Yang Kai collected his mind and steadied his emotions, refocusing his attention on Duan Hongchen.
Duan Hongchen's condition was far from optimistic. Even after consuming so many healing pills, his aura and vitality continued to decline without any sign of slowing. Yang Kai understood that it wasn't the pills he had refined that were ineffective — the injuries Duan Hongchen had sustained were simply too severe. Setting aside the damage caused by his own secret technique, the blow he had dealt during the confrontation, Duan Hongchen had already been heavily wounded in his earlier battle against Wu Kuang.
There was no way his pills could facilitate a recovery.
This is bad! Yang Kai's heart grew heavy.
Watching the Great Emperor Duan Hongchen's aura grow weaker by the moment — the light of life nearly extinguished — Yang Kai could no longer hesitate. He reached out and grasped at the void, and when he opened his hand again, a single green leaf had materialized in his palm.
The leaf was vividly veined, lush and dripping with emerald brilliance, like a piece of flawless jade. Within it pulsed an unimaginable surge of life force. Holding it in his hand felt like grasping a living, breathing creature — the vitality it contained was nothing short of astonishing.
A leaf from the Tree of Eternity!
Yang Kai had been backed into a corner. He had no choice but to take a leaf from the Tree of Eternity and hope for the best.
The Tree of Eternity, like the Warm Spirit Lotus, was a supreme treasure of heaven and earth — an artifact that had existed since the very dawn of creation. There was only one in all the world, and no second would ever appear.
The Eternity Nectar was born from the Tree of Eternity, hailed as one of the Three Divine Waters, possessing the miraculous ability to regrow flesh on bone and resurrect the dead. It was the supreme healing treasure between heaven and earth, unmatched by any pill. Unfortunately, while Yang Kai possessed the Tree of Eternity, he had no Eternity Nectar on hand. The nectar he had collected upon obtaining the tree had long since been used up.
If the Eternity Nectar possessed such miraculous properties, could the Tree of Eternity's leaves not hold similar power?
Yang Kai had no idea whether this leaf could save Duan Hongchen's life, but watching the Great Emperor teeter on the brink of imperial death, he had no choice but to make this gamble.
The moment the leaf was plucked, Yang Kai thrust it into Duan Hongchen's mouth, channeling his Emperor Yuan to aid in its absorption.
Suddenly, a faint green glow blossomed from Duan Hongchen's dantian. The emerald light rapidly intensified, completely enveloping his entire body.
Yang Kai stared in surprise, but he could clearly sense the astonishing life force contained within that green radiance. Under its canopy, the wounds across Duan Hongchen's body began mending at an extraordinary rate, and his aura, which had weakened to the extreme, started a slow but steady climb.
This discovery brought Yang Kai a measure of relief — he had done the right thing.
The leaf of the Tree of Eternity truly did possess the power to bring the dead back to life. And its potency seemed even greater than that of the Eternity Nectar.
He no longer needed to do anything more for Duan Hongchen. He only needed to stand guard.
The green light bloomed with a peculiar radiance within the dim void passage. Duan Hongchen's aura gradually stabilized. Blood began flowing through his veins again, and a clear, steady heartbeat gradually resonated from within his chest.
After the time it takes to burn a stick of incense, the green glow slowly dissipated. Duan Hongchen's condition was no longer critical, though for some reason he had yet to wake up.
Yang Kai let out a soft breath, only now allowing the exhaustion — deep and bone-weary — to wash over him.
From the moment he had ascended to Emperor realm until now, he hadn't had a single moment to rest. The heavenly tribulation and the descending power of heaven and earth during his breakthrough, the inexplicable energy explosion that had formed a black hole swallowing him whole, Wu Kuang infiltrating his sea of consciousness in an attempt at possession, and Duan Hongchen arriving to fight him off — through all of this, Yang Kai's nerves had been stretched taut as a bowstring. Only now, with the dust finally settled, could he truly relax.
Staring blankly at Duan Hongchen before him, Yang Kai was suddenly struck by a sense of unreality.
The title of Great Emperor — a name that shook the Star Boundary. These were figures spoken of only in legends. Dragons whose heads appeared but whose tails vanished, people whom an ordinary person could never hope to meet in an entire lifetime.
Ever since arriving in the Star Boundary, Yang Kai had heard the Ten Great Emperors mentioned time and again. Every person who spoke their name wore an expression of reverence and adoration. It was as though the Great Emperors were the sky itself, the very earth beneath one's feet…
He had never imagined that he would encounter Great Emperiors in the Shattered Star Sea — and not just one, but two at once!
What was even more astonishing was that both of these Great Emperiors were beings of extreme antiquity, and they had waged a life-and-death struggle right before his eyes. One of them was none other than the most savage and ruthless figure in the entire history of the Star Boundary.
He had no idea whether this was his fortune or his misfortune…
Suddenly, the eyelids of Duan Hongchen, seated before him, fluttered. Then, slowly, his eyes opened.
Yang Kai's face lit up with joy. "Senior Duan!" he called softly.
Duan Hongchen gazed at him with a complicated expression, his face grave. "What did you give me to drink? To think it could pull this old man back from the gates of death."