"Scoundrel!"
"You dare, you whelp!"
"Release the Grand Elder at once, or you'll die without a grave!"
……
Shouts erupted from all directions as Yang Kai held the Grand Elder in a single hand, his sharp eyes sweeping across the void with a cold smirk.
Ever since this formation had been deployed, he'd been stuck on the defensive — unable to even catch a glimpse of his enemies. His frustration had been building with nowhere to go, and now that he'd finally seized an opening and captured one of their key figures, there was no way he'd let go so easily.
Over a hundred people had set up this formation to deal with him and Lin Yun'er — including several Emperor Realm cultivators, even a Second-Order Emperor Realm one. They'd chased them relentlessly, trying to drive them to extinction. And now that he'd seized the initiative, they were losing their minds, hurling threats? They actually wanted him to release his hostage? Since when was anything in this world so cheap?
He let out a low chuckle, eyes sliding sideways to fix on the Grand Elder, and spat out a single frigid word: "Die!"
"No!" The Grand Elder's face drained of color, and he screamed in desperation.
But no matter how desperately he struggled, he couldn't break free of that massive grip.
Violent force crushed inward from every direction. The crack of snapping bones rang out in a gruesome chorus. The Grand Elder's eyes bulged grotesquely as blood poured from his seven orifices. He could feel his bones fracturing, his internal organs being compressed, deforming, and bursting apart.
With a wet crack—
Blood sprayed. Flesh exploded.
"Ah!"
"The Grand Elder is dead!"
Disciples of Feng Yun Pavilion cried out in horror, unable to process what they'd just witnessed. What kind of figure was the Grand Elder? Within Feng Yun Pavilion, only the Pavilion Master Hua Xing was more powerful. Yet such a formidable existence had just been crushed to paste by that monster — with a single hand.
"Insolent whelp!"
"Avenge the Grand Elder!"
After a brief stunned silence, the clamor returned even fiercer than before.
The sword formation reactivated. Blades materialized from every direction, and the killing intent surged violently.
The Yin-Yang Five Elements Grand Mystic Sword Formation was fundamentally built on swords, with sword cultivators as its foundation — a formation designed for slaughter. The Grand Elder's death had filled everyone with a surge of murderous fury, which in turn amplified the formation's power considerably.
But even so, the formation's overall strength was waning. The reason was simple: the Grand Elder, who had served as the formation's core, was dead. The Third Elder who replaced him possessed only First-Order Emperor Realm cultivation. With the core dropping a full tier in power, the entire sword formation weakened accordingly. The boosted killing intent couldn't make up for such a loss.
Yang Kai laughed brazenly: "I killed one of you, and I can kill you all. You'd better wash your necks clean and wait — I'll drag each and every one of you out, and crush you into scrap!"
"You still dare run your mouth!" the Third Elder commanding the formation bellowed. Wasting no more time, he activated his mental command, and a sky-covering deluge of sword light surged toward Yang Kai once more.
Before Yang Kai could react, Lin Yun'er let out another crisp shout: "Pull!"
The moment the word left her lips, the countless streaks of sword light seemed to answer some invisible call. In perfect unison, they changed course, hurtling toward a single spot before pouring into that location and vanishing without a trace.
Yang Kai turned his head to look, one eyebrow raised in surprise: "Huh?"
At this moment, Lin Yun'er had both hands raised high above her head, supporting an object roughly the size of a washbasin. It rested atop her head and was pitch-black in color, utterly unremarkable — looking for all the world like an ordinary iron wok used for cooking in a common household.
But this seemingly mundane wok was radiating an unimaginable devouring force. Every sword beam conjured by the Yin-Yang Five Elements Grand Mystic Sword Formation was being sucked into the wok, only to vanish without a trace.
The wok was like a bottomless pit — no matter how many streams of sword light poured in, it accepted them all, with not the slightest sign of reaching capacity.
What truly astonished Yang Kai wasn't the power it displayed, but the aura it emanated.
It was an aura of extreme purity — ancient and desolate, identical in nature to his own Mountain and River Bell, as if it had traversed the epochs straight from the Primordial Era.
"A Primordial treasure!" Yang Kai's eyes lit up.
He hadn't expected Lin Yun'er to possess a Primordial treasure of her own.
Primordial treasures, inherited from the dawn of antiquity, were exceedingly rare. Of all the Primordial treasures Yang Kai knew of, besides his own Mountain and River Bell, there was only Hua Yulu's Little Flower Drum — and he wasn't even sure what the Little Flower Drum looked like or what powers it truly held.
But this iron wok was something else entirely.
Judging solely by its devouring power, no ordinary treasure could compare.
Its appearance, though… left something to be desired. At first glance, one might genuinely mistake it for a cooking pot.
"Is this your trump card?" Yang Kai asked in a deep voice.
Little Yun'er, still balancing the wok on her head, giggled and scurried over to Yang Kai. A light tap of her feet and she was perched on his shoulder, answering a question he hadn't asked: "Uncle, you look so cool like this!"
Yang Kai burst into laughter: "I think so too — cool enough to shed scales. Little Yun'er really has an eye for things."
Upon hearing this, the Third Elder nearly coughed up blood.
This was a life-or-death battle. A fight where everything was on the line. And the enemy was just standing there chatting! They clearly didn't take any of them seriously.
He had no idea what that iron wok actually was or how it could produce such an effect, but Yang Kai and Lin Yun'er's nonchalance had ignited his fury.
Just as he was about to unleash the formation's power once more, startled cries suddenly rang out from every direction.
"Ah!"