Before Yang Kai could revel in his joy, another upheaval struck without warning.
The tens of thousands of star essences he had gathered within himself erupted in a violent frenzy at this very moment. Enormous surges of energy rampaged through his body, colliding and tearing through him in every direction.
Long ago, when Yang Kai had first refined the star essence of the Fire Cloud Star, he had sensed it coming — once too many star essences accumulated within his body, irreconcilable conflicts would inevitably arise. Back then, he had used his formidable cultivation to forcibly suppress the essences inside him.
But after years of wandering and refining, the essences within him were no longer the paltry handful they once were.
They numbered in the tens of thousands.
In the blink of an eye, his body became a battlefield, tens of thousands of unruly children squabbling and brawling without end on this single field of war. An ordinary martial artist, even one at the Emperor Realm, would likely suffer shattered meridians and a collapsed body in short order from something like this.
But Yang Kai's body was anything but ordinary. He had prioritized tempering his physique throughout years of Cultivation, and his physical constitution was far beyond ordinary — not to mention the half-dragon body he possessed. This commotion, while noticeable, was nothing catastrophic to him; he felt only waves of faint stinging pain.
His spirit body emerged from his sea of consciousness, and he immediately spotted the abnormality within himself.
"So the sea of consciousness comes before the physical body? Refining star essence is truly no simple task!" He had anticipated this long ago and did not panic. Instead, a fierce eagerness rose within him, brimming with fighting spirit.
Multicolored light burst from the pores across his skin. In an instant, Yang Kai seemed to be bathed in a stretch of iridescent clouds, more dazzling and spectacular than any ordinary rainbow. Even his eyes, nose, and mouth shone with blinding radiance.
Star essences differed greatly from one another, each carrying its own distinct color. When all of them manifested on Yang Kai, this was the result.
If anyone had been watching from nearby, they would have feared he might explode and perish at any moment.
Various laws of nature — broadly similar yet subtly different — clashed violently within him. These were the laws intrinsic to each star essence. The quantitative change quickly gave rise to a qualitative one, producing excruciating pain that made his body feel as though it might shatter at any moment.
Only then did he realize he had underestimated the ferocity of these brats throwing a tantrum.
Not daring to delay, he bellowed: "Dragon! Transform!"
A resounding dragon roar rang out. The majestic silhouette of a golden dragon flashed behind Yang Kai before plunging into his body. Crack, crack, crack — the sound of bones shifting and realigning merged into a single, continuous stream.
Yang Kai's already impressive frame swelled rapidly, as though someone had blown air into him.
His long hair whipped upward. Two small bumps swelled on his forehead, and from those bumps, short dragon horns pushed through. Armored dragon scales spread across his exposed skin, his hands sharpened into razor-clawed dragon talons, and a dragon tail materialized behind him.
Thirty feet. Fifty feet. One hundred feet. One hundred fifty feet. One hundred eighty feet…
Two hundred feet!
In that instant, Yang Kai transformed into a half-human, half-dragon colossus, standing alone amid the starry void.
Being able to reach a two hundred foot dragon form was a pleasant surprise. He recalled that when he had used the Dragon Transformation Art on Dragon Island, he had only managed one hundred eighty feet. He had not expected to gain another twenty feet after all these years.
Though twenty feet might not seem like much, it was a testament to the purity of the dragon bloodline within him. All those Dragon Blood Flowers and Dragon Blood Pills he had consumed back then — he had not absorbed all their medicinal power at once. Much of it had lain dormant in his flesh and blood, and these extra twenty feet were undoubtedly the fruit of that hidden power gradually manifesting over the years.
He exhaled softly, and two plumes of white mist rolled from his nostrils.
Nearly all of his cultivation erupted at this moment, nothing held back.
The void shuddered and cracked. Such power had already exceeded the limits this world could bear. Even without fighting anyone, merely standing here was enough to send the heavens and earth into turmoil.
Around him, the void rippled like the unsettled surface of a lake, layers of distortion spreading outward, perpetually oscillating between collapse and restoration.
An immense hostility enveloped him — the will of this very star domain.
In the silent expanse of space, arcs of lightning flickered into existence without warning. Within the span of a single heartbeat, the area stretching a thousand miles in every direction transformed into a sea of thunder. The arcs leaped and merged into one another, growing into massive bolts of lightning that hurtled toward him from every direction.
Yang Kai threw back his head and roared with laughter, his bearing wild and unhinged. He made no effort to defend himself against the onslaught, letting the lightning crash into his body as he focused all his attention on suppressing the tens of thousands of star essences churning within.
Boom, boom, boom…
The starry sky flickered between light and darkness as the bolts of lightning hammered into him, splitting his dragon scales and charring his flesh in quick succession.
The resistance and rejection of this star domain were truly formidable. Even with his transcendent power, he could not simply ignore it.
But his body possessed extraordinary regenerative abilities to begin with, and now, enhanced by the half-dragon form, even the damage he sustained was repaired almost as quickly as it appeared.