For all these reasons, the original version of the Golden Blood Thread Secret Art—the Demon Blood Thread Secret Art—was difficult to wield with any real potency within the Demon Blood Sect. In particular, the myriad variations it offered all demanded an enormous number of blood threads to sustain, and no one in the Demon Blood Sect could meet that requirement.
In truth, the warrior who had created this secret art had merely put forward a beautiful vision, one he could never truly perfect.
Yang Kai was a different matter entirely—as though this art had been tailor-made for him. In a sense, so long as Yang Kai possessed a sufficient quantity of golden blood within his body, he could wield the Golden Blood Thread Secret Art to a degree that even its original creator could never have envisioned.
As for the Blood Beast Secret Art, he had only managed to refine two blood beasts so far. They had come from the two Thunderfire Flying Lizards he had killed on the Demon Star Emperor Chen after slaying the mad young master Mi Tian. The Thunderfire Flying Lizards had been nothing more than ninth-rank demon beasts, and against an opponent of Yang Kai's current caliber, they simply could not make much of a difference. That was why he had never deployed them in any battle.
Blood beasts only became truly formidable once their numbers reached a critical threshold.
A single ninth-rank demon beast transformed into a blood beast posed no threat to a Void King Realm cultivator whatsoever. But several dozen? A hundred? Even a Void King Realm expert would think twice before confronting that kind of force.
High-rank demon beasts were not easy to find, and Yang Kai had never given much thought to refining blood beasts in the past. But here in the Lost Land, he felt this was something surprisingly within reach. This place was practically a paradise for high-rank demon beasts, and every one of them carried ancient bloodlines—the ideal breeding ground for refining blood beasts.
So he had dispensed with any pretense of concealment and simply used his golden blood threads to refine blood beasts directly.
It was not as though this was his most powerful trump card. Even if it was exposed, it hardly mattered.
Once Yang Kai had finished processing the carcass, Ni Guang nodded again without comment and took out the Artifact capable of detecting spatial rifts, taking the lead.
The Lost Land was rife with peril, but it was equally overflowing with opportunity.
Here one could find spirit flowers and exotic herbs long since extinct in the outside world, as well as countless ancient demon beasts that had vanished from the river of history eons ago. Under the unique natural laws of the Lost Land, they continued to thrive and propagate.
The party of four may have had two Return to Void Third Stage cultivators dragging down the group's average strength, but all the same, the combined power of Yang Kai and the others was beyond question.
Along the way to the Medicine Valley, they made occasional finds.
Just as Yang Kai had expected, they encountered all manner of high-rank demon beasts. While he could not claim that ninth-rank demon beasts littered every corner of the land, since entering the Lost Land, he genuinely had not seen a single one below eighth rank.
The party even ran into two tenth-rank demon beasts. Both radiated immensely powerful auras, and one of them was so intimidating that even Ni Guang was wary of it, steering well clear and not daring to provoke it. The other, however, was not so fortunate—it was killed by the combined efforts of all four.
Every demon beast they slew had its valuable parts harvested by Ni Guang and Xue Yue—inner cores, gallbladders, claws, teeth. After all, the body materials of ninth- and tenth-rank demon beasts were worth a small fortune, and there was no reason to leave them behind. Luo Lan received a portion of the demon beast materials as her share of the spoils.
Yang Kai, for his part, asked for nothing. He simply kept feeding his golden blood threads the flesh-and-blood essence of the demon beasts to refine more blood beasts and expand his growing army.
In just a few days, Yang Kai's blood beast army had swelled to over a dozen. Among them was even the tenth-rank demon beast they had killed together—the Steelflame Ghost Spider!
This particular demon beast possessed extraordinary physical defenses, wreathed in a ghastly white spirit flame capable of incinerating all things. A Return to Void Realm cultivator would perish the instant it made contact. Had Ni Guang not intervened, the other three would likely have been unable to bring it down on their own.
This was the most valuable blood beast Yang Kai had obtained.
Beyond the Steelflame Ghost Spider, there were also the Crimson Ridge Bird, the Star Emperor Tortoise, the Eight-Eyed Demon Toad, the Thunder Spirit Purple Sky Leopard… ancient demon beasts bearing all sorts of peculiar and extraordinary bloodlines, all taken into Yang Kai's service.
On the surface, it appeared Yang Kai had gained nothing. But at the fundamental level, he had profited more than anyone else.
What he had gained was an increase in his own personal strength. What the others had obtained were merely external materials—and converting external materials into true power required yet another process.
After several days of traveling together, Ni Guang and Xue Yue had begun to grow genuinely astonished.
They discovered that Yang Kai's golden blood threads seemed practically inexhaustible. When Yang Kai had processed the first Corpse-Tail Serpent, Ni Guang had not thought much of it—a single blood beast refined from one set of golden blood threads was nothing he would lose sleep over.
But the collection of blood beasts Yang Kai had amassed now was more than enough to make even him uneasy.
Releasing over a dozen such blood beasts at once would give him a headache that lasted a good while.
And from the looks of it, Yang Kai was nowhere near his limit.
Ni Guang could scarcely imagine what it would look like once Yang Kai had assembled these bizarre blood beasts in sufficient numbers.
He had finally begun to take Yang Kai seriously.
As they traveled onward, he occasionally used his spiritual sense to communicate with Xue Yue, trying to probe Yang Kai's background and asking whether it might be possible to recruit him into the Heng Luo Chamber of Commerce.
Xue Yue did not know all that much about Yang Kai herself, so she could not offer any definitive answers for the time being. Nevertheless, the thought of inviting Yang Kai to join had taken root in her mind as well.
A few more days passed, and Yang Kai's blood beast army had grown to over twenty-strong. With the army taking shape, encountering demon beasts no longer required Ni Guang and the others to lift a finger. Once Yang Kai's blood beasts deployed, the prey was quickly surrounded and beaten to death, creating a snowball effect on his haul.
That day, Ni Guang, who had been leading the way at the front, suddenly came to a halt. He furrowed his brow and swept his spiritual sense outward, probing their surroundings.