After finishing his words, Yang Kai closed his eyes and gathered his focus, seizing every moment to restore his strength.
He had swallowed quite a few spirit pills earlier, and their medicinal essence had now coagulated within his flesh and meridians without fully dissolving. This left the source power in his body somewhat obstructed. What he needed to do now was break down all that residual medicinal energy and guide it into every fiber of his being.
The artifact spirit remained outside the range of the black flames, continuously hammering its own body with the war hammer, working itself into a frenzy.
Time trickled by. A full two hours passed before the artifact spirit finally managed to smother the last few small flames clinging to its form.
However, after what had just happened, the artifact spirit seemed to have realized that these black flames were not to be trifled with. It no longer dared to charge inward. Instead, it stood outside, roaring and shrieking ceaselessly, restlessly posturing and provoking Yang Kai.
Yang Kai paid it no attention, remaining cross-legged in meditation, regulating his breath and restoring his power.
Another two hours passed. Then, at a certain moment, Yang Kai's eyes snapped open. The weak exhaustion from before was gone; his gaze was sharp and luminous once more.
He rose to his feet and flashed a savage grin at the artifact spirit. "You're done for!"
"ROAR!" The artifact spirit bellowed in fury.
But Yang Kai had already flickered into motion, teleporting out of the black flames' coverage in an instant. The next moment, he appeared directly before the artifact spirit, his eyes blazing like stars as he stared into its crimson gaze.
"Look at me!" Yang Kai barked in a low command.
The artifact spirit might not have understood his words, but instinctively it raised its head and locked eyes with him.
The moment their gazes met, a golden light flickered in Yang Kai's left eye. The World-Destroying Demon Eye had been activated, and a soul-binding, mind-stabilizing mystic force rippled outward, pressing down upon the artifact spirit.
The artifact spirit's expression froze blank.
And in the next instant, the phantom of a war blade materialized from within Yang Kai's eyes. With a shimmer, it hovered over the sea of the artifact spirit's consciousness. The blade was barely five feet long, meticulously crafted throughout, its hilt carved with dragons and phoenixes, the entire form radiating a terrifyingly powerful aura.
The Soul-Slaying Blade!
This was the first time Yang Kai had used it since refining this Emperor Treasure.
The artifact spirit was, after all, the manifestation of an Emperor Treasure. He dared not be careless in the slightest, so he had led with his strongest technique.
The Soul-Slaying Blade hummed ceaselessly. A ring of light radiated outward from its body, and countless intricate runes swirled around the blade.
Yang Kai gave a low shout: "Heaven-Breaking Strike!"
As the words left his lips, the Soul-Slaying Blade crashed downward with devastating force.
"ROAR!" The artifact spirit let out an agonized howl, as if it had suffered a grievous wound. Its entire body flickered and destabilized, on the verge of collapse at any moment.
The Heaven-Breaking Strike was, after all, a soul technique Yang Kai had learned from Tian Yan. In the time since, he had spent every spare moment using this technique to refine the Soul-Slaying Blade. That was why the first strike carried such tremendous power.
Still, because his refining time had been far too short—and because Yang Kai's cultivation was far too low—he had not fully mastered the Soul-Slaying Blade. There was still tremendous room for this strike's power to grow.
But it was enough.
Under that single blow, the artifact spirit staggered backward, utterly powerless to resist. Its solidified form dimmed, clearly teetering on the edge of dissolution.
Yet it showed no fear. If anything, it grew even more savage. It raised the war hammer high overhead, poised to smash it down upon Yang Kai.
Yang Kai's eyes narrowed. This is bad. In desperation, a snow-white lotus bud appeared at the corner of his left eye.
"Lotus Birth!" The bud flashed and vanished, reappearing within the sea of the artifact spirit's consciousness as well. Drawing upon its soul power as a fountainhead, it slowly began to bloom.
Two great soul techniques, combined with a soul-type Emperor Treasure—Yang Kai had essentially played nearly every card in his hand, and only then did the artifact spirit's movements lock rigid in place.
From his left eye, a thin trickle of golden blood slowly ran down his cheek.
As the lotus gradually opened, the light across the artifact spirit's body grew dimmer and dimmer. In the blink of an eye, it had turned translucent.
Soon, where the artifact spirit had once stood, nothing remained but the phantom of the blooming lotus. Once it had fully opened, it burst apart with a soft pop—leaving only the war hammer behind before Yang Kai.
Yang Kai gasped for breath, his face deathly pale. Before he could make any move, the war hammer gave a faint tremble and began to drift, attempting to flee.
"It's not dead yet?!" Yang Kai exclaimed in disbelief. The artifact spirit had taken both of his soul techniques head-on and still hadn't been slain on the spot. Its tenacity was far beyond what he had expected.
But this was the end of the line. As the war hammer threatened to tear through space and escape, Yang Kai hurled out the Mysterious World Bead, forming hand seals as the Law of Space swirled around it. Before the bead's surface, a spatial rift suddenly cracked open.
"Stop it!" Yang Kai roared.
From within the spatial rift, a colossal arm thrust outward—the arm of his Dharma Body. It spread its five fingers wide and pressed down like a mountain, sealing the surrounding space so completely that the war hammer had nowhere to run.
Then it clenched its fist, seizing the war hammer in its palm, and withdrew it back into the Minor Mysterious World.