Life aboard the warship was as still as a dead well, utterly unremarkable.
Time slipped by as Yang Kai delved into various secret arts and devoted himself to Cultivation.
One day, a disciple came knocking at his door to report: "Sect Master, we've arrived!"
"Already?" Yang Kai's eyes snapped open, a flash of excitement hidden within them. His figure blurred, and he vanished from the cabin, reappearing in the main hall in the blink of an eye.
The warship hung silently in the void, a million li outside the borders of a Cultivation Star, and had stopped advancing.
The numerous disciples responsible for piloting the vessel all turned to look at Yang Kai the moment he appeared, waiting for his command.
Without his order, they dared not act rashly.
But… was this Cultivation Star truly the Sect Master's homeland? It looked rather like a dying ember on its last breath.
As the disciples gazed toward Tongxuan Continent, their faces were filled with confusion.
Yang Kai's expression darkened the instant his eyes fell upon Tongxuan Continent.
Back when his discernment hadn't been sharp enough, when he hadn't yet witnessed the splendors of the Star Domain, he'd never realized there was anything wrong with Tongxuan Continent. On the contrary, he used to think it was incomparably rich—at the very least, the Central Capital couldn't hold a candle to it.
But now, having returned from the Star Domain after decades of struggle and tempering, he could see the problem at a single glance.
It was old.
It was aging and declining, a desolate, sorrowful aura clinging to the star like a shroud. The dull, gray pallor spread across its surface like the age spots of an old man, announcing the slow decay of this Cultivation Star.
Yang Kai's heart clenched.
He hadn't known his homeland would look like this. Or rather, the old him had never even realized there was an issue.
It seemed the fact that the Saint Realm was the pinnacle of Cultivation on Tongxuan Continent wasn't without reason.
It was different from the Dark Star. The Dark Star was rich in world spiritual energy, but it was suppressed by some invisible heavenly law that prevented martial artists from comprehending the mysteries of the Void King Realm.
Tongxuan Continent had no such heavenly law suppressing it. It was simply that… the spiritual energy was too thin, utterly insufficient to support martial artists advancing to higher realms.
The Saint Realm was the absolute limit.
In that moment, Yang Kai grasped the root cause of Tongxuan Continent's plight with perfect clarity.
"Sect Master, shall we…" A nearby disciple turned his head toward him, respectfully seeking his orders.
"Take us down," Yang Kai said lightly, waving his hand.
The disciples obeyed. Guiding the warship, they plunged downward.
The dozen-zhang-long warship pierced through the murky haze, cut through Tongxuan Continent's atmosphere, and descended with a thunderous presence onto this backward martial world.
Yang Kai's divine sense expanded like a tidal wave, instantly blanketing an area of a hundred li in every direction. He needed to confirm his current position.
The spiritual energy was thin, but laced with traces of demonic energy.
The Demon Territory? Yang Kai raised an eyebrow.
Tongxuan Continent was divided into three great domains: the Human Territory, the Demon Territory, and the Beast Domain. Three races stood in balance, with the Human Territory occupying the largest share—nearly seventy percent of the continent—followed by the Demon Territory. The Beast Domain was the smallest.
He hadn't expected to arrive in the Demon Territory the moment he returned to Tongxuan Continent. The result caught him off guard.
Then, suddenly, Yang Kai lifted his head and gazed in a particular direction.
Within the range of his divine sense, several auras of life had abruptly entered his perception. One of them radiated the cultivation of the second level of the Saint Realm, and it struck Yang Kai as faintly familiar—though he couldn't immediately place who it was.
A second-level Saint Realm cultivator in the Demon Territory… there were only a handful of such individuals. It had to be one of the Demon Generals.
The demon race had four great Demon Generals, all of them at the Saint Realm.
The other party had clearly detected the warship's arrival and rushed over to investigate.
Perfect—an opportunity to gather some information. That was what Yang Kai thought as he said calmly, "Wait here. I'm going to meet someone."
With that, his figure flickered, and he was outside the warship, standing in quiet anticipation.
A hundred li was nothing to Yang Kai now—he could cross the distance in the blink of an eye. Having mastered spatial power, he could move through spatial rifts, bypassing the constraints of space entirely.
But for a Demon General at the second level of the Saint Realm who lacked a suitable flying Artifact, even pushing himself to the limit, it took a full quarter of an hour to arrive.
After that quarter of an hour, a vast mass of black qi appeared in Yang Kai's line of sight. The qi roiled with violent aggression and the stench of blood, and several figures lurked within its depths.
The black qi churned forward, quickly closing to within a hundred zhang of Yang Kai before coming to a stop.
The figures within finally revealed themselves. The one at the front was tall and powerfully built, his expression fierce and terrifying. He gripped a spear-like Artifact in his hand, cutting an imposing figure.