A dozen or more — what did that even mean? Though Qian Tong and Fei Zhitu had never Cultivated the Demon Blood Threads technique themselves, they knew enough about it to understand the basics. It was a secret art that used the practitioner's own blood and vital force as a foundation, refined and condensed through the essence of flesh and blood into something that existed somewhere between an Artifact and a technique. No matter how powerful the members of the Demon Blood Sect were, it should have been impossible for any of them to produce a large number of threads.
Even the Demon Blood Sect Master herself, when Cultivating the Demon Blood Threads, had to supplement the process with an evil dual-cultivation technique, ruthlessly harvesting the blood essence of vigorous men — and even then she could only manage two. How much blood and vital force must Yang Kai possess to produce over a dozen at once? Moreover, judging from his appearance, there was no sign of any loss of vitality whatsoever. On the contrary, he brimmed with life, his blood force more robust than anyone else's.
It was simply beyond belief.
Could this not actually be the Demon Blood Threads technique at all — merely something that resembled it?
Qian Tong and Fei Zhitu were utterly stumped.
What they didn't know was that the dozen or so Golden Blood Threads were nowhere near Yang Kai's true limit. He now possessed several dozen Golden Blood Threads within his body, each one transformed from a single drop of pure Golden Blood.
With the Life Spirit Elixir at his disposal, Yang Kai no longer had to worry about a shortage of Golden Blood. As a result, he had been refining Golden Blood Threads without the slightest restraint.
Those dozen-plus Golden Blood Threads, once launched outward, did not immediately strike the Mountain Protection Grand Formation. Instead, they twisted and intertwined with one another, moving as though alive, gradually coiling together into a single mass. With a faint tremor, they transformed into a golden spear roughly ten feet in length.
It gleamed with brilliant golden light, radiating tremendous power, and hurtled toward the Mountain Protection Grand Formation.
Boom…
A thunderous impact rang out as the tip of the golden spear drove into the formation's luminous barrier. The barrier instantly buckled inward like an inflated ball being pressed down from above, sending a visible shockwave through the air. Qian Tong and Fei Zhitu, watching from the sidelines, felt their eyelids twitch uncontrollably and could only marvel at the display.
The two of them had been participating in the assault on the Mountain Protection Grand Formation for half a month now and knew its resilience better than most. The moment they saw the spear's power, they could already gauge the extent of its destructive force.
It was an attack violent enough to make their blood run cold.
But the Mountain Protection Grand Formation was truly formidable. No matter how hard Yang Kai drove the golden spear, it still couldn't break through. Instead, once the barrier had been pressed inward to a certain degree, a powerful repulsive force suddenly surged out — not only restoring the luminous barrier to its original state, but launching the spear composed of the dozen Golden Blood Threads high into the air.
Yang Kai's expression remained as calm as still water. His divine sense maintained control over the spear, and with a mere thought, it split apart once more into a dozen individual Golden Blood Threads. The threads then twisted and intertwined again, this time reshaping into a massive axe that descended from above, carrying the momentum to shatter heaven and earth as it cleaved ruthlessly into the barrier.
This was the art of transformation inherent to the Golden Blood Threads — the very essence recorded in the second half of the Demon Blood Threads secret manual.
Yang Kai's eyes blazed with excitement, paying no attention to his surroundings whatsoever. He focused every ounce of his concentration on controlling the Golden Blood Threads, shifting them into every conceivable form, hammering the Mountain Protection Grand Formation over and over again with waves of pressure.
The transformation of Golden Blood Threads could not be achieved with just one or two of them. Only when the number reached a certain threshold could this miraculous metamorphosis be performed.
The ancestor who created the Demon Blood Threads technique must have possessed some unfathomable level of Cultivation. But ever since the Dark Star had become constrained by the laws of heaven and earth, no one within the Demon Blood Sect had been able to carry the art of transformation to its full potential.
Even that beautiful sect master had exhausted her entire life's efforts and could barely manage to Cultivate two Demon Blood Threads — let alone attempt any transformations. Still, she hadn't been entirely without result. At the very least, in the ice corridor Yang Kai had once witnessed her two Demon Blood Threads transform into a pair of blood serpents, moving like living creatures, eerily mysterious.
That was one form of the transformation art as well. Though Yang Kai knew how to cultivate it, he currently couldn't meet the requirements.
Because that particular transformation demanded the divine soul and inner core of a powerful demon beast.
What Yang Kai was demonstrating now was an entirely different kind of transformation.
At first, he was not very proficient with it. But as time passed and the various transformations took shape under his hands, his mastery of the Golden Blood Threads technique grew ever more refined. The Golden Blood Threads shifted according to his will, their variations seemingly without limit.
Qian Tong and Fei Zhitu watched from the side, clucking their tongues in amazement, not daring to interrupt. From Yang Kai's focused expression, they could tell that the young man had sunk into a state of deep immersion — practicing and perfecting a secret technique in real time.
This was a good thing. Why on earth would they interfere?
The Mountain Protection Grand Formation of the ancient Sect ruins within Emperor's Fall Mountain had already been bombarded by hundreds of Return Void Realm masters for half a month and was on the verge of collapse. Now, two days after Yang Kai had joined the effort, a breakthrough was finally achieved.
A faint cracking sound suddenly echoed from somewhere within the formation. Though the sound was subtle, it reached every martial artist's ears with crystal clarity.
Everyone turned toward the source and saw that at one point on the Mountain Protection Grand Formation's luminous barrier, a tiny crack had appeared.
In an instant, excitement surged through the assembled crowd, elation written across every face.
It was only a minuscule crack — almost negligible — but it proved that the Mountain Protection Grand Formation had reached its absolute limit. With just a little more effort, perhaps the very next strike would shatter it completely.
Without anyone needing to give an order, after a brief moment of stunned silence, every person redoubled the intensity of their output.
Crack… crack… crack…
The sounds of fracturing came ceaselessly from all directions, spreading like a spark igniting a prairie fire. Starting from that very first crack, the barrier's surface rapidly became covered with a dense web of fissures — overlapping, intersecting, beyond counting.