After absorbing all of this soul power, Yang Kai's own understanding of the Saint Realm had reached an inconceivable level, and his control over his own strength had become far more refined than before.
The benefits went far beyond that, because each time he devoured someone's soul power, his Divine Sense would increase by some degree — strengthening his own spiritual perception. One or two increments might seem trivial, but like grains of sand piling into a tower, this accumulation left his soul several times more formidable than warriors of the same level.
The ocean of flame formed by his Divine Sense seemed to have become denser and more turbulent as a result.
Yang Kai devoured the last few remaining clumps of soul power.
However, while absorbing one particular clump, his expression suddenly turned strange. He hastily halted what he was doing and stared blankly ahead.
Floating before his soul spirit was a clump of soul power that was not particularly strong — weaker than all the rest, in fact, only at the level of the third-stage Transcendent Realm.
This was what remained after the death of the cartographer named Usuo!
Yang Kai understood immediately. He had witnessed Usuo explode into a mist of blood right before his eyes, leaving not even bones behind. At the time, Usuo had been the only one in the warship's engine room who was at the Transcendent Realm — every other person present had been at the Saint Realm.
The soul energy left behind by Usuo's death seemed somehow different.
It truly was only at the third-stage Transcendent Realm — weaker than the others — but there was something else hidden within it, something entirely out of the ordinary.
Yang Kai condensed a thread of spiritual awareness and probed toward it.
In a flash, it was as though he had left his own Sea of Consciousness entirely, finding himself standing in the vast expanse of a starfield. Stars glittered all around him, each radiating a mesmerizing and dazzling light. Some pulsed with vibrant vitality; others were dour and lifeless, their luster dim and muted.
In that instant, his entire being seemed to swell to an incomprehensible size, standing above the starfield and gazing down upon the entire territory of stars.
Every corner, every star — nothing could escape his eyes.
Those points of stellar light were spinning under the drive of some wondrous force, following patterns of extraordinary complexity that he could not hope to trace.
Yang Kai's gaze fell at once upon a region at the very center of this entire star territory.
There, certain stars seemed particularly brilliant. Some blazed crimson like balls of fire, others were pristine white as though cloaked in frost. On certain stars, wind energy had solidified into substance, coiling into towering dragons of gale force. And still other stars resembled ancient trees…
The Chaos Abyss!
Yang Kai's entire body jolted violently.
He immediately realized that this unusual starfield he was witnessing was none other than the Chaos Abyss — the very place in which he had once been lost, unable to find his way out. Those brilliant, energy-saturated stars were all too familiar to him.
The first destination he had entered upon arriving in the star territory had been the Chaos Abyss. He had long since memorized the appearance of those stars, seared them deep into his soul — and they were identical to what he saw before him now.
Only that everything had been shrunk down countless times.
Usuo's soul energy contained a hidden star chart.
And not just any star chart — a map of the entire Heng Luo Star Territory!
Yang Kai's jaw went slack. He had no idea why this should be so.
Just as his spiritual awareness lingered within the star chart, quietly observing, the waters within his Sea of Consciousness began to evaporate as though by some invisible heat. The level plummeted rapidly, and his Divine Sense was draining away at an inconceivable speed.
A tearing pain spread from his Sea of Consciousness throughout his entire body. Alarmed, Yang Kai hastily retracted his spiritual awareness — only then did he notice the changes within his Sea of Consciousness.
In that brief span of time, nearly half of his Divine Sense had been consumed.
That tearing pain was a telltale sign of excessive depletion of spiritual power, and it seemed directly connected to the fact that he had probed the mysteries of that star chart without any sense of its true depth.
Yang Kai drew a deep, steadying breath. He dared not act so recklessly again and quickly withdrew his consciousness entirely.
Awareness returned to his body. A cold breeze washed over him, and he realized with a start that his entire body was chilled to the bone — his clothes had been soaked through with sweat, every muscle taut and trembling.
Shen Tu was sitting nearby, staring at him with slack-jawed astonishment.
Seeing his expression of someone bracing for a mortal ordeal, racked with anguish, the old man could not help but offer some counsel: "Yang Kai, take it slow. There's no need to rush. After all, that is a restriction laid by a Saint King Realm expert — you won't be able to undo it in one sitting."
He clearly assumed Yang Kai had been struggling to break through the restriction Lü Guichen had placed, and that this miserable state was the result.
"I know. Don't worry about me," Yang Kai replied absently. He quietly produced a Saint Pill from the Demon God's Secret Tome — one that could replenish Divine Sense — and popped it into his mouth. While regulating his breathing to restore his spiritual power, his mind turned over what he had seen.
According to what Shen Tu had told him before, Usuo had been one of the top three cartographers within the Purple Star forces — which was why he had been qualified to board and serve aboard Purple Star's warship, guiding its course through the void and repairing or amending the star charts.
A cartographer of such caliber must have possessed his own unique insights into the study of the star territories. His life, aside from the small portion of time spent on Cultivation, had surely been devoted entirely to the research of star charts.