Yang Kai followed behind Bailu, ascending along the spiral staircase that wound ever upward.
They climbed for a full quarter of an hour before the staircase finally came to an end. Before them stretched another grand hall, its side door cut into the trunk of the tree, with light streaming in from outside.
Yang Kai glanced outward and realized they were already several thousand zhang above the ground. Everything below was shrouded in haze, too blurry to make out clearly.
The moment he set foot in this place, a gaze as tangible as a physical force locked onto him.
Yang Kai's wariness surged instantly. He turned to look and saw a middle-aged man standing off to the side, hands clasped behind his back, dressed in plain robes with an unremarkable face and a head of black hair. The man was watching him with a faint smile.
Meanwhile, Yuanfei, who had arrived earlier, stood respectfully to one side, his expression stiff and guarded.
The master of Heavenly Demon Beast Mountain! The thought sprang unbidden into Yang Kai's mind. Though he couldn't spot anything particularly striking about this middle-aged man—the man looked like just another ordinary person in a crowd—the moment he laid eyes on him, Yang Kai was certain that this was the Emperor Lord Stage Three realm powerhouse who had made his move earlier. He was the master of Heavenly Demon Beast Mountain, and likewise, he was Zili's father!
Yang Kai straightened and cupped his fists respectfully. "Junior Yang Kai greets Senior!"
The middle-aged man gave a slight nod at his words but said nothing. Instead, he slowly raised one hand and pointed it at Yang Kai from across the hall.
Before Yang Kai could make sense of the gesture, his expression changed drastically. He hurriedly channeled his soul power, forming an invisible barrier in front of himself.
A soft hiss cut through the air as a surge of force hurtled toward him and shattered his defense with ease.
Yang Kai was horrified. He tapped his feet rapidly, leaping backward.
But he stopped almost immediately, realizing that the man's attack had been perfectly controlled—breaking through his defense and going no further. In other words, the strike had posed no real threat to him at all. It seemed to have been nothing more than a test...
"What does Senior mean by this?" Yang Kai frowned, puzzled. Why would an Emperor Lord Stage Three realm powerhouse bother testing him like this? One glance should have been enough to see right through his cultivation level.
"Hmm?" The middle-aged man raised an eyebrow, eyeing Yang Kai with some puzzlement. "Why didn't you use your soul artifact?"
Yang Kai replied, "I encountered a powerful enemy before, and my artifact was destroyed. I can no longer use it..."
Before he could finish, Yang Kai's eyes went wide. He stared at the middle-aged man in utter astonishment. "Senior, you..."
In that instant, he realized what had just happened—the man had uttered the words "soul artifact."
That was not something any warrior in the Divine Wandering World could know about. Soul artifacts were things that warriors from the outside world possessed. In the Divine Wandering World, because the materials needed to forge such artifacts were lacking, they could never have such items—let alone comprehend them.
Yet this middle-aged man had just spoken the name of something that should have been utterly beyond his knowledge.
How could Yang Kai not be shocked?
"What's the matter?" The middle-aged man smiled faintly. "You think there's anything this seat doesn't know?"
Though the words seemed to come out of nowhere, Yang Kai understood their full meaning. He froze on the spot, momentarily at a loss for how to respond.
"However, from the looks of it..." The middle-aged man nodded slightly. "You truly are not from this world."
Yang Kai drew a deep breath and cupped his fists. "Senior's eyes are sharp as ever. But... how did Senior..."
The middle-aged man smiled and extended his hand. In a flash, a longsword appeared in his grasp. Light flowed along its blade and energy surged from it in waves, clearly marking it as something extraordinary.
This longsword was not condensed from soul energy at all—it was a genuine...
"A soul artifact?" Yang Kai's eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. He could hardly believe what he was seeing.
In this Divine Wandering World, there was actually a warrior who possessed a true soul artifact—and not just any soul artifact, but one of considerable grade. Judging from the waves of power radiating from the longsword, it had reached the level of an Emperor Artifact. Emperor's Might seeped from the blade and Emperor's Intent overflowed from it, complementing the middle-aged man's own aura perfectly.
To the side, Yuanfei and Bailu were equally transfixed by the longsword, their eyes dazzled.
As trusted lieutenants under the master of Heavenly Demon Beast Mountain, both of them naturally knew their lord possessed such a treasure. But even with their standing, they had rarely been given the chance to see it.
Over the past several hundred years, the two had only witnessed it twice. Counting today's display, that made three.
Neither Yuanfei nor Bailu knew what the treasure actually was or where it had come from. They only knew it was incomparably sharp and tremendously powerful—far beyond any weapon forged from soul energy.
They couldn't fathom why their lord would bring out this treasure to show someone he had just met for the first time—a human, no less.
And what had the lord meant earlier when he said "not from this world"?
They exchanged a glance and saw the same bewilderment in each other's eyes.
"That's right. This is a soul artifact." The middle-aged man nodded at their unspoken question. He formed his fingers into a sword shape and gently ran them along the blade. In response to the energy resonance, the sword hummed and trembled ceaselessly, as if it possessed a spirit of its own.
"I obtained it eight hundred years ago from a fellow named Wen Zishan." The middle-aged man smiled faintly as he spoke, closely watching Yang Kai's expression. "I wonder if you know him."
"So it was Hall Master Wen..." The corner of Yang Kai's mouth twitched. Suddenly, things were beginning to make sense.
After all, according to what Wen Zishan had told him, eight hundred years ago was precisely when he had arrived at Qingyang Divine Hall, discovered the Divine Wandering Mirror, and stayed at the Qingyang Mountain Range.