The moment Yang Kai activated the World-Destroying Demon Eye, he immediately understood what was happening. He had unwittingly stumbled into a formation—and most likely a natural illusion formation.
Yang Yan was a grandmaster of formations. Having spent so much time with her, Yang Kai had absorbed at least a passing knowledge of the subject.
The only thing that could make someone walk in circles around the same spot without realizing it was an illusion formation. And a formation appearing in a place like this naturally couldn't have been arranged by human hands.
This illusion formation was enormous in scale. A Holy King Realm cultivator entering this area wouldn't have the power to set up something like this, so it could only have been naturally generated.
Realizing this, Yang Kai felt a bitter taste rise in his heart.
Yang Yan had once told him that man-made formations and naturally formed ones were vastly different. Man-made formations always left traces that could be followed, but naturally formed ones were like an antelope's horns hung against the sky—seamless, natural, and leaving almost no flaws. In other words, they possessed no formation eye or formation gate, making it impossible to break them by exploiting those weak points.
Besides, Yang Kai was no expert in the art of formations.
The World-Destroying Demon Eye could pierce through illusions, yes, and it had helped him see the true nature of this place. But it couldn't provide any basis for actually breaking the formation.
If he wanted to break it, he had to rely on himself alone!
That was precisely the reason for his silent lament. If Yang Yan were here, with her understanding of formations, breaking this one shouldn't be too difficult. But asking Yang Kai to do it was asking far too much.
Still, after a moment, he calmed down. Since he had already stumbled in here, he could only look for a way out.
The most effective and suitable method, naturally, was to tear through space!
He was well-versed in the power of space. Rending space was, without a doubt, the best escape method available to him.
With that thought, Yang Kai ripped open a rift in the void and dove in. Only after his figure had vanished did the spatial rift quickly close.
A moment later, at the exact same spot, another rift appeared, and Yang Kai shot out of it.
Focusing his senses to take in his surroundings, his face darkened.
The moment he had torn through space and entered the spatial turbulence, he'd sensed something was wrong. The spatial turbulence, which was normally wild and surging, was utterly silent here—completely dead. Sure enough, when he tore open space once more, he found himself right back where he had started, without the slightest surprise.
This illusion formation not only clouded the senses—it had also sealed off this entire region of space, rendering his space-tearing ability completely useless. Now that was a real problem.
After thinking it over, Yang Kai had no choice but to accept that he could only break the formation with brute force. Since he couldn't find any clever method, he'd simply have to blast through it. He only hoped it wasn't too sturdy, or he really might end up trapped here for good.
Having made up his mind, Yang Kai widened his eyes and carefully studied his surroundings. Half an hour later, he finally identified a spot that could be attacked—the scenery there was noticeably more illusory than elsewhere, likely a weak link. If he could break through that point, the illusion formation might just collapse on its own.
He retrieved the Hundred Peaks Map and summoned ten mountain peak projections in one breath, hurling them at that spot.
Boom, boom, boom...
The tremendous impacts rang out without end, and the entire world began to shake.
Yang Kai watched the area under assault with intense focus. After a while, a gleam of hope crossed his face: under the map's bombardment, the scenery at that spot had become even more ethereal and hazy, twisting and distorting as though it was on the verge of collapse.
There was a chance! Yang Kai poured even more Saint Yuan into the attack.
But soon, his expression stiffened, and disappointment flooded in.
That spot, which had grown so ethereal and hazy, twisted and then restored itself to its original state, rendering all his previous attacks a complete waste of effort.
This illusion formation could repair its own damage! It was practically a death sentence—it meant to trap him inside until he perished.
Yang Kai gritted his teeth and pushed the Hundred Peaks Map to its absolute limit. Twenty mountain peak projections materialized around him and rained down on that spot in an overwhelming barrage.
...
Half a day later, Yang Kai stared ahead with bloodshot eyes, his face twisted with fury.
The sturdiness of this illusion formation far exceeded his expectations. No matter how much power he used or how he attacked, it always managed to repair itself. He had already stored the Hundred Peaks Map back inside his body—twenty peak projections were the absolute limit of what he could currently summon, so there was no point in continuing. More attacks would just be a waste of energy.
Without a single decisive, crushing blow, there was no way to break through that weak point. In other words, he needed a strike like the one from Xie Yun's sinister Artifact—a blow of absolute power, capable of tearing that weak spot open. Only then might he be able to break this illusion formation.
He hadn't had time to refine that sinister Artifact, nor did he want to. Besides, Yang Kai doubted that even the heaven-shaking strike from that Artifact would be enough to crack the illusion before him.
The only option left was to use his Golden Blood.
Yang Kai let out a long, quiet sigh. A single drop of Golden Blood represented the cumulative result of three months of bitter cultivation. So unless it was an absolute last resort, he truly could not bring himself to use it.