After all, this was someone who had died tens of thousands of years ago. The clothes they wore simply could not withstand exposure to the wind.
Not only that — the skeleton was no different.
With a dry rustle, the entire skeleton collapsed, every bone crumbling into fine ash. Yang Kai frowned and pushed his Saint Yuan outward, enveloping the depression in the ground to keep the howling wind from sweeping in.
It was one thing for the clothes to disintegrate into powder and blow away, but he couldn't let the skeleton suffer the same fate. If that happened, this predecessor would truly have died without even a burial — how wretched would that be?
He channeled Saint Yuan strand by strand, gathering nearby soil and packing it into the depression to cover it.
Suddenly, his brow lifted, and he stared fixedly at something within the hole, a flicker of suspicion crossing his face. After a long moment, he flicked out a strand of his Golden Blood Silk, shooting it forward.
When the Golden Blood Silk retracted, Yang Kai was holding a single bone fragment in his hand.
It appeared to be a thumb bone, but unlike the rest of the skeleton, it had not crumbled upon exposure to the air. Instead, it remained remarkably intact. Though no energy fluctuations leaked from within, when Yang Kai examined the bone closely, his expression turned to one of astonishment.
"This is…"
The bone was covered with intricate patterns and runes, as though some secret lay sealed within.
He channeled a small amount of Saint Yuan inward, but there was little reaction. Yang Kai looked puzzled, uncertain what mysteries this single bone fragment held.
He chose not to probe it further for now, carefully stowing it away before resuming his work filling the depression with soil.
Before long, a burial mound had risen from the flat ground. Yang Kai had no intention of performing any rites. He glanced at it once, then swiftly departed the valley.
This was all he could do for that predecessor. Still, that finger bone would be worth studying carefully. He was certain the predecessor must have sealed something within it — otherwise, it could never have survived tens of thousands of years so well preserved.
With the wind screaming past him, Yang Kai locked onto his bearing and hurtled straight toward the Imperial Garden.
Along the way, things were calm, and he encountered no further unexpected trouble. For Yang Kai, the detour to the valley had cost some time, but compared to the enormous haul, it was acceptable.
He had already made up his mind, though — no matter what else came up, he refused to get involved again. All he wanted was to reach the interior of the Imperial Garden as quickly as possible.
Yet something was wrong. The closer he drew to the Imperial Garden, the more he could sense a storm brewing. Countless warriors lay in ambush around the perimeter, waiting to strike at those venturing inward or emerging from inside.
As time passed, Yang Kai could even see groups of warriors locked in savage combat, fighting with desperate ferocity.
Some tried to block his path, but he brushed them aside with ease.
After a moment's thought, Yang Kai immediately understood what was happening.
According to Min Sha from the Green Wood Star, the interior of the Imperial Garden was rife with danger. They had been forced to flee out after suffering catastrophic losses, seeking opportunities on the outside instead. The warriors lurking beyond the Imperial Garden clearly knew about those internal conditions as well, and so they had chosen to wait like hunters by a tree stump, robbing anyone who passed nearby.
That way, they could reap rewards without putting themselves at risk — killing multiple birds with one stone. Why wouldn't they?
It was exactly this that made the area around the Imperial Garden so treacherous, thick with killing intent.
It took Yang Kai a fair bit of effort to break through their ambush lines.
Three days later, Yang Kai stood atop a low ridge, gazing into the distance at the colossal, awe-inspiring palace ahead.
The Imperial Garden!
He was seeing its grandeur with his own eyes at last. This retreat of the Starry Sky Great Emperor actually hovered suspended in midair, and as far as the eye could see, its limits were nowhere in sight. It seemed to encompass an area of tens of thousands of miles.
The last time he had been inside the Imperial Garden, the experience had been far less profound. Now, even from a thousand miles away, Yang Kai could feel the ancient, desolate aura radiating from it. That aura permeated the surroundings, making one feel as though they had been cast back into the primordial wilderness, with not the slightest sense of safety.
Where was the entrance? Yang Kai's brow furrowed, but he quickly locked onto a direction.
Over there, multicolored light blazed in bursts, violent energy fluctuations rising and falling one after another. In the sky, numerous dark specks darted back and forth.
Clearly, a great many people were fighting.
The closer one drew to the Imperial Garden, the more chaotic things became. Its opening had drawn warriors from the entire star field, and cultivators from various cultivation stars were all converging here — naturally, that meant friction and conflict.
And if Yang Kai was not mistaken, the spot of the fiercest fighting should be the very direction where the entrance to the Imperial Garden lay.
With that thought, he didn't hesitate. His figure flickered, and he shot toward the battlefield.
Half an incense stick's time later, Yang Kai was gradually closing in on the fray. Observing the melee up close only made it more shocking — there were at least several hundred warriors engaged in combat, the vast majority at the Return Void Realm. Even those at the Saint King Realm were all at the third stage, brought here by their elders.