"Take a look at this. I grabbed it from Wu Mengchuan's hand earlier. Before he died, he seemed to want to destroy it — I'm not sure what secret it holds." The Dharma Body tossed something to Yang Kai just before entering the Mysterious World Bead.
Yang Kai caught it and examined it carefully, only to find that it was a jade slip — though one that was clearly ancient, seemingly passed down from a very distant era.
Moreover, a great many restrictions had been laid upon the jade slip. Yang Kai attempted to decipher them but found absolutely no way in.
The restrictive formations were extremely old and complex. After studying them for a while, Yang Kai couldn't make heads or tails of them.
The Dharma Body had said he snatched this from Wu Mengchuan's hand, and Wu Mengchuan had even tried to destroy the jade slip on the verge of death. It seemed this slip was quite significant — likely concealing some deep secret that Wu Mengchuan didn't want Yang Kai to obtain and unravel.
What kind of secret could it be, that Wu Mengchuan would fight with his dying breath to destroy it rather than let anyone else learn of it?
Wu Mengchuan was a descendant of the Heaven-Devouring Emperor, and the Shattered Star Sea was where the Heaven-Devouring Emperor had perished. Yang Kai considered the matter from every angle and ultimately concluded that the jade slip must be connected to the Heaven-Devouring Emperor.
He stored the jade slip away with care, then leapt off the shattered star.
After Wu Mengchuan's death, his Seven-Star Seal had also fallen into Yang Kai's possession, and naturally his Space Ring as well. But there was nothing of real value inside — the only thing of note, the Blood Spirit Bottle inherited from the Heaven-Devouring Emperor, should have been a priceless treasure, but it had already been destroyed by the Mountain and River Bell.
Having absorbed Wu Mengchuan's Seven-Star Seal, Yang Kai's own star seal showed no signs of upgrading.
Rumor held that if one could upgrade a star seal to the highest level — the Nine-Star Seal — one could locate the inheritance of the Heaven-Devouring Emperor.
Yang Kai figured this was nothing more than hearsay. Setting aside the question of how many people one would have to kill to upgrade a star seal to its peak, the Heaven-Devouring Emperor's inheritance itself wasn't something just anyone could obtain. Yang Kai had already experienced firsthand how powerful and terrifying the Heaven-Devouring Art was — even if someone did acquire it here, it might not necessarily be a blessing.
So Yang Kai had never been particularly invested in the matter from the beginning, and he doubted anyone could actually upgrade their star seal to the top level.
One day later, Yang Kai returned to the Origin Sea.
The last time, because he had encountered Wu Mengchuan and was eager to interrogate him for information about the Heaven-Devouring Art, he had left the Origin Sea. But now that the Dharma Body had broken through his bottleneck, it was only natural to return.
There was still a great deal of Origin Power in the Origin Sea that he hadn't absorbed and refined, and he hadn't yet laid eyes on the legendary complete Origin. How could he pass that up?
But when Yang Kai arrived at the Origin Sea, he found that times had changed — everything was vastly different from before.
A glance revealed that the Origin Sea had shrunk considerably in area, and the number of cultivators present had grown enormously. He had no idea what upheavals had occurred in the Origin Sea during the month he'd been gone.
Above the Origin Sea, battle clusters of every size filled the sky in countless numbers. Innumerable cultivators had gathered here, and cultivators were constantly being slain, tumbling from the air and plunging into the Origin Sea without a trace.
Compared to before, the fighting here had clearly intensified many times over.
Yang Kai couldn't help but furrow his brow. So many people had flooded into the Origin Sea — someone must have spread the word, drawing cultivators here in droves.
This only confirmed that the Origin Sea was indeed a remarkable place.
But more people meant more conflict, and in such a chaotic environment, the ability to absorb and refine Origins in peace was worth its weight in gold.
As Yang Kai flew onward, he found the situation was even worse than what he'd seen at first glance.
Not only had fighting between cultivators increased, but the entire Origin Sea was now emanating an extremely eerie aura. Yang Kai could clearly sense that the Origin Sea was slowly flowing in a certain direction, and the scale of this flow was even greater than the disturbance he himself had caused back then.
Could someone else possess a treasure similar to the Mysterious World Bead? Otherwise, how could the Origin Sea exhibit such an anomaly?
Suspicion filled his mind.
But he had no intention of lingering on the outside. He planned to venture deep into the interior, just as before, to assess the situation. The Origin Power in those depths was far more concentrated and pure — one day of absorption and refinement there was worth a month's time on the surface.
Suddenly, Yang Kai seemed to sense something and looked toward a certain direction.
And from that direction, a pair of bright eyes happened to be looking right back at him.
The moment their gazes met, Yang Kai's eyes lit up. He immediately changed course and shot toward her.
The person looking back at him from that direction was none other than Liu Yan.
After entering the Shattered Star Sea a year ago, Yang Kai had parted ways with Liu Yan and the others. Sister Hua had also gone off to seek her own fortune, leaving him alone the entire time — and the loneliness crept in from time to time.
He never expected to run into them again here in the Origin Sea.
It was a coincidence, yet it was also inevitable.
The Origin Sea now held some seventy to eighty percent of the surviving cultivators in the entire Shattered Star Sea. Liu Yan and her group must have heard about the Origin Sea as well, which was why they had come.
And the Zhang family's little girl stood beside Liu Yan at this very moment, looking poised and elegant, her complexion healthy.
As Yang Kai flew over, Liu Yan quietly gave Zhang Ruoxi a nudge and whispered something to her. In the next instant, Zhang Ruoxi turned to look toward Yang Kai, and her eyes instantly brightened.