When the Heluo Star Domain had no master, Wu Heng, that robber, had barged in and pillaged freely, with no one able to stop him. Now that Yang Kai had become the Star Domain's master, how could he tolerate such brazen arrogance on his own turf?
Just as Yang Kai was no match for Wu Heng in the Great Desolation Star Domain, the same held true in reverse — Wu Heng was equally powerless here.
Reaching out with his consciousness to the Star Map within his spiritual sea, Yang Kai faced that vast expanse of darkness, took a deep breath, spread his arms wide, and shoved forward with all his might, striking the pose of an endless ocean.
The rolling darkness, like the receding tide of a great sea, reversed course and surged back, retreating a thousand li in the span of a single breath — and still shrinking, still pulling inward. Wherever the darkness withdrew, the original starry sky re-emerged.
As the saying goes: what was stolen from me, spit it back out. Yang Kai hadn't been joking when he said that — he fully intended to follow through.
The retreating darkness suddenly slowed, as though some force at its far end was resisting him.
"You think you can defy me?" Yang Kai raised an eyebrow and grinned fiercely, not the least bit surprised — this was nothing more than Wu Heng, choking on his pride, engaging in a silent contest of wills with him across the void.
Yang Kai wanted to force back the darkness that had swallowed the Heluo Star Domain, and Wu Heng was pushing back from the other side, impeding his efforts.
But it was meaningless. Though the retreat had slowed considerably, under Yang Kai's sustained effort, the darkness continued to pull back all the same.
Three years ago, the darkness had erupted and the devouring had begun. Wu Heng had spent three full years consuming no less than a hundred million li of starry sky — though relative to that vast span of time, the speed of consumption wasn't particularly fast.
Now, however, the rate of restoration was far quicker.
The darkness receded like a tide, compressing inward toward the center bit by bit. The massive black hole that had blanketed such an enormous stretch of the star domain gradually vanished, and the void rebuilt and healed itself.
In barely a month's time, every trace of darkness had been purged completely, leaving behind only the original void corridor.
Li Jiao and his family of three had been stationed in front of that very corridor years ago, tasked with blocking any reinforcements or escape attempts from the Great Desolation Star Domain.
Yang Kai and Wu Heng had clashed silently across that corridor for an entire month, but the final outcome had been entirely predictable — a resounding victory for Yang Kai.
Staring at the pitch-black entrance of the corridor, Yang Kai's eyes began to spin with thoughts.
This corridor had appeared primarily because he'd removed the Heluo Star Domain's Origin when he'd departed for the Star Boundary. With the Origin gone, the star domain's barriers had thinned — perhaps a coincidence, perhaps something Wu Heng had deliberately engineered — and the weakened point had become a passage linking the two star domains.
Now that he'd brought the Origin back and successfully refined it, becoming the Star Domain's master, he naturally had the ability to seal this corridor shut.
With his current power, doing so would cost him no real effort — only a bit of time.
But once the corridor was sealed, it would mean severing all connection between the two star domains for good.
His great grudge remained unpaid. How could Yang Kai make that choice? And so he left the corridor right where it was.
Not only did he refrain from sealing it — he began hatching a scheme of his own.
If he wanted revenge, the best approach was to give someone a taste of their own medicine. Wu Heng had tried to devour his Heluo Star Domain? Fine. Then Yang Kai would gnaw into Wu Heng's Great Desolation Star Domain and let him experience what it felt like to be swallowed whole.
But before any of that, he needed a solid plan — otherwise, with Wu Heng still firmly entrenched on the other side, his scheme would never succeed.
The corridor lay in silence. Yang Kai couldn't see a thing, but he knew with certainty that on the other side, Wu Heng was staring right back at him.
A grin split his face. Yang Kai raised a hand and began tracing characters in the void.
Light flowed and shifted, and in the span of a single heartbeat, an intricate formation appeared in the space before him — unmistakably, the pattern of a cross-domain Spatial Array.
With the void as his canvas and the power of the stars as his medium, he had deployed a Spatial Array between one gesture and the next, a display of the immense power belonging to the master of a star domain.
Far away, on the Dark Star, within Ling Xiao Sect, the Dharma Avatar sat cross-legged, drawing in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.
A glow suddenly lit up behind it, and an identical formation materialized.
The Dharma Avatar sensed it, turned to look, then rose and stepped into the array.
In an instant — crossing a distance of hundreds of millions of li — it appeared before Yang Kai.
Their eyes met, and everything was understood without a word. The Dharma Avatar walked silently up to Yang Kai, raised one hand, and pressed it against the crown of his head. An ocean's worth of information flooded into Yang Kai's spiritual sea.
In a sense, the Dharma Avatar was simply an extension of Yang Kai's own body. But because it had been transformed from a Stone Puppet and given sentience by Yang Kai splitting off a portion of his consciousness to inhabit it, it had developed some independent thought over the years.
It could converse with Yang Kai, offer differing opinions and perspectives — but when the need arose, no words were necessary at all. Yang Kai could perceive its every thought in an instant, just as he could impose his own will upon it without effort.
The information the Dharma Avatar now transmitted to Yang Kai was nothing other than the most powerful and most sinister cultivation technique in all the world — the Heavenly Devouring Battle Art!