At first glance, the once-arrogant blood monster had been squeezed into the shape of a rice dumpling by countless golden coins.
Seeing this, Yang Kai vaguely guessed what Kong Qi was about to do next and quickly darted back a safe distance.
Sure enough, the very instant he moved, Kong Qi suddenly let out a deep shout: "Die!"
The words had barely left his lips when a humming sound rang out.
Those countless golden coins seemed to transform into razor-sharp blades in that single instant, tightening violently and slicing through the blood monster's body…
The golden light faded, and the countless coins reverted to a single one, which Kong Qi retrieved.
But the blood monster still standing in place suddenly collapsed with a thunderous crash. As it toppled, its body shattered into thin, translucent fragments like cicada wings, dissolving into a foul pus that spread across the floor.
The great hall was quickly filled with a nauseating stench.
"Pathetic!" Kong Qi descended from the air with a flourish, letting out a cold snort. Had his face not been slightly pale, the words would have been far more convincing.
That last move had clearly drained him considerably.
Yang Kai smiled faintly and was about to say something when his expression suddenly changed. He focused his attention, scanning their surroundings.
"What's wrong?" Kong Qi frowned, puzzled by Yang Kai's abrupt reaction.
"Brother Kong… didn't you notice that the restrictive barrier in this room hasn't dissipated?" Yang Kai glanced toward the entrance and asked.
Only after this reminder did Kong Qi belatedly look around, surprised. "Now that you mention it, it really hasn't. Why is that?"
"Two possibilities!" Yang Kai's expression darkened as he looked at Kong Qi solemnly. "First, this barrier is intrinsic to the room itself and has nothing to do with the blood monster. So even though the creature is dead, the barrier remains."
"And the other possibility…" Kong Qi was no fool — he understood immediately what Yang Kai was implying. Even as he spoke, he lowered his gaze to the ground and growled: "It isn't dead!"
The words had barely left his mouth when the puddle of blood-red pus on the floor began to flow and writhe rapidly, pouring toward the pool at the center of the room as if it were a living thing.
"It really isn't dead?!" Kong Qi turned pale with shock.
The blood monster had already been sliced into countless thin pieces by his secret technique combined with the attack of his Artifact. Even so, it still hadn't been destroyed. That spoke volumes about how bizarre this creature was.
"The blood pool is the key!" Yang Kai seemed to have realized something.
As he spoke, the blood in the pool was bubbling and boiling ever more furiously, and it looked as though another blood monster was about to be born from it at any moment.
"This is getting ridiculous!" Kong Qi couldn't help but take several steps back, his face filled with wariness. He suggested: "Why don't we join forces, break through that barrier, and get out of here first?"
He had absolutely no desire to keep fighting something that was virtually impossible to kill.
Yang Kai stood rooted in place, seemingly not hearing a word.
"Did you hear what I said?" Kong Qi frowned and raised his voice.
"Oh…" Yang Kai finally responded. "No need for all that — I just had a brilliant idea!"
"What?" Kong Qi asked, baffled.
But Yang Kai had no intention of answering him. Instead, he walked up to the blood pool on his own, assumed a peculiar stance, extended his palm forward, and grabbed at the air. Drawing a deep breath, he bellowed: "Ocean-Embracing Divine Art — suck it in for me!"
"What on earth…?" Kong Qi's mouth twitched uncontrollably. He genuinely didn't know what to make of Yang Kai. In all his years of experience and knowledge, he had never heard of any technique called the Ocean-Embracing Divine Art. It had to be either something Yang Kai had made up on the spot, or some worthless, bottom-tier skill.
But in the very next moment, what unfolded before Kong Qi's eyes nearly made them pop out of his skull.
The churning, writhing blood within the pool was actually being drawn upward by Yang Kai, streaming ceaselessly into his palm and vanishing without a trace!
The blood in the pool churned even more violently, and faint roars and struggles could be heard within. But since the blood monster's body hadn't fully reformed, it was utterly powerless to resist — it could only be pulled by an inexorable force, converging toward Yang Kai's outstretched palm.
Yang Kai's palm was like a bottomless abyss at that moment, swallowing the blood saturated with evil energy.
Kong Qi stared, dumbfounded, as a tidal wave of shock crashed through his mind. He kept rubbing his eyes, telling himself this had to be an illusion…
But no matter how he looked at it, the scene before him was undeniably real.
At the same time, while maintaining that bizarre stance — and with the whole thing hidden from Kong Qi's line of sight — Yang Kai gripped the Mysterious World Bead in his palm and sent a Divine Sense transmission to his Avatar: "Are you sure you can refine this stuff?"
The Avatar replied: "These pools of blood contain an enormous amount of energy. They're incredibly useful for me. The Devouring Battle Art devours all things — how could a mere pool of blood be any exception? I've already refined two Dao Origin Realm cultivators!"
"All right, if you say so…" Yang Kai said nothing more. Had the Avatar not suddenly contacted him just now, he never would have used the Mysterious World Bead to absorb the entire pool's worth of blood into the Small Mysterious World. He paused briefly, then cautioned: "But be careful. Whatever you do, don't let those evil thoughts contaminate your Divine Sense!"
"I understand."
In the great hall, Kong Qi's expression shifted through a dizzying array of emotions — suspicion, astonishment, terror, and everything in between…