A surge of fury churned in Yang Kai's heart. Fighting this young woman reminded him of his helplessness against Stone Fire in the Ancient Land over a year ago.
If he couldn't kill Stone Fire, could he at least kill this brat?
That fury erupted like magma within his chest, setting every drop of blood in his body boiling. Though he still couldn't match the girl's terrifying brute force and was stuck defending far more than attacking, the more he fought the fiercer he became, the more his fighting spirit soared. His control over his own power grew increasingly fluid with every exchange.
Boom, boom, boom…
Two figures tangled and clashed, soaring and crashing among the mountains. Countless peaks crumbled. Birds scattered and beasts fled across the land. Every so often, Yang Kai was sent hurtling through the air, spraying blood from his mouth. Yet every time, he stubbornly hurled himself back at her without a shred of hesitation.
His robes were all but shredded — tattered strips hanging off him in tatters. His upper body was completely bare, and only a few scraps of cloth remained below to preserve his dignity.
He had never possessed a defensive Artifact like a treasure armor. It wasn't that he'd never obtained one — over the years he had slain many powerful cultivators, and among the rings of the fallen there had always been some form of armor-type Artifact. But Yang Kai had never refined any of them, because he felt he didn't need them. Treasure armor could indeed provide an extra layer of protection, but it also severed one's keen perception of danger.
Relying too heavily on external tools was never a good thing.
Ordinary clothing couldn't possibly withstand such violent combat. At this rate, it wouldn't be long before Yang Kai was fighting in nothing at all.
The girl, however, seemed entirely unfazed. She showed no particular embarrassment. She hadn't eaten pork, but she'd seen a pig run — it was just what it was. Besides, for someone who was about to die, she didn't see what a few glances mattered.
Compared to Yang Kai's wretched state, the girl was practically strolling through a garden. No matter how savage Yang Kai's attacks were, she neutralized them with effortless ease. That monstrous brute force of hers was something no ordinary person could possess — even the most powerful Monster Race warrior might not be able to match her in raw strength.
"Pfft…" Yang Kai spat out another mouthful of blood and went flying backward, carving a deep furrow through the earth. The strip of cloth he'd been holding over his loins finally gave up the ghost.
The girl frowned slightly. This person's tenacity was almost absurd.
Against a typical Emperor Realm cultivator, she would have long since pounded them into a bloody paste. Yet this guy was still bouncing around, looking as wretched as could be. His fighting spirit, moreover, was climbing higher and higher. Thanks to the vigorous life force contained within that strange golden blood — without it, he would surely have died already.
There was definitely something peculiar about all that golden blood.
Yang Kai struggled to his feet, spat out a mouthful of blood, and gazed at the girl with fierce, defiant eyes that blazed with an eerie light.
His unyielding spirit in adversity, his desperate struggle in the face of certain doom — it all brought him back to that moment years ago when he had obtained the Demonic God's Secret Tome. It was precisely because of that indomitable pride that he had been acknowledged by the Tome and opened the path toward the martial way.
Today, here and now, was remarkably similar to those days.
Only so much had changed over time — he had nearly forgotten what that feeling was like.
But this bitter battle had finally helped him reclaim a treasure he had long discarded.
An unyielding spine — who could break him?
A subtle stir of awareness brought a flash of understanding. His blood surged with even greater ferocity. Across his wound-covered body, blood rapidly coagulated. A powerful regenerative ability manifested, and in the blink of an eye, every injury had vanished. Yang Kai brushed a hand across his skin, and the dried scabs flaked away, revealing flesh as smooth and new as a newborn's.
"So that's how it is!" His eyes gleamed with realization.
Years of fighting with the aid of Secret Techniques and Artifacts had nearly made him forget the unyielding defiance in his bones. Today's sudden epiphany had yielded no small reward.
"You…" The girl's delicate brows knit together. She instinctively sensed that something about Yang Kai had changed. But what exactly that change was, she couldn't quite put her finger on.
Yang Kai retrieved a fresh set of clothing from his Space Ring and dressed himself. As his eyelids opened and closed, a sharp light shone forth like something almost physical.
He beckoned to the girl. "Come again!"
The girl bristled, gritting her teeth. "Since you're in such a hurry to die, I'll grant your wish."
She made no visible move, yet in the next instant she had closed the distance to Yang Kai and thrown a bare, unadorned punch straight at him.
Yang Kai raised his hand to block. At the moment of contact, his eyes lit up, and his full power erupted at once.
BOOM…
Yang Kai was sent flying once more. But the girl was also forced to take an involuntary step backward.
"What…?" The girl was stunned. No matter how hard Yang Kai had tried before, he hadn't been able to so much as budge her. Yet after this single exchange, she'd been forced back a step. The power behind that punch was incomparably greater than anything he'd shown before.
In such a short span of time, what kind of transformation had he undergone to achieve such growth?
"Hahaha!" A peal of laughter rang out as Yang Kai came flying back once more, descending upon her like a tiger leaping down the mountain. "Give you an inch and you want a mile! Going soft like that — you really are just a girl after all!"
The girl seethed. Her fist became a tempest, raining down upon Yang Kai.
In an instant, fist shadows filled the sky.
Moments later, the two figures separated. The ground beneath the girl's feet was cracked and splintered, and she was breathing lightly. Yang Kai's brand-new clothes had been torn to shreds again, his skin split in countless places, streams of golden blood trickling across his body like tiny brooks. He looked utterly wretched, yet he couldn't have cared less — if anything, he grew more emboldened with every exchange.
The girl finally turned serious. She looked Yang Kai up and down and asked, "What is your name?"
Back in front of the City Lord's mansion, she had asked the same thing. But that time she had only asked on a whim, and had immediately dismissed the answer without a care, because she hadn't put Yang Kai in her eyes at all. She had been certain he would die. And what did it matter to know a dead man's name?