Caught off guard, half his arm simply vanished. The old man surnamed Wang was horrified inside, stumbling back several steps before steadying himself. He stared at Yang Kai with a mixture of shock and rage, his face a mask of disbelief. He — a Void Return Realm powerhouse — had actually been wounded like this while fighting a mere Saint King Stage Two cultivator? If he told anyone, they wouldn't believe it.
He condensed his Saint Yuan at the severed stump to staunch the blood flow while simultaneously retrieving a pill from his spatial ring and popping it straight into his mouth. His gaze toward Yang Kai had already taken on a note of wariness. If the other party had the means to wound him, then he had the means to kill him!
Only now did he have time to investigate the abnormality in his Sea of Consciousness. If not for the strange disturbance in his mind just now, he wouldn't have been hit so easily — he would have certainly noticed the oddity of that attack. He desperately wanted to know what was going on inside his own Sea of Consciousness.
Upon probing, the old man Wang's expression changed drastically. He cried out in alarm: "Soul-Devouring Worms? How is that possible?!"
What he discovered horrified him. Countless tiny worms — too small to be seen with the naked eye — had appeared inside his Sea of Consciousness at some point. They were incredibly minute, silent and undetected, lurking in the depths of his consciousness as if waiting for some command to strike.
The earlier disturbance in his Sea of Consciousness had clearly been caused by these Soul-Devouring Worms devouring his Divine Sense!
And the reason those several Saint King Realm cultivators couldn't withstand a single strike from Yang Kai was probably for the same reason — otherwise, how could they have failed to dodge the golden threads' cutting attack? Understanding this, cold sweat drenched the old man Wang. He had long heard of the fearsome reputation of Soul-Devouring Worms, but ordinary specimens, despite their vicious fame, wouldn't have caught his attention. With his Void Return Realm power, he could easily purge them.
But these Soul-Devouring Worms were clearly no ordinary variety — they were an evolved strain. When the old man Wang attempted to drive them out with his spiritual sense, they didn't budge at all, remaining stubbornly hidden in the depths of his Sea of Consciousness. They had become a latent threat within him. To completely purge them would require at least a day or two of meditative cultivation!
At the thought of this, the old man Wang immediately felt the urge to retreat, his expression flickering with indecision.
His Domain and Soul Burial Bell were both countered by the other party. Now he was gravely wounded, with Soul-Devouring Worms lurking in his Sea of Consciousness waiting to strike — if he didn't leave soon, things would likely turn dire. He was deeply wary of the attack that had devoured half his arm.
"To think you can recognize Soul-Devouring Worms — the old thing does have some knowledge! But you're out of luck. Your Domain is useless against me. I'm your natural nemesis!" Yang Kai laughed derisively. His hands swept through the air, and blade after blade of spatial energy slashed outward — each one pitch-black, tearing through space as they advanced. If someone had extended their Divine Sense to probe, they would have found that the interior of each blade was nothing but void and chaos, utterly devoid of anything.
In an instant, over a dozen pitch-black spatial blades hurtled madly toward the old man Wang. A chorus of tearing sounds erupted.
The old man Wang's eyelids twitched. His face turned the ugliest shade imaginable as he roared: "Boy, don't get too cocky!"
Simultaneously, his body suddenly swelled outward, and a mass of black qi expanded, instantly covering an area of over a dozen zhang. He had activated some mysterious technique, attempting to obscure his figure.
But when the dozen-plus spatial blades sliced through the black mist, they carved out a dozen clear channels through it. Before the old man Wang had even finished speaking, he let out another strange cry and hastily dodged the spatial blade closing in on him.
"Come on, come on — use every trick you've got! Today I'll make sure you die knowing exactly how!" Yang Kai grinned cruelly, continuously hurling barbed words to agitate the old man's mental state and fan his rage, while his hands never stopped. Spatial blades raged like a torrent.
The old man Wang was so furious he nearly coughed up blood. Those exact words had been what he himself said to Yang Kai earlier, but now the situation had completely reversed — and the other party had thrown them right back at him.
It was like being slapped hard across the face. The old man Wang's face burned with humiliation, and a look of bitter unwillingness crossed his features. He had no words to spit back. Under the relentless barrage of spatial blades, he couldn't even muster the will to respond, reduced to ducking and weaving for his life. If the first time his half-arm was devoured, he hadn't yet identified what attribute of attack it was, then now he had his suspicions.
After all, the spatial energy fluctuations emanating from the spatial blades were unmistakable. He wasn't a fool — how could he not notice?
The old man Wang was utterly shocked! He had never known that anyone on the Dark Star could cultivate spatial energy to the point of condensing it into blades, and moreover use them against an enemy at range.
Even that Mo Xiaosheng, Elder Mo of the Battle Heaven Alliance, couldn't achieve such a thing! Rumor had it that Elder Mo was also proficient in spatial energy — whenever the spatial formations of various powers malfunctioned or broke down, he was the one called upon to repair them. But Elder Mo's application of spatial energy paled in comparison to this arrogant young man — they weren't even in the same league.
The other party not only possessed Soul-Devouring Worms that could restrain him, but was also master of this mysterious power! The old man Wang no longer dared to underestimate Yang Kai, elevating him to the same level as himself.
Spatial blades continued to pour forth as if endless — ferocious, unstoppable, destroying everything in their path. The old man Wang could only scramble out of the way in a desperate, wretched dance.
"Old thing, are you only going to run?" Yang Kai bellowed. After sending out several more spatial blades, the image of a lotus bud on the verge of blooming suddenly appeared in his eyes. He murmured in a low voice: "Lotus Birth!"
The old man Wang, who had been using the terrain to dodge the spatial blades, suddenly froze mid-movement. Even without meeting Yang Kai's gaze, at that very moment he felt a phantom lotus appear within his mind. In that instant, the entire world seemed to vanish, replaced by nothing but a single flower bud radiating seven-colored ethereal light.