Now, however, was not the best time to explore these gifts. Yang Kai was like a man who possessed a treasure vault brimming with riches—he had the key, and was even standing inside the vault itself.
But he had no time to sort through his treasures!
Reining in his thoughts, he turned his head to look toward where Xue Yue had been.
He hadn't forgotten that in a place like this, there was someone still worrying about him, still calling his name over and over, still looking to him as her anchor.
But when he looked, Yang Kai's brow furrowed—there was no one in that direction. Xue Yue was nowhere to be seen.
He swept his surroundings with his gaze, extending his Divine Sense as far as it could reach, but Xue Yue's figure was utterly absent from the void.
Where had she gone? Yang Kai frowned to himself. He didn't for a moment believe that Xue Yue had seen danger and abandoned him. He hadn't known the woman long, and their acquaintance wasn't exactly deep, but from their brief, candid exchange, he was certain she wasn't that kind of person.
Moreover, within this spatial rift, someone who had never cultivated spatial power would be as helpless as a headless fly no matter how strong they were—even after spending tens of millions of years, she would never find her way out on her own.
So she couldn't have gone to search for an exit by herself.
Had she run into some kind of danger? The thought struck him like a jolt, but what danger could exist inside this spatial rift? While it was a chaotic expanse of void adrift outside the Lost Domain, the two of them had encountered no threats whatsoever along the way.
After standing in place and mulling it over for a moment, Yang Kai set off. Whatever the case, he needed to find Xue Yue first.
He took a single step, and his body appeared over a hundred li away. His expression was composed, each stride in perfect harmony with the mysteries of space. In the past, Yang Kai would have needed to tear through space just to cover several hundred or even a thousand li in one go. Later, as his mastery of spatial power deepened, he could manage short-range teleportation of only a dozen or so li—a negligible distance in truth.
But now, he could casually step across a hundred li in a single stride, and that was nowhere near his limit.
As he moved, he verified and refined his comprehension of spatial power, building upon the insights he had gained from devouring the spiral force.
In his estimation, even if Xue Yue had wandered off, she couldn't have gone far. In a place like this, even if she wanted to put distance between them, she couldn't.
So he used his previous location as the center and expanded his search outward in concentric rings.
Sure enough, after roughly half an incense stick's time, Yang Kai spotted Xue Yue!
Only she was in a truly wretched state. She was fleeing in panic through the desolate void, her long hair in disarray, and a streak of crimson blood trickled from the corner of her lips.
Chasing after her was a bizarre demon beast roughly seven or eight zhang in length, resembling a sea lion of some sort. The creature's body was fat and bloated, its tail wide and flat. It undulated through the void at an unhurried pace, following behind Xue Yue with lazy ease, occasionally letting out a piercing, shrill cry.
When Yang Kai laid eyes on the demon beast, his pupils contracted and shock flickered across his face.
Because he could clearly feel from the creature an aura that shared the same origin as his own—spatial power!
Every movement of the beast, every undulation of its body, carried within it the mysteries of space. It seemed able to glide along spatial trajectories with its very body. So despite appearing incredibly clumsy, it could effortlessly keep pace with Xue Yue as she fled for her life.
Or rather, it had no intention of killing her immediately. It was toying with her like a cat with a mouse, finding amusement in the chase.
Just as Yang Kai spotted Xue Yue, the beast opened its wide, catfish-like maw and spat out a beam of visible energy.
The energy was like a razor-sharp blade, slicing through space as though it were paper, hurtling straight toward Xue Yue's back.
Sensing the terrifying force bearing down on her, Xue Yue's beautiful face drained of color. She bit down hard on the tip of her tongue, and the phantom of her bonded spirit—the Xiezhi—instantly manifested above her head. The Xiezhi was covered in thick, dark fur, its eyes bright and piercing, a single horn rising from its forehead. It looked every bit the powerful and fearsome creature it was. The moment it appeared, it opened its jaws and roared, hurling itself backward in a desperate charge.
The Xiezhi was a bonded spirit whose combat power rivaled Xue Yue's own—ordinary Return Void Realm Third Stage cultivators were no match for it.
Yet the attack cleaved the Xiezhi's phantom clean in half.
With a mournful wail, the phantom dissipated into nothing.
As its host, Xue Yue took the backlash as though struck by a devastating blow. She opened her mouth once more, spitting out another mouthful of blood, her delicate frame swaying as though she might collapse at any moment. Even her flight speed slowed noticeably.
Xue Yue didn't dare look back. Her once luminous eyes had grown dim and lifeless.
At that very moment, a figure descended from above, sweeping her into an embrace.
Xue Yue lifted her head with difficulty, and immediately saw Yang Kai's resolute face. Even in the surrounding darkness, she felt as though it radiated endless light—as if he had lit a lantern on her bleak, darkened path.
"You're finally here!" Xue Yue forced a faint smile, her voice barely a whisper.