Star Emperor Mountain, Lingjue Peak — clouds drifted lazily past the midpoint of the mountainside, and on the serene summit, an unusual ripple of energy suddenly surged into being. Heavenly and earthly energy rushed frantically toward a single point, gradually coalescing into a vortex.
At first the vortex was small, but as the energy poured in, it expanded and expanded, until it spanned several zhang across.
Then, without warning, a figure stepped out of the vortex as if traversing the void itself, standing proudly in midair.
Yang Kai glanced left and right. He found no trace of another soul — only a lone altar standing in the distance, weathering wind and sun in silence.
His expression was calm, utterly unsurprised by what he saw.
He didn't know exactly how long he had spent inside that small Mysterious World, but it certainly hadn't been ten days or a half-month. At the very least, several years had passed.
After so long, Ye Xiyun and the others naturally wouldn't still be waiting here. They had almost certainly returned to the Lingxiao Sect already.
He reached out with his senses toward the Dragon Bone Sword and the Artifact Spirit Fire Bird, but found no trace of them either — probably taken back by Ye Xiyun.
Qi Tianche and Fang Peng were dead. On the Dark Star, the three towering powers that had lorded over every other faction had all fallen. No one could stand in the Lingxiao Sect's path anymore. With Ye Xiyun holding down the fort at the sect, Yang Kai was perfectly at ease, so he felt little concern.
He released his spiritual sense. The entirety of Star Emperor Mountain lay quiet and still, without the slightest hint of a living presence.
It seemed the cultivators stationed on Star Emperor Mountain had all withdrawn. Whether they had followed Yang Xiuzhu and the others to the Lingxiao Sect or scattered on their own, he couldn't say. The former seemed more likely.
With no one left here, Yang Kai had no reason to linger.
He turned and extended a finger toward the vortex. It shrank rapidly, vanishing in the blink of an eye, replaced by a plain-looking bead.
One of the two Imperial Treasures — the Xuanjie Bead!
This was an extraordinary treasure. It contained an entire world within it. With it in his possession, a problem that had long lingered in Yang Kai's mind, one he'd never been able to solve, was now resolved in one stroke.
Moreover, Yang Kai sensed that if he could truly refine the Xuanjie Bead completely and make the Laws of its world whole, it might even allow a Return to Void Third Stage cultivator to break through within it and ascend to the Void King Realm!
The reason cultivators of the Dark Star could never advance to the Void King Realm was the suppression of its Heavenly and Earthly Laws.
But the Xuanjie Bead's inner world had its own Laws, independent of the Dark Star's constraints.
This was absolutely a viable approach. Though it was still too early to think too far ahead — despite Yang Kai's deep study of spatial power having expanded the Small Mysterious World to a hundred li across, he was still a long way from fully unsealing and refining it.
After studying the bead in contemplation for a time, Yang Kai stored the Xuanjie Bead back inside his body and took an unhurried step forward.
A moment ago he had stood at the summit of Lingjue Peak. The next instant, he was at the mountainside.
One more step, and he had reached the base of the mountain…
The speed was beyond imagination.
The mysteries of spatial power were infinite. During his intensive training inside the Xuanjie Bead, his mastery of this force had grown tremendously. This kind of swift movement was nearly indistinguishable from the legendary Instant Shift — utterly traceable, having broken free of spatial constraints altogether.
It was far more profound than the Space Tearing technique Yang Kai had first learned.
Space Tearing involved a process and was easily disrupted by the energy fluctuations of powerful experts. But Yang Kai's current movement was like an ibex's hoofprints on a cliff face — effortless, without the old limitations.
If there was one drawback, it was that it didn't travel as far.
With Yang Kai's current strength, a single use of Space Tearing could carry him two to three thousand li. But with this method, a single shift covered at most a dozen li or so.
Each had its advantages and disadvantages, and neither was clearly superior. But both were equally draining on his Sacred Power.
Yang Kai continued moving, honing his command of spatial power. Only after covering over a hundred thousand li did he finally bring out the Star Shuttle to continue his journey.
Sustained use of spatial power put considerable strain on his body, so the Star Shuttle was the better option for long-distance travel.
…
Across a vast, boundless plain, beast roars and shouting echoed up into the clouds. A group of four or five cultivators — old and young, men and women — were working together to besiege a massive, grotesquely shaped demon beast.
The creature had a tiger's head, elephantine legs, and a leopard's tail. It cut an imposing and savage figure.
The tiger's head was a deep coppery red, appearing incredibly hard, and strange patterns traced across its body — a sight both mystical and unsettling.
A Crack-Copper Head Tiger, an Eighth-Order demon beast with thick hide and tough flesh, notoriously hard to bring down.
The cultivators surrounding it, attempting to hunt it, were led by an elderly man at only the Sacred King Second Stage. The rest were merely at the Sacred Entry Realm. From the way they addressed and warned one another, they were clearly members of some minor family, come to this plain to hunt demon beasts and earn Sacred Crystals.
An Eighth-Order demon beast was roughly equivalent to a Sacred King Realm cultivator.
But this Crack-Copper Head Tiger was at the peak of the Eighth Order, so even surrounded, it fought with ferocious savagery, roaring as it spat out one devastating energy orb after another from its maw, keeping the minor-family cultivators from daring to get close.