Inside the gorge, Yang Kai and the middle-aged man faced each other, the former's gaze cold and indifferent, the latter's expression one of utter despair.
"Heh…" The middle-aged man, whose path had been blocked by Yang Kai, suddenly let out a soft laugh—but it was filled with bitterness and unwillingness. He knew that this time, escape was likely beyond him, and a wave of regret washed over him.
The Scorching Sandground was vast. Of all the places his four fellow disciples could have gone, why did they have to pick this particular gorge? And why did they have to venture deep into it and provoke such a terrifying figure? Had that not happened, the four of them would surely be living large right now. With the gains from this expedition, as long as they made it out safely, they were guaranteed to reap enormous rewards.
But it was all too late now. Three of the four were dead, both his arms were crippled, and it looked like he would soon be following his fellow disciples to the grave. His heart seethed with frustration, and as he replayed his first encounter with this young man, he finally realized just how laughable his and his three companions' behavior had been.
If this youth hadn't had something up his sleeve, how could he have remained utterly unmoved upon seeing the four of them, without so much as attempting to flee? If he hadn't been trying to bait the four of them into making a move, who in their right mind would have openly displayed every last item from his ring?
Looking back, there had been countless tells in the young man's expressions and actions—but when profit was on the line, even the sharpest and most cautious mind could be swept away by greed.
"Friend…" The middle-aged man's Adam's apple bobbed, and he suddenly spoke up. "Could you tell me—what kind of power are you using? If I could know that, I would die without regrets."
Yang Kai regarded him with an expressionless face and shook his head. "A dead man has no need to know."
"Fair enough!" The middle-aged man managed a desolate smile, standing tall and straight as if presenting his neck for the blade. "Then do it. I know I'm no match for you, and I don't intend to flail about in a futile last stand. So please, make it quick—preferably without too much pain."
The moment his words fell, Yang Kai flicked his wrist, and a streak of ink-black sword light slashed toward the man, its momentum like a rainbow.
The instant the dark sword light appeared, the middle-aged man—who had just been posing as a man resigned to death—had a sharp gleam in his eyes. He opened his mouth and sprayed forth a mist of blood, thick and pungent with the unmistakable scent of essence blood. Within that crimson fog, a drill-shaped Artifact roughly a foot in length materialized, its surface blazing with an earthy yellow glow. It spun like a top, drawing in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth as it rocketed toward Yang Kai.
The conical Artifact seemed as though it would bore a hole through space itself. Everything in its path was ground to dust; even Yang Kai's black sword light was scattered and thrown into disarray by its force.
At the same time, the middle-aged man paled and retreated rapidly, his widened eyes fixed on Yang Kai through the curtain of blood mist.
There was no longer any pretense of standing still to die. His face was a mask of desperate yearning for life—but he was caught between hope and dread, uncertain whether this carefully prepared strike would have the effect he'd counted on.
This was his most desperate gambit, his last hope. To set up this ambush, he had deliberately spoken those words to divert Yang Kai's attention. He had even hoped that his display of unyielding pride might move the other party just slightly—if Yang Kai showed even the tiniest opening, he would seize his chance. But he hadn't expected this fellow to be just as ruthless and cold-blooded. He had put on such a performance, and the youth had remained utterly unmoved, ready to kill without a second thought.
The opponent had shown no openings. All he could do was pray that his Artifact would not let him down.
Under his tense gaze, the drill-shaped Artifact, concealed behind the blood mist, shattered the black sword light just as he had hoped and closed the distance to Yang Kai in an instant—yet Yang Kai seemed entirely unaware, standing motionless in place.
The middle-aged man's heart surged with elation, and a smile began to bloom on his face—only to freeze there.
He watched Yang Kai raise a finger with casual ease, and a dark, rift-like attack—just as he had seen before—slashed across the air. The rift swept over his drill-shaped Artifact. The killing momentum it had generated and the spiritual energy it had drawn in vanished in an instant, as though swallowed whole by some monstrous beast. But it didn't stop there. After the rift passed through, a portion of the Artifact simply ceased to exist. The remaining half, its spiritual glow utterly drained, dropped straight to the ground.
The middle-aged man's eyes bulged from their sockets. Staring at Yang Kai in abject terror, he cried out: "It really is a spatial rift?!"
When he had witnessed it before, he had only suspected—but seeing it a second time, he was now certain. The technique this opponent employed had truly torn open a spatial rift that could move freely. Otherwise, how could his drill-shaped Artifact have silently lost a piece of itself?
It had clearly been swallowed into the void by that rift!
"Is this your last resort?" Yang Kai gazed at him with open derision.
The man was the cautious, calculating type—Yang Kai had learned that much already. So he gave no credence to anything the man said, treating every word as so much hot air. His mind was made up to kill, and he would not be fooled by a few cheap tricks. Yang Kai had never been one to underestimate his opponents.
"That's impossible! Your strength and cultivation are far too low—how could you possibly command spatial power? Even Elder Mo couldn't produce a spatial rift like that!" The middle-aged man's voice cracked into a hysterical shout, as though he were witnessing the most unbelievable thing imaginable.
"Elder Mo? He knows spatial power?" Yang Kai raised an eyebrow.
Thus far, aside from himself, he had never encountered another martial artist who understood spatial power. Even someone as brilliantly talented as the Ghost Ancestor, with his Void King Realm cultivation, had been unable to so much as set foot on the path of spatial mysteries. And now, from the mouth of this middle-aged man, he had just heard that someone called Elder Mo possessed knowledge of spatial power.