As though struck by a bolt of lightning, Lü Guichen's body hurtled backward through the air. He coughed up a mouthful of blood mid-flight, then crashed to the ground like a dead fish.
After landing, he scrambled to his feet in a hurry, staring at Yang Kai with a mixture of terror and wariness. His voice trembled as he spoke: "You… that's impossible!"
He hadn't bothered to probe Yang Kai's cultivation realm earlier, because in his mind, Yang Kai's strength was definitely inferior to his own. After all, that brat had only been at the Saint Realm all those years ago. Here on the Suspended Continent, Lü Guichen had been surrounded by dense spiritual energy and countless treasure materials, advancing his cultivation at a terrifying pace. Back then, he had already been vastly stronger than this boy — how could he possibly lose now?
He simply hadn't taken Yang Kai seriously!
But the instant the Saint Power rebounded from Yang Kai's body, he knew something was terribly wrong.
That brat's Saint Power was far more abundant and refined than his own. Compared to Yang Kai, the quality and quantity of his own Return Void Second Stage Saint Power were nothing more than the faint light of a firefly trying to outshine the full moon!
Lü Guichen simply refused to believe it!
Could it be that this brat had already reached the Void King Realm?
Only at that moment did he remember to release his Divine Sense to probe Yang Kai's cultivation.
"Return Void Third Stage!" Once he confirmed Yang Kai's realm, Lü Guichen's expression changed drastically. He collapsed to the ground on his backside, his mind utterly blank, his lips only able to murmur: "How is that possible… how can this be…"
He simply could not believe what he had sensed. It had only been a few decades! The boy standing before him had leapt all the way from the Saint Realm to the Return Void Third Stage!
What kind of terrifying speed and aptitude was that?
Could it be that the flow of time in this wretched place was different from the outside world — that while he had spent a few decades here, centuries had passed out there? Otherwise, how could this brat possess such monstrous cultivation?
All manner of bizarre thoughts flashed through Lü Guichen's mind like a revolving lantern. He was completely dazed.
Seeing him look as though he'd just lost his father, Yang Kai let out a cold snort. "Ignorant!"
Lü Guichen was no one of importance within Purple Star. The information available to him was limited. In truth, not only was Yang Kai's progress extraordinary — even Gu Jianxin and Zi Donglai had advanced at a perfectly respectable pace.
But when it came to a real comparison, none of them could hold a candle to him.
After all, they all had powerful organizations backing them. They never had to worry about cultivation resources, and they had any number of experts offering them guidance and imparting profound insights.
Yang Kai, on the other hand, had fought his way forward every step of the journey. He had relied entirely on his own exploration, and only occasionally ran into a benefactor or two who offered him a bit of pointers. In this regard, Yang Kai freely admitted he could not compare to the young masters of those great powers. But precisely because he had to figure everything out on his own, his comprehension of the Heavenly Dao and the Martial Dao ran far deeper than theirs.
He glanced sideways at Lü Guichen and smirked. "I didn't kill you back then. Now I rather regret it."
Lü Guichen shuddered involuntarily. Some clarity returned to his glazed eyes, and he let out a cold huff. "What do you intend to do about it?"
So what if Yang Kai's realm was one stage higher than his own? Lü Guichen figured that if he went all out, Yang Kai wouldn't be able to kill him easily. Having recovered his composure, his tone grew considerably firmer.
"You've made some decent progress over the years. Gobbled down quite a few treasure materials, I see? Tsk tsk… But with your Saint Power fluctuating like that and all those impurities clogging up your body, it's obvious you just swallowed everything raw. Did you know that's a tremendous waste of those materials' medicinal potency? And consuming too many does you no good either."
As Yang Kai held forth with ease, a flicker of panic crossed Lü Guichen's eyes — because he realized that everything the other man said was spot on.
All these years on the Suspended Continent, he had been alone with nothing to do but cultivate. In the first few years, he had tried to find a way to escape this place, but as time dragged on, he had given up that hope entirely. Even a figure like the Ghost Ancestor had been trapped here for two thousand years. How could he possibly get out?
Once he had accepted that, Lü Guichen had focused solely on raising his strength, hoping that one day he could shatter the void and escape this wretched place under his own power.
And to raise his strength, he naturally needed to consume treasure materials.
But he wasn't an alchemist. Even when he gathered herbs on the Suspended Continent, he had no way to refine them. Left with no alternative, he could only swallow them whole, like a demon beast.
The result was that the residual impurities from those materials had accumulated inside him, layer upon layer, becoming increasingly difficult to expel. By now, they had already begun to interfere with his Cultivation. Every time he circulated his Saint Power, his meridians ached with a dull, persistent pain.
He didn't know what the long-term consequences would be, but he knew it was far from a good sign.
Now that Yang Kai had laid bare his condition in a single sentence, Lü Guichen's eyes lit up. "You know what's wrong with me — you know how to cure it?"
"And what if I do?" Yang Kai tilted his nose skyward, the very picture of someone who couldn't be bothered to take Lü Guichen seriously.
"Teach me!"
"Hah!" Yang Kai burst out laughing. "Are you here to tell jokes? I haven't even settled the score with you for what happened back then."