That was how Niu Quan had been, and that was how Yang Youwei and this group of demon beasts were as well. The fluorescent light that streamed from their bodies was clearly tied to their vitality—the more that bled away, the dimmer their life force became. As time wore on, their deaths were all but inevitable.
Niu Quan could at least be said to have come here of his own volition, seeking the end of his natural span. But Yang Youwei and the rest had been dragged into this entirely against their will.
"My lord… please, save us…" Yang Youwei caught Yang Kai's gaze and raised his head, his face wreathed in the pallor of death, his voice trembling as he cried out.
Yang Kai looked awkward. He clenched a fist in front of his mouth and coughed lightly. "I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about this. You'll just have to… hope for the best."
He didn't even understand what the Tomb of Ten Thousand Spirits was, let alone how to save Yang Youwei and the others. He could, in theory, stow them away inside the Small Mystic World, which might spare them from this fate. But the Small Mystic World was one of Yang Kai's most closely guarded secrets—outside of a handful of people he truly trusted, he would never reveal its existence. Exposing it just to save a bunch of demon beasts simply wasn't worth the cost.
Yang Youwei's expression crumpled into despair upon hearing this, though his eyes widened with surprise a moment later. "My lord… why are the two of you completely unharmed?"
Yang Kai had already noticed this himself. Among everyone who had been pulled through the tomb's gate, only he and Zhang Ruoxi were perfectly fine. All the other demon beasts were hemorrhaging vitality at a rapid clip. Had it not been for that observation, Yang Kai wouldn't have calmed down so quickly.
"I don't know," he said with a shrug. "Maybe it's because we're not creatures of the ancient land. Didn't you say this was the grave of the ancient land's inhabitants?" He offered the explanation off the top of his head—apart from that, he had no idea what was causing the situation before him.
"There's such a good thing as that…" Yang Youwei's mouth twitched, and a venomous gleam crept into his eyes.
If it weren't for you ordering us to track down that madwoman, we never would have gotten tangled up with the Tomb of Ten Thousand Spirits or ended up stranded here! And now look—your luck's perfectly fine, you don't have to worry about dying in this place at all, yet you won't even lift a finger to help!
Yang Youwei was seething inside. He wanted nothing more than to tear Yang Kai apart and vent every last ounce of his rage.
"My lord, you can't just abandon us!" Yang Youwei spat through gritted teeth.
Yang Kai frowned, irritation flickering across his face. "I already told you there's nothing I can do. Who knows what the hell is going on with this tomb?" As he spoke, his gaze drifted toward Yang Youwei, and a cold smile curled at the corner of his lips. "What, are you angry?"
Of course he was angry! Who wouldn't be angry in his situation? He was going to die anyway, so Yang Youwei's courage suddenly swelled. His eyes turned frigid as he said, "My lord, if you wash your hands of us… don't be surprised if we drag you down with us."
Yang Kai let out a laugh, casting him a sidelong look. "Drag me down with you? Have you forgotten that your life and death are nothing more than a single thought away from me? What right do you have to drag me anywhere?"
"…" Yang Youwei's face froze, and the fight drained out of him in an instant. In his fury he'd forgotten that little detail. Now the realization crashed back—he didn't have the leverage even if he wanted to drag Yang Kai down with him. The Soul Imprint was still clutched firmly in the other man's hand.
A wave of grief washed over him. He collapsed onto the ground with a thud and wailed at the top of his lungs. "Tragedy! Oh, the tragedy! I, old Yang, have worked myself to the bone through all these years of Cultivation, and just when I finally ought to be enjoying the good life, I'm about to die! Heaven has no eyes! Damn you, Heaven—I'll be your enemy until the end of time!"
His cries were nothing short of heart-rending, filled with such sorrow that the other demon beasts couldn't help but feel a pang of despair listening to them. They, too, could foresee their fate inside the tomb. They simply weren't making as dramatic a show of it as Yang Youwei—but their hearts were no less heavy.
Yang Kai snorted. "Stop crying like that, it's not a pretty sight. If we're dying, we're all dying together. At least we'll have company on the road to the Yellow Springs—won't be lonely or boring!"
Yang Youwei wiped his tears twice over and shot back, grumpily, "Easy for you to say, standing there with nothing to worry about! This is the grave of the ancient land's creatures—what's it got to do with you?"
Yang Kai pursed his lips and said nothing more. In truth, he was just as puzzled. Why were he and Zhang Ruoxi completely unaffected by the ancient land's influence while every other demon beast was bleeding out their life force, turning into streaks of fluorescent light?
Was it really just because of the nonsense he'd blurted out a moment ago?
At that moment, a sudden chorus of low, mournful howls rose through the air. Ranks of pitch-black light shot out from beneath the mountain of white bones. The instant those dark beams appeared, they took the form of all manner of bizarre and grotesque demon beasts, lunging at the surviving ones and slamming them to the ground.
Every time one of those shadowy beast forms crashed into a living demon beast, the victim's vitality dimmed further, and the fluorescent light streaming from their bodies accelerated sharply.
"Beast Souls!" Yang Youwei's face drained of color, and he let out a horrified scream.
Yang Kai's expression shifted as well. In the span of just a few breaths, over a thousand dark shadows had erupted from beneath the bone mountain. These shadows shared a certain resemblance with spirits of the dead—they radiated an intense aura of yin energy and were clearly the lingering Beast Souls of the demon beasts that had perished here.
The Tomb of Ten Thousand Spirits had stood for untold millennia, and the number of demon beasts that had died within it over those endless ages was beyond counting. After their deaths, their Beast Souls had somehow remained, and their sheer multitude was impossible to fathom.
In the blink of an eye, the sky above the bone mountain swarmed with countless Beast Souls, each one retaining the shape it had possessed in life, their auras fierce and savage. A vast, roiling shroud of black descended over the entire tomb, like a plague of locusts sweeping across the land.
Yang Youwei and the demon beasts fought back with every scrap of will they had, but how could they possibly hold? In no time at all, every last one of them was engulfed by the densely packed Beast Souls. Piercing screams rang out one after another, as though they were suffering unimaginable torments. There would be no surviving this.