"Hm? What's going on here?" Yang Kai suddenly sensed something amiss.
Above his spiritual sea, at one particular point on the Star Map, there was a fist-sized blot of ink.
That "ink blot" looked strangely familiar — just like the view he had once seen looking down from the sky upon arriving at the Profound Mystery Continent. Now that his consciousness was unified with the Star Domain's origin, he immediately felt a thick, sinister intent emanating from the blot.
Moreover, if he was reading the Star Map correctly, the position of this blot corresponded to the junction between the Great Desolation Star Domain and the Heng Luo Star Domain.
That location was of critical importance. A decade ago, Yang Kai had posted Li Jiao and his family there to guard it, and he had assumed it was well secured — until today, when he finally finished refining the Star Map and realized something was wrong.
With a shift of his consciousness, his vision seemed to traverse billions of li in an instant, zooming to the vicinity of the "ink blot."
What he saw made him gasp.
The void spanning billions of li around him had become a black hole of inconceivable proportions. Everything that had once existed in that stretch of starry sky — including numerous dead stars — had vanished without a trace.
Worse still, the edge of the black hole was expanding outward at a leisurely, unhurried pace, reducing everything in its path to nothingness.
The scene looked for all the world as though this darkness were devouring the entire star domain.
Yang Kai flew into a rage!
He had refined the Star Origin and become the Lord of the Star Domain. Put simply, this entire star domain was his personal garden. Whatever this dark thing was, it was eating away at his territory — and how could the Lord of the Star Domain tolerate that?
Where was that old fool Li Jiao? Yang Kai had stationed him here all those years ago. Something this catastrophic had happened and the man hadn't even sent word? Granted, Yang Kai had been wandering far and wide all these years, never staying in one place for long — but if Li Jiao had truly wanted to find him, surely he could have managed.
A trace of resentment stirred in his heart. His figure flickered, and in the blink of an eye he had arrived at the edge of the colossal black hole.
Observing it up close only deepened his sense of its horror. Everywhere he looked was absolute darkness, utterly empty — no different from the void between dimensions. The tide of blackness crept steadily outward, assimilating everything it touched.
Yang Kai could feel his territory slipping away inch by inch.
His expression hardened. He reached out to the Star Map through his consciousness. The Star Map hummed and trembled, as though galvanized by his will, and erupted with blinding radiance.
The darkness, which had been expanding at an unhurried pace, suddenly slowed dramatically.
Yang Kai's eyebrows shot upward.
He had never encountered anything like this before. Honestly, he had no idea how to deal with it — he had only been experimenting, trying to halt the darkness's advance. He hadn't expected that connecting with the Star Map would actually have an effect.
He understood at once: as the Lord of the Star Domain, his will was the will of the domain itself. Every thought, every impulse, could resonate throughout the entirety of it.
Armed with this knowledge, Yang Kai stopped hesitating and devoted himself fully to communicating with the Star Map, channeling the power of the entire star domain to stem the darkness's spread.
Visibly, the outward expansion of the blackness slowed further, then ground to a complete halt.
Yang Kai was not satisfied. With a thunderous roar, he bellowed, "Get out!"
He thrust both arms forward. Invisible world-force surged in from every direction, compressing inward. The border of the darkness contracted by dozens of li in an instant and kept shrinking.
Where the darkness receded, everything it had swallowed reappeared. Yang Kai watched as a massive meteorite slowly emerged from the blackness, revealing itself fully once more.
This discovery filled him with relief — he had just assumed that everything consumed by the darkness was gone forever. But that was not the case at all. Though those regions had been engulfed, everything within them still existed intact; it simply could not be seen. Only by driving back the darkness could the original landscape be revealed.
What exactly was this darkness?
Yang Kai probed with his senses even as he pushed it back.
A moment later, his body trembled, and shock filled his eyes.
From within that darkness, he had detected a will of heaven and earth — a will that did not belong to the Heng Luo Star Domain! Yet it bore a striking resemblance to Heng Luo's own, as though the darkness were a world unto itself.
Unbelievable. Utterly unbelievable.
Could there truly be another world encroaching upon the Heng Luo Star Domain? Could that world be the Great Desolation Star Domain?
After all, this was precisely where the two star domains connected. If the Great Desolation Star Domain was devouring the Heng Luo Star Domain, that would explain everything.
A measure of relief filled him. Had he not refined the Star Map and become the Lord of the Star Domain, he would have been powerless against this situation. Devouring between worlds was no longer a problem that cultivation alone could solve — he needed to wield the power of the very world he inhabited to fight back.
In the depths of his mind, a flicker of insight arrived: the reason he had been able to refine the Star Map so smoothly likely had something to do with this very crisis.
The Heng Luo Star Domain itself had been seeking to borrow his strength to resist this encroachment.
"Spit out everything you ate," Yang Kai declared. Having just ascended to the throne of Star Lord, riding a wave of elation, he would not shy from such a trifling obstacle.
The power of the star domain was mobilized, flooding toward the darkness in a frenzied onslaught.
The darkness had no power to resist. It retreated line by line, and the starry regions it had swallowed were restored to their former state. As Yang Kai pushed harder and harder, the speed at which the darkness withdrew grew ever faster.