Before long, Yang Kai reached the end of the passageway, where a small stone hut stood.
With a resigned attitude of "since I'm here, I might as well see this through," Yang Kai stepped into the hut.
He was now certain that this passageway and everything here had been deliberately arranged, because this stone hut had clearly been constructed by someone.
He entered cautiously, his Sacred Yuan silently gathering in preparation to strike at any moment, fearing he might run into someone inside. But once he stepped through, he found the hut completely empty—there wasn't even anything of note, nothing at all except a stone pedestal.
Yang Kai frowned slightly and paced around the hut several times, carefully examining every corner for a long while, but he still couldn't find anything unusual. It seemed like after breaking through the illusion array and traversing the stone-paved passageway, the only thing waiting was this hut—and then death.
He activated his Demon Eye of Annihilation once more, but still found nothing.
However, Yang Kai did spot a seed the size of a broad bean sitting on top of the stone pedestal.
He picked it up for a closer look. The seed was blood-red in color, and within it radiated a strange aura—the same kind of aura that those wild grasses had emitted when they went berserk outside.
He had no idea how long this seed had been sitting here, but he could still sense that it was brimming with vitality. If planted, it would likely survive.
After thinking it over, he casually tossed it into his spatial ring. He'd paid the price of two drops of Golden Blood to break through the weak point of the illusion array and make it all the way here—there was no way he was leaving empty-handed.
This seed was at least some small consolation.
After that, Yang Kai continued searching the hut for a long time, eventually confirming that there was no exit from this place.
Was he supposed to backtrack and go deeper into the illusion array to find another way out? Just thinking about that array's self-repairing capabilities gave him a pounding headache.
Though he was reluctant, Yang Kai had no choice but to accept this cruel reality. With dejected steps, he walked toward the exit of the hut.
But the moment his foot crossed the threshold, his vision blurred. The frantically swaying wild grasses and the stone-paved passageway all vanished. What he saw before him now was a vast red space.
In mid-air, countless wisps of fire-type spiritual energy flowed like luminous serpents, and beneath his feet stretched barren, brown earth where not a single blade of grass grew.
The Scorching Flame Zone!
Yang Kai's spirits lifted, but he immediately feared he'd fallen into yet another illusion array. He activated his Demon Eye of Annihilation for the third time and finally confirmed that he hadn't been pulled back into that illusion. What's more, when Yang Kai turned to look behind him, the stone hut was nowhere to be seen—there was simply a stone wall at his back. He was standing at the base of a bare little hill, as though everything he had just experienced had been nothing more than an illusion.
But Yang Kai knew it wasn't an illusion, because that blood-red seed was sitting right now in his spatial ring.
Regardless, he had finally escaped that wretched place. Yang Kai silently let out a breath of relief.
It was a good thing it was him—if anyone else had been trapped in that illusion array, they might have found the weak point and torn it through. Any other Sacred King realm cultivator who fell in would have had no choice but to wait for death, unless they possessed an exceptional understanding of formations.
The fact that news of this illusion array had never spread wasn't because no one had entered it—it was because those who did had no way to send word back outside. They were all dead inside, so how could they relay any messages? The array could even seal off space itself, so blocking communication was well within its capabilities.
Yang Kai estimated that the major powers on the Dark Star were most likely completely unaware of this array's existence.
He just hoped that Wei Guchang, Dong Xuan'er, and the others—Chang Qi, Hao An—had taken a different path from his. Otherwise, they would surely have perished without a trace.
While Yang Kai was privately congratulating himself, he suddenly noticed several figures flash by a few li away. They were moving in a great hurry, as if rushing desperately toward some destination.
Yang Kai was stunned for a moment, then abruptly remembered—he had been trapped in that illusion array for days. The advantage he'd gained with his Wind Thunder Wings was almost certainly long gone. Elite cultivators like Wei Guchang and Dong Xuan'er had probably already moved far ahead of him.
He took out the Yuan Magnetic Compass and checked. Yang Kai found that the direction those figures were heading was not toward the Heavenly Treasures Zone.
There was no longer any point in rushing. Yang Kai had originally planned to be the first to reach the Heavenly Treasures Zone and plunder it before anyone else arrived, but after being delayed by that illusion array for so long, that plan was instantly rendered obsolete.
Those people had clearly found something good—otherwise they wouldn't be in such a frantic hurry.
After thinking for a moment, Yang Kai slipped quietly in the direction those figures had disappeared.
Tracking people in the Flowing Flame Sand Field was actually quite easy, because there was very little vegetation here—nothing but bare hills and earthen mounds. Although his Divine Sense was heavily suppressed by the local laws of heaven and earth, the visible range was vast, so there was no worry about losing the trail.
As he moved forward, Yang Kai noticed more and more cultivators heading in the same direction, as though everyone had received some extraordinary piece of news and were converging on a single location.