The instant the three defensive Artifacts personally crafted by Yang Yan for herself were destroyed, she couldn't help but cry out.
At that moment, a large hand clamped down on her shoulder and hauled her backward. At the same time, Yang Kai had already positioned himself in front of her, his expression graver than it had ever been. Sweeping both hands forward, he launched two balls of pitch-black fire to meet the fire dragon head-on.
The Demonic Flame—born of the will in its very nature, transformed into an existence of extreme cold and extreme yin—even so, the instant it touched the fire dragon, it was extinguished in a flash, as though burned to nothing.
Yang Kai's expression shifted. He retreated swiftly, and at the same time, a faint bird cry echoed from within his body. The Artifact Spirit emerged in the next instant, swaying its body as it shot forth. Spreading its wings, it transformed into a crimson firebird over a dozen zhang in length. It opened its beak and sprayed a torrent of blazing red light, but even that was unable to halt the fire dragon's advance—the attack was scattered to pieces upon contact, achieving nothing.
The fire dragon was like an unreasonable brute. No matter how fiercely Yang Kai and his companion fought back, it tore through every defense with ease.
A human-like emotion flickered in the firebird Artifact Spirit's eyes—fear. Then its gaze turned violent and savage. Its body whirled around, shrinking dramatically in size. With a flash of its wings it became a streak of fire and plunged straight into the fire dragon's body.
Dragon roars and the Artifact Spirit's cries churned through the secret cavern in a wild, chaotic uproar.
Having thrown itself entirely inside the fire dragon, the Artifact Spirit managed to slow the creature's advance—but only for a fleeting moment. With a mournful wail, it burst back out, flickered once, and vanished into Yang Kai's body.
Yang Kai's face changed drastically.
He had long since fully refined the Void King-grade alchemy furnace and its Artifact Spirit, so he could clearly feel the Spirit's current condition. This Artifact Spirit—born from tens of thousands of years of scorching within the Earth Lung Fire Pool—now appeared to have suffered a devastating blow to its vital essence. How could he not be shocked?
The fire-attribute spiritual energy stored within the Artifact Spirit had already reached the absolute peak of density and purity. So what exactly was this fire dragon, that it could wound the Spirit so grievously in a clash of the same elemental affinity?
But though the Artifact Spirit was injured, the fire dragon had been weakened significantly as well. Its color had dimmed considerably, and its size had shrunk by a large margin. Still, it swayed its head and charged on toward Yang Kai, as though it would not rest until both he and Yang Yan were burned to nothing.
Yang Kai's expression, however, settled into calm. A mysterious wave of power surged outward from his body. He extended both great hands and seized the empty air, as if gripping two invisible gates. Gritting his teeth, he tore them apart with all his strength.
A spatial rift of unfathomable depth materialized—a void that seemed capable of devouring all things. And as Yang Kai continued to tear, the rift expanded enormously in the span of a single breath.
The moment the rift took shape, the fire dragon plunged headlong into it.
The void shuddered. Space twisted and buckled. The torn rift became wildly unstable, threatening to collapse at any moment. Yang Kai let out a low shout, channeling his comprehension of spatial power through his body to forcibly stabilize the rift and prevent its immediate collapse.
Three breaths later, the fire dragon twisted and writhed its way into oblivion within the spatial rift. At the same time, the rift itself shattered like a mirror, cracking with countless fissures before crumbling apart.
Standing in place, Yang Kai gasped in great heaving breaths. Behind him, Yang Yan—whom he had dragged to safety—wore an expression of lingering dread.
But after surviving this calamity, Yang Yan seemed to recall something. Her beautiful eyes trembled as she stared at the strange stone. She pressed one hand over her mouth and murmured, "True Solar Essence?"
Yang Kai's face twitched. As though he had heard something utterly unbelievable, his eyes erupted with countless sparks of light.
And strangely enough, once the fire dragon had been devoured by the spatial rift, the object Yang Yan had called True Solar Essence had once again become utterly plain and unremarkable. From it, Yang Kai could feel no scorching power whatsoever—it was just an ordinary stone, the sort one might find anywhere by the roadside, tossed somewhere and never given a second thought.
But there was no time to dwell on it now. Yang Kai and Yang Yan had sneaked into this place, and although two corpse soldiers had tailed them, those soldiers had previously shown no intention of taking action. But now, with such an enormous commotion, they had surely awakened countless corpse soldiers who had been slumbering below.
He extended his Divine Sense, and his expression darkened. Just as he had guessed—more than half of the corpse soldiers who had been sleeping deep in the various branching tunnels had roused. Waves of death energy, some powerful and some faint, were converging on their position with frightening speed.
At that same moment, a muffled, oppressive roar echoed from even deeper underground. It was the cry of some savage beast, steeped in murderous intent and viciousness. When it reached Yang Kai's ears, his soul wavered—the violence buried deep within his heart was tugged upon, and faint threads of blood-red crept into his eyes.
The corpse soldiers charging toward them heard the roar and, as if receiving a command, answered with guttural growls from deep in their throats. Every one of them grew frenzied, as though injected with fresh blood, and their speed surged even faster.