living well, perhaps traveling around with Su Yan and Little Senior Sister, freely exploring the world.
“However, if you think about it, in exchange for such benefits, it’s a small price to pay; after all, this isn’t something many people can pursue in their lifetime,” An Ling’er continued trying to persuade Yang Kai.
But Yang Kai simply snickered and said confidently, “After thirty years, I will be able to stand on equal footing as your nonsense Holy Master.”
“Thirty years…” An Ling’er stared at him doubtfully, “You certainly know how to talk big.”
To stand on equal footing with the Holy Master meant at least being a Third Order Saint.
An Ling’er didn’t believe Yang Kai was capable of this and only thought he was an overconfident youth.
“Believe what you like,” Yang Kai smiled, his face filled with confidence.
“You really won’t reconsider?”
“No,” Yang Kai shook his head, “But I have to say, the way you choose your Holy Master is too sloppy. How can you decide the next leader of such a big force so casually?”
“It’s not sloppy!” An Ling’er retorted vigorously, “Our Secret Art is based entirely around finding the next Holy Master. As long as there is a suitable candidate within a certain radius, we Saintesses can perceive them. A situation like yours is the actually the alternative method to finding a candidate. If we Saintesses cannot find an appropriate candidate within the allotted time, we can only let the Holy Land recruit as many young people with high aptitude and pass them knowledge of the Holy Land’s Divine Skills to see if they can comprehend them. Although today’s event was an accident, you have indeed passed my test and are eligible to enter the Holy Land. En, in fact, your performance is exemplary, so you’re definitely qualified!”
Yang Kai laughed back at her, “Can you guarantee that the person you choose is loyal to your Holy Land and doesn’t have any ulterior motives?”
“We can!” An Ling’er nodded firmly, “After entering the Holy Land, the new Holy Master’s mindset will change.”
Yang Kai narrowed his eyes at this comment. Although he wasn’t quite clear about the details, from what he could gather, it seems the Nine Heavens Holy Land would use some special method to brainwash their new leader.
“Fine fine, let’s put this aside for now,” Yang Kai didn’t want to continue inquiring into the secrets of Nine Heavens Holy Land. The more he knew, the less helpful it was to him. Having said so, Yang Kai released a subtle stream of Spiritual Energy from the Soul Avatar and before An Ling’er could respond, wrapped her in it.
“What are you doing?” An Ling’er’s pretty face changed as she suddenly found herself unable to move. Yang Kai’s Spiritual Energy was far stronger than she had estimated before and also contained a burning hot aura that caused her Soul Avatar a fair amount of discomfort.
Yang Kai looked her over, a complicated look flashing across his eyes as he nodded slightly, “En, considering everything that’s happened, the safest course of action would be to kill you.”
“Kill me?” An Ling’er’s beautiful face paled slightly, “You think I’ve seen too much?”
“That’s one of the reasons,” Yang Kai nodded calmly, “With the things you know, I can imagine that once you go back, your Nine Heavens Holy Land won’t leave me alone and will try to force me to go back with you, either to force me to take the position of Holy Master or to kill me in order to protect the secrets of your Holy Land. I don’t want to deal with either of these situations.”
“Aren’t you being a bit paranoid?” An Ling’er frowned as she stared at him faintly, “As long as I don’t tell anyone, who will know what happened here today? And don’t forget, I saved you once before, don’t tell me you’re going to repay that kindness with enmity.”
“You don’t need to remind me,” Yang Kai spat disdainfully, “In fact, I don’t know what I should do with you right now. If I killed you, I would definitely regret it for the rest of my life, at worst it may become a kind of heart demon, but if I just let you go, I won’t be able to feel relieved.”
Listening to him, An Ling’er nervousness couldn’t help diminishing greatly as she quietly asked, “So what do you need me to do?”
“Nothing much! But this was something I wished to avoid as well.” Yang Kai sighed as he reached out his hand and grabbed towards her Soul Avatar.
An Ling’er was frightened and wanted to struggle but was still unable to move.
Yang Kai’s hand hadn’t even touched An Ling’er before he clenched his fist and pulled it back towards himself.
An irresistible attraction seemed to emerge all of a sudden and An Ling’er’s vision became hazy, her Soul Avatar collapsing to the ground softly a moment later.
Struggling to raise her head, she directed a hate-filled glare towards Yang Kai and spat angrily, “So you learned more than just two Divine Skills!”
“Sorry, I actually learned three of them!” Yang Kai smiled, “This one is called Great Heavenly Attraction, right?”
An Ling’er bit down hard on her lips and refused to answer.
“Profound Heavenly Sword, Imprisoning Heaven Chain, Great Heavenly Attraction…” Yang Kai muttered, “Your Nine Heavens Holy Land’s Divine Skills are really quite convenient and practical.”
“Convenient? Practical?! You’re only able to use them because of my ten years of hard work!” An Ling’er listened to his evaluation and suddenly couldn’t help snapping back at him.
Yang Kai simply ignored her and instead stared at the small piece of Spiritual Energy in his hand. This thread was something he had pulled out from An Ling’er’s Soul Avatar and actually looked like a miniature version of her, sitting cross-legged atop Yang Kai’s palm, solemn and motionless.
This was An Ling’er Soul brand!
With this brand in hand, Yang Kai could control whether An Ling’er lived or died at will.
“As a safety precaution, I’ll be accepting your Soul brand, and I hope from now on our paths will never cross again. En, well, when one day I am able to match your Holy Master, I’ll go to your Nine Heavens Holy Land and return this brand to you,” Yang Kai said, storing away her Soul brand into his own Avatar.
An Ling’er looked as if she had suffered a great injustice, but was helpless to resist.
Although she too was proficient in the Great Heavenly Attraction, her Divine Sense was not nearly as powerful as Yang Kai’s, so even though she wanted to fight back, she couldn’t.
This man was simply abhorrent to the extreme, she had clearly just offered him fame, riches, power, and women, yet not only did he refuse her, but he was also now trying to control her as well.
“Hey, I’m not really trying to act maliciously towards you, stop looking at me like I’m so kind of monster,” Yang Kai said to her as he shook his head.
“You bastard!” An Ling’er gnashed her teeth, seemingly trying to vent her anger.
“Yes yes yes, I’m a big bastard, the most hateful person in the world. Anyways, you should calm yourself down and cultivate quietly for a bit,” Yang Kai waved his hand dismissively. Now that he was in possession of her Soul brand, he felt much more relaxed.
Although extracting her Soul brand had caused some damage to An Ling’er’s Soul, it would be fine as long as she cultivated for a while, Yang Kai had made sure of that just now.
An Ling’er pursed her lips and ignored him, wandering a short distance away and sitting down, looking very pitiful.
Yang Kai watched her for a moment before helplessly shaking his head and flying off.
This white world was indeed inside a Soul type artifact. As for this artifact’s purpose, Yang Kai wasn’t quite clear. All he knew was that it was capable of forcefully extracting others’ Soul Avatars and dragging them into this strange space.
This was something quite useful for Yang Kai nonetheless.
His Soul was actually much more powerful than his physical body, so once he encountered a powerful enemy, with this artifact, he could force them into a confrontation between Divine Senses.
In such a battle, Yang Kai would have a lot of advantages.
As such, he really wanted to collect this artifact for himself.
However, the more than a hundred people who had been drawn into this white space had already searched it several times over and found nothing of note. In fact, the only thing that was at all different in this place was the glowing ‘Soul Battle Hall’ words hanging up in the sky.
Flying up to the position where the words were written, Yang Kai carefully inspected them, his expression turned stern.
As time passed, An Ling’er also recovered from the damage she had suffered and turned her eyes towards the sky, a while later also flying up and standing next to Yang Kai, asking, “Are you looking for an exit, or do you perhaps want to refine this artifact?”
“Not angry anymore?” Yang Kai glanced over at her curiously, he found that this woman was quite forgiving. Before now, Yang Kai had repeatedly pushed her away, but each time, after a short bout of pouting, she would come over to him again.
“Of course I’m still angry!” An Ling’er firmly stated, “But I’ve decided to put that aside for now. The most important thing right now is to find a way out of here.”
“Clever girl!” Yang Kai grinned meaningfully, “You’re right, I want to refine this artifact. Since it’s a Soul type artifact, it should be possible to refine it using my Spiritual Energy, but I don’t know how I should go about doing that, what do you think? Any suggestions?”
An Ling’er swept her eyes around carefully and thought for a moment before replying, “You should try refining these three words, it may be the core of this artifact. Pour your Spiritual Energy into these words and you should be able to take possession of this artifact!”
“Seems we’re in agreement,” Yang Kai nodded before saying, “You should stand farther away.”
An Ling’er narrowed her eyes slightly, and although she felt a little confused by his suggestion, she still obediently moved away, landing back where the two of them had just had their last fight.
Looking up, she saw Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar sitting cross-legged and motionless mid-air, seemingly concentrating on something.
All of a sudden, an astonishingly hot burning aura spread out from his Soul Avatar as a brilliant, golden light filled the entire white space, the Soul Battle Hall seeming shaking in response.
Instantly, the three words were directly wrapped in blazing flames.
An Ling’er’s jaw went slack as she saw this, her tender body trembling slightly.
Originally she had thought that Yang Kai had cultivated some kind of special Soul Skill or possessed a powerful Soul type artifact which gave his Soul Avatar that faint burning aura, but after witnessing this scene, she realized that neither of these was the case. The truth was that his Soul Avatar gave off a burning hot aura because of its innate nature!
[A Conflagrated Knowledge Sea?] An Ling’er was completely shocked.
Moreover, from what she could tell, Yang Kai’s use of his Spiritual Energy had reached a very high standard.
No wonder he had taken her Soul brand, it wasn’t just because he had learned some of the Holy Land’s secrets from her, but also because he possessed such a secret!
He obviously didn’t want her to tell anyone about this.
However, with this, the two of them might really be saved. The power of a Conflagrated Knowledge Sea was far greater than an ordinary Knowledge Sea, and it seemed Yang Kai’s raw strength was also quite considerable. This Soul type artifact, even if its grade wasn’t low, probably wouldn’t be able to withstand being refined by such hot, violent Spiritual Energy.
An Ling’er suddenly felt a bit joyful as she made up her mind to do whatever it took to convince Yang Kai to return to the Holy Land with her!
A Holy Master with a Conflagrated Knowledge Sea! This was unprecedented even in the Holy Land’s entire history. With such aptitude and capital, as long as he became the next Holy Master, he would certainly be the most powerful one in history!
The seabed, somewhere in the Ancient Ruins.
In this place, within a thousand meters, there were more than a hundred cultivators lying on the ground, most of them already dead. Only a man and a woman still showed any signs of life, but they were both comatose.
In front of these cultivators there was a glowing light sphere that was continuously emitting some subtle energy fluctuations. As these fluctuations rose and fell, the light from the sphere also pulsed, sometimes brilliant and blinding, other times seemingly on the verge of being extinguished.
Suddenly, a golden radiance bloomed from the light sphere. When this golden aura appeared, the nearby space gradually became hot.
This golden aura began expanding outwards and soon encompassed the entire region, turning the light sphere into a miniature golden sun, the burning sensation in the air become more and more intense.
*Kacha…*
The sound of something shattering rang out.
At the same time, two Souls shot out from the light sphere, circle a few times, and then slowly landed on two of the bodies lying down below.
The golden radiance coming from the light sphere gradually dimmed and after a while, the entire orb went dark.
A moment later, An Ling’er slowly struggled to open her eyes and arduously picked herself up off the ground. After finally managing to stand upright, she looked around and spotted Yang Kai a short distance away.
As the pair met eyes, they couldn’t help grinning slightly.
Inside the Soul Battle Hall, in order to refine the artifact, Yang Kai had been persistently burning the three glowing words with his powerful Spiritual Energy, and just now, after who knows how long, he finally managed to succeed.
After overcoming such hardship together, An Ling’er suddenly felt that Yang Kai was somewhat good but still in most cases, bad. However, still quite bearable to be around. Yang Kai also thought that this young woman wasn’t so bad either, even if she was a bit naive. When he was refining the artifact, she had not tried to disturb or hinder him in any way and had instead just waited quietly while keeping her distance.
After successfully refining the Soul type artifact, it was easy to leave; Yang Kai simply summoned an exit and the two of them stepped through it.
Their Souls having been separated from their bodies for quite some time, a sense of discomfort was unavoidable. Yang Kai’s condition wasn’t too bad; after all, his Soul was significantly more powerful than An Ling’er’s, while the latter was still struggling to adjust. After confirming that Yang Kai had also returned, she promptly sat back down and began circulating her Secret Art while re-adjusting herself.
Yang Kai also sat down and carefully confirmed that there was nothing wrong with his body before standing up and walking over to where the Soul type artifact was.
Now that he had finished refining it, this artifact naturally belonged to Yang Kai.
Standing beside it, with a single though, Yang Kai stored it into his Knowledge Sea.
After inspecting the artifact for a while, Yang Kai was pleasantly surprised. This was a rare treasure left behind by the ancient Sect which once stood here and was definitely Saint Grade. Even after experiencing endless years idling in this place, this artifact had actually not lost much of its strength.
After nourishing it within his Knowledge Sea for some time, Yang Kai believed he could restore it to its original strength.
Yang Kai was very satisfied and felt that this trip had been worthwhile. Earlier he had obtained a Pill with a Pill Cloud, making it difficult for him to contain his excitement, and now he had acquired a Soul type artifact that was perfectly suited to him, it could be said that his harvest here had been bigger than anyone else.
Taking back his consciousness, Yang Kai looked around and found that An Ling’er was still meditating while Hai Wang Gu and the others had already died. Yang Kai thought about it for a moment before walking over the bodies and sifting through the various Universe Bags, taking anything he found useful while discarding the rest.
Half a day later, An Ling’er slowly opened her beautiful eyes; after this short adjustment, she had basically made a full recovery.
Seeing Yang Kai seemingly looking after her, the Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess smiled, an inexplicable sweetness welling up in her heart.
Getting up and gently stepping over to Yang Kai, she asked, “Are we going back now or continuing to explore?”
“I want to continue exploring this place. There is at least one place I need to investigate, as for you… well, do whatever you want,” Yang Kai replied bluntly before walking off.
Seeing Yang Kai acting somewhat cold towards her again, An Ling’er pursed her lips and quickly followed after him without a word.
Arriving in front of a grand palace, Yang Kai couldn’t help frowning slightly.
This palace was the one originally guarded by the Soul Battle Hall, the one Hai Wang Gu and Old Man Cheng had gathered over a hundred cultivators together to break into, hoping to discover more treasures.
Unexpectedly though, after breaking the barrier around this palace, everyone’s Soul had been pulled into the Soul Battle Hall, thoroughly disrupting their initial plans.
Now though, when Yang Kai and An Ling’er inspected this place, they discovered signs that other people had already been here recently. The palace had essentially been ransacked and anything of value had already been taken.
“Did someone else come here later and discover this place?” An Ling’er guessed.
Yang Kai nodded lightly, agreeing with her analysis.
Although more than a hundred people had been dragged into the Soul Battle Hall, there were still many others who had entered these Ancient Ruins.
Yang Kai didn’t know how much time had passed, but he estimated that by now, the entire Ancient Ruins had been looted clean.
Realizing this, Yang Kai no longer wasted time, left the palace directly, and headed straight towards the source of the Yang Attribute fluctuations he felt.
Although it may have already been a month or two since they arrived at this place, the Yang Attribute aura that had first drawn Yang Kai here was still present.
Yang Kai wanted to know just what it was.
An Ling’er didn’t say anything to provoke or question Yang Kai and simply followed behind him step by step.
Yang Kai knew that she had still not given up on persuading him to return with her to Nine Heavens Holy Land so he deliberately ignored her.
After some time, Yang Kai felt he was drawing closer to the source of the Yang Attribute energy, but along with the Yang Attribute energy, Yang Kai also felt another kind of special fluctuation.
Void force!
Yang Kai suddenly realized that something was wrong and a sinking feeling told him he wasn’t likely to gain anything for his troubles here.
Sure enough, after passing over a small ridge, Yang Kai’s steps came to a halt and a helpless frown appeared on his face.
An Ling’er saw his expression droop and quickly looked over in the direction he was staring, covering her mouth in shock in the next instant and shouting “A Void Corridor?”
A short distance ahead, a roughly five-meter pitch black hole appeared in the ground. Naturally, it was a Void Corridor.
The Yang Attribute energy and the force of the void that Yang Kai felt were both coming from this black hole.
“How come there is a Void Corridor here?” An Ling’er couldn’t help feeling surprised. Void Corridors weren’t very common. It was said that a long time ago, masters tore holes in space as they fought which resulted in the formation of Void Corridors. There was also a theory that these Void Corridors were natural formations that had coincidentally formed on their own.
Through researching the mysteries of Void Corridor, some masters in the current world could use their own great strength to manipulate the force of the void to create Void Corridor-like existences, allowing them to cross ten thousand kilometres in a flash.
Chu Ling Xiao of Soaring Heaven Sect possessed such ability!
However, doing this consumed a great deal of time and energy, so even a master as powerful as Chu Ling Xiao was not willing to do so if not absolutely necessary.
However, the pseudo-Void Corridors these masters constructed and legitimate ones were worlds apart in terms of stability and distance of transmission.
There being a Void Corridor in this Ancient Ruin came as quite a surprise to An Ling’er.
It was a mystery what lay on the other side, it may be somewhere else in Tong Xuan Realm, or it may be a separate Mysterious Small World.
“Let’s head back!” Yang Kai said after a short silence. Although the source of the Yang Attribute energy was of great interest to him, he wasn’t about to rush head long into a Void Corridor. If it transported him to a distant part of the Starry Sky, it might be impossible for him to find his way back.
Saying so, he didn’t even wait for An Ling’er to reply before soaring straight up.
“Ah, wait for me!” An Ling’er shouted and quickly chased after him.
A moment later, the two of them arrived at the barrier of the Ancient Ruin, passed it, and plunged back into the sea.
Instantly, Yang Kai felt an enormous pressure from all directions, seemingly trying to crush even his bones.
Feeling this tremendous pressure, Yang Kai quickly pushed his True Qi and opened up a bubble around himself.
An Ling’er’s eyes flashed and dove into Yang Kai’s True Qi bubble, standing close by with a relaxed smile on her face.
“Why you…” Yang Kai glared at her.
“What?”
“Isn’t a Saintess supposed to be pure and noble? Sticking so close to an unfamiliar man, is that something you should be doing?”
“Unfamiliar man?” An Ling’er argued back, “Didn’t I tell you, you are fully qualified to become the next Holy Master. If you didn’t have such qualification, I wouldn’t even approach you.”
“If you dare mention that again just see if I don’t kill you!” Yang Kai shouted fiercely.
“You say that but you don’t have any intention of acting on it,” An Ling’er seemed to have seen through Yang Kai’s nature and was no longer frightened by him so easily.
Yang Kai ground his teeth as he stared at her wickedly, a devious smiling soon forming on his face, “You like provoking me? Do you really think I don’t have a way to tidy you up?”
“Try it if you dare!” An Ling’er stared back at him defiantly.
Yang Kai’s grin became even wider as he slowly began taking back his True Qi, shrinking the bubble around the two of them greatly.
An Ling’er let out a slight yelp upon seeing this and quickly leaned in towards Yang Kai, fearing she would be exposed to the outside sea if she didn’t.
Yang Kai continued to withdraw his True Qi, shrinking the bubble more and more.
The noble and holy Saintess soon had no choice but to squish up against Yang Kai, her delicate little hands grabbing tightly onto his clothes as her chest met his, her pretty face fluctuating between bright red and pale white, secretly gnashing her teeth but not daring to say anything more.
Soon, An Ling’er’s face had become a deep shade of crimson.
As the defensive barrier shrank, she could wrap her arms and legs around Yang Kai, her two proud peaks greatly deforming as the pressed against his strong chest.
Even though she was extremely unwilling, she had no choice but to maintain this humiliating posture.
“You pervert! Criminal! Demon!” An Ling’er bit her lips and pouted pitifully to Yang Kai, exhaling hot, fragrant breath next to his face.
Looking at An Ling’er’s half angry, half ashamed expression, Yang Kai couldn’t help laughing wickedly, “Your Majesty the Saintess, how do you feel?”
As he spoke, he deliberately breathed right next to her delicate earlobe, causing An Ling’er already blushing face to dye even redder and her heart to pound, something Yang Kai could feel due to their ‘close’ contact.
The Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess had grown up since birth in the Holy Land and spent almost all of her time cultivating and being instilled with a certain mentality.
That was that she was born to serve the Holy Master and everything she possessed and obtained was for the Holy Master’s sake.
In Nine Heavens Holy Land, the Saintesses were symbols of nobility and holiness, so they were never allowed close contact with any man.
Now, wrapped around this essentially unknown man’s body, An Ling’er’s thoughts were in a state of confusion, the only thing she was certain of was that she deeply regretted provoking such a hateful bastard.
What was worse though was that this wicked person had not only passed her test but was even able to instantly comprehend three of the Nine Heavens Divine Skills.
[The Heavens must really be blind!] An Ling’er bit her lip hard in an effort to stop herself from shouting something unladylike.
Seeing her truly aggrieved appearance, Yang Kai no longer bothered teasing her and simply maintained the status quo as he swam upwards.
A while later, the two youths burst out of the sea and returned to the surface.
An Ling’er, quickly separated herself from Yang Kai like a frightened rabbit, gasping for a breath while glaring at him with a look of resentment.
“I’ll say this to you now, everything you saw down there, you must not mention in front of anyone from Nine Heavens Holy Land, or else I won’t hesitate to permanently silence you. In exchange, I assure you that I will never do anything to harm your Nine Heavens Holy Land, nor will I tell another soul about your Sect’s secrets! Good, from now on, it would be best if we never meet again, both for our sakes,” Yang Kai said seriously.
“I understand, you don’t need to mention that again,” An Ling’er nodded lightly.
“Very good, I hope you find your new Holy Master soon!” Yang Kai smiled before quickly departing.
Staring at his disappearing back, An Ling’er’s expression became complicated.
She had never thought that someone would refuse such a good deed which was practically handed to him on a platter; she always thought that when she found someone qualified to become the next Holy Master, that person would be in utter joy. He would not be able to contain himself, and ask when he will be able to arrive back to the Holy Land with her. A place filled with wealth and riches. However, Yang Kai’s reaction and attitude had completely shattered her previous preconceptions.
When he left, he didn’t show the slightest regret; it was obvious he was completely unwilling to become the Holy Master.
“Oh no!” An Ling’er suddenly cried out, only now remembering that she had been missing for so long. Uncle Qian and the others were probably losing their minds with worry by now.
Above the archipelago, a think sense of tension filled the air.
The people from the Seven Family Alliance and the disciples of Nine Heavens Holy Land had almost turned the nearby islands inside out over the past one and a half months.
But to this day, the whereabouts of the Saintess were still unknown.
Facing the ever increasing anger of Nine Heavens Holy Land, each member of the Seven Family Alliance trembled in fear.
The masters of the Seven Families were currently all gathered together in a giant palace originally reserved for the Nine Heavens Holy Land delegation, each of them leaking cold sweat from the their brows.
Qian Ning’s face was gloomy to the extreme as he stared at these people and muttered angrily, “After more than a month, none of you has been able to find the slightest clue to the whereabouts of the Saintess. I will give you three more days, if I can’t see the Saintess standing in front of me within three days, I will personally flatten all your islands!”
“Protector Qian, please calm your anger, we will assign more people to the search and will definitely find Her Highness the Saintess!” A First Order Transcendent cultivator continually wiped the sweat from his forehead and shouted.
Nine Heavens Holy Land visiting their territory was a great honour for their Seven Family Alliance, but who could have predicted such a crisis would befall them.
“Protector Qian, is it possible Her Highness the Saintess accompanied the exploration group from some time ago?” Someone guessed.
“That group that went treasure hunting at the bottom of the sea?” Qian Ning coldly snorted, “How could Her Highness the Saintess do something so ridiculous?”
“But in with the exception of the seabed, we have searched everywhere…”
“Didn’t those who went to explore the seabed return three days ago? There was no trace of Her Highness the Saintess among them, if she really had been with them, she would have returned by now.”
“But… down there, there were many casualties, perhaps Her Highness the Saintess…”
“Impudence!” Qian Ning roared furiously, “What kind of characters is Her Highness! Even those low born vagabonds could come back alive, how could she possible have had an accident? I don’t care what method you use, or how many people you need to call, if I don’t see the Saintess within three days, you know the consequences! Get out!”
The leaders of the Seven Family Alliance were secretly annoyed at being treated this way but they didn’t dare show so on their faces. Their small alliance was really not worth mentioning in front of Nine Heavens Holy Land so they naturally couldn’t provoke Qian Ning.
However, before they could even leave the palace, a maid suddenly rushed over with a giant smile upon her face as she shouted, “Protector Qian, Protector Qian, Saintess, she… she’s returned!”
“She’s back?” Qian Ning raised his head and rushed out to meet the maid, eagerly asking, “Where?”
The maid quickly led the way, followed closely by Qian Ning, and soon arrived in front of An Ling’er.
Qian Ning’s face filled with tears and was so happy he was unable to speak, the great stone which was weighing on his heart this whole time finally lifting.
When An Ling’er walked over, everyone in the palace quickly bowed, “Greetings, Saintess!”
An Ling’er nodded lightly before somewhat guiltily saying, “Uncle Qian, this time I’ve caused you to worry, I’m truly sorry.”
“No no, as long as Saintess is safe, all it well,” Qian Ning smiled, obviously much more relaxed then just now, “Have you been hurt in any way?”
An Ling’er shook her head slowly.
“May I ask, where has Saintess been these days?”
“While I was out, I suddenly felt a sense of enlightenment, so I found a secluded place to retreat, I didn’t think I would be in seclusion for more than a month,” An Ling’er whispered, her attitude seemingly unnatural if one were observing closely.
Qian Ning did not miss this point and narrowed his eyes slightly, realizing that she was likely lying, but since the Saintess didn’t want to explain and she was safe and sound, he decided to simply count it as a blessing and let it pass, nodding happily as he shouted, “Good, very good!”
Turning around he said to the nearby maid, “Bei’er, take Her Highness to have a good rest.”
“En,” The maid, Bei’er nodded quickly.
The leaders of the Seven Family Alliance all exchanged glances upon seeing this scene play out and breathed a sigh of relief.
…..
On one of the island in the archipelago, Yang Kai found a cultivation room for rent, paid a few Crystal Stones, and stepped inside.
This room was owned and operated by the Seven Family Alliance and was designed for cultivators to use when they needed retreat and the cost to use it was far higher than an average inn’s room.
However, this cultivation chamber came with many isolation barriers that allowed a cultivator to avoid any kind of external interference; on top of that, the Seven Family Alliance placed guards around the area who would ensure the safety of those cultivating here, so it was worth the additional expense.
As such, these rooms were quite popular with foreign cultivators.
Cultivation rooms like these existed in most large cities; after all, there were always cultivators who suddenly gained insights into their practice and would need a place to retreat.
Inside the cultivation room, Yang Kai first inspected the various barriers, quickly determining that their quality wasn’t bad and could withstand a certain amount of impact as well as serve as alarms against outside intrusion. Finished with his inspection, Yang Kai sat down and took out the Pill Cloud pill and placed it atop his palm.
He wasn’t in a rush to leave this place partly because he couldn’t wait to see how this pill was refined and partly because he wanted to stay and monitor An Ling’er’s movements.
It wasn’t that he wanted to think the worst of her, but there were some things that required him to exercise an abundance of caution.
In the unlikely event that An Ling’er sold him out, he would probably become an enemy of Nine Heavens Holy Land. Such a colossus, once provoked, would bring him endless trouble.
Yang Kai had learned three of the Nine Heavens Holy Land’s Divine Skills in that inexplicable situation. These Divine Skills belonged to Nine Heavens Holy Land’s core inheritance and obviously couldn’t remain in the hands of outsiders. Once they knew the truth, they would have only two options, kill Yang Kai or force him to become their new Holy Master.
Taking An Ling’er’s Soul brand was something he was helpless about.
Although he had her Soul brand now, it didn’t allow Yang Kai to know everything she did, but he could at least notice any big changes in her mood, so it was possible to monitor her somewhat as long as they were close by.
Without thinking about it any further, Yang Kai immersed himself in studying the pill before him.
It was a Saint Grade Pill! A Saint Grade Mid-Rank pill to be more exact.
Alchemist who could refine Saint Pills were uncommon in any age.
Du Wan was a famous figure throughout Tong Xuan Realm and was still only a Saint Grade Low-Rank Alchemist, with his methods, he couldn’t refine a Saint Grade Mid-Rank pill unless he was extremely lucky.
Among the people Yang Kai had met, only The Old Man of Heaven’s Keep, Li Rui, could easily refine Saint Grade pills.
An excellent Alchemist could infer the level and skill of another by observing the traces left behind on one of the latter’s pills.
Staring at the Saint Pill in his hand, Yang Kai was deeply impressed.
Although Yang Kai’s experience was not incredibly rich, he could still see that the one who refined this pill had done so in a smooth and natural matter, with no rough traces left behind from either the purification or condensing stages of Alchemy. The skill of this Alchemist had obviously reached a superb height, possibly even comparable to that of Old Man Li’s.
However, too much time had passed. It was impossible to determine which ancient force those ruins belong to so obviously it was unrealistic to discover the identity of this Alchemist.
The most valuable thing about this Saint Pill though was obviously the Pill Cloud which enshrouded it. The rich aura from this cloud not only maintained the medicinal efficacies of this pill but also continuously gathered the surrounding World Energy to nourish it, strengthening its properties as time passed.
After so many thousands of years of accumulation, the energy contained inside this Saint Pill was simply immeasurable.
Yang Kai estimated that even if a top Saint Realm master were to swallow this pill, they would likely be unable to bear the energy contained within it.
A pill like this was simply something from legend.
Yang Kai immersed himself in studying this pill, savouring the technique used by the Alchemist who had refined it.
While doing so, it was as if he could see a scene from countless years ago, yet at the same time the finer details were hazy, covered in clouds.
Time flew by and several days passed. During this time, Yang Kai had constantly been in retreat in his cultivation room, spying on the mysteries of the Pill Cloud Saint Pill, reaping some small gains.
Yang Kai had also been monitoring An Ling’er these days and so far, everything seemed to be proceeding uneventfully. Apparently she had not taken the risk to sell him out. However, for reasons Yang Kai couldn’t understand, the delegation from Nine Heavens Holy Land had not yet departed.
Perhaps they were concerned after the disappearance of their Saintess that they didn’t have enough security and were waiting for reinforcements.
Shaking his head, Yang Kai no longer paid much attention to An Ling’er’s situation and fully concentrated on studying this ancient Saint Pill.
A few more days passed but Yang Kai still couldn’t glean much information regarding the Pill Cloud pill, so he was now left with only one option. This method had a number of risks associated with it, on top of which there was a chance he wouldn’t be able to learn anything from it, so it was a gamble.
He simply had to swallow it!
By feeling the effects of the pill with his body, he could possibly learn some of the secrets of the Pill Cloud while uncover the process by which this Saint Pill was refined!
Yang Kai hesitated for a long time, deciding whether he should take this rather extreme step.
A pill with a Pill Cloud was simply too rare; what’s more, this was a Saint Grade Mid-Rank pill, a valuable treasure all on its own. Once he swallowed it, it would be gone.
On top of all that, because of the Pill Cloud that surrounded the Saint Pill, Yang Kai couldn’t tell what this pill’s purpose was. Whether it was a healing pill, a supplementary cultivation pill, an enhancement pill, or a detoxification pill, Yang Kai had no clue.
Everything was a mystery, the only thing he was certain of was that it wasn’t a poison pill.
The other big risk was that after such a long period of time, the energy accumulated in this pill by its Pill Cloud was too large, causing Yang Kai to worry if he could even withstand taking it.
Although he had his Unyielding Golden Skeleton which could accept an unimaginably huge amount of energy, the capacity of his meridians and physique was still limited. If the massive amount of energy contained in this pill were to fill his meridians faster than his Unyielding Golden Skeleton could absorb it, his body may be damaged or even directly explode!
After weighing his options for a long time though, Yang Kai gradually firmed his resolve.
[I will risk it!]
With such a great opportunity in front of him, he had to at least try. Instead of pondering and hesitating over it forever, he might as well take action and deal with the consequences whatever they may be. Once he absorbed the medicinal efficacies, everything would become clear.
After making up his mind, Yang Kai left his cultivation room once to pay for an extension of ten days and told the Seven Family Alliance guards on duty that without his permission, no one was to disturb him. After accepting several Crystal Stones, the person in charge of the cultivation room happily agreed.
Returning to the cultivation room again, Yang Kai activated all the isolation barriers at their maximum setting before sitting down cross-legged, taking a deep breath, and preparing himself.
After achieving his peak condition, Yang Kai tossed the ancient Saint Pill into his mouth and swallowed it down.
Not daring to show the slightest bit of carelessness, Yang Kai immediately began circulating his True Yang Secret Art while waiting for the pill’s effects to appear.
Three breaths later, Yang Kai felt heat well up in his lower abdomen and began to rapidly spread outwards. This heat was like bubbling magma, burning Yang Kai’s five viscera, six organs.
When this heat first appeared, it was like a small stream and not too strong, but in the blink of an eye it transformed into a flowing creek, then a raging river, and finally a vast ocean.
Yang Kai could even hear the movement of this massive amount of energy from his chest, it was like a violent storm that whipped and howled as it sent out one violent torrent after another.
Yang Kai’s face went white, then red, as if it was on fire, his True Qi surging up and down as every pore on his skin involuntarily opened and countless streams of energy began leaking out, evaporating into the air.
Even circulating his True Yang Secret Art as fast as possible, Yang Kai felt his meridians close to bursting as the energy contained within the pill continued to flow out.
The effects of this pill rapidly flowed along Yang Kai’s meridians and penetrated every in of his physique.
At this moment, it was as if Yang Kai had opened a mysterious space filled with explosive energy and while receiving this energy’s violent baptism, he also had to focus his attention in order to explore the secrets hidden within.
With one mind, trying to do two nearly opposite tasks was no simple matter.
Soon though, Yang Kai noticed something was wrong, while the medicinal efficacies of the pill were indeed flowing through his meridians and physique, even though he was rapidly circulating his True Yang Secret Art, none of this energy was being absorbed into his Unyielding Golden Skeleton. Instead, it was all gathering towards his forehead.
As soon these streams of energy reached his forehead though, they would disappear like they had been swallowed by an invisible vortex.
Yang Kai was shocked and quickly reacted by immersing his consciousness into his Knowledge Sea.
The moment his Soul Avatar opened its eyes, Yang Kai saw a torrent of energy pouring into his golden red Knowledge Sea, like great waterfalls being burned and assimilated by the sea of flames below.
Yang Kai stared blankly for a moment before suddenly understanding.
It turned out that Saint Pill was not a healing pill, nor a pill for cultivating, but one meant to nourish one’s Soul!
In the instant it took Yang Kai to comprehend this, a nearly overwhelming amount of energy flooded in, causing his entire Knowledge Sea to toss violently, the Soul Battle Hall and Demon Eye of Annihilation floating in the sky seemingly becoming somewhat unstable.
The small Heaven Grade Top-Rank Soul sword had been swept away in this raging storm and disappeared altogether.
Realizing he was in grave danger, Yang Kai couldn’t help cursing vehemently. Originally, he had thought that no matter how much energy this Saint Pill contained, his unique Unyielding Golden Skeleton would be able to safely absorb it, greatly reducing the risk of taking this Pill Cloud pill.
However, he hadn’t anticipated that this ancient Saint Pill was meant to cultivate one’s Spiritual Energy, rendering his Unyielding Golden Skeleton useless.
Although Yang Kai’s Knowledge Sea was much vaster than an ordinary First Order Transcendent’s, there were still limits to it. With this massive amount of energy continuing to pour in, his Knowledge Sea would exploded sooner or later.
Yang Kai’s expression was incredibly ugly, and the only thing he could do now was try to stabilize his turbulent Knowledge Sea while desperately trying to think of a way to resolve the crisis before him.
Unable to think of any way out of this predicament, Yang Kai was just about to start panicking when suddenly, his entire Knowledge Sea was flooded with a brilliant five coloured radiance. When this aurora appeared, the massive amount of energy that was still pouring into his Knowledge Sea began to rapidly flow towards something and disappear.
Yang Kai glanced over in the direction of the flow and quickly discovered the source of this phenomenon, grinning dumbly a moment later.
What was helping him swallow this massive amount of energy, thus saving his life, was actually the Five Coloured Soul Warming Lotus.
When he had first obtained his incredible Soul nourishing treasure, Old Demon had told him that the Five Coloured Soul Warming Lotus could grow and if given enough time would evolve to have six colours and eventually seven colours!
This process of evolution was very long, possibly thousands of years to tens of thousands of years.
Once it reached the Seven Coloured state though, the assistance the Soul Warming Lotus would bring to its possessor was simply immeasurable.
Yang Kai had already gained unimaginable benefits from the Five Coloured Soul Warming Lotus, his Spiritual Energy and Soul being significantly stronger than his body’s True Qi cultivation was mainly due to it.
So Yang Kai could imagine how miraculous the Seven Coloured Soul Warming Lotus would be.
Old Demon had also said that although the Soul Warming Lotus’s growth was slow, it could be artificially accelerated by allowing it to absorb pills and Precious Treasures that nourished one’s Soul.
In a way, doing this was an investment. After a cultivator took these elixirs, pills, or treasures, they would need to share some of their efficacies with the Soul Warming Lotus, which would reduce the immediate benefits they would obtain but once the Soul Warming Lotus evolved, it would pay back that investment many times over.
In the past, Yang Kai had intentionally diverted a great deal of Spiritual Energy to the Soul Warming Lotus every time he took Soul nourishing medicines, but so far he had seen no noticeable response from it, so Yang Kai hadn’t paid it much mind.
But now, with this unimaginable amount of energy flooding into his Knowledge Sea, the Soul Warming Lotus had instinctively reacted and begun absorbing it.
As the Soul Warming Lotus madly swallowed this energy, the pressure Yang Kai felt reduced dramatically.
At the very least, his Knowledge Sea had become somewhat stable.
Immediately coming to his senses, Yang Kai consciously directed the energy pouring into his Knowledge Sea towards the Soul Warming Lotus while allowing his Knowledge Sea to absorb whatever excess remained.
But even so, the amount of energy he needed to absorb personally was still nearly overwhelming, frightening Yang Kai.
Without any hesitation, Yang Kai began using Spiritual Energy to spy on the mysteries of the True Alchemic Way.
This was the most intensive way Yang Kai knew to consume Spiritual Energy and was his only recourse to handle this emergency situation.
The energy flowing in was thus divided into two major streams, one of which was absorbed by the Five Coloured Soul Warming Lotus while the other was assimilated by Yang Kai’s Knowledge Sea, supplementing his constant consumption.
The Soul Devouring Insects, which had taken up residence on the five coloured island in Yang Kai’s Knowledge Sea, also played a role in consuming this endless torrent of energy, all of them seemingly celebrating this unexpected feast.
After employing every means at his disposal, Yang Kai’s Knowledge Sea finally calmed down, the inflow and consumption reaching a fragile balance.
Yang Kai couldn’t help breathing a sigh of relief. This time, not understanding the nature and role of this Saint Pill yet still taking it had nearly resulted in him killing himself.
Without having to focus all of his attention on his Knowledge Sea’s situation now, Yang Kai began exploring the mysteries of the Saint Pill itself.
Right now, Yang Kai’s lower abdomen felt like it was home to a small sun which was constantly throwing out massive amounts of heat and energy.
After a quick investigation, Yang Kai was flabbergasted. He discovered that the total efficacy of the Saint Pill had barely been consumed, less than one percent of it having been absorbed by him at this point.
However, while the Pill Cloud was dissipating and the medicinal efficacies were being absorbed into his meridians, Yang Kai could indeed comprehend some things about its nature he had formerly been unable to.
The pill’s ingredients, how the flames were controlled to refine it, what kind of Spirit Arrays were used during the Alchemy process, the Alchemy Grandmaster’s various supplementary techniques, all kinds of information was slowly being revealed to Yang Kai.
Vaguely, Yang Kai’s thoughts began tracing the mysteries of this pill which was refined so many millennia ago and a brand new world of Alchemy began to appear in front of him.
Within this new world, all kinds of Alchemy insights were shown to him.
Entering a state of enlightenment, Yang Kai became intoxicated in this world as bits and pieces of information were absorbed into his consciousness and his comprehension of Alchemy slowly began improving.
Compiling all these various insights together, Yang Kai gradually began to unravel their mysteries, as if the original scene of this Saint Pill being refined and its Pill Cloud forming were re-appearing before his eyes, a magical experience.
9 Chapters this week. Though the Patreon dropped below the 2K mark, I already scheduled when it was still 2.4K, which was like a few hours before it took a nose dive. So, all good.
On a certain island in the local archipelago, once again, Qian Ning arrived on Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess quarters. He was currently requesting that she prepare for another trip.
Unfortunately, ever since the Saintess had returned, An Ling’er firmly rejected both of his requests.
This time was no exception.
Qian Ning couldn’t help feeling somewhat annoyed. Although in the Holy Land, the Saintess had a higher rank than him, during this expedition, he was the one who was responsible for An Ling’er and the entire crew’s mission and safety.
“Young Lady, looking for the next Holy Master is your mission, we shouldn’t stop over in such a place for too long, no matter what reason you may have!”
“I know,” An Ling’er frowned, her pretty face slightly pale, “But I don’t know why, recently, I always had a feeling of restlessness, as if something terrible is about to happen.”
“Something terrible?” Qian Ning’s expression became even more solemn, “What do you mean?”
An Ling’er slowly shook her head and murmured, “I don’t know, I can’t explain it…”
Qian Ning’s brow furrowed as he gazed at An Ling’er suspiciously, a moment latter simply nodding, “If so, then we will stay for a while longer. When Young Lady believes we should depart, please let me know.”
“En.”
Staring at Qian Ning’s receding figure, An Ling’er’s forehead suddenly oozed large drops of sweat. What she had said just now was not to deceive Qian Ning, but was indeed what she was currently feeling.
She didn’t know what had happened, or what was about to happen, but these past few days, An Ling’er had always felt anxious and on edge.
Initially she had thought it had something to do with Yang Kai seizing her Soul brand, but after some careful investigation, she found that there was no connection between that and her current mood.
…..
Inside a certain cultivation room, Yang Kai had been in secluded retreat for ten straight days and had at last absorbed the entire efficacy of the ancient Saint Pill.
He had managed to comprehend a few of the mysteries of this Saint Pill and its Pill Cloud and although it was not much, it could still be considered a rich harvest, so he was greatly satisfied. Even his understanding of Alchemy techniques had improved somewhat.
When the effects of the ancient Saint Pill finally fading completely, Yang Kai felt as if his entire being had transformed.
His body felt light and his Soul felt clear; on top of that, his Spiritual Energy had become much stronger than before and a strange, pleasant sensation now filled his Knowledge Sea.
This indistinct sensation also allowed him to use his Spiritual Energy faster and more freely than before.
His brow furrowing slightly, Yang Kai quickly immersed himself in his Knowledge Sea and began examining it carefully.
Though Yang Kai had just begun its investigation, he immediately froze up, completely stunned.
During this period of retreat, he had been constantly spying on the mysteries of the Pill Cloud and, aside from the initial moments, had not paid any attention to the situation in his Knowledge Sea. Currently, when his Soul Avatar stoop above his Knowledge Sea and saw how greatly it had changed, he couldn’t help feeling a sense of shock.
Naturally, his Soul and Spiritual Energy were greatly enhanced, and the heat from the scattered flames had grown even more intense. Though, the Demon Eye of Annihilation and Soul Battle Hall were also still suspended in midair, apparently not having undergone any great change.
However, the island which was formed from the Five Coloured Soul Warming Lotus had evolved.
At this moment, the island was bursting with multi-coloured light, making it appear even more radiant and beautiful than before.
As Yang Kai carefully examined it, he soon discovered that the island, which had once shone with only five colours, now had an additional shade to it, making it six coloured!
This new colour was a bit thinner than the other five, but it was nevertheless there.
Six Coloured Soul Warming Lotus!
After recovering from his shock, Yang Kai let out an uproarious laughter.
He had never thought after obtaining the Soul Warming Lotus he would get to see it evolve in his lifetime; after all, according to Old Demon, the process was exceptionally long.
Who could have thought that after absorbing the ancient Saint Pill’s medicinal efficacies, the Five Coloured Soul Warming Lotus would actually evolve a grade? Now there was only one more step before it would become its ultimate seven coloured form.
For every extra colour, the benefits received from the Soul Warming Lotus would double.
Yang Kai could feel that the nourishment his Soul obtained from the Soul Warming Lotus right now was much more potent than before, and this effect was permanent and persistent. As long as Yang Kai owned the Soul Warming Lotus, it would continue to strengthen his Soul and increase his Spiritual Energy.
His harvest this time was simply unimaginable.
From five coloured to six coloured had taken nearly a decade. Over that period of time, Yang Kai had taken a massive amount of elixirs and pills, and that didn’t even count the nutrients that the former owner of the Soul Warming Lotus had fed it.
Yang Kai didn’t know if he could see the Soul Warming Lotus evolve into its final form before he died.
However, he was still satisfied. Watching the now six coloured island gently radiate light, Yang Kai found himself smiling uncontrollably.
Just then though, a strange vibration disturbed his Soul.
Yang Kai’s brow wrinkled and quickly searched for the source of this disturbance, a moment later, his expression becoming solemn.
It wasn’t that his Soul had been disturbed, but rather the Soul brand belonging to An Ling’er was all of a sudden giving off some violent fluctuations. It seemed like this woman had encountered something that deeply scared her and was currently feeling a great sense of uneasiness.
[What kind of danger could she possibly have encountered?] Yang Kai thought to himself.
Although her cultivation wasn’t too high, only a First Order Transcendent, but she was a Saintess of Nine Heavens Holy Land. She was someone with an untouchably high status. In this small island chain, who would dare disrespect her, much less threaten her?
Feeling somewhat uneasy, Yang Kai opened his eyes and got up to leave his room.
Deactivating the various barriers around the cultivation room, Yang Kai stepped outside, but the moment he did, he heard screams of fear and panic all around him. Not far away, thunderous explosions resounded and the whole world seemed to tremble as a terrifying pressure pressed down upon the entire island.
Yang Kai instantly went pale and quickly began circulating his True Qi in order to resist this violent pressure.
Sweeping his eyes around, Yang Kai saw that the entire island was in a state of chaos and countless people, as if they were being pursued by some kind of monster, were doing their best to flee.
*Hong…*
A loud bang resounded, causing Yang Kai to stumble, and behind him, the cultivation room he had just exited exploded into splinters.
Yang Kai looked around but didn’t find any traces of an enemy anywhere nearby. It wasn’t until releasing his Divine Sense that Yang Kai found, in the sky a short distance away, an aura that caused him to tremble.
Turning his eyes in the direction of this aura, Yang Kai saw a giant sword almost a thousand meters in length floating high up in the sky. This giant sword struck with a destructive force that seemed capable of flattening islands and tearing space!
“Profound Heavenly Sword?” Upon seeing this sword, Yang Kai immediately recognized it as one of the Nine Heavens Divine Skills.
He had learned this skill from An Ling’er and was even capable of using it quite proficiently, but the Profound Heavenly Sword he had once summoned was a Soul Skill while the one he was witnessing right now was no doubt a powerful Martial Skill which was formed from a vast amount of True Qi. The essence and power were both worlds apart.
*Kacha…*
Under the giant sword’s strike, the island below was directly sliced into two.
Yang Kai’s eyes narrowed as he shifted his gaze to a beautiful figure that floated high up in the sky.
It was this person who had just displayed the Profound Heavenly Sword.
It was a woman wearing a long white dress which perfectly complemented her graceful figure. She had a kind of divine aura around her that was somewhat similar to An Ling’er’s, exuding a sense of nobleness and holiness, but she also carried with her a faint trace of Death Qi!
It seemed like she had already passed away and right now was just a walking corpse.
Yang Kai was shocked by this strange situation.
Grasping the huge Profound Heavenly Sword in her small hand, the woman chopped and sliced randomly, soon demolishing the entire nearby island, causing it to break up and sink into the sea.
The people on that island, under this tyrannical assault, were unable to even try to resist, resulting in countless deaths and injuries.
The surrounding azure water was dyed bright red in an instant.
This scene, straight from the apocalypse, was truly terrifying.
The woman then soared towards the next island in the chain and began waving her Profound Heavenly Sword again.
In an instant, another island was destroyed.
In less than ten breaths of time, three islands were destroyed by her hands.
Yang Kai’s blood ran cold as he saw this avatar of destruction wantonly destroy all the islands around her. Not daring to stay here any longer, he quickly used his movement skill to escape in the opposite direction.
Yang Kai’s movement seemed to have caught the attention of this woman though and a ray of light, like a vicious snake, shot towards him.
“Imprisoning Heaven Chain!” Yang Kai was shocked as he confirmed that this woman was someone from Nine Heavens Holy Land, and very likely a high-level figure at that, otherwise how could she be using various Nine Heavens Divine Skills so freely?
What made Yang Kai feel especially uneasy though was the other party’s cultivation. This mysterious woman was definitely a Saint Realm master.
The Imprisoning Heaven Chain chasing him was so fast and contained such dense True Qi that in his normal form Yang Kai had no hope of escaping it.
Not daring to hesitate, Yang Kai unfurled his Wind and Thunder Wings, boosting his speed several levels and shot off like a bolt of lightning.
When the Imprisoning Heaven Chain arrived, all it was able to grasp was Yang Kai’s afterimage.
Across the distance, the mysterious woman’s beautiful eyes stared at Yang Kai’s retreating figure, a slight trace of what could be interpreted as suspicion appearing on her pretty face, her tender body flickering in the next instant and disappearing.
When she reappeared, she was already not far behind Yang Kai.
Feeling the cold murderous intent behind him, all the hair on Yang Kai’s body stood on end and before his pursuer could launch another attack, he hurriedly concealed his aura and snuck off in a different direction.
The woman stopped mid-air and tilted her head somewhat, her eyes slowly sweeping around, apparently searching for Yang Kai’s position.
Although she quickly found Yang Kai, she didn’t appear to be in a hurry and instead turned in a different direction, her brow wrinkling slightly as a look of pain crept onto her expression.
Yang Kai was annoyed, unclear as to why such a powerful master was pursuing him, but he figured An Ling’er should know something about it. The most important thing for him to do right now was find that somewhat naive young woman and find out from her what was going on!
In front of an ornate palace, the masters from Nine Heavens Holy Land had all gathered together and were currently staring up absentmindedly at the woman floating high up in the sky.
“Aunt Nan?” An Ling’er shouted in a slightly hoarse tone, her tender body shuddering as tears suddenly began leaking from her beautiful eyes and a forlorn whimper escaped from her lips.
“Saintess Nan being here like this… does that mean… Holy Master has passed away?” Qian Ning’s lips trembled and his face drained of all colour.
Six Coloured Soul Warming Lotus
Just as everyone was silently staring at the carnage before them, Yang Kai suddenly rushed over and landed straight in front of An Ling’er, frowning deeply as he stared at her.
Calling out in surprise, An Ling’er came back to her sense and stared at Yang Kai, hurriedly asking, “How come you’re still here? Why haven’t you left yet?”
“I can’t!” Yang Kai calmly shook his head, “That woman’s Divine Sense is locked onto me.”
“Ah…” An Ling’er covered her small mouth and her beautiful eyes trembled, directing a look of sympathy and apology towards Yang Kai.
“Who is she and why is she targeting me? How are you related to all of this?” Yang Kai asked several questions at once, his voice filled with annoyance.
“You are… that little brat we plucked from the sea before?” Qian Ning turned to look at Yang Kai, his expression quite ugly, obviously quite unhappy with this unexpected visitor. Their Nine Heavens Holy Land delegation already had enough headaches, so Yang Kai suddenly appearing here and asking a bunch of nonsense questions caused Qian Ning’s anger to rise to the surface, the latter waving his fist and shouting, “Go away, you think this is a place you can speak?”
Saying so, he sent a burst of True Qi towards Yang Kai.
Yang Kai shot him a gloomy look and didn’t bother trying to hide his strength anymore, easily countering Qian Ning’s attack, his body not even flinching, his expression completely indifferent.
“Hm?” Qian Ning was shocked and promptly re-examined Yang Kai, as if he couldn’t believe this weak little brat could actually easily resolve his strike.
“I have no intention of becoming enemies with you, I just want to figure out why that woman is after me,” Yang Kai said with some impatience, coldly declaring his standpoint and attitude to Qian Ning before turning his attention back to An Ling’er.
“Uncle Qian…” An Ling’er raised her hand and stopped Qian Ning from retorting before looking back at Yang Kai with a bitter smile, “Her targeting you is your own fault.”
“Why?”
“Probably because you learned the Nine Heavens Divine Skills.”
Hearing this, the several Transcendent Realm masters of Nine Heavens Holy Land’s expression all changed dramatically as the stared at Yang Kai with a look of disbelief. Qian Ning was even more stupefied as stared back and forth between Yang Kai and An Ling’er, hoarsely asking, “He… how could he have learned the Nine Heavens Divine Skills?”
Only the very top characters of Nine Heavens Holy Land were qualified to learn the Nine Heavens Divine Skills, even Qian Ning has never studied them.
“Girl! Are you courting death?!” Yang Kai’s face suddenly filled with anger.
He had never expected An Ling’er to reveal such an important secret in front of so many people all of a sudden, forcing him into an oppositional relationship with Nine Heavens Holy Land.
“It doesn’t matter,” An Ling’er smiled bitterly and shook her head, “We’re going to die anyways, letting them know now is irrelevant.”
“Young Lady, what happened?” Qian Ning hurriedly asked, his face filled with suspicion, apparently having a few speculations in his heart.
“It’s just as you think,” An Ling’er wiped the tears from her eyes and whispered, “The man in front of you, after passing my test, was able to comprehend three of the Nine Heavens Divine Skills!”
Everyone’s jaw dropped upon hearing this, their eyes all bulging so much they might pop out at any moment.
It was only after quite some time that Qian Ning returned to his senses and asked, “So… isn’t he the perfect candidate to become the next Holy Master?”
“En,” An Ling’er nodded lightly.
The looks Qian Ning and the others directed at Yang Kai changed greatly, becoming respectful and expectant.
“But it’s too late now, Aunt Nan has already arrived here…” An Ling’er smiled helplessly and said, the expression of Qian Ning and the others also falling upon hearing her words.
“I don’t care one bit about any nonsense Holy Master, explain to me what’s happening right now. Who is that woman? You should at least know that, right?” Yang Kai temporarily pressed down the murderous intent in his heart and pointed back towards the woman who was still floating mid-air, directing a cold stare towards them.
An Ling’er had already exposed everything and holding her responsible right now wouldn’t help matters so Yang Kai set that aside and focused on trying to understand why this strange woman was wantonly slaughtering people and now apparently targeting him specifically.
“She is my Aunt Nan!” An Ling’er replied softly.
“Aunt Nan?”
“The only remaining Saintess of the last generation’s Holy Land!”
Yang Kai was stunned and surprised, “Does your Nine Heavens Holy Land have some kind of intense internal strife? Is the previous generation’s Saintess hostile towards you?”
An Ling’er shook her head with a pained expression, “Aunt Nan has always been very good to me, how could there be any kind of infighting? En, do you remember the words I said to you once regarding Saintesses?”
“Huh?”
“A Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess, before death, cannot kill!”
“What does that have to do with the current situation?” Yang Kai was genuinely puzzled.
“That is only the first half of the saying, there is another half after it…” An Ling’er’s voice trembled, clearly demonstrating the horror in her heart, slowly muttering in her next breath, “Before death, cannot kill, after death, slaughter one million corpses.”
Yang Kai’s expression became sluggish as he frowned deeply, “What does that mean?”
“A Holy Land Saintess doesn’t kill any sentient being during her lifetime, but once she dies, if her body is not promptly destroyed, her corpse will fall onto the Asura’s path and begin slaughtering all living creatures. This is probably our Secret Art’s greatest malpractice!” An Ling’er let out a soft breath, “As such, after each Saintess’ death, her body will be burned quickly to avoid the situation Aunt Nan is currently in. Before we set out, Aunt Nan was in good health, how could she suddenly…”
Yang Kai suddenly understood, no wonder he could feel a faint trace of Death Qi in the woman. According to what An Ling’er just said, this previous generation’s Saintess named Aunt Nan should already be dead.
The dead still being able to move wasn’t something unfamiliar to Yang Kai.
The Coffin Carrying Man was also a living corpse. He had passed away many, many years ago, but the obsession in his heart and his tyrannical cultivation allowed him to continue moving. Even after his death, he had continued to fulfil his mission of searching for an individual capable of rescuing the Ancient Demon Clan.
As such, this Saintess named Aunt Nan probably had a similar obsession in her heart, and a very powerful one at that, or else it wouldn’t be enough to support her current actions.
“Saintess Aunt Nan and Holy Master were deeply connected, so assuming the Holy Master fell, Saintess Aunt Nan also…” Qian Ning sighed heavily.
“Are all of you Nine Heavens Holy Land people total dumbasses? Why would you set such a dangerous person loose!?” Yang Kai roared furiously, being stared at by a Saint Realm masters was akin to be stared at by death itself, obviously his mood wouldn’t be good.
“What use is saying all this now?” An Ling’er shot him a bitter look, “Because I cultivate the same Secret Art, Aunt Nan was able to quickly find me. Anyone in the local archipelago that can’t resist her I’m afraid will die, then after killing me and everyone else here, she will seek out and kill my three sisters. Until someone comes forward and completely destroys her body, she will continue slaughtering everyone she comes across.”
The most powerful individual in the nearby archipelago was just Qian Ning, but even he, a Third Order Transcendent, was just as powerless to resist the previous generation’s Saintess who was a genuine Saint Realm powerhouse.
“No matter what, Young Lady and the future Holy Master cannot die here!” Qian Ning suddenly turned to face Yang Kai and said solemnly, “Little brother, although you haven’t entered the Holy Land yet, since you’ve already passed the Young Lady’s test, you can be considered half our Holy Master. Please take the Young Lady with you and leave quickly, if worst comes to worst, even if you have to sacrifice the Young Lady, you must ensure your survival.”
Yang Kai stared back indifferently; although Qian Ning’s rhetoric made him feel slightly touched, it was still impossible for him to accept becoming the Holy Master of Nine Heavens Holy Land!
Qian Ning’s act just now was completely casting pearls before swine.
“You two leave quickly, we will try to buy you some time!”
“Don’t act so presumptuous!” Yang Kai coldly snorted, “Buy time? You’re just throwing your lives away! Besides, where the hell are we supposed to escape? There’s nowhere anywhere near here that we could…”
Before he finished speaking though, Yang Kai’s eyes suddenly flashed as he remember a certain place nearby that might just work, turning his gaze towards the seabed as he quickly contemplated their odds of success.
An Ling’er also seemed to have thought of this possibility, quickly exchanging a glance with Yang Kai and confirming the two of them were thinking the same thing.
During the several breaths it took for this conversation to finish, Saintess Aunt Nan had been floating mid-air, watching them, not taking any action, her face showing a look of hesitation, apparently the last remnants of her consciousness from before she died was holding her back, but obviously this situation wouldn’t last long as it was apparent the cold murderous intent around her body was becoming more and more dense.
“Little brother, if you die here, then that is simply the fate the Heavens have bestowed, but if you survive, please go to the Holy Land and assume the position of Holy Master, the Holy Land… must not go one day without a Holy Master!” Qian Ning declared heavily to Yang Kai as he tightly held the latter’s shoulders.
Yang Kai said nothing in reply.
“Go now, quickly!” Qian Ning took a deep breath before raising his head towards the still hovering Saintess Aunt Nan.
The expression of the other party was constantly changing, but gradually the hesitation on her face was being replaced with cold indifference as the murderous intent around her became thicker. As this murderous intent overflowed, the temperature of the entire archipelago seemed to plummet as fierce winds began howling like shrieking ghosts.
Yang Kai didn’t hesitate any further, immediately grabbing An Ling’er, summoning his Wind and Thunder Wings and shooting off into the sky.
At the same time he moved, Saintess Aunt Nan waved her hand towards his direction, releasing an imposing wave of pressure.
Qian Ning took the few masters of Nine Heavens Holy Land and with steadfast determination moved to intercept this attack.
“Uncle Qian, everyone…” An Ling’er turned back and shouted out anxiously.
“They’re dead,” Yang Kai said in a dignified tone, pushing his speed even further, a moment later plunging into the sea along with An Ling’er. Quickly wrapping the two of them in his True Qi, Yang Kai began to rapidly descend towards the bottom of the sea.
Just as they entered the water, Yang Kai shot a glance behind him and just caught the scene of Qian Ning and the others bursting into blood fog.
The masters from Nine Heavens Holy Land didn’t manage to last more than three breaths against Saintess Nan!
After killing Qian Ning and the others, Saintess Nan still refused to give up, waving her hands and slashing her Profound Heavenly Sword down towards the island below her, rapidly cleaving it in half, sending large chunks of it into the sea, killing or injuring countless civilians in the process.
In the next instant, the huge Profound Heavenly Sword was thrown out by Saintess Nan and like a bolt of lightning broke through the sea’s surface and chased after Yang Kai and An Ling’er.
Yang Kai’s blood ran cold as he pushed his True Qi to its limit, increasing his speed to the extreme but still failing to escape from the approaching danger, the giant sword behind him seemed completely unimpeded by the sea, splitting apart the water as if it were no thicker than air as it raced forward.
Glancing behind him, amidst the blue water, the giant sword that exudes a shocking aura and unparalleled murderous intent caused even Yang Kai’s soul to shiver.
Behind the giant sword, Yang Kai also vaguely saw traces of the previous generation Saintess.
She was actually chasing after them, apparently intent on putting Yang Kai and An Ling’er to death.
As they continued to dive, Yang Kai hurriedly shouted to An Ling’er, “If you want to live, focus, this is no time to wallow in sadness!”
Hearing this, An Ling’er nodded quickly and immediately began pouring her True Qi into Yang Kai’s body.
In an instant, Yang Kai felt the flow of his True Qi become both faster and stronger.
The Secret Art the Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess cultivated could allow Yang Kai to improve his combat power for a short time, which was why he brought An Ling’er along when he fled.
True Qi bursting out, the same Nine Heavens Divine Skills, the Profound Heavenly Sword, appeared in Yang Kai’s hand.
However, even with the support of An Ling’er, Yang Kai could only create a Profound Heavenly Sword with a length of several tens of meters, a far cry from the one Saintess Nan sent towards them.
The two Nine Heavens Divine Skills shot towards each other from opposite directions and soon collided.
A huge muffled sound rang out as Yang Kai’s Profound Heavenly Sword was instantly ground into dust, the surrounding seawater exploding outwards from the force of the collision, the shockwave propelling Yang Kai and An Ling’er downwards at an even faster pace.
The figure of Saintess Nan was also momentarily pushed back, but she soon overcame this resistance and began chasing them again.
“What weaknesses do the Saintesses of your Nine Heavens have?” Yang Kai asked urgently.
“There’s no such thing, she can only be stopped by someone with strength exceeding her’s; however, I can try stalling her for a while!” An Ling’er clenched her teeth and entrusted herself completely to Yang Kai, focusing all her attention on her mind and releasing a Spiritual Energy wave towards Saintess Nan.
Yang Kai vaguely felt as if he heard a song resonating with his Soul, seemingly touching the very depths of the human heart. Anyone who heard this song couldn’t help relaxing and becoming tranquil.
His eyes narrowing, Yang Kai quickly concentrating as he realized that this Soul Skill should be similar to the one An Ling’er previously used back in the Soul Battle Hall which had a calming effect.
Saintess Nan was already dead, and only her instincts and strong obsession were supporting her actions, so using this kind of Soul Skill on her was an ideal solution.
From what Yang Kai could perceive, the movements of Saintess Nan indeed became slower and the True Qi fluctuations coming from her body also grew somewhat unstable, as if she was suffering a kind of mental torment.
“Good!” Yang Kai’s spirit lifted, as long as An Ling’er could delay this Saint Realm woman, he was fully confident they could escape.
“I can’t keep this up for very long,” An Ling’er pretty face paled as she hoarsely said.
Yang Kai turned his gaze towards her and saw she was also suffering greatly. This was obvious though, given the massive difference in their cultivations, An Ling’er using a Soul Skill to deal with Saintess Nan was bound to cause no small amount of backlash.
Yang Kai’s expression became dignified once again as he continuing cutting through the water, wracking his brain to find other ways to delay their pursuer.
Many ideas came to mind, but he rejected all of them immediately as the gap in their strength was simply too great, any conventional method he tried to use would at best be a waste of time and at worse, distract him causing them to fall into even greater danger.
The Soul Battle Hall would probably be useful; after all, it was a genuine Saint Grade artifact. Once he activated it, Yang Kai’s own Soul would be dragged into that white space, but even if it was a contest of Souls with Saintess Nan, he had no confidence in defeating her.
His Demon Eye of Annihilation was also incredibly powerful, but if Saintess Nan’s Soul didn’t rush into his Knowledge Sea, the Demon Eye of Annihilation couldn’t play any role.
Besides purifying any Soul Avatar that broke into Yang Kai Knowledge Sea, it could only absorb the Soul remnants of recently deceased cultivators nearby Yang Kai.
Currently, Saintess Nan couldn’t strictly be described as dead, otherwise the Demon Eye of Annihilation would already have activated.
Thinking it over, Yang Kai concluded he had no options here and inevitably grew somewhat anxious.
At that moment, the song that had been ringing in his ears suddenly stopped and An Ling’er coughed out a bloody mist, her tender body going completely limp in Yang Kai’s arms, panting heavily as extreme weakness overcame her.
Without the restraint of An Ling’er’s Soul Skill, Saintess Nan once again restored her previous speed and began closing the distance between her and Yang Kai.
Fortunately, the huge Profound Heavenly Sword had apparently exhausted its True Qi and dissipated and Yang Kai had put some distance between them.
Diving further and further, numerous sea beasts and giant fish which had been attracted by all the noise began gathering around, all of which Yang Kai simply ignored as he raced ever downwards.
On the other hand, Saintess Nan, as An Ling’er had said, actually bothered killing everything around her, reaping the lives of a great many of these sea beasts.
Although slaughtering these beasts was as simple as waving her hands, the sheer number of them slightly hindered Saintess Nan’s speed, buying Yang Kai and An Ling’er a precious few moments.
Yang Kai never felt time pass so slowly. Being relentlessly chased by a Saint Realm master, certain death approaching ever closer, each breath seemed like an eternity.
Noticing a faint luminescence up ahead, Yang Kai couldn’t help crying out happily, “We’re almost there!”
Hearing this, An Ling’er managed to open her eyes and asked weakly, “At the end, can you tell me your name? Your real name. If we fall here, can’t I at least know whose arms I died in?”
Yang Kai’s expression ramped, totally unable to understand how this young woman’s head worked or why she would bother asking such a dumb question now.
But this time, he didn’t bother concealing it anymore and told her what she wanted to know.
An Ling’er grinned back at him, “If we survive this, will you follow me back to the Holy Land?”
“Never!” Yang Kai refused unceremoniously, “If you keep spouting nonsense I’ll throw you away right here, right now!”
“Ruthless bastard!”
As the two bantered back and forth, they arrived outside the barrier of the Ancient Ruins. Yang Kai didn’t even pause and rushed straight inside, the barrier not hindering him in any way.
Upon entering the barrier, without the seawater to hinder him, Yang Kai’s speed rose to its maximum again, his Wind and Thunder Wings appearing behind him as he and An Ling’er shot forward like an arrow from a bow. Racing towards the location of the Void Corridor, Yang Kai and An Ling’er moved so quickly they left behind a trail of afterimages.
Moments after the two of them rushed inside the barrier, Saintess Nan also rushed in, her figure flickering as she chased after Yang Kai, her speed in no way inferior.
Feeling the terrifying pressure approaching him from behind, Yang Kai’s only thought was to escape, having not the slightest intention of fighting this Saint Realm master.
As he flew forward, the Yang Attribute energy from the Void Corridor grew stronger and stronger, letting the two of them know they were getting closer to where the Void Corridor existed.
Yang Kai clenched his teeth and continued pushing his speed to its limit.
Suddenly, from behind, Yang Kai felt a burst of True Qi. Yang Kai’s expression changed dramatically as he realized Saintess Nan had begun attacking again, raising his degree of wariness to its maximum as he monitored his surroundings.
In front of him, a giant net strangely appeared and rapidly moved towards him.
“Capturing Heaven Net!” An Ling’er exclaimed, “Quickly avoid it! Once one is caught in it, even their Soul won’t be able to escape!”
There was no need to remind Yang Kai of this. Although he didn’t understand the specifics of this Divine Skill, as someone with a wealth of experience, he naturally wouldn’t allow this Capturing Heaven Net to ensnare him.
The instant he dodged the Capturing Heaven Net though, another burst of True Qi erupted behind him.
A jade-like hand that seemed to fill the entire sky appeared and reached out towards them. Seeing this, Yang Kai couldn’t help feeling like the Heavens themselves were trying to grab hold of him.
There was no way to outrun this hand, or to evade it, their capture seemed inevitable.
“Covering Heaven Hand!” An Ling’er murmured, her face completely ashen, a bleak smile slowly forming on her lips as she closed her beautiful eyes, as if she thought that all hope was lost and death would soon take her.
“Devil Transformation!” Yang Kai called out and the next moment, the world seemed to tremble as an extremely potent Demonic Qi suddenly spread out of from his body, Demon Crests appearing all over his physique before sinking into his skin and disappearing in the next instant.
Immediately, Yang Kai’s Blood Force and the momentum surrounding his body soared to an incredible level.
An Ling’er’s eyes shot open, her tender body shuddering as she stared dumbfounded at the man holding her, her beautiful face filled with astonishment.
At this moment, she felt like Yang Kai had transformed into a completely different person, his body emitting a bloody and cruel aura yet somehow simultaneously feeling more reliable than before.
His body was like a great mountain which would remain unmoved even in the face of torrential wind and rain.
The incredible surge in moment broke free of the Covering Heaven Hand’s imposing pressure and when the devastating attack arrived, all it managed to grasp was airs.
*Hong…*
Throughout the Ancient Ruins, countless houses collapsed as waves of pressure visible to the naked eye pulsed from Yang Kai’s body and spread to the surrounding area, travelling as far as the outer barrier and even disturbing the outside sea.
All of a sudden, Yang Kai lurched forward, his face completely pale.
An Ling’er simultaneously felt a hot liquid splash onto her face. Rubbing her cheek, she quickly discovered that this liquid was actually blood that was overflowing from Yang Kai’s mouth.
Obviously, he had not completely been able to avoid the impact of the Covering Heaven Hand just now and had his stance disrupted.
“Shit!” Yang Kai cursed under his breath as he quickly steadied himself and continued to escape, directing his eyes towards his abdomen as he did so.
Suspicious, An Ling’er followed his gaze and immediately covered her mouth in shock as she screamed, “Punishing Heaven Spear!”
At some unknown point, a thick, shimmering spear had inserted itself into Yang Kai’s stomach. This spear was also one of the Nine Heavens Divine Skills. Amidst all the shock and chaos, not only had An Ling’er failed to notice, even Yang Kai hadn’t realized until now that he had been pierced by this spear.
As fresh blood stained Yang Kai’s clothes, if one were to look carefully, they would notice some faint traces of golden.
An Ling’er suddenly burst into tears as she truly thought all hope was lost now.
The power of the Nine Heavens Divine Skills was something she knew better than almost anyone, not to mention that this Punishing Heaven Spear had stemmed from her Saintess Nan’s hand without the slightest trace of mercy. Even if Yang Kai was an extraordinary genius, his five viscera and six organs had likely already become pulp and were not far from death.
The only reason he had yet to fall and was still struggling forward was probably due to sheer willpower. Considering all this, An Ling’er was filled with sorrow and guilt.
An Ling’er couldn’t help thinking that if back in the Soul Battle Hall, she hadn’t used her Soul Skill on Yang Kai, he never would have learned the Nine Heavens Divine Skills and wouldn’t now be facing her Saintess Nan’s pursuit.
Her head filling with such thoughts, she naturally felt she had harmed Yang Kai, causing him to suffer an untimely death far before his time.
“Fuck, you better teach me all of your damn Divine Skills or else this time I’ll have suffered a huge loss!” Yang Kai’s face was pale white but he still endured the pain assaulting his body and managed to angrily complain.
He hadn’t expected this Punishing Heaven Spear could even penetrate his body after using his Devil Transformation. Yang Kai’s current physique was so intrepid that he could even resist the destructive force of a Starry Sky Storm but this Saintess Nan had still managed to pierce him like paper.
It was obvious just from this how powerful this Divine Skill was.
If it had been any other Transcendent, having suffered this blow from Saintess Nan, they would likely have already been vaporised.
“You, how can you be thinking about such things even now…” An Ling’er stretched out her hand as she stared at the deep wound on Yang Kai’s body. Feeling the fresh blood flowing down her fingers, her heart clenched tightly as tears rolled down her face, soaking her clothes.
“Can you stop crying already? All your blubbering is distracting me!” Yang Kai shouted, “You silly woman, how can you be so weak under pressure?”
Hearing his harsh words, An Ling’er quickly stifled her voice but she was unable to stop her tears from leaking out.
Suddenly, in an open space up ahead, a large black hole which seemed like it led to an unknown abyss appeared, causing Yang Kai’s face to light up, “We’re here!”
Gathering the remainder of his strength, Yang Kai crashed towards the Void Corridor with An Ling’er.
Just as he reached the Void Corridor, Yang Kai felt Saintess Nan’s murderous intent converge on him.
Arriving at the final moment of their escape, how could Yang Kai possibly let his guard down? Tossing An Ling’er into the Void Corridor, Yang Kai abruptly turned around and summoned a giant Black Dragon above his head. Opening its mouth and letting out a great roar, this Black Dragon charged towards the approaching Saintess Nan.
*Hong long long…*
A massive explosion occurred as the two collided.
The Black Dragon only lasted for an instant before collapsing and Saintess Nan shot towards Yang Kai, her momentum not decreasing in the slightest as the latter dove into the Void Corridor.
Yang Kai grinned as blood trickled from his mouth and his Demonic Qi fiercely burst out, wreaking havoc all around.
At the bottom of the sea, the Void Corridor which had existed for countless years was simply unable to bear this kind of violent explosion and quickly shattered, sending out a violent shockwave of void energy, swallowing up Saintess Nan and Yang Kai.
In the next moment, Yang Kai felt a strong sense of vertigo and nearly passed out.
Through pure force of will, Yang Kai forced himself to remain awake and after a few breaths, the darkness around him was swept away and a sea of white clouds appeared high up in the sky above his head. There was no sun, moon, or stars to be seen and only a faint scent of heat lingered in the air.
This hot aura made Yang Kai feel somewhat comfortable.
Falling through the air, Yang Kai figured he had successfully been sent to a distant place by the Void Corridor because the aura of Saintess Nan was nowhere to be found.
Just before he crossed the Void Corridor’s threshold, Yang Kai deliberately destroyed it so he estimated that Saintess Nan would not be able to find them for quite some time.
Thinking so, Yang Kai breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Being chased by a Saint Realm master was not a pleasant experience.
That Saintess Nan should have at least been a Second Order Saint because she was much more powerful than Ice Sect’s Qian Yue. In front of her, Yang Kai had no power to fight back and was even hard pressed to escape.
His falling body was suddenly hugged by a pair of jade arms. Yang Kai turned to look and sure enough, the one who caught him was An Ling’er who he had sent through the Void Corridor ahead of him, a big smile plastered all over her still crying face.
Yang Kai struggled for a moment and managed to free himself from her embrace and stand on his own atop a giant tree, gasping heavily as he began examining his surroundings.
He and An Ling’er were currently standing on a towering tree at least three hundred meters off the ground and were surrounded by a dense and vibrant forest.
Yang Kai also quickly noticed a strange phenomenon. The trees here seemed to be somewhat different from others he had seen, not just in shape, but in nature, as they had a faint Yang Attribute Energy flowing through them.
Simply put, these trees seemed to possess a Yang Attribute aura.
Yang Kai was incredibly puzzled, these trees seemed to be just ordinary trees and not any kind of Precious Treasure or spirit grass, so how could they have a Yang Attribute aura?
Looking up at the hazy sky, Yang Kai frowned and muttered, “Mysterious Small World?”
Only Mysterious Small Worlds would have no sun, moon, or stars, the one where the Ancient Demon Clan lived was also like this.
“Ah? A Mysterious Small World?” An Ling’er was obviously taken aback but that didn’t stop her beautiful eyes from filling with curiosity. She had never seen or entered a Mysterious Small World and had only heard about them in rumours. Coming to this kind of place for the first time was obviously novel to her.
“En, this should be a Mysterious Small World!” Yang Kai nodded lightly, but after speaking just a few words he began violently coughing and all the wounds on his body once again began leaking blood.
“You need to rest and recover!” An Ling’er held him nervously. The wounds Yang Kai had suffered this time were all quite serious. Not only was he run through by Saintess Nan’s Punishing Heaven Spear, but also the last moment, when he destroyed the Void Corridor, the resulting explosion and the rampant power of void had also left their mark on him. His clothes were tattered and scars marred his entire body while parts of his flesh had been ripped apart entirely, it was an incredibly miserable picture.
An average person would have died several times over having received these kinds of injuries but Yang Kai still had the strength to speak and even the energy to observe the surrounding environment, causing An Ling’er to not know whether to laugh or cry.
As she spoke, An Ling’er took out a bottle of pills from the Universe Bag on her belt and pushed it into Yang Kai’s hands, “This is my Holy Land’s Saint Grade healing pill, quickly take it”
Yang Kai nodded lightly, already feeling unsteady on his feet, accepting the pill bottle, pouring a few out, and directly swallowing them.
Before he had time to begin refining them though, Yang Kai felt a burning heat rapidly shoot towards him from all directions and in the next instant, he found himself and An Ling’er bound by energy ropes.
The two of them were caught completely off guard, quickly incapacitated, and fell to the ground.
After landing, Yang Kai found he was unable to move.
Having already exhausted all of his strength, suffering from a sudden surprise attack, Yang Kai had no way to resist and soon fainted.
[Goddamn it! Captured again?] That was the last thought to go through his mind as Yang Kai’s eyes went dark.
He had twice entered Mysterious Small Worlds since arriving in Tong Xuan Realm, both times as a captive. The first time he had been abducted by the Coffin Carrying Man and this time, before he could even get his bearings, he had been captured. It was really terrible luck.
“Hateful Demon Race!” Yang Kai faintly heard someone curse and saw a number of indistinct figures approaching him before his consciousness completely faded.
…..
Amidst the pitch black darkness or night, Yang Kai slowly woke up, every single inch of his body ached. Even with his strong physique, he could not simply ignore such intense trauma.
Not sitting up or even opening his eyes immediately, Yang Kai quickly probed his current situation.
A moment later, Yang Kai’s expression became gloomy.
Just as he imagined, his True Qi and Spiritual Energy had a number of seals placed on them. In order to unseal his True Qi, it would take him some time but it shouldn’t be impossible, it was likely someone with only slightly higher strength than his own had applied his bindings. As for the seal on his Knowledge Sea, Yang Kai was confident he could easily crack it, but to not attract any unwanted attention, he didn’t dare act rashly.
He didn’t know where he was or what kind of masters were lurking around, if he were to free himself haphazardly, it would likely end very badly for him.
However, something that was of particular interest to him was the seal on his True Qi actually had a faint Yang Attribute aura to it and the ambient Yang Qi in the air was far richer than the outside world.
The Yang Attribute aura he had felt in the Ancient Ruins should have originated from this place.
The injuries on his body had already mostly healed, allowing him to infer that he had been in a coma for at least three days.
There were some other auras nearby but none of them belonged to An Ling’er.
Where had that woman gone?
An Ling’er was a rare beauty with a noble and innocent demeanour, if she had fallen into the hands of unscrupulous people, it wouldn’t end well for her. Yang Kai couldn’t help but slightly worrying about her.
Right now he seemed to be in some kind of prison cell which was constructed of sturdy wood, not something he could break easily with his True Qi sealed.
After opening his eyes and taking a moment to adjust to the ambient light, Yang Kai slowly sat up.
This movement did not go unnoticed by the others around him and soon someone came over and muttered in surprise, “Hm? Brat, you’re actually alive? How is that possible?”
“Where is this place, who are you?” Yang Kai asked as he looked around.
“Shut up! You’ll speak only when spoken to, I’ll pull out your tongue if you keep blabbing,” The man coldly snorted, his attitude extremely unfriendly, opening the cell door as he ordered, “Get out, my clan’s leader wants to see you.”
“Leader?” Yang Kai frowned.
“Stop asking questions and do as your told, otherwise I’ll chop you up and feed you to the Divine Tree right now!” The man threatened as he glared towards Yang Kai, turning around and walking out, “Follow me.”
Yang Kai’s expression remained indifferent as he followed the man outside, quietly inspecting his surroundings as he walked forward.
Currently, he was in a dark and damp corridor that was lined with cells similar to the one Yang Kai was in before, each one separated from the others. There were also a number of people in these cells who, after hearing movement, turned their eyes towards him curiously.
Yang Kai’s brow wrinkled when he saw these inmates, feeling like something was off with them.
The auras these people emitted were different from those of average people. Strictly speaking, there were traces of Demonic Qi lingering around each and every one of them!
Among these people, Yang Kai didn’t see any trace of An Ling’er, nor were there any signs of where she might have been taken.
Soon, Yang Kai followed the man out of prison. After coming outside into the light, the man looked back at Yang Kai and seemed to want to say something but after seeing his prisoner’s state, he couldn’t help showing a shocked expression as he pointed at him and stuttered, “You… your body…”
“Is there something wrong?” Yang Kai asked indifferently.
“You were on death’s door, how are you…”
When Yang Kai was first brought here, there wasn’t one place on his body that wasn’t wounded, his stomach had even been pierced clean through, leaving behind a gaping hole. Everyone had thought he be dead before night fell.
But now, seeing him essentially unharmed, the man couldn’t help feeling somewhat stunned and uncomfortable.
“My restorative abilities are better than most!”
“‘Better than most’ doesn’t even begin to describe it,” The man stared at Yang Kai distrustfully, suddenly asking coldly, “Brat, you must have used some miraculous healing pill. If you still have any, hand them over, if I find them on you later you’ll only suffer more.”
“I don’t have anything like that,” Yang Kai shook his head.
The man swept his eyes up and down Yang Kai, seemingly looking for traces of a hidden pocket or Universe Bag; unfortunately for him, he didn’t discover anything and was somewhat disappointed. Grinding his teeth unhappily, he grabbed Yang Kai and pushed him forward.
Inside a large hall, many people were gathered, each of them having an almost glowing complexion, a thick and somewhat scalding aura pulsing from each of their bodies.
Everyone here, whether they were male or female, young or old, actually cultivated a Yang Attribute Secret Art, similar to Yang Kai. On top of that, each of their cultivations wasn’t low, the weakest of them still having reached the Immortal Ascension Boundary Eighth Stage while a fair number of them were Transcendents.
There were more than a dozen people gathered here and at the head of the hall sat an old man with a particularly strong aura. This old man’s hair was red and wore an indifferent expression, giving off an imposing air.
Next to the old man was a square-faced youth wearing a grey shirt who made no attempt to conceal his surging True Qi.
This youth was actually a Third Order Transcendent!
This group of people was apparently in the middle of some kind of discussion but when Yang Kai arrived, all of them couldn’t help stopping and casting looks of surprise and amazement towards him, a strong sense of curiosity flashing across their eyes.
“Leader, I’ve brought him!” The man who led Yang Kai here cupped his fists and said. The old man sitting at the head of the room nodded lightly before waving his hand, dismissing the man. Before he left though, he didn’t forget to warn Yang Kai about showing proper respect again.
“Yi Feng, is this the Human you brought back?” The old man stroked his beard and temperately asked as he stared deeply towards Yang Kai.
As the old man spoke these words, Yang Kai could clearly feel a burning aura probing his body, seemingly inspecting him inside and out.
“En,” The young man standing next to the old man quickly responded, also staring at Yang Kai somewhat strangely.
“Didn’t you say he was on the verge of death? How can he be standing here now like nothing happened?” The old man asked again.
Yi Feng scratched his head and frowned, “I don’t know. When we brought him back here, he looked like he would die at any moment, I thought he wouldn’t last more than a day… Hey kid, what happened, how did you heal yourself?”
Yang Kai looked at the youth, then at the old man, wrinkling his brow as he asked, “From what you’ve said just now, you don’t seem to be Human.”
Only someone from a different race would refer to him as ‘Human’.
“Impudence!” Yi Feng’s expression immediately became cold, “When I ask you something you answer, otherwise keep your mouth shut.”
Saying so, he waved his hand a stream of energy, like a whip, struck Yang Kai’s body.
With a snapping sound, a new bloody mark appeared on Yang Kai’s chest, with his True Qi sealed, there was no way he could have resisted such an attack.
Yang Kai didn’t move and simply grit his teeth, turning his eyes towards the young man and staring fiercely.
“You’ve got guts at least!” Yi Feng sneered, raising his hand again and condensing his True Qi, seemingly planning on teaching this rude brat a harsh lesson.
“Enough, Yi Feng!” The old man suddenly raised his hand and stopped the youth from whipping Yang Kai, staring at the latter with a tinge of curiosity as he grinned, “Human Race kid, you have some skill. If I am not mistaken, the strength of your physique isn’t inferior to an average Saint’s, is it?”
“What?” Yi Feng’s expression changed to one of shock, “But his cultivation is only at the First Order Transcendent Realm.”
“He must have continuously tempered his body in order to achieve his current strength. Having such a strong physique at such a young age, truly impressive!” The old man smiled and asked, “How did you do it?”
“Every day I had someone whip me ten thousand times. Anyone who does the same can achieve what I have,” Yang Kai grinned back.
“A stupid way of doing things, but indeed possible.” Whether the old man didn’t know Yang Kai was spouting nonsense or just didn’t care, he simply the issue drop and moved on, “Because you are a Human, we’ve let you live for now. If you were a member of the Demon Race, your luck wouldn’t have been so good.”
Saying so, the old man’s expression suddenly became solemn as he asked, “Boy, I’ll ask you some questions, if I am satisfied with your answers, I can allow you to live a few more days. If I am not… you know the consequences.”
People under the eaves have to bow, so Yang Kai simply nodded.
“Do you any relationship with the Demon Race?”
“No.”
“You don’t? Then why did you appear here? Where did you come in from?”
“I came here from the seabed! There was a Void Corridor in an Ancient Ruin I recently explored. My companion and I were being chased by a powerful master and used that Void Corridor to escape. After coming to my senses, I found myself here.”
As Yang Kai spoke, the old man continued staring fixedly at him, seemingly wanting to determine if the former was lying. After a moment of silence, the old man continued, “Tell me about what happened, in detail.”
Under the gaze of the other party, Yang Kai began narrating his story, neither lying nor trying to conceal anything. The strength of this old man was unfathomable and Yang Kai didn’t know whether the former had some kind of special skills regarding interrogation so right now, lying would likely be counterproductive.
“You managed to escape from the pursuit of a Saint Realm master?” The old man was astonished, “You’re skill isn’t small!”
“Ha! It was mostly luck, I almost died…”
The old man nodded lightly, accepting Yang Kai’s explanation.
“Why did you think I had some sort of connection with the Demon Race? Also, where is my companion now? What’s her situation?” Yang Kai asked.
“Brat, you certainly have a lot of question,” Yi Feng coldly snorted.
The old man also frowned, apparently displease with Yang Kai asking so many questions, but he still responded, “Because only those from the Demon Race have ever entered this place, you are the first Human to come here. As for your companion, you don’t have to worry, she is fine, only her freedom of movement has been restricted.”
Saying so, he then turned to Yi Feng, “Go back to the place you found them see if there is another entrance. If you find one, destroy it!”
Yi Feng was just about to nod when Yang Kai cut in, “There’s no need for that, I destroyed the Void Corridor before coming here.”
“And we’re supposed to just take your word for that?” Yi Feng snorted as he glared over at Yang Kai, quickly cupping his fists to the old man before leading a group of people back to the forest Yang Kai had appeared in.
After Yi Feng left, the old man continued, “You cultivate a Yang Attribute Secret Art?”
Yang Kai nodded.
The old man grinned, “Not many Humans cultivate Yang Attribute Secret Art, and looking from your appearance, your cultivation technique isn’t bad, is it?”
Yang Kai’s expression tightened slightly, thinking this old man was interested in his True Yang Secret Art, but before he could say anything, the old man simply waved his hand dismissively and said, “But even the best Human Yang Attribute Secret Art is nothing compared to ours.”
When the old man said this, everyone else in the room wore a proud expression and nodded, directing contemptuous looks towards Yang Kai.
Yang Kai expression relaxed as he asked, “You all seem to cultivate Yang Attribute Secret Arts, what race are you, and where is this place?”
“Us?” The old man stroked his beard and said, “We are Human yet also not Human!”
Yang Kai’s brow furrowed as he listened to this non-answer.
“Our ancestors belonged to the Human Race, but we are a little different from Humans now,” The old man continued, not explaining much. “This place is our home, you outsiders refer to it as a Mysterious Small World.”
“I saw a lot of people back in your dungeon, are they all from the Demon Race? What hatred do you have with the Demon Race?”
“Boy, you really have a lot of questions! It seems your one of those fools who don’t know their places!” The old man starred him coldly, but still grit his teeth and muttered, “The hatred between us and the Demon Race is absolutely irreconcilable. One day, we will wipe all of the Demon Race from existence. As for you, we won’t kill you for the time being. Your strange physique should have some uses for us!”
Saying so, he narrowed his eyes towards Yang Kai once more before waving his hand, “Take him away!”
Immediately, one of the guards came up to Yang Kai and pushed him towards the door.
After Yang Kai had left, everyone in the hall began chattering.
“Leader, the physique of that brat is really quite unique, what’s more, he actually cultivates a Yang Attribute Secret Art, if we turn him into nutrients for the Divine Tree, perhaps the Divine Tree will be stable for a while.”
“En, the Divine Tree has become more and more unstable recently, if this continues, we may end up losing our place of shelter.”
“Grabbing these Demon Race dregs isn’t a long term solution, we need to figure out how to resolve the issue with the Divine Tree. If the Divine Tree were to have an accident… our clan would be devastated.”
“All of you shut up!” The old man shouted, “Do you think this old master doesn’t want to solve this problem? We still don’t even know what the cause of all this is, so how do we go about solving it?”
Hearing this, everyone’s expression sank.
After a brief silence, the old man issued a new commanded, “Xu Qiu, go inform our clansmen to take special care of that boy, give him the best food available and lift the seals on his body. Also, send him one of the Divine Tree’s fruits, I want him restored to his peak condition as soon as possible!”
“Yes,” The man named Xu Qiu quickly got up and walked outside to carry out his orders.
Everyone in the room secretly gripped their fists with a sense of anticipation, knowing what their leader was planning.
Yang Kai was brought back to the same damp and dark prison and shoved into a new cell.
Inside this cell there was another figure with a bleak expression on their face, sitting curled up in the corner, weeping softly.
After hearing movement from the front of their cell, this person looked up, and in an instant, her beautiful face lit as she shouted tenderly, “Yang Kai?”
As she spoke, she quickly jumped to her feet and rushed over towards him while inspecting him carefully, soon discovering that he had essentially recovered from his injuries, greatly astonishing her.
An Ling’er was separated from Yang Kai and brought here several days ago. She, like everyone else, had thought that after suffering such intense wounds, Yang Kai would either be permanently crippled or worse, dead. Never had she expected him to appear before her so quickly and in good condition.
Yang Kai glanced at her and signaled with his eyes for her to remain quiet. Only after the two guards outside had left did he bring her to the corner of the cell.
“Are you alright?” Yang Kai glanced at her and found that aside from her eyes being swollen from crying, her clothes and face were still in order.
An Ling’er shook her head, “I’m fine, they haven’t done anything to me. What about you?”
“I’m fine,” Yang Kai grinned.
“Where is this place, do you know who those people are? Why are they holding us prisoner?”
“I’m not entirely clear, all I know is that they don’t seem to be human and that they have some kind of deep hatred with the Demon Race!” Yang Kai glanced around at the adjacent cells where a number of curious pairs of eyes were staring at him and An Ling’er, each of the people behind these eyes giving off a faint demonic aura.
These people should be members of the Demon Race who were caught and brought here.
“Out of the wolf’s mouth and into the tiger’s den,” An Ling’er sighed, her expression quite ugly.
“At the very least, your Aunt Nan won’t be able to find us for a while,” Yang Kai sat down and said. Compared to being pursued by the previous generation’s Nine Heavens’ Saintess, this place seemed safer, at least for now.
Listening to Yang Kai’s words, An Ling’er’s mood became a bit better, also sitting down next to Yang Kai and snuggling up beside him.
Yang Kai didn’t pay her actions any mind and instead focused his attention on the surrounding Demon Race people. These people should have had their Demonic Qi and Divine Senses sealed as well, but even if they weren’t, in this place, where the air was rich in Yang Attribute Energy, their Demonic Qi would receive a great degree of suppression.
The number of demons held here numbered at least a dozen or so, and their cultivations varied quite a bit. As for their exact strength, Yang Kai couldn’t tell. With a seal still on his Knowledge Sea, he didn’t dare use his Divine Sense forcefully to spy on others.
As Yang Kai was observing his neighbours, a man suddenly came over to his cell.
Yang Kai’s eyes narrowed as he inspected this man.
Yang Kai had seen this man in the hall just now, he had been sitting in a relatively high position and could probably be counted as one of this place’s masters.
The man stood outside the cell and stared at Yang Kai indifferently. A moment later, a number of others appeared as well.
“Open the cell!” The lead man told one of the guards who immediately opened the cell’s door.
The people who had just arrived walked in and an enticing aroma filled the cell. Yang Kai was amazed because he found that these people had actually brought trays of beautifully arranged delicacies as well as several jugs of wine.
“Brat, consider yourself lucky. Our leader has told us to take good care of you,” The lead man coldly snorted, waving his hand and sending a burst of True Qi into Yang Kai.
The next moment, Yang Kai felt all the seals in his body disappear and his True Qi once again began flowing through his meridians, his strength quickly recovering.
However, Yang Kai didn’t make any hasty movements. The other party so casually unsealing his True Qi was obviously because he wasn’t worried about Yang Kai being able to escape or even hurt him.
The trays of food and drink were placed down in front of Yang Kai while the lead man stood by and watched indifferently.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Yang Kai frowned. These people had suddenly brought him tasty food and fine wine and had then proceeded to un-seal his True Qi and Spiritual Energy, such inexplicable behaviour of course made Yang Kai feel vigilant.
There was no such thing as a free lunch!
“No meaning!” The man sneered, slowly walking over and opening his hand, revealing a pale yellow fruit the size of a small fist. The moment this fruit appeared, Yang Kai felt the surrounding Yang Attribute Energy become stronger and a fragrant scent brush past his nose.
His brow rising, Yang Kai stared fixedly at this fruit.
“Hmph, even after offering this to you, the way you act is still filled with suspicion. Hurry up and eat it!” The man tossed the fruit over and Yang Kai caught it, staring back and forth between the fruit and the man’s face suspiciously.
The lead man no longer said anything and simply turned around and left with his clansmen.
A moment later, the group had disappeared.
Yang Kai sat deep in thought, not eating the fruit in his hand or touching the food in front of him, unable to hide his confusion. No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t understand what was going on.
Suddenly, from the cell to his left, a strange laughter rang out, “Human brat, your luck isn’t bad, you actually get a nice meal before you die, it seems like those bastards value you quite a bit.”
Yang Kai’s brow wrinkled as he glanced over at the source of the voice but the light was too dim for him to tell what this man looked like.
His eyes narrowing slightly before relaxing, Yang Kai let out a friendly laugh and asked, “Friend, everyone here is in the same predicament, is there any need to taunt one another? Do you want some of this?”
“Nope, best of luck to you!” The man flatly rejected Yang Kai’s offer and then stopped talking.
“Is it poisoned?” An Ling’er asked nervously.
“You think too much,” Yang Kai shook his head. If these people really wanted to kill him, they didn’t need to use such petty tricks, from the strength they had shown, they definitely had the ability to put Yang Kai and An Ling’er to death instantly, why waste good food simply to poison them?
On top of that, although Yang Kai didn’t recognize what it was, the fruit he was given last was definitely something extraordinary. At the very least, this fruit was a Spirit Grade Top-Rank ingredient which contained a very rich Yang Qi.
One such fruit would be enough for someone with Yang Kai’s cultivation to completely restore themself.
“Eat up, there’s nothing wrong with it,” Yang Kai smiled and stuffed one of the plates into An Ling’er’s hand.
After having her True Qi and Spiritual Energy both sealed and spending a number of days living in fear, An Ling’er really did need to replenish her strength, so she immediately accepted and began eating.
Yang Kai also began stuffing his face, quickly sweeping away everything in front of him, not even letting the pit of the fruit go, swallowing it directly, adding a few drops of Yang Liquid to his dantian in the process
Over the next few days, people would come and deliver food to Yang Kai’s cell, which were all heavenly delicacies.
Yang Kai had already adjusted to this new environment and after these past few days, not only had his injuries completely healed, his strength had also improved slightly. This place was simply a cultivation paradise for the True Yang Secret Art.
Whenever Yang Kai and An Ling’er received these meals, the Demon Race people on either side of them became particularly unhappy.
They were all prisoners in the same prison, but the difference in treatment was as different as Heaven and Earth, causing all of them to wonder just what kind of connection Yang Kai had with the clan that occupied this Mysterious Small World.
In the cell on the left, the Demon Race person who had first spoken to Yang Kai had thought the latter would soon be killed, but after so many days, not only had the people here not found any trouble with him but instead continued to offer him various benefits, leaving him practically speechless.
Roughly five days later, Yang Kai, who was meditating in his cell, suddenly felt an unstable Yang Attribute energy fluctuation in the air, seemingly emanating from somewhere in the distance.
Wrinkling his brow, Yang Kai tried to examine what was going on, but was unable to discover anything useful.
On the other hand, the Demon Race people in the all the cells all wore dignified expressions as soon as they felt this strange energy fluctuation, all of them going silent as uneasiness filled the air, as if this energy fluctuation marked the coming of some kind of disaster.
“What happened to them?” An Ling’er huddled closer to Yang Kai and whispered.
Yang Kai shook his head, his expression also becoming solemn.
The clatter of footsteps could soon be heard as a number of people rushed into the prison from the outside and immediately grabbed a number of Demon Race people, dragging them kicking and screaming from their cells.
But with their strength completely sealed, there was no way these Demon Race people could fight back effectively and soon they were all knocked down and brought out.
After dragging these prisoners out, the doors to the cells were locked again.
Those who still remained began to clamor and curse but obviously no one responded to them.
“Enough! All of you shut up, you think shouting is of any use here?” In the cell to the left of Yang Kai’s, the Demon Race man who had spoken to Yang Kai before called out.
Soon after, everyone fell silent.
Seeing this, Yang Kai glanced over at this man curiously. Apparently this guy had some fame and prestige amongst the Demon Race or else the others here wouldn’t have so easily obeyed him.
After roughly the time it would take to burn a stick of incense, the unsteady energy fluctuations gradually subsided and eventually faded away.
A somber mood fell over the prison as all of the Demon Race people inside became noticeably low-spirited.
Yang Kai’s eyes flashed as he thought to himself that these captives should know more about what was going on. Perhaps he could acquire some useful information from them if he could just get them to talk.
A day later, someone once again brought food and wine, but this time Yang Kai didn’t stuff his meal down immediately but instead took a jug of wine over to the Demon Race man on his left and said in as friendly a tone as possible, “Do you want to share a drink? This wine isn’t half bad.”
Amidst the darkness, a pair of eyes slowly opened and glanced over at Yang Kai, a moment later a snort ringing out, revealing a sense of disdain and ridicule.
“Although I’m human and you’re a demon, and the relationship between our two races has never been friendly, but where I come from we have a saying, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ What do you think?” Yang Kai continued his attempt to persuade this man.
In response, the man slowly took back his sneer and contemplated for a while before saying, “Hmph, you Humans are infamous for your treachery, but at least you don’t seem too hateful!”
Saying so, he stood up, walked over to where the two cells met, sat down and took the jug of wine from Yang Kai’s hand and drank it down.
A few breaths later, after watching him swallowing down the jug of wine, Yang Kai handed this man another.
Seeing him act so subservient, the Demon Race man couldn’t help nodding while disdainfully snickering, “I despise you, humans, the most. You all act servile to those stronger than you yet boast arrogantly in front of those weaker than you. A sinister and deceitful bunch!”
“Heh heh,” Yang Kai didn’t get angry and simply handed over the jug of wine, “Drink first, we can talk later.”
The food and drink disappeared quickly after that.
The Demon Race man stopped constantly making insults but the way he looked down on Yang Kai with utter scorn didn’t change from beginning to end.
“Is there something you want to ask?” The man grumbled, obviously having seen through Yang Kai’s intentions from the start.
Yang Kai simply smiled and first gave his name to his neighbour before saying, “I haven’t asked friend’s name yet.”
The man frowned, seemingly reluctant to report his name, but after considering for a moment he bluntly said, “Gou Che!”
Hearing this name, Yang Kai showed no reaction, but the nearby An Ling’er couldn’t help crying out in shock as she covered her mouth in surprise.
“Hm?” Yang Kai turned to look at her.
“Are you really Gou Che?” An Ling’er stared at the Demon Race man in disbelief.
“Good!”
“My god, you’re actually Gou Che, how come you’re stuck in this prison then?”
“Is he someone famous?” Yang Kai asked An Ling’er curiously.
Gou Che snorted as he curled his lips, “Human brat, originally I thought you were somewhat clever, how come you suddenly look so ignorant?”
“Sorry, I’ve never heard of you,” Yang Kai smiled faintly.
An Ling’er licked her red lips and whispered, “Although I have heard the name Gou Che, he is not actually that famous, the famous one is his father! One of the four Demon Generals, Gou Qiong!”
“Your old man is a Demon General?” Yang Kai was also shocked.
The title ‘Demon General’ was one Yang Kai was unfortunately quite familiar with. Back in the Ash-Grey Cloud Evil Land’s Evil Cavern Yang Kai had killed a Demon General’s Soul Clone! It was only after coming to Tong Xuan Realm though that Yang Kai learned of the terrifying strength each Demon General possessed from Shui Ling.
“My old man is my old man, I am me!” Gou Che seemed unwilling to borrow his father’s name and reputation.
“If you have such a powerful father, how could you have been caught and imprisoned here?” Yang Kai asked, somewhat dumbfounded.
Gou Che squinted as he glared at Yang Kai for a moment before sighing heavily, “A series of unlucky coincidences. In any case, let’s not talk about that. When I get out of here, I’ll rally together enough soldiers to raze this place to the ground.”
“May your wishes come true,” Yang Kai casually said before finally getting to the main point, “How much do you know about this place?”
“Not much,” Gou Che shook his head and no longer rejected Yang Kai outright as he had previously, perhaps agreeing with the sentiment that his enemy’s enemy was his friend, or perhaps thinking he could somehow use Yang Kai to help him escape from this predicament. “We only know that the people here call themselves the Sun Clan. They seem to have once belonged to the Human Race, but because of the Secret Arts they cultivate and that damn Divine Tree of theirs, their physique is now somewhat different from ordinary humans, so they gave themselves a new name.”
“Divine Tree?” Yang Kai frowned and vaguely remembered hearing that name when he first woke up. If he wasn’t mistaken, the Sun Clan clansmen who brought him to the hall said he would turn him into nutrients for the Divine Tree if he didn’t cooperate.
“En, it’s the root of their Sun Clan! Didn’t you see a giant tree when you first came here? The Yang Attribute energy being so rich in this place is all because of that Divine Tree! If not for it, how could our Demon Qi be so strongly suppressed?”
The energy flowing through Demon Race cultivators was called Demonic Qi, which was equivalent to the True Qi which flowed through Human cultivators.
After listening to Gou Che’s story, Yang Kai shook his head slowly, he really hadn’t seen this Divine Tree before, probably because he and An Ling’er had entered this Mysterious Small World from a different entrance.
“The Divine Tree is a strange entity that can generate Yang Attribute energy all on its own; however, recently, for some unknown reason, it seems to have become somewhat unstable. In order to keep the Divine Tree healthy and stable, the Sun Clan people here began catching people from the outside, and the only entrance to this Mysterious Small World is in my Demon Land, so those they have caught all come from my race. Strange, how did the two of you get here?”
“There’s more than one entrance to this place, we accidentally came in through one of them,” Yang Kai explained casually.
“No wonder,” Gou Che nodded lightly before continuing, “You must have felt the unusual energy fluctuations just now; they occur when the Divine Tree becomes unstable. Whenever that happens, they take some of the people they’ve captured here and use their blood and flesh to nurture and comfort the Divine Tree.”
“So those few who were taken just now…”
“They’re dead!” Gou Che sneered, “And it won’t be long before it’s our turn! I’m sure you can see, there aren’t many people left in here.”
Yang Kai’s expression changed slightly upon hearing this. There were only one or two people left in the cells adjacent to his and it was likely there weren’t many in the other cells as well. Every time the Divine Tree’s instability appeared, they had to take several of them to act as blood sacrifices, so it was obviously it wouldn’t be long before everyone in here was dead.
The Sun Clan always abducting Demon Race cultivators from the Demon Land was bound to attract attention after so long so it was likely the Demon Land was now on guard against them so as not to let them succeed so easily anymore, meaning a fresh supply of bodies couldn’t be expected.
“The fruit you ate a few days ago came from their Divine Tree,” Gou Che frowned and explained, “Seeing how you ate that thing so happily, and considering the annoying feeling that comes from your aura, you should cultivate a Yang Attribute Secret Art, right?”
Yang Kai nodded lightly.
“Then you can relax for a while. Before everyone else here is killed off, they probably won’t touch you. Their Divine Tree is especially fond of people like you so I’m sure they’re saving you for last,” Gou Che said, obviously taking some pleasure in Yang Kai’s misfortune, his menacing smiling giving An Ling’er the chills.
“Many thanks for your consideration,” Yang Kai cupped his fists and replied.
Gou Che just snickered before turning his attention to An Ling’er, sweeping his eyes over her body wantonly before saying meaningfully, “Brat, if I were you, I would enjoy myself while I can. You have such a beauty nearby yet you haven’t even touched her, could it be you have problems down there? That’s not good, you can’t disappoint her like that.”
As soon as Gou Che said this, the other Demon Race captives burst out into a fit of laughter.
Yang Kai’s face went black and suddenly felt like this guy was somewhat off putting. An Ling’er on the other hand did her best to cover herself while shooting a hateful glare towards Gou Che and hiding herself behind Yang Kai.
…..
Since talking to Gou Che that day, Yang Kai gained a slight understanding of his current situation and began making some psychological preparations.
After getting a taste of wine after who knows how long, Gou Che became somewhat shameless; whenever the Sun Clan came to deliver food, he would always take two jugs of wine from Yang Kai.
Yang Kai didn’t mind though and simply shared without any complaints.
After getting along for a dozen days or so, Gou Che’s attitude had become more temperate and although it wasn’t as if he was treating Yang Kai like a sworn brother, he at least mellowed his insufferable arrogance.
The only thing that continued to frustrate Yang Kai was how Gou Che always egged him on regarding An Ling’er, each time causing the naive young woman to turn beat red and cling to Yang Kai to hide her embarrassment.
Being imprisoned here, while constantly on edge, not knowing when they would be dragged off and executed had caused the already unruly Demon Race cultivators to completely let loose and seek for some kind of entertainment anywhere they could.
In the past ten days, Yang Kai felt the unstable Yang Attribute energy fluctuations coming from the Divine Tree twice.
Both times, several of the Demon Race prisoners were taken out, never to return.
As the days went by, the number of Demon Race cultivators in the cells continued to dwindle and the moods of those who were left behind grew even heavier.
Their time of death was not far away, and everyone was aware of it.
The atmosphere was incredible gloomy, with only Yang Kai and Gou Che capable of looking forward. Neither of them seeming to be worried, as if they didn’t care whether they lived or died.
Yang Kai spent most of his time cultivating, not missing any opportunity to improve his strength.
He knew that the day he was taken out from this place, he’d have to fight a difficult battle. In this Mysterious Small World, to survive, he knew he would have to kill. If that is the case, then sharpening his blade at any opportunity he can was the best thing he could do right now.
Below the Saint Realm, he didn’t put anyone in his eyes, if anyone provoked him, he could directly release his Soul Devouring Insects and turn this Mysterious Small World into a mass graveyard. Presumably, the leaders of the Sun Clan wouldn’t be able to accept such an outcome which would give Yang Kai an opportunity to sit down and bargain with them.
Therefore he didn’t have any reason to panic.
But this was his biggest trump card and he wasn’t prepared to expose it until the last possible moment.
Two months passed by and basically every five days, a group of people would be brought out from the prison, but as more time went by, Yang Kai felt that the frequency of the Divine Tree’s episodes was increasing.
There were already very few people left in the dungeon.
With the exception of Yang Kai and An Ling’er, only Gou Che and his cellmates were left.
The next time the Divine Tree acted up, it would be their turn. This feeling of impending death unnerved even the normally calm Gou Che.
One day, while drinking with Yang Kai, Gou Che suddenly said, “Friend, you look like a real man. If death is really imminent, would you not resist?”
“Do you think I have the ability to resist?” Yang Kai chuckled.
“They didn’t seal your True Qi, your chances are at least better than mine.”
“Well, if it comes down to it, it certainly won’t just sit still and wait for death.”
“Good, when the time comes, I’ll help you. If you really can escape from this forsaken place, please bring a message to my father; tell him about this place and what happened here so he can take revenge for me!” As he spoke, Gou Che’s expression became fierce, “I have to let these bastards know my Demon Race is not to be trifled with.”
Yang Kai glanced over at him thoughtfully, faintly thinking that this hoodlum should still be hiding some methods, or at least was still capable of putting up some resistance.
However, it seemed like whatever methods he had were very limited; from how he spoke, it didn’t seem like he had any hope of escaping.
[With his help, maybe there really would be a chance to escape!] Yang Kai thought to himself.
As they were talking though, a familiar energy fluctuation filled the air.
Yang Kai, Gou Che, and An Ling’er’s eyes flashed, each of them falling into a temporary daze.
“It’s time!” Gou Che took a deep breath and said.
The Divine Tree had become unstable again, and now, besides them, there was only one other Demon Race cultivator left in this prison. They would certainly be chosen this time.
*Deng deng deng deng…*
The sound of hurried footsteps came from outside and with a loud bang, several Sun Clan clansmen burst into the prison.
It’s mainly to see how the other sites are stealing the content. I doubt they are literally copying and pasting so, let’s see how it goes. TBH, I don’t actually hate them for stealing, just wish that they would have the Patreon link there for us to hit the higher goals. Do you hear me guys?
The leader of this group was the man who had previously lifted the seal on Yang Kai’s True Qi and Spiritual Energy, his expression this time could only be described as gloomy. After arriving, he waved his hand and several of his clansmen immediately opened the two cells.
“Boy, your time of death has arrived,” The man said coldly, “Wasting so many of our resources and living so comfortably for so long, I want to see just how much return you’ll pay!”
As he spoke, he once again sealed Yang Kai’s True Qi before turning to his clansmen and ordering, “Take them all!”
Gou Che and his fellow Demon Race cultivator both suddenly let out muffled grunts as they received several punches and kicks and were dragged out of their cell. On the other hand, Yang Kai and An Ling’er didn’t resist and were spared such unpleasantries.
Walking along the prison’s dark corridor, Gou Che seemed to be somewhat unwilling to cooperate, so it was stop and go for a while, resulting in several whippings. As a result, when the group finally made it out of the prison, Gou Che was a bloody mess, but he was still stubbornly resisting, spewing curses from his mouth as he struggled against his captors.
The master from the Sun Clan simply sneered in response, “Go on, curse, curse like there’s no tomorrow, cause there isn’t! Son of a Demon General? Hmph, you’re nothing but a dead man walking. No one will come to rescue you.”
“If you have the guts, let me go. As soon as I return I’ll rally soldiers and lead my father’s army back here to annihilate you all!” Gou Che yelled.
“Idiot!” The man spat disdainfully.
As Gou Che spoke, he continuously shot glances towards Yang Kai, seemingly urging him to act, but Yang Kai just kept indicating that now was not the time.
Right now was when the surrounding masters were wariest. Even if he was at full strength, Yang Kai couldn’t guarantee he could escape successfully, so how was he supposed to do so when his True Qi and Spiritual Energy were sealed?
He had to wait for an opportunity to release his Soul Devouring Insects and take a large number of Sun Clan clansmen hostage first.
After seeing Yang Kai respond this way several times, Gou Che stopped signalling to him and instead began staring suspiciously, wondering what this strange Human brat was thinking.
As the group walked forward, the Yang Attribute energy fluctuation also grew stronger and more unstable.
The Sun Clan clansmen seemed to be in a hurry and were constantly urging Yang Kai and the others to walk faster.
A short time later, Yang Kai came to an open space where there was nothing within a thousand-meter radius beside a giant golden coloured tree that’s canopy seemed to stretch into the clouds.
Yang Kai could sense that all the Yang Attribute energy in this place was being generated from this giant tree.
It was almost like a giant umbrella, its huge canopy stretching out in all directions, radiating so much Yang Qi that it formed a thin, film-like barrier that subsequently covered the region where the Sun Clan people lived.
As soon as he arrived, the True Qi in Yang Kai’s body showed some signs of movement and soon after, the seal which had been placed on him was silently destroyed.
Yang Kai’s eyes flashed with shock.
He had never thought such a strange tree could exist in this world. This giant tree was obviously the Sun Clan’s Divine Tree, the foundation of their race.
Because of the Secret Arts the Sun Clan cultivated, as long as they remained near this Divine Tree, their strength will rapidly increase, unlike Yang Kai who needed to constantly search for Yang Attribute Precious Treasures and auras just to cultivate.
This was simply a paradise Yang Kai could only dream of.
Staring up at the huge Divine Tree, Yang Kai spotted a number of fruits hanging from its branches. These fruits were the same as the one Yang Kai had eaten soon after waking up in this strange Mysterious Small World, some of them were mature while others seemed to still need more time before ripening.
Not far from the roots of the Divine Tree, the Sun Clan’s Elders were waiting, and upon noticing Yang Kai and the other prisoners’ arrival, they turned around and stared with expectant eyes.
Soon after, the Divine Tree seemed to give off some unusual fluctuations, as if trying to convey a message of desire, releasing a wave of pure Yang Attribute aura that transformed into several visibly ropes which wrapped around Yang Kai.
Seeing this scene, all of the Sun Clan Elders’ spirits roused.
The old leader smiled and nodded as he muttered, “It looks like the Divine Tree likes this human.”
“Thank the Heavens, with this human, the Divine Tree should be able to stabilize for a while, giving us enough time to find some new nutrients!”
“Being able to become the Divine Tree’s nutrients is your life’s greatest honour!” The master who escorted Yang Kai and the others here sneered.
“Doesn’t seem like it to me,” Yang Kai replied flatly but made no attempt to free himself from the energy ropes the Divine Tree had wrapped around him.
These Yang Qi ropes not only didn’t restrict Yang Kai’s movements, they actually gave him a feeling of comfort.
Glancing around, Yang Kai saw that not far in front of himself was a pile of bones and earth that had been dyed red by blood. Obviously, these were the remains of the Demon Race cultivators who had previously been brought here.
This sea of bones and blood was quite shocking at first sight.
An Ling’er pretty face went pale, thinking that she would soon join this mass grave, her heart couldn’t help filling with panic.
*Kacha Kacha…*
As they were pushed forward and stepped, the bones beneath their feet cracked and crumbled, releasing a somewhat gruesome sound.
Gou Che roared as his eyes gradually turned red and filled with anger, the aura around his body become violent and dangerous.
The blood and bones here were all left behind by his clansmen, naturally, Gou Che felt enraged.
As he approached the Divine Tree, Yang Kai’s expression gradually became strange, he felt as if the Divine Tree was trying to convey something to him but was unable to decipher it, causing him to sink into contemplation.
Soon, the group of prisoners was brought before the Divine Tree.
The Sun Clan didn’t seem to want to waste any time, all of them eager to start the blood sacrifice to appease the Divine Tree.
The old leader stared at Gou Che and bluntly commanded, “Start with him.”
Immediately, someone came over and knocked Gou Che to the ground.
“Kid, if you don’t act now when will you?” Gou Che suddenly yelled at Yang Kai, his body swelling up as he spoke, his physique filling with a kind of explosive power that easily smashed through the seals with just his Demonic Qi.
Without hesitation, Gou Che thrust his hand towards the nearest Sun Clan clansman’s heart, trying to strike him to death.
None of the Sun Clan present even batted an eye though, instead staring at Gou Che as if he were some kind of idiot. The old leader simply waved his hand and Gou Che’s movements froze, no matter how the latter tried he simply couldn’t move. Sweat dripping down his forehead, unwillingness filled Gou Che’s red eyes but in the face of absolute power, there was nothing more he could do.
“You think by risking your life you can put up some kind of last-ditch struggle?” The leader chuckled, “Foolishness, do you think I would give you any such chance?”
“You old bastard!” Gou Che gnashed his teeth and cursed, the veins on his forehead nearly popping out, not losing hope as he continued to push his Demonic Qi but still unable to free himself from this predicament.
Gou Che’s strength wasn’t low, already arriving at the Third Order Transcendent Realm, but in front of a Saint Realm master, he still couldn’t put up any kind of resistance. On top of that, this place was right below the Sun Clan’s Divine Tree, the ambient Yang Qi was incredibly rich, harshly suppressing Gou Che’s Demonic Qi, even the weakest Sun Clan clansmen in the same realm could easily beat him here.
“Kill him!” The leader shouted somewhat impatiently.
The two Sun Clan guards who had dragged Gou Che here sneered as they raised their hands, their True Qi surging as they prepared to cut off their prisoner’s head.
“Wait!” Seeing Gou Che’s head about to roll, Yang Kai suddenly shouted.
“Boy, what do you want?” The old leader turned to look at Yang Kai sullenly, “Don’t tell me you want to take his place and die first?”
As soon as this statement came out, Gou Che’s expression also became somewhat confused.
Yang Kai simply grinned, “Sorry, my relationship with him isn’t nearly that good, whether he lives or dies has nothing to do with me.”
“Then why did you open your mouth just now?”
“I just thought I might have a way to resolve your problem and appease your Divine Tree,” Yang Kai smiled lightly.
All the Sun Clan clansmen present wore unpleasant expression upon hearing this, the old leader coldly glaring towards Yang Kai as he said, “Boy, you know to talk big I’ll give you that, but if you dare try to stir up trouble here, I’ll make you suffer a fate worse than death.”
“Whether I’m boasting or not, you can determine after letting me try; in any case, you have nothing to lose,” Yang Kai said, shrugging lightly.
In the next moment, True Qi surged out from Yang Kai’s body.
“You…” The master who had escorted him here stared in disbelief, unable to understand how this boy had so easily broken through the seals on his strength.
“Don’t look so surprised, it’s not that I have the ability to break through your seals, it was the Divine Tree that helped me!” Yang Kai smiled as he pointed at the energy ropes still tied around him.
“Strange!” The man shook his head in confusion.
“Now then, do you want me to try? To be honest, if you want to kill us all now, I have no opinion. At worst I’ll die a quick death, but if you let me try, you might receive an unexpected surprise. En, well, even if it doesn’t work, it won’t be too late to kill us then. It’s your decision.”
Seeing him look so calm, seemingly indifferent to whether he lived or died, the Sun Clan’s Elders became somewhat hesitant.
The most important point here was the Divine Tree’s behaviour. They had never seen the Divine Tree entangle someone like this before. Not even the strongest members of their Sun Clan had experienced such a thing.
As such, Yang Kai’s words had some credibility to them.
Perhaps it was as he said and he could give them some unexpected surprises.
The crowd whispered amongst themselves for a moment before all of them turned their attention to their leader.
The old man sunk into contemplation for a moment, his eyes staring at Yang Kai with some distrust but eventually nodding as he said, “This old master will allow you to try, but you must first tell us what you plan to do.”
“There’s no way to describe it, you’ll just have to watch and see!” Yang Kai smiled, ignoring the unfriendly stares of the surrounding Sun Clan clansmen as he walked forward.
“If you dare damage the Divine Tree, I will pull out your Soul and torture you for all eternity!” The old leader threatened coldly.
Yang Kai secretly snorted, not caring at all about the old man’s threat.
In front of everyone’s eyes, Yang Kai walked over and stood before the giant Divine Tree.
Both Gou Che and An Ling’er secretly clenched their fists, neither of them knowing what Yang Kai was thinking.
Standing beside the Divine Tree’s roots, Yang Kai’s brow wrinkled slightly as he slowly extended his hand and pressed it against the tree.
The instant he touched it, his body shook.
The Divine Tree in front of him was simply a gigantic treasure! The Divine Tree had so much Yang Attribute energy stored within it, it was difficult for Yang Kai to even fathom. It was as if Yang Qi flowed through the tree’s trunk like a raging river. It was to the point where it he listened carefully, Yang Kai could actually hear sound of the flowing Yang Qi.
Yang Kai’s expression changed greatly, wondering just what kind of height his strength would grow to if he could absorb this massive amount of energy.
However, he quickly shook his head. This was the Sun Clan’s Divine Tree; in front of so many masters, it was simply impossible for Yang Kai to absorb any energy from it. If he even tried, he would become a corpse in the next moment.
As Yang Kai stood there, all of the Sun Clan’s masters had their Divine Senses locked onto him, if he made any kind of suspicious movement, they would ruthlessly kill him.
However, Yang Kai’s performance was quite tactful as he simply investigated the Divine Tree, nothing more.
After some time passed, many of the Sun Clan began to show impatient expressions because the fluctuations coming from the Divine Tree had not decreased in the slightest.
Yang Kai also no longer wasted any time, instantly smashing the seal on his Spiritual Energy and then sending his Soul Avatar into the trunk of the Divine Tree.
Inside the Divine Tree, Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar found a golden world filled with Yang Qi so rich it turned into a liquid and flowed like a mighty river. Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar swam through this river, tracing it back to its source.
After a little hard work, Yang Kai arrived at a mysterious space.
This space was somewhere inside the Divine Tree and, strictly speaking, should be its core.
In front of Yang Kai’s Avatar, he discovered an unusual energy formation that seemed to be quietly floating within the golden river. This energy formation exuded an astonishingly hot aura that was subtly different from its surroundings.
As he watched, Yang Kai saw this energy formation pulse slowly, giving it the appearance of a great, beating heart.
Seeing this, Yang Kai couldn’t help feeling shocked.
There is always a reason when there is change.
When he had first arrived before the Divine Tree and the latter had taken the initiative to reach out and contact him, Yang Kai had a faint idea what was going on, and now that he had seen this mass of energy, he became certain about his speculations.
At the same time, Yang Kai thoroughly understood what the bouts of restlessness the Divine Tree had were about.
The Sun Clan were unclear about the actual situation and could only provide the Divine Tree with nutrients in the form of blood sacrifices.
Letting out a long sigh, Yang Kai continued to stare at the energy mass in front of him for a while.
This energy formation continued to pulse as it revealed a sense of eagerness and intimacy towards Yang Kai.
This energy formation was still in a state of chaos, but Yang Kai believed that if it was given enough time and enough nourishment, it would form a complete consciousness.
The world was truly vast, even giving birth to such a strange life form.
Yang Kai had encountered the Jade True Spirit and the Bone Race skeleton before which were similarly strange existences, and now he had come across this Divine Tree which, from the looks of it, was in the process of evolving into a completely new life form.
Transforming from a mere plant to a sentient being!
This energy formation at the heart of the tree was actually a gathering of Spiritual Energy and once it completed its evolution, it would become something akin to the Divine Tree’s Soul.
Yang Kai was deeply surprised, never having thought a tree could actually reach such a step.
The occasional riots of the Divine Tree weren’t because it had contracted some kind of illness or because it was on the verge of death, but because its evolution required a massive amount of energy.
It was rooted here so there weren’t many nutrients it could absorb from its surroundings, so whenever it needed more, it would unconsciously cry out. That was also why, when the Sun Clan offered it blood sacrifices, the Divine Tree would settle down for a while.
After eating and drinking enough, it naturally became stable.
However, such a method wasn’t a cure for the problem so it would inevitably start complaining again after a period of time, causing the Sun Clan no small amount of worry.
The amount of energy the Divine Tree needed for its evolution was too large, but judging from the increasing frequency of its riots, Yang Kai felt that it wouldn’t be long before it succeeded.
Yang Kai quickly figured out what was going on, but what he didn’t know was how much the Sun Clan knew.
It was reasonable to say that they could understand the situation by simply sending one of the Soul Avatars into this place, but from their uneasiness and urgency when it came to the Divine Tree’s riots, it seemed as though they were clueless about what was really happening.
Yang Kai couldn’t help feeling confused about this.
The only way to solve this mystery would be to ask!
Thinking so, Yang Kai quickly took back his Soul Avatar.
Just as he opened his eyes, Yang Kai heard many angry voices coming from the Sun Clan’s masters, all of them seemingly growing impatient, anxious to sacrifice Gou Che and his companion to calm the Divine Tree.
“What are you all so worried about?” Yang Kai squinted at them and said faintly, “I just finished my investigation and came up with a plan, wait a moment longer!”
The leader of the Sun Clan stared at Yang Kai coldly as he declared, “I’ll give you the time it takes to boil a cup of tea, if you can’t calm the Divine Tree by then, all of you will die here today! “
“A cup of tea…” Yang Kai chuckled, “Should be enough.”
Saying so, Yang Kai soared up into the sky and hid himself in the Divine Tree’s dense canopy, disappearing from everyone’s line of sight. The Sun Clan masters weren’t worried though. Even if they couldn’t see Yang Kai, their Divine Senses were still watching every move he made.
Atop the Divine Tree’s huge trunk, Yang Kai arrived at a spot he estimated was the location he had encountered the energy formation.
Stretching out a finger, Yang Kai opened a small crack in the trunk.
Immediately after, Yang Kai condensed a drop of Yang Liquid at his fingertip and dropped it into the crack.
The drop of Yang Liquid directly penetrated into the tree and disappeared.
Although he appeared calm on the surface, Yang Kai’s heart was pounding as he wasn’t certain his plan would work.
What he was doing right now was something he had just come up with on the spot, so there was no guarantee it would have any effect at all.
Yang Kai still remembered back when he was first beginning to cultivate that he had grown several Yang Attribute fruit trees by using his Yang Liquid, so he knew his Yang Liquid had such a growth-promoting effect and that the effect was quite significant.
A spirit fruit tree which should have taken several years to grow and produce fruit had fully matured within a month after absorbing a single drop of Yang Liquid.
Right now, this Divine Tree’s evolution required a massive amount of energy and a drop of Yang Liquid was undoubtedly the best choice for this. On top of that, Yang Kai’s Yang Liquid was very different from the past, the energy contained within a single drop was dozens of times greater than before.
Perhaps this could satisfy the Divine Tree’s requirements!
If it couldn’t though, Yang Kai would have no choice but to give up.
Waiting silently, Yang Kai felt a great sense of tension, not because he was afraid to confront the Sun Clan in a fight, but because he was full of expectations. He was looking forward to seeing what kind of role his Yang Liquid could play here and just what the Divine Tree’s evolved, sentient form would be like!
Suddenly, the fluctuations coming from the Divine Tree became much more intense, as if the drop of Yang Liquid had greatly stimulated it and it was now going on a rampage, throwing the surrounding area into a state of chaos.
“Boy! What have you done!?” Among the Sun Clan masters who were waiting down below, one of them immediately roared angrily upon seeing this and flew up towards Yang Kai, intending to execute him.
“Wait!” This time, it was the Sun Clan’s leader who called out, his brow wrinkling deeply as he examined the situation.
“Leader, that brat definitely tried to harm the Divine Tree, please let me immediately kill him!”
“I told you to wait!” The leader glanced at this man and declared in a domineering tone, shutting the latter up instantly.
Up in the canopy, Yang Kai heard the noise down below, but paid it no mind, instead wearing a happy expression.
The Divine Tree was rioting now not because it was upset but because it desperately wanted more of his Yang Liquid, its rioting was its way of begging for more.
The crack Yang Kai had previously opened actually split apart even further all on its own.
The Divine Tree seemed to think that by doing so it would be able to obtain more benefits.
Its consciousness was currently in a state of ignorance, just like an unborn child. It could vaguely sense what was going on in its surroundings, but couldn’t distinguish what much of it meant. This crack opening on its own was a subconscious reaction it took.
Yang Kai grinned and fed the Divine Tree another drop of Yang Liquid into the trunk from his fingertips.
A moment later, the rampaging aura of the Divine Tree became much more stable.
This time, everyone from the Sun Clan couldn’t help showing strange expressions, the old leader’s eyes flashing a cold yet expectant light.
As time passed, the aura of the Divine Tree gradually became calm, as if an invisible hand had gently been lulling it to sleep.
Everyone waited with anticipation and soon enough, Yang Kai jumped down from the Divine Tree, his face pale and sweat dripping from his forehead.
After landing, Yang Kai sat down without a word and began circulating his Secret Art.
No one dared to disturb him and even the Sun Clan clansmen held their breaths as they waited quietly, wondering just what kind of method he had used to successfully comfort the Divine Tree.
Gou Che and An Ling’er were both stunned but soon let out sighs of relief. They knew that this time they had managed to escape from the jaws of death.
After some time, Yang Kai slowly opened his eyes, his complexion somewhat better but obviously still quite weak, the True Qi in his body seemingly severely depleted.
His expression was also quite gloomy and it was apparent he wasn’t in a good mood.
This was no act, Yang Kai really was in a foul mood. This time, in order to provide the Divine Tree with enough energy, he had actually fed it twenty drops of Yang Liquid.
This was a big loss.
“Boy, what did you just do?” The Sun Clan leader quickly asked, “How were you able to comfort the Divine Tree?”
“Do you think I’ll tell you?” Yang Kai sneered.
“Brat, you’d best start talking, if you don’t, we’ll let you taste the world’s finest torture!” Someone immediately threatened.
Yang Kai slowly shook his head and replied back in a defiant tone, “Do whatever you want, this time’s comforting was just a temporary fix. If you don’t want to completely solve your Divine Tree’s problem, you can beat me all you’d like, I promise you if one hair on my head is harmed, the next time your precious Divine Tree goes on a rampage I’ll definitely stand by and watch!”
Yang Kai’s fearless and defiant attitude caused the Sun Clan to hesitate.
The old leader smiled strangely and maintained a neutral attitude while cynically saying, “Boy, your courage isn’t small. Do you think we’ll be so easily intimidated? You only have one life, you should cherish it more, obeying us is your only option here!”
Yang Kai just glanced over at the old leader indifferent and said nothing, stubbornly refusing to cooperate.
Now that he had finally seized the initiative, Yang Kai’s best option was to remain silent, once the Sun Clan learned what he had done, they would likely treat him as a long-term nutrient supply for the Divine Tree and force him to continuously manufacture Yang Liquid to water it.
That was not an outcome Yang Kai wanted to see.
However, listening to their tone, Yang Kai faintly felt that they really didn’t know the Divine Tree was evolving, causing him to frown, it wasn’t until after a moment of reflection that Yang Kai suddenly understood.
He was able to learn the truth because his Soul Avatar had broken into the Divine Tree’s interior to examine it.
But the Sun Clan’s Soul Avatars obviously couldn’t replicate this. Within the Divine Tree’s trunk was an intense flow of Yang Qi, once any of their Soul Avatars entered, they would likely be burned to death!
They didn’t have Yang Kai’s Conflagrated Knowledge Sea which could ignore that scorching heat.
Considering all this, Yang Kai’s last worries disappeared as his courage inflated again.
As long as the Sun Clan didn’t know the truth of the matter, Yang Kai could firmly grasp the initiative in their negotiations.
The Sun Clan leader stared deeply at Yang Kai, his brow furrowed as his expression became somewhat gloomy, only after a while smiling and nodding, “If you don’t want to explain then so be it, I’ll have plenty of chances to figure it out.”
This place was their home turf, and his cultivation was much higher than Yang Kai’s, so naturally the old leader felt Yang Kai couldn’t be able to conceal his methods for long.
Yang Kai simply shrugged his shoulders and remained indifferent.
“Because you have the ability to comfort the Divine Tree, you still have some value, so we won’t be killing you today, but I warn you, don’t try to play any tricks. You won’t be able to afford the consequences!”
Yang Kai chuckled and finally spoke, “You can feel relieved, I understand my own worth, as long as you don’t harm me or my companions, I’ll cooperate with you.”
“You’re an interesting one, boy!” The leader smirked, Yang Kai’s adaptability had gained the old man’s approval.
“But before that, I have a few requests I hope you can fulfil.”
“Don’t reach out for a yard after taking an inch, you don’t have the qualifications to discuss any conditions with us, it seems you really don’t understand your own position!” The old leader coldly snorted, his expression becoming gloomy again.
“I’m not asking for myself but for your Divine Tree. If you want your Divine Tree to be restored as quickly as possible, it’s best if you hear me out, if you don’t want to thought, that’s also fine.”
The Sun Clan cultivators all frowned as they stared at Yang Kai distrustfully.
“Speak!” The old leader said calmly.
“First, starting today, I want all of your Sun Clan clansmen to stop absorbing Yang Qi from the Divine Tree, if you want to cultivate, do it far away from this place!”
“Why?”
“I can only say that this has something to do with the riots of the Divine Tree,” Yang Kai replied perfunctorily.
The Divine Tree’s evolution required a massive amount of energy which Yang Kai was no supplying in the form of Yang Liquid, the last thing he wanted was for a portion of that to be absorbed by the Sun Clan, further increasing his consumption.
“What kind of joke is that? With just one sentence you want our entire clan to stop cultivating?!” A Sun Clan master shouted.
“It’s up to you to decide, I don’t care either way, I’m just making the suggestions.”
“How long do you want us to stop?” The Sun Clan’s leader asked.
Yang Kai frowned and asked, “How long ago did your Divine Tree start acting up?”
The old leader calmly replied, “It has been about three years, though it was not very obvious in the beginning, but as time passed the episodes became more and more frequent.”
Yang Kai nodded lightly. If what the old man said was true, then the evolution of the Divine Tree had started roughly three years ago which was similar to Yang Kai’s own estimates. Since that was the case, as long as he could at least maintain the current conditions, it shouldn’t be long before the Divine Tree finishes its evolution and obtains sentience.
“If my guess is correct, then you’ll only have to endure this situation for at most a year, half a year or even less is possible though.”
“Acceptable!” The old leader nodded and agreed to Yang Kai’s request, with him agreeing, none of the other Sun Clan masters raised any objections.
Enduring for a year wasn’t a big deal for them!
“Second, I need something to supplement my True Qi, preferably those fruits from the Divine Tree, the more the better!” Yang Kai said lightly.
Hearing this second condition, all the Sun Clan present wore sour expressions.
The old leader even laughed, “The more the better? Do you think that the fruit of the Divine Tree is easy to come by? Every fruit here has been grown for several hundred years, even I don’t have the opportunity to take one so easily. Do you think you have the right to obtain such valuable treasures?”
“Aren’t there a lot right here?” Yang Kai’s expression dimmed, these people were really too stingy, there were obviously a few dozen fully matured fruits hanging from the Divine Tree, their aroma stimulating Yang Kai’s appetite even now.
“These are the accumulated wealth of my clan’s thousands of years worth of effort, how could we let some outsiders take them?” The leader old said bluntly.
“Fine, it doesn’t have to be these fruits, Yang Attribute spirit grasses, herbs, fruits, or pills are also fine! You shouldn’t be lacking those too, right?” Yang Kai said impatiently.
Yang Kai wasn’t about to be a shorn sheep. Since he was providing Yang Liquid for the Divine Tree’s evolution, naturally the Sun Clan should supplement his consumption.
“You all saw, just now, in order to sooth your Divine Tree, I had to expend all of my True Qi, if I don’t have something to help me supplement my consumption, how am I supposed to restore myself?”
To this argument the old leader could only nod reluctantly, “Good, what you say makes some sense. We’ll give you something to supplement your True Qi, you don’t need to worry about this point!”
“Third……”
“Stop while you’re ahead, our patience is limited, we won’t allow you to keep naming conditions so wantonly,” The old leader said unhappily, directly interrupting Yang Kai’s words.
Yang Kai sneered back in response, “I just wanted to say that since you have a need for me, shouldn’t you give me a better living environment? I can’t escape from this place anyways, is there a need to keep me in your dungeon still?”
“Fine!”
“My female companion, en, and these two Demon Race friends of mine, if it’s convenient, let them live with me as well.”
Gou Che couldn’t help but glance over at Yang Kai in surprise, his expression showing some signs of gratitude.
“Very well!” The old leader was obviously becoming impatient and didn’t wait for Yang Kai to continue before saying, “The conditions you proposed, I can satisfy, but if you can’t meet my clan’s expectations… you should understand.”
“I’m very clear about that,” Yang Kai nodded lightly, his face filled with a bright carefree smile.
“Take them away and have someone fulfil his requests!” The old leader waved his hand and quickly said.
The master who had previously escorted Yang Kai and the others here came over and immediately took them away.
After they had left, one of the Elders from the Sun Clan wore a gloomy expression as he muttered, “This little brat is so rude, daring to make so many demands, why did you agree to his conditions?”
“Me promising him is my own decision, besides, he only asked for some trivial things. This is just until we figure out what means he used. The next time he comforts the Divine Tree, I’ll be watching him closely! Send someone to monitor them, especially that young human boy. I want to know everything he does from now on.”
“Yes!”
…..
Inside a small palace, Yang Kai’s group of four people settled in.
After arranging accommodations for these four, the Sun Clan man who had led them here promptly left.
However, both Yang Kai and Gou Che knew that there were many powerful masters lurking about just outside, their Divine Senses unscrupulously monitoring them, obviously there was no chance of them escaping right now.
Having moved into a comfortable environment after just escaping death, everyone in the group felt some lingering fear, especially Gou Che and the unknown Demon Race cultivator, they didn’t understand why Yang Kai had even bothered to save them.
Inside one of the rooms, the four people gathered together and Gou Che stared at Yang Kai with a complicated expression, hesitating several times before finally asking the questions on his mind.
In response, Yang Kai simply smiled and said, “There’s no particular reason, all of us are in the same situation, and saving you two didn’t take any extra effort, so I just decided to do so. Does Brother Gou Che need any other explanation?”
Gou Che wore a stunned expression as he scratched his cheek, suddenly saying in a firm tone, “No matter what, this time, I, Gou Che, owe you my life. I will not forget this kindness, in the future, if the opportunity arises, I will certainly repay this grace!”
This time, if it weren’t for Yang Kai interfering, he would most certainly have been turned into a sacrifice by the Sun Clan.
“Brother Gou Che is too serious,” Yang Kai faintly waved his hand. “Us being able to leave here is another matter altogether, if things don’t go well we may still die here.”
“If such a time comes we’ll just have to fight it out with them.”
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes. Good, this palace is big enough, you two find a place to stay for now. There won’t be any danger in the short time, I need to hurry and restore myself!”
“Then I won’t disturb brother any longer. Rest well!” Gou Che said before quickly leaving together with his fellow clansmen.
An Ling’er on the other hand didn’t leave and just stared at Yang Kai with her beautiful pair of eyes, a thoughtful expression upon her face.
“Need something else?” asked Yang Kai.
“You lied,” An Ling’er said bluntly, “I know you’re not kind enough to save Gou Che for no reason. You must be plotting something!”
“Beauty, haven’t you ever heard of silencing others for knowing too much?” Yang Kai grinned evilly.
“Stop it, I know you won’t do anything to me,” An Ling’er spat disdainfully, rolling her eyes at Yang Kai’s act she had seen too many times already, lowering her voice as she continued to ask, “What scheme do you have? What are you trying to get from him?”
“Nothing,” Yang Kai smiled, “What I want is his gratitude.”
“What good is that to you? Here, his gratitude can’t save you.”
“In here it really can’t save me, but what about outside?” Yang Kai gave her a meaningful look.
“Outside…” An Ling’er’s brows wrinkled, obviously not comprehending what Yang Kai was implying.
“Idiot!” Yang Kai slowly shook his head, “It’s said that women with big chests don’t have any brains, it seems to be true!”
“I…” An Ling’er turned bright red and quietly looked down at her towering peaks, gritting her teeth as she mumbled, “How are they big?”
“They certainly don’t look small, en, you’ve developed quite nicely,” Yang Kai said with an obscene look upon his face.
“Rogue! Shameless!” An Ling’er shouted angrily, her skin flushing crimson.
Inside the palace, after Yang Kai painstakingly explained, An Ling’er finally understood what he was after.
If his guess was right, after escaping from this Mysterious Small World, the place they would appear would be the Demon Land!
The Demon Land was naturally ruled over by the Demon Race, and since ancient times, humans and demons had been enemies. In Tong Xuan Realm, with the exception of the central neutral zone, once members of the two races met, there would inevitably be a battle.
If two humans like Yang Kai and An Ling’er suddenly appeared in the middle of the Demon Land, they would surely encounter the chase down of the Demon Race, and even if they possessed Heaven defying abilities, they wouldn’t be able to safely escape.
However, with Gou Che’s help, it would be a different story.
This guy’s father was Demon General Gou Qiong, a man whose hand could cover the sky in the Demon Land. As long as they could obtain the latter’s shelter, Yang Kai and An Ling’er wouldn’t have to worry about losing their lives at least.
Therefore, Yang Kai was trying his best to earn Gou Che’s gratitude right now.
Hearing this, An Ling’er stared at Yang Kai with a scornful look, “You want to depend on something as flimsy as gratitude? Is your brain filled with flowers?”
Yang Kai snorted back, “I’m just thinking farther ahead than you. Of course, all of this first depends on us being able to leave this place. If we can’t escape from this Mysterious Small World, even if that delinquent Gou Che becomes my sworn brother, it wouldn’t do us any good.”
“Do you think we can leave?” An Ling’er narrowed her eyes and bit her lip anxiously.
“I don’t know, it’ll depend on our efforts from now on,” Yang Kai shook his head helplessly. Right now, he didn’t dare make any guarantees; he could only say he would do his best.
“I wonder what state the Holy Land is in,” An Ling’er sighed faintly.
Saintess Aunt Nan suddenly becoming like that meant that the old Holy Master must have fallen, which meant that the entire Holy Land had probably become a mess.
“I don’t know about your Holy Land, but I fear your three Saintess sisters are more unfortunate than fortunate!”
“Ah…” An Ling’er’s beautiful face paled as she called out in alarm. Thinking about it now, she felt that what Yang Kai said was very possible.
Because they cultivated the same Secret Art, Saintess Aunt Nan could easily find the other Saintesses’ positions. An Ling’er had just barely escaped thanks to Yang Kai and the Void Corridor, but her three sisters would likely not have such luck. There were no Saint Realm masters in the teams escorting the Saintesses so none of them could possibly resist the attack of a Second Order Saint.
In all likelihood, Saintess Aunt Nan had killed one or more of the other three before coming for An Ling’er.
Yang Kai’s words had instantly wiped away all the joy An Ling’er felt from surviving their most recent disaster, causing her mood to sink to its lowest point yet.
“Well, uh, just pretend I didn’t say anything. The situation might not be that bad!” Yang Kai fumbled for his words as he secretly regretted opening his mouth just now; to him, it was just something obvious which didn’t make any difference to him, but to An Ling’er, it was obviously nothing short of a tragedy.
“This is all your fault… just as I was starting to feel better…” An Ling’er glared at Yang Kai before turning around and running out.
Yang Kai shook his head helplessly while reminding himself to not be so talkative in the future.
The Sun Clan kept their word and soon after moving Yang Kai and the others into their new housing, delivered a number of Yang Attribute pills.
In this place, the ambient Yang Attribute energy was incredibly rich so it was naturally suitable to the growth of spirit herbs of the same attribute. The Sun Clan apparently also had their own Alchemists who could refine these herbs into pills.
There was a total of ten bottles, each with ten Spirit Grade Low-Rank pills inside.
Although these pills weren’t too high-end, they also weren’t too bad.
Ten bottles of Spirit Grade Low-Rank pills took less than half an hour for Yang Kai to consume, essentially compensating for the Yang Liquid he had just used.
However, Yang Kai obviously wasn’t satisfied just making up for his loss, he wanted to use this opportunity to extract as many benefits as he could from the Sun Clan.
After all, he would likely have to comfort the Divine Tree many times in the future with his Yang Liquid. How could a trivial ten bottles of pills satisfy him?
Waiting three days so as not to cause too much suspicion, Yang Kai once again asked the Sun Clan for more pills, causing the eyes of the Sun Clan guards who were monitoring him to nearly pop out of their sockets.
Ten bottles of ten pills each was enough for any one of them to use for several months, but this Human Race brat had actually spent just three days to consume them all.
However, as he was under their constant supervision, they also understood that Yang Kai had not secretly hidden or destroyed these pills. He hadn’t taken a half step outside the palace nor did he have any kind of storage artifact on him, so naturally it was impossible for him to have misappropriated these pills.
After cursing him out for a while, the guards finally brought ten more bottles of pills to Yang Kai, repeatedly emphasizing that he had to use them sparingly. Even for their Sun Clan it wasn’t easy to refine so many cultivation pills.
Yang Kai nodded solemnly while secretly sneering, swallowing these pills like beans the moment the guards left.
He could refine Spirit Grade Low-Rank pills at will now, so even just eating them casually as snacks they wouldn’t last more than two days.
It could only be said that the level of the Sun Clan’s Alchemists was too low.
Time passed day by day and the Sun Clan thought that after this most recent unusual comforting, the Divine Tree would remain stable for quite a while, but after only five days, the Divine Tree once again began releasing unstable energy fluctuations.
When he noticed this, Yang Kai quickly prepared himself.
Sure enough, only a few breaths later, someone came and escorted him to the Divine Tree.
This time, An Ling’er and the others didn’t follow and instead remained in the palace.
Beneath the Divine Tree, the Sun Clan masters gathered around their leader, all of them waiting anxiously. After seeing Yang Kai arrive, all of their Divine Senses locked onto him, apparently wanting to take this opportunity to figure out what method Yang Kai was using to sooth the Divine Tree’s rioting.
In response, Yang Kai wore a casual expression, not displaying a single hint of nervousness.
Yang Kai didn’t care about them spying on them, because in this world, besides him, no one else could do what he was about to do.
As such, he really wasn’t worried about anything.
When he arrived, Yang Kai didn’t bother speaking any nonsense and simply leapt up into the Divine Tree’s canopy, found the crack in the great trunk he had split open last time, and began feeding it drops of Yang Liquid.
Each drop of Yang Liquid represented the entire amount of True Qi Yang Kai’s physique, with the exception of his dantian, could contain, which meant that each drop of Yang Liquid, given the current size and toughness of his meridians, contained an incredible amount of pure Yang Qi.
Even so, each time a drop of Yang Liquid was fed to the Divine Tree, it would easily be absorbed, dispersing and disappearing almost instantaneously.
The energy fluctuations from the Divine Tree became even more violent as it tried to convey its desire for more.
However, Yang Kai wasn’t in any rush and continued to steadily feed the Divine Tree one drop of Yang Liquid after another, gently soothing it.
All the Sun Clan’s masters stood close by and observed but were ultimately unable to understand what was happening, causing each of them to frown. Although they could sense a massive amount of energy suddenly appearing every now and then, it would disappear just as quickly in the next moment, denying them an opportunity to investigate.
Watching this process repeat itself, all of their brows wrinkled deeply.
Many of them wanted to move closer to get a better look, but hesitated out of concern that they would annoy Yang Kai, causing him to stop cooperating with them.
After about half an hour, the Divine Tree’s aura settled down once more.
Yang Kai’s then sent his Soul Avatar into the Divine Tree to inspect its condition and quickly discovered that the energy formation which formed the latter’s core had become more solid and slightly less chaotic in nature.
Nodding with satisfaction, Yang Kai figured that it wouldn’t be long not before this energy formation finished evolving and gained sentience.
When Yang Kai leapt down, the Sun Clan immediately noticed that his condition was the same as last time, his face pale and all the True Qi drained from his body.
Glancing around at each other, they nodded approvingly.
Regardless of how Yang Kai was comforting the Divine Tree, from his performance, it was obvious to them he was at least giving it his all and not cutting any corners, something the Sun Clan wanted very much to see.
After allowing him to recover for a moment, they walked over to him.
The Sun Clan’s old leader called out, “Boy, I heard that you consume pills very quickly, do you take my Sun Clan for fools?”
Yang Kai slowly opened his eyes and panted lightly, struggling to argue back, “I indeed consumed many pills, but although I had some small gains, the one that ultimately benefits is your Divine Tree. I’ll tell you this right now, ninety-nine percent of the energy I absorbed from those pills was returned to your Divine Tree. Having just seen what I did, I think all of you are clear about this point. Are you really going to care about some insignificant benefits I gain in the process?”
The old leaders of the Sun Clan narrowed his eyes upon hearing this. Although he felt that there was something wrong with Yang Kai’s explanation just now, he also couldn’t definitively refute them.
“I might as well take the opportunity to mention this to you then, and you had best take what I say seriously. I need more pills, many more, otherwise the next time your precious Divine Tree acts up, I can’t guarantee that I’ll have enough True Qi to comfort it!”
Hearing his rude request, the Sun Clan masters all wore gloomy expressions. Yang Kai’s attitude was so brazen and arrogant that they couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable and annoyed.
“If it really is for the Divine Tree, I can provide you with what you need, but your rate of consumption is too high, if this last too long, I’m afraid our Alchemists won’t be able to keep up!” The Sun Clan leader calmly said.
“If there aren’t enough pills just give me herbs instead, I’ll refine them myself!” Yang Kai compromised.
“Do you understand Alchemy?” The Sun Clan’s leader looked at him with some shock.
“That’s none of your business!” Yang Kai bluntly stated.
“Fine, after having them prepared, I’ll have the appropriate materials delivered to you,” The Sun Clan’s leader nodded before asking, “Right, why did the Divine Tree’s riot come so quickly, shouldn’t you explain this to us?”
“What’s there to explain? You couldn’t have thought that after I comforted it last time your Divine Tree would no longer riot, did you?”
“Of course not, I just felt that the cycle should have been longer.”
“Idiot,” Yang Kai sneered, “The faster these bouts come the better, only after reaching a certain frequency will it stop altogether. In fact, if possible, I hope to come here every day to appease instead of waiting for its riots to appear on their own.”
“Come here once a day?” The gathered masters all showed puzzled expressions.
“En.”
“Very well, I agree to your request. Rest assured, as long as you single-mindedly assist the Divine Tree, my Sun Clan will not treat you poorly, we will even give you some benefits. Since you cultivate a Yang Attribute Secret Art, perhaps my Sun Clan will have some Martial Skills and auxiliary techniques which will be useful to you!” As if appreciating Yang Kai’s ‘sincerity’, the Sun Clan’s old leader’s expression became more temperate and started throwing out some casual words of praise.
Yang Kai smiled happily on the surface while spat disdainfully in his heart. From what he had seen of these people so far, he knew they only considered him a slave labourer. Even if they delivered him any Martial Skills or Secret Arts, they would only be low-grade things.
Regarding such things, Yang Kai wouldn’t spare a glance.
In the Mysterious Small World, time passed by uneventfully.
Gou Che and the other Demon Race cultivator had nothing to do all day. With their Demonic Qi and Divine Sense’s both sealed, they couldn’t even cultivate, so they had both grown incredibly bored out of their mind.
It was the same for An Ling’er, as a young woman, she had a more tranquil temperament, and was less troubled by the current circumstances. Instead, she listlessly spent most of her time in a daze.
Compared to them, Yang Kai was very busy.
The Sun Clan sent him a large quantity of spirit grasses and spirit herbs which Yang Kai then refined into pills before promptly swallowing them down to cultivate. On top of that, every day he would go to the Divine Tree to feed it a few drops of Yang Liquid, causing his schedule to be quite full.
The quality and grade of the Sun Clan’s herbs were very good, allowing Yang Kai to put the many sentiments and insights into Alchemy he had been piling up into practice, subsequently improving his overall skill, delivering gratifying results.
The Sun Clan’s masters were constantly monitoring Yang Kai’s movements as well, but no matter how much they observed, they couldn’t completely understand what bizarre method he was using to appease the Divine Tree.
Also, since Yang Kai began visiting the Divine Tree daily, it had never had another bout of erratic energy fluctuations.
All the Sun Clan clansmen were extremely happy about this, thinking that this human boy was really somewhat useful and secretly rejoicing they hadn’t just lopped off his head.
The only thing that made them unhappy was that Yang Kai consumed too many of their precious spirit herbs. He was like a bottomless pit that no amount of cultivator resources could fill.
If Yang Kai’s movements weren’t under constant surveillance, they would surely have interrogated him about this point several times already.
In the blink of an eye, four months had passed by.
On this day, after Yang Kai fed several drops of Yang Liquid to the Divine Tree and sent his Soul Avatar into its trunk for his customary inspection, he couldn’t help smiling happily.
The once chaotic energy formation inside the trunk was now pulsating regularly, like a butterfly that was just about to break through its cocoon, a sense of vitality literally radiating from it. Moreover, after sensing the arrival of Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar, it subtly tried to reach out to him.
It seemed as though it was trying to communicate with Yang Kai but didn’t know how to express itself clearly.
Yang Kai’s spirit rose as he knew this was a sign the Divine Tree’s evolution had reached its most critical juncture. At this speed, it would be only another month or two before its consciousness fully formed, at that time, it would become a true sentient lifeform.
After quietly comforting it for a while, Yang Kai took back his Soul Avatar and jumped down ‘weakly’ from the trunk. After a short break to restore himself, he spoke to the nearby Sun Clan Elder, “From tomorrow onward, I want to live here!”
“Live here?” The Sun Clan Elder asked with a clear look of surprise.
“En, there are some things I’m concerned about, I’d like to be as close as possible to continuously observe your Divine Tree, so instead of running back and forth all day long, it will be more convenient to just live here. Also, that way, if something does happen, I can respond right away.”
“It’s no problem to live here, but boy, why do I feel like you’re plotting something.”
The Sun Clan Elder stared at Yang Kai with distrust.
“I’m aware of my situation, impose whatever kind of supervision you deem necessary. You’re just thinking too much anyways,” Yang Kai chuckled.
“As long as you understand your place, boy. However, I have to check with Leader first,” The Elder spat.
“I’ll await the good news then,” Yang Kai casually said before getting up and walking towards his temporary residence.
When Yang Kai arrived back at the palace and told An Ling’er about his plan to move to the Divine Tree, they young woman suddenly became somewhat nervous.
“If you leave, what should I do? Gou Che and his friend are still living here.”
Yang Kai couldn’t help frowning as he remember this point.
Although Gou Che had behaved well so far, there was no guarantee that without Yang Kai’s asylum, he wouldn’t take an interest in An Ling’er. Even if Gou Che didn’t act rashly, there was still another Demon Race cultivator living here.
The Demon Race was originally a violent and cruel people who tended to act as they pleased, not a group who would simply obey if told to do, or not to do something.
“You’ll just have to come with me, I’ll tell them I need someone to take care of my personal needs, they won’t make a fuss over something so trivial,” Yang Kai thought for a moment and said.
“En,” An Ling’er nodded quickly, her expression relaxing.
The next day, the same Sun Clan Elder came to the palace and told Yang Kai that the old leader had agreed to his request. Yang Kai also took the opportunity to mention An Ling’er.
The Elder only thought about it for a moment before nodding. There was no need to consult the clan leader about such a minor matter.
After briefly informing Gou Che about what was happening, Yang Kai left the palace together with An Ling’er.
Beneath the Divine Tree’s towering figure, An Ling’er settled in. The Sun Clan did not allow her to fly up into the Divine Tree’s canopy like Yang Kai, only allowing her stand nearby and observe.
However, this made no difference to An Ling’er. As long as she didn’t stray too far from Yang Kai, she felt relieved. She knew that she was safe right now only because Yang Kai was sheltering her. Without him, she would either have become a blood sacrifice or a plaything for the Sun Clan, two endings she simply couldn’t accept.
High up atop the Divine Tree, Yang Kai dripped a few drops of Yang Liquid from his finger into the crack before he began to observe the reaction of the energy formation. Like yesterday, the Divine Tree tried to communicate with him, but was still unable to express itself clearly.
Yang Kai’s sent out Spiritual Energy pulses meant to comfort the Divine Tree’s core from his Soul Avatar, trying to calm it down while also teaching it to better express itself.
As an unexpected side effect, after supplying Yang Liquid to the Divine Tree for so long, it now seemed to be quite dependent on Yang Kai, so when the latter comforted it, not only did it immediately settle down, it also unconsciously expressed a sense of happiness.
As time passed, everything remained calm and peaceful.
When he wasn’t trying to sooth and communicating with the Divine Tree, Yang Kai spent his time accompanying An Ling’er.
In order to ensure that the Divine Tree could evolve as soon as possible, Yang Kai didn’t dare to circulate his True Yang Secret Art, lest he absorb energy from it and delay the process.
The changes the Divine Tree was undergoing went unnoticed by everyone except Yang Kai who was communicating with it regularly.
The chaotic energy formation now seemed to have reached a saturation point and was obviously on the verge of some unimaginable transformation.
One day roughly a month after Yang Kai and An Ling’er began living beneath the Divine Tree, when Yang Kai once again sent his Soul Avatar into the trunk, a Soul fluctuation burst out from the Divine Tree’s core, conveying a profound sense of happiness, as if it had been waiting for a long time for him to come and was overjoyed with his arrival.
At that moment, Yang Kai clearly felt that a tiny consciousness had been born in the energy formation in front of him.
With a look of shock on his face, Yang Kai carefully released his Divine Sense and slowly inspected the heart of the Divine Tree.
The moment his Divine Sense touched the Divine Tree’s heart, the latter released a burst of hot aura that instantly wrapped up Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar.
From the depths of the Divine Tree’s heart a faint sound seemed to resound, almost like the babbling of a baby that was happily squirming in its parents arms.
Yang Kai immediately felt slightly uncomfortable.
Thankfully he possessed a powerful Conflagrated Knowledge Sea, otherwise his Soul Avatar would have been reduced to ash after being wrapped in the hot aura the Divine Tree had released.
Quickly passing his thoughts to the Divine Tree, the aura wrapping him silently withdrew, although it was clearly somewhat unwilling to do so.
Yang Kai couldn’t help laughing at this development. He felt that the Divine Tree was completely indistinguishable from an ignorant baby and was instinctively approaching someone it thought was close to it.
At this moment it shouldn’t have fully evolved but was essentially only a step away from gaining sentience.
Recognizing its sense of loss, Yang Kai quickly appeased it, causing the Divine Tree’s core to once again become lively.
After spending two hours comforting and playing with it, the Divine Tree’s heart gradually stabilized and seemed to fall into a deep sleep, no longer giving off any Soul fluctuations.
Yang Kai breathed a sigh of relief and took back his Soul Avatar, an incredible sense of exhaustion soon overcoming him.
Yang Kai felt that dealing with this life form which had yet to fully evolve was more difficult than fighting against a Saint Realm master. It was completely ignorant of everything and could only express itself to Yang Kai by wildly throwing about its emotions.
In order to avoid the Sun Clan becoming aware of what had transpired here, Yang Kai had to continuously coax this wild child, causing him to expend a great deal of Spiritual Energy.
However, this situation was somewhat outside of Yang Kai’s expectations.
The reason why he had begun feeding his Yang Liquid to the Divine Tree was simply to buy time, lest he, Ling’er, and the others be used as blood sacrifices by Sun Clan. As a secondary concern, he had wanted to take a look at what the Divine Tree’s evolved form would look like.
Never had he thought that by providing his Yang Liquid and using his Divine Sense to sooth it, the Divine Tree would develop a sense of dependence and trust towards him.
Perhaps it mistakenly believed Yang Kai was its family.
This was similar to how some creatures, when just being born, would treat the first face it saw as its parent.
The Divine Tree’s current state could only be described as thus.
Although Yang Kai wasn’t certain about any of this, whatever the case was, it probably wasn’t a bad thing.
After resting for a while, Yang Kai gradually recovered.
After playing together for so long, the Divine Tree also seemed to have become exhausted; as a result, over the next few days, whenever Yang Kai sent his Soul Avatar into its trunk, its core would remain silent.
It took more than five days for it to once again wake up.
This time, its consciousness was a bit clearer, and not only could it play together with Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar, it also managed to convey some vague information to him.
These bits of information, or rather thoughts, were still quite garbled, and Yang Kai wasn’t able to figure out most of what it meant, but it was almost as if he was listening to someone talk to themselves, expressing a sense of curiosity about everything around themselves.
Yang Kai could only smile helplessly and accompany it, trying to help whenever he could.
Spending time like this was both physically and mentally exhausting.
Time continued to pass by; the Sun Clan masters came every day to observe the situation and would inevitably confirm that Yang Kai wasn’t playing any tricks and that there were no significant changes occurring to the Divine Tree, or so they thought.
The Divine Tree would wake up every few days, and each time it did its Soul would become more and more complete. Then, after playing with Yang Kai to its heart’s content, it would fall back asleep, living a truly carefree life.
Soon though, the periods of time the Divine Tree would fall asleep grew shorter. In the beginning, it would sleep for five days straight before waking up, but this gradually became four days, then three, then two…
The messages it conveyed from is Soul also gradually became clear and Yang Kai knew that the consciousness of the Divine Tree’s evolution was about to be completed, filling his heart with a great sense of expectation.
Yang Kai continued to converse with the heart of the Divine Tree, helping it to perfect its consciousness.
After repeating this process many times, Yang Kai began treating the Divine Tree as a real, sentient being. It had its own emotions and judgements now and couldn’t be considered just a towering tree any longer.
As a result of their interactions, the Divine Tree became closer and closer to Yang Kai, completely opening its heart to him without any reservations.
Its current consciousness was still on the level of an ignorant and naughty baby. Every time Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar came to visit, it would show great joy, often grabbing him and dragging around inside its trunk, as if taking him on a tour of its body.
Its thoughts right now were quite simple; in short, it was a white sheet, unstained by anything, fully expressing its emotions innocently, without the slightest deception.
It would be happy when Yang Kai came, and sad and reluctant when he left. Many times, even if it was in a state of deep sleep, its Spiritual Energy would reach out and tightly wrapped itself around Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar, refusing to let go.
This made Yang Kai very happy as well, such purity causing him to feel somewhat ashamed of himself.
As it playfully communicated with Yang Kai, the Divine Tree’s awareness also grew rapidly.
One day, when Yang Kai sent his Soul Avatar into the Divine Tree’s heart, a thought so incredible was transmitted to him, welcoming him. Soon after, the Divine Tree’s consciousness rushed over, hovered in front of Yang Kai, and hugged him intimately.
Yang Kai was dumbfounded by this sudden development and only tried to convey a message to the Divine Tree after quite some time.
He didn’t expect though that within a single breath, a response would be given to him. Although this thought was still somewhat unclear, at the very least, Yang Kai could figure out what the Divine Tree was trying to convey to him.
Yang Kai grinned happily. The consciousness of the Divine Tree had finally fully formed.
After such a long time feeding it with his Yang Liquid, the Divine Tree had successfully evolved into a sentient life form. Yang Kai had made great contributions to the birth of this life, and although it would have reached this point on its own, the time required would have undoubtedly been significantly longer.
A strong sense of accomplishment suddenly welled up in Yang Kai’s chest.
It was as if he was watching a child he had been taking care of finally stand up and take a stumbling step forward.
However, the Divine Tree still had much to learn.
Yang Kai immediately began sending his thoughts to the Divine Tree’s consciousness, teaching it how to better express its emotions and communicate properly with him. However, this little guy was too naughty, compared to studying these things, it seemed more interested in playing with Yang Kai, refusing to sit still and learn for any significant length of time.
After a long time chasing it around, Yang Kai took back his Soul Avatar from the Divine Tree and rubbed his somewhat sore forehead.
A moment later though, many branches suddenly curled towards Yang Kai and at the same time a message was passed to him in the form of a Spiritual Energy communication.
Yang Kai was stunned as he looked at the branches that were extended towards him, noticing that each of them had a golden fruit hanging from them.
“Are you giving these to me?” Yang Kai asked after thinking about it for a moment.
The branches trembled light in response, the Divine Tree’s way of nodding.
Yang Kai smiled and shook his head before replying, “I appreciate your intentions, but I can’t accept these fruits.”
He was still being monitored by the Sun Clan’s masters, if he was to accept these fruits now, it would only bring him trouble. Even though Yang Kai had constantly been drooling over these fruits filled with rich Yang Qi since the moment he laid eyes on them, he had never even tried to pick any of them.
But how could Yang Kai have known the Divine Tree would be so stubborn, continuously extending its branches towards him as if vowing to never give up unless he accepted its gift.
No matter how Yang Kai tried to persuade it, nothing worked, and in the end, the Divine Tree made the fruits fall from its branches before shoving them into his arms.
Yang Kai’s face immediately went black, unable to think up a way to explain away this situation.
As for the Divine Tree, like it had just accomplished something great, its branches swayed back and forth as if it was celebrating.
Yang Kai didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he stared at the seven ripe fruits he could neither keep nor discard in his arms. After thinking about it, Yang Kai decided to take just take what came, jumped down from the trunk, and called out to the nearby Sun Clan masters.
Immediately, several Sun Clan powerhouses who had been monitoring Yang Kai came over to see what the matter was, but upon seeing their precious fruits in the hands of this little human brat, they immediately became enraged.
“Boy, you dare to steal the fruit of the Divine Tree, you must be seeking death!” One of them roared as his bristled with anger, looking as if he would attack in the next moment.
Yang Kai simply turned to this man and coldly replied, “I didn’t steal them, they just fell off.”
“Bullshit, even if the Divine Tree’s fruit full ripens, if it is not picked, it can remain hanging for a hundred years without issue! Your ability to spout nonsense is truly awe inspiring you little bastard!”
“I told you I didn’t steal anything, if I really had stolen them, I would have eaten them already,” Yang Kai was too lazy to explain anything to them and simply tossed the fruits over to the nearby masters.
The few Sun Clan clansmen hastily caught these fruits, gloomy expressions filling their faces.
The man who spoke just now quickly came to his sense though and coldly snorted, “Don’t think that you can escape punishment for your crime. We will report what happened here to Leader, what your fate will be will be decided by him!”
Yang Kai simply spat disdainfully, not caring in the slightest.
At that moment though, a horrifying energy suddenly welled up and an aura of hostility filled the air. Before anyone could understand what was going on, numerous golden whips lashed out towards all of the Sun Clan masters.
When they noticed the approaching crisis, each of the Sun Clan’s masters’ expressions changed greatly and they hastily tried to dodge.
Unfortunately for them, these attacks were not only fast, they were incredibly numerous, so none of them were able to escape, each of them being struck multiple times before they could even comprehend what was happening.
*Pa pa pa…* A series of sharp impacts rang out and all the Sun Clan masters were violently thrown back, blood leaking from their wounds. Facing these rapid attacks, none of them was able to put up any kind of resistance.
One of the less powerful Sun Clan cultivators was directly turned into a bloody fog, not even his bones remaining.
Yang Kai was startled by this sudden development while An Ling’er hastily hid behind him, her tender body trembling as she stared at this gruesome scene in utter shock.
The Sun Clan masters who had just been flung through the air didn’t even have enough time to pick themselves up before a second barrage of golden whips descended upon them, and even though they could see these attacks approaching them, they still weren’t able to resist this indiscriminate bombardment.
*Pa pa pa pa…*
The lashing sounds rang out endlessly and every Sun Clan cultivator received no less than a hundred strikes to his body. In the blink of an eye, all five of the remaining masters had been beaten to death.
Yang Kai turned back and stared at the huge Divine Tree behind him with astonishment.
At that moment, there was not the slightest wind, yet all of the Divine Tree’s leaves rustled madly, it’s thick and dense branches swaying back and forth as if in a fit of rage.
From the crown of the Divine Tree, a golden radiance so dense it could be seen with the naked eye appeared and then condensed into long, thick whips.
The dead Sun Clan cultivators were struck once more by these golden whips.
Broken bones and pieces of flesh were scattered about as a rich bloody smell filled the air.
Yang Kai clearly felt the Divine Tree’s violent, near hysterical anger; apparently it had become enraged because of these people’s attitude towards Yang Kai.
Yang Kai was completely dumbfounded, never having expected such a development to occur.
He had only handed those fruits over to the Sun Clan thinking he could spare himself some trouble; after all, he was still not sure he could escape from this place, he didn’t even know where the exit was.
Although he knew better than anyone that the Divine Tree had gained sentience and was now a completely different existence than before, he hadn’t anticipated it would launch such a vicious and powerful attack simply because he had been treated poorly.
The Divine Tree’s attacks lacked any kind of rhyme or reason and could only be described as it randomly lashing out with its enormous stores of energy; however, that was still more than enough.
“Yang Kai…” An Ling’er stuttered, shivering quite noticeably as she clutched his clothes tightly, he beautiful eyes filled with confusion.
Upon hearing An Ling’er call out to him, Yang Kai came to his senses and quickly conveyed his thoughts to the Divine Tree, soothing it’s raging anger.
Receiving this comforting, the golden energy whips which hung from the Divine Tree’s canopy finally stopped their assault, picked up the fruits which had fallen to the ground, and delivered them back to Yang Kai.
“Why does it look like… it has its own consciousness?” An Ling’er’s thoughts were in a state of chaos as she stared at the Divine Tree behind her.
“Where should I even begin?” Yang Kai smiled bitterly.
In the time it took for this brief exchange between Yang Kai and An Ling’er, the Divine Tree’s recalled all its golden whips, plucked every ripe fruit on its body, and angrily shoved them towards Yang Kai.
There were sixty or seventy in all, each one containing an unimaginable amount of Yang Attribute energy.
Yang Kai took a deep breath before letting out a long sigh, feeling the situation was now beyond redemption.
The Divine Tree had acted purely out of goodwill towards Yang Kai just now and had not even hesitated to kill several people just to help him.
However, this violent attack had also given Yang Kai a big pleasant surprise. The Sun Clan cultivators who had been nearby just now were all Transcendents, but not one of them had been able to resist the indiscriminate bombardment of the Divine Tree.
His eyes flashing a cold, sharp light, Yang Kai’s mouth gradually curled into a grin.
This was, perhaps, an excellent chance!
“I’m going to destroy the seals binding you; after that, defend yourself!” Yang Kai quickly said to An Ling’er, swiftly sending his True Qi and Divine Sense into her body.
The seals in An Ling’er’s body were nothing in Yang Kai’s eyes, but he had not previously undone them to avoid drawing any unwanted attention. But now that the situation had developed to this point, there was no point in trying to remain low key anymore.
In the blink of an eye, An Ling’er felt that her long stagnant True Qi once again began to flow and the barrier around her Knowledge Sea shatter, completely restoring her freedom.
The next moment, from all directions, countless figures flew over. The rampage of the Divine Tree just now had obviously alarmed the Sun Clan, and they were now rushing over in order to investigate.
As soon as they arrived and saw the broken and bloodied bodies lying on the ground, the Sun Clan masters became infuriated. None of them bothered even asking what had happened and simply directed their murderous intent towards Yang Kai, their True Qi subsequently welling up in preparation to attack.
Seeing this, Yang Kai simply let out a light chuckled before storing all the Divine Tree’s fruits into the Black Book space and then releasing a powerful pulse of Spiritual Energy, which hid an innumerable number of Soul Devouring Insects in it.
During the Ice Sect incident, Yang Kai had already tested the power of the Soul Devouring Insects and knew that anyone below the Saint Realm would be unable to resist them!
The first group of Sun Clan cultivators to arrive were not weak and were significant in number, but there was no Saint Realm master amongst them.
The shockwave of Spiritual Energy impacted all of these newcomers and although it didn’t cause them any direct injuries, it allowed Yang Kai’s Soul Devouring Insects to silently penetrate the former’s Knowledge Seas. This meant that in the short term, Yang Kai could attack and destroy their Knowledge Seas as he pleased.
At the same time Yang Kai moved, the Divine Tree also launched a violent attack, tossing around its golden whips wildly, carving up the surrounding ground with its chaotic barrage.
Rumbling sounds rang out as the newly arrived Sun Clan cultivators suffered tremendous damage, none of them able to even approach Yang Kai before they were swept up by the Divine Tree’s attacks, the less fortunate ones dying instantly.
Taking in the situation around him, Yang Kai wore a dignified expression.
A tyrannical pressure suddenly spread from the distance and rapidly approached, the Sun Clan’s old leader and Elders appearing before Yang Kai a moment later.
“Leader, something is very wrong with the Divine Tree!” One of the cultivators who had survived the Divine Tree’s last assault quickly yelled.
The old leader wore a sullen expression as he observed the Divine Tree, a cold light flashing across his eyes as his gaze moved to the nearby Yang Kai, a trace of shock mixed in with his anger.
The other Sun Clan Elders’ performances were worse as they called out in amazement, “How can this be?”
They were all Saint Realm masters so with their powerful Divine Senses it was not difficult for them to detect the Soul fluctuations coming from inside the Divine Tree. On top of that, they could clearly feel this consciousness’ disgust towards their prying eyes; it seemed to harbour a strong hostility and was firmly rejecting them.
“The Divine Tree… it has a consciousness now?” The old leader’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Yang Kai’s face and asked in a solemn voice.
Yang Kai grinned back at him, “You guessed it.”
“Is this your doing?”
“I can’t take the credit here, I just helped it along,” Yang Kai shook his head.
“And because of that it treats you kindly yet rejects my clan?” The old leader was an experienced and worldly person, so although he didn’t know the full story, seeing the scene before him, he quickly inferred the truth of the matter.
A newly born consciousness would always be kind to the one whom it was familiar with.
“The Divine Tree is my clan’s sacred object, you damn thief!” The Sun Clan’s old leader roared angrily.
“I didn’t want to steal it, it just happened to grow close to me, what do you want me to say?”
“Back then, I should have just killed you!” As he spoke these words, the old leader felt a deep sense of regret while the other Sun Clan masters gnashed their teeth as they glared hatefully towards Yang Kai.
“En, you should have, but now you can’t!” Yang Kai declared, his face filled with confidence.
“If you really think so, you’re gravely mistaken,” The Sun Clan’s leader smiled grimly, “A trivial First Order Transcendent dares act so arrogantly in front of this old master, you simply don’t know how high the Heavens are!”
Saying so, a potent Spiritual Energy suddenly burst forth from his mind.
Yang Kai didn’t even have time to react before a sharp thorn pierced his Knowledge Sea, causing him an indescribable amount of pain as if his very Soul was being torn apart, his expression twisting in an instant as his body trembled and large drops of sweat rolled down his forehead.
What this old man’s true cultivation was had always been a mystery but at that moment, when Yang Kai suffered an attack from him, the pressure he felt was no less than when he faced Saintess Nan.
This old man was at least a Second Order Saint!
The Divine Sense attack from such a master was something even Yang Kai couldn’t ignore.
His Knowledge Sea tossing violently made Yang Kai feel nauseous and unsteady.
At the moment the old leader released his Divine Sense attack, several of the other Sun Clan Elders quickly launched their own killing blows towards Yang Kai.
The Divine Tree’s branches immediately fell from the sky and before these strikes managed to land, wrapped up Yang Kai and An Ling’er who was supporting the latter, bringing the pair to the top of its canopy.
An Ling’er cried out in shock but by the time she came to her senses, she and Yang Kai were already atop the Divine Tree’s trunk, shielded from the outside by a large number of tightly woven branches.
At the same time, the energy whips which hung down from the Divine Tree’s crown shot forward to intercept the approaching Sun Clan masters.
Facing this storm of attacks, the expressions on all the Sun Clan Elders’ faces changed dramatically. None of them had anticipated such a development. When they wanted to chase after and kill Yang Kai, they were blocked by the Divine Tree, and since they were concerned that they might damage the foundation of the Sun Clan they had no choice but to fall back.
“Leader, the Divine Tree seems to be sheltering him!” One of the masters said with an ugly look upon his face.
“I know,” The face of the old leader also clouded over and became especially complicated.
The Divine Tree was not only sheltering this thief but even attacking their clansmen. What was worse though was that the attacks from the Divine Tree were no less powerful than those of a Saint Realm master. Obviously, it wouldn’t be easy to break through its defence.
A great sense of shame and unwillingness filled the Sun Clan leader’s heart. This feeling was like watching the baby he had raised since birth for a lifetime suddenly being stolen away by a shameless thief, yet the baby happily accompanying him.
“It doesn’t matter, that brat shouldn’t live long after taking my attack!” The old Sun Clan leader coldly snorted, letting out a long breath.
With his cultivation, killing a young man like Yang Kai was as easy as pinching an ant, so he was convinced that Yang Kai wouldn’t be able to withstand his previous blow.
As soon as said that that, low laughter resounded from the top of Divine Tree.
All of the Sun Clan Elders wore expressions of shock as they turned their gazes towards the source of the laughter only to see Yang Kai step out somewhat unsteadily from a sea of branches, his eyes red with rage.
“He didn’t die?” The Sun Clan leader’s brow furrowed as he muttered unconsciously, “Impossible!”
Even if this Human Race boy had an extremely high-grade Soul type artifact to assist him, such a young man couldn’t possibly have resisted the previous Divine Sense attack. Also, the old man saw that Yang Kai’s consciousness was somewhat blurry still so there was no doubt the latter’s Soul had suffered damage, yet somehow this boy was still alive.
*Dong dong…*
*Dong dong…*
A dull, rhythmic pulsing sound suddenly came from the Divine Tree, immediately gathering everyone’s attention. The Divine Tree’s newborn consciousness seemed to have nearly gone crazy because of the injuries Yang Kai had suffered and an aura filled with anger and hostility stronger than anyone had imagined possible began radiating out from it.
Even Yang Kai, whose head was still throbbing in pain and had even passed out for a brief moment froze up in shock, discovering he had still been underestimating the Divine Tree.
Centred around the roots of the Divine Tree, the earth began to crack open, and a rich and powerful Yang Attribute energy rushed out, incinerating everything in the surrounding.
Even the masters from the Sun Clan had to protect themselves with their True Qi in order to resist this aura, their skin soon turning a dark shade of red from the excessive heat.
The branches of the Divine Tree danced wildly through the air and the energy whips hanging from its canopy lashed about randomly, filling the air with crackling noises.
*Kacha…*
The huge Divine Tree swayed left then right then back again, gradually becoming faster and faster as it did.
After a few breaths of time, in front of everyone’s astounded eyes, the Divine Tree, which had been rooted here since before the Sun Clan’s ancestors arrived in this Mysterious Small World, actually split the earth and extended pillars of Yang Attribute energy similar to human legs from its trunk, lifting its huge body off the ground and stepping forward
Its roots, each glistening with a brilliant golden radiance, joined the energy whips hanging from its canopy and began attacking the surrounding dumbfounded Sun Clan masters.
“Ha ha ha ha!” Yang Kai hand held his forehead and laughed loudly towards the sky.
There had been so many things he hadn’t expected this time around, the Divine Tree actually possessing such ability was something he never even considered.
The wounds he had suffered to his Soul didn’t concern him much because with the Six Coloured Soul Warming Lotus’ assistance, it wouldn’t take long for them to heal.
As long as he didn’t suffer an attack that could instantly smash his Knowledge Sea and destroy his Soul, Yang Kai had nothing to fear, this was something the Sun Clan leader obviously didn’t know.
Unlike his carefree celebratory mood, all the Sun Clan masters felt as if they were losing their minds as they watched the Divine Tree lumber towards them while unscrupulously attacking, forcing all of them to hurriedly retreat.
After allowing the Divine Tree to vent its anger for a while, Yang Kai gently comforted it, “It’s alright now, you’ve given them enough of a lesson.”
Yang Kai saw that the Divine Tree’s actions were quite clumsy. Although it had incredible strength, it was somewhat unrealistic to expect it to actually kill the Sun Clan’s top-level masters, the latter only needed to withdraw a certain distance in order to ensure their safety.
Also, it was only because of the Divine Tree’s importance to the Sun Clan that these masters had not attacked Yang Kai, seemingly afraid of harming the former.
Now having the Divine Tree’s shelter, Yang Kai’s first thought was to quickly leave this place.
This was a heaven-sent opportunity.
After being soothed by Yang Kai, the Divine Tree calmed down and became much more stable; however, it still waved his golden whips around, as if warning the Sun Clan not to get any closer.
“Little thief, if you get down here and beg for mercy, I may still spare your life, but if you wait until my clan seizes you, you’ll have no such opportunity!” The Sun Clan’s old leader shouted as his face twisted with rage.
“Oh no, I’m so scared!” Yang Kai stood on the trunk and cried out in a frightened voice, doing his best to further antagonize the surrounding crowd.
“Do you think you can escape? Wishful thinking! You dare confuse my clan’s Divine Tree, even if I have to chase you to the ends of the world, I will shred your corpse into ten thousand pieces!”
“Stop farting out of your mouth already!” Yang Kai grinned defiantly.
An Ling’er, who was behind Yang Kai, still hadn’t quite adapted to their current situation and was in a state of confusion, but upon hearing Yang Kai’s words, she couldn’t help but laugh.
Yang Kai glanced back at her and smiled, obviously in a good mood, before turning back and shouting, “Old dog, do we fight or negotiate here?”
“Do you think you’re qualified to bargain with this old master?” The old leader of the Sun Clan stared at him with an enraged gaze, as if he couldn’t to cut Yang Kai to pieces, drink his blood, and eat his meat.
Although the Sun Clan was really somewhat hesitant to act here, none of them put Yang Kai’s cultivation in their eyes; they felt, as long as they could find the right opportunity, when the Divine Tree’s guard was lowered, they could instantly take Yang Kai’s life.
So after listening to Yang Kai’s question, the Sun Clan’s old leader refused without giving it a second thought.
Such great shame! In his own home, the Divine Tree, which was regarded as his clan’s greatest treasure and foundation, was seduced by a little foreign brat. Such shame for the Sun Clan could not be erased even if they killed Yang Kai ten thousand times over.
However, Yang Kai simply sneered, and from the protection of the Divine Tree’s branches, stared down at the old man and replied confidently, “Indeed, I do think I have the qualifications.”
As he spoke, Yang Kai sent out a faint pulse of Spiritual Energy.
This pulse didn’t contain any murderous intent, nor did it have the slightest attack power, but when it swept over several of the nearby Sun Clan clansmen, the latter collapsed to the ground, clutching their heads as they howled in agony.
Three breaths later, these people all went stiff, lying their without the slightest hint of vitality, blood leaking from their seven orifices.
The rest of the Sun Clan masters instantly went pale, the old leader included, sweeping his gaze around as cold light flashed across his eyes.
Even he had not realized what kind of trick Yang Kai had used just now. On top of that, the clansmen who had fallen were not weak, yet none of them seemed to have the slightest ability to resist this human boy’s strange attack.
A chill filled the air as the remaining Sun Clan masters turned to look at Yang Kai again, this time a hint of fear apparent in their stares.
“Boy… you’ve successfully enraged me.” The Sun Clan’s leader muttered in a low tone, his murderous intent so thick it was almost palpable.
Yang Kai remained indifferent and simply shook his head with a smile, “I’m just giving you proof I have the necessary capital to bargain with you.”
As he spoke, his voice suddenly became cold, “My patience is limited. Old dog, you’d best give me a reply as soon as possible, or else, besides your few precious Saints, everyone else will die!”
Hearing this, over eighty percent of the Sun Clan masters stumbled backwards in horror, as if doing so gave them a sense of security. What they didn’t know was that their Knowledge Seas had already been contaminated by Soul Devouring Insects, so no matter where they tried to run it was pointless.
The old leader of the Sun Clan seethed with anger as he glared towards Yang Kai, only managing to squeeze out a strained voice after a long silence, “What do you want?”
“Let us leave! That is my only requirement,” Yang Kai shouted.
“Leader, we can’t just let him go. Our clan’s losses are so heavy, allowing him to just walk away is unacceptable!” Someone immediately objected.
“En, if we don’t kill him my anger will never subside!”
“Kill him! We must kill him, even if we have to injure the Divine Tree to do it!”
Several Saint Realm masters shouted angrily, determined to put Yang Kai to death for his crimes, unwilling to accept any kind of negotiation.
In response to their clamouring, Yang Kai just laughed and shouted, “Your losses are indeed not small, but have you not thought about what you’ve gained? Your Divine Tree now has its own consciousness, which means it is a completely different life form from before. As long as I leave this place, you can slowly get closer to it and once you earn its favour, the benefits you’ll receive are unimaginable!”
Just as Yang Kai spoke these words, the huge Divine Tree shook noticeably, apparently quite dissatisfied and aggrieved, it seemed quite sad as it thought Yang Kai was trying to abandon it.
Yang Kai’s heart clenched and quickly used his Divine Sense to convey some comforting words to it while still negotiating with the Sun clan, “However, it’s a different story if you force me to remain. Because I helped the Divine Tree evolve into its current form, it is very close to me right now. As long as I’m given enough time, I’m confident I can make it only favour me, so that even if you try to win it over in the future you won’t be able to. This won’t take me long either, perhaps only a few days, so if I were you, the one thing I’d want to do is send me away as soon as possible!”
The brows of all the Sun Clan Elders wrinkled upon considering this.
Yang Kai’s words were spoken from their perspective, and although they were still quite suspicions of his claims, what he said was undeniable possible.
The Divine Tree undergoing such a huge change was a pleasant surprise to them, even taking into consideration the losses they had suffered, this change was undoubtedly a great thing for the entire Sun Clan.
The Divine Tree possessing its own Soul and being able to actively assist them was something the Sun Clan had never even dreamed of before.
“We could also just kill you and end these troubles once and for all!” The Sun Clan’s old leader obviously was something tempted but when he thought about how many of his clansmen had already been killed, he couldn’t bring himself to simply let Yang Kai go free like this, gritting his teeth as he declared, “As long as you are dead, the Divine Tree will still belong to my clan.”
“Fair enough!” Yang Kai smiled, “You guys really should have enough ability to kill me. I’m not arrogant enough to think I can escape from so many of you, but I can at least bury most of your clansmen along with me, you should ask yourselves if you can afford to pay such a price! In addition, if you want to kill me, you’ll have to damage the Divine Tree. If you hurt it now, will it ever accept you? This little guy’s thinking is quite simple, if you injure it, it will definitely remember for the rest of its life. Old dog, don’t try to steal a chicken only to lose your rice!”
Yang Kai’s shamelessness as well as his insulting tone caused the Sun Clan’s old leader to feel both rage and helplessness.
The Elders who had been calling for Yang Kai’s death also fell silent and frowned, feeling the situation had become somewhat tricky.
If the Divine Tree did not have its own consciousness, even if it meant damaging it, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill Yang Kai.
But now that the Divine Tree could think for itself, they didn’t dare act rashly, for fear of exactly what Yang Kai said would happen. If the Divine Tree came to hate them, and refused to give them any Yang Attribute energy from now on, the entire Sun Clan would be finished.
Turning their eyes towards their leader, all the Sun Clan clansmen waited for him to make a decision, none of them willing to offer their opinions anymore.
The Sun Clan leader pondered for a while before staring up at Yang Kai and asking, “Can you guarantee that the Divine Tree will recognize us when you leave?”
“Why do I have to guarantee you anything? It’ll all depend on your own hard work. For a start, you should speak more politely right now. You acting so hostile towards me makes this little guy quite unhappy.”
Seemingly in order to back up Yang Kai’s words, the branches of the Divine Tree swung more fiercely at that moment, as if trying to express its anger.
Many of Sun Clan’s masters couldn’t help frowning, their hearts filling with grief and indignation, quickly restraining their murderous intent while their expressions became even uglier than before.
“En, that’s right, smile. If fate decrees it so, the next time we meet we’ll all be good friends, right?”
“Little brat, don’t reach out for a yard after taking an inch!” The old Sun Clan leader’s face contorted, his extreme unhappiness apparent to all.
Yang Kai simply grinned happily in response.
“Good, I’ll let you leave, and I hope we will never meet again,” The Sun Clan leader shouted gloomily.
“Glad you understand!” Yang Kai nodded towards him approvingly and added, “Not only me, but my companion as well. Right, I’ll take those two Demon Race cultivators too.”
The Sun Clan leader frowned, “You want to take those two as well? They have nothing to do with you, right?”
“I have a good and generous heart. Helping others brings me the greatest joy, I simply can’t stand the thought of others suffering!”
An Ling’er, who was still hiding behind Yang Kai, heard these words and rolled her eyes.
“In any case, your Divine Tree has now evolved, obtaining wisdom and awareness. You have no need to offer it those Demon Race cultivators as blood sacrifices anymore,” Yang Kai continued to persuade.
The Sun Clan leader nodded lightly, turning to one of his subordinates and shouting, “Go bring the two demons here!”
The man hurried off towards Yang Kai’s old palace after receiving this order.
Yang Kai sat down and waiting atop the Divine Tree’s trunk and soon after the Sun Clan escorted Gou Che and the other Demon Race man over.
Gou Che’s face was gloomy and was constantly struggling, but his resistance was only counterproductive. When he arrived at the Divine Tree, his face was swollen and bloody, obviously having taken a harsh beating.
“Brother Gou Che!” Yang Kai stood up and shouted.
Gou Che frowned, his expression becoming somewhat awkward but still eventually nodding in response as he glanced around suspiciously.
Gou Che could feel that the atmosphere at the scene was odd, but he couldn’t understand what exactly had happened, so he figured it was best to keep silent for now, lest he say something wrong.
“Bring those two up,” Yang Kai patted the Divine Tree and whispered.
The next moment, two long, whip-like energy ropes stretched out towards Gou Che and his companion, wrapping them up and hauling them over to where Yang Kai was standing before the two of them could react.
Upon landing, Gou Che whispered in a low voice, “Brother, what is going on here?”
“I’m taking to two of you with me!” Yang Kai smiled.
“With you?” Gou Che’s face changed slightly, “Where?”
“Away from here.”
Gou Che was dumbfounded, quietly glancing at the crowd below as he whispered, “They agreed?”
“Whether they want to or not, they had to agree. Rest assured, I’ve already reached a deal with them.”
“Then why does it look like they all can’t wait to kill you? Are they really willing to let you go just like that?” Gou Che was completely lost.
Yang Kai nodded in response, not bothering to explain too much, simply calling out to the people bottom, “Where is the exit?”
The Sun Clan’s leader took a deep breath to calm his anger before coldly pointing in a certain direction.
Yang Kai looked over before gently patting the Divine Tree.
The next moment, the huge Divine Tree slowly began moving, the earth shuddering with each great step it took as it carried Yang Kai and the others towards that side.
Behind them, a large group of Sun Clan masters followed closely.
Gou Che’s eyes went wide as he stared at the big walking tree foolishly, muttering in a tone of disbelief, “Brother, what strange method is this? Why is this tree… walking on its own?”
“Heh hehe, the Divine Tree has gained sentience so it can understand my words.”
“Incredible…” Gou Che still couldn’t believe what he was seeing, even with it happening right before his eyes. Sweeping his eyes around, he quickly discovered that the Divine Tree really was walking on its own, supported by two golden pillars in the shape of human legs formed entirely of Yang Attribute energy.
In an instant, Gou Che felt his understand of the world undergo a drastic change, he and the other Demon Race cultivator unable to speak for quite some time after.
The Divine Tree’s movements were awkward and neither fast nor slow. It took half a day of walking before Yang Kai felt a faint trace of void energy coming from up ahead.
Void Energy was something that only appeared in the presence of a Void Corridor.
Since Yang Kai could sense Void Energy in front of him, it was safe to assume there was a Void Corridor up ahead.
A moment later, a pitch black hole appeared before everyone’s eyes in a spot a several dozen kilometers away from where the Sun Clan lived.
Yang Kai secretly nodded to himself, thinking it was obvious he hadn’t been able to detect this Void Corridor earlier given how far away it was from where he had been kept prisoner.
A moment later, the Divine Tree stopped in front of the Void Corridor.
This Void Corridor was about 3 meters in diameter and could allow several people to walk through it side by side; however, it was obviously not big enough to fit the Divine Tree through.
If the Divine Tree tried to enter it forcibly, there was a great chance that the Void Corridor would collapse and crush it into dust.
“Brother Gou Che, do you have any impression of this place?” Yang Kai asked in a serious tone.
Gou Che observed the area for a while before nodding lightly, “En, I remember seeing this place when we were first captured and brought here.”
“That’s good!” Yang Kai nodded with satisfaction.
Although he has already reached an agreement with the Sun Clan, Yang Kai had no idea if they would bring him to the appropriate Void Corridor. If the world on the other side of this corridor was not the Demon Land but instead a forbidden zone or dangerous region, all his efforts would be in vain.
“Boy, you’re certainly cautious enough,” The Sun Clan leader snorted, “Since this old master promised to let you go, I won’t play any tricks. There is only one exit to this place, there are no other Void Corridors!”
“One can never be too cautious!” Yang Kai didn’t pay the old man’s sarcasm any mind, instead wearing a serious expression as he spoke to Gou Che and the other Demon Race man, “You two enter with An Ling’er first, I’ll follow soon after.”
Gou Che and this Demon Race’s cultivator’s Demonic Qi and Spiritual Energy were both still sealed, so they were currently no different from ordinary mortals with the exception of their great physical strength; remaining here would only be a burden for Yang Kai.
Hearing this, the two of them nodded, the other Demon Race cultivator not saying a word before stepping through the Void Corridor and disappearing while Gou Che shouted, “Brother, you must be careful. We’ll be waiting for you on the other side!”
Yang Kai smiled and nodded.
Gou Che stepped into the Void Corridor, leaving only An Ling’er behind, the latter shooting a worried glance towards Yang Kai before she too evacuated.
After the three of them left, Yang Kai let out a light breath and then sat down atop the Divine Tree’s trunk, not immediately following after them.
All of the Sun Clan clansmen frowned as they stared at him vigilantly, worried he was up to some kind of mischief.
“Boy, why don’t you leave? We’ve met all your requests already!” The Sun Clan leader stared at him as if looking at a god of plague, hoping he would hurry up and disappear. This time, the Sun Clan had suffered a huge loss but had no choice but to choke it down, as long as they had the Divine Tree which had evolved into a sentient lifeform, they price they had paid would be worth it.
“No need to be so anxious, I’m just having a quick rest!” Yang Kai smiled as he began circulating his True Qi and controlling his breathing.
Meanwhile, he sent his consciousness into the trunk, his Soul Avatar manifesting itself inside the Divine Tree’s heart a moment later. Under the Divine Tree’s protection, Yang Kai wasn’t worried about the Sun Clan masters trying to harm him.
Sensing Yang Kai’s arrival, the Divine Tree immediately rejoiced and the flow of energy inside its trunk became faster.
“Calm down!” Yang Kai quickly communicated to it, “I need to ask you something. I’m about to leave this place, would you like to go with me?”
The Divine Tree’s Soul immediately began wrapping around Yang Kai, expressing its agreement and eagerness.
“Seems like you’re willing,” Yang Kai smiled happily, “Good, although I have never tried this before, this method should be feasible. Remember, if this doesn’t work, you’ll have to stay here for the time being. If that turns out to be the case, I promise you that before long I’ll come back to get you.”
Yang Kai’s message was a bit complicated and the Divine Tree didn’t seem to understand it for a while, but by feeling the emotions behind Yang Kai’s words, it still managed to somehow understand, becoming a bit sullen for a moment before quickly recovering, seemingly happy to receive the latter’s promise.
“Good, then first, I’ll leave my mark with you!” Yang Kai said quickly before consuming a massive amount of his Spiritual Energy to leave behind a mark on the Divine Tree’s Soul.
This way, even if he failed to take the Divine Tree away with him today, he would be able to subtly sense its existence no matter how far they were apart.
This was different from the time he ‘accepted’ An Ling’er’s Soul brand, one instance was Yang Kai receiving something, the other was him giving. In other words, if the Divine Tree’s Soul ever became damaged, Yang Kai’s Soul would also suffer harm. On the other hand, if An Ling’er’s Soul was to be injured, Yang Kai wouldn’t suffer any ill effects.
After he finished communicating with the Divine Tree, Yang Kai took back his consciousness and returned to his body.
In front of everyone’s eyes, Yang Kai slowly got up swept his eyes over the Sun Clan masters indifferently, his gaze filled with a firmness that had not been there before, his body straight like a javelin, as if he had just made a serious decision.
The Sun Clan leader’s heart jumped as he quickly shouted, “It’s bad, this little brat lied to us, he’s up to something!”
Yang Kai let out a great laugh before calling out, “I’m not up to anything, I just thought I’ll give you all a surprise before leaving!”
Saying so, Spiritual Energy poured out from Yang Kai’s Knowledge Sea and immediately wrapped around the entire Divine Tree.
With a single through, from inside Yang Kai’s body, the Wordless Black Book began emitting a powerful suction.
*Dong…*
Yang Kai’s heart clenched tightly, thumping as if it had been struck by a hammer.
His face went white as his figure stumbled. In that instant, Yang Kai felt the aura of death close in on him.
However, no one paid any attention to him as they were focused on something much more astonishing. Right before their eyes, the huge Divine Tree turned into a stream of light and magically vanished.
Everyone from the Sun clan was dumbfounded, all of them standing in place with their jaws dropped, unable to process what had just happened.
Through sheer force of will, Yang Kai managed to maintain his consciousness and not faint on the spot, turning around rapidly and leaping into the Void Corridor, releasing a series of attacks he had prepared beforehand.
His True Qi surged up and the surrounding aura became chaotic.
*Hong long long…*
As the sound of explosions rang out, the Void Corridor warped and Void Energy began spewing out from it. A moment later, the Void Corridor suddenly shrank and disappeared.
At the same time, pitiful screams resounded from all directions.
As soon as Yang Kai had left, the Soul Devouring Insects which had infected the Sun Clan no longer had anything holding them back and immediately went wild, causing every cultivator before the Saint Realm to fall to the ground!
The Sun Clan’s old leader and Saint Realm Elders all stared blankly at their surroundings, unable to utter a single word!
The Divine Tree had disappeared, the only Void Corridor which linked them to the outside world was destroyed, and a massive number of their clansmen had inexplicably died… all these tragedies had occurred in the span of a few breaths, not giving them any time to process what was happening.
The Void Corridor being destroyed was within their expectations, the Sun Clan’s masters had long seen that Yang Kai had such a plan; however, they made no attempt to stop him from doing so. In any case, they had already lived inside this Mysterious Small World for generations and outside was the Demon Land. It wasn’t safe for them to come and go through it, so the Void Corridor being destroyed didn’t bother them too much.
Their clansmen suddenly falling down dead was probably the result of that little brat’s mysterious methods. He had silently killed a few of them earlier without any of them being able to stop him, so this was probably just a repeat of that.
However, what none of these powerful Saints could understand was how this weak Human Race boy had caused the Divine Tree to disappear.
The Void Corridor was not nearly stable enough to support the Divine Tree leaving, and even if it was, it was impossible for its giant form to simply vanish in front of their eyes.
“Little thief! I swear I’ll find you and chop your corpse into ten thousand pieces!” The Sun Clan’s old leader roared towards the Heavens, the fiery red hair on his head all standing on end.
The other Sun Clan Elders also made similar oaths, but it was already too late, the object of their mutual hatred had disappeared.
….
Amidst a sea of sand, Yang Kai’s body fell heavily to the ground, causing Gou Che and the others who had arrived early to rush over in surprise.
After seeing Yang Kai’s current state, An Ling’er couldn’t help panicking.
Yang Kai’s face had drained of all colour and his lips were a deep shade of purple. His True Qi flow was chaotic and his Spiritual Energy was essentially non-existent.
Although he didn’t appear to have suffered any external injuries, his body had already gone cold, as if he was on the verge of death, his heart beating loudly yet without any sense of rhythm, seemingly struggling to continue.
Ever after being chased by Saintess Nan last time, Yang Kai had not fallen into such a bleak situation.
An Ling’er didn’t know what happened in the Mysterious Small World after she had left, but seeing Yang Kai like this now made her feel incredibly anxious.
“Brother, brother…” Gou Che also hurried over and shook Yang Kai, but he did not receive any response no matter what he tried. After carefully inspecting Yang Kai, Gou Che found that the former’s Soul was fluctuating weakly and his Knowledge Sea had suffered a tremendous loss.
“He can’t be saved…” The other Demon Race man slowly shook his head, his expression somewhat low spirited.
Although he had no real connection to Yang Kai, regardless of anything else, this time, it was thanks to Yang Kai that he could survive. Seeing his saviour in such a state inevitably left a bad taste in his mouth.
Gou Che frowned and wanted to say something, but upon seeing the heart-wrenching look on An Ling’er’s face, he couldn’t bring himself to speak.
They had no pills or herbs on them currently, back in that Mysterious Small World, even their Universe Bags had been taken away by the Sun Clan. Currently, even though they wanted to help Yang Kai, there was really nothing they could do.
With their Demonic Qi and Spiritual Energy sealed, they also had no way of even assisting Yang Kai’s vital functions.
“No, he won’t die,” An Ling’er kept shaking her head as she lifted Yang Kai’s upper body and placed his head on her laps, her hands trembling as she gently tried to brush the sand from his face, as if afraid she would use too much strength and injure him further, “The last time he suffered such serious injuries, he didn’t die, this time… for sure…”
*Dong…*
Another strange heartbeat was conveyed from Yang Kai’s chest after which his vitality seemed to become weaker once again.
An Ling’er burst into tears as her heart filled with pain.
“Junior Sister, don’t cry,” Gou Che stuffily said, “Your True Qi is not sealed, quickly try to support him.”
Hearing this, it was as if An Ling’er was woken from a dream, hurriedly using her Nine Heavens Holy Land’s mysterious Divine Skills on Yang Kai, trying to preserve his last remaining vitality, but no matter how hard she tried, the latter showed no signs of improvement.
“Haa…” Gou Che sighed heavily, feeling sorry for Yang Kai. Gou Che had wanted to find a chance to repay him, but had not anticipated that the moment they escaped from that accursed Mysterious Small World, Yang Kai would actually end up like this.
During the day, the heat that radiated from the sand was hard to endure, but when night fell, a deep chill filled the air, causing one to shiver unconsciously.
Beneath the full moon, burst of Cold Qi visible to the naked eye would occasionally leap from the sand, like ghosts.
Gazing around, it was as if the endless desert had been covered in a thin layer of ice that reflected the pale moonlight, creating a beautiful yet mysterious air.
At some indistinct location in this vast dessert, An Ling’er stared down at Yang Kai, her True Qi surging as she tried to warm his ice cold body.
Currently, Yang Kai seemed no different than a corpse. After escaping from the Mysterious Small World during the day, he hadn’t even opened his eyes. At the beginning, his body still had some warmth and his heart would beat occasionally, but as time passed, his body grew colder and colder as his vitality seemingly leaked out. He was like a candle in the wind, in danger of being snuffed out at any moment.
An Ling’er had guarded him carefully this whole time, never once leaving his side.
This was the future master of the Holy Land, even if he truly was dead, there was no way An Ling’er could allow any harm to come to him, a firm and resolute expression filling her face.
*Shashasha…*
Not far away, the sound of footsteps sounded, drawing An Ling’er’s attention. When she looked up, she saw Gou Che, who had left to scout the area earlier some time ago; even if he had great physical strength, he wasn’t able to resist the chill of the desert at night, shivering as he walked, his hair covered in frost.
An Ling’er’s eyes flashed as a vigilant look crept onto her face. Having spent so much time with Yang Kai, she had also had contact with Gou Che and knew that this Demon Race man was something of a lascivious delinquent. Now that it wasn’t certain Yang Kai was dead or alive, she felt she had to keep her guard up against Gou Che.
However, An Ling’er quickly relaxed when she remembered her opponent’s Demonic Qi and Spiritual Energy were still sealed.
“How is he?” Gou Che came over to An Ling’er and hurriedly asked.
An Ling’er simply shook her head slowly in response.
“So, in the end, he really can’t be saved.”
“You! You’re not allowed to say that! He’ll live!” An Ling’er immediately became angry, a sharp light flickering across her apricot coloured eyes.
“Good good good, just pretend I didn’t say anything. But you should still prepare yourself, nothing in this world is permanent, haa… Brother Yang’s fate is truly quite cruel,” Gou Che sighed. Seeing Yang Kai suffer such misfortune in order to help them escape, Gou Che’s manner towards him became much friendlier, “If he can survive, that would be for the best. This master wanted to bring him to Qing Liao City to offer some hospitality.”
Saying so, Gou Che sat down on the cold sand a short distance away, a slight grin suddenly forming on his face as he commented, “I found that this human kid is quite interesting. I’ve captured a number of humans before, but none of them were anywhere near as impressive as Brother Yang. All of them put up an ugly display, immediately kowtowing and begging for mercy the moment they found themselves in danger. Brother Yang on the other hand has some real backbone, his temperament really fits well with my Demon Race, preferring to die fighting than live as a coward, a real man.”
Gou Che rambled on for a while, but what attracted An Ling’er’s attention was something he had said close to the beginning, quietly asking, “Those humans you caught, what did you do with them?”
Gou Che swung his hand down in a chopping motion, causing An Ling’er’s pretty face to go somewhat black. She immediately decided not to talk to him more than absolutely necessary.
At night, the vast desert was incredibly quiet, only some scorpion like creatures moved about. Gou Che caught a few of them and ate them with great relish.
As he ate, he gave a running commentary about their taste as well.
As the night dragged on, the desert became colder and colder.
Yang Kai’s only remaining vitality also rapidly faded, a point that both An Ling’er and Gou Che noticing, both of them secretly growing nervous as they carefully watched over him.
A half hour after the middle of the night, this last bit of vitality suddenly vanished.
The light in An Ling’er’s beautiful eyes suddenly went out, her tender body shuddering uncontrollably.
Gou Che also let out a heavy sigh, feeling that the Heavens were unjust.
The two of them were only immersed in their sadness for a moment though before a pulse of vitality erupted from Yang Kai’s body. This burst of vitality soon transformed into a raging flame, quickly heating up Yang Kai’s near frozen body. At the same time, True Qi began flowing through his meridians so quickly and violently it could be heard.
*Hu…*
With a light puff, Yang Kai entire figure was engulfed in flames as a translucent layer of golden True Qi burst forth from his body, transforming the nearby sand in a sea of magma.
An Ling’er was shocked and hurriedly retreated, almost burning herself in the process.
Gou Che was also stunned by Yang Kai’s current appearance, the poisonous tail of a big scorpion he had been eating slipping out of his mouth as his jaw went slack.
Yang Kai suddenly coughed up a dark blood fog before taking back the True Qi which had leaked from his body, quickly jumping to his feet as he glanced around vigilantly, only calming down a moment later when he laid eyes on a dumbstruck An Ling’er and Gou Che nearby, breathing a long sigh of relief while taking back his Divine Sense.
Slowly sitting back down on the ground, Yang Kai adjusted his breathing as the scene before he fell into a coma flashed before across his mind, allowing him to quickly grasp his current situation.
There were no abnormalities in his physical body, but his Knowledge Sea was still in a state of turmoil, causing Yang Kai to moan in pain as he held his head and trembled lightly.
Even after somehow managing to stabilizing his condition, Yang Kai couldn’t reduce the dull ache he felt in his head.
“Where are we?” Yang Kai opened his eyes and quietly asked, his face distorting from the near unbearable pain.
“The Demon Land’s desert,” Gou Che replied somewhat mechanically before quickly coming to his sense and asking hurriedly, “Brother Yang, are you… dead or alive?”
Yang Kai raised his eyes and glanced over at him tiredly, “What do you think?”
“Haha!” Gou Che laughed raucously, “I knew you wouldn’t die so easily!”
“Who was it that said he couldn’t be saved?” An Ling’er shot him a cold glance.
Gou Che suddenly choked, unable to say anything in response.
“How do you feel?” An Ling’er turned her attention to Yang Kai and asked nervously.
“Terrible,” Yang Kai slowly shook his head, his Soul was currently in a state of turmoil and was somewhat unstable.
“Then you should quickly rest.”
Yang Kai nodded lightly, no longer speaking. Sitting cross-legged on the ground and trying to steady himself, he sent his Soul Avatar into his Knowledge Sea to more carefully examine it.
Looking around, Yang Kai saw that his entire Knowledge Sea was in a desolate state, the rich burning flames and endless ocean water had all but disappeared, a sign that his Spiritual Energy had been severely overdrawn.
His Knowledge Sea was also somewhat chaotic; at times, great winds would blow, while at others, thunder and lightning rained down, the entire world shaking unsteadily as if it would soon collapse.
The reason for all this was because Yang Kai had forcefully brought the Divine Tree into the Black Book space.
Never had he thought that this one, seemingly simple act would bring him so close to the gates of death.
The things he normally stored into the Black Book space were small, the biggest one not even one percent the size of the Divine Tree, so even if it consumed some of his Spiritual Energy, it had only been a trifling amount.
But this time, Yang Kai’s Spiritual Energy had been completely exhausted. Bringing the Divine Tree into the Black Book space had nearly caused his very Soul to collapse.
After all, the Divine Tree was very different from anything Yang Kai had stored in the Black Book space before, not only was it massive, it also contained an unimaginable amount of energy. It was understandable he had to pay such a price.
However, it was worth it!
Being able to take the Divine Tree away, Yang Kai felt that even if he had to pay such a steep price, it would be worth it. Now he didn’t have to worry about fulfilling his promise with the Divine Tree.
Yang Kai was a man of his word.
His lost Spiritual Energy could be re-cultivated and supplemented by the Six Coloured Soul Warming Lotus, so it wouldn’t take too long for his Spiritual Energy to return to its peak.
Moreover, this time, the Six Coloured Soul Warming Lotus had played a vital role. If it had not protected Yang Kai’s Soul at the last moment, it was likely he really would be dead right now.
Considering all this, Yang Kai quietly rejoiced.
Withdrawing his Soul Avatar from his Knowledge Sea, Yang Kai next inspected the Black Book space. Just after arriving though, Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar was embraced by a brilliant golden light.
The Divine Tree was now here, its golden roots and jade green leaves illuminating the once dull Black Book space.
Surrounded by this burning aura, the pain in Yang Kai’s Soul decreased noticeably and was replaced with a warm, comfortable sensation.
In response to Yang Kai’s arrival, the Divine Tree’s branches swayed back and forth, as if it was celebrating, a burst of eager calls emanating from its heart.
Yang Kai smiled as he sent his Soul Avatar into the heart of the Divine Tree, allowing the latter’s Soul to immediately wrap around him.
It was obviously aware that Yang Kai was currently in a very weak state and did not try to drag his Soul Avatar all over the place but instead carefully surrounded and comforted him.
The next moment, a powerful energy poured into Yang Kai’s Soul Avatar, quickly supplementing Yang Kai’s lost Spiritual Energy.
Yang Kai was pleasantly surprised and made no attempt to stop it, allowing the Divine Tree to display its capabilities.
After an hour or so, Yang Kai’s weakness had disappeared and he once again became energetic, his dried up Knowledge Sea reaching a state of saturation.
At the same time, all kinds of dark injuries Yang Kai had sustained were restored.
Yang Kai conversed with the Divine Tree for a while and explained that it might have to stay in this place for a while. After receiving a positive response, Yang Kai promised to come see it whenever he had time before taking back his consciousness.
Although the Divine Tree was reluctant to part, it didn’t try to stop him.
Opening his eyes again, Yang Kai discovered that the darkness of night was gradually receding, giving way to the morning sun.
Wrinkling his brow for a moment, Yang Kai let out a light sigh as he estimated he would at least need to break through to the Saint Realm if he wanted to take the Divine Tree out from the Black Book space. Only by reaching the Saint Realm would be able to do with while not harming himself.
However, he was not in a rush. Right now, he was still stuck in the Demon Land, even if Yang Kai could release the Divine Tree immediately, there was no place for it to settle.
It would be better to find a place for the Divine Tree to stay first, Soaring Heaven Sect’s Serene Resplendent Peak would be a good choice.
Seeing Yang Kai open his eyes, Gou Che and An Ling’er who had been monitoring him all night long finally relaxed.
“Brother, why does it seem like you’ve been completely restored already?” Gou Che asked curiously. An hour or so ago, Yang Kai was still in a state close to death, and even if his restorative abilities were better than most, this kind of recovery speed was too abnormal. On top of that, Gou Che didn’t see him take any kind of healing pill or medicine.
It was really inexplicable.