P.S. Here's the May Day update! Don't rush off to have fun after reading—remember to cast your monthly votes first. The Qidian 515 Fan Festival is offering double monthly tickets right now, and there are other activities with red envelopes too, so go check them out!
Happy May Day, everyone—eat well, have fun, rest well, and definitely stay safe if you're heading out. One update today. Yep, that's it. Please put down your bricks and leave them on the ground. ^-^
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The colossal palm bore down from above, a wave of annihilation crashing toward him. Mo Duo let out a sigh, closed his eyes, and offered his neck to the blade.
But at that instant, Yang Kai's furious roar exploded beside his ears: "Are you just going to stand there? Do you want to die?!"
That roar was like a magic command. Mo Duo's eyes snapped open. Driven by the primal instinct to survive, he channeled every ounce of his Demon Saint power and raised both fists to meet the descending palm.
Only then did he realize that the force that had been restraining him the whole time had vanished. The spatial turbulence binding his body had dissipated completely, allowing him to unleash his full strength.
But the moment he struck, Mo Duo was filled with regret.
He asked himself—what was he doing? He was a Demon Saint, and here he was resisting the Great Demon God?
Everything he had done was purely instinctive, not a single action processed through rational thought. It was the drive for survival that had pushed him. On the boundary between life and death, no one could afford to think too much.
Regardless, this was the full eruption of a Demon Saint's power.
At the same time, not far from him, Yang Kai wore an equally solemn expression. He raised the Demon Soldier War Hammer in his hand, poured every last wisp of his demonic qi into it, and brought it smashing upward against the giant palm.
The laws of space rippled and coiled around the war hammer. Wherever it passed, the void churned and shattered. More than that, Yang Kai had also woven traces of the laws of time into the blow. In this moment of mortal crisis, Yang Kai struck with a force that exceeded his own limits—a blow fiercer than anything he had ever unleashed before, something he had never even imagined himself capable of.
In the passage between two worlds, one acted with intent, the other on instinct. Yet Yang Kai and Mo Duo had achieved a flawless coordination, launching a counterattack that was nothing short of spectacular.
The giant palm shuddered to a momentary halt. A colossal hole had been punched through its center, and from that wound, endless demonic power gushed forth, spilling outward in every direction.
But in the very next instant, the palm pressed down past the spot where Yang Kai and Mo Duo stood, as though it had crushed two insignificant ants, and continued its descent without pause.
Mo Duo's muffled groan rose and died in the same breath. His thirty-zhang-tall body collapsed and disintegrated, scattering into countless fragments of flesh that drifted through the boundless void. Yang Kai felt himself shattering as well, his physical form vanishing entirely, leaving only his soul plummeting, falling… falling as if into an endless abyss.
Is this death? Yang Kai didn't know what death looked like, but if a blow that even a Demon Saint like Mo Duo couldn't withstand had struck him, there was no way he could have survived.
He was probably truly dead.
In his daze, he suddenly felt as though he had forgotten a great many things—and at the same time, remembered something.
Within his perception, he continued to fall. The sensation of descent seemed to have no end, as though it would go on forever. Without reason, a wave of relaxation washed over his entire body. As if he no longer needed to worry about all those things that had been troubling him. Perhaps falling like this forever wouldn't be so bad.
Then a sudden change. The sensation of falling vanished without warning. His field of vision shifted, and when Yang Kai gathered his wits again, he found himself in a void where countless stars glittered in silence. He turned his head and looked around. It was utterly quiet—nothing existed here. Not even he himself had a physical form; he was nothing but a wisp of void.
From below came the sounds of battle, along with fluctuating waves of energy, strong and weak by turns.
He looked down. Then his eyes went wide.
He saw a titanic tree, impossibly vast, stretching from earth to sky, standing upon a battlefield drenched in blood and littered with corpses. Its magnificent canopy reached into a rift in the heavens above, and it was growing ceaselessly.
He saw a group of powerfully built humans sheltering beneath that great tree, fleeing the slaughter of the Demon Race.
He also saw millions of humans and demons locked in a desperate, bloody war across a vast wilderness.
On the other side of the sky, eight supremely powerful beings were locked in combat. They were the Saints of both races, matched so evenly that neither could gain the upper hand.
A jolt ran through him, and he suddenly remembered what he had forgotten moments ago—along with things from much further back.
He was Wu Niu, the Witch King of the Southern Barbarian Tribe of the Barbarian Race. He commanded an elite force called the Wu Niu Tribe.
He was also Yang Kai, the Master of the Lingxiao Palace in the Northern Region of the Star Boundary.
That second identity, above all—he had no idea when he had managed to forget it entirely. When he had first arrived in this world, he would still recall it from time to time, remembering that he was nothing more than a passerby here, and that this secret realm was merely a trial. But as the war between the two races erupted, that identity grew increasingly blurred. Instead, he had gradually grown into the role of Wu Niu, until he had completely forgotten the name Yang Kai.
Just moments ago, he had dragged a Demon Saint into a suicidal attack against the Great Demon God, imitating the Eternal Green Divine Tree's sacrifice of self!
Had he remembered that he was Yang Kai, he never would have been so reckless and impulsive. After all, this was only a secret realm—everything here might well have been nothing more than an illusion.
But viewed through the lens of Wu Niu, the barbarian Witch King, it made perfect sense.
Wu Niu would absolutely make that choice. Any barbarian would make that choice without hesitation. Even if it meant death, so long as there was even the slightest chance of success, the sacrifice would be worth it.
The only thing he couldn't figure out was what exactly was going on. Was everything here truly an illusion? Had he really died?
"Isn't it amazing?" A voice suddenly came from behind him.
Yang Kai started, having never expected anyone else to be here. But he didn't immediately turn around, because he had recognized whose voice it was.