Yang Kai's face was ashen. His hands weaved seal after seal, his Source Power surging ceaselessly as he exhausted tremendous effort to finally halt the advance of that strand of black qi.
But when he looked down, the entire front half of his right arm had been corroded into a wretched, blood-soaked ruin. The black qi he had managed to block writhed and struggled like a living thing, desperately squirming its way up toward his shoulder.
Yang Kai snapped his head up, eyes blazing at Yin Lesheng as he snarled through gritted teeth: "You dare ambush me!"
Yin Lesheng's expression had gone slack with disbelief. The Asura Earth Fiend was a secret art passed down exclusively within the Yellow Spring Sect — in each generation, only the most outstanding and talented disciples were permitted to Cultivate it. The process required connecting to the true Yellow Spring Purgatory, using its yin energy to refine the Earth Fiend's power. Once mastered, however, the art's might was virtually limitless — beneath the Emperor Realm, one had virtually no means of resisting it. Those struck would die on contact.
He had secretly concealed this wisp of Asura Earth Fiend within his own spatial ring, planning to activate it the moment Yang Kai took it. And sure enough, it had landed true.
What shocked him to his core was that Yang Kai had actually managed to halt the Asura Earth Fiend's advance. The man looked badly hurt, certainly, but no vital area had been touched — there was no threat to his life whatsoever.
After a brief moment of stunned silence, Yin Lesheng snapped back to action. His figure blurred as he lunged toward Yang Kai with the sweep of a great roc spreading its wings, his face twisted in a savage snarl: "Revenge — Yin Lesheng seizes the day! Ten years is too long, Yang Kai — die!"
The instant Yin Lesheng struck, Chang Hao and Chang Xian moved as well. Their Source Power surged in tandem as they activated some unknown secret art, merging their bodies into a single entity. They transformed into a streak of brilliant light and hurtled straight at Yang Kai, their combined momentum absolutely overwhelming.
The others reacted almost as quickly, shouting and charging toward Yang Kai in a flurry.
Having been forced to hand over their spatial rings earlier, they had been simmering with pent-up rage. Now, seeing Yang Kai struck by Yin Lesheng's sneak attack and clearly worse for wear, they naturally wanted to seize the chance for vengeance.
"Yang Kai, run!" Lan He cried out in alarm, watching the situation twist wildly. She urgently called out to him in a low voice.
Yang Kai's face was contorted — whether from pain or something else, a flash of madness flickered through his eyes as he spoke with cold finality: "There's no running."
This natural formation was utterly beyond his comprehension. Unless he had time to sit down and study it at leisure, there was no way to escape from here. He raised the Million Sword high overhead and brought it crashing down upon the Mountain and River Bell with a ferocious yell: "You want my life?! I'll make you die first!"
BOOM…
The impact of the Million Sword sent a wave of radiance rippling outward from the Mountain and River Bell. A terrifying sonic wave followed in its wake, making everyone's eyelids twitch uncontrollably as they screamed in terror.
But what surprised everyone was that the sound wave did not propagate far outward at all. Instead, it detonated on the spot, sending Yang Kai tumbling through the air.
"Ha ha ha! When heaven inflicts punishment, it can be forgiven — but when you bring calamity upon yourself, there is no salvation!" Chang Hao crowed with delight. He didn't understand why the Bell's reaction this time differed from before, but right now was the best opportunity to kill Yang Kai. He bellowed with all his might: "Everyone, charge together! Leave this Yang bastard buried without a grave!"
The rest of them perked up as well, surging forward from every direction.
Yang Kai's head was swimming, his senses scrambled by the shockwave. The Mountain and River Bell's sudden change in behavior had caught him completely off guard — he had never anticipated something like this, and he had no idea whether it was the artifact spirit's doing.
Right at this razor-thin threshold between life and death, the Mountain and River Bell suddenly trembled on its own — a faint, subtle vibration. And with that vibration, the void itself began to collapse.
The vast natural formation that had shrouded this entire expanse of empty space crumbled and vanished in a single instant. Before them, a black hole roughly the size of a house materialized out of thin air. The Mountain and River Bell transformed into a streak of light and plunged straight into the black hole, disappearing from sight in the blink of an eye.
In the next moment, the black hole began expanding at a terrifying speed. Simultaneously, an incomprehensibly powerful suction force erupted from within, pulling at every warrior's body.
"What's happening?!"
"What is this?!"
"No good — get out of here! The space is collapsing!"
"You Yang bastard, you're not human!"
Everyone was screaming in panic, their fear absolutely overwhelming. Even Yin Lesheng, who had been singularly focused on killing Yang Kai, had gone pale. He no longer cared whether Yang Kai lived or died — he spun around and tried to flee.
But the suction force from the black hole behind them was absurdly powerful. No matter how desperately he struggled, he could only hover in place, unable to move even a single inch.
And as the black hole continued its rapid expansion, the suction force only grew stronger and more terrifying, filling every warrior with a sense of despair and utter helplessness.
Yang Kai and Lan He, who were closest to the black hole, were the first to be sucked in, vanishing without a trace.
Moments later, warrior after warrior screamed in agony, their bodies twisted into all manner of contorted poses as they were helplessly swallowed into the black hole.
In less than ten breaths' time, every last one of the dozens of warriors — not a single exception — had been devoured by the black hole's pull. None had escaped.
And the black hole kept expanding.
Until, at some unknowable moment, it seemed to reach an absolute limit. Then it violently contracted toward its center and vanished in an instant.
The void returned to calm. In its wake, dense spatial energy fluctuations lingered, a testament to the cataclysmic anomaly that had just occurred.
……
In a haze of drowsiness, Yang Kai regained consciousness. The first thing he heard was Lan He's voice, calling out to him.
The pain in his arm was still excruciating — a kind of agony that reached into the very soul, as if his spirit itself were being torn apart.